I set down Cai’s garment bag along with the empty one that didn’t have Kerynne’s dress in it since the dress was still on her, and I started to dismantle the vines and branches from the backdrop.
“What are you still doing here, all alone?” Cai’s voice came from behind me.
“Cai,” I said. “I thought you already left.”
“I did. But then I realized that I had left my wallet in the dressing area and I need it for the bar. Where is everyone else? Where’s Arlo?”
“He went to take Kerynne home,” I answered.
Cai chuckled. “Can’t believe he fell for that,” he said.
“For what?”
“For Kerynne’s fake fainting-spell act.”
“You knew she was faking?” I asked.
“Of course, wasn’t it obvious?” he said.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I thought it was, too. Not sure why Arlo didn’t pick up on it.”
“Maybe he did.”
That didn’t make me feel any better.
“I’ll help you with this,” Cai said as he set down his wallet on the table by the garment bags and walked over to help me take down the trees.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I thought you said you had a party to go to.”
“Eh, I have a party to go to every night,” he shrugged. “It won’t hurt for me to be a little late to this one.”
“Thanks,” I smiled. I had no idea that Cai even had a generous and kind side. Maybe some of these models weren’t so bad if you got to know them.
“You should come out to a party with me some time,” he said as he pulled a section of the tree down off the backboard.”
“I’m not really the elite-party type,” I said.
“How do you know? Have you ever been to one?”
“Honestly, no,” I answered.
“Then, you should come with me tomorrow night.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Cai grinned. He still had all his makeup on from the photoshoot. He was going to look magical at whatever party he was going to tonight.
6
Chapter Six (Arlo)
As if having to carry Kerynne’s ass back to her apartment last night and then waiting for her as she painstakingly removed the dress that I needed weren’t painful enough, I felt awful about making Hensley stay after the shoot to clean up the stuff I should have been able to get done myself.
When I woke up in the morning, I was already in a foul mood. After I got home last night, I had texted Hensley, but it was already late by the time I had finished with the Kerynne debacle and gotten back to my apartment. Hensley didn’t answer. This was a little bit strange since she was usually a night owl, but I just assumed that she had fallen asleep. Later this afternoon, I would see her when I went to her workshop at F.I.T. to see how the design production was coming along for the rest of the line and to deliver the dress for the runway show back to her. When I walked into the Luscious building, things started to go horribly wrong nearly as soon as I stepped inside my office.
First, my secretary came in and told me that the date for the runway show got moved up. I told her that was impossible to do since we were already on a too-tight deadline, but she said that the booking rep from Madison Square Garden had called and said they had a conflicting booking and that one of the shows had to be rescheduled. I called them back immediately and argued that we couldn’t reschedule the runway show without suffering a terrible grievance, but since the other booking was a high-grossing pop-star performance, we got the shit end of the deal and had no choice but to either push the date up or wait another month. There was no way we could wait another month for the show, not when the clothing line was supposed to hit retail shelves soon. I had no choice but to accept the sooner date, which I feared would be impossible to meet.
As if that weren’t a big enough blow already, then I got word from Kerynne that two of the other models were dropping the show—one male and one female. When I asked her why, she gave me some vague answer about how they were going off to chase another dream or some nonsense. Apparently, their “dream” wasn’t aware of the legally binding contract that they had signed. Regardless, I needed to figure out what to do for the show. I knew of a male backup model that I could call, but all of the female models I usually worked with were currently busy with other gigs. This was a disaster, and it had all been going so well up until this point. I decided to leave work to go meet up with Hensley early. I needed to see how far along with things she was and if she would be able to accommodate the pushed-up date for the runway show.
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,