The Cinderella Makeover

by Hope Tarr

  “Okay.”

  “I believe craft services put out some for the bagels,” she replied, gesturing to the catering trailer.

  “I’d really like to continue our conversation. Walk over with me and I’ll promise to call a moratorium on hot liquids, at least for me,” he added, gaze fixed on hers, the sensation carrying her back to the year before, the handful of seconds at his headquarters when she’d fancied some sort of…attraction.

  Feeling eyes on them, she glanced across the lawn to where Dee stood openly watching them. Turning back to Greg, Francesca hesitated. “Tempting as that offer is, I’m due to hair and makeup shortly.”

  Instead of taking the broad hint, he stayed put. “Cool, me too. We can head there together.”

  A year ago he couldn’t rid himself of her quickly enough, and now she couldn’t seem to pry him from her side. She would have to tread warily. Gregory Knickerbocker was still very much a wild card to her. She needed a bit more time to feel him out. It wouldn’t do to broach the subject of coaching him behind-the-scenes only to have him turn her in. And if Deidre caught on, they’d both be off the show faster than one could say bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. In the interim, a well-placed suggestion or two might help set him on the proper path to the winner’s circle.

  “Have you ever considered parting your hair more to the side?” she asked by way of testing the waters.

  Her question didn’t seem to faze him. “No, but then I don’t really give my hair all that much consideration.”

  “It’s only a suggestion, of course.”

  “Duly noted, thanks. What about you?”

  Startled, Francesca nearly dropped her tea. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you don’t have your war paint on.”

  His eyes skimmed her, making her uncomfortably aware that she wore no makeup. She’d arrived to work that morning as she always instructed her models to do—with a clean face and freshly washed hair. She hadn’t given her appearance much thought until now. Reaching up to touch her practical ponytail, she wished she’d made a bit more effort. His shirt, despite the silly slogan, did bring out the blue of his eyes.

  “It’s customary to arrive for a set call without cosmetics. Makeup people prefer a tabula rasa.”

  He seemed to find that funny. Smiling, he shook his head. “I’m sure you’re many things, Francesca, but a blank slate isn’t one of them.”

  Unsure of how to take that remark, Francesca held her peace.

  “You should leave it off more often. You’re prettier without it—softer.”

  The intensity of his regard did funny, fluttery things to her viscera—and made a muddle of her mind. The day-old image of him kneeling at her feet rushed back to her yet again, and a blush fired across her face as though she were the one scalded.

  I need to get laid. Badly.

  If being proximate to a man she still deeply resented, perhaps even loathed a little, could wreak such havoc with her hormones, her primal needs must be more pressing than she’d thought.

  “Mr. Knickerbocker, kindly mind that you are no longer ensconced in your corporate headquarters, king of all you see, but rather on the set of a reality television program where you are a contestant and I your coach,” she snapped, detesting the feeling of being in less-than-perfect self-possession.

  He blinked as if she’d snapped her fingers in front of his face. Recovering, he narrowed his gaze. “Great, thanks for clearing that up. While we’re at it, I have a few things to get off my chest, too. First off, we’re in twenty-first century America, not Victorian England, so you can call me Greg. Really, feel free. Secondly, I just paid you a compliment, a pretty nice one. The customary response is a thank-you. You should try it some time.”

  “I’m not terribly interested in your forward remarks. And staring isn’t particularly polite, either. In point, it’s ruddy rude.”

  His gaze sharpened. “Yeah? As rude as inviting yourself up to someone’s office—with your camera?”

  “For the very last time, we had an appointment!”

  He shook his head as though she were a hopeless case. “Yeah, and so do I—with the craft services truck. I’ll clear out of your way and go grab that butter—and a jelly doughnut to go with it.”

  He turned away and walked off toward the craft service van, leaving Francesca feeling like a frog indeed.

