If the Shoe Fits

by Julie Murphy

  “Take off the dress. I can’t promise anything. It could need a whole new zipper. And I only have a travel sewing kit with me.”

  She obeys and strips down, tossing me her dress as she sits on her old bed in her strapless bra and smoothing undergarments, watching me nervously.

  “Watching me won’t make me go any faster.”

  “Just do whatever you have to do. Sew me into it if you have to.”

  I take a quick look at the zipper, which luckily for Addison is an easy fix. The zipper just got off track, so all I have to do is rip a few stitches, retrack the zipper, and sew it back in place. That, however, doesn’t stop me from making some very thoughtful and unsure noises just to keep Addison on her toes.

  It’s only been a month or so since I last had my hands on a needle, which is an eternity if you look at the last four years of my life, but something about the process of threading it and holding it between my teeth as I use my seam ripper makes me feel at ease. Calmed. Soothed. This was the exact energy I was chasing during our goat yoga class, and it’s hard not to feel like a small puzzle piece has clicked into place with the familiar act of simply fixing a stray zipper.

  “Done,” I finally say.

  “What? You mean it’s fixed?” She jumps to her feet with grabby hands reaching for the dress.

  I pass it back to her and watch her squirm into it. “Be careful. The zipper isn’t defective, but it’s not as high quality as it should be for a dress that expensive.”

  She turns around so I can zip her up, and with her gaze steady on the wall ahead of us, she says, “Thanks, by the way.”

  I’m honestly shocked to hear unadulterated gratitude come out of her mouth. I can’t help but assume that not having to make direct eye contact with me made the exchange possible for her.

  “I guess this means you owe me,” I say.

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  We all watch from the balcony at the back of the house as a helicopter lands on the helipad painted to look like the Before Midnight clock.

  “Is it weird that I always assumed the helipad was edited to look like that?” asks Jenny. “Like some kind of TV magic?”

  Stacy props her elbow on the railing and cradles her chin in her hand. “Or is it weirder that this show has its own helipad?”

  Addison’s date is a Before Midnight classic, the helicopter date night, and I can’t help but take just a sliver of joy thinking about how miserable Henry will be.

  Below us, a cluster of crew members escort Henry, dressed in a slick suit with a black tie. He glances up to us, and everyone crams up against the edge of the balcony to get a millisecond of face time, like we’re all at a concert and Henry is the headliner we’ve waited hours for.

  “Evening, ladies,” he says, tipping his chin to us, his eyes bright with terror—something only I seem to notice.

  My eyes widen, and I give him a slight thumbs-up. All I can hear is him telling me he’d rather lie naked in a pit of scorpions than fly on a helicopter.

  He inhales deeply, and I can see all the ideas running through his head, trying to figure out how he can get out of this at the last minute. Fall and break an arm? Fake a death in the family?

  He’s herded off quickly, and I can feel the energy of all the other women ease, like they’ve all been sucking in for the camera. (Bleh.)

  A legion of cameras follows Addison through the wildflower field, her white shawl billowing gracefully behind her. Henry greets her at the helicopter, giving her a kiss on the cheek, and helps her inside as he follows just behind her.

  I do feel just a little bit bad for him. RIP, Henry.

  Sara Claire lets out a soft sigh. “Am I so silly for admitting I really had my hopes set on the helicopter date?”

  “Hell no,” says Chloe. “I’m scared of heights, and helicopters are basically flying deathtraps. No, thank you.”

  Anna yawns. “I’m not feeling great.”

  I turn to her. “Are you okay?”

  Her mouth turns into a frown. “Just a headache. I think I’m going to lie down.”

  I squeeze her hand. “I’ll come check on you later.”

  “How can it be this depressing to live in an epic château?” Jenny opines.

  With the doors closed behind them, Addison and Henry take off, the helicopter hovering for a moment and then circling overhead for the cameras. A few girls wave up at them, and a camera down below focuses in on us, all clustered around this railing in our pajamas like a bunch of sad sacks.

