Bead-Dazzled

by Olivia Bennett

  “Give it a rest, Clayton.” Lexie straightened the collar of her pink velvet blazer. Then she went on to explain the lameness of Chloe’s idea.

  Emma knew better than to interrupt Lexie on a rant. Instead she flipped through the pages of the book. Cleopatra was truly amazing, she thought. She oozed couture style long before any model walked the European runways.

  Emma savored the pictures of her long, pleated gowns. The heavy gold beading along the neckline and around the narrow waist contrasted with the lightness of the ivory linen. She admired the thick straps and the draping over one shoulder. Her eyes danced as she took in the delicate, strappy leather sandals and the chunky serpentine cuff that wound its way up her slender wrist.

  “We could base the project on Egyptian fashion,” Emma ventured. “Cleopatra was known for her royal fashion. What people wore back then had a lot to do with their social and economic rank.”

  “The workers wore simple tunics or loincloths,” Chloe added. “We could even talk about burial clothes. Did you know when they opened the tombs, they found fancy robes dyed in vivid colors and the colors were still bright thousands of years later?”

  “What’s with you and burial tombs?” Lexie asked. “Morbid much?”

  Chloe’s face reddened.

  “A project on fashion is silly, don’t you think?” Kayla asked Lexie.

  “Agreed.” Lexie opened her notebook. “Too simplistic.”

  “It’s not simplistic,” Emma countered. “Look at this book. Fashion was important to the Egyptians. I could do detailed drawings of different outfits and then we could do a PowerPoint showing how fashion revealed everything about their religion and their culture. We could even bring in kohl, the black eyeliner Cleopatra used, and recreate the beaded headdresses the wealthy Egyptians wore. ”

  “Emma, you’re obviously confused.” Lexie refused to touch the book. “We’re not trying for a Girl Scout badge. We can’t hand in your cute art project.” Lexie spoke as if Emma were five. “We need something more complicated. More intellectual.” Lexie gazed around the table. “Agreed?”

  Marco chewed his pencil. Kayla and Clayton agreed.

  Lexie eyed Chloe, projecting a stare sizzling enough to wilt a cactus. Chloe slowly nodded.

  And that was that.

  Welcome to the Lexie show, Emma thought. Everyone’s too scared to go against her.

  Emma was done trying to please her. She turned back to the book. The later pages showed the actress Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra in the 1963 movie. The beautiful starlet was exquisite in a floor-length golden gown with a plunging neckline. A feather cloak circled her shoulders like the wings of a mythical bird and atop her head sat a magnificent headdress with the image of a cobra. Emma nudged open her sketchbook and began to draw a shorter, more modern version of the dress.

  “There’s nothing more intellectual than the Sphinx,” Clayton interjected. “This dude had a lion’s body, a bird’s wings, and a human head. He tricked people by telling wicked riddles. If someone couldn’t answer the riddle, he was killed. We could write up all our research as riddles. Really trick Ms. Ling.”

  “But if we confuse the teacher—” Marco started.

  “That’s interesting.” Lexie turned toward Clayton. Clayton was in the group of boys that hung with Lexie and Ivana. That social fact alone allowed Lexie to consider his ideas. “Oh, my God! Total genius idea by me! We could craft a giant Great Sphinx out of papier mache and rig it up to a voice recorder and make it talk.”

  Now who’s doing art projects? Emma thought.

  She shaded a short, feathered cape, as Lexie, Clayton, and Kayla talked about painting the Sphinx so it looked like stone. Chloe offered ideas on the construction, but Lexie talked over her. The Sphinx was her vision, she reminded them. She assigned each of them research and announced that she would handle the creation of the talking riddle machine.

  So much for the whole group project concept, Emma thought.

  Emma didn’t exactly hate the Sphinx idea, but it was hard to get excited about something she had no part in. Maybe it’s better, she reasoned. I have a lot to do with the Goin’ Green benefit. Who cares if Lexie does the whole project?

  The end-of-school bell rang, sending everyone racing to their lockers, off to their bus and subway stops, and to after-school activities. But Emma stayed behind. The book was packed with illustrations that inspired so many ideas. She couldn’t sketch fast enough.