  Francesca had further cause to regret the wager she’d made. Midway through the first week, it was abundantly clear that Mr. Knickerbocker was going to be a problem—a persistent problem. Because of him, simple scenes were often reshot as many as a dozen times. Preoccupied with running his business remotely, he had his phone in hand and his head in the clouds. Expensive sound, lighting, and camera equipment frequently ran afoul of his floundering footsteps. For the first onset shoot, he tripped over a striplight, entangling himself in the cords and pulling multiple circuits out of play, blanketing a good quarter of the set in blackness.

  “Do you know how many fucking thousands of dollars that just cost?” the director had shrieked, picking a pathway through the crushed glass.

  “No, but tell me and I’ll write you a check,” Greg had retorted.

  Careening into a wardrobe cage while texting left him with a bad bruise on his brow, which the talents of two makeup artists had been called upon to conceal. The crew began taking bets on what his next casualty would be, a guessing game in which the studio floor manager and even a few of the contestants joined.

  “Hey, Greg, what’s it gonna be today?” one of the lighting crew called out as he smeared cream cheese on a sliced bagel from crafty.

  “Haven’t decided yet,” Greg replied, “but be warned, I have a really hard head.”

  Along with his thick skull, his spine seemed to be fashioned of solid steel. He was a reality TV production team’s worst nightmare: a contestant with a will of his own.

  The fifth day of filming was another location shoot in Westwood starting at the communal backyard pool adjoining the contestant bungalows. The current scene involved Mr. Knickerbocker confronting Kimberly, calling her out on cluttering the patio.

  Standing on opposite sides of a picnic table loaded with empty pizza boxes, soiled paper plates, and half-empty beer bottles, all of which had been brought in as props, Mr. Knickerbocker and a bikini-clad Kimberly faced off whilst four camera operators honed in on the all-important close-up shots.

  Scrubbing a hand across his forehead, Greg began, “Kimberly, look, about these dishes, I really think—”

  “You hate me!” she wailed, bouncing on the balls of her feet, both tattooed at the outer ankle. “You pretended to be my friend when we first came out here but all you’ve done for the past week is work to sabotage me.”

  Greg slapped the side of his cocked head as if clearing it of pool water. “No, I haven’t.” His hair, still damp from his obligatory photo op dip, was pushed back from his forehead and his glasses were off. Despite several applications of foundation and powder, the black bruise shone through.

  Kimberly rested her fisted hands on her meaty hips and huffed hugely. “You may think I’m too dumb to see what you’re up to but I’m not. You and Hadley and Brittany are forming a coalition, I know it!”

  Greg stared and for once Francesca couldn’t fault him. She’d read the day’s call sheet and Kimberly’s dialogue was in no way indicated. “I don’t know anything about a coalition. That doesn’t even make any sense. This isn’t Survivor. There’s no weekly contestant elimination. The audience votes aren’t tallied until the final live show. We’re still taping.”

  Sitting on the sidelines, Francesca smothered a smile.

  “Cut!” Sean, the story producer, shouted from his director’s chair. “Greg, Kimberly, get over here.”

  Seated beside Francesca and wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and slathered in sunscreen, Franc leaned over and whispered, “He may be a bit of a dark horse, but our Mr. Knickerbocker doesn’t want for spirit, does he?”

  “No, he certainly does not,” France
sca agreed, thinking yet again of their first meeting and the nasty trick he’d played on her. Before it, she’d always prided herself on her savvy, but being bested by Greg had taken her down a peg—and then some. “And by the by, when did he become our Mr. Knickerbocker?”

  Wondering if Franc might suspect something—although strictly speaking she’d yet to bend or break a single contract clause—she glanced over to him. Eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, he was impossible to read.

  “Merely a figure of speech, m’dear,” he replied, sipping at his soda.

  She turned back to Greg and Kimberly, standing before the story producer and receiving a proper dressing-down. “Kimberly, I appreciate your enthusiasm, really I do, but you kinda jumped the shark there with the coalition crap. From here on, stick to script, okay?” Sean swiveled to Greg. “And Greg, it’s fine to react to her naturally but for chrissake don’t promote competing programs while you’re doing so, got it? And don’t talk about how the segment is being taped. It pulls people out of the fantasy that this is all happening in real time.” Grabbing his coffee mug, he flagged them back.

