“Lucky me,” I said passionately, shoving a second microbrownie into my mouth. “What’s up?” I asked. I hadn’t been to visit in a couple of weeks. Nicole always knew everyone’s bad news. I loved it.

Nicole distractedly moved hangers between racks for the show’s different talent. “She’s with Steve.”

“She is?” I didn’t need to play the who-are-we-talking-about game. Life had a way of fucking with you. I was definitely going to need that third microbrownie.

“You didn’t know?”

“No,” I answered, stunned. “I hadn’t heard that. I thought she was a favorite of Les Moonves.”

“No, she’s been Miss-Exclusive-with-Steve for a while now, at least a couple of months, which is obviously a big deal for him.”

Danger alarms were going off in my head, but I knew better than to give Nicole an idea that any of this news mattered to me. I tried changing the subject. “What are you working on?”

“This is the dress for the party scene for Doheny that they’re shooting tomorrow,” Nicole said.

I eyed the black sheath and reached out to touch the material, although I didn’t have to touch it to know it was expensive.

“Narciso.” Nicole exhaled the name with reverence over my shoulder.

“That’s not our usual budget,” I remarked.

“No, but Chloe brought in a picture from a magazine. She thought this was the dress that she should wear for the party, and it’s not like the boss is going to say no.”

“That’s for sure.” I said. I couldn’t take my eyes off the black sheath on the black velvet hanger.

Nicole had an official-looking pincushion thing on her wrist and was actually starting to apply a needle and thread to the magical black sheath.

“You do the alterations by hand?”

“Yeah,” she said, folding the side seam with her two fingers. Nicole carefully punctured the black material with the needle. “Just a couple of well placed stitches will pull in the bust to make the bodice really snug.”

“The dress looks tiny, but she has boobs.” I was stating the obvious, and I couldn’t help think of Chloe’s freckled breast from the

photo.

“Of course she does,” Nicole answered.

“I guess they all have boobs. God doesn’t really make size-zero women with size 36C bustlines, right? Well, except for Angelina Jolie.”

Nicole bit off the thread to tie off the stitches. She smiled at me sympathetically. “Oh, darling, especially Angelina Jolie.”

“Hey, what does that mean?” I begged, intrigued.

“Just think about it, my dear.” Nicole quickly finished with her stitches, and started to leave with the dress.

“Where are you going?” I asked, still wanting to get to the bottom of her Angelina comment.

“They need this right after lunch. They’re shooting the party scene next, and then they’re finishing the rest of the party shoot in the morning.