Falling for Grace

by Kate O'Keeffe

  She raises her eyebrows at me. “No time for that right now. Go. Change, you two.”

  “Right. Of course.”

  I remove the bra and hand it to her, grateful I’m finally free of it.

  Tiffany and I make our way through the throngs of models, dressers, and performers to our dressing area. Is it just me or are people looking at me, talking behind their hands? My blush deepens. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. I messed up on a grand scale.

  To my immense relief, the remainder of the show goes ahead without a hitch. Thank God. I have two more changes—an architectural-looking cross between a butterfly and a yacht, and a mermaid-style dress made entirely of twigs held together with twine—and manage to stick to the choreography perfectly, despite my nerves.

  Each time I reach the spot I fell my heart rate surges. Although I try not to look at Mr Sexy Knight—Sam Montgomery—my eyes have other ideas. He’s like some kind of sensual magnet, drawing me in to him.

  I catch him looking straight back at me, a smile on his handsome face. My heart almost leaps into my mouth. I force myself to look away and into the darkness behind.

  Just focus on your job—and on getting out of here alive.

  With the grand finale over and the lights down, we make our way backstage. At tonight’s awards night, the judges pick the great and the good from the vast array of wearable art. If one of my designs wins, I’ll be back out onto the stage with the designer when they collect their award.

  Kari catches me as I leave the stage. “Good job out there, Grace.”

  “Thanks. I kind of needed to make up for my, ah . . . hiccup.”

  “Well, you need to get back into the bra, hon. Your design won the Bizarre Bra section.”

  “Sure. No problem.” I try my best to appear unfazed.

  Kari must catch the mortified look on my face. “You want me to ask someone else to do it for you?”

  “No, no. Thanks. I ought to do it.”

  “Okay. Change time.” She turns to Tiffany and starts talking to her about her section winner.

  Lost in thought I make my way over to Sammy Jo.

  “Here you go. All fixed and ready to rock and roll.”

  I examine the bra in her hands. You can do this, Grace.

  “Err, thanks.”

  “Turn around, let’s get you out of this one.”

  I turn my back on her, lost in thought. I can almost feel Sam’s arms around me, holding me close against him, his heart beating against mine, as I gaze into his—

  “Grace!” Sammy Jo’s insistent tone brings me back to the present.

  “What? Sorry.”

  “Can you lift your left arm? I’ve only asked you like a gazillion times. You okay?”

  “Yes. Fine. Just, you know.” I lift my left arm as instructed.

  She shoots me a quizzical look before extricating part of my body from the itchy twig concoction.

  A few minutes later I’m back in the fateful ‘Racy Rubber’, preparing myself to go out onstage when the winner is announced.

  I don’t have to wait for long.

  “And the winner of the Bizarre Bra section is . . . ‘Racy Rubber’ by Felipe Hernandez from Miami in the United States of America!”

  The music kicks in as the crowd applauds.

  Kari flicks my switch. The traffic lights flash and the cars begin their dance. “Go,” she instructs. “You’ll be fine.”

  With trembling limbs, I step out onto the catwalk, praying to all things holy my bra stays put this time. As I make my way around the side of the stage, modelling my heart out, I hear an uproarious cheer erupt from the audience, complete with foot stomping and catcalls.

  I can’t help but grin from ear to ear.

  I spot the designer, a small, tubby man who’s dressed like he just stepped out of a Dr Seuss story, accepting his award in the centre of the stage. I head towards him, not knowing what reaction to expect. Will he despise me for wrecking his big moment?

  He’s beaming from ear to ear, punching the air, clearly loving the raucous applause from the audience.

  I catch his eye and smile shyly at him. “I’m so sorry about what happened, Mr Hernandez.”

  He lets out a laugh, throwing his head back. “Sorry? Sorry? You’ve got to be kidding me, kitten. We’re the talk of the night. I love you!”

  He reaches up and grabs me by the shoulders, pulling me down about two feet to his level. To my surprise he places a large, sloppy smacker on my lips with a loud ‘mwah’. The cheering escalates and he grabs my hand, waving it above his head in response.

  I let out a relieved laugh, looking around the auditorium as the cheering persists.

