“Really?”
“You are not a good salesman. I’ve said yes twice already.”
“Right, right.” Liam smiled, his face transformed. “Okay, then. Take a look at these other features I’m trying for.”
I clicked the My Profile link and saw text boxes with Photo: Front, Photo: Side, Photo: Back. If this allowed a user to upload their own photo, that would be a seriously cool app. Especially if the app was interactive in a store. Holy cats! Liam had a good idea. A really good one.
“How can I help, though? I use apps, but I don’t have a clue how to make this stuff work.”
He sat up, like a caffeine jolt struck him. “See, I need someone who knows women’s clothes. This app will be mainly for women. That’s what all my research indicates. Guys can use the app, too, but I need to tap into the consumer mind-set of my primary-user target. Also, troubleshooting for some of the uh, fit issues.”
The lopsided pink bra. “You don’t know any other girls who can help?”
His cheeks momentarily colored. “None who interned at NYFI for a fashion internship.” He even said the name right, as Nye-fee. His grin, eager but timid.
Okay, so I’d sworn an hour ago on a Laurenti-free rest of the summer, but this had potential. I was probably still on a high from New York, and definitely in need of serious sleep. But Liam and fashion? He so needed my help.
“I have a condition,” I said. Okay, bold given that I broke part of his project and we hadn’t even started working together. “If you won’t take money to fix your phone and you really want me to help.”
“Anything.”
“I’d like to use the experience as part of my portfolio for design school. Testing a fashion app could be great to add to my experience.”
“Absolutely.” His shoulders relaxed and he smiled. “Thank you. You have no idea how happy you’ve just made me.” He stopped as if those words weren’t intended to leave his mouth. “I mean, you’ll be a big asset.”
I couldn’t keep the smile off my own face. Using my fashion knowledge did sound awesome. Maybe I’d learn something about app design. That had to be useful, to know the other side of the technology I used every day.
“The deadline is probably good motivation,” I said. “I don’t think I would have finished my gown without the runway show. I’ve never worked so hard or so fast. So, I get the motivation thing.” I stood and wiped my shorts of dust. Silence hung thick as the humidity. I looked at Liam. He was staring at me. Did I have horse manure on my clothes? Because that would be just perfect. Nope, only a few dusty smudges. “What?”
Liam shook free from his stare and pushed the bucket aside. “Thanks a lot, Amelia. I mean it. It … it means a lot to hear you say you get it.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Close to seven, a rumble sounded outside. I peeked out the kitchen window. A busted blue hatchback. Exhausted as I was from a day of traveling, I couldn’t not invite Maya over. This was the longest we’d been apart since we’d met in first grade.
I joined her out back in the usual drop-off spot. Maya exited the driver’s seat. Wait, Maya was driving? “You have a car now!”
Maya ran over, the car’s door still hanging open. “Yes! And you! You look amazing!” She scanned my outfit. “What happened in New York? Did you switch bodies with somebody?”
I’d changed clothes since getting my shorts dirty earlier in the barn talking with Liam, but I didn’t think my new outfit looked that extreme. A shirt I’d traded with Des in exchange for some of my scarves. The cropped pants, and new sandals. “Thanks, I guess?”
She pounded my shoulder with a loose fist. “You look good, A. I want to hear everything.”
We ended up driving for a few hours, talking. We drove roads bordering the bay, and past the port where cruise ships filed in line like giant minivans waiting for school pickup. We dished about our new friends—hers where she worked at Zeeno’s hot dogs, mine from the internship.
“So, Desiree—Des, she’s like, your good friend?” Maya looked out at the taillights braking ahead of us.
“Des is amazing. I felt like the biggest loser around her at first. She’s so confident. Living in a dorm for a month with a total stranger brings you pretty close.” Maya still wasn’t looking at me. “You know, I wish you and I talked more while I was gone. We were constantly busy.” It sounded like an excuse. “I should have made more time. I’m sorry.”
She twisted the ends of her hair, though no amount of twisting would curl her straight layers. “Really? Because I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Oh. No, you could have. I thought …” I shook my head. “I thought I was the one ignoring you.”
