30. A Fashion Crisis
30
A Fashion Crisis
CARLY
To-do list—January 22
?? Take up the hem in Helen’s jumpsuit
?? Triple-check the emergency bag
?? Helen’s mani-pedi at 10
??Hair stylist arrives at noon
Stay focused!
“ A re you checking your watch?” the woman seated across from me in the limo barked. I’d been introduced to her, a combination security guard and personal assistant to Helen, but I’d forgotten her name. Maybe I was a jerk for referring to her in my head as Ms. Muscle because of the way her biceps bulged under her navy blazer.
Styling Helen Choi had taken all my mental energy. This wasn’t Helen’s first red carpet, but it was mine, and I wanted everything to be perfect. I hadn’t balked when she’d unexpectedly asked me to come with her in the limo. I’d kneel on the carpet and fluff out the hems of her pant legs if she needed it.
I’d even delay my flight to San Francisco another day. Though I’d hoped to be home tonight. I was confident Andrew would get that promotion, and I was dying to celebrate with him. We’d toast to achieving our dreams. Then we’d fuck, and I wouldn’t even worry about the cellulite on my butt. Fabulous women who styled movie stars, whose phones rang constantly, weren’t troubled by nonsense like that.
Focusing on Helen, I’d left my phone on silent all day. After my success with her Golden Globe presenter gown, it had been ringing off the hook, so distracting it verged on annoying.
“I’m not checking my watch,” I lied. “There was a smudge on the crystal.” I swiveled to peer out the windshield at the long queue of limos outside the theater.
“You’ll have plenty of time to catch your flight and get back to your man,” Helen said with a knowing smile. While she was getting her nails done, she’d quizzed me about Andrew and was delighted we’d stayed together after Hayley’s wedding. “It only seems late because of those clouds.”
“It’s so dark,” I agreed. It was only four-thirty, but the cars around us had their headlights on.
“Did you see that?” Helen asked, pointing with her bottle of sparkling water. The straw was ringed with her red lipstick. She hated the feel of long-lasting lipstick, so the makeup artist had used a satiny Dior on her. “I think it was lightning.”
“Sure was, Miss Helen,” the driver said. He was burlier than Ms. Muscle and a decade older. “Those clouds don’t look good.”
I squinted up through the side window. The clouds looked heavy and dark. Lightning sliced through the sky.
“It never rains here,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll pass.”
“Let’s hope so.” I bit my lip as I scanned her low-cut jumpsuit. The white silk would go sheer if it got wet. And while we were going for sexy, transparent silk that displayed her lacy bra and white thong was a bit too racy for a PG-rated movie premiere.
A sound like machine gun fire pummeled the car. Ms. Muscle was a blur of motion as she threw herself over Helen to shield her from the window, covering her with her brawny arms and shoving her flat against the seat.
I ducked and swiveled my head from side to side, trying to find the source of the noise. “What’s happening?”
The driver leaned forward in his seat and tipped his face up to look through the windshield. He chuckled. “It’s just rain.”
Splotches the size of rouge compacts splashed against the glass. On the roof of the limo, it sounded like a jackhammer. Even though there was no danger, Ms. Muscle held on to Helen. Interesting . Her watch snagged my client’s sleek bun, and Helen’s hair stuck out on one side. But the bigger problem was what we were going to do about Helen’s white outfit in the pouring rain. She’d look like a contestant in a wet T-shirt contest.
I caught Ms. Muscle’s eye—I really wished I’d learned her name—and shouted over the noise, “Can you call the venue to see if they’ll be able to shield her from the weather?”
She nodded and pulled her phone from the pocket of her khakis. I leaned forward to assess the damage to Helen’s hair. It looked like a teacup with a thick loop jutting from the side of her head. Miraculously, Helen had managed not to spill her water. She sipped from the straw.
Ms. Muscle hung up her phone. “They’ve got umbrellas and a canopy. They should be able to keep her dry.”
That would work for the top of her. But if rain blew in from the sides, it would be over. I had zero hope for her pant legs. We’d gone for a flared bottom that ended half an inch from the floor. Any water would soak the hem and wick up the silk, making the legs floppy and heavy. Disaster.
“What do you think, Carly? Think we’ll be okay?” Helen asked, biting her lip.
“Smile,” I said automatically.
She obeyed, and I checked for lipstick on her teeth. All clear.
I glanced out the window at the sheeting rain. “How long is it supposed to continue?”
“All night,” the driver said. He showed us the satellite image on his phone. The splotch of red at the left edge of the screen was small and round, surrounded by wider rings of orange and yellow. “This isn’t even the worst of it.”
“I’ll be fine.” Helen nodded, decisive, making the loop of hair over her right ear wag. “I’ll run to the canopy.”
I blinked, envisioning the paparazzi capturing video of her running in her sky-high heels or worse, tripping over one of them and falling on her face. Surely someone would loop it into a meme. “No.”
“I’ll carry her,” Ms. Muscle offered.
“No,” Helen and I said simultaneously.
Helen smiled at her bodyguard and said, “I’d never get a role in an action movie after that. It’d be all damsels in distress.”
