CHAPTER 4

 

 

When I was little and dreamed of being a fashion designer, I imagined the life would be so glamorous. It would be parties and beautiful people, runway parades and diamonds.

I didn’t expect to be stuck in boring business meetings. Which was exactly what was happening around me.

Our website guru Beau, Jane, and I were seated in a circle in the school’s media room. I was desperately trying not to fall asleep.

And if I caught Beau gazing lovingly at Jane one more time, I was going to choke on my water.

“I’ve increased the bandwidth on the website so we can handle up to ten thousand clicks at any time without crashing again,” Beau said. “It won’t go down again, I’ve made sure of that.”

“Can the shopping cart keep up too?” Jane asked, completely oblivious to any of Beau’s glances.

“It sure can.”

“Great, can we move on?” I asked. Because, seriously, if I wanted to hear about geek stuff, I would actually pay attention in the computer lab classes.

Jane checked her agenda and put a tick next to the website update item. Thank goodness. “Okay, now we need to discuss advertising.”

I sat up straighter, I got this one. “I’ve been thinking and we need a spokes model, someone to represent our brand.”

“We’ve got Holly for that.”

“No, she’s the designer. Every fashion designer needs a muse, someone they design clothes for because they inspire them.”

Jane’s frown told me she didn’t believe me before her words did. “You’ve never needed anyone before to inspire you.”

Much to the credit of my self control, I didn’t roll my eyes. “I don’t actually need anyone to inspire me, but it would make us seem more professional. That model then talks about us to people and wears our clothes, she’s basically our biggest fan.”

“Like an avatar for the business?” Beau asked, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. He snuck a look at Jane, checking whether she caught a glimpse of his brilliance.

“Okay, we’ll go with an avatar,” I replied. Whatever. “We should hold an open competition online so everyone can enter. Then we choose the girl who best personifies Every Girl Inc.”

“If enough girls share the information, it will also spread the word about our clothes,” Jane added, finally getting the genius of my plans.

“I can set something up on the website,” Beau added. “Do you want just their pictures?”

I shook my head. Being merely a pretty face wasn’t enough to represent Every Girl Inc. We were about real girls. “No, they will have to explain why they are an every girl. I’ll give you a list of information they need to submit with their photo.”

Jane chewed on the end of her pencil, lost in thought. She jumped suddenly. “What about if we don’t even ask for their photo?”

Wait… what?

“Huh?” It wasn’t my best vocabulary moment.

“Well, we keep saying that our clothes are for every girl, right?” Jane paused until Beau and I nodded. “So what does it matter what they look like? We want a normal girl and if we choose them blindly, they will be any girl. We’ll be choosing them based on their personality.”

One of the main reasons why I wanted our clothes to be designed and available for everyone was because I didn’t want my sister growing up believing she had to be a certain way to be considered beautiful. I wanted every girl to feel gorgeous no matter what society deemed acceptable.

But I guess if we chose our representative based on looks, it would kind of be going against all those beliefs Jane and I had so wholeheartedly agreed upon.

Dammit, she was right.

“Okay, so we choose blind,” I said.

“There is another choice,” Beau interrupted. I had almost forgotten he was there for a moment.

“Which is?” I prompted when it was clear he was waiting for permission to keep going.

“Maybe one of you two should be the representative,” he said. “Nobody outside your circle of friends will know it’s actually your company. That way, you can still be the face of the business without being the official owner.”

Gee, I wonder which one of us Beau would choose to be the face of Every Girl Inc? He was practically licking Jane’s feet.

I exchanged a glance with my partner, she looked about as convinced as I was. Neither of us wanted to pretend to represent the company, not when we really wanted to be the official owner.

And, in a few years’ time when the truth came out, it would just be weird having lied about the representative now. We couldn’t do it.

“That’s a good idea, Beau,” Jane started, speaking as the more tactful one of us. “But I don’t want to be the rep. Do you, Truly?”

“Nope.”

“So we’ll stick to the competition.” She consulted her agenda again. “So, advertising done. Good work, Truly, your idea doesn’t require any money and will spread word of our brand.”