  “That’s it,” Stacy says. “We need pizza and wine.”

  “Um, I don’t think Domino’s delivers to the Before Midnight château,” I tell her.

  “To the kitchen, ladies!” Stacy calls, leading the charge.

  Downstairs, we all crowd around the island as Stacy pulls together some ingredients for a quick pizza dough. She then portions everything out for us to each make our own mini pizzas, giving us instructions in what I assume is her librarian voice.

  “You’re like an antidepressant in human form,” I tell her.

  “I guess it’s just the librarian in me taking over. When I’m not at the reference desk answering the same questions over and over again, I’m dreaming up the cheapest programs I can come up with for my kiddos.”

  “Do you miss them?” I ask.

  “I do,” she says slowly. “But I don’t miss all the bullshit red tape I have to deal with. I just wish I had enough resources to do good by them, but I feel like I’m just writing grants to keep my head above water.”

  “Have you thought about what you’d do with the prize money?” I ask.

  She peers up at me. “Pay off some student loans. Buy my library kids some great stuff we could use like iPads and design programs and as many new books as their hearts desire. What about you?”

  “Oh God, nothing as selfless as you,” I tell her. “Don’t laugh, but I want to start my own line. I’ll start with shoes. Move into accessories and then clothing. At least that’s the plan. My brain is basically a useless cinder block at the moment, and I haven’t come up with a design I love in months.”

  “You’ve got writer’s block,” she says. “Or I guess in your case, it would be designer’s block.”

  “Is there a cure, doc?”

  She smiles and pats my shoulder. “I’m not much of a writer, but my ex was. One time I had them in to talk to my kids about writing and they said that you can get a block for a number of reasons. Sometimes you’ve made a wrong choice and you have to go back and start over. Sometimes you’ve run out of inspiration and have to rediscover what made you so passionate in the first place. But whatever it is, it helps to take things in bite sizes. Start small. A sentence…or maybe for you a line. A color. A fabric. And then go from there.”

  “You’re really smart,” I tell her.

  “I think you mean my ex was really smart.”

  I shake my head. “Nope, definitely meant you.”

  “Well, you’ll get past this and then one day you’ll wonder how you’ll ever have time for all the ideas you have. And when you get that line of your own, I’ll be the first person at the store, buying my pair of Cindy originals.”

  “First pair is on me,” I promise her.

  We find some spaghetti sauce to use as pizza sauce and scour the fridge for any toppings we can find. I go with banana peppers and extra cheese.

  We all take turns cooking pizzas and reminiscing about our lives back home as we go through a few bottles of wine. Back in Wisconsin, Chloe runs social media for her parents’ chain of gas stations, Cheese Stop. She also headlines a folk band and plays all over the Midwest on the weekends. Gretchen is a massage therapist from Las Vegas with two moms both named Linda. Valerie is a former dancer for the Miami Heat and a current hairstylist with a son named Carson. Samantha is a nurse with plans to go on to med school after the doctor she was engaged to dumped her for having a job that was too demanding. Jenny is the big surprise—a divorcé and trial lawyer who specializes
in malpractice lawsuits.

  “Yeah,” she says, “I actually met my ex-husband in the courtroom. He was an expert witness in a nose-job-gone-wrong case.”

  “What a thing to be an expert on,” Sara Claire says.

  After pizza, we all crash on the couches and play a game of truth or dare, which quickly devolves into just truth until suddenly it’s been hours and the camera guys who have hovered around us are calling it a night.

  I gasp as we’re all cleaning up. “I never went to check on Anna.”

  “Go ahead,” Sara Claire says. “We’ve got this.”

  I grab a glass of water and a sleeve of crackers before I head upstairs.

  “Anna?” I call as I enter her dark room.

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Anna?” I flip the switch and find four perfectly made beds. That’s weird.

  After leaving the glass and crackers on her nightstand, I check in the bathroom and a few other rooms, but can’t seem to find her. All I can think of is Drew telling me to watch out for her. Great job I’ve done. Sister of the year.