  The MC tries to regain control of the proceedings. “Ladies and gentlemen, Felipe Hernandez.”

  He doesn’t want to leave the stage.

  “Ah, thank you, Mr Hernandez,” the MC repeats.

  Still holding my hand aloft Felipe takes a bow, before standing back and gesturing for me to do the same. After a moment’s hesitation, I too take a bow, enjoying the applause.

  “Wonderful. Yes, just wonderful. Thank you both.” The MC turns to face us, shooting us an imploring look.

  Ignoring her once more, Felipe takes another bow, pulling me down with him.

  “Ah, I think we should leave,” I say out of the corner of my mouth, a smile plastered to my face.

  “Leave? Ha! This is the best night of my life. I’m not leaving.”

  He skips—yes, skips—around me like I’m some sort of maypole, pausing only to blow kisses to the audience left, right, and centre.

  By this stage the MC looks like she’s liable to blow a gasket. Any control she had over the proceedings has evaporated into the ether.

  I need to take some action. Fast. I grab Felipe’s hand, grinding his skipping to an abrupt halt. I suggest he take one final bow—which he does in an ostentatious flurry—after which I pull him along behind me.

  After a final burst of skipping, bowing, and shimmying, I pull him behind the curtain. Kari doesn’t say a word as she raises her eyebrows at me, crossing her arms. Designers don’t usually get to come backstage during a show. I guess I’ve messed up. Again.

  “I had to do something, Kari. He wouldn’t get off the catwalk,” I plead

  Kari and I turn to look at Felipe. He’s like a child in a candy store, waving and simpering at all and sundry.

  He catches my eye. “Come here, you great Amazon.” He grabs me and pulls me down for another wet kiss.

  “Get a room!” someone shouts.

  Felipe throws his head back, laughing. “She’s not my type.”

  He spots Rangi, one of the buff dancers, wearing little more than a loincloth. Felipe is by his side faster than you can say man-in-heat. “Ooh, but you are. Hello, sailor.”

  Of course he’s as gay as the audience at a Kylie Minogue concert.

  Kari places a hand on his shoulder and he jumps a clean two feet in the air. “You. Out.”

  As Kari’s not the kind of woman you mess with, I watch with relief as Felipe does as she says—not without pinching Rangi’s butt and blowing me one final triumphant kiss as he leaves.

  Chapter 2

  I’M LOOSENING OUT MY hair from its high bun, having already removed my thick makeup, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

  “Oh, honey. Are you all right?” my mum asks, her voice full of concern.

  That’s right, my parents were in the audience tonight. They would have witnessed my mortifying ‘look world, here are my nipples’ fall along with the rest of the auditorium. How humiliating.

  I take a deep breath before turning to face her.

  She immediately collects me into a hug, muffling my voice as I say, “I’m fine, Mum.” I glance at my dad, shoot him a smile. “Hey, Dad.”

  Dad, the more reasonable, less prone to overreact of my parental duo, returns my smile, standing back to allow Mum to fuss over me. My parents divorced when I was only two. The man I call Dad is in fact my stepfather
, although he’s been more of a father to me than my actual dad by a country mile.

  “Let me have a look at you,” she says.

  I stand back as she takes me by my upper arms, scanning my face. “Oh, I can see a scratch.” She scans my body. “Bruising? Sprains? Anything broken?”

  I laugh. “Of course I didn’t break anything. I could hardly have finished the show if I had.”

  “Adrenaline can do a lot of funny things to a person, can’t it, Roger?” Mum asks, turning to my dad for back up.

  “Yes, it can, Jennifer,” he replies, still smiling.

  I shoot him a look.

  “Who was that rugby player, Roger? The one who had one of his balls ripped out of his scrotum during an All Blacks’ game but kept on playing?”

  “Mum!” I protest.

  “The mighty Buck Shelford. Had one of his balls ripped out in a ruck against the French. He had it stitched up and went back to play. He lost four teeth as well,” Dad replies, all misty-eyed. “What a guy.”

  I feel decidedly ill.

  “Look, Mum. There’s no need to worry. See?” I hold out my arms and brandish my legs at her. “All still here, all still fine.”

