The Daughters Join the Party Page 8

  She reached over to the floor and picked up her laptop, which she’d covered with Radiohead stickers. After she’d put on “Down by the Water” by PJ Harvey at top volume, she clicked on her Internet browser. There was one thing she could do to turn this around, one thing she could do to show Remington that she cared. In the search bar on Google she typed three words: Vanessa image consultant. It couldn’t be too hard to find her.

  chapter 10

  Monday morning Emma sat at the center table in the library, trying to concentrate on her Spanish homework. Lizzie and Todd had gone to get bagels from the deli on Madison, and as she waited for them she started to feel like she might jump out of her skin. Nothing had been the same since Saturday night. Remington was still mad at her. Earlier that morning he’d left for school while she was still in the shower. And then there was Walker, who probably thought she was a moron. When she glimpsed him in the hall before homeroom he’d only given her a feeble smile.

  She’d tried to apologize to her parents as soon as the party was over. But when she saw her dad heading into his office, he just held up his hand to ward her off.

  “Don’t bother,” he said. Then he and Tom—who Emma could swear still had that smirk on his face—walked into his office and shut the door.

  Then Emma went straight to the kitchen to find her mom. “Mom?” she said. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Save it, Emma,” her mother said, keeping her back to her as she placed Saran Wrap over a plate of uneaten mini-quiches. “It’s kind of pointless to explain.”

  “But what was I supposed to say?” she argued. “I didn’t know we had to give a speech. Nobody told me that.”

  Carolyn turned around. Her eye makeup was starting to run a little, and it made her eyes look fuzzy. “I guess we all learned our lesson tonight about that,” she said.

  Emma stayed in her room the next day, doing homework and feeling pathetic. Her dad had gone to the steak fry in Iowa and that night, on her laptop, she watched coverage of it on the news. He looked tan and fit as he walked the line and shook people’s hands.

  “Over three thousand people showed up to hear Conway speak,” said the newscaster, as the camera showed a sea of waving, applauding people in the middle of a green field. “A record number for the annual Democratic event.”

  In the news clip of his speech, her dad stood in front of a gigantic American flag, looking out over the crowd. “China is not our personal bank,” he said to overwhelming cheers. “America must get back on its feet.”

  It was a little surreal. He almost looked like the president already. This might actually happen, Emma thought.

  She decided to dial the number she’d gotten from Google. Vanessa’s voice-mail greeting was brisk and calm at the same time.

  “Hi, Vanessa,” she said shakily. “This is Emma. I think I’d like to see you. Call me back.” She hung up, feeling ridiculous. It was probably hopeless. There was likely nothing Vanessa could do to help her at this point.

  Now, as she turned the page in her Spanish book, she wished that she’d never made that dumb crack at the party. But it had all felt like a trap. Of course she wouldn’t be able to compete with Remington’s speech. Of course her parents would wind up disappointed in her, no matter what she said.

  Suddenly she felt her cell phone buzz in her bag. She grabbed her backpack and walked out of the library. She had a feeling it was Vanessa, returning her call, and she didn’t want to have to let it go to voice mail.

  In the deserted hallway behind the theater she finally pulled the phone out of her bag. “Hello?” she said quietly.

  “Emma?” said a familiar newscaster-like voice. “It’s Vanessa. I got your message. You can come in this afternoon at four, if that works for you,” she said.

  Emma toed the ground. This would mean trusting a woman who wore coral eye shadow. But she didn’t have much choice. “Okay,” she said.

  “I’m very happy you called me,” Vanessa said.

  “Okay, I’ll see you then,” she said, and clicked off. She couldn’t do this alone, she thought. She needed someone to go with her. Lizzie. She hurried down the hall, walked past the door to the library, and ran down the steps to the lobby.

