“This place is sort of giving me the creeps.”
“I think we have to go over there with the other messengers.” Charlie headed toward the security desk.
“Okay.” Emma wished she could pull out her sketchbook. The Game would be really easy to play here. She turned to follow Charlie.
“You can not be serious!”
Emma froze. Paige Young stood five feet in front of her.
“I am not taking a subway down to Tribeca with all these garment bags,” Paige told a twenty-something girl with a super-high ponytail and the skinniest pants Emma had ever seen. Paige covered the phone speaker with her hand and focused on the girl.
“I thought you confirmed the car service. ‘Confirmed’ means calling an hour before the pickup time to make sure they have the booking, not just checking to see that you have it down on my calendar.”
Ponytail Girl quaked in her stacked-heel boots. “I-I can call them now…” the girl who must be Paige’s assistant stammered.
“He-llo! It’s Friday afternoon! The chances of them being able to send a car in the next ten…” Paige looked down at her gold watch, “make that five minutes are slim to none, and none just left town in a stretch limo.”
Paige put the phone back up to her ear. “I’m so, so sorry, Pierre!” she said, her tone instantly shifting from an irritated growl to a sweet coo. “S’il vous plaît excusez-moi. I will be at the photo shoot as soon as humanly possible. Yes, yes—breaking in a new assistant. Ah, so you understand. Ciao, Pierre!”
Emma was fascinated. She couldn’t stop from openly staring, as if watching some sort of improv theater performance. Pass the popcorn—she was set.
Charlie came up beside her. “What happened? I thought you were right behind me. I was almost at the front of the—”
“Shhh!” Emma nodded her head toward Paige, who had ended her call.
“That’s her!” Charlie exclaimed, before Emma could gag him.
Paige’s gaze shifted quickly over to Charlie and then back to Emma. “Hey! Aren’t you—?”
Emma’s first instinct was to run. Fast. They had learned about animals’ flight-or-fight responses in biology. And she was most definitely a fleer. But Charlie blocked her path to the door.
He moved in front of Emma and smiled. “Allegra Biscotti’s interns. We met at Laceland earlier in the week.” He sounded smooth and confident.
God, what acting skills, Emma thought. Either his mother had taught him well, or it was in his genes. Emma didn’t care which as long as Charlie stayed in control, because she sure had no idea what to say.
“Actually, Ms. Young, we’re here to deliver a package to you from Allegra Biscotti,” he continued.
Emma slightly raised the package—for protection as much as proof.
Paige pursed her mauve lips and blinked a couple of times. “I’m kind of on my way out—if I can manage to find a taxi or horse-drawn carriage or one of those stupid bicycle cabs to get me downtown before the photographer walks off the set,” she said, narrowing her eyes at her ponytailed assistant, who rapidly typed on her phone in a flurry of concentrated activity.
“Caroline.” Ponytail Girl jolted into ready position. “Take this package up to my office when you return.”
Emma stared for a moment at the girl’s outstretched hand. She wanted Paige to have the dress. She did. But not like this. She had been expecting something different. A gasp, knowing she had gotten the beloved dress. Oprah-like exclamations of joy. Happiness.
She shifted the package in her arms. Her clothes were joyful things. They made her happy. She knew that sounded odd, but Paige just wasn’t in the right mind-set now. Emma couldn’t loosen her grasp.
“Thank you,” Paige prompted, shooting Emma a quizzical look.
Charlie nudged her hard with his elbow.
Emma slowly released the package. She watched as Ponytail Girl casually tucked it under her arm and then held the screen of her phone toward Paige.
“We got it! A car is coming down the street now.”
Paige headed for the front doors without a glance back at Emma or Charlie.Emma hoped she had done the right thing. Would this woman like her dress? Love it? Wear it? Even care?
Emma slowly followed Charlie back onto the street, letting herself get swept up in the growing crowd of tourists taking over Times Square.
“Okay. Pause. What was that about?” Charlie demanded.
Emma couldn’t even begin to find the words to explain how it felt to part with her dress.
“Whatever. It’s your deal, but I think it went well,” he said, clearly satisfied with their mission.
“You don’t think us being there made Paige suspicious or anything, do you?”
Charlie waved his hand as they stopped at a crosswalk. “Nah. Our story was totally believable. Besides, it seemed like Paige had more important stuff to worry about. She’s totally forgotten about us by now.”
“Hopefully,” Emma said. “You know, if she doesn’t go back to the office tonight, she might not get the dress until Monday morning.”
“So?”
“It’s a long time to wait.” Emma tore at a hangnail on her thumb. “I’m just saying, that’s all.”
“Just think how happy she’ll be when she gets into the office after the weekend and finds the dress inside,” Charlie replied, always the optimist.
“I just hope she likes it as much as she thought she did.” Emma now feared that her dress wouldn’t live up to Paige’s first sighting. Under the harsh fluorescent lights of the magazine’s office, the dress might look…ordinary.
They crossed Broadway. Street vendors set up along the sidewalk sold knockoffs of designer handbags, books, jewelry, and souvenirs from folding tables. Charlie stopped.
“Look at these awesome old concert T-shirts.” He rifled through a stack of shirts. “Beastie Boys, Tears for Fears, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the English Beat, the Go-Go’s? I’ve never heard of any of these bands. Oh wait, I think I know the Cure.”
“Who cares?” Emma said, feeling her mood turning. Clothing did that to her. “The graphics on them are so blocky and retro. I could totally do something fun with these.” She glanced at the crudely lettered sign: 12 for $25. “Help me pick.”
A half an hour later, Emma sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, while Charlie played a video game on her computer and munched on stale pretzels he’d pilfered from the kitchen. Sorting the shirts by color—black-gray, red, white, yellow-orange-pink, green-blue-purple—was working to calm her down.
“So what’s your master plan?” Charlie asked, nudging the stack of shirts with his foot.
Emma reached for her fabric shears. “I was thinking about cutting out the band logos and sewing them onto plain T-shirts. You staying?”
“Definitely.” He turned back to the computer. “Mom’s holding an acting workshop at our place tonight. Ten women sitting around practicing how to cry realistically on cue for three hours.”
“Sounds brutal.” Emma began cutting. She didn’t want all her patches to be squares or rectangles. She trimmed around the outline of the artwork on each shirt instead.
“It’s one of her most popular classes,” Charlie explained. “She gets to charge extra. That’s good.” Charlie didn’t have to say more. Emma knew his mom hadn’t landed many parts lately, even though she was always going out on auditions. His mom had once been a big deal—part of the original Broadway cast of Rent—but she couldn’t get cast these days. Charlie didn’t like to talk about it.
Emma retrieved a gray T-shirt from the bin on top of the dryer and placed a Rolling Stones big lips logo on top of it, then played around with pieces of other logos to see what worked together.
“So what’s Holls up to this weekend?” Charlie asked.