Beautiful People - Chapter 11: Chapter 11

"So this pool party tonight," Vera said, holding a dangly silver earring up against the pale early-afternoon sunlight drifting through the perfumed air. "Is it really gonna be a pool party?"
She was laying on her back on the plush carpet in Carmen's accessory closet, lifting earrings one by one out of the velvet-lined tray beside her to examine them. Laid out on the cushioned seat was the look that had received Carmen's final approval the day before, but Vera had this vague idea about crystals and light and Carmen's hair, so she was picking through the jewelry hoping something clicked.
"I paid a lot of money for this chest. You think I'd pass up a chance to show it off?" Jay waved a dismissive hand without looking up from the palettes he was unpacking. Beside him, his assistant Lily was quietly laying out the hair tools.
Vera lowered the earring and turned her head to get a better look at him. He was wearing a slutty tank top today, hot pink and drooping low enough to reveal the faint, curved scars under his pecs, rose-coloured against his golden-brown skin. "You're already showing it off."
"Exactly." Jay laughed, light and ethereal. "I don't care what all y'all do but I'm gonna be having a pool party."
"Good. I didn't wanna pool party alone. I'm not sure I convinced Sharise yesterday." Nestling the earring back into its velvet bed, Vera picked up the next one, a sharp gold stud with diamonds that captured the sunlight in their facets. "Tell me again what you heard about Troy and Marina?"
Jay arranged his brushes beside the palettes, aligning sleek wooden handles with care. "Troy insisted they make it red carpet official."
"So Carmen's gonna be walking the carpet alone?"
"You can guess how she reacted when she heard he was ditching her. Again." Jay set both his palms against his cheeks and pretended to scream, mouth open silently.
"Yikes. I bet."
"Bit of an overreaction, isn't it?" Lily said quietly, tapping the hairspray onto the table beside the curling iron. Jay shushed her impatiently.
Vera rolled up onto her knees. Pulling the next box off the shelf, she slid open the redwood lid. Inside was not diamonds but a muddle of costume jewelry: huge clear crystals and glass beads in every colour of the rainbow, strung together into elaborate necklaces, heavy rings, enough bracelets to cover both of Carmen's arms wrist to elbow. Pure camp. Lifting out the first piece, she went on, "I mean, at least that means she'll be alone in all her photos. She did say she didn't want him in her headlines. Maybe this'll work out for the best."
"Apparently Marina didn't really want to walk the carpet with him," Jay said, moving his pink-white-and-blue makeup case further back on the table to make room for an assortment of bottles and tubes.
"Marina didn't?" Vera asked absently, turning over a pair of enormous crystal earrings.
"She doesn't want to start shit. But Troy insisted. He's pitching a hissy fit that Carmen's not fighting harder to keep him and he wants to make her jealous."
"Fuckhead should've just dated her if that's what he--" Vera looked up from her handful of glass beads. "Wait. How do you know all this?"
Jay grinned impishly and laid one glittery nail against his lips. "Don't tell Carmen. You heard about Bea, her last stylist?" At Vera's nod, he said, "She's a friend of mine. I actually recommended her to Carmen."
"Big mistake," Lily muttered.
Vera winced. "Yeah, heard that didn't end well."
"It didn't. But she's done me solid too. I've helped her put Marina together a few times."
"Jay," Vera gasped. "That's like aiding the enemy."
"They weren't enemies before. Trust me." Jay brushed his hands together, stepping back to survey his workspace.
Setting down the earring, Vera eyed him sideways. "Carmen insists they're not friends."
Lily snorted quietly as she bent over to plug in the torture devices for Carmen's hair.
"There's friends, and there's enemies, and then there's other ways to be." Jay shrugged both shoulders.
Vera stared at him. "Are you saying--"
"I'm not saying nothing." Jay waggled his finger disapprovingly. "Maybe they were friends, maybe not. But I know what I've seen, and it was Marina and Carmen being very much not enemies."
"Maybe not before." Vera pushed aside some bracelets impatiently. "But they are now. Why'd you work for her if you're worried about Carmen knowing?"
With a small frown, Jay adjusted the position of the curling iron, moved it back, then shifted it one last time, just a tiny bit. "A little advice, honey. You're new at this. I know working for Carmen is probably the best thing that's ever happened to you. But she ain't your friend. She's a client. She's looking out for her. You need to look out for you."
"What is with everybody wanting to give me advice?" Vera asked, but she had been distracted by the spikes of a headpiece. Extracting it carefully, she turned it over. Asymmetrical gold wire and cloudy white crystals with sharp faces. Raw and fierce. She lifted it, and sunlight shattered through the crystals, shards piercing her eyes. "A crown. How did I not see it?"
