Beautiful People - Chapter 30: Chapter 30

The stumble back through Venice to her hotel was the worst walk of shame Vera had ever taken. Which was really saying something, because when she was twenty she'd spent a year trying to perfect her online dating game but had mostly just become an expert at the morning-after walk home. She'd even learned how to not be ashamed of it.
Today, doing this walk under the rudely cheerful Venetian sun, she felt ashamed. Ashamed and very frustrated, because her skinny stiletto heels kept wedging between the cobblestones but also because it wasn't fair. Their plan had worked. Carmen and Marina had made up spectacularly. She should be enjoying a relaxing morning with the woman of her dreams and, later, boasting about her A-list clientele to her followers. Instead, because of some asshole who cared more about a scandalous headline than the humans behind it, Carmen had fired her and Sharise had broken up with her.
"No, she asked for a break," she reminded herself.
But her mind kept playing on repeat that look on Sharise's face when she'd realized Vera had lied to her. It had taken her so long to earn Sharise's trust. She couldn't help worrying that a break was just the first step to being dumped.
And that part was entirely her fault.
Her sister Ivy would have so much to say if she heard about this.
When she stepped into a fragrant bakery to grab something to eat, she was sure the staff threw amused glances at each other. Suddenly very aware that her pants were wrinkled from lying in a heap on the floor overnight and her face badly needed a wash, she pointed at a random pastry and hurried through the transaction. Emerging into the bustling streets again clutching her breakfast in a paper bag, her anxiety sharpened. It felt like every single eye followed her, judging.
It was paranoia, of course. She was nobody, just another tourist who'd made a few too many bad decisions and was now paying the price with an uncomfortable early morning walk. None of these people knew that she'd lied to the woman she loved for the stupidest, most selfish reasons. None of them cared that her self-serving plan to reconnect Carmen and Marina had led to an indiscrete tryst that had probably only made things infinitely worse for everyone involved.
Her stomach pinched, reminding her she'd had too much wine the night before. She plopped down beside the canal to nibble at the pastry. It was probably delicious, but her bad mood seemed to have sent her tastebuds on strike. As she chewed, she looked down at the water. Fish hung in the shaded depths, unconcerned with the dramas of the people whose shadows flitted across the surface. How silly she had been last night to worry about whether her little tumble into the canal might hurt her image.
By the time she made it back to her hotel and huffed up the stairs to her room, her head ached and her feet were sore and blistered in her Louboutins. The lock fought her. When it finally gave, the first thing she did was kick off those shoes as hard as she could. One smacked into the wall. The other got stuck on her sweaty toes as she shook her leg furiously. At last the shoe fell pathetically to the floor. The cobblestones hadn't been kind to their finish, that red bottom looking all rumpled and a long gouge up one heel. Super. A thousand dollars down the drain was exactly the cherry she needed on top of this shit sundae.
Grabbing a pillow, she stuffed her face into it. A scream pushed out of her throat, half muffled by the pillow but still loud enough to build pressure in her skull. Now her head pounded in time with her throbbing feet. That was not an improvement.
The door rattled. Jay shouldered in, juggling his makeup case, his tote bag of hair torture devices, and a tray with three coffees.
"Cool it with the screaming," he mumbled around a huge yawn. He was dressed simply in black jeans and a white t-shirt under a leather jacket. He raked fingers through hair still damp from a shower, his face looking strangely naked without any makeup. "I know we've unleashed a gossip monster but making people think I'm murdering you won't help."
Wincing, Vera accepted the coffee he handed her. "You heard?"
"Who hasn't heard? What a mess. I wouldn't be surprised if Marina's team reaches out with a change of plans."
"Oh, shit." Vera's stomach clenched uncomfortably, and she lowered the coffee without taking a sip.
She had forgotten they still had to dress Marina for her premiere today. Carmen had told her that Marina's sexuality was an open secret in Hollywood, but she wasn't out to her fans. Or she hadn't been, anyway. And the public still thought she was in a relationship with Troy. This couldn't be a good look for her.