  I throw on a pair of Vans and go out the front door to see if I can find her somewhere on the grounds.

  “Anna!” I call.

  I check around the side of the house where Beck led me to last night so we could talk inside one of the trailers. But it’s a ghost town. I walk down the hill to the gate, where the crew is packing it in and heading to their crash pad house just down the road. I almost ask one of them if they’ve seen Anna, but I’m scared I might somehow get her in trouble.

  Back up at the house, I go to open the front door, but it’s locked, so I circle all the way around the hedges to where the pool is. The only thing I can see down the path is one single light, which I think is Henry’s guest house. I can hear some quiet splashing, but it’s too dark to see anything, and I guess it could just be the wind, but…I remember seeing some kind of electrical box out here somewhere, so I fumble around looking for the light switch outside the pool cabana when I run into something—no, someone. “Anna?”

  “Ow! You stepped on my toe!”

  “Who is that?” I ask just as I find the switches and flip one of them on. “Addison?” The glow of the interior pool lights illuminates the area just enough for me to see her standing there beside me, still in the champagne minidress she wore on her date with Henry, which I’m surprised is not still happening. “What are you doing here?”

  But she doesn’t even flinch at the sound of my voice. Instead, her face lights up with delight as she crosses her arms, not tearing her eyes away from the pool. “Oh, I don’t think that’s the question you should be asking.”

  My gaze follows hers, and the first thing I notice is a bright yellow triangle bikini top floating along the surface of the pool. But then my jaw drops the moment I see her. “Anna!”

  My stepsister is in the pool, her hair piled high into a messy bun, her legs wrapped around Zeke’s waist with her arms wound around his neck.

  “Uh-oh,” her tiny voice squeaks.

  “Oh, this is good,” Addison says like she’s watching the montage part of an Ocean’s Eleven movie.

  “Shit,” says Zeke as he squirms out from under Anna. “It’s not what it looks like.” He runs a shaky hand through his thick blond curls as he takes the stairs of the pool two at a time.

  Anna scrambles for her bikini top with one arm wrapped around her chest.

  I race to the edge of the pool and unzip my hoodie, which I drape over her shoulders as soon as she emerges from the water.

  “Is this what it looks like?” I ask quietly.

  She nods. “I think I fell for the wrong guy. At least this one has a job, though. Right?”

  You can’t say she’s not optimistic.

  “Had a job,” Addison says.

  “You can’t tell anyone,” Zeke begs her. He trips as he tries stepping into his jeans even though he’s still soaking wet. “Please.”

  “You owe me, Addison,” I remind her.

  Addison touches her hand to her heart, being sarcastically dramatic. “How could I possibly let someone betray Henry like this?”

  “Cut the crap,” Zeke tells her. “The cameras aren’t rolling. What do you want?”

  Anna shivers beside me.

  “Assurances,” Addison demands.

  Zeke looks to Anna and then me. “Take her inside, okay? I’ll deal with this.”

  I give Addison a sour look. “Guess you got home early from your date. Must not have gone very well.”

  Her mouth curls into a grin. “Oh, I think I got here just in time.”

  Last night, I stayed in Anna’s room until she fell asleep. I definitely missed out on precious walkie-talkie time, but I couldn’t abandon Anna. According to her, she fell hard for Zeke when she and Drew were doing their preshow interviews. She made the first move that day by slipping him her number. They texted day and night for the week leading up to production, and she planned on backing out of the show, but she could never find the right time. She had hoped to get sent home the first night, but instead it was Drew who was sent home before both of us. It wasn’t getting sent home that Anna was worried about. It was Zeke losing his job for cozying up to a contestant.

  I brushed her hair and rubbed her back, and had every intention of talking to Addison before she went to bed, but by the time I left Anna, every light in the house was off.

  In the morning, Anna is crouched beside my bed waiting for me. I gasp at the sight of her chin resting on my mattress just inches from my face.

  “I have to tell Henry,” she says.

