(From Kyle): I’m praying for you
I snorted and put the phone down. Somehow, his goofy texts were helping calm me down even more than the repetition of trying on dress after dress. He was always so at ease, so comfortable with himself. His pep talk of the night before: “If people make fun of you, screw them, they’re jealous.” Coming from him it didn’t sound like denial, it sounded . . . true. I could feel the tiniest bit of that rubbing off on me, a little surface dusting of not giving two craps whether I looked ridiculous.
“Kyle again?” Monique asked. She was trying to sound nonchalant, but her eyes were narrowed slightly and she was leaning forward.
“Yeah.” I glanced at the door. Monique hadn’t been too loud, had she? There were no cameras in the dressing room—I was too close to naked in here—but if Anastasia knew Kyle was texting, I had a feeling it would become part of the show somehow.
“You guys have been texting a lot in the last few days.”
“Yeah. There’s a lot of show stuff to talk about.”
“Really.” Her voice was flat. “That’s why he’s messaged ten times since we got here.”
“Yes, really.” I couldn’t smile. If I smiled, Mo would want to analyze things, and then the air would get let out, and somehow it would become clear that it didn’t mean anything. Better to just pretend I already thought that. Best of all to try to think that; Kyle might claim he liked weirdos, but he still dated Wolfettes.
“All right. Whatever you say.”
I put my hand on the doorknob.
“Wish me luck.”
“Vamp it up, girl.” Mo leaned back against the wall, eyebrow raised.
I walked out of the dressing room, tugging at the bottom of the skirt to make sure my butt was staying covered—not an easy task, since the hem looked like the haircut I gave myself in kindergarten.
“Step on the platform,” Anastasia said quietly.
I glanced at one of the stationary cameras set up behind me, then at Eddie 2, Anastasia standing just to his right and nodding at me encouragingly. Sighing, trying to keep my legs glued together so nothing would show—which only made them look fatter—I stepped up.
Dear god. All the reflections circling me were just . . . hideous. I could almost hear the trolls grumbling underground. I had muffin top and muffin bottom. The color was like a safety vest someone rejected for being too over-the-top. And somehow my boobs managed to look like one big loaf of lumpy bread. I could feel all the Kyle dust falling off me. What had I been thinking? Jealous or no, I was begging people to destroy me.
“Rachel, could you show off the dress a little? Maybe twirl around, or give us a kissy face?”
I folded my arms across my chest and turned my most withering look on Anastasia, raising an eyebrow at the end for emphasis.
“Yes, perfect.” Anastasia’s smile was barely there, but her eyes were widening hungrily, like she’d just spotted prey . . . me. Maybe there was a reason Mary had been willing to assign her as proxy.
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You’ve done plenty. You can change.”
I shrugged and headed back to my dressing room, where an assistant had deposited a new dress. Mary had explained, just before we started filming, that I couldn’t see them in advance, it would ruin my reactions. That was also the explanation Anastasia gave for setting Mom and Dad up in another dressing room with a monitor and a camera on them for “reaction shots” after dress number three, though I think she was just tired of Mom starting full-on conversations about every ruffle, walking into frame to snap cell phone photos, and generally distracting me and slowing things down.
I glanced hopefully at my phone, but Kyle hadn’t texted.
“I should never have agreed to this.” I held up my thicket of hair so Monique could work zippers and hooks and eyes.
“Why? That was funny.”
“Yeah, ’cause I looked hideous.”
“Anyone would look hideous in that.”
My phone pinged. I leaned toward it hungrily, pulling the dress out of Monique’s hands. It was just Mom sending tongue-out emojis. If even your mother thinks it looked bad, it looked bad.
“Expecting somebody?”
“No.” I tugged the dress to the floor and started unzipping the one on the wall so I wouldn’t have to look at her. It was longish, a sort of a shimmery gray color, with sheer lacework over the top half winding its way up to cap sleeves and a high, scalloped neckline. It probably made anyone without a perfect-waif figure—i.e., me—look like someone’s aunt at a wedding.
“Rachel, I know how you feel about Kyle.”
“Yeah, and you know it’s pointless, so let’s not.”
“Why are you like that?”
“Like what?” I pulled the dress off the hanger and stepped in.