Restless Hearts

by Stephanie Kate Strohm

  “Let me get you some tissues,” I offered as KO talked to Jinx in a soothing voice. I popped up and hunted around until I found a box of tissues at the front desk.

  “She didn’t even care enough to tell me herself that it was over.” Jinx reached out to take a tissue from the box I held. “Can you believe that? I had to read about it on some blog. And they had pictures, too, so I knew it wasn’t made up.”

  A blog? I shot KO a quizzical look.

  “Jinx’s girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—is kind of famous, I guess,” KO said in an undertone as Jinx continued to blow her nose. “But I don’t know who she is. Jinx wouldn’t even tell me her name or show me a picture.”

  “Well.” I cleared my throat. “Sounds like good riddance to bad rubbish, anyway. You’re beautiful and kind and lethal, and you’re gonna be so much better off without her, Jinx.”

  “Then why does it hurt so much?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Because loss always hurts.” I hugged her. “But it’ll get better with time. Everything does. And you know what else might help?”

  “What?” Jinx hiccupped.

  “Mashed potatoes.” KO and I locked eyes and smiled. “Do you think your mom has room for one more at the table?”

  “You know she always does. Come on, Jinx.” KO helped her up, and I scrambled to my feet beside them. “Let’s go eat like there’s no weigh-in tomorrow.”

  Right now, it was time for dinner.

  Tonight, it would be time to sew.

  And I couldn’t wait to get started.

  “WELL, WELL, WELL. LOOK WHO finally decided to show her face.” Darius paused in wiping down the bar as I walked into Molly’s Crisis. “Pardon me saying so, but girl, you look awful.”

  I looked down at my Trenton Thunder sweatpants—a gift from Hugo after he’d been signed to the Trenton Thunder, the Yankees’ AA farm team—and my West Side Story sweatshirt from high school, with holes for the thumbs and a fine misting of Cheetos dust around the tummy area.

  Awful was probably an understatement. I went to run a hand through my hair and pulled out a Cheeto.

  “Well.” I took a seat at the bar, looking at Darius’s unmade face. “You’re not exactly beat yourself at the moment.”

  “How dare you. I’m letting my skin breathe. Living life as the fabulous Miss Pixie Velvet does take a toll on the pores, honey.” He pushed his rag off to the side. “Even the most noncomedogenic foundation clogs eventually. Now. Where have you been hiding, why have you been hiding, and for the love of all that is holy, where is it you’ve been that has so many Cheetos?”

  “My family’s bodega.” There was something itching the back of my neck. I reached into the collar of my sweatshirt and pulled out another Cheeto. I contemplated eating it, but that was a line I wasn’t ready to cross. “I mean, mostly I was in my room. But we’ve got a lot of Cheetos downstairs. Ma kept yelling at me about eating all our profits, but, whatever.”

  “And why were you hiding in your room, Broadway baby?” he prompted.

  “That’s why.”

  “I see.” Darius pulled out a glass, filled it to the brim with ginger ale, and slid it across the bar to me. I drank deeply. “Also, who are you with all these ginger ales? Some little old man?”

  “I like ginger ale, okay! It’s not a crime!”

  “It’s a weird signature drink.”

  “Are you offering me something stronger?”

  “Try me again in three years, baby. So, let me see if I got this right: You didn’t get cast in Hello, Dolly!, you’ve been hiding up in Washington Heights, and now you’re sitting here in front of me in a truly tragic ensemble, drinking little old man juice and covered in the world’s orangest snack food.”

  “That pretty much sums it up. Except you didn’t make me sound pathetic enough.”

  “Jorge. You are not pathetic,” Darius said, suddenly serious. “You’re an actor. Actors get rejected. It’s part of the process. Does it hurt? Oh yeah. It’s the worst. But that doesn’t make you pathetic, or mean you stop trying. I’ve seen you dance. And even when you’re just singing, casually, here at the bar with Katy, I can hear that you’ve got something. You’ve got it. And if you want to make this happen, you can. It just might take a little more time than you’d like.”

  “They said I was too soft.” I watched the bubbles in my ginger ale float up to the surface. “Not masculine enough. Too … gay.”

