by Randi Rigby
“Because we’re all going to want to eat right before we have to walk,” A doe-eyed, olive-skinned girl with unnaturally white teeth said, shaking her glossy curtain of silky dark hair. Her cheekbones were so pronounced they looked like they could cut glass.
“Right?” I replied, mostly because I didn’t know what else to say. She probably was right. If tomorrow was anything like today my stomach would be in knots. “I’m Kel, by the way. You looked incredible in that silver strapless number. I really liked the shoes they paired it with.”
“Thanks. I’m Cara. They’re pretty but they pinch. Isn’t that the way it always goes?”
I grinned, gathering my purse. “Sadly, yes. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” I was dashing to make my skin detoxification. Also, after the constant hydrating, I really had to go to the bathroom.
“Hey, there’s my girl—all detoxed and glowing,” Drew said with a smile that started in his eyes. His hair was still wet from a recent shower and his bangs were sticking up more than usual. Pulling my earbuds out and pushing my sunglasses back onto the top of my head, I gave him a big hug and a shy kiss. We’d arranged to meet after my work and his football practice at a park close to his house so we’d only have one car for the night. I’d changed out of my work clothes and into some shorts and running shoes earlier so I could practice walking for an hour before he arrived. He kissed the tip of my nose. “Hungry?”
“Starving. I sort of skipped lunch—no time to eat. But do you mind if we do drive-through? Gran just texted me. She’s come through for me big time. I need to stop by her house for a minute to pick something up. It shouldn’t take long.”
Gran was always excited to see me but she was practically fawning all over Drew as I made introductions. “Please, come in, come in. Isn’t this a lovely surprise?” Gran said, ushering us inside. “I’ve heard so much about you, Drew.”
Drew shot me a look. “Should I be worried?”
“Absolutely. It was Uncle Bryce.”
“Is that Kel I hear?” Pops asked, walking into the front hall where we were all standing.
“Kel and her young man, Drew Jarrod,” Gran beamed. I cringed. Drew caught my hand in his and broke out his half-smile just for me.
“Nice to meet you, Drew. Bryce McCoy—but we’ve got a few of them around here so everyone just calls me B. Or Pops. That works too.” Pops extended his hand, He was wearing shorts and tennis shoes but I could tell he just got back from golfing because the front pocket of his shirt still had a couple of tees in it. Even having shrunk with age he was still taller than Drew.
“Sir,” Drew said, shaking his hand.
“Do you kids have time to come in and sit for a bit?” Gran asked.
I shook my head. “Sorry Gran, but we’re in a bit of a rush at the moment. We’re taking pictures of Drew tonight for some promotional materials I’m helping him with. Drew’s a musician—he’s performing at the Dotted T in a couple of weeks.”
“A musician?” Gran smiled at him and then looked at me with a twinkle in her eye. “You must be very talented. I hope you’ll come back and play something for us sometime soon.”
“I will,” Drew promised.
“We’ll hold you to that, young man. Well, let me get those cookies for you then so you two can be on your way. I’ve already got them packaged up,” Gran said, disappearing into the kitchen.
“You know you’re the greatest, right?” I told her when she emerged carrying a large plastic container filled with heaven. I kissed her wrinkled cheek. “I can’t thank you enough, Gran. I promise I’ll help you make more for the hordes Sunday.”
“These smell incredible,” Drew said, the container settled on his lap. We were folded into the Mini on our way back into the city. “What are they?”
“Gran’s famous chocolate chip oatmeal cookies—they’re life changing. She made them for me so I could give them out to my team tomorrow as kind of a thank you. When Gran says she wants to help she doesn’t mean maybe. Want one?”
“Seriously?” He already had the lid off, his teeth solidly into one, and was making some sort of contented chewing noise bordering on ecstasy. By the time we got to Strings he’d wheedled three more out of me.
We decided to stage his photo shoot in the studio where Drew gave lessons. I could Photoshop in a more exciting background later but it was a quiet space where we wouldn’t be interrupted and we had access to as many musical props as we wanted, making it ideal.
