by Zoey Dean
Anna didn't have an answer; at least not a handy one that she could package into some nice sentiment.
"I appreciate the help you gave me with Champagne. I really do. But my father didn't get to be who he was by holding hands and singing 'Kumbayah.' He did it by being himself. I say, learn from the best." Cammie nodded, as if approving her own words. "Want to help me break the news to Champagne?"
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"Honestly? No. But I'll do it anyway."
"Know what? Don't do me any favors."
Cammie stood. Then, just as the princess had done
moments before, she turned on her black Charles David
heels and walked away.
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Umm. . . What Goes Under This?
"Mr. Rittennouse?"
There was a half hour until the show was to begin; Cammie had just spotted her favorite designer of the evening over by the backstage refreshment table. He was wearing a black tuxedo that was surely of his own design, with a purple polka-dotted bow tie and matching cummerbund, plus a thin black man-bag that was obviously more accessory than useful.
The designer turned around and offered Cammie a friendly grin. "Yes? That's me."
"I'm Cammie Sheppard. One of the organizers tonight." Cammie exaggerated only a little. "And one of the models. I just wanted to introduce myself."
Rittenhouse offered a hand as manicured as any Cammie had ever seen. Fortunately, he eschewed clear nail polish--a fashion disaster on any man. "It's a pleasure to meet you. How did you recognize me?"
"I've seen your photograph. I just wanted to say, I think you're showing the best clothes of any designer in the show. In fact, it's not even close."
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"I'm flattered," Rittenhouse said. "Very flattered, in fact."
"No need to be. I'm sure you must already know it. But it's not egotism if it's true," Cammie assured him.
The designer laughed. "I guess not. Will you be wearing any of my clothes?"
Cammie shook her head. "No. But a--a girl I know will."
Whoa. She'd almost said, "a friend of mine." That would have been overstating the case just a little bit.
"Pity. Well, perhaps someday you will."
"I hope so."
Cammie swallowed, and glanced across the backstage area. Champagne was fifty feet away, over by the clothes racks. Now was the time. She'd had a setback with Lizbette. No doubt about that, no need to call it anything other than what it was. Yet her father had told her many times--if you get turned down on a project, make another phone call right away. It's the only way for an agent to keep any dignity, because agents get turned down all the time.
Well, she was Champagne's agent now. And this was the equivalent of making a phone call.
"Mr. Rittenhouse, I was wondering ... if you would consider a model I represent, to do some work for you, in the future."
Rittenhouse raised his eyebrows. "Who?"
Cammie pointed quickly toward Champagne. "Her."
Rittenhouse frowned. "She's beautiful. But so short."
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Cammie was prepared for this. "She's five-foot seven. She'd be perfect if you ever decided to do a petite line. You could call it . . . Martinette! That would be--"
"No. No petite line," Rittenhouse declared, in a way that closed the subject. "I'm still trying to establish myself in couture." He looked at his watch. "If you'll excuse me, I need to meet some friends who are waiting for me. Have fun tonight, Cammie. Thank you for the kind words."
As Rittenhouse moved off, Cammie sagged a little inside. It had been the longest of long shots. She hadn't really expected Rittenhouse to say yes.
"Fifteen minutes, everyone! This is your fifteen-minute call!"
Virginia Vanderleer bustled around the fashion show's crowded backstage area in the museum gallery, making sure everyone knew how close they were to showtime. She'd given up on the ladies-who-lunch theme and donned a black taffeta Ralph Lauren skirt and gold brocade jacket.
The past three hours had been intensely hectic. So hectic, in fact, that Anna hadn't had much time to think about Caine, who she hadn't talked to at all since their encounter at the Firehouse.
She hadn't called him, he hadn't called her. Now he was standing in front of her, and they got through a quick hello before two of Mrs. Vanderleer's assistants
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arrived. Caine had been hustled off to the guys' changing area for some quick last-minute work on one of his outfits, while Anna was brought to the hair and makeup arena.
