I wanted to be anywhere but the mall.
I called the office of Worthy Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry and told the receptionist to put me through to whatever parent was able to come to my rescue.
“Cassandra! It’s your mother. What’s wrong?”
“Cassandra! It’s your father. What’s wrong?”
Both picked up. Simultaneously. On separate lines. I told them I would explain later, but I needed a ride home immediately. I hung up, leaving it up to them to decide between themselves who would get to be my hero for the day. I figured it would take at least thirty minutes, more than enough time to stop by the fashion show to say goodbye to Gia. She had treated me decently all summer and deserved at least that much.
Despite observing weeks’ worth of Gia’s painstaking preparation, I’d still underestimated the popularity of the Back-to-School Fashion Show. Was there really so little to do in Pineville that the mall was the cultural destination of the late summer season? The answer, evidently, was yes. The food court was a frenzy of activity. The Silver Strutters never attracted an audience like this. All booths, tables, and chairs were already occupied and standing-only crowds flanked both sides of the runway jutting away from the stage toward the Wishing Well. Long lines extended from all purveyors of food and beverages, including America’s Best Cookie, where I might have caught a quick glimpse of a sweaty, red-faced loser running around with a tray, trying to keep apace of the customer demand for free samples of a new cookie that was supposed to taste like pumpkin pie.
“It’s such a good vibration … It’s such a sweet sensation…”
Marky Mark and the friggin’ Funky Bunch. Sam’s boss, Freddy, was DJing the event and though his tastes skewed heavily toward classic rock, he was obligated to cater to the Hot 100 crowd. I guessed Sam would be put in charge of the store while he was gone, which meant I wouldn’t have to worry about another awkward conversation.
I wended my way through the throng to the chaotic backstage area, where scores of amateur models jostled for position in front of a dangerously inadequate supply of full-length mirrors. I could barely see through the thick haze of hairspray and was about to give up my search for Gia when she came racing toward me way faster than anyone in six-inch stilettos should reasonably be expected to run.
“Cassie! You’re a lifesaver! I was having a quadruple heart attack over here!”
Well, at least one person at the mall was happy to see me.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Drea didn’t show up! And you’re taking her place!”
“In the fashion show?” I asked incredulously.
“No, on President Bush’s cabinet,” Gia deadpanned. “Yes! The fashion show! What else would I mean?”
“Drea didn’t tell you?” I asked. “She fired me this morning.”
“What is wrong with that girl? She better be dead because I’m going to kill her!” she ranted. “She can’t fire you! Only I have the authority to fire you! You are not fired!”
If Gia knew about our fight, would she feel differently?
“I need you in this right now.” Gia pointed to a fuzzy, cowl-neck dress in a deep-wine color. “It’s the last look we’ll send down the runway…”
“I can’t,” I objected.
“You can.”
“I can’t.”
“You will,” Gia insisted. “Or…”
“Or you’ll smother me with this mohair sweater dress and make it look like an accident?”
Gia broke out into a wide grin.
“Are you sure we aren’t related?” She squeezed my shoulders. “Come on, Cassie. You can do this.”
Gia was the only person who had come through for me this summer in the exact way she had promised. She offered me a job and delivered on it. No more and no less. This was my final responsibility as an employee of Bellarosa Boutique and I would not let her down.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“Mwah!” Gia air-kissed me so as not to wreck my makeup. “Mwah!”
I took the dress and slipped between a set of curtains comprising the makeshift changing room. I didn’t understand why it was so important to Gia for me to be a part of the fashion show when a seemingly endless stock of primping, preening Bellarosa cousins were already lined up and ready to hit the stage. Surely another one could have taken Drea’s place. Why me?
“Cassie Worthy! You look incredible!”
I turned to see Bethany Darling representing Surf*Snow* Skate in a wetsuit-style bikini. What swimwear had to do with back-to-school, I had no idea. But she and about half a dozen other barely dressed models were lined up to hit the runway anyway. The store’s owner made an executive decision to overrepresent surf in the fashion show, which would give the audience a lot more skin to ogle than snow or skate.
“Vicki told me the real story, that nothing happened between you and Slade,” Bethany said. “I should’ve known he was full of shit.”
There was nothing about her demeanor to give me reason to believe she was anything but 100 percent sincere about this. It would’ve been easier for her to pretend she hadn’t seen me, to let me go off to college without ever offering this apology I didn’t need, but appreciated anyway. A Beach Boys song erupted from the speakers, Surf*Snow*Skate’s music cue.
“That’s me! Gotta go!” And before she bounced away, she added, “We should hang out sometime!”
Why—with less than a week left in Pineville—was it suddenly so easy to get along with people I never cared about? And so difficult with anyone I did?
I couldn’t actually watch the fashion show from backstage. I could only hear the music and the crowd’s response to the various models—which, encouragingly, seemed to be entirely positive. Every single girl—and we were all girls, with the exception of Joey and Mikey and Pauly, resplendent in their Chess King rayons—exited ebulliently from the runway, gushing about how much fun they’d just had and how sad they were that it was already over.
“Waiting on … my feelings, feelings! Waiting on … my feelings, feelings!”
A female soul singer repeated these lines over and over again over a house groove. It was one of Drea’s favorites and Bellarosa Boutique’s cue.
“Waiting on … my feelings, feelings! Waiting on … my feelings, feelings!”
Bellarosa cousins surged in and out the curtains, entering and exiting, bringing me closer and closer to my sixty seconds in the spotlight. When it was my turn, I took to the stage doing a dead-on impression of Drea’s hip-swiveling strut I’d unwittingly committed to muscle memory.
“Waiting on … my feelings, feelings! Waiting on … my feelings, feelings!”
I stomped to the beat, all arrogance and attitude. Who needed stilettos? I was a fashion warrior in gold gladiator sandals, demanding—no, commanding—the audience’s full attention and getting it. I wish I could say time slowed down, but it didn’t. Before I could believe it, I was at the end of the runway, the turning point. I paused to slap my hand on a dipped hip—just like I’d seen Drea do a million times—when I was flattened by
a barbarian horde,
a stampede of horse-drawn chariots,
a starving pride of coliseum lions,
all rolled into one
and
taking the form of an ex–best friend hell-bent on revenge.