Drew brought in a few different shirts so we could experiment with some different looks. I had Mom’s camera and one of the two lenses I actually knew how to use. I put him on a stool in the center of the room.
“Okay. Sing…something.” I had him in focus and made a few adjustments for the lighting. “And try to just ignore me.”
Drew grinned and began crooning the opening lines to Row, Row, Row Your Boat, which he then transitioned into Kane Brown’s There Goes My Everything, his eyes flirting audaciously with me as he sang and played along on his acoustic guitar. I circled him, snapping pictures as rapidly as I could at as many different angles as I could manage given that he kept making me laugh.
“Stop looking at me, dork.”
“I can’t, Chicago—you’re the best looking thing in the room. She’s everything I wanna need. And then she’s even more.”
We scrolled through the first series of shots we’d captured, Drew’s chin over my shoulder, his arm around my waist as we looked at them together. The boy couldn’t take a bad picture—even with me working the camera. A couple were stand outs. “What do you think?” I asked. “Change into the black shirt just so we have some options?”
He did.
Saturday morning I quietly dressed in my running gear so as not to wake Dad. I didn’t know what time he’d finally called it a night but it was much later than usual. I woke up briefly at 2:17 and his bed was still empty. He didn’t even stir as Charlie and I slipped out of the motorhome.
Running was something I started doing shortly after Mom died as a way to deal with the crushing reality that I was suddenly motherless. I figured I could always turn to drugs and alcohol or intensive therapy later. There was something soothing about your body kicking into a rhythm just above discomfort and fatigue. Your lungs expanded and your mind cleared and, for a short while, your body and brain worked in harmony toward one simple and straightforward goal, keeping one foot in front of the other. It was highly addictive. Because I was a junkie I tried to get a fix of five to seven miles a day. I needed it. I did.
When I couldn’t: Sundays (my recovery day), I had the flu once for a week back in April, when I had to practice walking—something some people could do in their sleep; it threw me off my schedule, leaving me a bit jittery and unsettled. With the fashion show looming over my head, I was a full-blown bundle of nerves.
I stopped after our expanded loop had turned into 11 miles, not because I’d finally managed to sort myself out, but because I felt guilty for dragging Charlie along to deal with my issues in this scorching heat. I couldn’t wait for Dad to wake up so I could take a shower and cool down. Peeling off my shoes and socks and leaving them in a little pile with my electronics, Charlie and I dove off our dock and into the shockingly cold but refreshing depths of the lake.
“Guess what, buddy?” We were lying stretched out on the wooden slats of the dock in the hot Texas sun, already mostly dry. “I’m going to be wearing heels today. Walking and wearing heels. In front of a lot of people. Me. Grace Kelly McCoy.” In response to my obvious distress, Charlie’s eyes shifted ever so slightly under his furry brows. I didn’t think he had the energy for anything more. “Yeah, I know. What was I thinking? I’m so going to fall.”
“I’m so going to fall,” I told Jake miserably from between my knees. He’d pushed my head down there seconds earlier because he was worried I was going to pass out. It was a good thing my first hairstyle was basically my every day hair or Aliyah would’ve had both our scalps—even with Gran’s cookies to sm
ooth my way.
“You’re not going to fall, Kel.” Drew was rubbing my back. He and Jake had slipped unnoticed into the staging area in stealth mode in response to my desperate text for help.
Jake was watching the line-up closely. I was last to go on in the rotation, four more until I needed to be out there. “So what?” He calmly knelt down beside me and gently pushed my chin up, forcing me to look him squarely in the eye. “You fall all the time, Kel. Who has more experience with falling than you? No one. You know how to recover, that’s all that matters. Plus, the McCoys have the entire front section. You stumble, no one will be able to see it over the top of us. We got you covered.”
“Yeah?”
Jake’s steadfast blue eyes were filled with a quiet confidence. “Yeah. Come on, Squirt.” He pulled me to my feet and tossed my hair back behind my shoulders. “You got this. Now get out there and make us proud.” And he gave me a little push toward the direction of the stage.
