For her appearance at the Culture of Humanity by Jedediah Angel show at Highway 1 in Chelsea, Vanessa broke her tradition of wearing only black and borrowed Ruby?s red scoop-neck top with three-quarter-length sleeves. It was the same top she?d worn once before and gotten a lot of compliments on, probably because it was so low it revealed her soft, pale cleavage and a hint of her black lace bra. Vanessa had arrived late because her sister had insisted she take a cab, and of course the cab had gotten stuck in the snow near union Square. While the driver yelled at the towing company on his cell phone with Lite FM blaring from the speakers, Vanessa had jumped ship. When she?d finally made it to the club, her ears had been frozen solid and she?d looked like a walking snowball. The fashion show had already started and she?d been sure they?d turn her away at the huge garage door that served as an entrance, but when she?d given her name to the girl at the door, a security guard with a flashlight had been appointed to personally escort Vanessa to her seat in thecenter of thefront row . The chair had a card taped to it with CHRISTINARICCIcrossed out in black marker and VANESSAABRAMSwritten in instead. Vanessa had never felt so special in all her life. The room was dark except for burning white foot-high candles lining the runway on either side. Models dressed in navy blue above-the-knee sailor dresses with white piping and gold buttons at the lapels held foghorns to their lips as the sound of a terrible storm at sea boomed out of the sound system. The white wall behind the runway was lit with a single spotlight, and on that wall was projected the New York film essay Vanessa had sent to NYU. The film was black and white and it took on a sort of nineteen-forties classiness paired with the models? sailor dresses. And even though everyone there seemed to be taking this whole bogus fashion-at-sea thing way too seriously, Vanessa had to admit it was pretty cool to see her film up there in lights. The wafer-thin woman next to her flipped open her PalmPilot and typed in,Brilliant backdrop , with a long red fingernail. She was wearing an ID tag on her camel-colored cashmere sweater with the wordVogue printed on it, and her brown hair was cut in a short bob with thick, bronze-highlighted bangs. She continued to type.Note: Ask Jed where the film came from. Vanessa considered nudging her gently and saying, ?I made it,? but she decided it would be more fun to stay quiet and see what happened. Maybe someone would detest the film and make a big stink about it and Vanessa would become known as the infamous filmmaker whose bitterly honest portrayal of New York had been a real downer at Fashion Week. She wondered how Dan was doing at the Better Than Naked show. She imagined him asking that hot new Brazilian super-model?Anike, or whatever her name was?for a light without even knowing who she was. That was the thing Vanessa most loved about Dan, his divine innocence. The film came to the part where she?d filmed two old men wearing matching red-and-black plaid wool jackets and black wool caps playing chess in Washington Square Park. One guy?s head bobbed against his chest, his burning cigar perched precariously on his sagging lower lip as he began to fall asleep. The other guy snapped his fingers to make sure his partner was asleep before moving the chess pieces around and nudging his sleeping friend awake again. Inside Highway 1 the sounds of the storm faded and boisterous big-band music began to play. A giant cardboard boat was hauled onto the stage by muscular male models pulling thick white ropes and wearing only simple navy blue briefs. The boat came to a stop and the gangplank was lowered. Out came the models, two at a time?there must have been a hundred of them, and how had they all fi............