Chapter 39

YENA

It was not how I’d expected to spend the night before the show. Fucking and fighting with Nolan.

I figured I’d be up obsessing over the work, finding something to mess with and maybe mess up at the last minute. All the drama at least distracted me from thinking about all that.

Next thing I knew my alarm was going off in the morning. Nolan was in the shower. I went in after him and he left the room without looking at me.

I was getting dressed when he came to tell me he was leaving. He walked up from behind me and put his arms around me and kissed my cheek.

“You’re going to be great,” he said, making eye contact with me in the mirror.

“Thank you,” I said. Neither of us tried a smile. The air in the room was thick.

I turned around before he could leave and looked him in the eye directly.

Nolan opened his mouth and froze. I could almost see the words trying to fight their way out of his mouth.

“I just want you to be safe,” he said. It seemed like he’d been about to say something else but thought better of it.

I said, “I know.”

He stooped to kiss me. The second our lips touched, a wave of relief washed over me. It felt like a sip of water after being thirsty for hours.

“Call me before the show if you have time,” he said. “I’ll answer if I can.”

I nodded.

“And I could take you out to dinner later, if you’d like.”

“That sounds great.” I smiled.

His face stayed solemn.

“Think about where you might like to go,” he said, pushing a loose curl behind my ear. “Whatever you want.”

Then he kissed me on the forehead and was out the door.

The Arts Building was crawling with people. This was our event of the year. Everyone was here.

Designers, models, families, friends. And just about every student in our school.

I got to enjoy another princess perk when the sea of people parted quickly as Lucy and I approached, flanked by the four Gamma warriors that Nolan had insisted keep close to us during the event. That kind of stuff felt good sometimes, especially here at school.

Backstage it was total chaos, all bright lights and voices and commotion.

The competitors and models were all set up at stations, each with a vanity and a trifold mirror. We found our place and started setting up our stuff.

Lucy seemed just fine and was getting started on her makeup in a flash. I became very focused on trying to stay calm and act cool, without accidentally talking aloud to myself.

I looked around at my competition.

There were probably forty models swarming around in various stages of undress. It occurred to me all of a sudden that I was going to need to change right here in front of them.

I knew that was how this would work. But I just hadn’t thought about it.

I’d been so focused on thinking about being in front of the crowd. At that point in the fantasy, I was already dressed.

But this. This was the reality and it was happening fast.

Lucy shook my shoulders and gave me a big smile. “You’ve got this. Let’s get going.”

I was lucky to have her.

She did my makeup and then we separately started on our hair. Then Lucy was shrugging off her clothes and getting into the first look in the collection.

Neither of us looked like the other models in here, with their flat stomachs and long, skinny legs. But Lucy looked smoking. Especially as she got herself sorted into the skirt and top, which of course were tailored perfectly to her curvy body, and looked amazing on her.

I thought about that wrinkly old lady judge I’d talked to at the sign-ups, and the thing she’d said about models having to be tall and thin. That lady was going to be here today.

I shook my head and started getting dressed. Maybe it would be fun to see the old lady’s face when Lucy and I got out there and proved her wrong.

As long as everything went alright.

“Oh no,” Lucy said quietly.

“What?” I looked up at and saw her eyes were roving around the room. She suddenly looked panicked, after being so calm and collected all this time.

I followed her gaze. The other models were all dressed, zipped up and buttoned into the other designers’ collection pieces.

“You are going to win this,” Lucy said, not sounding happy about it. “And then I’m actually going to have to hold up my end of our deal and tell Adan how I feel about him.”

Just as I was dressed, ready, and feeling pretty good about myself, Susan appeared next to our station, elbowing her way through the backstage crowd. She was looking me up and down and smiling.

“Susan,” I said. “Figured I’d see you here.”

She rolled her eyes like I’d said something stupid.

“You should have quit, like I told you to.” Susan took a step toward me and made a motion like she was about to touch the sleeve of my dress, then recoiled her hand before it made contact.

Lucy snapped to attention. “What did you just say to her?”

Susan ignored Lucy. “Where’s the other model? You can’t compete with only two designs.”

I almost laughed.

Suddenly I realized that my plan for getting away with only having one model, instead of two, might be even more fun to pull off than I’d already been imagining.

A smile spread over my face that might have looked a little wicked, because Susan started looking uneasy. I winked at her and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

She replied, sounding matter of fact, “You’ll be disqualified.”

“I think time’s up now for your audience with the princess,” Lucy snapped, stepping in between me and Susan.

Susan just sneered and narrowed her eyes at Lucy.

“The both of you,” Susan continued, raising her voice above the commotion all around us, “are about to wildly embarrass yourselves.”

“How dare you,” Lucy snarled. “You should be bowing to your future queen.”

I saw in Susan’s expression that what Lucy said scared her a little. Susan’s eyes darted to the stage exit, where one of my guards was standing. He was watching us.

Susan lowered her voice enough to be sure only Lucy and I could hear her.

“It just amazes me that you are a princess now, and yet you still made your collection from such cheap fabrics. Must be because you grew up poor. I guess you can take the girl out of the gutter, but you can’t really take the gutter out of the girl.”

Just when it seemed Lucy was about to physically attack Susan, she dipped back into the crowd and disappeared.

Lucy turned around and looked at me wild-eyed.

They started making announcements on stage. There was still a ton of racket, but now people were starting to quiet down, both backstage and in the audience. The show was starting in just a few minutes.

A production assistant wearing all black rushed over and handed me a folded piece of paper. It was my randomly selected position in the lineup. I was going to be the very last designer to show my collection on stage.

That meant we’d be waiting for a while.

The first group went up to stage right, getting ready to go on.

Lucy sat back down at our station and returned to fussing with her eye makeup. I crept over to stage left and pulled the curtain open just a tiny sliver, so I could peek out at the runway and the audience.

The theater was packed. Every seat was taken, and lots of people were standing at the back and along the side walls as well.

The house lights dimmed. The audience riled a little with cheers, then quieted down as neon pink and blue spotlights started circling the stage, and the music started to play.