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Bring it, please.”
    Parashie threw another look at me, then left the room.
    “Teenage girls,” Donatella said, “do not fully appreciate money. Or couture. You do not have a problem to wear this jacket, do you? I promise you it is gorgeous.”
    “I'm sure it will be fine. It's not like someone died in it, after all.”
    “No, not in the Ungaro. I believe she was wearing Commes des Garçons.”
    “Who?” I asked.
    “Chai.”
    “When?”
    “When she died,” Donatella said. “Come, let us try these pants on you.”

SIX
    W hy should I object to wearing a dead person's clothes, I asked myself while trying on trousers. Especially the ones still sporting price tags? How many things in our lives—antiques, for example—belonged to dead people? It's not like I was being asked to wear used dentures. Not that someone with Chai's wardrobe owned dentures.
    But for reasons I couldn't identify it disturbed me. As Joey had put it, wear a clown costume, you feel like a clown. Wear a dead woman's clothes and—or was she a dead girl? “How old was Chai?” I asked.
    “Twenty-one,” Donatella said. “Turn, please. Let's see the pants hang.”
    No dentures, then. “How did Chai die?”
    “She drove off a cliff. At night, on Old Topanga. In a classic Corvette. Very unfortunate. No clients were with her at the time, happily.”
    Happily for them, anyway. “What was her job on the team?”
    “Hold your tummy in, please. I need these pleats to fall straight.”
    “I am holding my tummy in.”
    “We must have the seamstress in. Chai had good shoulders, but your waist is bigger.”
    “We could surgically remove some of my ribs,” I said.
    “There is no time. With luck, the seam allowance is generous.”
    “So, Chai's job?” I asked again. “What was it she did?”
    “The same as you will do. Social coach.”
    Now I felt almost ill. Same job, same clothes. “A twenty-one-year-old was squiring men around town?”
    Donatella nodded. “Precisely. An error in judgment on our part. I was blinded by her beauty. Yuri also. Chai knew the social scene, but not human nature. She was fantastic at presentation, however. Good for attracting business. She was on
America's Next Top Model.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “It was some seasons ago. And only the seventh runner-up. But to some men, even to date an
America's Next Top Model
loser is appealing.”
    I was struck by how poor dead Chai's value as a meaningless celebrity so outshone mine. “Donatella,” I said, “I have to say, I feel a little inadequate, following in the footsteps—not to mention wearing the shoes— of
America's Next Top Model.”
    “Seventh runner-up. Also, did I not say that Chai was a mistake? You, we have vetted. Also, you were demanded by Vlad, our partner in Belarus. Yuri is an intuitive, you see. We have high expectations for you.”
    That explained the scrutiny I'd felt in the courtroom.
    “You are more suited to the job,” Donatella continued. “You have a nearly perfect driving record, you are born in Burbank, and you are a mature woman.”
    “Well, let's not overstate it,” I said. “But I am older than twenty-one.”
    “So you have life experience. And you are fully American, which is vital, as this is an immersion course. Also, you have warmth. Yuri has commented upon this. Chai made a good impression initially, but Chai cared only for Chai.”
    I turned to see Parashie standing in the doorway, listening. She looked at me with an expression I couldn't read, then said to Donatella, “Here. The Ungaro.”
    Donatella took the blazer from her. “One good thing,” she said. “Chai was skinny, but she had her breasts enlarged, so at least her clothes will fit you around the chest.”
    That was good news. I wondered how much of my job I owed to a skeletal resemblance to a dead
America's Next Top Model
reject.

    I was hoping to avoid Grusha's lunch, because after trying on Chai's clothes, it was clear I'd be better off weighing less. Fifteen