by Megan Bryce
He was a regular jack-of-all-trades. A MacGyver!
Averting disaster and potentially explosive situations with duct tape and his thumb!
And no one here would get that reference either.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Nicole Bissette huddled beside the AV cart, her knees tucked under chin and her eyes staring vacantly at a spot on the floor.
And then he shook his head in unsurprised resignation. The stress, the drugs, and he had no doubt the hunger, got to them all eventually.
To be fair, Nicole had never flown off the handle around him, and despite knowing that she had modeled for a few short years, he couldn’t see her ever doing it.
Couldn’t see her strutting around and being watched.
She was the watcher, staring at those around her as if she could see every ugly thought in their head.
And Flynn wondered again how he’d ever been hired. And why he hadn’t been fired yet.
He inched closer. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes flicked to his, then back down. She wiggled her fingers at him to go away.
He said, “Should I get someone. . .else?”
She shook her head.
“Are you on something?”
Oh, no. She was tripping, right here. Geeking out, going to start screaming and ripping her hair out in chunks.
She whispered, “No. I just saw. . .”
Bugs burrowing out of her skin? A demon laughing at her from the back of someone else’s head?
Flynn told himself once again that he really needed to find another job. Maybe in a library. He could like working in a library.
“My mother.”
Flynn abruptly stopped worrying about her being on drugs. She had seen a demon smiling.
Nikita was known the fashion world over, though Flynn had luckily never had the opportunity to meet her in person.
There were perks to working in the utility closet sometimes. It was easy to hide.
He looked behind him, letting out a breath when Nikita wasn’t there.
Nicole was watching him when he turned back around and she jerked her head toward the crowd. “Out there.”
“You want me to pull up the video?”
She nodded her head, then shook her head, then nodded her head.
He waited for her to make a decision and then. . .just pulled it up.
He flipped through the cameras until he found who he was looking for. “Here you go.”
Nicole didn’t get up, just said, “Is she smiling?”
“Yes.”
“The ‘How did I ever get talked in to coming to this fiasco’ smile or the ‘Let’s see what kind of disaster this is going to turn out to be’ smile?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” He squinted at the screen, then shrugged. “Now she’s laughing.”
Nicole closed her eyes. “Oh, God. Dear God.”
His walkie-talkie crackled and a frantic female voice said, “Has anyone seen Nicole? Nicole? We need you at the front.”
He said like she hadn’t heard, when anyone within a ten foot radius could have, “They need you. They’re starting.”
She held her hand out to him to be helped up and Flynn suddenly remembered this woman was his boss.
He grabbed her hand and pulled gently.
She nodded her thanks, smoothed her pantsuit, and then glanced at the screen.
She took in the filled seats, her mother front row and center, and said, “That’s the ‘She’d better not embarrass me’ smile. And the ‘I’ll skewer her if she does’ laugh.”
Flynn watched Nicole walk away, looking put together and like she hadn’t just been huddling in a corner, and he heard her mutter, “I really should have become a banker.”
Megan BryceBoring Is The New Black
Three
Hair. Makeup. Top. Bottom. Shoes.
Hair. Makeup. Top. Bottom. Shoes.
Model after model, Nicole checked one last time to make sure everything was perfect. Or as perfect as she could get it in these final moments.
The runway was a performance– the clothes the lines, the girls the actors.
This was art.
Colors and patterns and shapes that would be stocked by retailers in the fall and winter season, if she was lucky.
The music gave its cue, the lighting changed its color, and Nicole nodded because she couldn’t say it.
Go.
The first girl went out and Nicole was too busy to check the TV for the audiences reaction. She’d watch the video after.
She was too busy to remember her own modeling days, not that she’d been any good at it. Too guarded and stiff. Too uncomfortable with everyone looking at her and comparing her.
The comparison could only be unfavorable.
She liked being behind the curtain. She liked being the one making decisions and bringing her visions to fruition. She liked being in charge.
And she was too busy to worry much about having to come out from behind the curtain to receive her applause.
Please let there be applause.
But the last girl was walking down the runway and the girls were lined up for their finale walk and Nicole was getting checked and finalized. Brushed and patted and manhandled. And she remembered another reason why she’d hated being a model.
Didn’t like to be touched.
The final outfit of the collection was hers– a pale vanilla pantsuit topped with a chocolate peacoat– and when the last girl passed her, she waited three extra beats, then followed.
Nicole lifted her head, staring fiercely at nothing and strutting out behind her girls.
She moved with quick staccato steps, concentrating on staying far enough behind the last girl and ignoring the crowd.
She knew when she passed Gia and Victoria because they both stood, and Gia’s rambunctious clapping almost made Nicole smile.
She knew when she passed Nikita from the dip in temperature.
