Falling for Grace

by Kate O'Keeffe

  I pull a beautiful blue satin skirt off the hanger, absentmindedly rubbing the material between my fingers.

  It’s no big deal, he said. They’ll understand. I let out a heavy sigh. I hope he’s right.

  I jump as my phone rings in my back pocket.

  I take a deep breath, forcing my brain to switch into professional mode. “Hi, Jess. I’m here at the shoot with the clothes, ready to go.”

  “Thank you so much, Grace. The morning sickness gremlins have hit extra hard today. I don’t think I’ll make it,” she replies, her voice croaky.

  She wants me to manage the shoot alone? Sure, I’ve assisted Jess a couple of times already but never been the sole stylist on set.

  “Right. Okay.”

  Sensing the glaringly obvious lack of confidence in my voice, Jess replies, “You’ll be fine, Grace. You know what we’ve put together and you’re good with people. You’ll have those models styled and ready for the photographer no problem.”

  “Absolutely. Don’t worry. I’ll manage everything,” I reply in a self-assured voice belying my nerves.

  “Damn straight you will. I’ll send you the photos we mocked up.”

  Her faith in me bolsters me. “Lucky I had all the clothes and accessories with me. I’ll be fine. You go throw up.”

  She laughs. “You can be sure of that. Speaking of which, sorry. Gotta go.”

  I hang up and turn to the rack of clothes. I let out a puff of air.

  Time to focus, Grace. You’ve got a job to do here.

  My phone beeps as Jessica sends through the outfits she and I planned for the shoot. I busy myself with putting clothes in groups, ready for the models while they’re in hair and makeup.

  Once finished I step back and survey my handiwork. Not bad, Stylist’s Assistant, not bad.

  I hear a raised voice coming from next door. “No, I don’t look good with my hair like this. See?”

  I put my head around the corner and watch as one of the models pouts into the mirror. Her bottom lip is actually sticking out, making her look like a sulky toddler.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, walking into the small room.

  “This… person,” the model begins, gesturing at the hairdresser, “is trying to make me look like I haven’t washed my hair in, like, a year.”

  The exasperated hairdresser turns to me. “I’ve tried to reason with her.”

  I shoot her a sympathetic look. Having dabbled in modelling myself I know how some photo shoots can be.

  “I’m sure you have, Jill. I’ll have a chat. Why don’t you grab a coffee? Come back in five?”

  She shoots me a grateful look and leaves the room faster than a bullet from a shotgun.

  I turn to the model. “Right, Jolene.”

  “It’s Shailene, actually. You know, like the movie star?” She hasn’t looked at me yet, too enamoured of her own reflection, despite her hair.

  I sigh. Models.

  I plaster on a bright smile. “Sure. Shailene. Look, I know this hairstyle might look bad to you right now, but believe me, once we get your makeup on and you’re dressed you’ll look amazing. The whole concept will really make sense.”

  Unconvinced she crosses her arms and pouts.

  When she doesn’t respond to my coaxing, I ask, “What do you say? Can you trust me on this?”

  She somehow manages to tear her eyes away from her own reflection and looks up at me. She narrows her gaze. “Hey, I recognise you.”

  I do an internal eye roll.

  “Yes, I’m the stylist today, Grace Mortimer. We met when you arrived?”

  “No, I mean I’ve seen you before.”

  “Oh, really?” I let out a nervous laugh.

  I look away as a blush heats my cheeks, pretending to busy myself with whatever I can find in the hairdresser’s tray. I stab myself under the fingernail with a hairbrush and let out a yelp.

  She perks up in her seat, watching me. I, on the other hand, want to shrink to mouse size and scurry away.

  “Oh, my god! You’re the girl who had an affair with Sam Montgomery, right? I, like, never forget a face. It’s one of my talents.”

  The heavy stone returns to my belly at the mention of Sam’s name.

  Here we go again.

  “No, I think you must have me mixed up with someone else,” I reply, rearranging the brushes and combs, willing Shailene to shut up.

