Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [66]
Yes, much like the Other Jessica Darling might substitute “actress” for “porn star,” “interpersonal social networking provider” is one of the postmillennial euphemisms for “matchmaking,” which means that I, Jessica Darling, have an interview for a job with a highfalutin Internet dating service.
(I’ll stop now because it’s time for me to meet Dr. Kate. This will also provide a moment for you to process and appreciate the irony.)
forty
The interview is over now, and it isn’t giving too much away to say that I totally had this job before I walked in the door.
Dr. Kate had asked me to meet her in her suite at the W Hotel in Times Square. I thought it was an odd choice, but it turns out that she always stays at the W because she has a lucrative deal to develop products exclusively for the chain. The Dr. Kate Rescue Kit, for example, is a discreet black leather case no bigger than a cell phone. This cheeky little item contains a pack of gum, a mini mirror, two condoms, massage oil/lubricant, and a one-day Fun Pass MetroCard for a quick getaway. It sells for forty-five dollars at the hotel store, or online.
Dr. Kate is a genius.
Whenever I step through the doors of one of these sleek, ultra-modern boutique hotels, I start to feel a little woozy, if not wobbly-legged drunk. It’s all such a scene, even at two P.M. Which I guess is the whole point of the dim lighting, the seductive French electro-pop over the sound system, the scent of lemon sage spa products in the air, the “floating” sinks in the bathroom designed to inspire gravity-defying wonder. By the time I went through the glassed-in urban waterfall, passed by the wall of rainbow lit stalactites, and was whisked up in the elevator to the hotel’s white-on-white lobby, I already felt like I’d had a one-night stand. All I needed was a cigarette and one of the famously soft waffleknit robes.
Even the “welcome attendants” are uniformed in matching black couture, looking less like desk clerks and bellhops than an alien race from the Planet Sexxxy who have party-crashed our puny, prudish planet to conquer human beings through their irresistible, intergalactic powers of multiorgasmic mind-body control. (Or perhaps they’re all members of that UK economist’s supermodel human species from the future….)
One of these Sexxxtraterrestrials directed me to Dr. Kate’s suite on the fifty-sixth floor, where—as she had warned via a follow-up e-mail—there would be a very large, very intimidating sentinel at the entry. The security guard was also dressed in black, but easily weighed as much as three or four of the sylph-like space creatures put together. With his headset, dark FBI sunglasses, and clipboard in hand, he looked just like any velvet rope bouncer, which gave the whole endeavor even more of a clubby feel.
“I have a…uh…two o’clock interview with…uh…Dr. Kate,” I stammered. “Uh, I mean Dr. Katherine Seamon. For iLoveULab…” The guard’s towering presence made me nervous; I felt like I was lying about my interview and would have failed a polygraph.
“Name?” he asked in a bored yet imposing voice. He wore a dagger pendant on a chain around his neck. Though the charm was no more than an inch in length, I did not doubt that he could use it to gut me in an instant, if need be.
“Jessica Darling,” I said, reaching into my bag for my wallet to get my driver’s license, cursing myself for not having it in my front pocket like one of Hope’s MetroCards.
“Like the one on the billboard?” The guard cracked a smile—literally, because his two front teeth were fractured in jagged diagonals, which I imagine came from a punch in the face on one of his less upscale assignments.
“Like the one on the billboard,” I deadpanned. “Only I need a job.”
This made the guard laugh, a deep basso laugh. I’d won him over. He checked my license, then spoke into his headset. “A Ms. Jessica Darling to see you?” He looked at me then, smiled, and nodded. “Okay. The doctor can see you now.” He opened the door and ushered me inside.
forty-one
Dr. Kate’s penthouse had sweeping panoramic views