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seventy-twopercent of the votes. But only because she was more famousand had bigger boobs. Anyway, the point of the Cingular Wireless assault was to boost Simone’s credit lines to a level commensurate with her celebrity potential.
    But not a single request was granted. Apparently, the worst time to ask for an increase was when you were already over the original credit limit. Simone’s frustration was total. On the final attempt with the last card, she called the American Express representative an ugly cow before hanging up.
    Chanel was stretched out in grossly indulgent lazy cat slumber. Somewhere beneath her lay the calculator that could add up the debt damage. But why disturb Chanel for such a depressing task? It could be done later. Anyway, Simone knew the ballpark figure was around two hundred thousand—on her revolving credit cards. There were American Express Gold and Platinum accounts totaling about fifty thousand that the companyexpected to be paid in full.
    She stared at the messy stack of suffocating bills and let out a groan. If only. If only there had been just enough room left for that Gucci bag. The one with the medium top-handle in black patent leather with zip-pocket detail, goldtone GG hardware, and detachable shoulder strap.Yes. If only that purchasehad gone through, then Simone would be content and able to deal with this crisis like a true princess warrior.
    She left the financial crime scene and poured herself some Chardonnay. Followed by another. Wine could be a brilliant problem solver. By the end of a third glass, she usually had answersfor all the squabbles in the Middle East, not to mention ways Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger could get along.
    Money . So yummy. So yucky, too. It had definitely been a glorious solution and epic problem over the years, simultaneouslyproviding her great comfort and total destruction. She stroked Chanel’s smooth, spotted coat, feeling the impact of the wine as the memories bubbled to the surface.
    Simone grew up with money. Plenty of it. Her father had been a corporate executive, her mother a Junior League dynamo.Their only child possessed toffee-colored skin, emerald green eyes, straight hair, and a tall, lithe frame. By the time she turned three, Simone knew she was gorgeous. Everybody gushed about it, and even at that age, she had to agree with them.
    In the cosseted enclaves of Atlanta’s Buckhead area, Simone had basked in a privileged, preppy environment, thinking of herself more as an individual than as a member of any particularrace. The pro-black mind-set completely escaped her.Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. But Diana Vreeland, the legendary fashion editor for Harper’s Bazaar , had epic style.
    When Simone read that DV had once declared pink the navy blue of India, she considered it a vastly underreported moment in cultural study, wrote a paper on the subject for her world history class, and turned in the manifesto on pink paper. Mrs. Boozer gave her an F. That was the day Simone decided to be a model. She was twelve.
    By thirteen, she was a professional poser, already the perfectsample size and modeling for catalogs and upscale retail trunk shows, in addition to commercial work, some of it national,like the Sprite television ad that had her dancing in the street with wild abandon. At fifteen, Simone was already livingoverseas without her parents.
    DV had once proclaimed, “the best thing about London is Paris.” And she was, as always, spot on. Simone adored France. It was a fast lane life of go-sees, runway work, champagne and cigarettes, and modelizers on the make. By sixteen, she had made herself available as the mistress of a rich married man (for great gifts) and the girlfriend of a hot young club promoter(for great fun).
    But at seventeen, she was back in Atlanta, no longer a fresh face for the Paris agencies and having offended Karl Lagerfeld by pulling a no-show at a dinner party in his honor. At the time, she