by Julie Murphy
I sink down on the edge of the bed, wishing there were a few more sips at the bottom of the bottle. “Was it about me being fat?”
Beck shoves her hands in her pockets and nods.
“And it’s going to be in the next episode?”
Again, she nods. “We’ve got a story to tell.”
Erica warned me. She promised me there would be some things she couldn’t protect me from.
“I wasn’t kidding about people loving you,” she tells me. “Some girls out there have never seen someone who looks like them kiss a guy like you did in that boxing ring. Good night, Cindy.”
“Night, Beck,” I say softly as she lets herself out.
I really like Henry, and of course I want that prize money, but being here, as a plus-size woman, is turning out to be something bigger than I had imagined. It’s exciting, but mostly terrifying. I want people to talk about whatever Addison said about me. The morning after this episode airs, people are going to be talking, and it’s a conversation that’s been a long time coming, if you ask me. I just never hoped to be at the center of it.
“Hello?” I ask into the walkie-talkie as I curl up in bed at nearly two in the morning. “Henry?”
I’m convinced he’s already fallen asleep, when finally his crackling voice comes through. “Is that you, Cabbage Patch? Mon petit chou?”
“Mon petite what? I think the last time I could be described as petite, I was still in pull-ups.”
“My little cabbage,” he tells me. “It’s French.”
“Oh, fancy boy knows French, does he?”
“How hard would your eyes roll if I told you I went to a boarding school in France for three years?”
“Excuse me,” I say, “my eyes are stuck to the back of my head.”
He chuckles. “I guess I shouldn’t tell you about the two years in Germany and four years in Edinburgh….”
“I used to dream about going to boarding school when I was a kid, and there you were casually living my childhood fantasy.”
His laugh is disjointed thanks to the bad connection. “It wasn’t so glamorous,” he assures me. “School years on my own with a couple hundred strangers and summers spent being my mom’s sometimes on-trend, sometimes off-trend seasonal accessory.”
I might not have had as much time as I should have with my parents, but they were mine. All mine. Never once did I feel out of place in their lives. The thought of Henry being anyone’s accessory makes me wish I could reach over and squeeze his hand. “Are you close with your mother?”
He barks a laugh. “Yes. No. Too close. Not close enough.”
“You—you said…On that first night, you said you were here for her…. What did you mean by that?”
“I am,” he says plainly. “I’m here for her. I’m here as a last-ditch effort so her life’s work doesn’t do a swan dive into a pool of hot, flaming financial ruin.”
“I thought…LuMac seemed to be doing okay. It doesn’t seem so bad from the outside?”
I can hear him shifting, and it sounds like he’s sitting up. “She dreamed too big, I think…. Cindy, I’m trusting you not to share this with anyone…. My mother was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.”
My jaw drops, and for the first time, I’m so glad to not be in the same room. Arthritis is an awful thing for anyone to have to deal with…but for those of us who very specifically rely on our hands…it’s a death knell. “That’s really awful. I’m so sorry.”
“I guess you can understand why it would be bad for business if word got out. We’re publicly traded at the moment, so stocks would plummet. Accounts would bail. It would be…devastating, and things are already bad. She was diagnosed a few years ago. We thought she could power through and just sort of…lead without being so involved, but I guess once a workaholic, always a workaholic.”
“Wow, that’s so much to deal with,” I say with a yawn as the city lights blur in the distance, and I pull the blanket up over my shoulders. “So what does all that mean for the show? No offense, but if things are so bad, shouldn’t you be there and not…here?”
He coughs out a painful laugh. “You would think, but no, the idea is that the show will drum up support for the brand. Sort of relaunch it for a new generation. Trust me when I say it wasn’t my first choice. There’s also the potential for future partnerships with the network…. It’s just…I didn’t come here expecting to be invested in—Shit, the little red battery light is blinking at me. I think this thing is about to go.”
