Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk

Author:Chuck Palahniuk [Palahniuk, Chuck]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-385-53804-6
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

The gray Manhattan streetscape oozed by outside the limousine windows. President Hind shut her eyes for a moment and kneaded her temples with her fingertips, as if she were suffering a migraine.

“First he makes you famous,” the president said in a weary voice, “so famous that you can’t show your face in public.” From that first paparazzi snap, she claimed that Maxwell had hired the press to hound Penny. He’d stoked the public’s curiosity. He’d created the circumstances that left her trapped at home. Hind smiled ruefully, knowingly. “Eventually, the only place you feel safe is at his penthouse. He isolates you. He becomes the only person you can trust, and he provides the only comfort you know.”

The tabloids that seemed to vilify him? According to President Hind, Max owned them all. He’d acquired them a few years back, when journalists started to dig a little too deep. With this arrangement, as secret owner, he could publish red herrings. He libeled himself with outrageous stories, providing a smoke screen to hide the real truth while undermining the credibility of all news media.

“Even if you discover the truth about Maxwell,” the president warned, “you’ll never be able to make it public. No one believes anything they read about him, not any longer.” Apropos of nothing, Hind muttered as if to herself, “I never wanted to be the president of anything.”

En route to the United Nations building, the president’s cell phone rang. Settled into the leather seat, partitioned from the driver by a soundproof panel, Penny held her tongue and looked out the tinted window.

“I’m trying to reason with her,” Hind told the caller. “Please don’t take any action.” She paused a moment, eyeing Penny. “No, I’d never tell her. And even if I did, she wouldn’t believe me.”

Without hearing a word on the other end of the discussion, Penny knew the caller was Max.

The motorcade moved through the streets, unhindered by traffic lights or competing vehicles. As they passed Bryant Park, Penny glimpsed a long line of people standing, waiting to enter a shop on Sixth Avenue called Bootsy. For the most part, the same consumer demographic that had gone nuts for Beautiful You was now swarming to buy a new style of shoes. It was a trend Penny couldn’t understand. To her, the shoes were clunky and ugly, with wide straps across the arch and thick heels, but some group dynamic had taken hold. The same block of women, nationwide, was making a banal romance novel about vampires into a megabestseller.

The president ended her conversation and pocketed her phone. Her attention drifted to the crowds of women waiting to buy shoes. “My relationship with Maxwell started like any other addiction,” she reflected. “It was fun. I was your age. At the time I thought Max was everything I’d ever need in the world.”

There was something tragic in her face as she talked about her younger, naive self. Her voice was heavy with self-disgust. “I trusted him.”

Penny shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

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