The applause grew louder as she turned the first corner, a few more members of the audience stood up as she swept by them, and then suddenly everyone realized.
That this was Nicole Bissette. Walking in one of her own outfits.
And then a roar of applause. An explosion of camera flashes.
The models in front of her continued their fluid march until only Nicole was left at the end.
She stopped. She posed. She waited.
Then she spun around and strutted after her girls. Still staring fiercely at nothing, her walk smooth and strong, her chin up.
Just like she was a supermodel’s daughter.
Megan BryceBoring Is The New Black
Four
“It. Was. Brilliant!”
Gia’s glowing outburst wasn’t exactly unbiased– she’d have said it was brilliant no matter what– and though Nicole was certain her show hadn’t been bad, she wasn’t certain it had been any good.
She raised her eyebrows at Victoria and braced herself for the untarnished truth.
“I’d fund you,” Victoria said, her highest compliment, and Nicole took a deep breath for the first time in days.
Gia clapped. “Now can we celebrate?”
“If you whip out a bag of candy. . .”
“Alcohol! Dancing!”
The room quieted abruptly and Nicole knew before turning around that her mother had entered.
“Nicole,” the older woman said, then waited for her daughter to turn around before continuing. “Very daring. I loved it.”
Everyone in the room started breathing again.
“Thank you, Nikita.”
She’d always been Nikita. Not Mama or Mommy or Mom or Mother. She was Nikita, the one and only, to one and all.
And as if they were only recently introduced acquaintances, Nikita offered her cheek for an air kiss.
“I don’t usually go out of my way to congratulate a debut designer,” she said, smiling to those gathered around. “But I thought I could make an exception in this case.”
Everyone laughed at her little joke.
“And your outfits were. . .interesting. Classic.”
She took Nicole’s hand and held it out to the side, studying the look she was still wearing, and Nicole said, “Thank you, Nikita.”
Her mother smiled magnanimously, dropping Nicole’s hand and then exiting the room.
Victoria said, “Now we can celebrate.”
Nicole said, “With alcohol.”
Megan BryceBoring Is The New Black
Five
Flynn spent the next morning checking equipment to be returned.
When that was done, he wandered around turning on computers and updating software, browsers. No one was going to come in today, he already knew. He doubted any of them were going to wake up today.
He ordered a new scanner and found someone’s phone.
He changed a lightbulb. Not really his job but the buzzing drove him crazy enough to borrow a ladder from maintenance.
And then he went back to his closet to watch a few episodes of The IT Crowd with his feet up on his desk and his door open.
Yeah, this was the life.
He woke with a start, his chair shifting forward with his weight, and he flung his arms out in reflex. His stomach churned, his pulse raced, and then he was all the way awake and everything was okay.
He started laughing and then noticed Nicole Bissette watching from the doorway.
Flynn jumped to his feet.
“Sorry! Fell asleep.”
She looked at him and he smiled nervously. She always made him nervous with the looking.
He patted his still thumping heart. “I didn’t think anyone was here.”
“It’s okay.” She looked into the small room, his desk flush against one wall and his chair against the other.
It was a tight squeeze.
She said, “Do you have the video from yesterday?”
“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t think you were coming in today. You know, celebrating?”
She nodded. And looked. And Flynn grabbed a thumb drive from his drawer and took one big step toward her to drop it in her hand.
“Thank you.”
She turned and left and Flynn blew out his breath silently.
He froze with his mouth in open duck face when she came back into view.
“You can leave the door open. I’m the only one here today.”
He closed his lips, then said, “Oh, okay. Thanks.”
She nodded again, waiting and looking at him, and he finally realized what the problem was.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and said, “Flynn. My name.”
She blinked, then her eyes softened. She looked like she was thinking about smiling.
And she said, “I know.”
It was weird being here alone with her.
It was weird having his door open.
Normally, there was hustle and bustle. Designers and seamstresses and models, and today there was no one.
Nicole had also kept her door open and Flynn could hear the audio of her runway playing, over and over.
He felt like he should be doing something instead of watching reruns, so he refilled the paper in the printer.
And then he emptied the trash.
And then couldn’t stand it anymore and went to knock on his boss’s uncharacteristically open door. Her hair was in a loose bun and her rarely-seen glasses perched on her nose.
She looked like a librarian.
A librarian who should have been a model.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got nothing else to do today. You need anything? Want me to get your lunch?”
She took her glasses off, rubbing the bridge of her nose and shaking her head. “You can go home.”
Maybe he’d go home and start looking for a new job. Something different. Something more.
He felt so tired even thinking about it because he seriously doubted there was anything more out there.
He turned and Nicole said, “Wait. Do you know anything about e-commerce?”
Flynn turned back around. “Like eBay and Etsy and WooCommerce?”
Nicole looked at him. “Like adding a store onto the website. How hard would that be?”