“Then what are we going to do?” her bodyguard asked. “I’ll give you my jacket, but that won’t cover the rest of you.” She scanned down Helen’s leg to her four-inch rhinestone-covered stilettos. She tore her gaze from her employer, then stared straight ahead as she unbuttoned her blazer and started to shrug out of it.
The car lurched forward.
The catastrophe inside the car played out in slow motion. Unbalanced by the car’s sudden motion, Ms. Muscle swayed, and her elbow tapped Helen’s back. Helen tipped, and her sparkling water splashed onto her torso. As the cherry on top, the straw tumbled out of the bottle, and the end coated with lipstick hit her boob, leaving a red smudge across the white silk.
“Aigo!” Helen exclaimed.
“Sorry,” the driver called out.
The world resumed its normal pace, and the actress looked up from the disaster of her formerly elegant outfit, her brown eyes round. “What just happened?”
Ms. Muscle stopped struggling with her jacket, her jaw slack at the see-through view of her boss. She ripped off her coat and laid it over her. “Sorry, Helen.” She swallowed.
“It’ll be fine,” our star said, her eyes not leaving me. “Carly has something in her magic bag to fix this.”
I lifted Ms. Muscle’s blazer. The silk would never dry in time. And that crimson lipstick wasn’t coming out even with an alcohol wipe. We’d be lucky if the dry-cleaning experts could remove it from the five-thousand-dollar jumpsuit.
But any stylist worth her cordless titanium flat iron always had a backup.
“Pop the trunk for me?” I asked the driver. “Wait here,” I told Helen.
I pushed out of the limo. Immediately, the freezing-cold raindrops soaked me, each one like an ice cube pelting my head. Scurrying to the trunk, I pulled out the dress bag and sheltered it with my body as I raced back to the safety of the limo. I resisted the urge to shake off the water like a dog and pulled a black gown from the bag. “Change into this.”
Despite the tinted windows, Ms. Muscle faced the window and held her thick arms across it while Helen stripped out of the white pantsuit and pulled on the black gown. It took a choking cloud of hairspray to redo her bun, but when we rolled up to the canopy where photographers huddled under their flapping ponchos, Helen looked flawless.
Ms. Muscle put her hand on the door handle.
Helen turned to me. “Thank you, Carly. You went above and beyond.” She nodded at her reflection in the mirror I held. “I owe you big.”
“Just doing my job,” I said, my cheeks heating. In the fashion industry, there was no such thing as above and beyond. We did everything we could to make our clients look like they woke up with flawless skin and shiny hair and naturally repelled wrinkles.
“Ji-hoon, please make sure Carly gets to the airport,” she said to the driver, then to me, “Say hi to Andrew for me.”
“Thank you.” I patted her shoulder, afraid to wrinkle her with a hug. “Don’t forget to pick up your hem as you step out. One more smile?”
She beamed at me. Her teeth gleamed white.
“Stunning. Go get ’em,” I said.
Ms. Muscle opened the door and, more gracefully than I’d have imagined, held the umbrella as she reached into the limo to assist Helen from the vehicle.
Clutching the skirt in her fist to keep it out of the water pooling on the sidewalk, Helen took three steps to the safety of the red carpet. There, she released the skirt. It covered her shoes, which was a shame since I’d spent hours scouting the perfect pair.
Shutters clicked, and flashes seared my retinas. Helen planted a hand on her hip, bent her knee, dipped her chin, and shot them a ferocious smile. After posing for a moment, she moved across the step and repeat backdrop. She said something to the photographers, but I couldn’t hear from inside the car with the pounding rain.
When she turned to walk through the theater doors, Ji-hoon pulled away from the curb, and I dug through my satchel for my phone. The voice mail icon showed double digits of new messages, but I only cared about the one from Andrew. Make that three from Andrew. I smiled. He must have been so excited about his promotion that he’d called multiple times to tell me about his lunch with Vic.
I tapped the first one and held the phone to my ear, grinning at his good news and rubbing a circle over my heart when he closed with, “I love you.” Would those words ever get old and tired before falling off completely the way Brad’s had? Maybe not. Andrew was loyal and attentive in a way Brad had never been.
Immediately, his second message started to play, and I sat up at the tightness in his tone.
“I just got a call from Charles. My mother fainted. The paramedics took her to the hospital. I’m on my way to meet them. Call me, okay?”
In the third message, sent just a few minutes ago, his voice trembled. “It’s a heart attack. They’re doing an emergency bypass. I-I’m scared, Carly.”
Of course he was scared. His dad had died of a heart attack, and I knew what it was like to lose your mother before you were ready. I hit his number to call him back.
“Carly.” A sigh crackled on the line. “I’m so glad you’re back from LA. Would you mind coming to the hospital? I’m at?—”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted him. “I got delayed. I’m still in Los Angeles. But I’m on my way to the airport, and I should be there soon.”
“Oh.” The disappointment in his tone made my heart squeeze.
“Are your siblings there? And Charles?”
“Yeah. But”—he lowered his voice—“I need you.”
“I know.” I wished I had the superpower of teleportation. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
As Ji-hoon sped to the airport, I jammed my toe into the carpet like I had my own gas pedal and could make the limousine fly.