Anna

The first thing Anna said to me in any kind of meaningful context was that she wasn't going to take pictures of my sex robot. That was at Sasha's dinner party when I suggested Amber might make a good photo subject. She's a photographic artist — Sasha shows her work at the gallery — and she made clear she had standards about who and what she'd put in front of a lens.

I'll give her this much: at least you always know where you stand with Anna Vasquez.

Nobody seems to know exactly where she came from. The accent is more Barcelona than anywhere else, but you don't ask. She's pretty, cultivated, doesn't suffer fools, and has enough social currency through Sasha that she doesn't need to be nice to anyone she doesn't want to be nice to. Both of them are divorced. Both of them have reached certain conclusions about men. I won't editorialize on their arrangement, except to say it seems to suit them.

She turns up wherever Sasha turns up, which means I've been in the same room as her more than I'd have chosen. She and Sasha have a way of finding out things they shouldn't know — the kind of information that doesn't stay contained, that moves through the social ecosystem and lands somewhere with consequences.

Anna Vasquez is not someone to get close to. That's what I know about her, and it's pretty much all you need to know.

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