"A what now?"
Vera turned so Jay could see. The headpiece was built with graceful curves. More like a tiara than a crown. "She did want biblical."
Jay pressed a thumb under his chin, painted brows drawing together. "I thought we were doing the pearls and the veil."
"The veil is just so obvious," Vera said.
"Because a crown ain't obvious?" Jay said, but he stepped closer to pluck it from her hands and turn it around, lingering his fingertips over the long gold spikes.
"Half queen of heaven, half crown of thorns," Vera said. "A different statement than the veil. Less good girl, more bitch with a mission."
"I like it," Lily said. Jay and Vera continued to ignore her.
Jay's lips pulled down in thought. "We wouldn't need to change the hair much. Maybe a little more volume on top."
"So you're in?" Vera asked, the thrill of knowing they had nailed it beginning to bubble up her spine.
Turning the crown over once more, Jay grinned. "I'm in. Our girl is a fucking queen. Why not dress her like one?"
"Who's a queen?" Carmen was in the doorway, small smile on her lips and palm on the frame, her silk robe slipping off one golden shoulder. "I don't accept wrong answers."
"Are you fishing for compliments?" Pushing to her feet, Vera brushed off her vegan leather leggings as though Carmen's spotless floor could have left a speck of dust on them.
Sweeping inside, Carmen laughed like rain on a mountainside. "Don't pretend you weren't talking about me."
"Girl, we ain't pretending. You're the queen we've been waiting for."
"Of course I am." Enthroning herself in the white wicker chair in the middle of the room, Carmen laid her perfectly manicured hands along the arms, chin held high, jaw set and gaze clear. "I'm on my period so there's no patience here today. Let's not fuck around. Make me so beautiful no one will give a shit about those fuckers Troy and Marina making kissyfaces on the red carpet."
Vera and Jay exchanged matching eager smiles.
Turning Carmen from merely the most beautiful woman alive into an unearthly goddess was a long process. Makeup and hair first, which Vera supervised even though she probably didn't need to. Jay and Lily worked as a seamless team. There were brushes and creams and clouds of hairspray and a faint, acrid burning smell from the curling iron that resulted in a flurry of cursing.
Carmen sat with unusual patience while the look took shape in pieces: brown hair in loose waves, brows precisely shaped, a shimmer to her skin, stark white eyeliner and glitter in her lashes.
When the makeup was almost done, Sharise peeked in the doorway and Vera hurried over to talk to her.
"Jasper's here," Sharise said. "He's worried about traffic tonight. Problems with road closures. I told him the girl won't be rushed. He should know that by now."
Sharise watched Jay carefully applying matte nude lipstick to Carmen's lips, and Vera watched Sharise. She was wearing these creamy linen pants and a deep blue top with a plunging neckline that Vera tried very hard not to stare at. She failed. She was only human.
"She's looking good," Sharise said.
"Just wait," Vera said, bouncing one bare toe against the floor. "Oh my God, I found the best hairpiece. She's gonna be fucking regal on that carpet."
Sharise's focus shifted, just the slightest flicker down to take in all of Vera: the ribbons laced up the sides of her leggings, the criss-crossed straps of her bra in the open collar of her oversized shirt, sleeves rolled to her elbows. Their eyes met; held. "You're not doing the veil?"
"I never loved the veil," Vera said, and then, more boldly than she felt, "You look great today."
"Thank you," Sharise said, in this cool voice like Vera's compliment didn't affect her even though she couldn't seem to help running her palms over her hips. The uncertainty in the gesture made Vera melt a little.
"Did you decide about the pool party?" Vera edged slightly closer and grinned mischievously up at Sharise. "Because you know, I look super cute in a swimsuit."
Sharise let out this small sound, half a laugh, half surprise. "I'm sure you do," she said, her tone dry as sand but a twinkle in her eye. "You look cute in anything."
Vera's heart did this funny little wobble in her chest. Her smile widened. "You're making me blush."
A smile caught Sharise's lips in return. "I shouldn't distract you. We've got a princess to send to the ball." But their tangled eyes anchored her.
Vera said, "You're the best kind of distraction."
It was cheesy as hell and Alex would have laughed his ass off, but Sharise was still smiling, lips curled deeply, thick lashes low over her brown eyes. Hazily, Vera thought she had never seen a more beautiful smile in her life.
"You're flirting with me," Sharise said, her low voice humming straight up Vera's spine.
"For a second there I thought you hadn't noticed." Impulsively, Vera reached out to brush her fingertips to Sharise's warm ones, a promise in the gentle kiss of warm flesh, Sharise's breathing quickening exquisitely.