  She ignores my response. “I can’t believe it. What’s he like? Is he as hot in person as he is on TV? God, I totes love Portal 51, don’t you? Like, for reals. And his new movie’s out soon, right? I so can’t wait for that.”

  “Yeah, he’s a good . . . ah . . . actor and . . . stuff,” I bumble.

  A grin spreads across her face. “You’re the one who fell off the catwalk and squashed him, aren’t you? Did you hurt him?”

  She’s not letting this go. Knowing the game’s up, I reply, “I didn’t squash him, exactly, he—”

  She interrupts me, a look of utter glee on her face. “Oh. My. God. I can’t believe it’s you! I’ve got to tell the girls.” She picks up her phone and bangs out a quick text before I have the chance to stop her.

  “I’d really prefer if you didn’t do that,” I protest, sounding completely ineffectual, even to my ears.

  “Hey, can we take a selfie?”

  “A selfie? No!”

  She shrugs. “Suit yourself. I have thirteen hundred and seven followers on Snapchat. Just saying.”

  Officially meeting my limit, I turn on my heel and head to the door. “I’m going to fetch Jill. We need to get on with this shoot.”

  Oblivious to the fact I’m halfway across the room, Shailene continues, “They call you a home wrecker, but you’re not, are you?”

  I force a laugh. “No, of course I’m not.” I continue to walk, reach the door.

  “Because if you were a home wrecker they wouldn’t be engaged, would they? It was just a one-night thing with Sam, right?”

  Hand on the doorknob—freedom was so close—I stop and turn. “They’re… what?” My voice is almost a whisper.

  Unaware of my emotional crisis, she rambles on. “Sam and Vanessa. They’re engaged. I think they’re fabulous together. Don’t you? They’re both so good-looking, so hot. They just kind of work, you know? They will make beautiful babies. Like, defos.”

  Sam and Vanessa are engaged? My mind races thirty miles in one second. I know it’s all part of the charade, that they’re not really engaged. But he didn’t tell me they were going to have a sham engagement too.

  Does that mean they’ll have a fake marriage? Pretend kids?

  Shailene scrolls through her phone until she reaches the relevant article. “Here. Totes gorgeous, right?”

  On autopilot, I walk back to her seat and take her phone. The headline screams at me: Sam and Vanessa: We’re engaged!

  It’s accompanied by an image of Sam, his arm wrapped possessively around Vanessa’s shoulders. They look tanned, happy and relaxed on a sandy beach somewhere. Hawaii, maybe.

  They look in love.

  Sam’s smiling eyes gaze out at me. Although they’re so familiar, suddenly they look like they belong to someone else. Someone I don’t know.

  My tummy twists into an uncomfortable knot.

  My rational brain tells me to hand the phone back, ignore what it says, and get on with my day. It’s all a ruse. I know that, Sam and Vanessa know that.

  But the world doesn’t know.

  I’m embarrassed when I feel tears sting my eyes. Shailene begins to list off hot Hollywood couples, Vanessa and Sam being right up at the top. Naturally. Luckily, she’s too focussed on her own reflection she doesn’t notice my tears.

  I let her words wash over me.

  I take a deep breath. Time for a major pep talk, Grace.

  I remind myself Sam’s not with Vanessa, even if Shailene and the rest of the planet think they’re the ‘best couple, like, forever’. Sam loves me. He wants to be with me.

  But I can�
�t tell her that.

  Sure, I can talk to my family about us, allow them to share in our happiness, let them know just how much he means to me. How much I mean to him. But now he wants them to sign a document telling them they can never talk about him and me. That I can’t, either.

  Old fashioned trust doesn’t seem to be enough.

  I shake my head. Sam’s worth it, worth every last inch of this pain.

  I just need to keep reminding myself that.

  Chapter 26

  AFTER WHAT FEELS LIKE an interminably long photo shoot—with Shailene pouting and sulking half the time and the other model complaining incessantly about her—I head down the street to my car, weighed down by the suitcase of clothes.

  I’m so deep in thought I brush straight past a shady looking man, lingering outside the studio, smoking a cigarette.

