Beautiful People - Chapter 36: Chapter 36

The security guard put a firm hand on Lily's shoulder and marched her out past a sea of stares.
All the models and designers and backstage staff stopped what they were doing to gawk at the scene. At least one person raised their phone to film it, narrating rapidly into their camera as they captured the sight.
Her face flushing scarlet, Lily tucked her chin and shielded her face with a splayed hand. Vera felt a rush of vindictive pleasure. Even if exposing her accomplished nothing else, she deserved this taste of her own medicine. Let her see how it felt when people were talking about her for all the wrong reasons.
Carmen watched her go with ice in her eyes. "She'll be hearing from my lawyers."
The back exit slammed shut after Lily and the security guard. A moment later, everyone turned back to what they had been doing before the spectacle began. There was still a show to run.
"I, uh. Didn't actually manage to record her confession," Vera admitted. "You know, if your lawyers need proof or anything."
Carmen turned. Setting her cheek against her palm, she pursed her lips. Behind her, Jay waved his fingers. Vera didn't know why he was wearing that guilty smile. He'd bought her plenty of time to get Lily's confession. Carmen might not look happy to see her, but she'd known this might backfire. She didn't regret it, especially after how aggressively unsorry Lily had turned out to be.
"You weren't invited, so you showed up anyway and caused all this drama but you didn't even manage to record it?" Carmen sniffed.
"I showed up to support you," Vera said, firmly, and met her eyes without flinching. "But when I found out Lily was here I couldn't just let it go."
"I'm flattered you went to all this effort for me. What a selfless act."
"Okay, yes, I also wanted proof that I didn't leak those photos."
Carmen crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. "You were worried that I'd sue you for breaching the NDA."
"No." Vera's eyes flew wide. She hadn't even considered that Carmen might try to sue her, which was maybe a little shortsighted, even if there hadn't been any proof. She spread her hands, palms up. "I know the photo leak was a really terrible experience. I didn't want you to think a friend would do something like that to you. That I would do something like that to you."
"Oh, you're pulling the friend card now? After everything you've done?"
Despite the ice in her voice, there was something about the twitch of Carmen's lips, a familiar glint in her eye.
"Oh my god." Vera shook her head, then chuckled in disbelief. Carmen's expression didn't change, but she couldn't fool her. "You're fucking with me."
Carmen dissolved into laughter that fizzed like a glass of champagne and engulfed Vera in a rib-crushing hug. "Bitch," she said fondly, "of course I'm fucking with you."
Vera blinked as she pulled away. Jay was giving her a double thumbs up from behind Carmen's back. "Even though I didn't get a recording of Lily's confession?"
"She got paid. There'll be a paper trail. Now that we know it's her, my lawyers will sort it out."
"Okay. Cool. So... are we good? Because last time I saw you, you said you never wanted to see me again."
Scrunching her face, Carmen swept long brown curls behind one ear. "Okay, listen. I was in a bad place in Venice. I might have, you know." She flipped her wrist. "Overreacted a little bit? Just a little. 'Cause I had every right to be upset. But I will admit the yelling was a tiny bit offside. Look, though. I'm literally wearing an outfit you recommended." She gestured at her playsuit and thigh-high boots. "Can't you tell I've already forgiven you?"
"Oh." An apology from Carmen was more than she had expected. Well, that wasn't really an apology, but it was as close to one as Carmen was likely to give. It seemed a little odd, though. "Not to be a narcissist, but, if you've already forgiven me then why wasn't I invited to be part of this show?"
"Uh, you were on a huge apology tour like you were leaving Hollywood? We all thought you were out for good. Anyway, Sharise said it was your move. I wasn't about to argue with her."
Thoroughly bewildered now, Vera could only shake her head. "Fatima Bhatia mentioned she and Sharise came up with this event. But I thought you and Sharise had a falling out."
"I mean, we did? Yeah. She quit at a very bad time for me. It was extremely extra and I was a little upset with her." Carmen sniffed. "But you know I can't stay mad forever at the people I love."
"Wait- Sharise quit?" That utterly floored Vera.
"Oh my god. Did you think I fired her?" Carmen let out her trademark cackling giggle. "Babe, I'm gonna be honest, I would not choose to function without her. Nah, she walked out on me. Said she loved me but I was a bad boss. Can you believe it? No, don't answer that," she said, even though Vera was just standing here with her mouth hanging open, head empty. "Apparently, she didn't like that I joked about not letting you two date. Among other things. Ugh. A girl can't even be a proper diva these days." She wrinkled her nose. "Haven't you talked to her? When she showed up wearing your dress I thought you two had finally got over this silly break."
A jolt jumped up Vera's spine. "She's here tonight?"
"You didn't see her? Oh my god. Girl. Hold on to your panties." With another laugh, Carmen stepped aside and gestured dramatically with her whole arm.