She rubbed her forehead. "Can you let her team know you're the contact today? I don't know if my phone's recovered."
It took her a solid minute to remember what she had done with her waterlogged phone the night before, but eventually, she found Jay's container beside the jewelry case and shook it out in a tumble of desiccant packets. She pressed the power button.
The screen remained black.
Jamming her thumb into the button, she held it there until a few pixels flickered to life on the screen. They died again a moment later.
"Fuck."
If she hadn't already been deep in a pit of despair, the sight of her dead phone would have been enough to push her off the edge.
Jay tossed her a charging cable. "Worth a try."
"Is it?"
But she plugged it in, just in case. Then she sank into the bed and watched listlessly as Jay arranged his tools. There was nothing she was less interested in doing than facing Marina right now, let alone dressing her so she could go out there on the red carpet and get torn apart by the vultures.
"Lily's late," Jay complained as he spaced out an array of industrial-strength hair products. "Do you know when she left last night?"
"No idea." Vera hadn't thought about Lily once after they'd arrived at the party. She probably should have asked Jay if he'd followed through on his plan to talk things out with her, but she just did not care. "What are we doing, Jay?"
His brow wrinkled. "Our jobs?"
"How can you keep doing–" She gestured wildly at his meticulously arranged tools, the clothes rack, the whole city. "Marina was outed because of our plan! How can we face her after that?"
"Your plan. And no, she was outed because someone at that party thought the payday for selling those photos was worth Carmen destroying their life when she finds them."
"Carmen thinks it was me."
Jay looked up from his makeup brushes with a sharp bent to his lips. "What?"
"Yeah, she fired me. And Sharise broke up with me." A hysterical laugh jumped from between her teeth. That was better than the furious tears that threatened to burst out, at least. She explained in a few brief, ugly strokes what had happened that morning.
"Well, shit." He tugged at his chin. "Did Carmen say anything about me?"
"You didn't come up."
"When she's on the warpath, no one is safe. I'd better avoid her attention for a while." He threw himself into a chair, a worried frown creasing his cheeks. "As for Sharise... Don't do anything rash. It sounds like she just needs to sort out her feelings."
"I don't know, Jay. I've been dumped enough times to know that breaks never end well." The tears really wanted to flow now. She pressed her knuckles into her hot eyes to hold them back. "How do you even take a break when you live together?"
"I've got a couch if you need it." He squeezed her shoulder. "Listen, Carmen isn't your only client. Marina needs our help. They're talking about her, so let's at least give them a killer look to cover all their stories. Just get through today. Then you can figure this out, okay?"
"I can't, Jay."
"Sure you can."
"No, I can't."
"This is the job, Vee." He spread his hands. "We help them maintain an image. There's no time that's more important than when that image is threatened."
"I know," she muttered, rubbing the low bridge of her nose.
Jay waved his phone at her. "Marina's team says no change of plans."
"Oh, god."
"Pull it together, honey."
Sucking in a lungful of air to squeeze the tears back down, she rubbed her temples until she could breathe normally again. Then she pushed to her feet.
After splashing some cold water on her face, changing from last night's clothes into leggings and an oversized t-shirt, and checking her phone again (still dead), she felt brave enough to cross to the clothes rack.
Tearing off the protective cloth, she squinted at all the ruffles and sequins and swathes of silk. Some of these outfits were for Carmen, for the events she had lined up for the rest of the week. Should she arrange to have them sent to Carmen's hotel? Or would Carmen want nothing to do with them? Would she even be able to find another stylist so last-minute?
They were probably the wrong clothes anyway. And she would have styled them badly. No clarity of vision. No wonder Fatima Bhatia had never returned her calls. Why did she think she could do this job in the first place?
The truth was, Vera couldn't help thinking Carmen was right to fire her.