  “Well, screw them and the surrey with the fringe on top they rode in on,” Darius snapped, angry. “You’re not too any of those things. There’s no such thing as being too soft or too gay. And if they think that’s a problem, that’s their problem, not yours. And let me tell you something else. I saw that Ethan Fox meat show. Nothing but stank and overacting. That man could not be more overrated.” Darius snorted. “At least here, when we overact, we do it on purpose.”

  “Thanks.” Darius was a performer, too. And he probably knew all about being told he was too something. It was nice not to feel like I was alone.

  “You’re welcome. Now, let me fix your face.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” I touched my cheek self-consciously, rubbing at what was almost definitely orange dust.

  “What isn’t.” Darius shot me a look. “I don’t have the right shade to do your foundation, but how about a little eye makeup?”

  “Sure.” I shrugged. The Cheetos definitely hadn’t made me feel better. Maybe a new face would.

  Darius went backstage and returned with his makeup box. It was an old-school Caboodle with a clear purple top, like the kind Ma used to keep her makeup in back when she was on the pageant circuit as Miss Puerto Rico. He hopped up onto the barstool next to me, brandishing a brush.

  I’d played around with makeup before—Ma’s when I was little, Katy’s when I was older. I could even execute a pretty decent smoky eye, thanks to YouTube tutorials. But I’d never sat and had someone else do it for me. Sitting in the quiet bar, Barbra warbling on low in the background, with Darius’s makeup brush swishing across my face, was actually kind of meditative. I cleared my mind, let go of Ethan Fox and everything Hello, Dolly!, and just sat there.

  I hadn’t expected that makeup would be the thing that helped me finally turn my brain off, but I’d take whatever worked.

  “Done.” I opened my eyes to see Darius rustling around in his Caboodle. “Got it.” Triumphantly, he pulled out a small plastic hand mirror edged in lavender glitter. I think Ma had that one, too. “So?” He held it up expectantly. “What do you think?”

  What did I think? What did I think? I didn’t even know what to think! Compared with this, the playing around with makeup I’d done had literally been playing around. Like a total clown. This was different. This was art.

  With one finger, I traced the high, arched line of my penciled-in brows. My eyes looked enormous, framed by a swishy flick of thick black liner and Bambi-like fake eyelashes. Maybe the best part of all was the bright red lip. Total old-school Hollywood vibes. It made me think of Katy’s coat, the one with the Peter Pan collar. But it made me feel powerful.

  But the thing I loved best of all? I still looked like me.

  “Can you teach me how to do this?” I demanded.

  “Can I? Yes. Will I?” Darius cocked his head, deliberating. “I’ll think about it.”

  He would, though. I knew he would. I could tell from the way he was trying not to smile as he bustled back behind the bar, Caboodle in hand.

  The door blew open, letting in a gust of wind and one Miss Katy Keene, wearing plaid pajama pants, a Western Queens Boxing Gym sweatshirt, and an enormous grin.

  “Well, well, well. I haven’t seen this one in forever, either!” Darius exclaimed as he returned. “And here I thought I’d gotten lucky and you two had decided to stop bothering me.”

  “Wow. Jorge. You look stunning.” Katy stopped in her tracks. “Like, literally stunning.”

  “Thank you.” Darius preened. “I’m very good.”

  “Th
is outfit is … something,” she said diplomatically as she crossed toward me, “but your face.”

  “Are we talking about my outfit?” She was covered in what I liked to think of as fashion debris, little threads and scraps and who knows what else. I started plucking little bits of fabric out of her hair like a monkey. “You’re wearing pajamas.”

  “I am?” She looked down at her legs, stunned, like she had no idea she’d left the house in them. “Huh. Well. Doesn’t matter! I need to show you my dress! It’s good. I think. Really good. But I need you to look at it and tell me it’s good. Except … wait a minute.” Brow furrowing suspiciously, she reached up and pulled a Cheeto out of the collar of my sweatshirt. Another one? Seriously?! How many were hiding on me?! “Oh, Jorge.” Her face crumpled. “You didn’t get the part.”

