Page 7 of Blue Eyes & Paris Vibes

“You can send your regards to Adam for that.” I chuckle and take a seat in his makeup chair. “He sent me here last minute, in economy class, on a flight that got diverted to London. But you don’t want to hear me whining.” I wave my hand in the air and take a deep breath. “Point being, my day was rough. I’m sorry. I tried to fix some of it, but I knew I couldn’t do it the way you do.”

“You’re damn right about that,” Michel mutters, already throwing eye patches over the dark bags under my eyes and starting on skin prep with quick, practiced moves.

The designer’s assistant scrambles closer when she sees me. She’s a short woman who doesn’t look like she’s older than early twenties, wearing a neat suit, without a doubt paired with a striped top that must’ve been pressed just this morning because it looks crease-less.

But she looks frazzled. Her hair’s basically sticking in all directions, mascara and lipstick smudged the tiniest bit.

“Reed! Thank God you’re here. I’m sorry, do you mind if I call you Reed? I’m Dana.”

I shake her hand and try to muster up a reassuring smile.

“Thank you so much for stepping in at the last minute. With Jeremy unable to walk, this could have become a disaster, and I would have lost my job and…” She stops herself and takes a deep breath, fanning herself with the clipboard in her hand. Then she breathes out, a little more relaxed. “I don’t know what we would’ve done. Thank you.”

“Happy to help,” I assure her with the best smile I can bring myself to, catching Michel biting his lip in the mirror from the corner of my eye.

“‘Happy to be here,’” he scoffs after Dana runs off again, checking something off her clipboard. She quickly filled me in on the theme and my role in the show. It's a simple catwalk, nothing I haven’t done before. Then again, I haven’t been here for rehearsals or dress fittings though, so we’ll see how that goes.

“It’s been a while since I got to see your ugly mug.” I wink at him and sink a little deeper into the chair, not even bothering to hide a yawn since he’s currently starting to dab primer onto my face.

“Damn you Walker brothers,” he curses under his breath. “Off set, you lot behave like a group of frat boys, but you really have that professionalism down.”

“Damn right, we do,” I say with a grin, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from yawning as he reaches for his airbrush. “Fair warning, Michel: if I close my eyes, I might just fall asleep.”

“Does that mean you’ll finally shut up?” Michel grins and I narrow my eyes to glare at his reflection. “Go ahead,” he finally continues and I let out a relieved sigh. “I don’t need you to be conscious to make you look good.”

“That’s what I love to hear.” I grin and relax further into the chair, closing my eyes and letting the hum of backstage hustling lull me in until I doze off.

As soon as I step off the runway and a wall of velvet curtains hides me from the audience, a wave of exhaustion crashes over me. My body feels heavy, each step dragging like I’m walking through syrup and my mind jumps all over the place, barely able to grasp a thought. I can't stop the wide yawn that stretches across my face, my eyelids drooping as my energy drains away.

“You were fantastic!” Dana bustles around me like an excited hummingbird, a bright smile on her face that tells me she’s got a weight off her shoulders.

The designer, whose name I forgot, steps onto the runway to get his applause while I make a beeline for Michel. The suit they put me in is pretty, a crème color with rather loose draping, and golden seams that really drive the ethereal theme home.

But I can’t say I feel very ethereal. No. I feel tired. Heavy. Like I’m about to fall asleep standing up. Logically, though, I know I should force myself to stick to a nap or stay awake longer, since it’s only late afternoon yet and I don’t want jetlag to mess with the rest of my time here too badly.

Michel plucks the little pins and needles out of the fabric that tailored the suit to me last-minute, and while I kept my poker-face when I faced the audience, one particular needle has been poking me in the left butt cheek for the past half hour.

“Oh, thank God,” I sigh when Michel finally takes the jacket off me. While it certainly looks nice, I’ve been sweating buckets in it, especially when ten spotlights were on me as I walked. “God, I love you, man.”

“I’m sorry to say I am taken,” Michel jokes, putting the jacket on a hanger carefully.

“Oh, is it official now?” I wonder. The last time we saw each other was a year and a half ago when we got drunk together after a Berlin fashion week show and he confessed that he had a crush on his best friend and worried if he felt the same.

Michel lifts his hand, showing me a very sparkly ring on his finger. “Doesn’t get any more official than that.”

“Congrats, man. Good for you,” I say excitedly and break into a smile. “I’d hug you, but there’s this one needle that keeps poking me in my left ass cheek and I’d really rather not move until that’s out.”

“Yes, yes, I got it.” He rolls his eyes, then helps me out of the cursed pants.

“Seriously, man. I’m happy for you.” I hide another yawn behind my hand as I walk over to where I draped my jeans and shirt over a chair. “When’s the wedding? Or did you get married already?”

“We’re eloping next month,” he explains, plucking more needles out of the pants. “Less hassle.”

“Wise decision,” I tell him, stepping into my jeans.

“Damn you models,” he sighs as he watches me get dressed. “You show up, walk maybe 200 steps, and get paid a fortune. And I have to stay here and clean all of this up for a fraction of that.”

He gestures toward the clothes, finding an empty hanger and draping the now needle-less pants over them.

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