  Only Greg wasn’t budging. “But it’s not. We are being taped, though there’s nothing real about it. Kimberly may have a bad habit of leaving dirty dishes around, but she didn’t create this mess. You did.” Turning to Kimberly, he asked, “You don’t really believe we’re forming a coalition, do you?”

  Pulling up her top, which concealed less than half of the skull tattoo on her left breast, she stuck out her bottom lip. “It’s called acting, Grego. You oughta try it.”

  Sean divided his exasperated gaze between them. “Jesus! Can we save the drama for the shoot and get on with it?”

  So went the first week. It was abundantly clear that nothing short of a minor miracle would keep her dark horse in the running. Sitting on the sidelines, Francesca found herself fighting the urge to gnaw her nails. Her Fashion Week prime placement seemed as good as gone, and with it, her pride.

  “I’m not doing so great, am I?” Greg said, walking up to her after the final shoot of the week, a scene involving a guys-against-girls water volleyball match. With his wet hair combed back, the dreadful middle part was all but indiscernible. A decent stylist would make a world of difference. “They’re talking about replacing me, aren’t they?”

  He cast an over-the-shoulder look to several members of the production squad, huddled together and openly grumbling. The glares shot his way left no doubt that the bone of contention they were chewing on had to do with him. It seemed he was in everyone’s bad books—everyone’s but Franc’s and…hers.

  He turned back to her and meeting his knowing gaze, Francesca found it impossible to fudge. “I’ve heard…rumblings of a potential replacement.” The swap would have to happen soon, before much more footage was shot. “Shooting multiple takes is expensive. It’s all to do with budget and keeping costs in line.” Belatedly she bit her lip. As the founder and CEO of a technology product line worth billions, he hardly needed her to explain rudimentary economics.

  “Actually most reality TV uses nonunion workers and gets made pretty cheaply,” he corrected. “Take that guy over there,” he added, jerking his chin in the direction of the camera operator adjusting a tripod. “His day rate is six hundred dollars. That’s supposed to cover an eight- to ten-hour day, but because of me, he’s been working closer to twelve hours. I don’t blame him for hating me. If I were him, I’d hate me too. It’s not that I’m trying to be a jerk. I’m just not used to taking direction—orders. I’ve been working for myself since I was seventeen.”

  What he was apparently too modest to say was that he’d made his first million while still at university, or so Francesca recalled from the now-legendary GQ article. Greg had shot directly to the top, and now he was about to be fired from the show for the very entrepreneurial traits that had made him such an American success story. Even without her wager at stake, that struck her as wrong.

  “I can’t suggest any ready remedies for your thick skull, but I might be able to offer some advice for the stage fright.”

  His face froze. He lifted his chin, and for the first time she noticed the rather attractive cleft bisecting it. “Who says I have stage fright?”

  “How else would you explain your stumbling about set?” Really, was there anything more fragile than the male ego! Ignoring his glare, she continued, “It’s quite common, you know, even among celebrities. You can’t let it best you.”

  He sent her a skeptical look. “What would you know about it? Based on the press conference the other day, you probably took your first baby steps onstage.”

  That made her smile. Her humble beginnings in a working-class suburb of London weren’t common knowledge, although she’d never denied them. Growing up, the only camera she’d touched was her dad’s pawnshop Polaroid, the only boards she’d trod her secondary school’s assembly room stage.

  “You’d be surprised,” she answered, leaving it at that. “But there are tricks I’ve learned for coping with and even overcoming the anxiety.”

  “Like imagining the audience naked?” he asked, surprising her with a wink.

  “Well, yes, actually. But that only works once one is onstage. I’m thinking more in the way of prevention.”

  “Such as?”

  She thought for a moment. “For some people, it’s a talisman, something they carry with them or wear on their person as a good luck charm or protection. For others it’s a ritual—eating or drinking a certain thing before one goes onstage, repeating a mantra, tapping one’s heels together a certain number of times. It can be virtually anything so long as it bears a special significance to the person employing it.”

  “So, what’s your thing?”

