cannibal; kendall roy

12

Marguerite liked to keep reminding herself that she loved fashion. She loved fashion shows. She loved the people it brought her to, and most of all she loved the storytelling she could do through the articles of magazines like Vogue. It was what she reminded herself everytime she had to do something for work that she didn't want to do. Which she kept having to tell herself increasingly more and more by the minute. She didn't have to be fucking serious, unless a client or designer was. Which these days was a rare treat. These days half of what everyone did was a cash grab or a fucking joke, which is what she told herself when she'd first gotten demoted.

That everyone wanted to be on the cover, for no good reason at all, and that she was meant for choosing who, and that she'd be back in no time. Unfortunately for her, this time around the person on the cover had been herself. Not on American Vogue, god no. She would've rather shot herself out of humiliation. But it was rather a solemn goodbye to the era she had ushered into French Vogue, and the white powder that had been swept out.

And her replacement, some woman in her sixties, decided that it would be nice to create a tribute for her before her practical exile to America was to be announced publicly. Gossip on Deux Moi didn't count as an announcement. Not to her anyway.Somehow between lines of coke and drinks from her apartment, she had agreed to the damn shoot and ended up in some fucking abandoned building. Not to France. Not even to Austria. But to a goddamn abandoned building with crusted windows in the Lower West side.

Her replacement was from Prague, and she thought it fitting to have the shoot with her messy former to be in  her new destination. It felt demeaning. Degrading almost. From the time she'd gotten out of the car, and boarded herself up into the building—she'd been exhausted and been on the verge of snapping. There was one thing that she hated and it was unnecessary photographs, or unnecessary ideas taking form.

This was ridiculous. She felt like a show pony being walked around the showroom one last time before turning into glue. Like the fucking horse in Animal Farm. Yeah. That's what this was. There was no pasture—and there was no retirement.

It was hard—she'd used to want to be a model, just like her mother. She'd wanted to walk down runways in the gorgeous clothes, and pose. She'd wanted people to look at her and smile with recognition like they did with her mother. But as she got older—she'd hated it. She didn't like people knowing her, or knowing her story.

Marguerite had actually tried to be a model. She was the right type for it too. She came from money. Her mother was a model, and she looked just like her. Sort of. But, all of the press—and all of the cameras had quickly ruined it for her. She'd seen the tabloids, and even poured after them. Mentions of her mother. Questions of her mother.

Dead. Death. Suicide. Murder. Murder. Murder. Homicide. Inconclusive.

"Marguerite looks just like her mother" a designer had cooed to the press, when talking about the collection "You know, actually—her own mother, walked for me at the same age. May she rest in peace."

More death. More whispers.

She hated it.

If it was going to be more of that, more prying questions, more eyes. More people demanding she talk about the legacy of her mother—a person, a person whom she had grown to learn and know less about over her youth, she didn't want to do it.

"Have you thought about modeling full time?" Her new assistant, a younger and perkier intern who was far too American, and reminded Marguerite far too much of the faces that haunted her past, specifically Maggie—asked on the car ride over "You've got the bone structure for it. Well, the everything." She giggled a little