Vienna (7 page)

“Justine Am.” He pushed his left hand through over-long brown hair, revealing black, triangular ear studs. Justine saw his thoughts—the prize he thought he had. Justine Am goes crazy, read all about it.

Justine opened the camera's side panel and ejected the memory chip. “Come out of there, Vienna, if this cocksack found you, others will follow.”

Vienna sidestepped around the counter and with a quick skip stood beside Justine. Her voice was louder than Justine remembered. “He took my picture and asked about you and about our relationship and if you tied me up when we boffed or if I tied you up and I don't know what ‘boffed' is supposed to mean.”

“Nice.” Justine smiled her hate. She dropped the Nikon's memory chip into her capris' oversized pocket.

The photographer's grin didn't slip. “You're sinking fast.” His teeth were white and straight, but somehow too small for his mouth.

“You're one to be talking.”

He shook his head. “Do you have the star?”

“Have what?”

“Once panic sets in, the dying won't stop. Give me the camera and we can talk.”

“We don't have anything to talk about.”

“Famous last words.”

Sometimes when I don't like people I do mean things.
Justine turned to Vienna. “He grabbed your shoulder, isn't that right? He kept reaching for your ass. Isn't that what you're going to tell the police?”

Vienna blinked while Justine prayed the girl was smart enough to go along. “Okay,” she whispered.

“I saw it all,” Justine said.

“I don't scare so easily,” the photographer said. “My record is clean.” His voice was too cavalier. A small push …

“Too bad we have your picture of her alone. Get a lawyer, asshat, because I've seen hers, and he has a real attitude problem.”

The man's smile drained into thin, pale lips. He took a single step and jumped toward Justine. She was a kid again, back on the tennis court at home. Scott picking on her. She hadn't meant to hurt him so badly.

Justine stepped into the photographer. Oldest defense in the world. Her left knee connected with his groin. She felt air explode from his chest as he collapsed. She dropped the camera next to him, heard the lens crack.

“Vienna.” She gestured to the door, even as the man began losing his breakfast. “We need a quiet place to talk, somewhere close.”

Vienna nodded. “Vik's is on the second floor of—”

“Go.”

Through medieval streets for three harried minutes before Vienna entered an alley. Up a creaking set of stairs to a coffee shop. It wasn't much beyond blue walls surrounding a few aluminum tables. The coffee cups were squat cylinders of uniform white. The archaic register sported a no smoking sign. The perfect hidey-hole for Vienna, who was likely asthmatic on top of everything else.

Justine took a corner seat away from the railed windows.

“I have to get back,” Vienna said. “He might take something.”

“I doubt he's off the floor yet.”

“But—”

“Do you have the owner's phone number?”

“Yes.”

“Does he speak English?”

“Yes.”

“Give it to me.”

Vienna repeated a series of digits in her flat voice. Justine punched them in her BlackBerry and waited for an answer. The conversation took five minutes.

“It's taken care of,” she told Vienna.

“There was more to it than that—you spoke longer.”

“He's seen the news. He knows it will get worse. You've been fired.”

“I don't understand.”

“It's my fault. When you called the front desk for a toothbrush last night, someone snitched. Word got around that a woman was sleeping in Justine Am's room. What a scoop to find her first. Others will follow.”

“Others? Paparazzi?”

“Of course.”

Vienna looked at the table. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Write your memoirs and get rich. Just make shit up. No one will care as long as it's juicy.”

“Please don't joke. I don't want to go back to London.”

“You won't have to. News is only worthy until the next scandal. Forget fifteen minutes, you'll be lucky with fifteen words on Twitter.”

“I don't have much money.”

“I'll pay the equivalent of your salary until you get back on your feet.”

Vienna's face was as blank as her apartment's impossible floor. When she spoke, Justine strained to hear. “I wanted to, yeah? I didn't know what was expected and I didn't know how to ask and it didn't seem right the first time but maybe I could do better.” She took a quick breath. “And now your boyfriend is dead and I know you're all big time and I'm so thick no matter what I do.”

