The Best Friend Scandal - Lucia Jordan Page 0,10

a bit and then had a musing about the “wide-open world.”

“Wouldn’t it be cool,” she said as she looked out at the reflection of the city buildings onto the water, “if one of these designs ended up reaching someone way on the other side of the world? Like if someone saw it and was so inspired that it caused them to then create something else that might not have even had the idea to exist before?”

“That’s a super deep thing to say,” I commented.

“Yeah,” Hensley mused. “Sometimes, I think my head is just screwed on differently than most people. I’m not always sure if that’s a good thing, to be honest.”

I glancedooked over at her, and she had a faraway look in her eyes. “Hensley, anyone who values their craft more than they value money or fame, is a true artist. That is way more important than any of the rest of it. I think your head is screwed on perfectly. It’s the rest of the world that needs some adjusting.”

She looked over at me and smiled.

When we got into the office, my secretary already looked frazzled enough to quit on the spot.

“You have to get in there,” she said as she raced up to meet me at the door. “They’re all acting as if they’re going to faint, or quit, or both.”

I rolled my eyes and sucked in my cheeks as I braced for an afternoon of dealing with these self-absorbed supermodels. Honestly, this group of models gave their entire profession a bad name. There were plenty of beautiful models that were genuinely nice and down-to-earth people. I needed to reevaluate who I put under contract after this show was over. It just wasn’t worth the negative energy that they brought to the brand. No face was pretty enough for that.

Hensley walked alongside me, pulling the garment rack with her as we went into the large design room that I used for the model fittings. My secretary had been right; the models were dramatically draped over the tops of the tables as if they had been waiting for a century instead of a couple of hours.

“Oh my God, you’re finally back,” Kerynne whined as she poked Cai to get him to sit up from his sprawled out position lying on top of one of the tables. “It’s not like we haven’t been waiting for hours or anything.”

“Yeah,” Cai added on to her sentiment. “I normally don’t agree with Kerynne, and I normally don’t complain—”

“You complain all of the time,” Kerynne interrupted him.

“But,” he continued, “these outfits better be fabulous after I’ve wasted my morning in this corporate box of a building.”

My building didn’t feel like a corporate box at all. In fact, it was one of the most innovatively designed buildings on the block. These guys just wanted something to whine about since they had to sit here for a bit without being entertained. I saw my secretary standing in the doorway, waiting for instructions about how to handle them, so I sent her to fetch sparkling waters and some imported dark chocolates as compensation for making them wait.

“All right, everyone, well, we’re here now, and Hensley has some amazing things for you to try on. Spread out a bit, and she’ll get you all dressed and fitted. Two costume changes each, starting with Kerynne and Cai.” I then took a step back and handed things over to Hensley. I was more than a little curious to see how she was going to handle this crew. I almost felt a bit bad to throw her to the wolves, but she would need to be able to handle the models on her own at the runway show, so this was a good test.

I was impressed by how quickly she had things ready to go and was already running from model to model, trying to dress them all. She didn’t seem to balk at the obvious lack of modesty the models had or how they acted like spoiled children in need of constant attention. She had both Kerynne and Cai dressed within a matter of seconds of each other. She was going to be a natural with the quick changes on the runway.

“This is poking me,” Kerynne said as she flicked a section of dark-green tulle that was lying against her breast. “What is this supposed to be, like moss or something?”

“Here,” Hensley said as she set down the headpiece that she was trying to adjust for Cai in order to