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.