Read Lucid for Free Online Page A

own in which my character is alcoholic, blind, with either one or no legs (depending on how my technique has developed), and oh yeah, also in love with a ballerina. But it’s tragically unrequited.
    Eventually, I fall by
Elle
to borrow some clothes from the magical room of never-ending high-fashion wardrobe items. Some of the upside of having your mother indentured to a fashion magazine includes free cosmetics and facial products of all kinds, introduction to some well-known cover models (who are frequently as misunderstood by history as, say, Genghis Khan), entrée to endless parties, a few of which are actually cool, seats at fashion week, and a free pass to borrow goodies you could never afford. I’m in need of a few goodies to outfit me for a photo exhibit tonight.
    Jerome, whose taste is somewhere between stellar and impeccable, helps me choose an Hervé Léger bandage dress and some killer McQueen heels, and when I look at myself in the mirror, I suddenly forget the audition.
    As I’m dressing, Nicole asks as casually as she can manage (which is not very) if I’m disappointed not to get the role. Uh, no, I think, not disappointed at all. Didn’t even want it. Just spent all those hours preparing for the hell of it.
    I tell her that my technique isn’t there yet but that some mildly encouraging things were said, and I’m fine. If I tell her I am actually swooning with ecstasy, I’ll never get out of here. Gallery openings never have an adequate amount of hors d’oeuvres, but they are always the highest quality of deliciousness. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days because of my nerves, and my stomach is like that Venus flytrap from
Little Shop of Horrors
. Feed me, Seymour.
    I walk into Flowers Gallery, and my name is on the list. In my
Elle
-borrowed outfit, I feel good. Most of the glitterati haven’t arrived, which works into my evil plan of collecting all the crab toast I can nab. The opening is in honor of Mona Kuhn’s new collection, shot in the South of France. The guy who owns the off-off-Broadway theater where I did the
Glass Menagerie
when I was fourteen is tight with the guy who represents Mona, who is my most favorite photographer, so I begged him to invite me. Of course, I can only imagine how insanely jealous Sloane will be tomorrow morning. Hey, it’s a $60 train ride; she can get her butt down here.
    Actually, that could never happen. I’ve tried to look up Sloane in information in Mystic, Connecticut. She doesn’t exist. My dad took us up there for a month one summer, and I used to bike by what I thought was her house. A nice family lived there. Not hers. I’m absolutely positive that Sloane has done the same for me.
    Five crab toasts and two braised lamb shanks later, I’m stuffed, which is not a good look in a bandage dress. I’m drinking red winefrom a glass that seems never to empty because the waiters are so good at their job of filling it up. I turn down several cocktails from assorted males who like to look at the part of your bandage dress where there’s no dress. Do these guys think we don’t see where they’re looking? This always amazes me. Nicole says, sure they know, but they don’t care. Nah. Guys think they’re bulletproof. And, irony of ironies, just as I’m hating on the men in the place, in walks…well…
    He is tall, which I’m ashamed to admit is sort of a requirement (sorry, short guys). He has incredible hair, which is kind of golden and amber and stays gorgeously long and in place with no product. Magic hair guy. His eyes are nearly black, but I’m so in the spell of charisma that I don’t realize this means the hair might be dyed. So what? I stand my ground. Stare straight at him. And just wait to see what happens.
    It starts with a slow smile. I don’t smile back, but I don’t blink. Here he comes. And to my surprise, the first thing he says is…
    “Aren’t you Maggie Jameson?”
    I’m stuck for a comeback. Here’s what I come up with…
    “As a