Carmen's voice sliced the honey-thick moment. "Vera. I need you."
Sharise flinched away from Vera's touch, gaze flashing to Carmen, and for a moment Vera felt bereft, disoriented. She had forgotten they weren't alone.
"I'll let you get back to work," Sharise said, slipping away without another look.
As Vera turned to look at her, Carmen pressed up out of her chair. "What did Sharise want?"
Rolling her left sleeve over her elbow, Vera swallowed against the heat in her throat. "Jasper's here."
"Oh." Dismissively, Carmen said, "He'll wait."
Jay threw Vera a suggestive wink behind Carmen's back. She ignored him.
"You might want to go to the bathroom first," Vera said. "It's gonna be hard to pee in this outfit."
Lily started to pack up the hair and makeup tools. Carmen went to use the toilet, then came back and shed her robe, leaving her in nothing but a thong. It was a two-person job to dress her, so Jay helped Vera.
First they enclosed her in a snow white one-piece bodysuit that covered her from toes to chin to fingertips like gloves, thin stretchy cloth hugging every curve and hollow of her body between. It took many fine adjustments and a few last minute stitches at the waist; no wrinkles or sags could be allowed to leave this room. By the time the suit was smoothed, Carmen looked like a marble statue, Aphrodite in all her sensual glory, fully covered but barely this side of naked.
The last-minute alterations had slowed them down; they were fifteen minutes late for Sharise's schedule. While they worked, Sharise and the PR girl hired as part of the new strategy came in. They ran through Carmen's talking points with her for the red carpet soundbites, and for her acceptance speech when she won.
Over the white suit Vera arranged a robe. It was shapeless, like a long cape over the shoulders and fastened down the front, dragging now on the carpet but just the right length to barely brush the floor when Carmen had her shoes on. And it was sheer, inspired by the sheer pants Carmen hated: under the draping ivory folds she was visible in all her basically-nude glory.
Then shoes: simple white stilettos with a pointed toe, intended to blend with the bodysuit rather than draw the eye. Finally, Jay brought out the crown and pinned it firmly into the dark waves of her hair. It caught the fading sunlight and glowed like a halo.
"I hate it," Carmen said, turning slowly to look at herself in the mirror, "but I love it. I feel like an alien who landed in the middle ages and is trying to blend in. But hot."
"Super hot," Jay agreed.
Sharise watched impassively.
"Don't sit on your robe in the car," Vera said, massaging her tense fingers. "You could flatten the folds."
Carmen proceeded down the hallway slowly like a queen to her coronation. Jasper jumped up from the bench in the foyer to hold the door while she swept calmly out, in no hurry at all, never glancing back. Jasper followed. The door fell shut behind them with a final thud.
Vera let out a loud sigh.
"That's it," Sharise said.
"So." Jay rubbed his hands together. "Pool first, or wine first?"
"Wine," Vera said firmly. Then, "Do you think the fairy godmother got shitfaced while Cinderella was at the ball?"
"How else do you think she handled the stress of seeing her baby go out in the world to mess with fuckboys?"
"I'll put the broadcast on in the living room," Sharise said, in a tone that suggested she knew no one really cared to watch.
Carmen had more people working for her than Vera had realized. Besides Sharise, Jay, and Lily, in the kitchen clustered the PR girl and another half dozen people Vera had never met, or had seen only briefly over the previous month. Jay provided a round of awkward introductions, and then someone finally pulled out the wine.
Evening sun settled through the window in a blushing haze. The tenseness fell out of Vera's shoulders as Lily clinked crystal glasses onto the counter. They were done. She was off her trial period. The biggest event for months to come was here, and Carmen was dressed and out the door and the only thing left to do was wait. She still didn't have an apartment, but that didn't worry her much when she had a whole night to spend flirting with Sharise.
Casually, she edged around the room into the space beside Sharise, her mind a-whirr with witty conversation starters.
Jay had just screwed the corkscrew into the bottle when Sharise's phone went off, cutting through the chatter. This routine was already painfully familiar.
"What did we forget?" Vera groaned.
Sharise didn't answer on speaker, but Carmen's scream was loud enough for Vera to hear with crystal clarity.
"I forgot to put my cup back in!"
Wincing, Sharise held the phone away from her ear. "You what?"
"When I peed before I got dressed. I took my cup out to rinse it and I set it on the counter and I forgot to put it back in," Carmen wailed. "I thought my ass was just sweaty but it's not. I'm late and Troy and Marina are already on the carpet and the reporters fucking love them and I'm bleeding through my white fucking pants. My life is over."