Vienna Read Online Free Page A

and locked the door.
    Night came on and she was running back to Holler. She was going to tell Justine or Heather—or whatever her real name was—that even if she wasn’t on any posters at least she wasn’t a whore. But the club was closed because it was Sunday and Justine was probably far away. Probably in another person’s bed. And that was okay, because Vienna wouldn’t have yelled at anyone. Wouldn’t have even opened the door.
    She was home by nine, crying into the sheets. Her doctors said that was bad, too.
    Stop it!
    Vienna peeled herself from the bed and went to the sole dresser she owned. In the bottom drawer, buried under shirts and folded jeans she never wore, she felt the smooth edges of her Apple Air. She pulled it out and plugged it in, connecting a thin cable to the room’s phone jack. Dressed in its aluminum shell, the computer looked sleekly sinister. But it was safe to use it tonight. She didn’t work on Mondays until noon.
    The log-in screen was forest green, without a single icon marring its surface. Grayfield had set it up that way. His kind voice filling his London flat, his silver hair smelling faintly of cinnamon. Vivaldi playing on a real phonograph because Grayfield said it sounded better that way. Vienna looked at the composer’s name and saw that he’d written his most famous works in a home for abandoned children. And it was just perfect, the way everything fit together.
    With a theatrical sigh, Vienna pressed a key to call up hidden icons. She ordered the computer’s ghost fingers into the net. The screen filled with ads and banners. Don’t look!
    A pointless reflex arriving far too late. Fix your credit now! The secret to whiter teeth! And she knew every word. Earn 2,000€ a week! Your stomach can be this flat!
    Vienna closed her eyes to a squint and made certain the cursor was in the Google window. She typed out “Justine Am.”

 
    3
    The Brussels Clay to Flesh shoot was set at the Atomium, a mansion-sized model of molecular iron left over from the ’58 World Expo. Justine thought it looked like a chrome Tinkertoy on HGH, but she wasn’t paid to think. She was paid to be in platinum hair, slate lipstick, silver nails, and the scratchy plastics of Dexter Collins’s latest collection of highly textured, wildly popular, deeply symbolic crap. She fidgeted with the Velcro that anchored the towering shoulder pads.
    The girl doing wardrobe looked increasingly suicidal—her big break shot to hell by the ludicrous getup. “Could be worse,” Justine said. “You could be wearing it.” The humor fell flat. If the session bombed, Justine was too valuable to take the fall. Scapegoats would materialize down the food chain.
    A rising crowd flowed around the yellow tape cordoning off Heysel Plateau. Those in front waved glossies from Justine’s recent projects. Careful not to upend the polymer subdivision on her shoulders, Justine scrawled her initials a few times while the lights and umbrella reflectors were being set up. As per recent instructions from James, she stayed near the cops who had been called in.
    Justine could see Lower Town in the pastel distance. She heard cascading bells calling the faithful to Sunday morning mass. Was Nowhere Girl there now? Hypnotized by the threaded smoke of votive candles and praying that God might notice her at last? Long odds on that.
    Justine turned back into the Atomium’s latticework shadow. Mathews and his two assistants had the Brussels manikin decked out in a replica Coco Chanel little black dress. Bias-cut with full sleeves and a flawlessly proportioned V-neck. They’d sliced the seams and pinned it together over lifeless wood.
    Mathews caught Justine’s thought. “Our tupelo lady fetched the better designer,” he said.
    â€œUnderstatement of the decade.”
    Justine remembered from the Clay to Flesh media guide that this manikin’s