Fashionably Late

by Beth Kendrick

  “Really? Good for her. I had no idea she was interested in design.” Although I did vaguely recall reading in a magazine profile that she liked to knit on-set. “Is this something she’s wanted to do for a long time?”

  Fiona sat down in the matching chair next to mine and nodded conspiratorially. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Along with her manager. We think this could be a huge market. She’s world famous for her sex appeal, she’s already won her Oscar so there’s no risk of tarnishing her professional image with commercialization. Plus, I mean, let’s just say it: she’s not getting any younger.”

  “But Rachelle won’t actually be doing any of the hands-on design herself?” I clarified.

  She shook her head. “Rachelle will be, ahem, overseeing operations. In more of an advisory capacity. I’m in charge of finding a to-die-for team of designers and I want you on it.”

  I dug my fingers into the arms of the squishy pink chair. “Fiona, I can’t even tell you how flattered I am! Honestly, I—”

  She paused and held up a hand. “Maybe.”

  I tried not to look disappointed. “Maybe?”

  “I like what I’ve seen so far, but I need more.” She picked up a notepad and started scribbling her list of requirements. “I’ll need the corset for Rachelle as soon as possible, to show the investors as a sample of your work. Then I’ll need a series of sketches of other ideas you have for the line, plus the very best samples you can produce, plus a guarantee of exclusivity.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Which means…?”

  “Which means that we have sole marketing rights to all the samples and patterns you create for us. It’s for your benefit, really; you don’t want a bunch of second-rate hacks knocking off all your best work once it hits the shelves, do you?”

  “No, but—”

  “And you are legally required to keep in strictest confidence any personal and professional information you may hear about Rachelle.”

  I tried to decode the hidden message here. “So you’re saying I won’t be able to take credit for my own work?”

  “No, no, no, darling, don’t be so paranoid! This arrangement is intended to protect everyone’s best interests, but most of all yours.”

  When I opened my mouth again, she verbally steamrolled right over me.

  “When we issue the press release announcing the line launch, we’ll emphasize that Rachelle has a design team helping her to realize her unique vision of style. And of course you can tell people that you are an integral part of that design team. But…”

  “But I need to keep my trap shut about all juicy gossip?”

  “Now we understand each other.” She got to her feet and strode back to her desk. “We have enough public relations problems without premenstrual employees running to the Enquirer with every little imagined slight.”

  “I would never—”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. Merely a legal formality, darling. Now, when you’re working on the sketches, bear in mind that Rachelle is known for sleek, sexy sophistication. You want to bring that feel of international flair to pieces that a high school student could wear without getting grounded by her parents or a young midwestern soccer mom could wear to a play date.”

  “Flirty without being slutty?” I suggested.

  “Yes. Our demographic is young women just like you: good girls. Good girls who’ll experiment with their inner vamp for a night, but then go right back to being good girls. When can you have the corset ready?”

  “I can have it for you day after tomorrow.” My initial excitement started to return.

  “Perfect. If I like it, Rachelle will wear it to the film premiere this weekend.” She tilted her head, assessing my reaction. “Happy?”

  “Very.” I struggled out of the cavernous chair with as much dignity as possible. “So I’ll do red and black. And for the price, I was thinking—”

  “The price?” This time the laugh sounded fake and forced. “We don’t pay you, darling; it’s a sample, you see?”

  “Well, yes, but I have to buy material and…and all the time…”

  “Think of it as an audition. This is Hollywood—everyone pays their dues. Besides, do you know how many up-and-coming designers would kill to have Rachelle wear them on the red carpet? You should be paying us for the exposure. Send it over as soon as you’re finished and we’ll see how everything goes. Hopefully, next time we talk, we’ll be discussing salary and benefit terms.”

  “But what about—”

  Right on cue, her phone rang and she opened the office door. “I have to take this call, but it was great to meet you and I’m looking forward to working together. Thanks!”