  Straight tunics split at the hip with bands of color. Crisp-pleated maxi dresses. Sandals adorned with clusters of sparkling stones. Broad jeweled collars.

  She sensed Ms. Williams, the librarian, tidying up the room and shelving the books left on the tables. Emma didn’t look up. She had to get her ideas down before they were pushed out of her mind by homework and the subway ride to Laceland.

  “I like that one. Looks like one of those fancy dresses actresses wear to awards shows,” said a voice behind her.

  Emma turned to see Jackson. His lips turned up in a half-smile as he adjusted his backpack on his shoulder and peeked at her drawings. Maybe he wasn’t angry anymore. Maybe she had another chance.

  “Hi!” she said brightly. She was sure Holly would say she shouldn’t allow her voice to give away how excited she was to see him, but Holly wasn’t here and she did like him. “Don’t you have basketball practice?”

  “Yeah, but I forgot to check out a book for that English paper tonight. Coach is okay if I’m late.” He sat on the chair next to her. “Well, a little late. A lot late and he’ll make me run the bleachers. What’re you doing? Giving Ms. Williams a new look?”

  “Shhh!” Emma glanced at Ms. Williams, who was now scanning bar codes. The old woman dressed as if she were a 1950s schoolgirl. Her gray wool skirt fell far below her knees, her pale yellow blouse had a sweet Peter Pan collar, and her thin cardigan was trimmed with tiny pearl buttons. Emma could easily transform the look into sassy-retro. She’d shorten the hem and pouf the skirt, button the collar to the chin, add a cinch belt and saddle shoes, and dangle cat-eye glasses in a bright color from a chain around her neck. Of course, Ms. Williams would have to be thirty years younger to properly pull off the nod to vintage.

  “This dress is inspired by Cleopatra. It’s totally not for Mrs. Williams. Can you see her sailing along the Nile in something this form-fitting?” Emma wasn’t trying to be unkind. There was just no denying that Ms. Williams had the lumpy older woman thing going on.

  “A scary thought.” Jackson pretended to shudder.

  “I found this book during Western Civ and it got me sketching. I’m trying to reinterpret Cleopatra’s gown. Like here, I crisscrossed the straps twice to give it a more geometric look.” She pointed to the detail she added at the back of the dress.

  Jackson glanced at her sketch but didn’t seem to grasp the design elements that she was working so hard to incorporate. Instead, he reached for the oversized book and flipped through its pages. “Do you ever wish you were her?”

  “Who? Cleopatra?”

  “Yeah, I mean, she was Queen of Egypt.”

  Emma shrugged. “Honestly, I’d never really thought about her before today. She is amazing, though. She seems to radiate power—”

  “Like her secret weapon,” Jackson finished. “Or her super power.”

  “Do you turn everyone into a comic book hero?” Emma teased. Jackson had a thing for comics. She’d caught him secretly drawing in his notebook last semester when they had History together. Jackson didn’t draw wrap dresses and strappy sandals. Instead his margins were crammed with caped crusaders, angular villains, and everyday objects transformed into weapons.

  “Cleopatra would be wicked in a comic book. Her headdress could become radioactive at will. She’d be able to vaporize Pharaohs. She’d make the Egyptians her slaves.” Jackson’s deep-blue eyes widened.

  “I think the Egyptians were already her slaves,” Emma pointed out.

  “Technicality.” He turned his gaze upon her. A warm bl
ush crept along her hairline. “If you were a super hero, what powers would you want?”

  “Me? Seriously?” Emma hesitated. Was he joking or did he really want to know what she dreamed about?

  “Totally. You’re Super Emma. What can you do?”

  “I’d have the power to clone myself. That way I could be in many places at the same time.” She paused. Did he get that it was an apology? Did he get that she had wanted to go to his game? “I’d be able to fly—”

  “Or you’d have a magic zip-line that crossed the city,” he finished.

  “And I’d zoom above the buildings from place to place.”

  “I like it!” He leaned toward her. He smelled of dried sweat and caramel. A scent Emma found strangely appealing. “What’s she wearing?”