  It was cooler outside than it had been over the weekend, but it was still sunny, and the sky was a deep, cloudless blue. The streets were clear of students, but the Upper East Side moms had come out in full force. A group of them in running gear pushed their exercise strollers onto the curb, and as Emma waited for them to pass she walked over to the newsstand on the corner of Madison. A collection of tabloids faced out to the street, and one headline in particular leaped out at her: PIEDMONT PIRATE, it read in big block letters, and at the bottom of the page a smaller headline read $$$ OBSESSED CEO GOES ON TRIAL TODAY. A picture of a rakish-looking, dark-haired guy with Todd’s large, deerlike eyes was splashed next to it. It had to be Todd’s dad. Ugh, Emma thought. Poor Todd.

  “Hey! We were just on our way back.”

  Emma turned to see Lizzie and Todd approaching, eating their bagels. She wanted to fling herself in front of the newsstand to try to keep Todd from seeing the headlines, but she couldn’t move. “Hey, guys,” she said. “What’s up?”

  Todd’s gaze drifted past Emma to the newsstand, and then his face darkened. “How original,” he said. “What happened to innocent until proven guilty?”

  “Excuse me,” Emma said, going up to the man behind the newsstand. “I’d like all the New York Posts, please.”

  The newsstand man looked up from the lotto ticket he was scratching. “All of them?”

  “Emma, what are you doing?” Lizzie asked.

  Emma reached around into her backpack and pulled out her wallet. “Sir? Did you hear me? I’d like every New York Post you still have. How much do you think that will be?”

  The man still looked confused. “They’re not all for sale.”

  “Will this do the trick?” Emma asked, laying down a couple of twenties.

  The man shrugged and took the money. “Go for it.”

  She grabbed as many of the newspapers as she could. “You guys, give me a hand,” she said to Lizzie and Todd.

  “Sure,” Lizzie said, leaning down to help.

  Todd was the last to pitch in. Finally they staggered away with their arms full.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Lizzie murmured.

  “Like everyone at Chadwick needs to see that?” Emma asked, turning up the block toward school. “I don’t think so.”

  They dumped the newspapers in a trash can on the way back to school. Maybe just this once it was okay not to recycle, Emma thought.

  In the ladies room, she and Lizzie washed the newsprint off their hands and arms.

  “That was amazing of you,” Lizzie said. “Todd’s been pretty upset all day.”

  “It was the least I could do. But I need to ask you something. You know that image consultant I told you about? Well, I think I need to see her after all.”

  Emma told her the story of Saturday night in painstaking detail. When she was finished, Lizzie stood against the bathroom wall with her arms folded, the paper towels balled in her hand. “I couldn’t have come up with something to say off the top of my head,” she said. “No way. At least you made a joke out of it.”

  “Except now my brother’s pretending I don’t exist,” she said. And Walker has completely written me off, she wanted to add. “So I made an appointment with her. For today at four. Will you go with me?”

  “Do you really think that an image consultant is the answer?” Lizzie asked, arching one of her thick eyebrows.

  “I have no idea,” Emma said. “But at this point I’ll try anything. So you’ll go with me?”

  Lizzie smiled. “No problem,” she said.

  The rest of the day Emma sat through class wondering just what to expect from her first image consultation. During lunch she googled pictures of the Gore daughters, marveling at their straight hair and beautiful white teeth. She didn’t have
perfect teeth. She didn’t have blond hair. She hoped Vanessa wouldn’t tell her that she had to be like them, because then this was all going to be a waste of time.

  After school she and Lizzie walked down Fifth Avenue until they came to a massive Beaux Arts–style town house with an impressive glass canopy. “This is it?” Emma asked when she located the brass plaque that read DREESEN AND SAWYER, LLC. She looked over her shoulder at the Met across the street, its steps crawling with tourists. “These people must be making bank.”

  “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know,” Lizzie said, hitching her book bag farther up her shoulder.

  “I know,” Emma said, ringing the doorbell. “But I just have to see what this place looks like inside. And I want you to see this woman. She wears so much hair spray, if you lit a match twenty feet away from her she’d burst into flames.”

  There was a click behind the iron-gated glass doors, and Emma pushed them open. Once inside they passed through a small marble-floored anteroom and into a lobby, where a female receptionist wearing a Bluetooth sat in front of a sweeping stone staircase.