“Oh, uh—okay, well, I guess—”
“I wasted the whole night talking about me, and I didn’t even ask you about yourself or how you’re doing…”
I laugh nervously. “You didn’t miss much. There’s not a lot worth knowing.”
“So says you. I spend a lot of time thinking about all the things I wish I knew about you,” he tells me, his voice low and earnest.
My heart jumps into my throat. “Well, I’ve never been on a walkie-talkie date, but this is the best one I’ve ever been on.”
“We didn’t even get to order dessert,” he says.
“Blame it on the walkie-talkie curfew.”
“Next time I’ll take you somewhere that requires shoes.”
“Don’t tease me. You know how much I love shoes, but I guess this is good night.” I don’t want to let go of this moment. I’m not ready.
“Or good morning.”
“Good morning,” I say back to him.
After that, the channel goes dead, and even though it was via walkie-talkie, I think that had to be one of the best dates I’ve ever been on. All that was missing was the kiss.
Afifteen-passenger van picks us up and takes us to the LuMac showroom in SoHo, a twelve-story corner brick building with huge, beautiful glass windows stretching up the entire length of the building.
As we walk in, we’re still buzzing with excitement from spending the night in a hotel room all by ourselves.
“I took a bubble bath,” Chloe says dramatically. “I swear that château was giving me dorm room flashbacks and it wasn’t good.”
Sara Claire shivers with disgust. “No one told me I’d need to bring shower shoes to this show like it was church camp all over again.”
Inside, we find ourselves in a long, narrow storefront. All the mannequins and displays have been pushed to the side, and down the center of the room runs a mini runway lined with chairs.
Addison’s eyes widen like a hyena preparing to pounce. “Are we walking that runway?”
“Welcome to LuMac,” Henry says as he steps out onto the runway, cameras rolling.
Everyone, myself included (ugh, I know), cheers in response. His suit is charcoal with light pinstripes, and considering how perfectly it’s tailored, I think it might be custom. He’s forgone a tie and undone his top button, and a crystal-blue silk pocket square peeks out of his breast pocket. As Sierra would say, he looks like a snack.
“What better way to introduce you all to the family business than to invite you to the place where it all started. When my mom, Lucy Mackenzie, was starting out, she rented a small office on the sixth floor of this building and shared it with one of her fellow recent fashion school grads. She’d won a small grant at her final student fashion show and had just enough to rent out a small space for a workstation. That student grant allowed her to make the first run of her famous slip dress. And now not only do we occupy the entire sixth floor, but the five below it as well. Today I wanted to give you all a chance to try on some of Mom’s most iconic designs and walk the runway before we take you upstairs for a grand tour.”
Everyone shrieks with delight, but my stomach drops because I know all about LuMac. The history. The strengths. The weaknesses. But most important of all—the size range. And when it comes to size inclusivity, LuMac is still in the Dark Ages, with a size range that only goes to a twelve and not even in their full collection. The slip dress, as iconic as it is, was always the kind of garment that defined the heroin-chic look on mo
dels with protruding hip bones and sunken cheeks.
“Jay?” Henry calls.
A beautiful person with short, perfectly edged lavender hair, a manicured beard to match, razor-sharp eyeliner, and nude lipstick rounds the corner. Jay wears a flirty skirt with a cropped sweater topped with a trench coat and platform sneakers.
“This is Jay,” says Henry.
Jay gives us jazz fingers and a curtsy before giving Henry a huge hug. “Our prince has returned from the war,” Jay says dramatically.
Henry chuckles and continues. “Jay is the new creative director of LuMac. They are the living embodiment of Mom’s vision for the brand, and as my mother continues to take a step back, Jay has pretty much been my other half as we fine-tune the future of LuMac.”
“Basically,” Jay says. “Henry is Daddy and I’m nonbinary Mommy.”
One or two of the girls laugh, a little unsure of what to make of Jay. Despite my uneasiness about what will be available to me for this fashion show, Jay makes me feel settled, like I’ve found my way back to my fashion-obsessed people.