I got this. Okay. Don’t outwalk the music. Pick a point and fix on it. Chin slightly down. I took a deep breath and threw my shoulders back and stepped out onto the runway. And don’t throw up.
I did stumble—once—but it was at the very end when all the other models had joined me on stage wearing their prom finery for the finale, and it was more because the girl to my left tripped on the train of her gown in four inch heels. Righting her threw me slightly off balance but Jake was right. I did have mad recovery skills. And an embarrassingly loud rooting section.
“Was that your family sitting in the front?” Cara asked as we handed off our gowns for hanging on their racks.
“Sorry. I think this might’ve been the first fashion show for some of them. We tend to do more sporting event kind of things.”
“That would explain the posters.”
“And the cheering,” Stefan said, shuddering as he gathered his tools. “I thought we might be in real danger of them trying to start the wave.”
But not even Stefan could resist Gran’s cookies.
“For me?” He raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow at me in surprise as I handed him the little package tied with a bow.
“I know, carbs. But they’re gluten-free. And absolutely divine. ” I kissed him carefully on the cheek so as not to leave a lipstick mark. “Thanks for making me look pretty, Stefan.”
He rolled his eyes. “Not a chore, darling. Your skin is practically porcelain.” Deftly extracting an angled brush from his apron, he offered it to me. “Perfect cat eye flick. Every. Time. But dry it carefully, upside down like I showed you. And no harsh cleansers.”
“Really?! Thank you!” I threw my long arms around him, sincerely moved. “You’re the sweetest. I’ll take good care of it, I promise.”
“There’s our girl!” Pops said with Gran and Dad at his side as I stepped out of the staging area and into the large space that was rapidly being cleared of chairs and the portable runway. My cousin Landry, a part-time assistant coach for the Longhorns’ swim team, let rip his distinctively piercing whistle—not for the first time this afternoon—and there was more cheering, followed by a lot of laughing and hugging.
“You two looked like you were having a pretty good time,” I said to Drew and Chris, who appeared to have already become BFFs with all my cousins.
“Your Uncle Nick invited us to the family BBQ tonight at his place. Cade and Landry are taking the boat out,” Drew said.
My cousin Sam draped an arm over my shoulder. “Try and talk Jake into coming, Kel. He thinks he needs some ‘alone time’ with Rachel.”
“And that’s why he has a girlfriend and you don’t,” Trey said, thwacking Sam on the chest. Trey was Uncle Bryce’s firstborn son, and following the McCoy tradition of passing down the name “Bryce” through the oldest son of the oldest son, was also named Bryce. To avoid any confusion we called him Trey. Trey’s firstborn son, Bryce IV, was Q. You had to feel for Claire—I wasn’t sure she realized what she was getting into when she married Trey.
“We got to split, Kel. Q and Noah have a birthday party at 4:00,” Trey said, hugging me again. “Good job up there today, Squirt. I was seriously impressed.” He scooped up his youngest, Brody, and threw him onto his shoulders. Behind Drew’s back Trey’s eyes grew wide as he looked at Drew and gave me the big thumbs up.
“Meet you back at the motorhome?” Dad said to me, handing Justin back his sleeping baby.
“Oh, okay. That makes sense. How about if I just meet you at Uncle Nick and Aunt Jill’s?” I said to Drew. “I need to get this make-up off my face and take these pins out of my hair and grab a swimsuit anyway. I’m sure the guys will take care of you until I get there. You’ve got the address?”
Uncle Bryce wrapped a consoling arm around Drew. “Don’t worry McDreamy. At the end of the night I bet she goes home with you.”
4
“Be True to Your School”
Beach Boys
Two things happened as a direct result of the fashion show. I could no longer show up at a McCoy family function without Drew in tow—or a rock solid reason for why he wasn’t by my side. Apparently, he has his own family, didn’t count. The second, Kirstie Adderson wanted to sign me to her agency. She called and asked if she could meet with me sometime soon to “discuss my future,” so I drove over to Adderson Modeling Management Tuesday during my lunch hour. She was sitting behind her desk in a very posh office with a view of the city behind her.
