by Lucia Jordan
As soon as I walked into the F.I.T. design studio, I could hear Hensley laughing. I’d know that sound anywhere. It was one of the things that I could remember even from the first day that we had met. I also heard another voice talking with her—Cai. I was stunned to see Cai here at her studio. I didn’t remember setting up any sort of model fitting for anyone. When I walked into the room, I saw a couple of the other models here as well. At least it wasn’t just Cai and Hensley, that would have sent me into a tantrum. I told myself that it was just because I needed Hensley to stay focused on work so we would meet this new deadline. But I kind of felt like there was more to it than that.
“Hey,” I said to Hensley as I walked in and handed her the dress.
“Hey,” she smiled. “Thanks! I’m glad the dress survived in one piece. How did it go with getting Kerynne home last night?”
“Long and tedious,” I said. “I texted you when I got home.”
“Oh, did you?” she said as she reached into her pocket for her phone. “Sorry, I think I must have missed it. I hit the alarm this morning and then just came right in to get started on stuff.”
“It’s fine,” I said. I was feeling slightly miffed, and I didn’t know why. I was supposed to be apologizing to Hensley for making her stay and clean up last night, and not getting annoyed that she hadn’t responded to my late-night text. I felt like my mood was definitely off today, for a whole host of reasons, and I was trying not to let it get to me. “How’s the production going?”
“It’s good,” she said. “Everything will be done right on schedule.”
“Yeah, so about that,” I said. “The schedule has changed.”
“What do you mean?” Hensley asked as she looked up at me.
“Apparently, there was a mix-up at Madison Square, and they were double booked. So our show got bumped up.”
“How much did it get bumped up by?” she asked.
“Next week.”
“Next week?” she said in a panic. “This isn’t all going to be ready by next week. Not unless you want to just do the runway show and postpone the roll-out of the line for another week after that.”
“No, we can’t do that,” I said. “It all needs to be ready by next week—the runway show, the line roll-out, all of it.”
“But Arlo, that’s going to be impossible.”
“Yeah, I know, but I have faith in you,” I said as I tried to sound positive but was having a hard time with it today,
I stood there and waited as Hensley went to pull out some of the samples to show me. I could hear Cai talking to some of the other male models behind me. I wasn’t sure what the three of them were doing here at F.I.T. today.
“What did she say?” one of the other models asked Cai.
“She said she’d think about it,” he replied. I could hear the prowess lining his voice. “Which means that she’ll come. Hensley hasn’t even been to one of these parties before. Trust me; she won’t be able to resist the chance to go. When I asked her about it last night, her eyes lit up.”
“You always think girls’ eyes light up for you,” the other model said.
Cai laughed smugly. “That’s because they do.”
“So, what’s your excuse for showing up so late to the party last night then?”
“I was helping Hensley take down the photoshoot backdrop.”
The other model sounded shocked. “You helped clean up? Why would you want to do that?”
“It wasn’t planned,” Cai said. “I had no idea she would even still be there. But once I saw how pretty and alone she looked, I figured I would stay to help and try to get a date out of it in the process.”
“What are you guys doing here, anyway?” I asked as I flipped around to interrupt their conversation. “You shouldn’t be here, hassling my designer, or do I need to remind you of your contractual obligations?”
“Relax, Arlo,” Cai said as if we were somehow buddies instead of my being his boss at the moment. “We aren’t hassling Hensley. She invited me. Besides, if you’re that bent on adhering to contracts, you might want to look over Henley’s contract again because I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in a designer’s contract about breaking down photoshoot sets after hours, just saying.”
I was getting ready to put him in his place, but before I had the chance to say anything, Hensley came back with the samples, and Cai and his friends turned to leave.
“See you tomorrow, Hensley,” Cai called to her over his shoulder as he walked out.
“Why was he here?” I asked her.
“Who, Cai?”
“Yes, Cai and his friends.”
“I’m not sure why his friends were here; I think they just came along with him. I asked Cai to come to try on his red-satin suit again. I made the adjustment for him and needed to make sure it fit. It was the last alteration that needed to be done.”
“The crotch adjustment?” I asked.
“Yep,” she said as she started to hold up one of the samples for me to look at.”
“And how was it? How was Cai’s crotch?” I could feel myself losing my temper, and I didn’t want to, not with her.
“Umm, that question sounded weird,” she said. “And a little aggressive. Everything okay?”
“No,” I shouted. I could tell that my sudden change in volume startled her. “Everything is not okay. The show is next week, and you’re not going to have any of this ready in time.”
“Arlo,” she said, looking upset. “You just told me about the pushed-up deadline like five minutes ago. I’ve been working according to the deadline you had already given me, and to be quite honest, I’ve been working even harder and faster than I needed to be in order to meet that deadline. If the deadline has changed, that’s not my fault. I’ll do the best that I can do to try to meet the new date, too, but there’s no reason to get mad at me about it. I’m not the one who changed the date.”
