Material Girls (33 page)

The screens that girdled the conference room were all live, each broadcasting a man's or woman's face. Everyone looked irritated. Ivy's head swung back and forth, following the conversation thread as the accusations escalated.

“You've got to get your house in order, Hugo,” a heavyset man bellowed. “Our floor managers at GameTech have reported that the kids have been watching the strike on their Unums in the bathrooms. God forbid the same thing breaks out over here.”

“Mine actually circulated a
petition,
Hugo,” an older man said. “In all my years—”

“It's
over,
Larry.” A man with light gray hair and a tanned face spoke wearily. He touched a tissue to his forehead. “I told you. We needed time to recruit the replacement Taps and fly them out. We ended it this afternoon.”

It dawned on Ivy who these people were. The Silents. Like Miles, the rarely seen heads of each company. So many of them, communicating together. And being, in fact, not very silent at all.

“It had better be,” snapped a white-haired woman. “Yesterday—in one day—the Sargent Malls lost seventeen million in revenue.”

“That's nothing.” A younger woman with glasses cut in. “We had to bump a film release because of this disaster. People weren't going to line up to see
Shopaholorific,
not with Miss Anti-Trend spouting her nonsense. Now Candimax has nothing opening this weekend.” Her glare narrowed. “That's on
your
head, Miles.”

Ivy looked to Miles, but he didn't move.

A man Ivy recognized spoke next. His voice was smooth and authoritative. “Torro-LeBlanc has fixed their end. The strike is over.” She remembered him from the few government news broadcasts she'd watched, hovering behind the old, tired-looking president. He had gelled hair, graying temples, and a well-proportioned face. “Let her go, Miles. We'll use what's-her-name, the other one from RedLight Records. The Mirth girl. She'll promote trends. That's all we need for now. In the meantime, you can build up a new face.”

Ivy's heart began to hammer.

“You're right, Mr. Chairman,” another man added. “If it's any indication, Sugarwater's sales have increased by ten percent since we gave Lyric Mirth the campaign.”

The chairman nodded. “The Wilde girl and this eco business are in the way. Force the obsolescence.”

Miles Jackson cleared his throat. “Welcome, Ivy.”

“Oh, she's there?” The woman with glasses squinted. Ivy wondered if the cameras would stay on Miles or pick her up. She shrunk her shoulders self-consciously.

“Good,” said the agitated-looking tanned man. “Fire her now.”

Miles flashed a gleaming white smile. The first time she'd met him, his smile had struck Ivy as kind. Now the grin looked sharkish. “Have a seat,” he said.

Unable to stop shaking, she moved away from the agents. She lowered herself into a chair halfway along one side of the conference table.

“You've been busy, sweetheart, haven't you,” Miles began. It wasn't a question.

Ivy sat, frozen, feeling the scrutiny from the ring of hostile eyes.

“As you just heard, some folks feel I ought to release you from your contract.”

She felt tears coming and blinked them back furiously. “No,” she whispered in protest.

“Problem is, Ivy,” he continued, “I pride myself on my good judgment. I saw that you had the makings of a star. My friends”—he pointed his finger in a circle around the room—“seem to think I was wrong.” Miles studied her. “Was I wrong?”

“No, sir,” Ivy murmured.

“Really.” Miles seemed to be making up his mind about something. “I think we'll continue in private,” he announced. “Sorry to deprive everyone of the public execution. Mr. Chairman, I'll be in touch shortly. Warwick out.” He hit a button on the table. Instantly, the screens went dark. Miles nodded to the agents, who left the way they'd come in. The man with the Tabula remained. Even though the dismissal of their audience brought some relief, Ivy remained tense.

Miles leaned back in his chair. His gold necklace caught one of the overhead lights and glistened. “Here's the thing, sweetheart. Great success requires great sacrifice. You don't seem to have learned this lesson.”

“But I didn't—”

Sharply, he held up a hand and she stopped. She watched him through watery eyes.

