“After costing you a few hours of work time today, I think the least I can do is let you have my coffee cup,” I joked.
He laughed and then helped me carry the portable clothing rack and all the garment bags filled with incredible pieces out to his car.
“How in the world did you get all this done so fast?” he asked in amazement.
“I work fast when I’m inspired,” I answered.
“You must be pretty damn inspired,” Arlo said under his breath.
After we had gotten everything into the car, I slid into the passenger seat, and Arlo stopped to look at me before starting up the car.
“What?” I asked when I saw that he clearly wanted to ask me something.
“How were you going to get all that stuff into Manhattan on the subway?” he asked. He was looking at me as if I were some sort of alien with my nose in the wrong spot on my face.
“How do you think I got it all back to my apartment to begin with?” I said. “I drove the garment rack carrying all the clothes in garment bags straight onto the train. Trust me, it wasn’t the strangest thing most people have seen on the New York City subway.”
Arlo laughed as he started the car and then glanced at me with a look of astonishment. “You really are a lot more ingenious than even I gave you credit for,” he said. “Or crazy.”
4
Chapter Four (Arlo)
Driving to work with Hensley was more of a treat than an inconvenience. Now that I knew she was all right, my stress level had knocked down several notches, and I was able to relax. I didn’t know why I had flown into such a panic when I hadn’t heard from her. It was just so unlike Hensley to not show up at work, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything at all until I knew that she was okay. I wasn’t at all upset about the fitting running late. Honestly, it would probably be good for those models to have to wait on someone besides themselves for a change. They could all use for their egos to get knocked down a few notches, too.
During the drive into Manhattan, Hensley and I talked about the runway show for a while, and then our conversation got sidetracked into a million other random whims, as it frequently did between the two of us. The drive over the bridge was my favorite part of the commute because she stared out at the water for a bit and then had a musing about the “wide-open world.”
“Wouldn’t it be cool,” she said as she looked out at the reflection of the city buildings onto the water, “if one of these designs ended up reaching someone way on the other side of the world? Like if someone saw it and was so inspired that it caused them to then create something else that might not have even had the idea to exist before?”
“That’s a super deep thing to say,” I commented.
“Yeah,” Hensley mused. “Sometimes, I think my head is just screwed on differently than most people. I’m not always sure if that’s a good thing, to be honest.”
I glancedooked over at her, and she had a faraway look in her eyes. “Hensley, anyone who values their craft more than they value money or fame, is a true artist. That is way more important than any of the rest of it. I think your head is screwed on perfectly. It’s the rest of the world that needs some adjusting.”
She looked over at me and smiled.
When we got into the office, my secretary already looked frazzled enough to quit on the spot.
“You have to get in there,” she said as she raced up to meet me at the door. “They’re all acting as if they’re going to faint, or quit, or both.”
I rolled my eyes and sucked in my cheeks as I braced for an afternoon of dealing with these self-absorbed supermodels. Honestly, this group of models gave their entire profession a bad name. There were plenty of beautiful models that were genuinely nice and down-to-earth people. I needed to reevaluate who I put under contract after this show was over. It just wasn’t worth the negative energy that they brought to the brand. No face was pretty enough for that.
Hensley walked alongside me, pulling the garment rack with her as we went into the large design room that I used for the model fittings. My secretary had been right; the models were dramatically draped over the tops of the tables as if they had been waiting for a century instead of a couple of hours.
“Oh my God, you’re finally back,” Kerynne whined as she poked Cai to get him to sit up from his sprawled out position lying on top of one of the tables. “It’s not like we haven’t been waiting for hours or anything.”
“Yeah,” Cai added on to her sentiment. “I normally don’t agree with Kerynne, and I normally don’t complain—”
“You complain all of the time,” Kerynne interrupted him.
“But,” he continued, “these outfits better be fabulous after I’ve wasted my morning in this corporate box of a building.”
My building didn’t feel like a corporate box at all. In fact, it was one of the most innovatively designed buildings on the block. These guys just wanted something to whine about since they had to sit here for a bit without being entertained. I saw my secretary standing in the doorway, waiting for instructions about how to handle them, so I sent her to fetch sparkling waters and some imported dark chocolates as compensation for making them wait.
“All right, everyone, well, we’re here now, and Hensley has some amazing things for you to try on. Spread out a bit, and she’ll get you all dressed and fitted. Two costume changes each, starting with Kerynne and Cai.” I then took a step back and handed things over to Hensley. I was more than a little curious to see how she was going to handle this crew. I almost felt a bit bad to throw her to the wolves, but she would need to be able to handle the models on her own at the runway show, so this was a good test.
I was impressed by how quickly she had things ready to go and was already running from model to model, trying to dress them all. She didn’t seem to balk at the obvious lack of modesty the models had or how they acted like spoiled children in need of constant attention. She had both Kerynne and Cai dressed within a matter of seconds of each other. She was going to be a natural with the quick changes on the runway.
“This is poking me,” Kerynne said as she flicked a section of dark-green tulle that was lying against her breast. “What is this supposed to be, like moss or something?”
“Here,” Hensley said as she set down the headpiece that she was trying to adjust for Cai in order to go tend to Kerynne’s emergency.
Kerynne acted as if the lightly touching tulle to her skin was akin to the end of a match that was burning her flesh. She was by far the most dramatic of any of the models that I had ever worked with. If she hadn’t been so beautiful, I would never have hired her. Plus, this group was a bit of a package deal. They were all friends socially as well as colleagues in the modeling business. They traveled like a pack, a bit like the clicks of popular kids in high school. They tended to accept jobs together and walk out of jobs together. If I lost one of them, I would lose them all.
“Ow!” Kerynne hollered at Hensley as Hensley was carefully trying to tac down some of the fabric's overreaching ends.
“I didn’t even touch you yet,” Hensley said.
Kerynne slapped her hand away. “You did. And my skin is worth more than your entire brain, so you’d better be more careful.”