Across the room, at the top of the steps to the backstage part of the runway, stood Sharise. She was talking to Fatima Bhatia, but as though she could feel Vera's gaze, she broke off the conversation. Slowly, she turned her head. Their eyes met, tangled.
It was like the room was suddenly plunged into darkness. Only a solitary spotlight remained, illuminating Sharise. The previously harsh backstage lighting now shone gentle as the light of heaven on her gorgeous dark brown skin. The beat of the music shifted to keep pace with Vera's hurrying heartbeat.
When Sharise had been photographed at Paris Fashion Week she had still been wearing box braids, but sometime since then she had cut her hair right down to the coiled curls against her scalp. Tonight those soft curls were starred all over with bits of gold like the fragments of a halo. Gold paired at wrist and throat and dusted her impossibly long lashes. And the clothes - fuck, the clothes.
She was wearing the dress Vera had made for her. It flowed like molten gold over her curves. On anyone else, it might have been too much, but Sharise turned the delicious Old Hollywood extra-ness of it into pure sensual allure. Yellow fabric dipped between her breasts like lips parted over soft sighs, gathered at the nip of her waist as gently as warm fingertips, fell over the round of her hips to burst into delicate feathers below the knee. More feathers adorned the cuffs of the draped sleeves that turned the dress into a queen's robe. Someone could have said she was literally a monarch about to ascend her throne and Vera wouldn't have doubted them for a second.
Vera was halfway across the room before she realized she was moving. All the models and staff seemed to melt out of her way. Or maybe they were diving unceremoniously onto the floor to avoid her blind advance. She had no idea. For her, nothing existed except Sharise, who watched her progression with glittering lashes dipped low over dark eyes.
As she drew closer, her steps faltered, then slowed. Her shins bumped the bottom step, and she stopped.
Her heart beat somewhere in her throat. She had to draw in more than one breath before she could speak. Even then, she could only manage, "You look incredible."
"I know," Sharise said, just the tips of her very white teeth flashing in the tiniest of smiles. "I did have to get a tailor for the final touches, but I'm amazed you got the fit so close. It was almost perfect."
"My hands couldn't forget the shape of your body," Vera said, then realized that may have been a little creepier than she intended. Just a little. "And I may have taken some measurements in your closet before I moved out," she amended, sheepishly.
She didn't mention the hours she'd spent researching the best ways to design for plus-size bodies, reading tips from designers and rants from fashion influencers about their struggles. After all, every body shape was different. It was just good practice to be aware of that when making clothes. She'd done the same for Jay.
But Vera wasn't thinking about the effort she'd put into that dress as, for a beat, they just looked at each other. It hadn't been so long since they'd seen each other, but now that they stood close enough to touch, and yet still not touching, it felt like it had been a lifetime.
Vera wanted to say something witty, maybe whip out one of her famous cheesy lines. But instead, her voice came out small. "You didn't have to get a tailor for the touch-ups. I would have done it."
"I didn't know whether I should call you." Sharise lifted both hands as though to skim them nervously over her hips, but with what appeared to be great effort she lowered them again. "You moved out. I thought that was a pretty clear sign you were done."
"I'm not. Not as long you aren't done," Vera said, cringing because Jay had been right about how Sharise would interpret that. Of course he had.
"Look, this is super touching," the coordinator with the headset butted in, jabbing furiously at her tablet, "but I need to get the next batch of models onstage thirty seconds ago. Can you have your heart-warming reunion somewhere that isn't the middle of my runway?"
Vera bumped unpleasantly back to earth. The bustle of the fashion show returned as though someone had unmuted the sound and she realized she was standing right in the path of a bevy of models who didn't even pretend they weren't listening with rapt fascination to her moment with Sharise.
"Oh! Right. Sorry." Face scalding, she shuffled aside to let the models file past.
Sharise lifted the hem of her skirt, revealing sky-high laced boots of buttery brown leather - the perfect touch to ground a dress that might otherwise have come across too formal for the event. Instinctively, Vera reached up to offer a hand for balance on the steps.
Hesitating, Sharise stared at her upturned palm. Then she raised a searching gaze to her face.
"I've got you," Vera promised quietly.
For a moment, they wavered precariously between yes and no. Between something so beautiful they couldn't see it for its radiant promise and the cold, certain shadow that waited if they turned away.
Sharise studied her, a question arrested between parted teeth. Then she let out a long breath, tautness unspooling like thread from a dropped bobbin, uncoiling into something loose, messy, vulnerable but all the more precious for it.
She put her hand in Vera's and stepped carefully down the stairs.
They found a quiet space in the alley behind the building, lit by yellow light spilling through the emergency exit door propped open behind them. It was the same door Lily had been marched out of, but she was long gone. Vera checked, just to be sure.
The frayed edges of the night gathered under Sharise's jaw, along the curve of her neck, against the arch of her brows; everywhere Vera wanted to press her lips and show her how much she'd missed her.