  I sit up slowly, propping myself up on my elbows, and look around for Stacy or Sara Claire, but they’re both already up and gone. “Wait, wait, shouldn’t you talk to Zeke first? At least find out what he promised Addison?”

  She shakes her head. “It won’t be anything he can actually deliver on. He’s a junior producer,” she whispers. “He can’t even get craft services to remember that he has a nut allergy. Addison will figure that out soon enough and she’ll rat him out. If I send myself home, she loses all the power. You have to help me find Henry.”

  I sit up completely, my head spinning a little from waking up too quickly. “Okay, give me a minute to get dressed, and then we’ll figure it out.”

  She sits there on the floor, her whole body slumped as I put on a pair of frayed denim shorts and a T-shirt that reads I DONUT CARE ABOUT YOUR DIET.

  We walk downstairs and manage to sneak out the back door and down the path to where the guesthouse is.

  In the light of day, the guesthouse is covered in vines and has a beautiful rose garden just outside the window. I knock on the arched door with a bronze doorknob in the center.

  “How do you know where he’s staying?” Anna asks as she peers over my shoulder.

  “Does that matter?”

  “Uh, yeah, actually, it does. I guess I’m not the only sister with secrets.”

  I roll my eyes. “Trust me. My secrets aren’t nearly as salacious as yours.”

  When I try knocking again and there’s no answer, I turn the doorknob, which is unlocked.

  “Do we just go in?” Anna asks warily.

  “Do you want to beat Addison to the chase or not?”

  She nods, and I swing the door open, but it’s totally empty. No one. Nothing. The bed has been stripped of all of its sheets, and every sign of Henry from his suitcases to his cologne to his notebook is gone.

  “Maybe they moved him,” Anna says as we trek back up to the house.

  “I guess so,” I say.

  “There they are!” Jenny calls from the balcony. “Come on! Hurry up! They just announced an elimination ceremony.”

  “Right now?” I yell back.

  “Yes!”

  “Aren’t we supposed to have another one of those balls?” Anna asks.

  I take her hand and we run the rest of the way through the grounds and into the house.

  Beck is in the foyer, shuttling girls out to the
front of the house. “Move it, move it, move it.”

  “Where’s Zeke?” Anna asks her immediately.

  Beck just shakes her head. “Do I look like a lost and found? Come on. Move it.”

  “That’s good,” I whisper to Anna. “If Beck doesn’t know, then Addison probably hasn’t spilled to anyone yet.”

  Anna looks around nervously, but everyone is already lined up, so I lead her to a spot on the stairs and take the one just behind her. Everyone else has had a chance to change into something sort of cute, but I’m still rocking my just-rolled-out-of-bed hair, cutoffs, and T-shirt.

  Once we’re all set, a limo drives up the hill and Chad and Henry step out.

  “Ladies,” Chad says, “I know you were all expecting a ball this evening, but Henry has made his decision and he’s got some out-of-town business to attend to, so we’re doing things a little out of order today.”

  “I’m sorry we won’t be having our ball this evening,” Henry tells us. “But yesterday made my decision very clear.” He swallows. “Cindy, will you accept this scroll?”

  I nod and take the steps down, squeezing Anna’s hand along the way. I’m shocked that Addison wasn’t first after their date last night, but I’ll take it.

  As he places the scroll in the palm of my hand, I say, “Maybe I’ll finally score that date.”

  He gives me an unreadable smile that only makes me feel unsettled.

  He calls more names—Sara Claire, Jenny, Stacy, Gretchen, Valerie, Chloe—until all that’s left is one scroll and Addison, Anna, and Samantha still standing.

  “Well, this is a plot twist I didn’t see coming,” Sara Claire muses.

  Henry plucks the single scroll from the pillar beside him. “I hate this part,” he says. “But I think spending time with someone can not only reveal who—”

  “Henry,” says Addison, her voice more frantic than I thought possible. “I have to tell you something.”

  I give her an infuriated look, nostrils flared, that I hope says, I hope every zipper you ever zip breaks.

  Henry looks to Chad, who nods.

  “Can we talk privately?” Addison asks.