  Emma paused. “I don’t know.” She could design for fashion magazines and runway models, but she had no idea what she’d wear if she really were a super hero. A unitard? A cape?

  Jackson flipped her sketchbook to a clean page. “Is it okay?” he asked, reaching across her for her drawing pencil. She flinched when his fingers touched hers.

  “Sure,” she mumbled. He was so very close to her. Shoulder to shoulder. Normally, she didn’t let anyone write in her sketchbooks. But he could’ve asked for the antique coin necklace that had been in her family for generations that Grandma Grace had passed down to her and instructed her to keep safe, and she would have gladly given it to him.

  He took her pencil and leaned over the page, his shoulder bumping hers. Confidently, he began to draw.

  Emma bit her lip and watched as a face emerged. Wide eyes set far apart under rounded brows. Thin nose and lips. Pointy chin. A super-high ponytail. The long hair slightly wavy.

  Emma felt her face turn five shades of red. He was drawing her. Maybe not as she looked in a mirror, but her as a comic book character. The resemblance was amazing. She could draw halter-dresses but she was horrible at faces. Jackson was truly talented. She watched as he gave her a defiant gleam and angled her neck and shoulders to make her soar through the sky.

  He placed the pencil on the drawing. “Your turn.”

  “Me? You need to finish it,” she protested. She’d already planned to strip the bulletin board in her bedroom so that Jackson’s drawing of her would be pinned front and center.

  “You’re the fashion person.” His tone was playful. “Come on, add the outfit.”

  Emma gripped the pencil and thought for a moment. Then she began to draw. A tight long sleeved top with exaggerated padded shoulders and a narrow waist. A flirty mini skirt with an asymmetrical hemline that gave off sparks. Thigh-high boots and a cape.

  “Fierce,” Jackson said approvingly.

  She quickly added a narrow, black mask around her super hero eyes.

  “What’s that mean?” Jackson asked, as Emma’s phone buzzed.

  She ignored it. “She’s hiding things.”

  “So our super hero is a girl with a secret?”

  Her phone buzzed again.

  “Emma, this is a quiet place,” Ms. Williams called from across the room. “Remember the rules of respect.”

  “Really?” Emma whispered to Jackson. “We’re the only three here.” She sincerely doubted that particular Media Center rule still applied. It was kind of like the “if a tree falls in a forest” question. You couldn’t possibly bother people that weren’t around, could you?

  Her phone continued to buzz.

  She reached for it and glanced at the screen. Charlie texting. Looking for her. He wanted to take the subway to Laceland together.

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard. Meet u in 10. She could feel the easy, jokey feeling between her and Jackson disintegrating. He pushed his chair back a few inches.

  “It’s Charlie,” she explained. She couldn’t get over how Charlie managed to always get between them.

  “You hang around him a lot.” Jackson’s voice had changed to the disinterested flatness she often heard when he talked in class or to teachers.

  “We’ve been friends for years.”

  “He’s kind of weird, no?”

  “Not at all.” Emma was quick to come to Charlie’s defense. Charlie didn’t dress like the other boys at Downtown Day. He wore skinny jeans and sunglasses on all but the darkest days and his taste in music was offbeat—electropop mixed with show tunes mixed with classic rock. He was a bit of a loner at school, occasionally hanging with the theater kids but content to spend lunch alone in the lounge with his headphones on. “He’s super smart and super creative.”

  “What do you guys do together?” Jackson voice sound clipped and strange.

  “We just hang out.” That was far from the truth, but Emma couldn’t tell Jackson that Charlie was really her partner in a secret fashion design business. “He comes to Laceland a lot. He’s always showing me clips from these really offbeat yet cool bands. Well, some aren’t so good, but a lot are. You should hang out with us. You’d like Charlie.”

  If Jackson would open up, she was sure he and Charlie could find lots to talk about. Everyone at school pinned Jackson as the popular athletic kid, which was true, but Emma knew a side he kept hidden. He loved to draw. He was obsessed with comics, not just for their bold art, but for their magical stories as well.

