Trading Up Read Online Free PDF Page A

ordered drinks, her eyes flickered and she jumped up from her barstool. Janey hadn’t seen a photograph of Mimi Kilroy for years, but she instinctually knew it was Mimi Kilroy, and she took a step back in awe.
    She would always remember exactly how Mimi looked, for her elegant, deceptively expensive style was one Janey had been trying to copy ever since. She was wearing a crisp white shirt with large cuffs pushed halfway up her forearms and fastened with a pair of men’s heavy gold cuff links; the shirt was loosely tucked into a pair of fawn-colored fine suede pants. A man’s gold Rolex watch jangled on her wrist like a bracelet; on her right hand was a large oval sapphire ring. She wafted money like expensive perfume.
    Mimi came up behind Petie and put her hands over his eyes. Petie jumped and turned around, grabbing her hands. She looked at him soulfully and said, “Hello, darling.”
    She was one of those women who are much better looking in person than in photographs, as if what made her special was far too rare and elusive to be captured on film. Indeed, in years to come, Janey would muse that this might have explained why Mimi, for all her quality, never really made it beyond the borders of her small, circumscribed world—what she had couldn’t be transported and delivered to the masses. Still holding Petie’s hand, she leaned in and said, “There’s something I need to discuss with you in the bathroom,” and suddenly an expression of annoyed resignation crossed Petie’s face, as if he understood that he was once again about to be used.
    “In a minute,” he said, and turning away from her, he took Janey’s arm and pulled her closer. “Do you know Janey Wilcox?” he asked.
    Mimi held out a slim hand, and without interest said, “Nice to see you.” As her gaze slid back to Petie’s face, Janey was struck by the sound of her voice—she hadn’t known what to expect, but she’d never heard a voice like that, so rich and refined, and seeming to contain a range of subtle meanings. “Janey’s new in town,” Petie said. “She’s a model.”
    Mimi looked at Janey coldly and, with a little laugh, said, “Who isn’t?” Then Janey, out of an innocent desire to make an impact on her idol, found herself saying, “I used to see your picture in magazines . . . when I was a kid . . .” And in the uncomfortable silence that followed, all Janey could think about was how her voice had come out in an annoying squeak.
    Mimi looked at her as if summing her up, and then, deciding that what she saw was of no importance, said, “Really? I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about . . .” And giving Petie a meaningful look, turned away.
    For a moment, Janey stood staring after her in shock: She knew she’d been 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 19
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    thoroughly and rudely dismissed, but she couldn’t understand why. Petie, seeing her expression, said, “Don’t worry about it. Everyone knows Mimi hates other women, especially if they’re younger and prettier than she is . . . You’ll get used to it,” he said with a laugh as he handed Janey her drink.
    Janey took a sip but her eyes never left Mimi. She was destroyed but fascinated—by the way she moved her arms, by the way she tilted her head; as she opened her mouth to speak, Janey imagined she heard Mimi’s voice again, and she was transfixed, wondering what Mimi might be saying.
    But she never got the opportunity to find out, because even though she would run into Mimi again and again over the next ten years, each time Mimi’s eyes would look over Janey’s shoulder, and her cold, rich voice would declare, “Nice to see you again”—the greeting New Yorkers used when they had no idea if they’d met before.
    The message, Janey understood, was clear: She and Mimi might be in the same room, but Janey was as far from Mimi’s world as she’d been as a six-year-old kid, staring at Mimi’s photograph in Good