“Not hard at all. The hard part is getting people to know about it.”
“Publicity. That’s not the hard part.”
Not for her, no.
She turned her chair around to look out the window.
“I wanted to get into stores, and I still do. That’s what the last six months, what last night, was all about. But so many people have been talking about selling direct to consumers this show. They see it now, they want it now.”
Flynn’s heart sped up and he said, “You’d need an online store, product, payment processing, shipping capabilities.”
She stared out the window, thinking, and he said, slowly, “I could do it.”
Megan BryceBoring Is The New Black
Six
Flynn went home to Mom after that. For food and commiseration.
Where else did you go when you made a complete fool of yourself to your boss?
What else could you do when you didn’t like beer and your buddies were all at work?
But his mom opened the door and was happy to see him and then proceeded to stuff him with leftovers until his dad got home.
When they heard the front door open, his mom called out, “Mike? Flynn came home for a visit.”
His dad came around the corner. “You come on the train?” And when Flynn nodded, said, “You get fired?”
“Not yet. Probably tomorrow.”
His dad sat down next to Flynn, sighing with relief at getting off his feet. “Good. You were being wasted there.”
Lisa filled a plate for her husband. “Go wash. And leave him alone.”
Mike patted his son’s shoulder before getting back up. “You should look for something closer to home, out of the city. We could fix up the basement for you.”
“Er. . .”
“He hasn’t been fired yet, Mike.”
“Just saying. It would be nice to have him close again.” Mike washed his hands at the sink, wiping his hands dry on the kitchen towel. “When you have teenagers, you can’t wait to get rid of them. And then they turn into men and don’t want anything to do with you.”
Lisa said pointedly, “Do you want to go live in your dad’s basement?”
Mike grimaced and muttered, “We’d fix it up nice.”
She laughed, pecking his cheek and finally sitting down to the table for the first time since Flynn had got there.
His dad tucked into his food, telling Flynn how his older brother had got a raise along with his new job as manager.
And his older sister, out in Idaho, was finally starting to enjoy the place after the culture shock of moving from Jersey to Boise.
All of it sounded like hell to Flynn, but it did seem like the natural progression of things.
And he knew why his dad wanted him to move into the basement.
The family was moving away, moving on. The family he’d sacrificed for, the family he’d worked his whole life for.
Sounded like hell.
Flynn had always sworn that he wouldn’t waste his life. Wouldn’t be chained to a desk, working with people he didn’t like at a job that meant nothing.
And it had happened anyway. Because he didn’t know what else there was.
Lisa said, “So tell us why you’re going to get fired.”
“I yelled at my boss.”
“I hope it wasn’t Nicole Bissette,” she said and he grimaced.
“Oh, Flynn. Why? She’s so pretty but she always looks unhappy. You didn’t need to yell at her.”
Flynn raised his eyebrows at his mother and her cheeks warmed with color.
“Sometimes she’s in People. I notice her just because you work for her.”
Flynn remembered Nicole huddling beside the AV cart and said, “I don’t think being a celebrity is all it’s cracked up to be.”
Mike took a big bite and said, “Especially not when their employees yell at them.”
“And you were always such a sweet boy. I can’t believe you yelled.”
He couldn’t believe it either. He’d wanted to do something besides change lightbulbs and she’d brought up the store and he’d gotten so excited.
All he did was manage her current website, about as challenging as turning phones off and on, and the thought of creating something made him want it. And then she’d said off-handedly, “Oh, we’ll hire someone to do it.”
He’d just snapped. Waving his arms around and sounding like a complete idiot.
“What the hell did you hire me to do? I sit in there like a lump, being wasted. I change toner and update software. Use me.”
Flynn closed his eyes, realizing he’d sounded just like his dad. Feeling useless and wasted and like his life was going nowhere and it didn’t really matter because where would it go anyway.
Flynn said, “She’s thinking about making an online store for the website and I told her I could do it.”
His mom clapped her hands. “Oh, you’d be great at that. Remember the website you made in high school for the band. It was so clever.”
He remembered.
“She didn’t think I’d be great at it.”
His dad said, “Then she’s an idiot.”
Flynn smiled at their show of support and when his mom pulled out a bag of cookies and filled a plate for him, his dad just shrugged his shoulders and said, resigned, “Those were my cookies.”
“You don’t need them. Flynn does.”
When she turned her back, Flynn passed him a cookie under the table and Mike nodded his thanks.
“You going to stay the night?”
Flynn shook his head. “I’ll have to catch the train tonight. I’ve got to show up at work in the morning to get fired.”
Lisa hugged his shoulders from behind. “Oh, baby. It’ll be just fine, you’ll see.”
“Mommm,” Flynn whined, feeling about two years old.
She smoothed his hair and smiled. “You’ll always be my baby.”