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their joint venture, Lillith Allure Cosmetics. Lillith had all the clout with Breslin Evans that Frank lacked, and she was able to see to it that Blaine Dunhill, new kid on the block, was appointed to handle their account exclusively. In some ways, my life got easier. In others, Lillith definitely was not the easiest client in the world to satisfy.
    As the company grew, Lillith decided to try her hand at a subsidiary line of cosmetics based on her passion for astrology. Once Mercury was out of retrograde and it was safe to delve into new ventures, Lillith Allure launched Zodiac. Zodiac’s beauty products were based on sun signs. There were twelve different “looks” to the line, which meant a full year of ad campaigns. Lillith wanted one new face to represent the whole line. The Zodiac Girl would be an “All-American,” freshly scrubbed beauty transformed by Zodiac’s vividly glam colors.
    I didn’t think about Sheila when Lillith asked me to find the Zodiac Girl. During our first months in New York, Sheila was a relative newcomer to the world of modeling, and her photogenic clock was ticking. She was twenty-two, just out of college, with a degree in liberal arts and a few letters of recommendation to some Manhattan modeling agencies. Because no one told her how impossible her dreams were, she made them come true, getting a contract with Metropole. She owed it to luck, chutzpah, and a few other assets, including flawless skin, legs that wouldn’t quit, and a winning disposition. Even the most jaded people in the industry found Sheila irresistible.
    In 1998, more than a year into Sheila’s career, everyone wanted to be the Zodiac Girl and enjoy the kind of success Elizabeth Hurley had experienced with Estée Lauder or Cindy Crawford had found with Revlon. It wasn’t until the eleventh hour that Sheila’s composite card made its way to my desk among the hundreds of other faces that I’d been sifting through. Since she had every quality that Lillith had described, I included Sheila among my five choices for the face of Zodiac.
    Lillith had zeroed in on Sheila’s picture right off the bat. “That’s her. She’s the one,” Lillith said, pointing a finger at Sheila’s picture. Which I imagined must have been difficult for Lillith, since she was bound in a detoxifying seaweed wrap at the time of our meeting.
    A star was born. Almost literally, since everything connected to Lillith Parker and the Zodiac line was fraught with cosmic significance.
    I looked over at Sheila, who was staring through the window of our plane. We’d broken through the rain clouds; bright sunlight illuminated the hair surrounding her face, making her look like an angel. Since I could remember her as the gawky kid who’d tagged along after Jake and me, I sometimes forgot how beautiful she was.
    Sheila turned to say, “I’m fucking tired, Blaine.”
    â€œGee, Sheila. You sound like a teamster.”
    We laughed together as the seat belt lights went off, signaling that it was safe to move about the cabin of the airplane.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Sheila continued. “What I mean is—well, I’m tired, Blaine. I need a break from all this. I’ve been going nonstop for over a year now. It’s finally getting to me. And I can’t hold Josh off any longer.”
    â€œI understand,” I said.
    â€œIt’s too bad the days of hair bands are over,” Sheila said. “The next logical step in my career would be to put on a bikini and writhe on the hood of a car in a rock video.”
    â€œWhile being hosed down,” I added.
    â€œOr licking whipped cream off my fingers and tossing my hair around.”
    â€œYou could do all that while being hosed down,” I said. “You’re good at multitasking.”
    â€œThanks!” Sheila said. She pointed to the woman across the aisle, who’d dozed off, and said, “I lied to