Chapter 8 An Active Piece #2
I go. “I think a lot of people see jobs like this on the surface level, the glam of traveling and you and getting sent three-hundred-dollar moisturizers for free literally every day. And that’s all valid or whatever—but that isn’t me.
I like how complicated clothing is. I like that there’s structure, and history that nobody knows about, or really cares about except for me.
I care. And—and truthfully?” I risk another look at him.
Still listening. “What you wear can change your life, and I can do that for you, Faust. I can make you into whatever man you want to be this year, just by dressing you.”
Soft cashmere sweaters, the ones that feel like falling into bed after a long day.
Watery silk, how it catches light differently than satin.
Walking down a crowded sidewalk and seeing myself being seen, processed, validated.
For my Frankenstein Prada loafers. For a polka-dot skirt as wide as the sidewalk.
For jet-black skinny jeans that I still wear, trend cycle be damned.
That’s what I love about clothes: Becoming someone else, every time I get dressed.
Choosing the woman I want to be each morning, flickering between lives.
Growing.
Even if most days I pretend to be someone I’m not, I’m still the person putting together each outfit. There’s a piece of me in the mask I wear; I made it, after all. Life might’ve gotten in the way of me becoming a fashion designer, but isn’t all this womanhood an art, too?
Faust’s brows draw in, deep lines fanning horizontal across his forehead. He studies me—silently—and the memory of how he’d looked at me at the wedding slinks through my brain, completely unasked for. “So, who are you trying to be?”
“Hm?” I squeak out.
“With your clothes. Is this your character?”
Surprise sends a heat wave over my cheekbones. For all men look at me, I never feel like they actually look to see. “You’re a fast learner.” I laugh, sounding less sure of myself than I’d like.
And I’m even less certain as Faust walks over to me.
It isn’t a far distance, a couple of feet at the moment, but I notice every single one of them, his long footsteps quiet on the plush hotel carpet.
Once he’s here, right here, in front of me, he licks his lips—a little dry, I need to get him lip balm—and asks, “Can I try?”
“Try what?”
“Figuring you out.”
I have no idea what he means by that. I guess, critique my fashion back? Deem me preppier than intended? I roll my tongue in my mouth, for once, stumped. “Sure?”
“Gotta learn somehow,” he says, his voice low and soft, and then—he’s touching my hair.
The very tip of it I was playing with moments ago.
My weight shifts to the backs of my feet, shying away on instinct, but I realize he’s just going tit for tat with the touching.
I have been adjusting his clothes all morning. I didn’t warn him, either.
And he gets that look in his eyes again, like he’s somewhere else, somewhere that requires all his thoughts.
“Blonde,” he finally mutters, and then he’s gently placing the humidity-waved lock down on my shoulder and moving on.
He points at my cheeks, sort of; it’s a half-hearted point, thumb running over his half-curved pointer finger, as if he doesn’t want to outright point at me.
I watch thoughts pull his mind around. Brown eyes close enough to see the mini tug-of-war happening.
He licks his lips again. “Freckles.”
A ridiculous, nervous giggle bubbles up my throat. “I thought you were going to do my clothes.”
He doesn’t laugh. “I’ll get there.” His tone is surprisingly authoritative. “Doing the real stuff first.” His half point moves to my mouth. “No lipstick today.”
More warmth tingles behind my skin. Am I embarrassed? By a man? Never. “Went on a jog when I woke up,” I say, despite never once offering anyone an explanation of my makeup choices before this very moment.
“Mm.”
Ten more seconds drag by, and I almost work up the nerve to tell him that he’s bombed this sartorial lesson, when he lets his hand drop—at last. It’s like stepping out of a gust of wind; I only notice how tense I was after his attention has softened.
“That’s all,” he says, crossing his arms. “The rest is your character. You’re fake.”
Cold air slithers down my throat. “What does that mean?”
“Cat,” he murmurs. “You know what it means.”
The way his mouth shapes the word Cat makes an unnamable emotion fizzle low in my stomach.
It isn’t a feeling I’m used to. It’s like he understands me, clocks the subtle and not-so-subtle manipulations, and refuses to take the bait.
It’s strangely exciting, to have him see my maneuvering, then maneuver back. And also, I might throw up.
I let my hands drop to my hips, smiling like he’s kidding. All jokes here! Me and my really funny friend Faust! “Is this some weird anti-makeup rant?”
Faust’s lips twitch from the possible temptation to smile. “No.”
“Just say it! This isn’t fair.”
“It isn’t? If I tell you how you aren’t pulling this off as well as you think you are, will you change those things? Because that’ll only make it more obvious.”
“Pulling what off? That is so—”
“Rude?” The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Untrue?”
“Rude. Yes. Very rude.” I’m not turning red. Blushing while angry is a flaw I’ve outgrown at the age of twenty-nine. “Calling women ‘fake’ is very 2010s of you.”
Now he’s smiling. “You’re good at that.”
Again, he’s side-stepped my bait, and my stomach sinks slightly. “Do I have to ask what I’m good at or are you going to just tell me?”
“Avoiding questions,” he says, with a grin that does catastrophic things to my heart. It drops like I’m cartwheeling, and my foot just got caught on the pummel horse, and here comes the squishy rubber ground.
I haven’t even gone on my date with Bernard yet and Faust is already insinuating… something. And worse—I’m blushing because of it.
“Okay. I’m leaving,” I say in a rush. “Clearly, you woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.”
“Am I wrong?”
I pause, mid-clothing-trunk grab. My fingers tighten on the handle, the metal nubs on either side pressing into my palm.
Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s anything I can say that will get Faust back on my side this time, so I start toward the door again.
“Keep what you’re wearing. I don’t want it back. ”
“Cat.”
My eyes find the back of the door. Paneled wood painted white.
“You dye your hair, don’t you?”
Even though it doesn’t make any sense, he sounds more excited than he has since we met. Excited in a bonfire way, crackling and consuming, jumping from tinder to log.
“Your freckles look like Bernard’s,” he continues.
“They’re red. More orange when you’re wearing that lipstick, though.
I noticed when we met.” Not responding to that.
Absolutely not. I start walking to the door again, my nervous system alight with hot, panicked embers.
“So I guess that’s all I know about the real you, under your character,” he says as I open the door. “You have freckles.”
The door clicks shut behind me, and I rush into my room, out of breath, the long handle of the trunk thumping against the wall as I try to find air.