“Follow me,” Jay says as Henry helps them down from the stage. “We’ve got racks upon racks of goodies for you beauties to choose from.”
My whole body is tense with nerves as we’re herded into a back room with racks of clothing and makeup and hair touch-up stations. Some girls settle in for hair and makeup, but I know that if I stand any chance of not walking down the runway naked, I need to get first dibs on these clothes.
In a panic, I start shuffling through the items left out for us. I look for the biggest sizes, of course, which is most often an eight or a ten, but I’m also looking for anything with a shapeless or flowy cut to it. Slowly, I begin to amass a pile of clothing in my arms.
Addison clears her throat from the other side of the rack. “Um, you only need one look,” she tells me. “That’s not really fair to just start taking all the other perfectly good stuff just because you want options. Wes?” she calls. “Are there rules to this? Cindy has, like, a whole damn rack in her arms. Wes?”
I roll my eyes, but otherwise ignore her and continue my efforts even though the other women are also starting to show signs of concern. A storm of anxiety swirls in my chest, and it’s the same panic I feel when I attempt to clean out my closet. I’m so used to finding that I have zero options that it’s almost impossible for me to part with my clothing. Each piece is something I hunted relentlessly for or customized to my exact taste. I can’t exactly walk into a Forever 21 and snag a dress I’ve personally doctored to be a Badgley Mischka dupe. I hate feeling like I need so many things, but when a chance to buy something in your size is one in a hundred and a chance to buy something good in your size is one in a thousand—
“Hey, kid, what exactly is going on here?” Beck swoops to my side.
I turn to her, my teeth gritted. “Did no one consider the fact that LuMac doesn’t even make my size?”
Beck grimaces painfully and yells out, “Irina! Get over here!”
Irina stops what she’s doing, leaving a half-naked Stacy with a dress bunched up around her waist. She stomps over to Beck with her arms crossed and a safety pin clenched in her teeth. “What?”
“Do we have any options for Cindy?”
“What do you mean?” Irina asks incredulously. “She has options coming out the ears.” She motions to me. “She looks like a Black Friday sale threw up on her.”
“In her size,” Beck says as discreetly as she can, like it’s something to hide. But it’s not. In fact, accommodating me is not that hard. If you want me on your damn show, make it possible for me to be included. That’s it. It’s that simple.
Irina throws her arms up. “I can only work in the framework of the episode. This is on you and Wes. You two are—”
“Stop,” I say firmly. “Stop it. Both of you stop. You’re both to blame, but bickering isn’t going to fix anything. I need scissors, safety pins, and fabric tape. And maybe a sewing kit.”
Beck motions to Irina. “You heard her.” Once Irina has disappeared into the chaos, Beck turns back to me. “I’m so sorry. What can I do?”
“Buy me time.”
She bites down on her bottom lip, and I’m pretty sure I’ve just asked for the one thing she can’t guarantee. She nods and marches off in the same direction as Irina.
I drop to the floor with all the items I’ve accrued and immediately begin to put any items back that I definitely can’t use. A trench coat. A sweater dress. A neon-yellow slip dress.
My eye lands on a shift dress with huge nude sequins. The fabric is some kind of synthetic satin with stretch. I pull it across the widest part of my hips, and I think it might work.
Irina returns with my requested tools and begrudgingly asks, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Yes,” I tell her as I stand up and begin to strip down with no mind for privacy. I step into the dress, and even though it’s meant to be oversize, it feels immediately too narrow.
“That’s a dress,” Irina points out.
“Not on me it isn’t,” I tell her, yanking it up to my waist in what is now a skintight pencil skirt. “I need you to snip out these straps and tape down the freshly cut fabric so it doesn’t poke out.” I point to something one rack over that’s white and billowy in shape. “What’s that?”
Irina steps through a gap in the clothing rack beside us and reaches for the item in question, returning with a long white beach cover-up.
“It’s a tent!” Irina says gleefully. “This is perfect.”
“Helpful,” I say, my voice flat as I take the scissors halfway up the front seam and then up the back, leaving only a deep V neck and a dolman sleeve.