Maya glanced over as traffic slowed again. “No worries. I thought, hey, I’ll save the car as a surprise! First day back, me and A will cruise Miami. I’ve only driven the Hammer to work and back—that’s my name for her, the Hammer, because she’s indestructible. By the way, don’t mention anything about hitting or nearly hitting a turtle—my brothers will hear about it and rat me out.”
It was good to be back.
The next morning, I slept in late. Like past noon late. If Abuelita tried to wake me, I hadn’t noticed. I reached for my phone on instinct and blinked myself awake. Three text messages. One from Des and two from Liam. Oh yeah. I really had given Liam my number yesterday after we worked out our deal. Even a night’s sleep didn’t make Liam developing a fashion app any more believable. His message said he needed a couple of days to prepare for testing, and he’d let me know our next steps.
I rolled over. A mug of herbal tea sat on my nightstand, lukewarm. Abuelita, for the win.
My phone buzzed in my hands. Des. The icon for a video chat appeared on my screen from the app we’d both downloaded before we left New York. I clicked Accept.
“Hey, girl!” Des’s very much awake face filled my phone’s screen.
I croaked out a hello. “Sorry, I just woke up.”
“Isn’t it three hours later where you are?”
I told her about my late night driving with Maya. “Oh, that reminds me. I’m helping Liam with a fashion app. Can you believe? Liam and fashion!”
“Uh, come again?”
I explained our encounter, and Liam’s plans.
“Huh. Kinda makes you think he wants to spend some time with you.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“I’m only working with Liam because he is a tragic case. Tragically tragic. You’ve seen him! Also, I broke his phone. A stupid accident, but I owe him.”
“Watch yourself around those Laurentis,” Des said with a note of warning. “They’re like catnip to you.”
“I said Liam, not Ethan. Have a little faith.”
Des and I chatted a few more minutes before I clicked off the video. I stumbled out of bed and opened my bedroom door. Quiet. I poked around the house. Empty. Where was everyone?
I parted the curtains by the kitchen table. Vehicles I didn’t recognize filled the drive leading up to the Laurentis’. An unknown SUV and two white vans. A sports car. Another sports car.
A note was stuck in the usual place on the kitchen island in Abuelita’s handwriting. She was at the house and said to use the back entrance to the staff kitchen if I came over.
Liam mentioned a film crew yesterday—that must be why the vans were here. Every so often a decorating magazine shot a photo spread on the Laurenti home, so this wasn’t anything unusual.
I returned to my room. I couldn’t avoid addressing the category three aftermath from when I’d emptied my closet to pack for New York. Mami must have held back Abuelita from coming in here while I was gone.
I checked out the window again. A woman unloaded lighting from the van and retreated back to the house. What if a Housewives franchise was filming in Miami? No, I couldn’t imagine Gigi Laurenti as a catty diva. She never had plastic surgery, from what I could tell.
Okay, this was getting ridiculous. I wanted to know what was happening at the big house. I dressed and fi
xed up my hair with my new antifrizz serum, courtesy of Avery. I had one hand on the door when I remembered. If Liam was home, so was Ethan. I was inviting trouble walking over there into a field of free-flowing catnip. I couldn’t go looking for him. Maybe I shouldn’t go over to the house at all.
One look back at the disaster zone of my room, and I closed the door behind me.
I took the long route to the house, winding through the garden paths, keeping quiet in case film crews walked the grounds. Around the back of the estate, a crew hoisted a white tent.
At the house, wide sliding doors opened. Gigi Laurenti emerged in casual pastels, looking like class on a stick. Next to her—I gasped. Mami in another knockout dress, her hands pointing a hundred different places. She said something to an employee and they nodded and rushed off. She turned and spoke to Gigi, and Gigi tipped her head back and laughed.
I rubbed my eyes and blinked. Yup, still Mami in the crazy-high heels next to Gigi. A man appeared on the far side of them. Dark hair, prominent features, a shirt unbuttoned maybe one notch too many. He laid a hand on Mami’s arm.