There, she'd been done in the same radical sixties look as at Raymond's salon, except that her stylist here--a plump, frizzy-haired, exceptionally enthusiastic older woman named Nicole--had actually drawn exaggerated lower lashes on the skin below her eyes, then showed her a photo of a skinny sixties fashion icon named Twiggy who had made the look popular. Close to the mirror, the inked eyelashes looked appalling, but from a distance of ten feet or so they gave her an appealing, wide-eyed look.
From styling, a dresser helped her into her first show outfit, by an up-and-coming Italian designer with the unlikely name of Guglielmo DiGiacomo. There were black leather pants, very wide at the bottom--evidently called "elephant bells"--with black velvet lace-up granny boots (although the nearly four-inch heel on them definitely did not scream "granny") and a very fitted red paisley jacket with a Nehru collar.
Her second outfit would be by Martin Rittenhouse, a very short black satin dress tucked under the bust. Anna much preferred it to the DiGiacomo, though the Italian designer was far better known.
"Ten minutes! Ten minutes, everybody!" Mrs. Vanderleer was now running around like the town crier.
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Anna's stomach did a somersault. She was equal parts excited and nervous. On the heels of Mrs. Vanderleer's announcement, the backstage stress level rose another notch--people were hollering, shouting, and bitching at each other. Anna opted for a quick pit stop in the ladies' room. What could be worse than being caught on the runway with a desperate need to go?
Falling on her face. That could be worse.
Fortunately, the backstage area of the gallery had its own small restroom, so she hurried into one of the stalls and peeled out of her bellbottoms. When she was done, as she was washing her hands, she was surprised to see Champagne dart into the next stall. Anna could have sworn that Champagne was wearing the short black Rittenhouse dress that was supposed to be her own second outfit.
When Anna came out of the restroom, there was another surprise. Caine was just outside the door, wearing a black Lycra T-shirt under a Hugo Boss black jacket with a silk screen of a large skull on the back, and black jeans so tight that Anna wondered if they posed a threat to his reproductive future. So tight, it was difficult for her to keep her eyes on his face.
"How are you?" She winced inwardly because she sounded way too much like her mother--pleasant, cool, removed.
"Extremely uncomfortable, actually," he admitted. "The jeans are a killer."
"So . . . you didn't mention that you'd be here."
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"I'm kind of a last-minute replacement. You think I should have called you." He gave her a half-smile.
"It would have been nice. But ... I thought a lot about what you said the other night."
This wasn't easy. Certainly her mother would have pretended that nothing had happened, that she hadn't actually seen the guy with whom she was involved at a place called the Firehouse wearing jeans, suspenders, and nothing else.
"And?" Caine asked.
She looked at the wall clock. Five minutes to showtime. She couldn't draw this out. "I decided you were right. You had no responsibility to tell me about your part-time job. I don't own you." She shrugged. "I don't even know you that well," she admitted.
He gave her a very direct look. "Do you want to?"
"Really know you? I do," she replied.
Caine smiled. "Good. You understand that this is no reflection on our relationship."
"I do." The p
roblem was hers, not Caine's.
"Well, great--"
"Showtime!" Cammie hurried over to them. Her first runway outfit was a bottle green minidress with green fishnet hose, and brilliant orange satin shoes with a green platform and heel. She looked Anna up and down. "I will only say this once. You look hot."
"I'll second that," Caine said, giving Anna a sexy half-smile. He turned and nodded at Cammie. "You too."
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"Thanks, Tattoo Boy," Cammie purred. "I barely recognized you with your shirt on."
"How's Champagne doing?" Anna ventured.
"Depressed. Can you blame her?"
"Showtime! Showtime!" Mrs. Vanderleer was in shout mode again, waving her well-toned arms for all the models to line up--guys to one side, girls to the other.
"After the show?" Caine asked Anna, as Cammie moved off.
"I'd like that."
She took her place with the other girls near the extension of the catwalk that penetrated from the audience side of the gallery under the red curtain and into the backstage area. Mrs. Vanderleer had placed assistants on both sides to send the models out when they were called. To make things go more smoothly, two big-screen closed-circuit TV monitors had been erected so everyone could see what was happening on the other side of the curtain. Right now, they showed a thick crowd of people trying to find their seats. Anna felt herself hoping that her father was out there. She rather doubted he would be, though, since he'd been more stoned than Gibraltar when he'd mentioned going.