  She heaves a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness for that. You had us so worried, didn’t she, Roger?”

  “Yes. So much so in fact your mother was up and out of her chair almost before you landed on that man. I had to stop her from tearing down to see you.”

  I blush. “I hardly landed on him, Dad.” I shift my weight uncomfortably from foot to foot.

  “And what if I did want to go down and see her?” Mum sniffs. “She’s my baby girl. And thank goodness for that man and his strong arms! Imagine if he hadn’t been there?” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  Ever since Mum was diagnosed with breast cancer she’s erred on the side of drama queen when it comes to matters of health. Although her treatment has been a success and she’s now officially cancer-free, the experience has made her more than a little skittish whenever anything happens to any of us kids.

  “Hey, Dylan,” I say to my teenage brother, standing with his hands jammed into his pockets, head bowed as he looks through his lashes around the room. I follow his gaze, noticing some of the models are only half dressed.

  This must be teenage boy heaven.

  “Hey,” he mumbles back, his cheeks so hot they’re almost purple.

  “Dylan was worried about you too, weren’t you?” Mum prods.

  “I guess,” he replies without even so much as glancing at me.

  Convincing, Dyl.

  “He buried his head in his hands, he was so upset. You couldn’t look, could you?” Mum wraps her arm around his shoulders in sympathy.

  I chuckle. “Thanks, little bro. I didn’t realise you cared so much.” I give him a playful punch on the arm.

  “You love your sister, don’t you Dylan?” Dad adds.

  “Well, yeah, that too. But also her . . . you-know-what’s popped out when she fell. I didn’t need to see those.” He gives a small shudder.

  Embarrassed, I pull the edges of my leather jacket together over my chest. “Sorry about that, Dyl.”

  Tiffany approaches our awkward family reunion, looking gorgeous in a white shirt and black leather pants. “Ready to go, Grace? Oh, hey Mrs M, Mr M. Hi, Dylan.”

  Dylan blushes so hard he looks like he might spontaneously combust. “Hi, ah, Tiffany,” he murmurs.

  In his embarrassment, he turns around and starts to fiddle with one of the wearable art creations hanging on the rack. He notices it’s the ‘Racy Rubber’ bra, recoils a full foot before jamming his hands back in his pockets and looking down at his feet.

  “Hello, Tiffany. You were wonderful tonight,” Mum says. “But then you are every year.”

  “Thanks, Mrs M.” Pleased, she turns to me. “We’re heading over to Kakapo’s now. Coming?”

  “Sure. I’ll catch you up.”

  Tiffany turns to leave. “See you later, Dylan.” She flashes her beautiful smile in his direction before sauntering off in her high heels.

  I’m sure I hear one of Dylan’s blood vessels explode as he watches her leave.

  “Thanks for coming to see me. As you can tell, I’m totally fine. Just embarrassed, I guess.”

  “It happens to the best of us,” Dad says, leaning in to give me a farewell kiss on my forehead. “Well, not falling off the stage, virtually bare-chested, into the arms of some poor guy, but you know what I mean.”

  I laugh despite myself. “Yeah, I do.”

  Mum collects me in a hug. “Take care of yourself, honey. And we’ll see you on Wednesday for dinner as usual.”

  * * *

  Tiffany’s leaning back in her seat at the bar, wine glass in hand, regaling the story of my fall. “As I said, she’s got to be the luckiest cow in the whole goddam country right now. Of all the people’s arms to fall into she got to fall into Sam Montgomery’s. Sam Montgomery for chrissakes.”

  I roll my eyes, ignoring the looks from my fellow models. “Yeah, that’s right. It was good luck I fell off the stage, hurt myself, and risked my job. Tiff, you have one weird perspective on things, you know that?”

  “Oh, come on, babe. You met Sam Montgomery. He’s gorgeous! Here, check him out.” She pulls her phone out of her bag and starts to scroll through it. “What do you say to that, hmm?” She turns the phone towards me.

  I glance at it and give a noncommittal shrug. “Sure, he’s cute.”

  “Cute? Are you serious? He’s hotter than a summer in Arizona. Check out that hair, those washboard abs, those eyes.” She sighs, looking off into the distance. “God, I wish it would have been me instead of you.”