  The door literally hit me in the ass on the way out. But I ignored the impending bruises and danced a little samba on my way to the Jetta because, hey, I had a job! A real job! A job that would pay me to do the work I loved to do! In your face, Miriam Russo!

  Maybe.

  “So how’d it go with Miriam?” Connor asked when I clocked in at Rhapsody that evening.

  “Oh, that.” I adjusted the straps of my olive satin camisole. “Well, in a nutshell, I blew it.”

  “Come on. I’m sure you didn’t blow it.”

  “Au contraire. I blew it. It’s blown. She told me she’ll call me if she ever needs a piece for a ‘costume gala’. Her exact words. And I have only myself to blame.” I summed up the zipper fiasco.

  “Then why do you look so excited?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” I grinned. “First of all, I’m excited because I actually stood up for myself. Miriam asked for a design change that I knew was one hundred percent wrong and instead of kowtowing, I stood my ground.”

  “And that’s a big step for you?”

  “Like Neil Armstrong.”

  “Well, you did the right thing.”

  “But wait! There’s more!” I stepped back with a dramatic flourish. “You forgot to ask about the other reason I’m excited. I met with Rachelle Robinson’s stylist today.”

  He leaned back against the bar. “Oh right, about that shirt.”

  “Corset, my friend, it’s a corset.”

  “Corset. Got it. So how did that go?”

  “Let me put it this way: remember how you said you don’t date employees?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, with any luck, I will soon be an eligible bachelorette.” Wait. Did I just say that out loud? “If you were interested in me that way, which I do understand you are not.”

  He started to say something, but I rushed ahead before he could launch into the litany of “no,” “never,” and “completely repulsed by you.”

  “I have a new job. A humdinger, in fact. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” I paused. “Possibly.”

  “Possibly?”

  “I’m sort of in the audition process.” I described what had transpired in Fiona’s office that afternoon. “So I’ll drop off the corset the day after tomorrow and pray that I chose the right shade of red for her skin tone. Keep your fingers crossed.”

  “How much are they paying you?”

  “Nothing, but it doesn’t matter because—”

  “Becca…”

  “No, really, it’s standard practice. Designers donate red carpet ensembles to actors all the time. If it’s good enough for Monique Lhuillier, it’s good enough for me.”

  “Presumably, Monique has other sources of income,” Connor pointed out.

  “True, but I’m still getting my foot in the door. And if Fiona likes it, she’ll hire me and then I’ll have my income source.”

  “I don’t know about this.” He crossed his arms.

  “What’s to know?” I threw up my hands. “I have no power and no leverage in this negotiation.”

  “You have talent.”

  “Me and the eighty gazillion other aspiring designers living in a five-mile radius.”

  “But they want you. Remember, your time and expertise are worth a lot.”

  “So
is free media coverage. If Rachelle Robinson wears my corset to an actual movie premiere, everyone will ask her who designed it and then…” I trailed off, awash in bliss at the thought of my name mentioned on Entertainment Tonight and the cover of Women’s Wear Daily (hey, if you’re gonna dream, dream big).

  “Please tell me you haven’t signed anything yet.”

  “I haven’t. She said she has to look at the corset before she offers me a contract.”

  “Don’t give her all the power here. And for God’s sake, don’t sign anything without hiring a lawyer to look it over.”

  “Hey, I thought you were all about taking chances. The Gambler? Sir Risk-a-Lot? What happened to all that?”

  “When I do it, it’s different.” He looked sheepish and stubborn at the same time. “I have more experience.”

  I started to laugh. “Oh, so now I’m Little Red Riding Hood, heading into the big, scary forest with only my faux-chinchilla-trimmed Petro Zillia capelet to protect me?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a wonder Miriam Russo is still standing. You’re a force to be reckoned with.”

  Still laughing, I said, “I don’t think anyone’s ever described me that way in my entire life.”

