Craving Perfect (7 page)

Sighing, I reached for a short black skirt, a white silk blouse and a black jacket. Tennis shoes were out of the question so I found a box marked “Medium, black pumps” in the shoe closet and hoped I didn’t look too much like a movie theater usher.

After slipping into my skirt and blouse, I began to dry my hair as Alexandra’s eyes darted impatiently from me to her wristwatch.

“Come on, Callie. We are beyond late. And don’t worry about your hair. Just pull it back. They’ll take care of you in Make-Up.”

“Make-Up?” I gulped back the words like I’d just swallowed gum.

“Yeah, Make-Up.” Alexandra’s porcelain brow wrinkled. “As in the Make-Up Department?”

“Oh…right…”

“Callie, are you sure you don’t need to see a doctor or anything? You’re acting pretty funky.”

“No, I’ll be fine.” I looked around for a purse and found a black clutch near a chair by the bed, a bed I’d never slept in. “Ready,” I said.

I took one final look at my reflection in the full-length mirror next to the closet. Even though my hair was damp and I had no idea where my outfit fit on the appropriate fashion scale, I truly believed that I looked all sorts of hot. Gorgeous, even. In fact, I was pretty certain that Callie Collins would look stunning in a paper bag. I should have hated her but she—I—was starting to grow on me, despite the unending perfection.

“Just enjoy yourself while you can,” I muttered under my breath.

“What?” Alexandra asked over my shoulder in my reflection.

I walked to the front door. Alexandra followed.

“Nothing.” I closed the door behind us. My stomach growled. “Feel like a stopping for a coffee and a pastry before work? My treat?” I assumed Callie’s purse held cash of some kind.

Alexandra grabbed my arm, forcing me to stop and turn. “Are you high?” Her eyes bulged.

“No, but I’m hungry.” I shrugged off her arm and continued to the elevator. “Anyway, I was hoping to stop at the Desert Java on the way to…work.”

“The Desert what?”

“The Desert Java. It’s just off University.” I sniffed casually, looking across at the elevator buttons. “It’s a cute little place and they have the best—”

Alexandra interrupted. “We don’t have time.” She jammed her thumb against the first floor button. “Besides, there’s a Starbucks just outside the office. I’ll get you a coffee there.”

“Do they have good pastries?” My mouth watered just thinking about the raspberry scone in the back of my refrigerator, waiting. After the strange morning I’d had, I certainly deserved it.

“Okay, now you’re
reall
y freaking me out.” She glared at me as if I just suggested we split a fifty-pound box of chocolate truffles and a pitcher of vanilla milk shakes. “Coffee is one thing, but pastries? Since when do you eat pastries?”

I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t. Clearly just hearing the word
pastries
added to Alexandra’s daily calorie count.

After a short drive, Alexandra pulled her white Lexus in front of the KSUN Channel 2 studios just off Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix. My armpits were already moist and it had nothing to do with wearing a black jacket and pantyhose on an eighty-degree day.

“Why are you pulling in here?” I wasn’t sure I could handle the answer.

Alexandra didn’t reply and simply shook her head like an irritated parent. I was definitely getting on her last nerve.

She slipped her parking card into the reader. Then she enunciated, “Because. We. Work. Here.”

I bristled but said nothing. My mind was racing through too many things. I never imagined that my own dream would take such a left turn. It started to border on full-blown, category five nightmare. I wondered how long it would be before I was running naked down the dark alley. I also wondered what kind of people would start chasing me. Would Alexandra turn into one of the zombies with fat-free blood dripping from her mouth?

She flashed me one of her wide, professionally whitened smiles, as if that would excuse her impatience, erasing her bad behavior.

I guess I was supposed to smile back but my cheeks only tightened. Along with all of the muscles in my empty stomach.

Desperate to remain calm, I took another deep breath and tried to swallow back the wall of dryness in my throat. I wondered if now was the time to make a run for it, especially since the car had slowed.

But run where?
I wondered.
Everyone thinks I’m Callie Collins.

If I only knew what Callie did at Channel 2. Knowing might stem my hyperventilation.

I sank lower in my passenger seat. I was probably making more of it than I needed to. But I was pretty certain that Callie wasn’t a chef in the Channel 2 cafeteria, if one even existed.