Sure, she may not have actually sold photos of Carmen and Marina herself, but she'd been the one pushing to make their reconciliation happen, and she'd been doing it now, at this time of intense emotions and constant media coverage, because it was better for her own career. Carmen was right to blame her for that. Marina probably would, too.
Worst of all, she'd dragged Sharise into her mess.
She never should have answered when Carmen first slid into her DMs.
"Where the hell are you, Lily?" Jay snapped, slamming his phone onto the table beside his makeup brushes and the third, untouched cup of coffee. It steamed enticingly in the sun.
"Can I have her coffee?"
"Why the fuck not."
Fortified by caffeine, Vera opened her notebook. She absolutely could not remember what Marina was supposed to be wearing today.
Feeling as though she were moving through a thick fog, she wafted between shoes and dress and accessories. Three times she laid out the wrong jewelry. When at last she found the right necklace, she frowned at it. It was a hideous, gaudy thing. What had she been thinking? Marina would never want to wear this.
Sinking onto the floor, she began to pick morosely through the extra pieces she had brought, trying to find something more appropriate.
"Marina and her team are running a little late," Jay told her, before he left an angry voicemail for Lily.
When Vera checked her phone for the thousandth time, it chimed. A moment later, the brand logo floated into view on the screen. She let out a long sigh of relief. "Thank you."
Finally, something going right. She was ready for things to turn around.
A billion notifications lit up her screen, including a voicemail from Ivy. Before checking any of them, she opened the browser.
She wasn't being nosy. As curious as she was, she didn't think she really wanted to see the photos. But she needed to know what Publicist Cora had seen that tipped her off about Vera working for Marina. Why would anyone even bother mentioning her in a gossip story as explosive as this?
But the first headline she saw made her head spin.
"No," she whispered, horrified.
"What's that?"
"Jay." She stopped, swallowed hard. What she'd thought was rock bottom had collapsed out from under her. She felt like she was in freefall. "Carmen went rogue."
"Oh, fuck. Did she go live to explain herself?"
"She went live to explain herself," Vera echoed. "And... Jay, please tell me I'm still asleep, because this is literally a fucking nightmare."
"It can't be that bad."
Mutely, Vera turned her phone so he could read the headline.
He blinked.
In big, bold letters at the top of the screen, it read, VIDEO: CARMEN JUAREZ DENIES LESBIAN AFFAIR, HAS PARTED WAYS WITH PUBLICIST AND MANAGER.
"She fired Sharise?" he said, dumbfounded.
"This is my fault," Vera said, her voice sounding like it was coming from somewhere far away.
He shook his head. "Carmen can't function without Sharise. She's just raging. She'll change her mind." He started to laugh. "Girl, this is wild. What does she expect to do without a publicist or a manager?"
Vera's suitcase was in the wardrobe. She yanked it out and began to chuck all her clothes and makeup and dumb, painful shoes into it.
Jay's laughter died. "What are you doing?"
"Going home."
"Y'all can't be serious." When she didn't stop packing, he started to panic. "You can't fucking walk out on me. Marina will be here any minute!"
She zipped her suitcase shut. "She just has to put on some clothes. You can handle it."
"Are you crazy? If you walk out that door, you're throwing away everything."
"What is there to throw away?" she cried. "I'm a fraud. People only like my work because of the Red Carpet Incident, and that was an accident."
"Accidents start careers all the time."
"I don't want a career as a stylist. I wanna be a designer. And last night Fatima fucking Bhatia basically told me that's never gonna happen. So what the fuck am I doing here? All I've succeeded at is ruining the lives of Carmen and Marina and– and Sharise." Her voice broke, and she swept tears off her cheeks.
Jay's brows knitted in anger. "And you think walking away when they need you most is going to help?"
She stuffed her feet into a pair of cushy running shoes. There was no one left to impress. "Trust me. You'll all be better off without me."
And before Jay could stop her, she limped out the door, suitcase bumping at her heels.