  “I find that very hard to believe. And listen, about the not-dating-employees thing…”

  But before he could finish his sentence, Lily the bartender rushed in between us. “Becca, you have a phone call. It’s your sister. I put her on hold, you can pick up the line in the back office.”

  I knew Claire wouldn’t bother me at Rhapsody for anything less than a genuine catastrophe. She wasn’t exactly the hardest-working woman in show business, but she had great respect for the effort that others put in. I hurried past the bar, through the kitchen noise of clanking metal and rapid-fire Spanish, and picked up the phone in the back office. “Claire?”

  “Becks? When are you coming home?” She sounded faint and hoarse, like she’d just gotten her voice back after a long bout of laryngitis.

  “Well, the bar closes at two, and then I still have the drive home, so not till late.” I pressed the receiver against my ear. “Why? What’s wrong? Did you tell Andrew about the baby?”

  “Yes.” She drew a deep, shaky breath. “He did a little jig and went around bragging to everyone in his office. And then he told me he lost his job today! The studio fired him. Fired him.”

  “Oh my God. Why?”

  “Because he’s a moron, that’s why! His boss was sexually harassing his secretary, right? Which, I mean, what else is fucking new? So what does my asinine husband, Mr. Moral Majority, decide to do? He convinces the secretary to complain to HR and file suit!”

  “I want to say that was noble of him, but I’m guessing that’s not the reaction you’re looking for,” I said.

  “Hello? Sexual harassment suits are worse than death in Hollywood. He’d be better off embezzling money from the studio! At least then he could get another job. But now? Forget it. He’s blacklisted! He will never work again in this town.”

  “Are you sure you’re not overreacting just a little bit?”

  “I can’t…I can’t even wrap my mind around this. And we just started making payments on the house, and all the furniture is on credit, and the wedding and the cars and the sailboat…”

  “The sailboat? Since when do you guys have a sailboat?”

  “We were going to entertain his bosses and their bitchy third wives!” She broke into sobs. “And now…God, I don’t even know how we’ll—”

  “It’ll be okay,” I soothed, feeling awkward and fraudulent in the role of wise caregiver. She was the one who directed me, not the other way around. “He’ll get another job. It’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a naïve little twit!” Annnd we were back to normal. “Do you have any idea what happens when you’re blackballed in Hollywood? We won’t be able to pay our cable bill, let alone afford a baby!”

  12

  At precisely 1:58 A.M., I locked the restaurant’s front doors, scowled at the three boozy stragglers trying to finangle one last cocktail out of the bartender, collected my share of the night’s tips from the servers, and headed for the parking lot.

  As I passed the back office, I waved to Connor, who had stayed late to help the new manager master the accounting software. Despite his urgings to leave early and check on Claire, I’d chosen to stick out the shift. Andrew’s job loss, while unfortunate, did not in my opinion constitute an actual emergency.

  Claire begged to differ.

  She’d left hourly updates on my voice mail (10:35: “I’m going to have to buy my maternity clothes at Kmart. I’ve never even been inside a Kmart. I heard it’s like a scene from Deliverance in there.” 11:23: “I called Mom and Dad and their big solution? They think we should come live with them in Phoenix. Like I’m really going to go from a four thousand-square-foot Tudor in Beverly Glen to my high school bedroom in a tract house in the fucking desert. If you hear me discussing this as a viable option, I want you to shoot me. Do you hear me? I want you to open the safe in Andrew’s office, take out the handgun, and put me out of my misery.” 12:30: “My baby’s going to have to go to a daycare run by, like, Miss Hannigan. Call me back.”).

  Once out in the parking lot, I powered up my cell phone and braced myself for a torrent of fresh laments when Connor caught up with me. “Hey!”

  “Sorry.” I turned off the phone, noting with dismay that I still had three new messages. “I know I should have stayed to help clean up, but Claire is sounding more and more Sarah Bernhardt by the hour and I want to make sure she’s not going to do anything drastic. I’ve heard that pregnancy hormones can really—” I clapped both hands over my mouth.