“Where’s Julie?” Alexandra snapped.

Three people in black aprons cowered around me in the Channel 2 dressing room. I felt oddly protective of them, even though I’d never seen them before. But I presumed they encompassed what Alexandra meant as the Make-Up Department.

A thirtysomething woman with spiky red hair touched up my manicure, another young girl who didn’t wear a stitch of make-up applied eyeliner, while a tanned guy with a salt-and-pepper goatee and “Kirk” on his badge rattled off something that sounded like a schedule. Everyone talked and worked faster depending on the inflection of Alexandra’s voice.

Julie, apparently, was the unlucky girl who did my hair. I didn’t know her but already I pitied her. Alexandra looked ready to lynch Julie with the curling iron cord.

I sat rigid in a high-backed chair. I was too stunned to speak, mostly because I’d never had so many people touching every part of my body at once. And all of the perfume, gel, and aerosol smells were making me dizzy. I should have insisted that we stop for something to eat on the way to the building. My stomach growled like a wild animal.

Too late now.

“Well, where is she?” Alexandra demanded again, this time an octave higher than before. Two thin blue blood vessels appeared above her temples. She looked like a vampire needing to feed. The make-up girl continued to wipe my cheeks with a wet cotton ball, harder.

Alexandra huffed and pulled out a cell phone from her pocket. She punched in a number and wrapped her thin arm against her side before she barked a snippy message into Julie’s voicemail.

Poor Julie, whoever she was

I strained to listen to Alexandra over Kirk’s incessant rambling. Callie Collins must have been the busiest person in all of Phoenix, not to mention the person with the best hair and make-up. Certainly no one could expect her—or me—to do everything he listed, not in a single day, at least. I didn’t have that much to do in a single year.

“After the show…back here for make-up…late lunch with the producer…hosting an auction at the Phoenix art museum…hair and make-up…evening news…cocktail party…media conference…attend Women’s Summit at Civic Plaza…late dinner with Max…” The details made my head spin, and the toxic aerosol smells hardly helped.

Before I could ask Kirk more about my dinner with Max, Alexandra barked into the phone again. Apparently someone else felt the wrath of her speed-dial.

“And where is the stylist? She can’t go on looking like this.” Alexandra raised her hand helplessly in my direction as if she was directing everyone’s attention to road kill.

Go
on? Go on what?
I was afraid of the answer. The deep ache in the lower part of my stomach—a combination of nerves and hunger—grew sharper.

I glanced at myself in the bright mirror. Sure, Callie’s hair was a little damp from the shower but I thought Callie was beautiful. Her shiny blond tresses could sell shampoo. Nothing a little blow-dry wouldn’t fix. As I reached for the blow-dryer, I was stopped in midair by the make-up girl’s glare.

My hand pulled back.

“Well, you tell your roommate that I called,” Alexandra spat into her phone. “And I am
not
happy.” She paused, her chest still heaving. “Who am I? I’m Callie Collins’s assistant, that’s who.”

My assistant?
My eyebrow arched at the news.
Maybe this dream isn’t so bad after all…

Alexandra looked over at me and placed her hand over her phone. “Can you believe these freaking idiots?” she hissed, clearly expecting my complete agreement.

I nodded numbly. But then I leaned back in my chair and for the first time all morning I sighed contentedly. Never in a million years would I have dreamed a dream this good. Alexandra Summers was
my
assistant?

If only Alexandra knew who I really was. I air-chuckled behind my hand, inhaling nail polish. Then I had to bite my lower lip to suppress a grin. Sadly, the blissful moment was only temporary.

“Miss Collins, you’re on in five,” a twentysomething guy with a clipboard called out from the doorway to my dressing room. He raised his hand to reveal all five of his fingers, as if I required more explanation on the number. All of the tension flooded back to my shoulders and my face went all white chocolate in the mirror. And it had nothing to do with the unexpected arithmetic lesson.

Without a word, the make-up girl quickly stroked another layer of blush across my cheekbones with her soft brush.

I was going to need it. I was as white as whipped cream, a rich delicacy I probably didn’t taste much in this dream.