  “Grace!”

  I stop in my tracks. I turn and look at him. “Yes?” I ask tentatively. “Do I know you?”

  He has a vaguely threatening air to him with his dark clothes, lurking in the shadows. I take a step back from him, my apprehension rising.

  “Nah, but I know you.” His voice is rough, like he’s smoked fifty cigarettes today. He pulls out a camera and takes a shot, blinding me temporarily with the flash.

  “Can I get a comment from you on Sam and Vanessa’s engagement?”

  “What? No!” I turn on my heel and walk with speed towards my car, cursing the heavy suitcase in my arms.

  He’s hot on my heels. “So, you’re not happy about it, you want him back, and you’ll do anything to have him in your bed again. Yada yada yada. Right?”

  I swing around to face him. “Leave me alone,” I say, my voice controlled, firm.

  He smirks at me. His teeth are yellow, his long, wiry nasal hairs curling down his face almost to his top lip. “Just give me a statement and I’ll be on my way. It’s as easy as that, love.”

  Through gritted teeth I say, “No comment.”

  He sniggers. “I’ll just go with what I said then. And, ah . . .” He peers at my belly. “Maybe you’re carrying his love child?”

  I waiver. If I give him a statement maybe he’ll print it and not his ludicrous story. Then again, maybe he’ll do whatever sells.

  “I can see you’re thinking about it, love. Good girl. Tell Uncle Horace all about it.”

  As I look at him I know the fight has gone out of me. Sam’s cancelled our trip to Hawaii, he’s keeping me a secret for who knows how much longer, and he wants my friends and family to sign a confidentiality agreement saying they won’t talk about us.

  “Okay,” I concede. “Here’s my statement: I’m happy for them both. I wish it was me marrying him, but it’s not. I’ve moved on. All right?”

  He chuckles. “Come on, you can do better than that.”

  I look at him and my shoulders slump. Why should I bother? I don’t live in Sam’s world. I don’t belong there. Being followed by paparazzi, reading about what I’ve allegedly done—okay, some of it was alarmingly accurate, some complete tosh—seeing Sam and Vanessa’s smiling faces adorning magazines at the supermarket checkout.

  It’s too much.

  “Give me something more.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet. “I’ll pay you for a topless shot.”

  I widen my eyes in shock, anger rising in me like a launched rocket. “A what?”

  His eyes drift down to my chest. “You know, tits out and all that. People love that sort of stuff. Keep your fifteen minutes of fame going for a bit longer. Chicks like you leap at that sort of thing.”

  Chicks like me? My fifteen minutes of fame? Is he freaking kidding?

  Okay, I’ve had enough now. I’m going to blow.

  I drop my suitcase and take a step towards him, brandishing my finger at him. “I never wanted any of this. You think you can make entertainment stories out of people’s lives, make them out to be angels or villains, whatever you need them to be, with no care whatsoever for the effect it might have on them.”

  He shrugs, a smile that looks more like a grotesque sneer on his face. It only serves to infuriate me further.

  “All you care about is selling your trashy stories and your tasteless photos. Well, I’ve had enough!”

  He dismisses me with a nonchalant wave of the hand. “Whatever, love. You can get on your high horse all you like, it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference to me. I know you. I know your type. You’ll play all coy, trying to be classy, but deep down inside, you’re a media whore, desperate for attention.”

  What happens next is not exactly my best moment. I won’t be boasting about it to my friends any time soon, my family won’t share it proudly around the table, and I don’t imagine my grandchildren will ever hear about it.

  In a hot red rage, I pick up my suitcase and fling it wide, eyeing my target. Before he has the chance to duck for cover I swing it right into him, knocking him sideways. He staggers, tries to right himself, staggers some more. The contents of the suitcase spew out all over the sidewalk.

  “What the—?” he exclaims as he falls with a heavy thud to the ground.

  I drop the now empty suitcase, instantly bringing my hands up to my face as I watch him, lying prostrate on the sidewalk.

  What have I done?