Sharise broke the quiet. "The strangest thing happened to me the other day. This extraordinary dress just showed up at my door. It's like it was made for me." She swayed her hips, skirt whispering against her legs. "And it came with this really romantic card."
Vera bit back her grin. "I wanted to do this like, big romantic gesture. Rent out a whole restaurant so we could eat spaghetti and vegan meatballs, lady and the tramp style. Get a plane to write your name in the sky. Send you flowers every day for a year. Well, maybe not that one. I don't think I could have waited a whole year to talk to you again. But I know that's not really your style, so I was a little stumped."
"The dress is a pretty big gesture," Sharise said gently.
"Oh, god. It's too much, isn't it. Is it too much? If it is, you should tell me right now. Because if you don't, there's more clothing coming."
A smile threatened at the corners of Sharise's full lips. "You're saying I'm going to need more closet space?"
"Good thing you have an extra room again." The joke fell so flat it smacked straight into the pavement between them. Fiddling with her collar, Vera looked down, away, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. "Okay, that's a bad joke. I know I shouldn't have moved out without telling you. You said you needed a break, and I thought the space would help. I didn't mean to make you think I was ending things."
"Why didn't you just say so?"
"Because..." She pulled in a breath. "I didn't know how to talk to you about it. I felt guilty. I thought Carmen fired you because of what I'd done."
"You think Carmen would choose to function without me?" Sharise asked, her voice drier than the LA wind.
Vera's lips twisted into a smile. "That's exactly what Carmen said. I guess it was stupid, but I did think that. And I thought it was my fault. I didn't see how you would want to stay with me after that. I figured it was just a matter of time before the break became a breakup."
"So you decided to turn it into a breakup before I could?"
"No. Well, not intentionally. I mean. I guess I didn't think it through all the way."
Sharise shook her head slowly. "We talked about a future together, Vera. Was that just more of your pretty talk?"
"It wasn't just talk." She bit her lip, looked down at her toes. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've realized that I... I mean, I–"
Huffing out a breath, she set her jaw and raised her gaze. She wasn't going to look away from this. "Look. I'm really good at the pitch. When I want something, I'm not afraid to just go for it. But I'm not always so good at the follow-through. Everything always seems to end up being harder than I expected, you know? Then I panic. And I run. I felt guilty for getting you fired, but... It's more than that. I got scared that this was more than I could handle."
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and then back again. She could list everything she'd failed at over the years - fashion school, all those jobs, the partners, her influencer business which she'd neglected after coming to Hollywood - but that wasn't the point of this. The point was that she was trying her best not to be that person anymore.
"You said you wanted me to find my own apartment. I did. I moved in last week. And I'm refocusing on the career I really want. I've been working on my designs. I'm trying to get an internship with a designer, to learn the parts of the business I don't know. I'm ready to do as many coffee runs as I have to. I know it won't be easy, and I'm not very good at things that aren't easy. But I guess that's what this whole adulting thing is all about, right? Figuring out how to do the hard shit?"
Sharise watched her quietly. Moonlight pooled in her dark eyes. Vera couldn't read her face, couldn't tell if her rambling made any sense. She shoved her hands into her pockets to stop fidgeting.
"You said you'd reach out when you were ready, so I was waiting for you to call. But if you didn't, I was going to. Once I figured everything out. That's what I've been doing since I moved out. I'm not moving on. I'm trying to figure myself out so that I can be the partner you deserve." Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, she cracked a rueful smile. "I think I'm making progress, but honestly, I don't know if I'll ever really have my shit together. All I can do is keep trying. And I hope that you'll let me keep trying. Because you were always the best part about coming to LA."
A smile flashed across Sharise's lips, maybe remembering the night on the rooftop when Vera had first said that and they'd shared their first kiss.
Encouraged, she went on, "When I'm with you, I always feel like everything will work out. The last few months with you are the happiest I've ever been. The hard stuff, it doesn't seem so hard when you're around. And I want to be that for you, too. I want to be the place you can come home to and feel safe, where you know that you're loved and supported. But I also know that by lying to you I fucked that up."
Her throat tightened, because this was what scared her the most - that Sharise might never really trust her again. "I know that it will take time to fix that. That it takes work to make things that will last. But I want to fix it, if you'll let me. I want to put in that work. Because yes, I do want that future with you. Even though I know it won't be easy. You're the woman of my dreams, Sharise. Don't laugh," she said, even though Sharise wasn't laughing, just watching her with that feel, thoughtful expression. "I mean it. When I think about the future, I can't imagine it without you in it. And maybe that fluffy white cat you mentioned, too. I'm ready to do whatever it takes to make that a reality. And I hope you still feel that way, too."
Vera felt like she'd taken her heart out and set it carefully at Sharise's feet. Words all spent, she waited to see whether she would pick it up and treasure it - or if she would stomp all over it with those killer boots.