She was right. I knew she was right. But I couldn’t reign my temper back in once it had gotten out. I was angry about several things—the date change, the models dropping out, but mostly, I was angry about Cai, and that was the one thing that I couldn’t tell her I was mad about. I was furious that she had invited him here for a fitting without asking me first. I was irritated that he had invited her out to a party with him and that he had stayed last night to help her clean up. Most of all, I hated myself for asking her to stay late and putting her in a position where Cai would get to her.
But I couldn’t tell Hensley any of those things. I didn’t even know why I was so irate about them, to begin with. I wasn’t like she had done anything wrong. Hell, Cai hadn’t even done anything wrong. He had helped her, which was completely out of character for him, and he came to make sure his clothes were properly fitted for the show. I should be thanking him for both of those things instead of trying to run him out of the building. But the only thing I could express my anger aloud with was the runway show. The rest of it I had to keep inside. Unfortunately, that meant that I lashed out at my friend, who had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. And, instead of just stopping myself there and walking out to cool off as I should have, I had to take it one step further as if that would somehow help me feel better.
“You’d better hope you can get it all done in time,” I hissed at her. “This opportunity isn’t going to come up for you again.”
I saw the look of deep hurt and shock on her face, and then I turned to walk away before I started to beat myself in the head for being such an ass. That definitely didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel much, much worse.
7
Chapter Seven (Hensley)
I stood there in stunned silence after Arlo had left. I had absolutely no idea why he had gotten so angry with me. I knew he was upset about the runway show's changed date, but it seemed like there was a lot more to it than that. I sat down on my stool, and even though I tried not to get teary-eyed, I couldn’t help it. Things seemed like they had been going so great. I was on schedule, we had
the show and the roll-out to look forward to, Cai was finally coming around, and instead of being arrogant, he was actually helpful and cooperative. Everyone seemed to be generally on the same team—well, except for Kerynne, maybe. But now, my only friend, and the guy who just so happened to be holding my career in the palm of his hand, was ultra pissed-off at me for something that wasn’t even my fault. I didn’t know what to do. If the runway show was a flop, then it would negatively affect us all. I had to try to get everything done in time.
I got up and told myself that I would just power through it all. I would stay here at F.I.T. for the whole night since the workshops were open twenty-four hours, and I would make sure all of this got done by next week. If I focused hard enough on work, then maybe I wouldn’t think about how awful Arlo had just been. He was acting so confusing lately. One minute he told me that I was beautiful, and the next, he threatened to end my career for something completely out of my hands. He also seemed to have a giant chip on his shoulder about Cai, and I wondered why.
For a second, I thought maybe he was jealous of Cai, but that was obviously not the case since Arlo was madder with me than he was interested. I had heard Cai say something to his friends earlier about a couple of the models dropping out, so I figured that might have been adding to Arlo’s stress, too. But still, it wasn’t like that was my fault, either.
I grabbed my tools and started deconstructing one of the pieces. It wasn’t put together right and wasn’t going to translate well when it was mass-produced. I needed to make some changes to it to make the production faster and more fluent. I started getting mad while I was using the thread-puller to remove the seams. Who did Arlo think he was, coming into my workshop and yelling at me I front of the models who would be wearing my designs, over something that wasn’t my responsibility? He acted like an ass, and it made me mad at both him and at myself for not calling him out on it.
Now, here I was, working all through the night again while he was probably at home in his apartment with a relaxing glass of bourbon. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. I hurried to get the stitching pulled out even faster so I could get all this done in time for the new deadline; that would show him. It would show him that not only was I more capable than he gave me credit for but that I wasn’t intimidated by his raised voice and nasty attitude. I was so mad and trying to work so fast that the thread-puller slid out of my hand and cut a sizeable chunk out of the side of my palm. I howled in pain and turned around to grab a spare piece of cloth, but as I went to reach for it, I accidentally grabbed the dress for Kerynne to wear instead.
“Fuck!” I screamed as the tears started to roll down my cheeks.
“Hensley!” Cai called to me as he ran over to see what the matter was. “What the hell happened to your hand?”
“What are you doing here again?” I asked as I tried to bite back my cries. “Why do you keep showing up after hours? Are you stalking me or something?”
Cai laughed. “You wish,” he said. “No, I left my wallet again around here somewhere. It’s a really bad habit of mine that someday is going to wind up costing me my whole bank account, I’m sure. I need it to go out tonight, so I came back to get it.”
I felt like an idiot for accusing him of being a stalker. I clearly wasn’t thinking straight right now.
“Shit, you’re bleeding all over,” he said. He took off his T-shirt, which suddenly made me feel a bit better just because of the gesture and wrapped it around my hand. “Do you think you need stitches?”
“No, it’s looks worse than it is. I just need to bandage it up.” I started to cry again when I looked at the bloodstains on the dress. There was no way I was going to be able to get those out. I would have to redo the entire section that was damaged now.