It took Justine a second to realize what Vienna was talking about.
What do I say?

“I couldn't figure why you went to my apartment in the first place,” Vienna continued. “Then I remembered who you were with at the club. A girl and three boys. I work with them. They dared you, didn't they?”

“I'm sorry, Vienna. It was cruel.”

“They picked me because I'm ugly.”

“Wrong.”

“Don't be stupid.”

Justine shook her head. “It was because I'm American—which means prude—and your friends thought that made the bet more clever. I was bored enough to go along with it.” She realized how terrible it sounded, but Vienna gave no reaction.

“They were paid to do it,” Vienna said.

“Likely by the same species of sleaze monkey that tracked you down.”

“But wouldn't they have set you up with someone pretty?”

Justine frowned. “You read too much—especially too much written by lonely old men.”

“What does that mean?”

“You think physical looks mean much in a crowd where half the tits and asses were ordered out of a catalogue?” She leaned forward and whispered, “Ninety percent of the men on that dance floor would have done you in a heartbeat, if only you looked ready. Attitude is everything to these people. You looked like a deer in headlights, so they thought it would be hilarious to send a Ferrari your way.”

“I don't know anything about dancing. I can't help it.”

“Yes, you can. You might need a little coaching at first, but…” Her voice trailed off.
You tried this back at Stanford, remember? You know it's pointless. Give it up.

“Yes?”

Justine looked inward and felt the rage staring back. “When I was in third grade, my brothers fit a cardboard racecar body over a wagon. I wanted to be the first to try it down a steep hill near our house. I ended up with a broken arm. My father joked that while other people had angels and devils pitching advice from their shoulders, I had a dumb-ass.”

“What does that mean?

Justine tried again. “You know those bad ideas you got back in school, when the world was going to hell and you wanted to tell everyone to piss off?”

“I was taught at home.”

“Then it's time you learned. I'm sick of worrying about things I can't control. I'm sick of feeling guilty for not feeling guilty about Grant. I'm doubly sick of being Justine Am without having any fun at it.” Justine flashed a tight grin. “Besides, Miss Unemployed, neither of us have anywhere to go today and I'll be damned if I am going to sit in a hotel room and sulk.”

“I have no idea what you're on about.”

“Something shoulder-length. No ponytails; with your physique they would attract the wrong attention.”

“My physique?”

“You would look fifteen in tails.” Justine held up her hand to cut off a reply she knew would be self-derogatory. “We'll go sophisticated. Something sleek, assuming we can add body to your hair.”

“You want me to get my hair cut?”

Justine laughed. “Not the phrase I would have used, but yes. And new glasses, something retro librarian. Smart is sexy. That's your first lesson. For attire, A-line full length, and flats or modest pumps. If we have time for something formal, maybe a knockoff Chanel. Shorter kitten heels to match.”

“Is this an American thing?”

“Didn't you ever play dress-up with dolls?”

“I never played with dolls.”

“Why not?”

“They told me bad things.”

Miles of bad road there. “Well, you're in luck, because this year's black is black, and that's perfect for our studious girl.”

Vienna shook her head. “I was just fired, yeah? I don't have any money.”

“I do.”

Vienna's eyes narrowed. “How much?”

“Your second lesson is to never ask about money. Shall we get your hair beat into shape?”

“They'll find us—the photographers.”

“Paparazzi are like lions. They look threatening in a pack, but they spend most of their lives loafing in the shade.”

Vienna remained quiet, waiting for explanation.

“Most will stay at the hotel,” Justine said. “Why go on a wild goose chase when they can hole up at the nearest bar and get a picture when I return?”

“But one found me,” Vienna protested.

“All the more reason not to go back,” Justine said.

“We should hide,” Vienna said.