  Francesca hesitated. “You’ll think me foolish.”

  He rolled his eyes. “So far I’ve slimed you with pasta and come close to scalding you with coffee, and that’s just the first week of eight, so at this point I’m just happy you’re not filing a restraining order.”

  Francesca laughed. “Don’t tempt me.”

  When he wasn’t caught up in being an utter ass, Gregory Knickerbocker possessed a delightfully droll sense of humor—and an unexpectedly engaging smile. The latter lit his blue eyes to a deep celestial blue. Imagining what his eyes might look like in the prelude to a kiss caught her off guard.

  She steered her thoughts back to the present. “Sorry, I was woolgathering. Where were we?”

  “You were putting off telling me what your ritual is, but it’s okay, you don’t have to. I mean, if it’s that embarrassing, I’ll just let my imagination fill in the blanks.” The gleam in his eye had her cheeks heating.

  His grinning mouth begged to be thoroughly kissed, his squared jaw to be soundly slapped. Caught between the two, Francesca couldn’t say which she wished to do first. That she was fantasizing about either had her seriously considering ringing up her shrink.

  She surrendered with a sigh. “Very well, I…hum.”

  His eyes widened. “You hum?”

  She nodded. “I do. ‘God Save the Queen.’”

  “Why?”

  Francesca thought for a moment. “I have no notion. But perhaps once you find your song, it will work for you as well.”

  Gregory brightened. “Oh, that’s easy. I already have it.”

  Right, ABBA. Since agreeing to the wager with Deidre, she’d made sure to view all the male contestants’ entry videos, but Greg’s especially. His passion for the seventies-era Swedish pop band was yet another of his quirks. Their hit “Take a Chance on Me” had been the musical backdrop for the video’s rolling roster of one hundred female names, apparently all women whom he’d dated at least once. Breaking up with Freddie had been bad enough, and she’d never been close to in love with him. How it must feel to be broken up with so…serially, she couldn’t begin to say.

  He opened his mouth. “Mamma mia, here I go again,” he sang. “My my, how can I resist you?”

  “Gregory!” He stoppe
d. “That bad, huh?”

  “No, not at all.” Actually, he had a surprisingly decent baritone. “I meant for you to perform your…ritual in private.”

  He shook his head, damp hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes, raising in her the bizarre impulse to reach out and brush it back. “Oh, sorry. Once I start singing, I get really caught up. ABBA’s lyrics are very powerful.” He winked.

  She hid a smile. When he wished it, he could be quite charming. “So I see.”

  She ran her gaze over him. Still in the wet T-shirt, which he’d worn into the pool, he was even leaner than she’d realized, but some weight training should set him to rights. Fashion, not fitness, was her profession, but she’d dated a personal trainer a few years back, and she still worked out regularly at a fitness club.

  “May I offer a word of advice as your coach?”

  “Could I stop you?”

  “Likely not,” she admitted, knowing this was but the beginning. Mr. Knickerbocker might not yet realize it, but she would be offering considerably more counsel in the coming days and weeks. Given how he’d had her on over his infant photograph, she rather supposed she was owed a moment of fun with this—and him.

  “In that case, sure.”

  Deliberately cheeky, she answered, “Mind you save any ABBA recitals for when you’re off-camera.”

  Chapter Six

  The in-studio hairstyling segment was one Greg had actually looked forward to. Unlike many of his fellow Harvard alums, he wasn’t born rich. Far from it, he’d attended the Ivy League university on a merit scholarship. Growing up, money had been tight and his mother had cut both his hair and his older sister’s. By the time she turned thirteen, Sarah had roundly rebelled but Greg had kept up the family practice. Sitting in the kitchen with a towel wrapped around his shoulders, Jeopardy! on in the background as his mother snipped away with her home barber set, he’d felt safe and cherished, cared for and loved. Sure, the other kids at school had made fun of him for his crooked bangs and Beatles-like bowl cut, but he hadn’t cared, at least not all that much. His mom was the best cook, chauffeur, laundress—and friend—a little kid could ask for. Who cared if she couldn’t cut a straight line?