What’s A Little Blackmail Amongst Friends?
Lourdis is back! It seems like she’s been gone forever! We hook up at Atomix in midtown and she looks like a million and one bucks. She’s lean and mean as ever with skin like velvet, hair color a hot magenta, and the twins are up, out, and looking right at ya. Over cocktails, she shares the down and dirty deets about the tour that her band just finished. They played the UK and, to surprise me, she returned to the little club in London where she and I first met and took pictures. We were both still in our twenties. I’ll never forget it. She was an absolute bad-ass on stage. Taking no prisoners. But later on, totally wasted, she cried all over my shoulder about some junkie hustler mistreating her. Girlfriend has always been a mess of contradictions.
Winona is wearing Roberto Cavalli
While Lourdis is in the ladies room, Tom Ford comes through. Spotting me, he heads for my table. His show opens New York Fashion Week on Wednesday evening and several of my models will be on his runway. I walked for Tom myself when he was at Gucci. It’s our tradition that my kids walk for him too. When Lourdis returns I reluctantly introduce them. For Tom it’s a moment. He’s a fan of the band and excited to meet her. But Lourdis, in full-blown rockstar mode, leans back and cocks an eyebrow, as if this man is NOT an award-winning designer and an Oscar-nominated film director, but some peasant from the street. The bitch always does this. The bigger the name, the less impressed she pretends to be.
Tom slides into the booth beside me. He can’t stop looking at her and reading his mind, I know what he’s going to say before he even says it. “Lourdis, I would love for you to be in my show. Would you consider it?” Lourdis starts laughing at him like a crazy hyena. She couldn’t be more rude if she tried. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she howls. “I’m no model!” But if I know Tom he couldn’t care less about that. He’s mentally selecting her wardrobe already. “Come on,” he says. “It’s Fashion Week. It would be so cool to have you in my show.” But Lourdis absolutely refuses.
The next evening, while I’m getting dressed for dinner, Tom phones. Hearing of my efforts to land a seat on the board of the Hoover Pressley Museum, and knowing that the drugs and scandals of my past has made it impossible for me to get a meeting with those crusty old dinosaurs, he makes me an offer. Lourdis is all he can think about. He’s got to have her in his show now. If I can deliver her, in exchange, he promises that he’ll get me a sitdown at the museum. “Your tea is way deeper than mine,” he laughs, “and then there’s the Black thing. You would be the first. But your recent honors from NYU are too impressive to ignore and while I can’t promise anything, you get me Lourdis and I’ll get you in front of that board.”
Winona is wearing Narciso Rodriguez
It’s New York Fashion Week Eve and Tom’s show is kicking things off tonight. My driver heads toward the Village to scoop up Lourdis. Later, I’m practically on my knees in the backseat, begging her to do the show, and even confess to the deal I made to get on the board of my beloved Hoover Pressley. She knows how hot I am for that. She’s showing me the back of her head but in the window’s reflection, I see a nasty little smirk on the heffa’s face. And. It. Pisses. Me. Off. So I pull out my ace. I’ve never used it before but tonight she leaves me no choice.
“If you don’t do this for me,” I say, “An angry little bird is going to tweet-tweet to Belle about a certain rockstar who seduced her precious baby boy. How old was Courtney when you screwed him? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
Lourdis spins around. “He was seventeen,” she says. “And I don’t give a fuck if you tell his mama. That was three years ago so feel free to squeal.” But when we step out of the car in front of the Armory, there’s Belle, smiling and waving from across the street. Lourdis grabs my arm—
“Come on, girl. You can’t tell her. She’ll hate me!”
I have to laugh. “You think??? But…if I were you, I’d be more worried about that little pistol she carries in her handbag. So…what’s the word? Are we doing Tom’s show tonight or not?”
Lourdis sneers. “I guess we are, bitch!”
I guess we are.
Welcome to New York Fashion Week!
Winona is wearing Tom Ford Lourdis is wearing eoe|wear|ever
Winona, Inc. 