“Wrong. No sulking in hotel rooms, remember? We avoid busier tourist areas and only go into shops that won't rat us out and we'll be fine.”

Vienna swallowed and brought her left hand to her mouth.

Justine closed her eyes.
I can't do this
. “No more chewing your nails. We'll pick up some clear polish. We don't want to draw attention to your fingers until they grow out.” She looked at Vienna. An uncertain smile in answer as Vienna lowered her hand. And out of nowhere an utterly illogical thought:
maybe Vienna can.

 

6

Outside Vik's, Vienna looked to the Palais de Justice de Bruxelles, looming on Galgenberg Hill. History flowed across her thoughts in a rainbow slick.

In the twelfth century, Galgenberg Hill housed a lepers' colony. The stench of rotting flesh …

On January 8 of 1360, the monarchs of Europe met on Galgenberg Hill to hold council over the Treaty of Brétigny. Knowledge of this event remains banned from public histories by order …

The city's gallows were later moved to Galgenberg Hill. Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) collected human remains from the gibbet …

Cool air and the smell of turning leaves. Vienna breathed it in. Time unreeling in the low autumn sun. Cars and delivery trucks shimmered away in long shadows, leaving behind weeping fountains and stone columns.
I know the past more than I know the present.
As if Brussels's long story was hers alone.

Justine broke the spell, giving Vienna an address on Rue Bodenbroek.

“I don't know where that is.”

“There's an information kiosk.” Justine crossed the street to a slab of Plexiglas laid over a garish map. “We can find it.”

Vienna looked at the map; saw its shape the same way she saw the shapes of words. Oriented on the Palais de Justice, she overlaid the map on the city. She had never tried anything like that. For a terrifying second, it didn't fit. A thick roil of nausea. She closed her eyes and willed the images to merge. When she dared look, she saw traces of sans serif italics, naming the streets before her. She stepped into the real-world map. Her foot stuttered across an uneven cobble.

“You okay?” Justine asked.

Vienna knew from weary experience it was pointless to explain. “Yes.”

“We can rest longer. You've had a stressful morning.”

It was so far from what Vienna felt she could only shake her head.

“Can you find the address?” Justine asked.

The map showed several lesser-traveled routes. “Yes.” Vienna let the image fill her mind. “This way,” she said, heading away from the Grand Place.

They ended up in front of a red storefront, modest even by Brussels's standards. A neon sign hung on the window said
CHAT ROUGE,
with no indication of what business went on inside. Justine opened the door and waved Vienna in.

The woman inside had one of those faces that was all angles. Her hair was unnaturally black. She must have known Justine because they embraced. Justine introduced Vienna. “We need something more refined than the current hatchet job.”

The woman started by washing Vienna's hair, which was stupid as Vienna had already washed it at the Radisson. She spoke in a heavy French accent as she worked, tallying a list of sins: stressed hair and dry roots and split ends and the dire need for conditioners and nutrients.

Have I failed at growing hair, too?

Vienna was escorted to a different chair while Justine and the woman began discussing
bobs
(which the lady wanted), as opposed to
swept bangs
and
box-cut layers with a sculpted finish,
which Justine finally insisted on. Talk moved to length and ends. The soft breathing of scissors behind her head. Vienna tried not to flinch.

“Vienna, what do you know about that small park we passed on the way here, the one with the statues?”

Vienna was at a loss until she called up the ghost map. A small green square bordered their path. “Place du Petit Sablon.”

“Yes.”

Vienna searched for
Sablon,
unusual words being easy to track. “For those seeking a break from the city's pace, there is no better spot than the Place du Petit Sablon. This peaceful garden is noted for the forty-eighty statues, representing medieval guilds, guarding its perimeter. A large sculpture within the park commemorates Count Edgemont and Count Hoorn, sent to their deaths by King Philip II of Spain on June 5, 1658. Photographers will have the best chance of good light in early evening hours.” Vienna frowned. “That's all I have.”