And again.
More static.
“Is anyone else on this channel?” a voice that sounds like it might belong to Wes asks.
“Hello out there?” Beck’s voice calls.
I turn down the volume dial and hold the speaker to my ear.
“Have you hopped on email in the last hour?” asks Wes. “Erica says the network likes my pick for wifey.”
Beck is silent for a minute.
“You there?” Wes asks again.
“Yes,” Beck says. “I heard you. Look, let’s talk about this later. We haven’t even cleared it with Henry yet.”
“Like he—”
“Wes, I gotta run.”
The channel goes silent, so I flip over to the next, expecting to find more sta—
“Hello?” a voice asks softly.
I know that voice. That voice is his voice.
I press down on the button on the side to respond. “Henry?”
Behind me the door swings opens. In a hurry, I flip the power switch as fast as I can.
“Hey,” Sara Claire says as I’m stuffing the radio in my shoe with my back to her. “Were you talking to someone?”
I turn around, trying my best not to look guilty. It’s not easy. “Oh, uh, maybe just to myself. Sorry, I guess I was thinking out loud.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “My daddy does that all the time. It’s like his thoughts are too big to just live in his head.”
“So relatable,” I say. “You look great, by the way.”
“Thanks.” She twirls in her sequined little black dress. Simple but chic. A little boring, but she’s the kind of person who just glows, so she could wear anything and you’d still want to talk to her. “Wish me luck.”
I swallow dryly. “Good luck.”
I spend most of my night sketching in my bedroom, trying to make my brain work again. Most of the other women play drinking games downstairs, but I don’t think my liver can take it. Besides, what they’re really doing is waiting up for Sara Claire to come home. I’m already feeling a little miserable, and it’s the kind of miserable that doesn’t play well with others.
I wish I had my tablet. Switching mediums when I was blocked was a trick I learned early on, but alas, no electronic devices in theBefore Midnightchâteau. If anyone finds the radio stuffed in my shoe, I’ll get kicked out faster than I can even zip my suitcase.
The tip of my pencil snaps against my sketch pad, sending a stray line skidding across the page. Maybe I just have to let it go. Even in school, I knew that not all of us would succeed as designers. For some reason, I thought I was special, and that I would defy all odds. But my well is empty. I have nothing left to give. Deep down I know that I could be happy doing other things. At least, I think. I could find some sort of job in fashion. Maybe I could talk to Sierra’s contacts at Macy’s. Maybe I don’t have to create clothing to work with clothing. The thought of it is a little freeing. And yet, it pains me deeply to think of letting my longtime dream go.
At around one in the morning, Stacy wobbles through the door and plops down on her bed. “I think this might be worse than college,” she says, her last word devolving into a loud burp.
“Girl, you’re nasty,” Addison says as she walks in behind her, strips down to absolutely nothing, and passes out in her bed.
Stacy and I share a look, and she just shrugs. “At least I plan on brushing my teeth,” she says loudly.
Soon I’m the only one still awake, so I throw a shirt over my lamp to dim the light. Normally, I’d just go to bed too, but I’m pretty sure they’re both too drunk to care if I keep putzing around with my sketch pad. I didn’t bring my whole collection of pencils with me—shoes were my priority—but I managed to bring a few of my favorites and a kneaded eraser.
The page is smudged from erasing false starts and bad ideas one right after the next. But finally, after an hour or two, I decide to start with the basics: a shoe. A man’s shoe—something I’ve never really dabbled with. A laceless deep blue suede shoe with a blocked-off square toe. And then it’s pants, tailored close to the leg and cropped at the ankle. I add a button-up shirt with a tiny floral pattern. A velvet tux jacket and a matching bow tie. It’s less of a design sketch and more of a portrait….