  I push the memory of his eyes out of my mind and shoot her a grin. “If I could wind back time I would gladly give you the opportunity to humiliate yourself in front of thousands of people rather than me.”

  “Ha! Just like Sam does on Portal 51. He travels through time.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her. “He travels through time?”

  “Yeah, he does,” Sammy Jo adds with enthusiasm. “There are witches and aliens and stuff. Right now, he’s in Medieval Spain, only there are dinosaurs there too.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her. “Dinosaurs in Medieval Spain.”

  “You have to see it,” Sammy Jo replies.

  “You both do know it’s just a TV show, right? He’s not actually travelling through time.”

  “Yes, I get that. Thank you.” Tiffany’s voice drips with sarcasm. “Clearly the encounter was wasted on you. If it were me I would have made the most of it.”

  Sammy Jo shoots me a knowing smile. Tiffany’s reputation as a huntress of the males of our species is not without justification. “Shame for you then, Tiffany, that he’s practically engaged.”

  “He is?” I squeak, giving myself away. Damn.

  Sammy Jo narrows her eyes at me. I pick up my glass of wine to take a large swig, hoping she doesn’t ask any questions. I’ve known Sammy Jo since high school. Hiding something from her is nigh on impossible.

  “You don’t read trashy mags either, do you?” Tiffany asks. “What am I saying? Of course, you don’t. You only read boring stuff.”

  Sammy Jo is still watching me.

  “Sometimes I do,” I reply, hoping my Minnie Mouse impersonation has gone unnoticed. “But I’ve never seen him in one.”

  “She reads, she sews things, and all she watches is documentaries. She’s a total geek.”

  “Thanks, Tiff. Why are we friends again?” I shake my head at her, smiling. It is a fair description of me, after all.

  Tiffany and I met when we modelled at the WOW several years ago and became roommates soon after. We’re like chalk and cheese, but somehow it works.

  I glance down at my top. I designed and sewed it myself last weekend. This is its first outing and I feel cute and pretty in it.

  “Sam Montgomery has got a real cult following. He’s not
a big Hollywood star yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Here.” Tiffany brandishes her phone at me again, virtually knocking her red wine all over me in her enthusiasm.

  To avoid further ribbing I take it. I’m met with an image of the guy who caught me, looking like James Bond in a tux at a red carpet do. He’s tall and broad, his tux hinting at the muscular frame beneath.

  Standing next to him is one of the most beautiful women I’ve seen in my twenty-four years on this planet. She’s slim, petite, and fine boned, with an almost ethereal air about her, as though angels sing choruses of Hallelujah wherever she goes. She’s dressed simply in a strapless cream dress and pair of gold pumps, her hair swept into a loose up-do.

  I can see why they’re together. They look . . . perfect.

  “Is that his girlfriend?” I ask pointedly, turning the phone around so everyone can see the image.

  “She was at the table with Sam. I’m surprised you didn’t see her.” Sammy Jo looks at me over the top of her glass, gauging my reaction.

  I shrug. As beautiful as she is, all I saw was Sam. But I’m not about to tell Sammy Jo that. “It all happened so fast. I barely remember what the guy looks like, let alone who he was sitting with.”

  So, it’s a big fat lie. Who’s keeping score?

  I feel arms wrap around me from behind. I turn and come face to face with Rangi, the object of Filipe Hernandez’s interest. “Hey. I hear you went for a trip. Everything still in working order?”

  “Yep, all good, thanks Rangi. And it was nothing.”

  He plonks himself down onto the leather stool at my side and Tiffany instantly jumps onto his lap.

  Rangi and Tiffany have been friends for years—with benefits whenever they’re both single. I’ve always thought they would make a fantastic couple.

  “We’re just talking about the fact she landed in Sam Montgomery’s arms,” Tiffany says.

  “He’s the guy from that sci fi show, right?” Rangi asks.

  “Exactly. Little Miss Nose-In-A-Book here had no idea who he is. But isn’t he cute?” Tiffany proffers her phone at Rangi.

  He glances at the photo, dismissing it in an instant. “Quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” He smiles his sexy model smile.