and stood there to wait for Kerynne to finish changing while I went in search of Hensley. Surely, she couldn’t have gone far.
“Hey, have you seen Hensley?” I asked a cluster of models who we're packing up and getting ready to leave.
“Yeah,” one of the girls said. “She’s over there.” She pointed toward the hallway that led toward the locker rooms.
“We tried to talk to her, Arlo. Most of us don’t agree with what Kerynne did. It was uncalled for, and it ruined the ending of the show that we all worked hard for,” she said. “But Hensley just said that she wanted to be left alone.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” I replied. “Did any of you see Kerynne actually cut the dress?”
She looked at me with reservation. “You know we can’t say,” she answered.
Of course, I knew that. Those models stuck together no matter what. It was how they survived the jobs they got without outbidding each other constantly. If one of them went against the group, they were basically cut out, and their career would be an uphill battle alongside the others. I was disappointed in the way they operated, not because I didn’t appreciate the loyalty they shared, but because at some point, I would have hoped morals and some semblance of conscience would have kicked in. But even if any of the rest of them had seen Kerynne cut Hensley’s dress, none of them would admit to it. At least most of the models felt bad for Hensley and agreed that Kerynne went too far. That, in and of itself, was a rarity.
There was a bench that rested up against the outside wall of the locker rooms, and as I got closer, I saw Hensley sitting on it. She had changed back into her street clothes but was still holding my jacket wadded up in her balled fists. She looked like she had been crying.
“Hey,” I said as I sat down next to her and rubbed my hand on her back.
“I’m sorry,” Hensley said as she started to cry again.
“Sorry about what?” I asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You were right,” she cried. Her tears fell against my jacket in her lap. “I never should have been a model in the show. It was stupid and irresponsible for me to have convinced you to let me do it. If I hadn’t, then none of this would have happened, and the show wouldn’t have been ruined.”
“Hensley,” I said as I lifted my jacket from her lap and used it to wipe the tears on her cheeks. “The show wasn’t ruined; it was a huge success.”
“Really?” she asked as she looked up at me and sniffled.
“Yes, really. The designers loved your designs, and everyone, including the press, is highly anticipating the line’s release.”
“I bet the press is going to have a field day with the photos they got of me,” she said.
“Not at all,” I said as I took my phone out of my pocket and sent a quick text off to my secretary to get her to handle the press about the whole thing. I would deal with them personally later, but at least she could shut them down for me in the immediate timeframe. “The press isn’t going to be releasing any photos until tomorrow, and none of the photos will be of what happened. The only photos they will release of you will be the ones from the beginning of the show when I introduced you as the designer.”
“How can you be sure?” she asked.
“Trust me, none of them want to piss me off. They know that if they rub me the wrong way, they’ll miss every new press release Luscious has, including the one right around the corner. They won’t chance it. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
I could see in her face that she was humiliated, and there was nothing that I could do about that. She took a deep sigh in and then buried her face in my jacket.
“Don’t worry about Kerynne, either,” I said. “She’s just petty and jealous.”
“Jealous?” Hensley laughed. Her small laugh sounded like a snort with her face buried against the jacket. She lifted her head back up to look at me. “Kerynne isn’t jealous. What in the world would she have to be jealous over me for?”
I didn’t understand why she couldn’t see it. How was it possible that Hensley didn’t realize how beautiful she was, not in an airbrushed or photoshopped kind of way but