“You’re taller than most. That may limit us option wise, especially if a client wants side by sides—finding a male model to balance you out won’t be easy—but you’re absolutely magnetic, Kel. I watched you own that runway. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.” Kirstie placed demurely folded hands in front of her while I looked in surprise at the contract she’d just offered me. “That’s not something you can teach. Either you have it or you don’t. You do. I’d like to see where that could take you.”
Dad wasn’t so sure. I drove straight from her office back to his. He had a break in his schedule and was using it to pour over house blueprints and call vendors, but when I softly knocked on his office door he wrapped up his call. I handed him the contract. I was a minor—it required his signature. “Modeling?” He leafed through the pages in confusion. “I don’t know, Kel. This just all seems a little sudden. You’ve never even talked about wanting this until a couple of weeks ago.”
“I didn’t. I mean I didn’t even know it was an option. Let’s be honest—it wasn’t. I’ve been awkward and all knees and elbows most of my life. I tower over practically everyone. And I don’t think I actually settled into my face until last year. But Kirstie thinks I have something.”
Dad rubbed his temples. “You do, sweetheart. I just don’t know if this is the best use of your time and energy. From what I’ve seen and heard, the modeling industry can be brutal. I’m not sure I want that for you.”
“I get that Dad, I do. I can’t really explain why I want this—it terrifies me. Jake and Drew had to talk me down from a ledge Saturday to get me to go on. But then I did. And I felt…alive.” This felt important to get right. “I don’t want to play it safe anymore. I want to take chances and put myself out there. Even if I fall. That’s what Mom did. Every day. She really lived her life.”
Dad smiled but it was sad and distant. “Yeah, she did.”
The first official job I booked under Adderson Modeling Management was catalogue work for a medical supplies company—I wore scrubs and lab coats. Because summer vacation was winding down, Cheryl had pretty much taken over my responsibilities at Dad’s office, and that was a good thing because the shoot ate up most of my day. It was almost 5:00 before I was able to check my phone and see how Drew’s promo launch was going. 1,927 retweets?!! What?! I texted Drew.
He responded. I know. Crazy, right? My Instagram is blowing up.
It IS crazy. You ready for this?
Think so. Been rehearsing pretty hard. Row, Row, Row Your Boat’s starting to sound pdg.
I managed to b
ook one more job the last Friday before school started. It was for a local designer with a Pilates clothing line. The photographer gave me the creeps. He was handsy and had a bad habit of staring at my chest whenever he talked to me—and I wasn’t that much taller than him.
You wanted this, I reminded myself.
Saturday night, Cade and Jake brought their girlfriends, Sarah—whom I’d never met—and Rachel, to Drew’s gig at the Dotted T. Landry and Sam were flying solo. “But the night is still young,” Sam said, waggling his eyebrows and crowding in next to me with a drink in hand as he checked out the lay of the land. A few tables over Matt, Travon, and Chris were sitting with a bunch of their friends. Striker had his tongue down the throat of a different girl. The place was packed.
Some of the performers were quite good. A couple of them could’ve probably done with a little more practice time under their belts but I was just impressed they had the courage to get up there in the first place. I couldn’t have done it.
“Wish me luck,” Drew said when it was finally his turn. He pushed long fingers through his hair, looking impossibly handsome and slightly nervous as he started to get to his feet.
I reached for his neck and kissed his cheek. “Good luck.”
“Rock it dude,” Landry grinned, fist bumping him.
“He can sing. Right?” Cade said as Drew made his way to the stage.
“I dunno.” Sam shrugged as a lot of girls started screaming their approval when they get a good look at Drew. “I don’t think it’s gonna matter. We’re not gonna be able to hear him one way or the other.”
“How y’all doing?” Drew was at the mic, looking out over the raucous crowd as he tuned his guitar. “Thanks for coming out tonight. Wow! You guys are loud. Thank you. I’m gonna play a few of my favorites for you—hope they’re some of yours too.” He opened with Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” and then transitioned into The Script’s “Breakeven.” When he played the first few notes of Shawn Mendes’ “Mercy” the girls in the crowd went wild and started to sing along.