  “Dreesen and Associates,” she said, staring straight ahead. “Yes, just one minute.” She pressed a button on her phone. “Yes?” she asked them.

  “I’m here to see Vanessa,” she said.

  “Your name?”

  “Emma Conway. I made an appointment this morning.”

  The woman looked Emma over carefully, her gaze coming to rest on Emma’s mustard-stained kilt. “I’ll let her know you’re here,” she said stiffly, gesturing to a row of plush chairs off to the side.

  Emma and Lizzie surveyed the magazines piled on the coffee table: Vogue, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, and Martha Stewart Living. “Random,” Lizzie said. “Is this place about politics or personal style?”

  “I don’t know,” Emma said, perching herself on the edge of a chair. “But I think I’m out of both categories.”

  Lizzie’s cell phone chimed with a text.

  “Who’s that?” Emma asked.

  “Todd,” Lizzie said. “He wants me to stop by his place when we’re done.” Lizzie typed a message back to him and then slipped the phone into the book bag at her feet. “He really appreciated what you did today.”

  “I’ll keep doing it if I have to,” Emma said.

  “Well, this trial’s going on for a while. We’re not going to be able to buy every tabloid at that newsstand.”

  Emma heard the clip-clop of heels coming toward them, and then Vanessa walked into the lobby. “Emma!” she said, holding out her hand. “It’s so good to see you.” Vanessa’s suit was pastel blue, and her clunky jewelry was silver instead of gold, but her frosted blond hair was as firm as ever around her face.

  “This is my friend Lizzie Summers,” Emma said. “I asked her to come with me.”

  “Very pleased to meet you, Lizzie,” Vanessa said, politely offering her hand.

  Lizzie shot to her feet and shook hands with Vanessa.

  “Please, let’s go into the conference room.”

  As they walked behind her, Emma glanced at Lizzie. What did I tell you? she mouthed, pointing to Vanessa’s back.

  Aqua Net, Lizzie mouthed.

  They entered a small conference room, and Lizzie and Emma took seats next to each other at the oval table. A TV hung on the wall at one end, while at the other was a tastefully painted beach landscape. The track lighting was dim, and Emma immediately felt herself get sleepy.

  “So,” Vanessa said, sliding into a chair behind a sleek gray laptop. “You changed your mind about seeing me.”

  “Well… yes,” Emma said. “I mean, that’s okay, right?”

  “Of course,” Vanessa said. “I’m thrilled that you’re here.”

  “Wait, first, can someone tell me what an image consultant actually does?” Lizzie asked.

  “Any public person nowadays—including a presidential candidate—has to package himself. Everyone has to have a brand. Obama’s was hope, for example. That was his catchphrase, the way people knew who he was and what they would get if they voted for him. This is your father’s,” Vanessa said, touching a key on her laptop.

  On the TV flashed a screen that showed her father’s face. Underneath it were the words A New Beginning.

  “ ‘A New Beginning’?” Emma asked. “That’s the best you guys can do?”

  Vanessa frowned. “It’s not set in stone yet,” she said. “But it’s the one we all like the best.”

  “So what’s Emma’s brand?” Lizzie asked.

  Vanessa smiled. “Well, it’s not quite the same thing. But for the child of a candidate, there is a certain standard. Let’s look at some other daughters.” She touched another key. “Caroline Kennedy,” Vanessa said as a black-and-white image of the teenage Caroline came up on the TV screen. “True, she didn’t exactly grow up in the White House, but she always shined in the public eye. Quiet, dignified, intelligent. Fiercely private.”

  Emma looked at the photo of Caroline walking with her mother and brother down Fifth Avenue. She looked mysterious, unknowable, reserved. Emma couldn’t relate to that at all.

  “Then there was Tricia Nixon,” Vanessa went on as a photo of a beautiful, doll-like blond girl in a wedding dress came up on the screen. “Maybe not as elegant as Caroline, but still a force to be reckoned with.”

  Emma and Lizzie traded a look but didn’t say anything.

  Vanessa went to the next photo. “Chelsea Clinton,” she said as an image of the adult Chelsea with straightened hair and wearing a twinset and pearls appeared on the screen. “In the White House for eight years, until she was twenty. Look at that. True elegance.”

