SNAP: The World Unfolds Read Online Free Page B

stuff, which meant I knew both sides. I also knew the city and the county—I’d written stories about people and things from San Diego to Valencia and even out in the High Desert but I’d never had the money to live near the beach.
     
    Santa Monica was a treat. The pier had changed a lot in its 100 years, but people still walked it and fished off it and the carousel still attracted kids, even in this day of high-tech scary rides. The Getty Villa was just up the PCH in Malibu, Venice was just down the PCH, my old neighborhood of Westwood was close and LAX was a short cab ride. I felt as though I’d come home.
     
    The designer and organizer took my few good things and made them stand-outs with color and fabrics. The dining room table backed up to a dark brick-red wall and drapes could be pulled to close out the view, creating a cocoon. From my bed I could see south across a small balcony to the Pacific and watching sunsets from the living room would be stunning.
     
    This was possible.
     
    It didn’t look probable.
Chaz was right, SNAP had plans other than me sitting in balmy SoCal
     
    evenings watching the sun set.
     
    That was OK because I’d never felt such adrenaline coursing through me. My days started with early phone calls and Skype conferences. A late lunch—salads because I was finally dropping those last five pounds but still looked disgustingly healthy next to some staffers—and then slam into final prep and meetings for the evening show.
     
    With its global scope and network, SNAP didn’t constantly replay the short snippets of video like other shows did—not even the repeated screen crawl on CNN. The shows were fast-paced and snappy because we could always fill with clips from Rio or Budapest or Munich.
     
    And I was traveling. The trip to Rio was just the beginning: London, New York, Munich, Paris.
     
    Jean-Louis went with me occasionally but our relationship was stalled at business.
     
    According to Jazz, the jury was still out on his sexuality—or any other interests. He treated all the staff pleasantly, seemed to have no favorites and busted his hump on making the pages look stunning. I’d heard that even the set designers asked his advice.
     
    And finally, Jazz explained the strange phone tones. It was a recording of blood pumping through the chambers of the heart—truly grisly.
     
    “Maybe. The Board and Baron Kandesky wanted a sound that was calming and human,” Jazz said. “I heard they listened to a lot of voice sounds but they were all too jarring when people were concentrating. All the phones everywhere at SNAP, even the company cell phones, use that ring. If you have your own cell, you’re required to keep it off or on vibrate when you’re doing business.”
     
    The low noise level made for a serene and comfortable environment, especially at deadline but it still made me uneasy. Too much whispering. Even when groups clotted together there wasn’t much sound, just murmurs.
     
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
     
    We had a crisis.
    No one had seen or heard from Penelope DeVries.
    Penelope—Pen in celeb-talk—was a Certified Celebrity. Her photo on our cover could sell a million more copies at the check-out stand. Her in a TV trailer could jump our Nielsen ratings.
     
    She was spectacular. Average height, brown hair sleeked back in a perfect chignon, no more than a size two in her Chanel dress, shoes, handbag and oversized sunglasses. When she took the sunglasses off she became a giant.
     
    She wasn’t the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, she had no particular talent, she didn’t model, she didn’t pose nude, she hadn’t been in rehab—at least as far as we knew and we would have been the ones to know—she was just a celebrity with a capital C. She was at every film festival that mattered, every club and gallery opening of note, every A-list party on both coasts. She was dressed by Paris, Milan, Fifth Avenue and Rodeo Drive. Designers clawed over each other to give her