“You see, Ivy, Warwick establishes a path.” He slid the edge of his hand along the conference table's smooth marbled surface. “We fund your development, and you agree to stay on the path. You sing our songs. You dance our dances. You go where we tell you to go. And you certainly wear what we tell you to wear.”

With a shudder, the look and feel of the torture trend came back to her. She felt the prick of the spikes on her soles, the hug of the corset, the itchiness of the hair.

“This path leads to stardom. We know. We've been leading young singers down the path for generations.”

Fatima had said something similar during her tirade in the Pop Beat greenroom. What was it?
Anyone who believes fame “just happens” is sorely mistaken.
Ivy knew all this, of course—but couldn't it be both what Warwick wanted
and
what she wanted? Shouldn't she have a say? She was the performer, after all.

“But sometimes a singer gets a little voice in her head, a little serpent that worms its way into her brain,” Miles continued. “It comes along and tempts her.
Step off the path.
” He whispered the last line. “And when you step off, it might even feel good for a while. Problem is, there are consequences, Ivy. Consequences you can't anticipate. Consequences that affect Warwick. And others.”

Ivy shifted her gaze toward the black screens.

Miles nodded. “So here's what you do.” He held out his hand, and the man to his left placed a black stylus on Miles's open palm without looking up. Miles squeezed it in his fist. “You grab that serpent by the throat and strangle it. Every time. That's what you have to do to succeed in this business.”

Strangle it.
Strangle the urge to write her own music, to dress the way she wanted. To kiss the person she wanted to kiss.

Miles's voice turned kind. “I get it, sweetheart. The constant changes. The pressure. The exhaustion. I understand. It's hard.”

He didn't get it. He didn't get what it was like to enter the wasteland of her closet, to see her hometown spend its savings on trends they saw her wearing, to see her brother break down and be unable to help him. Never mind the vigilance it took to keep an eye on threats like Lyric.
Exhaustion
didn't cover it. Miles didn't get something else, either—how good it felt to disobey her agent and publicist and follow her instincts.

“It takes a special kind of person with a special kind of strength.” Miles went on. “I saw it in you, Ivy. You have it. I can feel it when you sing. You know you belong on top. Thing is”—he tapped his chest—“
we're
the ones who keep you there.” He paused. “This eco-chic business will be gone tomorrow. You know that, don't you, sweetheart?” he said gently. “It's just a trend like everything else. You'll be left wearing recycled rags and singing to yourself in the mirror. You'll lose it all.”

As security had dragged her away from the Torro-LeBlanc design house, Ivy had seen the troops in gray arriving. From the conversation in the conference room, it sounded as if the strike had failed. But maybe there were those, like Marla Klein and Vivienne Graves, who had ideas about what to do now. They would keep fighting, somehow.

But how?
Ivy wondered. And, more important, what was her own next move? If eco-chic was really dying . . . well, then, she was dead, wasn't she? It made no sense to keep talking about the environment if nobody cared. And she could keep writing her own songs, but if she didn't have a major label to produce them, who would listen? Silently, she recounted the lyrics she'd written:
Forget yesterday / 'Cause today we escape / Come on, come on / Break free with me.

Was it a lie? Was there really no breaking free?

Glancing at the man to his left, Miles cleared his throat.

The man looked up and nodded. “All set, sir.”

“Now, it's time to make a decision, Ivy,” Miles said. “We've put together a revised contract for you. We've included some provisos we neglected the first time around.”

The man swung the Tabula stand in a half circle and pushed it toward her.

She scanned the text, trying to interpret the legalese. The first sentence that she understood made her eyes sting with tears again. “I don't get to see my family for a
year
?” She thought of the vacation she had promised Constantine. She thought of the sensitive state he was in right now, how much he needed her support.

“It's a show of your commitment, sweetheart. We need your focus to be on your work. Besides, you'll still have an Unum. We're only partially restricting conversations.”

She read on. “Keane Kelly will represent me?”

“We've released Jarvis and Fatima. Obviously, they're no longer effective. You've met Keane, Clayton Pryce's agent. He's agreed to take you on and rework your image.”

