The Herd(3)
“Except that someone broke in last night, right? A vandal.” I followed her back into the brightness. “Aren’t people freaked out?”
She leaned in, lowered her voice. “Babe, most people don’t know. But it’s weird, you need a bunch of different keys to get in. I don’t even have them all. And the security camera in the elevator, it’s motion-activated—no footage from last night.” She paused in front of the lipstick wallpaper, the makeshift police tape, then ducked and ran past it like a slapstick ninja. I stifled a giggle and followed.
“Eleanor will be so mad if she sees us,” she hissed, leading me into a room and fumbling for the light switch.
“So will my sister,” I replied as the lights blinked on. Hundreds of them: vintage-looking bulbs ringing six oval mirrors, a purple stool perched in front of each, the countertop lined with Gleam beauty products. I knew Mikki had done the graphic design on their packaging, jade-green words on a dove-gray background. I was about to reach for a lipstick, as entranced as a magpie spotting something shiny, when movement in the mirror made me turn around.
Mikki was staring at the back wall, her arms crossed. I followed her gaze up to where the striped mauve and white wall met the ceiling: black spray paint, deliberate bubble letters.
UGLY CUNTS
“Someone really sucks at writing positive affirmations,” I said after a moment.
Mikki whipped around and smiled. “Some jealous idiot. Probably a dude all enraged that there’s five thousand square feet on the surface of the planet he’s not allowed to dominate. Maybe someone from the Antiherd.”
“?‘The Antiherd’?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a secret online hate group dedicated to Eleanor and the Herd. Or that’s the rumor—I haven’t seen the message board. You heard a group of guys tried to sue us for violating antidiscrimination laws earlier this year? Word is that was organized through the Antiherd.”
“Gross.” But interesting. My journalist antennae went up—there was an article there. Just as quickly, I dismissed the thought: It was a topic Eleanor and Hana would never, ever let me cover. I looked around the room again. “No cameras?”
“None. Ask Hana about that.” She flapped her hand. “Eleanor said someone’s wallpapering over it tonight. She was so horrified by it she wouldn’t even tell me what it said. She hates the word.”
“What, ‘cunt’? Weird they used it, then.” I cocked my head. “Actually, I guess it’s not that weird. It’s the worst thing you can call a woman.”
“You can’t be here.” I jumped and we both turned to see Aurelia, the chatty member relations coordinator, glowering in the doorway. She blanched when she saw Mikki’s face. “I mean—the Gleam Room is closed for the day.”
“Just needed a little Gleam Cream.” Mikki strolled into the hallway.
“Sorry you had to see this,” Aurelia said to me as we strode back into the main room. She smoothed the tape onto the wall behind us. “And just let me know if you need anything.” I sent her off with a wave.
“Are you hanging out today or just meeting with Eleanor?” Mikki asked.
“I’m planning to stay.” I trailed her to the corner where her MacBook and bag were spilled across a loveseat’s cushions. Her backpack gaped and a whole jumble of shit was slipping out, as if trying to sneak away: tampon, Blow Pop, vape pen, set of X-Acto knives, glue stick, what appeared to be a fun-size can of Mace. “I mean, if Eleanor lets me.”
“If I do what?” The throaty voice rang out and I whirled around, wearing a big openmouthed smile. “Katie!” she cried, and wrapped me in a hug. I closed my eyes and felt our necks against each other’s, our hair touching, a real hug.
She stepped back, her palms still on my shoulders. “It’s so good to see you, my dear. You look fantastic.”
“So do you,” I replied. And she did, like Entrepreneur Barbie: shiny brown hair in mermaid curls, skin dewy, eyes clear. I looked over Eleanor’s shoulder and saw that Hana had returned; both she and Mikki were beaming.
I’d met Eleanor and Mikki when I’d visited Hana at Harvard, back when I was a gangly high schooler in awe of the smart, sassy women my big sister had befriended in the dorms. I flew to Boston every few months, feeling extremely adult as I navigated the airport alone, and they’d always treated me like their collective little sister—movie nights and Ben & Jerry’s at first, supervised frat parties when I was a little older. I’d moved to New York for college, right as Eleanor, gutsy Eleanor, sashayed into Manhattan, Mikki a few months behind her. (Hana, on the other hand, had inexplicably returned to L.A. after graduation, irritating me to no end—but about three years ago, Eleanor had convinced Hana to move to NYC. Now we were all where we were supposed to be.)
Back in 2010, when I myself was a freshman at NYU and my sister and her friends were newly minted Harvard alums, Eleanor had begun luring in investors for her first venture: Gleam, an ethically sourced cosmetics line, back when the natural-beauty industry was still shedding its patchouli-scented skin. Because she’s brilliant, Eleanor had done everything right with her fledgling beauty company—founding a crisp, airy lifestyle blog that quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of devotees, investing in pop-ups instead of retail space, creating a public persona that felt personable and real but not oversharey or gauche.