Inflated Ego novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Cut
Victor Langhorn tears Mason's contract on stage in front of four hundred guests; Mason answers back and walks out, and the clip goes viral. His granddaughter steps in front of him.
Victor Langhorn tore my contract in half in front of four hundred people.
He did it slowly, with the microphone still in his other hand.
"Gentlemen, ladies, a story about ego," he said.
The runway lights were on me.
I stood at the end of it in a black suit he had picked, ready to open his season.
I was twenty-seven, and I had walked for him for eight years.
Twenty minutes earlier, backstage, I had told him I had an offer from another agency.
I had only told him because I wanted a raise and thought he'd fight for me.
"This young man believes he is the show," Victor said.
The crowd laughed.
Somebody near the front held up a phone.
Victor read my contract aloud, clause by clause, with his cane tapping the floor.
He read my fee.
He read the line about my weight, my measurements, and the cap on my hair.
"Mason Donovan has an inflated ego," he said. "It is the only thing about him that ever grew."
The laughter rolled over the stage.
He tore the pages again and let them fall on my shoes.
"Brent, darling, come open the show."
Brent Sayer walked out from the wings in my suit jacket.
Brent had slept on my couch for two years.
I had paid his half of the rent in March.
He did not look at me as he passed.
I stood there with my face burning and my hands cold.
Every instinct I had said to leave quietly.
That was what Victor wanted, a man who left quietly and was forgotten by Friday.
I took the microphone out of his hand instead.
He was so surprised he let me.
"Thank you, Victor," I said.
My voice carried through the whole hall.
"Eight years, and that's the most attention you've ever given me."
Somebody gasped.
"You're right, I do have an ego. It's what I had left after you took the rest."
I dropped the microphone on the stage.
It hit the floor with a crack that rang through every speaker.
Then I walked the full length of the runway, the way he had taught me, and every camera in the room followed me.
At the end of it I stopped.
I looked straight at Victor and smiled, slowly.
"I'll see you again," I said, though the microphone was gone and only the front row heard.
I walked through the black curtain and kept going until I was in the service corridor.
My hands started shaking there.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
My booker, a woman I'd known for six years, had written, "I'm so sorry. I'm not allowed to talk to you."
Then my brand rep wrote, "We're pausing the contract."
Then my second brand rep wrote the same.
By the time I reached the loading dock, the clip had two hundred thousand views.
The caption said, "Model destroyed by legend."
I leaned my forehead on the cold brick wall and breathed.
Two brand deals gone in six minutes.
Two months of rent already behind.
And nothing in my life that Victor Langhorn could not reach.
I thought about what he loved.
He had never been afraid of anything I could do to him.
But I had seen him all night with one hand on the small of a young woman's back.
He had guided her around the room.
His granddaughter.
Margot, the agency's money, the one who signed my cheques.
If he could take everything from me in front of a crowd, I could take the one thing he'd never let anyone touch.
I straightened up and wiped my face with my sleeve.
The service door opened behind me.
I turned, ready for security.
It was her.
She wore a navy suit and flat shoes, with her auburn hair twisted into a clip that was coming loose.
She was the only person in that building who had not laughed.
I could tell, because her eyes were wet and furious.
She looked me up and down once.
"You're Mason Donovan," she said.
"I was."
"Walk with me."
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