A new agent. She hadn't exactly loved Fatima—especially in recent days when her publicist had freaked out over the littlest thing—but she would miss Jarvis. He was firm but also patient; no matter what was going on, he always calmed her down. Keane had done wonders for Clayton—but he'd also been partially responsible for his meltdown, she remembered. Ivy wondered what Keane's vision for her would be. Would he take her back to her Wilde child days? Clubbing, kleptomania, gags . . .

The prospect made her feel as if she were underwater, breathing liquid into her lungs. She tried to take in the remaining points of the contract, but the letters bobbed indecipherably in front of her. She dug her nails into the flesh of her palms. The last time she'd felt this way, she'd cracked a Tabula. She could do it again, right now.

“Let me be clear, sugar.” Miles again leaned back in his chair. “If you're not willing to make the appropriate sacrifices, we'll find someone who is. Millions of girls dream of a chance like yours. We picked you because we believe in your talent as a performer, but you have to decide what you want. We're offering you everything. Or you can go home and it ends. We don't force your hand here.” He smiled. “It's your choice.”

Choice.
The last real thing Felix had said to her was that she always had a choice. Felix, who had kissed Marla so triumphantly at the strike. The image sharpened again in her mind's eye, and she fought to forget it. After all that hoping and waiting . . . she'd lost him. Even if she walked away now, he wouldn't be waiting for her.

Could she really choose to leave? She thought of returning to her warm family kitchen, eating Christina's incredible cooking and rolling her eyes with Constantine at George's boring stories. She could lie on the couch and watch TV and just
rest
. Ivy closed her eyes for a moment, imagining the peace. She could reassure Constantine. She'd show him that getting tapped sometimes wasn't worth it.

But—and her breath caught—stepping aside meant being replaced. It meant letting Lyric Mirth win. There would be no more screaming fans, no more exhilarating concert performances. Ivy Wilde would be a has-been, a fossil, no better than Bernadette Fife, the old country pop star. She'd have to watch Lyric dominate the airwaves and ads and television spots day after day. Who knew what that would do to her?

To stay or to walk away? There was one person who had chosen a third option. She thought of the statue on the green in Millbrook. Had Skip McBrody sat in this room? Had he been told the story about strangling the serpent of independence and self-expression? How hard had he been pushed before he put a gun to his temple? Could she . . . would she end up like him if she stayed?

Miles slid the stylus across the table to her.

What future did she want?

The next morning,
I knew without scanning that every piece of clothing I wore would turn the light on my trendchecking gun green. I'd gotten dressed in the steamy bathroom after showering, afraid of the eye behind the mirror plate.

I still couldn't shake the dense cloud of exhaustion. My cheeks were purple and tender. I wasn't ready to call Felix and hear about his own wires just yet. How could I talk to him—or Kevin or Randall or Vivienne, for that matter—knowing someone was listening in?

Eventually, Felix called. I hadn't planned on leaving the silent cocoon of my room for a week, but he convinced me that there was one visit we needed to make.

A few days later, tucking my damp hair behind my ears, I stepped into the cavity of a body scanner at a minimum-security prison. The guard studied the screen for a moment. Instead of gesturing me forward, though, she motioned for me to return to the starting point.

“You have subdermal floss installed,” the guard said, coming closer to stare at my cheeks.

“Yes. He does too,” I said, nodding at Felix.

The guard peered closer at both of us, and I saw the recognition hit her face. “You're two of those Torro-LeBlanc kids, aren't you?”

“Yes, but we just want to visit our friend and make sure she's okay,” I pleaded. “You can even listen in on the conversation.”

The guard chuckled loudly and put her hands on her hips, right above her holster. “If you're under surveillance, I don't have to do a thing. They're hearing it all. Go ahead through.”

Felix passed into the scanner next and received a nod of approval.

The guard led us both down a white corridor with walls that shone as if they had been freshly scrubbed. The only sounds were the loud taps of our steps and the muted roar of the rainstorm outside. On either side, we passed white doors with tiny windows at face level. I kept expecting to see eyes flashing through the diamond-scored glass. Thankfully, none appeared. If the rooms held prisoners, they were busy. Or just not interested in us.