can [Snarkmeister 1, my current-and-future rival, whom I’m only talking to because we’re getting paid a few thousand and we get to wear free clothes]. Who knew that ugly ducklings knew how to swan along a red carpet?
The positive press grew, and soon everyone wanted to wear Warrior Woman. I only have so much staff, however, and only have so much magic, so I had to choose who needed my help.
The women I dressed were too old by Hollywood standards (meaning barely over thirty), too fat by Hollywood standards (at least a size six), or too ugly by Hollywood standards (think Streisand, who [even now] gets referred to as a success despite her lack of looks).
The dresses didn’t make these women younger or thinner or prettier. The dresses made them feel protected, and warded off the snarkmeisters and their increasingly more powerful shadow puppetmasters. My women were untouchable and, over time, the dresses let them relax enough that they saw what was going on with their own friends (and rivals).
I like to think the dresses let them see an echo of those shadows that haunted me.
The women talked to me about making dresses for everyone.
I couldn’t do that, but I started developing a plan.
I couldn’t get rid of the snarkmeisters and their all-powerful shadows. Complaining about them only made them stronger.
But I could send the shadows back where they came from—if I could only get my hands on some undelivered little golden men.
Here’s something no one tells you about awards shows until it’s too late. The awards themselves are protected better than the gold at Fort Knox. (Is there still gold at Fort Knox? Oh, you get the idea.)
Seriously, I don’t think the president is guarded as well as those little trophies.
So, I had some setbacks. All I wanted to do was ward the trophies—have them repel the snarkmeisters and band together to send the shadows back through that crack in the world from which they slimed forth.
I tried everything. I worked backstage. I even volunteered to be on the trophy committee (which has a different name at each ceremony). Nada.
Finally, I decided to pay for inclusion in the goodie bag. Eighty thousand dollars’ worth of swag compiled just to give free stuff to already rich people. I gave a little gold man to everyone, with a coupon for a free post-Oscar collectible t-shirt wrapped around his tiny little tush.
Those shirts, which I worked on for months, sent a little bit of positive energy into the world.
But more than that, they allowed me into the dress rehearsals, partly because I extended some of that swag to the hard-working artists who put on the show.
I didn’t get to see any gold trophies, but I did see something rather horrifying.
Where the red carpet met the marble floor inside one of the most famous theaters in the world, a slight crack had formed. Not one that a structural engineer with no magic would see. A crack in the fabric of reality, the kind shadows slip out of.
And there were shadows slipping upward, like smoke from an underground fire.
I backed away, and then I called He Who Shall Remain Nameless, not because I needed his more powerful magic, but because he knew who the magical were among the electricians, contractors, and set designers in our industry.
Together, my father and I found a group with more than glamour, and who were willing to work on short notice.
I needed them to add a layer of glittery, clear paint to the gigantic gold statues that stood near the front door—and I needed them to do it legitimately.
And they did.
Now, realize that none of the magical truly knows how magic will work. And none of us truly understands the mechanism that makes magic do what it does. We can predict, but we’re like TV weather anchors. We can get it wrong.
I expected that magical glamour, added to the statues, to suck up the shadowy forms and hold them prisoner inside those gigantic trophy replicas.
Instead, the glittery coating reflected the protective magic from the dresses worn by the actresses who had just completed the red carpet gauntlet and who were feeling a bit—Cranky? Weary? Terrified?
Terrified. Because the moment they walked away from the snarkmeisters’ microphones, those women knew the snarkmeisters—under the influence of their dark shadows—would find something to snark about, ruining a night that was supposed to be about the honor of being nominated and making it into a night about whose dress fit best.