Holy weirdness. Weird to the nth degree. If Mami was working with Gigi, she could have told me. I mean, she already worked part-time for the Laurentis, just not in a way where she dressed like that and bossed other people around. And the guy. Who was the guy?
I watched them for another minute, but the situation still made no sense. Whatever this was. Abuelita was right—they’d been busy while I was gone.
Abuelita stood at the stainless steel island in the staff kitchen overlooking three open cookbooks and a notebook with pink sticky-note flags attached to the pages like fringe.
One lonely drip plunked into the sink. “What’s going on?”
She made a sound of exasperation. “So many demands, these people! First it was food for the family’s friends. All fine. Now there is a crew. First it was one day, now they say a week! Then your mamá”—she stopped herself. “The decisions made are not mine. I need only one answer and no more changing of minds!”
Abuelita couldn’t stand disorder. She could never make sense of how I used a planner to organize my life while my laundry piled up. “What’s going on with Mami? Is she involved with this film crew thing?”
Abuelita’s attention snapped to me. “What did she tell you?”
“Nothing. I haven’t seen her since she brought me home yesterday.” Except for outside with Gigi. Now at least I knew she was involved somehow.
“She can explain to you then.” Abuelita sighed and flipped through her notebook.
This was all very weird. Fine. I would go find her and ask myself.
I left the kitchen through the back hall, listening for voices and peeking around corners. Maybe my mother was finally getting serious about starting her own catering. There was always something to put off her move to running her own business—working her way through an associate’s degree, my speech therapy when I was younger, then braces, and buying a reliable car. Always some expense.
What I didn’t get was the secrecy. Why not tell me? I’d be super happy for her if she contracted catering work for herself. That’s what she wanted—to work for herself. She talked about it a lot.
“Amelia!”
I stopped, frozen at the sound of the familiar voice. Maybe I could make quick run for the kitchen—
“Amelia? That’s you, right?”
Ethan. I was hiding from Ethan Laurenti. In his own house. I silently apologized through time and space to a two-months ago Amelia who would have begged for Ethan to call after her.
I took a reluctant step into the atrium, the glass-walled room extending from the back of the house. Crystals hung from the ceiling beams casting rainbow reflections across the marble floor like a natural disco ball. I was not in the right mind-set to disco.
And there he stood, his dark hair swept aside in that casual Ethan way, wearing a lightweight black shirt that hugged his lean frame. “Amelia. This is my friend Haylo Lohman. Haylo, this is the girl I was telling you about. The one who was in New York this summer.”
The girl, blond and tan, lifted a manicured hand in a small wave. “That’s Haylo with a ‘y.’”
Holy brain scramble. Ethan was talking to his friends about me? And this girl, Haylo. She wore Jimmy Choos with a thin-strapped shorts romper I recognized from a fast-fashion site, along with layered gold bangle bracelets. She was working high-end with ultra-trend and killing it. The girl could be her own style blog.
I smiled to cover any obvious confusion. “Nice to meet you.”
“Ethan said you were at the fashion institute in New York?” Haylo’s voice came out singsongy. “He said you have this super popular Instagram all about fashion.”
I flashed a look at Ethan. “How did you?” Know? Remember? Care?
“Your friend—Des? Desiree? She told me. I couldn’t remember your account name, but she said you know your stuff.”
“Thanks.” Maybe RunwayGirl12 wasn’t doomed. I could spring it back to life. Remembering my own promise to myself not to hunt down Ethan, I stepped toward the doorway. “I better let you get back to things.”
“No, wait!” Ethan reached a hand out. “I was hoping to find you. I was looking for you.”
His words etched into me, across my hardened layers. Ethan was looking for me. He wanted to find me.
He probably only needed me to dig out supplies from a closet. Maybe his “friend” could have me fetch something for her.
Two guys dressed in black entered the atrium, one with a camera hoisted on his shoulder, and the other holding a microphone on a long rod. A woman barged in behind them. “Let’s shoot here—we’ve got great light,” she said in a gravel-like tone, as if her vocal cords had gone through a rough chop in a food processor. “Hope? Edward? Which teens are you?”