  “You dirty little whore,” he growls from the ground. “You’ll pay for this.”

  My rational brain takes over where Crazed Grace left off.

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Please, please forgive me.” I offer him my hand to help him up. He flicks my hand away and pushes himself off the ground to a standing position with all the grace of a heavily pregnant elephant.

  “Forgive you?” he spits, brushing down his grubby clothes.

  He leers at me, his face mere inches from mine. I can smell cigarettes and stale coffee on his breath. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, bracing for what’s to come.

  “I’m not going to forgive you. I’m going to nail you to the wall, missy.”

  My blood drains down to my toes.

  His threat delivered, he lumbers off down the street, back into the shadows.

  I stand where he left me, incapable of moving, surrounded by clothes and shoes. It looks like some kind of fashion bomb just went off, with me standing at its centre, bewildered and utterly alone.

  * * *

  I wake the following morning with a splitting headache after a fitful sleep, filled with dreams of woolly mammoths chasing me through a supermarket as I try not to spill pyramids of canned goods on the floor.

  Not entirely unexpected considering my current state of mind.

  I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling. I let out a heavy sigh.

  What a mess.

  The article that journalist—as if the gutter press is worthy of such a title—will write will be nothing short of scathing. Everyone will see it and they’ll all think I’m some sort of a jealous psycho with violence issues who should be incarcerated in a looney bin for the good of society.

  I groan, scrunch my eyes shut. I bury my head under my pillow. I won’t think about it. I’ll push it from my mind, into a box I can stash at the back of my closet to collect dust. Easy.

  Although, it’s not easy. It’s the freaking polar opposite of easy.

  This man, whose full name I don’t even know, waited for me outside the studio to get a story about how I feel Sam and Vanessa—two other people who don’t even know him. It’s insane. And people want to read this sort of utter crap?

  It does my head in.

  I never asked for this. I never invited these people into my life. But somehow, they’re here. Still.

  I pull my pillow tighter over my head and scream, hoping the bedding muffles me well enough not to wake my roommates.

  I scream and scream and scream, letting out all the anger, the frustrations, the sheer injustice of it all.

  Eventually, I run out of steam. Feeling marginally better I peek out from under the pillow—it was getting pret
ty hot under there anyway—and squint at the morning sun streaming through the window.

  I scrunch my eyes closed once more as an image of the forced smiles plastered across my friends’ and family’s faces pops into my head. I think about having to ask them to sign a legal document to ensure they don’t talk about Sam and me. They all signed it; I should be happy with that and move on.

  Something in my chest drops.

  My phone rings, jolting me into the present. I sit upright and rub my face in an attempt to be more like a high functioning human than the gibbering wreck I’ve become.

  I glance at the screen, hoping it will be Sam calling to remind me that it’s all going to be worthwhile. It’s Jessica.

  “Morning, boss,” I say brightly.

  “Hi, Grace. How are you?”

  “I’m great thanks,” I lie through my pearly whites.

  Maybe if I think it, I’ll be it?

  “Tell me, how was the photo shoot?”

  I tell her about how well it went in the end, despite the initial speed wobbles with Inquisitive Shailene, and suggest she check her emails to see some of the shots.

  “They look amazing! I love what you did with that dress.”

  “I hope you didn’t mind me changing a couple of things. Nothing major, of course. Tweaks, really.”

  “Well your tweaks worked. Well done, you.”

  My heart momentarily lifts at the compliment only to sink back down into the murky depths of my belly once more.

  “I’m feeling much better today, only thrown up three times.” Her voice is bright, happy.

  “That’s . . . ah . . . great,” I reply.

  “Let’s both go to the appointment this morning.”

  I groan inwardly. I forgot I have to work again today. I had kind of hoped I might get the chance to hide away from the world, maybe eat copious amounts of chocolate and watch reruns of old TV shows.

  Instead I reply, “Sure. Nine, is it?”

  “Yes. See you there. Oh, and can you drop the clothes from the shoot off to get cleaned?”

  “Of course. See you soon.”