Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
“You should look happy. Smile, Princess! Smile!” The photographer coached Zena through her poses.
She lifted her lips into a practiced smile, enough to pass, but her eyes remained flat.
“Beautiful. Now I want you to bend over a little, shape your mouth like an O, then hold up the lollipop.” The photographer moved around to the other side of the set.
Zena looked over at Tate in the corner for reassurance. He nodded.
She bent as far as the corset allowed, which wasn’t far. Pain lacing her rib with every breath. Her pink wig was styled into two perfect ponytails, squeezing her scalp. She looked like one of those pretty porcelain dolls she used to play with.
“That’s it! Like a little schoolgirl!”
She squinted as the bright studio lights blinded her. The sapphire contact lenses made everything look slightly blue, which the label said looked better than her actual eyes.
The camera flashed.
She wanted to scream, but she held the pose and mentally went somewhere else.
She was good at this now, disassociating.
It had started as something involuntary, her mind's response to standing under hot lights in clothes that did not fit, while people moved around her, making her feel like a piece of furniture.
She could be physically present in the room, hitting every mark, giving the photographer what they needed, while part of her retreated somewhere quieter.
She thought about her parents’ living room.
The way Sunday morning used to be. She thought about her guitar, which she hadn’t touched in six weeks because the label’s producer said it didn’t fit the sonic direction of her debut.
She thought about the songs she’d been writing in her note’s app on her phone at two in the morning when she couldn’t sleep.
The real songs. She wanted to reconnect with her roots and create the music she truly wanted again.
The music that made people think. Made people feel.
Feel every tear, every lie, every wound. Not the bullshit they made her sing.
“Princess.” The photographer snapped her hands. “We need you focused. Eyes here.”
She found the lens and smiled.
She’d been the Princess of Royal Reign for six months. Her brand was fully picked out by the time she signed her name on the dotted line. She told herself that this was only temporary; she had to see it through to get her foot in the door.
“We need to do an outfit change... and... where are hair and makeup? Why is everyone just standing around? Move!” the photographer barked, eyes scanning the set.
Crew members scattered like roaches, all rushing to appear busy. A few minutes later, someone came to her with a clothing rack. Someone else with a flat iron, retouching the ponytails, steaming close to her ears. She sat still and let them work on her.
A sharp pain gripped her stomach. She’d had half a donut before the labeled car picked her up. That was it. Nobody had offered her anything, not even a cup of water.
“Are you okay?” the red-haired lady, now touching up her eye shadow, asked in an agitated tone.
“I-I just need a moment,” Zena whispered.
“Oh, princess. We must get this done by noon. It’s no time to stop.”
She looked for Tate. He was in the corner on his phone.
Instead of protesting, she did what she did best. She smiled and finished the shoot.
Zena had made it an hour before her legs started shaking.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
She walked off the set and down the hall to her dressing room, leaving the photographer calling her name in the distance. She slammed the door shut.
She sat in the chair in front of the vanity and looked at herself.
She didn’t decide to cry. It just happened. She had been holding it in for so long. Her eyeliner tracked down her face in two black lines as she sat frozen and let it.
She was looking at her own reflection and couldn’t recognize it. She hadn’t expected to feel so empty. She expected the hard work and compromises, the early mornings and late nights, and even the learning curve when entering the industry.
She was still sitting there when the door opened.
Lisa walked into the room and shut the door behind her. She looked impeccable, asymmetrical bob swinging as she moved, thigh-high boots, a sleek black jumpsuit fitted like it had been custom-made for her body.
“Why are you crying, sweetie?”
Zena exhaled instead of answering. She hated being called ‘Sweetie’, a constant reminder that no one took her seriously. Everyone just saw her as innocent and sweet.
After a moment, she said, “This… this isn’t me. Any of it.” She gestured vaguely at her reflection. “These clothes, the wig, the contacts all of it. I don’t even like pink.”
Lisa looked at her nails. “So what?”
“And the music…” Zena’s voice gained confidence.
“I’m not making anything real. Everything I record sounds like it was made for someone else.
And the blogs—” She pause. “Do you not see what people are saying about me online? How I’m so white-washed, that I have no identity.