Okay, I was kind of really proud of earning her praise. Call me shallow, but it was pretty rare. “Thanks,” I mumbled, hiding my smile behind my hand.

“I think that’s everything. Meeting over until next week,” she declared.

I stood quickly, not needing to be told twice. I hurried out so that Beau could have a few minutes alone with Jane while she packed away her stuff. He probably considered it a date.

I wished I could convince Jane that Beau was completely crushing on her. She seemed to think it was impossible for any guy to see her as attractive. But she was and guys did. So I was going to have to convince her somehow, otherwise she would end up alone with only sixty cats to keep her company.

I picked up my books from my locker and headed down the corridor. I had missed all the school buses for the day so I would have to walk a few blocks to pick up a regular bus. I could have asked Jane to drive me home but it was out of her way and I didn’t want to use her like that.

Halfway to the school gate, I saw Hayley and Kinsey walking along the same path. They hadn’t spotted me yet so I still had time to hide if I wanted to.

But, up until recently, they had been my best friends. Passing each other on the path shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

I kept going, getting ready to say something positive to them so they knew I was doing well with my decision to not be their friend anymore. It was them who had given me the ultimatum – I could either be friends with them or Jane. I chose the one person who was supporting me the best.

“Hey, guys,” I said happily as our paths crossed.

They stopped. The girls looking me over from head to foot. Kinsey smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Hey, Truly. How is everything?”

I desperately wished I could tell them everything, from the excitement of the parade to my fears we had all our money tied up in a pile of fabric.

But I couldn’t.

Because they weren’t my friends anymore. “It’s going really great. How about you?”

Hayley tossed her hair but didn’t reply, leaving it all up to Kinsey. “It’s good. We’re so busy, you know? There are some huge sales at the mall and we’re going to hang out there.”

“Yeah, and we need to be going,” Hayley interrupted. I wondered whether Kinsey was on the verge of inviting me before she was cut off. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

“Yeah, me too. I have a bunch of things to do,” I said. “Have fun shopping.”

“We will.”

They went in one direction while I went in the opposite. I hated that our friendship had come to a few lousy words after everything we’d gone through together. It was such a shame. Disappointing too.

I tried not to dwell on it as I caught the bus and headed home. But the icky feeling lingered, surrounding me like a wet blanket that I couldn’t shrug off. Life really wasn’t fair sometimes.

Another reminder of my luck was the fact I had to make dinner and look after my siblings as soon as I got home. I let our neighbor go and took over babysitting duties.

Ethan and Billy were playing Lego, getting along for a change. Normally they were bashing each other over the head with the Lego bucket by the time I got home.

“Everything good here?” I asked, picking Lily up off her favorite blanket.

“I’m hungry,” Ethan moaned.

“You just had a chocolate,” Billy pointed out.

“I’m still hungry.” The four year old was always after food.

“You can have an apple,” I replied, nodding toward the fruit bowl. I tried to get them to eat healthy, but the other babysitters weren’t as strict as I was. They didn’t have to get them to sleep later on when they were still riding on a sugar high.

I placed Lily in her high chair so we could talk while I started dinner. She liked watching me cut up the vegetables, I spoke to them and pretended they were alive. It kept her amused for a while, at least.

When I had everything under control and let Lily play on the floor, I grabbed my sketchbook. It had been a while since I’d had time to design anything new. With the business launch and the fashion design competition before that, life had grown chaotic.

But I couldn’t leave designing for too much longer. Jane kept nagging me for new designs so she could make them into clothes and add them to the collection. We couldn’t keep using the same ones over and over again.

I opened to a new page and chose a pencil with an orange hue. The color reminded me of the bright sun, hot and intense at the same time.

My hand was poised, all ready to draw. All I needed was an idea. Any idea would do.

Seriously, anything.

But nothing came. I couldn’t form the shape of a new dress or a blouse, or even a pair of pants. Nothing came and the orange pencil just remained in the one place.

That had never happened before.