  “I can’t see that happening.” Jackson stood. “I got to get to practice.”

  “Oh.” Emma didn’t want to end whatever they had going. “What about our super hero? Can I keep it?”

  “She’s all yours.”

  “You should write a story with her,” Emma suggested, grasping for a way to reclaim the lightness of earlier. The pronoun had suddenly changed from me to her. He hadn’t ever said it was supposed to be me, she reasoned. Maybe only she thought he meant that. Maybe the fierce girl had nothing to do with her.

  “I’d need to know more about her.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like who she really is.” He turned to go then stopped. “What’s our super hero hiding behind her mask?”

  “No one knows quite who she is or what her mission may be.” Emma ran her fingernail along the edge of the mask. “A dual identity, perhaps.”

  “So she has secrets?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “I’d need a list of her secrets.” Jackson pushed open the library’s double glass doors. “You know, to really understand her character. To write the right dialogue.”

  “She may not share her secrets with mere mortals.”

  “That would be a problem. I’d have to make things up.” He grinned. “I might make up some really strange things for our girl.”

  “I could live with that,” Emma said.

  Any fictions he could create would never compete with her truths.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE FACE-OFF

  Sitting at Marjorie’s desk was torture. Pure torture.

  Emma’s whole body twitched, eager to get back to her studio and begin cutting patterns and draping her collection. She desperately needed to get her ideas out of her head and out of her sketchbook and onto Her Girls. Then she could see if she had anything with true potential. Once she had draped and pinned fabric onto the dress forms, Her Girls would let her know.

  But the phone would not stop ringing. And Marjorie was doing a Houdini-disappearing act.

  “Noah!” Emma called down the hall. Her dad insisted she use his first name when she worked the Laceland receptionist desk. “TableDesign on line three. Something about creases in the new series of tablecloths.”

  Noah Rose stood by the entrance to the small kitchen alcove. “I was just going to heat up one of those toaster strudels.”

  “Dad…” Emma warned. “Mom will have a fit.” Her mom had recently imposed a strict only-organic, all-natural rule in their apartment. She was proud of and quite surprised that her husband went along with it. But Emma knew the truth. It was easy for him to be healthy for several hours at home when the majority of the day he had boxes of Oreos at the ready. Her mom had no
idea how much processed junk food was stored in the little gray cupboards at Laceland.

  He paused, considering. “Oh, put them through. I guess it’s a sign.” Her dad pushed up the sleeves of his faded denim shirt and headed back to his office.

  Emma linked the call through then turned to Charlie, who’d pulled up a chair beside hers. She swatted his green Converse. “Marjorie will amputate your stinky feet if she spots your sneakers on her desk.”

  “No worries.” He leaned his chair back, nearly tipping and not moving his feet. “That woman’s coffee breaks are epic. Where does she go? To Columbia to pick her own beans?”

  “I wish I knew.” It was true. Now that she had Emma to cover the desk, Marjorie’s afternoon breaks dragged on and on. “I need to get working.”

  “Listen, I’ve been thinking. You shouldn’t stress,” Charlie said. “I got you into this fashion show without asking and, aside from the clothes, I can totally organize everything. It’s all on me.”

  “Aside from the clothes?” Emma faced him squarely. “Charlie, the clothes are everything.”

  “Not as I see it.”

  “There’s no fashion show without fashion,” she reminded him.

  “But without a planned-out show, all you have is basically a closet—clothes hanging on hangers. Boring.”

  “My clothes will not be boring,” Emma insisted.

  “Emma, lighten up. I’m trying to help you here,” Charlie reminded her.

  He was right. “Okay, I appreciate it. What’ve you done?”

  “First off, I started with the models—”

  The chime of the elevator followed by the swoosh of the doors opening diverted Emma’s attention. “Great! Marjorie’s back!” She stood, about to make her escape.

  “Ciao!”

  Emma dropped back into her chair at the sound of the lilting, thick Italian accent. So not Marjorie.

  “Ho freddo, no?” An impossibly gorgeous young woman stood before them, trilling her r’s and pulling her black cashmere coat around her tall, slim body.