  Of course she’d known. I remembered sitting on Katy’s living room floor freshman year, crying and elbow-deep in a bag of Cheetos, because they’d given the role of Cinderella’s Prince in Into the Woods to some no-talent senior with a weak chin. Ugh.

  “That part didn’t deserve him,” Darius said as Katy wrapped her arms around my middle. “Look at that face. He’s going to be a star. And he doesn’t need Ethan Fox to do it.”

  “Darius is right. I am gonna be a star,” I vowed. I probably still had a couple days of Cheetos left—grief is a process, y’all—but I wouldn’t let this one setback stop me. I couldn’t. I’d had the same dream since I was four years old when Ma took me to see Peter Pan, and I realized that was what I wanted to do: fly. And that’s exactly how I felt when I was onstage. Like I was flying. I wasn’t going to stop chasing that feeling because of some pretentious director with outdated ideas about conventional masculinity who thought high art meant serving people stew.

  Katy hugged me tighter, and I squeezed her back.

  “Now,” I cleared my throat, “did you say something about a dress?”

  “BYE, BYE, BLONDIE!”

  by Amelie Stafford for CelebutanteTalk,

  a subsidiary of Cabot Media

  Guess blondes don’t have more fun—or maybe they aren’t fun enough for the perfectly passionate Pepper Smith!

  After being spotted out on the town several times with the same, still-unidentified mystery blonde, it appears that Pep has sent her packing. Last night, Pepper was spotted locking lips outside ultra-exclusive nightclub La Piscine with celebrity YouTuber Auden Grace. Auden’s channel, where he livestreams himself playing video games, has nearly one hundred million subscribers—and if he keeps seeing the sensational Miss Smith, who knows what records he might break! Perhaps his channel might soon feature a cameo from the popular Pep herself! We’re sure she’d get the high score in anything she attempted!

  Well, mystery blonde, wherever you are tonight, know that the rest of New York is crying into their pillows right along with you—well, everyone except for lucky, lucky Auden Grace!

  BOONE WYANT WASN’T GREAT AT BEING FRIENDS.

  Don’t get me wrong, he was plenty friendly. Problem was, he was more than friendly.

  “Dang, Josie.” He whistled at me as we stood backstage at the Buccaneer in Greenville, North Carolina, giving my black crop top a very appreciative glance. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  Wasn’t trying to kill him. Although if he kept this up, I might have to. When I told him I just wanted to be friends back in Virginia Beach, I wasn’t playing hard to get. I wanted to focus on my music, and just my music. Full stop. But Boone was being even more distracting now than he’d been when we were just flirting at Biscuit Barrels.

  In Fayetteville, he—surprise!—invited me onstage to sing with him. The song turned out to be Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Cue massive eye roll. After singing to a crowd of Baby Booners who looked like they wanted to murder me, and a slew of middle-aged jazz fans who looked surprised to be enjoying themselves so much, I made it clear that he was never to do that again.

  So he just started dedicating the song to me instead.

  I was starting to get the sense that Boone hadn’t been told “no” a lot in his life. He was charming, sure, but now that his charm offensive wasn’t working on me, it appeared to have short-circuited his brain. That boy was doing too much, and I was over it.

  “You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t,” Pauly warbled as we walked down the hall of the Comfort Motel Charlotte, in search of the vending machine and some ice.

  “Pauly, I swear.” I held up my hand for silence. “That is the last song I want to hear right now.”

  It’s hard to look scary in a leopard-print onesie, but it must have worked, because Pauly scurried away without another word from Bonnie Raitt, abandoning the vending machine.

  This leopard print zip-up onesie was the most ridiculous garment I owned, but it was so comfortable, I didn’t care. Melody had bought them for me and Val for Christmas one year as a joke, and when I’d been packing up to leave Riverdale, I couldn’t quite bear to leave it behind, even though the Pussycats had been long gone by that point. It brought back too many good memories of sharing popcorn in Val’s basement, critiquing all the singers on different reality TV shows, and imagining all the ways we were gonna take the world by storm.