And they’re not wrong, because I don’t know what I am anymore. ”
“More press,” Lisa said flatly. “Good or bad, it moves units.”
“But I…I’m not happy.” The words came out small. The tears were rolling faster. “I know that’s not the point. I know this is a business. But I’m not— I don’t feel anything anymore. I’m just —” She pressed her lips together. “I’m just performing.”
Lisa was quiet for a moment. She slammed her palms down on the vanity, leaning in closer to Zena, making her flinch.
“You think I was happy every day when I was where you are?” She held Zena’s gaze in the mirror.
“You think I love every outfit they put me in? Or how I was in a room full of people who were handling me like a product? How many men thought they owned me because they paid to have me in their video? You haven’t had to do half of the shit I had to do.
Guess how many video girls came up after me and moved right into my spot.
Anything I wasn’t willing to do anymore; it was always at least ten other bitches willing to do it. ”
Zena and Lisa continued their stare-off.
“The window of opportunity is small, and you asked to be here. You. And right now, they want you. People are paying attention. You either build something while it’s open, or you spend the rest of your life trying to get back to a door that has already closed.
” She picked up the lollipop from the vanity and unwrapped it.
“So yes, you smile at a photographer who makes you uncomfortable. You wear the pink. You record the song you can’t stand.
Because on the other side of that, if you’re smart, is the freedom to make whatever you want. ”
Zena looked at her reflection. The tears were drying on her face. “And what if the window closes before I get there?”
Lisa pursed her lips. “That’s up to you. So, fix your face. They need you back out there in five.”
She turned and walked out.
A moment later, Zena could hear her voice in the hallway. “Princess is going to need a touch-up. She’ll be out in a minute.”
She picked up the lip gloss from the vanity. Applied it with a steady hand.
She had asked to be here. Lisa wasn’t wrong about that.
She just hadn’t known exactly what she was asking for.
She stood up, smoothed the corset, adjusted the wig, and opened the door. Time to be Princess Z again.
According to Lisa, Zena’s attendance at the Finesse album release party was mandatory. Something about artists supporting artists in the Royal Reign fam, presenting as a unified front.
Increasingly, her life became a series of places she was required to go.
Her car service pulled up to the venue at nine-fifteen, fifteen minutes later than Lisa had specified.
She stepped out alone onto the red carpet, something she had grown accustomed to.
She and Tate shared the same space on some days but interacted more like roommates.
At some point over the last few weeks, she had stopped expecting him to show up for most things.
She adjusted her dress, found her footing in the heels, and walked towards the entrance.
The venue was a perfectly decorated rooftop. As she walked farther into the party, one of Finesse’s songs was blasting from the speakers. A floor-to-ceiling image of him dominated the entrance wall. He stood in a white suit, leaning against a Maybach truck. She paused in front of it for a moment.
He was objectively good-looking and tall with a face that photographed well from every angle.
Sighing, she thought, he wasn’t Tate.
The party was moving, people everywhere chatting and drinking.
A few people stopped her. A blogger she recognized from Instagram, a stylish one who would love to work with her, and a woman whose name she didn’t catch, who told her she was her idol in a tone that suggested she’d said the same thing to everybody.
Zena smiled, thanked them, and kept moving.
Butterflies flooded in her stomach, the nervous kind rather than the excited kind.
She found Lisa near the bar, already in motion towards her.
“Princess, there you are.” Lisa locked her arm through Zena’s without breaking stride, turning them both toward the main section. “Come on. I want to introduce you to Finesse.”
“Lisa–”
“It’s a label event. Be professional.”
Finesse’s section was at the center of the rooftop.
Where he sat, surrounded by an entourage.
He wore a black suit, no shirt, his chest covered in tattoos, chains layered at his neck, and a mouth full of gold that caught the light when he smiled.
That million-dollar smile was on full display when he saw them approaching.
“Finesse.” Lisa stepped forward. “This is Princess Z.”
His eyes moved over her body seductively.
“You fine as shit, ma.” The gold caught the light again. “I fuck with the pink hair.”
Zena felt her cheeks warm before she could stop them. “Thank you.”