  Emma started to fidget in her seat.

  “And then, of course, there were the Bush twins,” Vanessa began as a photo of Barbara and Jenna appeared on the screen. “First there was Barbara, who I like to call—”

  “But what about me?” Emma asked suddenly. “I came here for you to help me, not hear about how great all these other girls were.”

  “Okay,” Vanessa said. “Here.” She touched a key and another photo flashed on the TV screen. It was of Emma, walking up Fifth Avenue with her parents.

  “Where’d you get this?” Emma asked.

  “We found it,” Vanessa said breezily.

  “What’s up with your bangs?” Lizzie asked Emma. “Why are they in a zigzag?”

  “I’d just cut them with kitchen scissors,” Emma said. “I guess they didn’t turn out so well.”

  Emma looked at herself in the shot. It had been taken two years ago at the Columbus Day parade. She’d wanted to spend the day off from school playing Rock Band with Mary-Louise Banning, and instead her parents had made her walk with them in a parade for twenty blocks. In protest she’d worn jeans, Doc Martens, and a scowl.

  “This is what I like to call Before Emma,” Vanessa said. “Angry. Raw. A rebel. Now, here’s New Emma.”

  Another photo appeared. At first Emma thought it was the same picture, but then she noticed that her clothes were different. In this shot she wore a pencil skirt, high-heeled boots, and a chic white coat with oversized black buttons. Her bangs had grown out and were swept back from her face with a barrette at the back of her head. And instead of a scowl she gave the camera a wide, dazzling smile.

  “You Photoshopped this?” Emma said.

  “It’s our own software,” Vanessa explained. “This is the Emma I know you can be. This is After Emma. Happy. Confident. Stylish.”

  Emma looked at the photo. After Emma did look pretty good. She wanted to ask Vanessa where she could find those boots.

  “This is the Emma I think we can find together,” Vanessa said. “A little more polished, a little more confident.”

  “A little more J. Crew,” Emma said sarcastically. “And a little more Crest Whitestrips.”

  “If that’s what that means to you,” Vanessa said. “Politics is perception, Emma. There’s no doubt about that.”

  The pho
to disappeared and Vanessa shut the laptop. “But aside from changing your look and teaching you how to smile at the camera, there’s very little about you that I would change.”

  “Really?” Emma asked. She was fairly sure she hadn’t heard Vanessa correctly.

  “You have something that those other girls didn’t: Spunk. Energy. Presence,” she said. “And all of those qualities could actually help your dad’s campaign. You could reach young people in a way that no other candidate’s daughter ever has.”

  It was so quiet in the room that Emma could hear the whoosh of the central air-conditioning. Emma looked at Lizzie out of the corner of her eye, but Lizzie was nodding as if Vanessa had said exactly what she’d been thinking.

  “I’m serious,” Vanessa said. “I think you could be a tremendous asset.”

  “Then I wish you could have been at my house Saturday night,” Emma said. “My dad had this party for all these rich people to donate to his campaign. And he made my brother and me get up and talk. And of course my brother—the speech and debate master—gets up there and kills. And then it’s my turn.” She kicked the table leg. “So I made a joke. And everyone freaked. Now my brother won’t talk to me. My dad thinks I’m an idiot. And you think I’m an asset?”

  Vanessa took a deep, thoughtful breath. “You said your brother’s the speech and debate master?” she said.

  Emma nodded.

  “What if you took speech and debate?” she asked. “What then?”

  “Uh, what?” Emma asked.

  “What if you could do what your brother does?” she said. “You don’t seem to have a shyness problem. I think you’d probably be great at it. So why not?”

  “Because my brother’s the captain?” Emma offered.

  “So you’re not allowed?” Vanessa asked.

  Emma snapped forward in her chair. “It’s not that I’m not allowed. It’s that it’s his thing.” She shook her head. “There’s no way.”

  “You should do it,” said Vanessa. “If only so that the next time you’re in that situation, you won’t have to panic.”