  Roaming the halls of a Comfort Motel in a leopard print onesie and fuzzy slippers wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined in those days, but if I’d learned anything since being on the road with Dad, it was that working, really working as a professional musician, wasn’t all nonstop glamour. Of course, there had been some incredible days and awesome shows, but if I saw one more Comfort Motel orange lobby throw pillow, I was going to lose my mind.

  Sighing, I switched the ice bucket to my other side. I’d stepped weird while walking off stage tonight—so unlike me; I practically lived in heels—and now my ankle was killing me. Lucky for me, this appeared to be the one Comfort Motel in all of creation that didn’t have the exact same layout as all the others, and I was having the worst time finding the stupid ice machine.

  Limping around the corner, I almost walked straight into a couple kissing. Oh my god. Seriously, people? This was a motel. You could literally get a room. Any room. No excuse for PDA.

  I was about to go and search for the ice machine down a less-occupied hall, but then realized that although I didn’t recognize the woman in the tiny shorts with the long blonde hair, I definitely recognized the guy.

  He was still wearing the cowboy hat he’d performed in that night.

  “Wow.” I settled my ice bucket on my hip. “Are you serious right now?”

  Boone stopped kissing whoever it was and turned to look at me. There was an expression on his face I couldn’t quite read.

  “Wait for me inside, darlin’?” Boone tipped his hat back on his forehead and handed the giggling blonde his room key. She kissed it—unbelievable—then disappeared into the room. “Do we have a problem here, Josie? Because for the life of me, I can’t think of what that problem would be.”

  “Did you pick up a groupie?” I hissed. “Really classy, Boone. Wow.”

  “So what if I did?” His tone was defensive, and his stance was trying a little too hard to be casual. “I don’t see why you care. You made it very clear that nothing was going to happen between us.”

  “So you immediately jump on the next warm body you find?”

  “I didn’t jump on anything! But if I did, I don’t see how that’s any of your business! I gave you plenty of chances to change your mind, and all you told me was stop. So this is me. Stopping.”

  We glared at each other. I didn’t know why this was bothering me so much. I didn’t want to start anything with Boone Wyant, and this incident was exactly why I didn’t want to. I couldn’t open myself up to getting hurt by someone I was working with. Especially someone who was in a different city every night, surrounded by women who were literally obsessed with him. It would be way too messy.

  We were barely even friends. Really, we were just colleagues. Coworkers could make out with b
londe women if they wanted to. Plus, he’d been pissing me off all over North Carolina, with those stupid romantic gestures, which weren’t romantic since I didn’t want them! So why did I care? I’d told him to stop pursuing me, and clearly, he had. Maybe it was just how fast he’d moved on. It was kind of a blow to the ego.

  Or maybe, a little voice inside said, he made you feel special.

  Ugh. Forget that. I was Josie McCoy. I was special. And not because of some Instagram cowboy with a guitar. I was special because of my voice and my drive and my heart, and Boone Wyant didn’t deserve any of that.

  “You know what?” I said slowly. “You’re right. It isn’t any of my business.”

  “Josie—”

  “Knock yourself out, Boone.” I turned to go, in search of ice machines and then back to my room, where I could hopefully forget about all this and sleep.

  “Come on, Josie, don’t be like that,” he called after me.

  “Be like what? I’m not being like anything!” I was still talking to him, but I wouldn’t face him. I continued my undignified trek down the hall, onesie, fuzzy slippers, ice bucket, and all. “Night, Boone.” I waved sarcastically behind me.

  Safely around the corner, I paused for a moment.

  He didn’t come after me.

  Not that I wanted him to.

  But he didn’t.

  THE PERFUME HALL AT LACY’S had been transformed. Everything that wasn’t nailed down had been pushed to the side, creating an aisle lined with two rows of black folding chairs on either side. There was a temporary lighting rig set up around the chandelier, casting dramatic shadows over the space. And in the back, in front of the grand staircase up a half level to the shoe department, floor-to-ceiling curtains, printed with a “Rex London x Lacy’s” logo, hung to create a backstage area for the models—er, designers—to emerge from. Instead of the normal bustle of perfume spritzers, the hallway was deserted, everything set up and ready to go. I hurried down the catwalk to the elevators, hoping I’d be back to walk the runway as part of my show, instead of slinking down it in defeat.