"Hi." Champagne stepped over to her. Anna saw she wasn't wearing the black satin dress at all. Instead, she had on aquamarine velvet knickers and a skinny ribbed poor-boy
T-shirt under a short purple leather motorcycle-style jacket, with a newsboy cap perched at
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a rakish angle on her head. She looked absolutely stunning.
"Hey. How are you holding up?"
The younger girl managed a sad smile. "It doesn't pay to get excited about things. You just get your heart broken."
"I know you're disappointed," Anna commiserated. "But it's not the end. It's just one job."
"I really thought she liked me."
Cammie eased over to them. "She did like you, Champagne. She just made an incredibly stupid decision."
Champagne smiled sadly again. "Cammie's a lot madder than I am. It was a great opportunity. I should thank you too, Anna."
"You are very welcome." Once again, Anna thought how much she liked this plucky girl.
"Showtime! Showtime! Twenty seconds to showtime!" Mrs. Vanderleer crossed the line from overdrive to hyperdrive. Then her prerecorded voice came over the public address system. "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our mistress of ceremonies for tonight's very special fashion show, the star of the hit TV drama Hermosa Beach, Ms. Pegasus Patton!"
The audience applauded. The hostess for the evening would be the lead young actress from the hit TV series packaged by Cammie's father. Anna had met her, when she'd briefly worked as an intern for Clark. Pegasus, who played a lovely girl named Alexandra, was in reality
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a very unpleasant human being. But she was also one of the hottest young actresses in town. Sam had told Anna that Pegasus would be wearing a gown made by a Peruvian acquaintance of Eduardo's, a designer named Gisella Santa Maria. It was black, strapless, and richly embroidered--Anna thought it was gorgeous.
Evidently, Gisella had been unhappy at first that the only representation of her work would be on the MC. When she realized that Pegasus would be photographed in the gown, and that the photos would end up in In Style, and girls and women all across the country would be clamoring for Gisella Santa Maria couture, she'd happily agreed.
Pegasus started her preshow spiel. "Thank you so much! I'm so happy to be here this evening, to help raise money for the New Visions foundation, which helps at-risk kids. The children are our future! Do it for the children!"
Cammie sidled over to Anna and mock-stuck a finger down her throat as if to say, Pegasus makes me gag.
Anna bit back a laugh--Pegasus was far from her favorite person. "Probably she's just nervous," she whispered to Cammie.
Cammie rolled her eyes.
Pegasus prattled on. When she was finally done, the show began.
Early Beatles music blared through the sound system, to go with the sixties theme, and the show began, with Pegasus reading the name of the designer and a
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description of each outfit off small cards. The guys went first, so Anna took a moment to check out the crowd on the monitors. She saw the young district attorney who'd brought Cammie and her to New Visions in the front row--he was with a drop-dead gorgeous redhead wearing black Armani. There were a few semi-stars of stage, TV, and screen near the catwalk. Behind them was Sam, with Eduardo on one side of her and Parker on the other. And a row behind them, sat Dee, Jack . . . and Ben.
Anna felt a little bolt of electricity in her stomach. She hadn't invited Ben, hadn't known he'd be here. Yet--
"Ladies, get ready! Ladies, ready!"
Mrs. Vanderleer was backstage again and ushered them into place. Anna saw that Caine was now on the catwalk. When he reached the T, he took off his black jacket and slung it over one shoulder so the tattoos on his muscular arms showed. The camera panned the crowd; Anna could see Dee whisper something to Jack, while Ben's jaw was set in a hard line.
With the first pass of guys concluded, Pegasus announced the female models. Cammie burst through the red curtains like a sexy surprise package and did the model strut--one foot lifted high to come down directly in front of the other foot--as if she'd been doing it her entire life. At the end of the runway, she did a three-sixty turn, whipping her hair over one shoulder. Raymond's people had added some clip-in
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green hair extensions here and there, which oddly enough looked great against the strawberry blond curls. Parker put two fingers in his mouth and whistled; Sam and Dee were grinning. But the mine-doesn't-stink model look never left Cammie's face.