“That’s a drag about the dress,” he said as he looked over at it. “Will you be able to fix it?”
“Yeah,” I said, sniffling. “I just really didn’t need another emergency to have to fix right now.”
“Ah yeah, you mean about the changed runway show date. Well, between you and me, I think Arlo was acting like an ass,” Cai said.
That made me laugh a little.
“He didn’t have any right or any reason to take his frustrations over that shit out on you.” Cai was right; he didn’t.
I dug out a first aid kit from one of the workshop cabinets and tried clumsily to get the gauze out.
“Here,” Cai said. “Let me help you.”
“Why is it that you seem to keep coming to my rescue?” I asked him.
“You’re just lucky, I guess,” he winked.
I held my hand out, which still had blood dripping everywhere as he unwrapped his shirt from around it. Cai cut and wrapped the gauze around it and then taped it all up so it was secure and wouldn’t bleed on anything else.
“So, do you need to like wash that dress now or something?” he asked.
“No, washing it won’t do any good. I’m going to have to remake that portion of the dress.”
“So it won’t matter if the dress sits there for tonight then?” he asked.
I looked at him in confusion.
“Come out with me tonight,” he said. “You clearly could use a break.”
“I can’t,” I said with a smile at the invitation. “I have way too much work to do now to meet this new deadline.”
“Come on,” Cai persuaded. “Your hand is injured, and you can’t tell me that it doesn’t hurt. It’s late; you’re upset; you’re not going to be very productive tonight anyway, and you know it. Come out for a little bit and have some fun for a change. You need to give yourself a minute to relax.”
“I’m not sure,” I said as I mulled it over. “I’m not really a club-type person. I don’t even know what I would do there.”
Cai smiled. I think he knew that he had already got me to agree to it. “You’ll hang out with me there, that’s what you’ll do,” he said.
I was already so mad at Arlo and so upset about tonight that I decided to accept Cai’s invitation. He was right; I did deserve a night to myself. I’d been working round the clock and doing jobs that weren’t even supposed to be mine to do. And now all the dates and rules seemed to have changed. Tomorrow I would go back to working feverishly on everything, but tonight, my injured hand and I would go out and have some fun.
“Okay,” I said. As soon as the word came out of my mouth, Cai grabbed my good hand and his wallet, and we headed out.
When we got to the nightclub, it was packed. Cai put his arm around my shoulders as we walked in, and a ton of the people there seemed to know who he was.
“Do you come here often?” I asked him above the noise of the loud music and crowds of people.
“It’s one of the places I come to regularly,” he said. “Come on, let’s dance.”
“I don’t really know how to—”
Too late. Cai pulled me out onto the dance floor in the middle of the gyrating crowd before I could protest. Just as I thought that I would need a drink in order to be able to even attempt dancing, a cocktail waitress showed up with a tray full of rainbow-colored shots. Cai pulled a blue one off her tray and tossed it back and then a violet one, followed by an orange one.
“They say you’re supposed to go in order of the colors of the rainbow, but I like being different,” he said as he lifted his head up and laughed. “Go on, have a few.”
“When do you pay for them?” I asked the waitress.
“No, darling,” she said. “These are on the house. Drink up.”
I took a red one from her tray and drank it in one big gulp. It was actually delicious.
“Can’t just have one,” the waitress said.
I saw Cai working his way through the colors.
“What the hell,” I said as I grabbed a yellow one and opened my mouth.
By the time I had taken each color, I was heavily buzzed, and the deliciously sweet taste of flavored shots lined my lips. Cai grabbed me by my waist and pulled me into him as he danced
against me. At first, I was a little worried that he was trying to molest me on the dance floor, but then I remembered that it was Cai, and Cai was just overly sexual. I didn’t even think he could help himself. Besides, it felt kind of good.
The entire club was like one big, wild party. We danced, we drank, we chatted about ridiculous and crazy things with friends of his. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed so hard. It was so much fun that I all but forgot about how miserable I had been earlier on in the evening. The alcohol was doing a great job of numbing my hand. When Cai and I got tired of dancing and our sweating bodies needed a break, we went to sit down on one of the comfortable loveseats in the corner of the bar area.
“This is so much fun,” I grinned at him as he plopped down next to me on the cushion and lifted my legs up to go over his lap. “Thank you for bringing me out here tonight.”
“You’re a natural here,” he smiled. “Like this is your element, and you just didn’t even know it. I’m glad you came out tonight with me; you needed it. I think you should come out with me more.”
“I’d like that,” I said. I meant it, too. This was the most fun that I’d had in a long time. I’d been working so hard that I almost forgot what it felt like to let loose a little.
“I have another idea for you, too,” he said as he pulled us two more drinks from the tray of a waitress passing by.
I wondered how this club made any money if all the drinks were free. I’d never seen a club like this before. There must have been something that I was missing.