I slip it on over my head and find that the fabric is sheer, so my black bra underneath creates a sexy silhouette. Pulling the two panels of fabric I just cut, I tie them in a knot in front of me and let the long pieces hang, creating a nice long line down the center of my body.
“Damn,” says Stacy from where she sits in a makeup chair. “I didn’t see that on the rack.”
“Oh,” I say casually. “This was definitely on the rack.”
Irina eyes me up and down. “It’s good.”
After we’ve sat through hair and makeup, Mallory and Zeke—who still has a job thanks to Anna—line us all up on the other side of the stage.
Jay peeks in from between the curtains with a camera in hand. “Visions! All of you! I come bearing good news. We thought we’d need a third judge to weigh in on this competition, so I am pleased to tell you that the Lucy Mackenzie has graced us with her presence on this fine day. Make her proud, people!”
My stomach plummets. As if I wasn’t already freaking out enough.
“His mom!” Chloe gasps. “Oh my God. This is a huge deal.”
“Uh, yeah, and not just because it’s his mom,” Addison says.
Sara Claire, in a fuchsia silk wrap dress, looks like she’s very nearly turning into a puddle. “Oh Lord. Moms hate me.”
Stacy shakes her head. “That can’t be true.”
“No, it is. A proven fact. My last boyfriend just broke up with me after his mom refused to give him her mother’s ring to propose. Said I was a firecracker and not the good kind.”
“I don’t think Lucy—I mean, Mrs. Mackenzie—would think something like that,” I tell her. “And everyone loves firecrackers!”
“Except when they cause forest fires,” Stacy points out.
I nod. “True.”
Sara Claire takes a heaving breath. “In fourth grade, my first boyfriend was Dylan Timbers and his mama told me that the only way she’d give up her son was if she knew the woman she was handing him over to could be a better mother to him than she could. I. Was. In. The. Fourth. Grade.”
I hold up a finger. “Okay, first off—men don’t want their partners to be their mothers…and if they do, those aren’t the men we’re looking for.”
Stacy holds up her hands and snaps in agreement.
“And second,” I add, “gross.”
Sara Claire throws herself against Stacy and me. “Hold me. I’m scared of mothers. Even my own. Especially my own.”
Stacy and I pat her on the back, and I say, “Well, at least you didn’t deconstruct his mother’s designs for her own fashion show the way that I did.”
Stacy grimaces. “‘Deconstruct’ is putting it lightly.”
The lights dim, and Mallory barks at us to get back in line.
“Ladies,” Wes says, “you’ll hit the runway one by one. There won’t be music, but we’re adding it in post, so just pretend you’re walking to music.”
“What if we’re off beat?” Jenny asks.
Wes looks at her briefly but doesn’t answer. “After we’re done, we’ll be lining you up onstage, and Lucy will have the chance to speak to you and ask any questions she might have. Break a leg!”
Luckily, I’m the second one on the runway and have little time to spiral into a panic. When it’s my turn to walk out, my hopes that it will be too dark to see Henry, Jay, or Lucy sitting in the audience of employees and random fans is immediately dashed. The lights are low, and the production lights on the runway are intense, but there’s still enough natural light bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows that the audience is fully visible.
I may have walked in a handful of student runway shows as favors to friends, but this is instantly nausea-making. What do I do with my hands? Do they just hang like limp spaghetti? How do models manage to look cool doing this? Maybe I just need to do the Zoolander pout. Tyra Banks’s voice telling me We were rooting for you rings in my ears.
I begin to walk, and I do my best to make each step nice and elongated while also swishing my hips, but I also think I might just look like one of those dashboard hula dancers. Keeping my eyes straight ahead for the most part, I glance down and risk a quick smile at Henry, which unfortunately means I see Lucy Mackenzie’s scowl. Well, lady, it was either this or walk the runway naked. Maybe start making clothing in my size and I won’t have to take a pair of scissors to your work.