Daisy went out next, in a psychedelic blue, green, and red flower skirt, with a bright red baggy-sleeve top. Then Mai, wearing a sleeveless drop-waist pink-and-white polka-dotted dress, and a matching hat. Anna got ready and her heart thudded as Pegasus introduced her outfit. She had never had any desire at all to model. The idea of being stared at or examined felt oddly invasive; as if all the people looking at her could see not only her flesh, but her thoughts, too.
So it wasn't with a sense of fun that she heard the music switch to something by the Yardbirds, and she took her first steps onto the runway. She knew she wasn't supposed to actually look at the audience, but she couldn't help but glance down at Ben, Dee, and Jack. Dee applauded. Jack gave a big thumbs-up. Ben? He was absolutely inscrutable.
She kept her eyes dead ahead as she made her turn at the T and headed back upstage. And then, thank God, she was behind the curtain again. One down, one to go. She hustled over to the costume rack and looked for the black Martin Rittenhouse dress, but it wasn't there.
She looked again and then checked the other racks. Nothing. She checked out the other models to see if maybe someone had put it on by mistake. The last
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thing she did was look for Champagne, since she'd thought maybe she'd seen her wearing the Rittenhouse in the bathroom before the show started. Champagne had already been dressed in a hot pink vintage peasant blouse and elephant bell jeans, and said she had no idea where the dress was.
"Anna? Why haven't you changed?" Mrs. Vanderleer hurried over, her tone of voice akin to that of someone asking why Anna had just made a cat call at the president. "Where's your second outfit? Put it on. Put it on!"
"I can't find it!"
"Well, you have to find it. It's everyone's favorite in the entire show."
"I looked for it on my rack, and on the other clothing racks--"
Mrs. Vanderleer didn't wait for the rest of her answer. She grabbed two of the backstage assistants
and told them they had exactly two minutes to produce the Rittenhouse dress. "Anna, get undressed so you'll be ready when we find it."
Anna scurried back to the changing area and handed the black leather pants and the jacket to yet another assistant, then pulled on the white silk blouse she'd worn to the fashion show so that she wasn't just standing around in her Jolie white silk lace bra and bikini panties. She looked up at the monitors. They had started the second shift of guy models and she was still standing there half-naked.
Two minutes turned into three, and three into five.
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Mrs. Vanderleer hurried back to her. She thrust something at Anna. "This is the backup emergency outfit. Put it on."
Anna took a look at what she'd just been handed. It was two pieces. One was a dress of white chiffon, very short and totally see-through. The other was what looked like a matching wedding veil. "Um, excuse me, but. . . what goes under this?"
"You."
"I can't wear this with nothing underneath!"
"It's the alternate Rittenhouse outfit, that's all I can tell you. And you're supposed to be the grand finale of the show."
"Wait, wait! This goes under it." One of the assistants, a petite redhead, rushed over to them with a matching white lace corset.
Anna stared at the ensemble. "You're kidding."
"You can do it. I'm counting on you." Mrs. Vanderleer turned to the assistant, her hands practically in a begging gesture. "Help her. That's why you volunteered."
Don't think about it, Anna told herself. For once, just do it.
She pulled her silk shirt over her head, turned toward a clothing rack for at least a semblance of privacy, and poured herself into the corset, leaving on her own panties. Over the top went the gossamer dress, and then one of the assistants fastened the veil to Anna's hair, anchoring it with bobby pins. All the while, Mrs. Vanderleer was urging them on.
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"Hurry, hurry! You're next!"
And then Anna was through the red curtain and on the catwalk. The audience gasped over the music--the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction." Was it a good gasp or a bad gasp? She had no idea. But two things she did know. First, that her mother would rather eat glass than step onto a catwalk in what Anna was wearing at that moment. Second, that Caine regularly worked wearing a whole lot less than this, and he was probably watching her right now on the monitor.