“We’re live in three…two…one…” a man with a beard said inches from my face as I sat frozen behind an oval table.

Just like the twentysomething guy with the clipboard, Bearded Guy counted down with his fingers, holding them straight in front of him. It was like being on the set of Sesame Street. Big Bird was explaining addition and subtraction.

Never mind that it had taken both Bearded Guy and Alexandra to coax me onto the chair in front of all the cameras. I only complied because Alexandra dug her nails into my forearm, almost drawing blood, as she pulled me all the way from the dressing room.

“It’s obvious that I’m not waking up,” I mumbled semi-incoherently as Alexandra dropped me into the anchor desk chair.

“What the hell are you talking about, Callie.” She stood back, confused and irritated, her hands on her hips. “You’ve wanted this spot for months. You
begged
for it. This is your big chance…don’t blow it now.”

“I have? I did?” My whole body began to shake, starting with my shoulders. It was as though there was an earthquake beneath my feet.

Alexandra narrowed her eyes. She just shook her head and then walked away behind the cameras, leaving me alone under about one hundred hot lights and at least four cameras. I finally knew what it was like to be inside a convection oven.

Put a fork in me, I’m done!
I screamed inside as people and cameras swirled around me.

“And we’re live!” Bearded Guy thundered, pointing his forefinger at me. He nodded his head and flashed an encouraging smile.

His smile quickly faded when my mouth opened but nothing came out. He pointed to the teleprompter as my eyes widened. He pulled at his beard, waiting. Watching.

No one in the studio made the slightest sound. No one even breathed while I squinted at the words scrawling across the teleprompter, something about breaking news in Glendale, a robbery, maybe a drug bust. The glare from all the lights made it worse.

I placed my hand over my eyes but it didn’t really help. The lights were too bright. Everything was too bright.

And I was too scared and numb to get up and leave.

What was I doing behind this desk, anyway? I was just your ordinary, average pastry chef who’d never been behind a camera before. I didn’t even like getting my picture taken! Ever! Not even in grade school.

I turned helplessly to Bearded Guy. I wanted to burst into tears but I bit my lower lip to stop it, even as panic surged through my body. Maybe Callie Collins could make anchoring look easy but I couldn’t. I wasn’t comfortable in front of spotlights of any kind. I would have rather had a root canal than have people stare at me.

So, that’s what this was? My worst nightmare come true?

But it felt real, smelled real, and looked real. It even tasted real.

It was real.

I kept pinching my arm but I wouldn’t wake up.

Instead, the studio began to spin all around me, slowly at first, and then gaining speed, like a tilt-a-whirl at the fair. The words on the teleprompter dripped off the screen and the overhead lights grew even brighter, then hotter. It was like staring into a heat lamp. A single drop of perspiration trickled behind my ear in slow motion.

With tears building in my eyes, I squinted one final time at the camera and choked out, “I’m sorry” before dropping my head forward, brushing the empty folders off the desk with my hands.

The last thing I remembered through my tears was Alexandra standing next to the camera, her arms folded over her chest, grinning.

I drew back a steadying breath before my eyes cracked opened again.

This time, I was horizontal. A blanket draped across my body.

I considered this a good sign, especially since I wasn’t squinting into a thousand bright lights.

The only things missing were the smell of strong coffee, nutmeg and freshly baked pastries from the Desert Java kitchen. For a moment, I believed that I was back at home, wrapped snuggly inside my old life. I was Grace Mills again.

I pulled the blanket closer to my chin, content. But instead of coffee, I smelled enough hairspray and nail polish to plug my nose. The cloudiness lifted from my eyes.

My eyes popped open.

I was alone in a room but it wasn’t my old bedroom. I was inside Callie Collins’s dressing room, the same one I thought that I’d left. Someone had mercifully shut off the bright, obnoxious round lights above the vanity table. The table was still littered with enough lipstick tubes, mascara, and eye shadows to makeover an entire cheerleading squad. More than I’d ever purchased in my lifetime.

And I was lying on a couch, not my bed, and I didn’t recognize the blanket. It wasn’t my favorite peach one—and it wasn’t even soft. I let out a whimper when I realized my nightmare hadn’t ended. “What now, Grace?” I moaned into my scratchy blanket and closed my eyes.