  His eyes widened. “Claire’s pregnant?”

  “It’s a secret. Dammit! Please don’t tell Andrew you know.” I sighed up at the smoggy black sky and the watery sodium light filtering over the parked cars. “I can’t believe I just said that. She’s going to kill me. Well, right after she kills Andrew for—” But I stopped myself in time.

  He leaned forward. “For what?”

  “Nothing. Listen, I gotta go.”

  He stood there, regarding me thoughtfully.

  “Was there something you wanted?” I asked, jangling the keys to the Jetta that Claire would probably be reclaiming soon.

  “I just wanted to make sure you got to your car okay.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s very chivalrous of you.”

  He kept staring. “What’s going on with Claire and Andrew?”

  “I really can’t talk about this with you.” In the interest of self-preservation. “It’s kind of a sensitive subject. But don’t worry. It’s nothing epic. Everything’s fine, really.”

  “Nothing epic,” he repeated.

  I tried to smile. “You know what I mean.”

  “Listen, if you guys need help—” But then his cell phone rang, and when he glanced at the caller ID, his frown deepened. “Hold on. Sorry, I’ve got to take this.”

  I wasted no time escaping into my car, yelling, “See you tomorrow!” before slamming the door. And then I peeled out and headed for Andrew and Claire’s house, checking my remaining voice mail messages while idling at a red light on Santa Monica Boulevard.

  Even at two in the morning, the traffic here would be classified as “moderate to heavy” in the west Phoenix suburbs. And my fellow drivers weren’t just shifty-eyed thugs or college kids out for a good time—some of these people were suited up in blazers and ties and had apparently just finished a very long day at the office.

  “There’s a saying in the entertainment industry,” Andrew told my parents when he showed up late to the rehearsal dinner for his own wedding. “ ‘If you don’t come in to work on Saturday, then don’t bother showing up on Sunday.’ ”

  Which would explain why Claire had felt the need to fill up her days with visits to her personal trainer, visits to a past-life regression medium (which is how she’d discovered she’d been a French courtier in
the days of Louis XIV), and me, camped out in her backyard to keep her company.

  And her baby and all the designer accoutrements. And soon, unemployment checks.

  I tried to focus on the positive. Perhaps Claire’s baby, by foregoing designer diaper bags and brand-name private schools, would receive, in exchange, a father.

  I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and braced myself for the three remaining voice mails.

  But they weren’t from Claire. She must have given up on me around midnight and taken her case to other members of the family. Who all, in turn, took her case right back to me.

  Message #1 (my mother): “Becca, honey, Claire just called me with the bad news. She’s so upset and she won’t listen to Daddy and me. I tried to tell her that God would provide and that just made her cry harder. So listen, I know you’re having fun out there, but you really should come home now. She and Andrew have enough to deal with; they can’t be taking care of you on top of everything else. I’ve got fresh sheets on your bed and your room is just the way you left it. And if you want, I can call Kevin’s mother and tell her when you’ll be back. I’m sure she’ll pass along the news to you-know-who!”

  Message #2 (Gayle): “Just got off the phone with Claire—I think my eardrums are bleeding. She’s in crisis mode, but remember, Becks, it’s okay to have your own feelings about this. Mom said you’re cutting your vacation short and coming back to Phoenix and I know you must be disappointed. But we have to think about what’s best for Claire now, right? I’ve got a few book recommendations to help her and Andrew get through this. I want you to write these down and go pick them up for her. Ready, got a pen? Okay, first is Marriage in Crisis…”

  I skipped ahead to Message #3 (Kevin): “Hey. Becca. I know you’re off doing…whatever. But I just wanted to say hi. And ask if…you know. I’m still holding on to that ring for you, so when you’re ready, call me.”

  And just like that, the undertow of guilt swept me into an eddy of confusion. I knew I’d done the right thing by finalizing the breakup, but suddenly I missed him. I missed the security we’d had and his confidence that he could maintain control in a universe of infinite chaos.