Haylo visibly held in a sigh. “It’s Haylo and Ethan—”
“You two dating?”
“Friends,” Ethan and Haylo said at the same time. Haylo glanced a moment longer at Ethan.
The woman made an unconvincing grunt. “Let’s see some organic interaction.” She snapped her fingers at the camera operator and signaled to start filming. “The both of you. Get back to talking.”
Haylo stepped back. “We aren’t scheduled for today.”
“Honey, honey. Come here.” She slung an arm around Haylo and pushed her glasses on top of her head. “My role here as producer is to save us time and money. We need a lot of footage. We may splice this in somewhere later, use it in a montage or what have you. You kids are young and cute. What’s the problem? Now, talk about what you were talking about and pretend we aren’t here.”
Ethan smirked, looking ready to crack up laughing. Haylo took a breath.
The producer noticed me trying to blend into the wall. “Who are you? You’re not blond. You can’t be one of the Lohmans. Are you with Edward?”
“Ethan,” the three of us said at once.
“This is Amelia.” Haylo cast a quick look at me, then back to the woman. “My style consultant.”
Her what? My mouth opened, ready to protest, when Haylo tilted her head just so and widened her eyes at me—a message: Go with it. Her eyebrows softened. Please.
Sure. Style consultant. I could play along. “Yes, hello. Hi. Amelia here.” How would a style consultant act? Like Desiree, when she spoke about business plans. “I’m here in an advisory role.”
The producer lowered her glasses back in front of her eyes. “A little young, don’t you think?”
I straightened my shoulders. “The trend in consulting is to pair teen stars with stylists closer to their own age. It’s an authenticity thing.”
The woman—thankfully or insultingly, I wasn’t sure—rolled her eyes and barked more orders to the crew. Either way, she was off my back.
I watched from the atrium doorway as Haylo and Ethan pretended they weren’t being filmed, which to me, looked exactly like they knew they were being filmed.
The produce
r flapped her hand toward them. “Stand closer. Blondie: twirl your hair a little. Look starry-eyed. This Edward’s a hottie.”
Ethan’s grin dazzled, eating up the producer’s cornball direction. I bet he looked really good on camera.
“This onesie the girl has on,” the woman said to me, pointing at Haylo’s outfit. “This is what the kids are wearing?”
So much for blending into the wall. “Yes. Very on trend.”
She made a harumph sound. “I’d like to see miniskirts. Tube tops. Do coeds still wear tube tops?”
I wasn’t sure what a coed was, but tube tops for sure still existed. “I’ll pick up a few new tops for Haylo.” I would be the buyer in this situation, right? Or would I have my own assistant? I needed Avery for an urgent Stylist 101 Q and A. Avery would know.
“We want tube tops. Tube tops bring ratings.”
Haylo’s smile turned sour. She threw a desperate look my way.
After a few minutes, the producer cut filming and left the room, talking on her phone. Haylo shook her head, scowling and muttering to Ethan.
A beautiful blond woman Gigi Laurenti’s age swept in with two blond girls trailing behind. Haylo marched up to her. “Mom, I told you this was a bad idea. This show is a disaster.”
The woman belonged in the header photo of a lifestyle blog. You know the kind: soft focus, standing in a field with hair whimsically messy, holding the hands of darling girls in tulle-skirted dresses that only get worn in photo shoots. Not that I’d read any of those or anything.
“She’s the best producer in family reality TV,” Haylo’s mother said. “I’m sure she knows what she’s talking about.”
“She told me I need to wear tube tops!”
Mrs. Lohman paused, caught with the look I’d seen on my own mother when confronted with clothing options she wasn’t cool with her daughter wearing. “I’m sure they would be tasteful tube tops.”
Haylo tossed me another helpless look.
“Actually,” I said. “What you have on now is totally cute for summer. It shows off your shoulders and legs without being too revealing or clingy.” Wait. Maybe I was taking this stylist thing too far. “Hi. I’m just … a friend of a friend.”
Alterations Page 13