I bit my bottom lip. “Finding souls has never been easy for me.”
Dash inched us closer together and waited. I looked, but all I could seem to find was Avery’s normal, eager gaze with a bit of eyeliner on the upper lid. I was just about to break the pose when Dash’s voice came from behind the camera.
“Now!” he said. “Avery, don’t move, and Charlie, look at me.”
I turned and I could hear Dash’s shutter start clicking.
“Great, great. Now Charlie, pretend I’ve told you a delicious secret and you can’t tell anyone else. And then whisper that secret into Avery’s ear.”
I leaned into Avery, and I heard a new round of catcalls.
“Open one more button on your shirt, Charlie,” Margot called. The shutter continued to click on Dash’s camera. “You look Amish.”
I frowned into the darkness behind the bright lights. “You can’t be serious.”
Margot came into the light, holding a very full glass of champagne and wearing an expression that I believed was an attempt at patience.
“Charlie,” she said softly, then paused to wave Avery away for a moment of privacy. “Drink this and become a seductress. A clean one, mind you. This is Surge TV, not Showtime. But remember you’re selling smart, capable, and sexy. We need images that show that Charlie, not the one who looks like she’s never walked in high heels and is worried she’s late for curfew.”
I worried my lower lip with my teeth. “I don’t really think of myself as sexy. And besides,” I straightened in my heels but had a difficult time pulling it off, “I don’t remember deciding ‘sexy’ was a part of my branding campaign.”
Margot smirked. “‘Sexy’ is always a part of the branding campaign,” she said. “Charlie, trust me.” Her tone was more placating. “I won’t do anything to embarrass you. We’re just looking for a playful, tantalizing glimpse into the relationships on the show.” She clapped her hands, signaling the end of our discussion. “Now, let’s get to work.”
I gulped down half the champagne and gave the glass to Mohawk’s waiting assistant. Turning to Avery, I tugged on his collar and raised my eyebrows. “You got me into this, you know.”
Avery looked like he’d won a jackpot, but Dash was the one who shouted.
“Perfect!”
When I left the loft hours later, little droplets of water hung in the air somewhere between a traditional rainstorm and early evening mist off the Sound. Lolo met me on the way out of the building. She stood by the front door, huddled in a flimsy jacket and pulling on a cigarette.
“Hey, lady,” she said. She nodded her chin at me. “Hair still looks amazing.”
I touched the top of my head gingerly, still amazed at how much taller I was after Lolo’s work. “Thanks. I’m afraid it won’t look too great after I take a walk in this humidity.”
Lolo dropped her cigarette on the ground, stubbed it out with a metal-studded platform wedge, and picked it up with two careful fingers. She tossed it in a nearby trash bin and nodded down the street. “I’m parked a few blocks away. Want a ride home?”
I shook my head. “Thank you for the offer, but I want to stretch out the sad and depressed muscles in my feet.” Gesturing to her shoes, I said, “I don’t know how you wear those things. I feel like crying, and I only had to wear heels when I was in front of the camera.”
She laughed quietly, her voice raspy with the aftereffects of tobacco. “I’m a slave to fashion, baby. In my line of work, I have no other option. And listen,” she said as she started down the street, “don’t give in to the crying,” she said. “I told you Margot will hate you for it.”
I watched her for a while, the spikes of her newly blue hair catching the light every time she passed under a street lamp. Gathering a long, deep breath into my lungs, I enjoyed anew my yoga pants and their willingness to let me inhale and exhale at will. The quiet of the night pulled close around me as I started to walk, the slow silence only punctuated by the polite rumble of fuel-efficient cars every now and then and sound bites of conversations I picked up from the scant foot traffic.
After a day full to the brim with lots of people and lots of big personalities, I found the solitude invigorating. Images of Mohawks, piercings, tattooes, heavy makeup, and, most disturbingly, my own Photoshopped cleavage on an editing screen began to fade the farther I got from the studio. Soon the stiffness in my back and shoulders loosened, and I swung my arms as I walked.