Lipstick & Zombies (Deadly Divas Book 1) (15 page)

“And what can we tell from this first photo of the girls called Deadly Divas?”

“Really, Tracy?”

“I'm just opening the floor, John.”

“What can we tell? It's exactly as we expected, if not worse! They're little girls, Tracy. What do you think they're going to do about the corpses?”

“Exactly, very true. Now, have you seen the interviews with their old classmates?”

“Of course I have, Tracy. Do you have the footage of that young man, Pete, where he explains to the camera that this Carrie girl is mentally unstable? Or the many young men claiming Gerri as their girlfriend? I don't even know if we should talk about the short one—this is a family-friendly news program.”

“And what can we learn from this, John?”

“That these girls have no business claiming to be role models, Tracy! Can you even fight corpses when you wear clothes like this? Look, I have daughters, I know how it can be, but where are the parents in all this? Where's the record company? Where are the adults? We all know that women in the military are three times as likely to be injured as men, that's just a fact. Have we become a society that doesn't protect our women? Our young women are our most valuable asset in these fragile times! No one can afford for
this
to become the model for what a young woman should be. We'll perish.”

Chapter Twelve

SADIE

"Now, this is what I'm talking about," Dee said.

Sadie didn't want to admit how excited she was, but damn. That was what clothes were supposed to look like. If Dee's wardrobe was an indication of what was to come, Sadie couldn't wait.

"This is your rack over here, Sadie," the stylist's tall assistant said. The guy still hadn't told them his name, which was becoming an all too frequent occurrence at Last Chance Records.

Sadie rifled through the hangers and thought over and over again
of course, of course, of course
.

"What is it?" Carrie asked, leaving her unquestionably pretty clothes behind.

"Huh?" Gerri asked. "What's wrong with you guys?"

They converged on the rack and Dee gasped. "What the hell is this shit?"

Meghan came into the room, clapping. "You girls really need to be getting dressed!"

"And we'd like nothing more than to do that," Carrie said, "but we have a serious problem."

"You can't have us all go on camera with Sadie wearing this hideous excuse for clothes," Gerri said. “It's not even fashion.”

"I thought Jo was going to be the problem," Dee said. "No offense."

"You will wear the clothes assigned to you," Meghan said.

"It's so adorable how she always believes that's going to work on us," Carrie said.

Gerri gasped. "Oh no." She pulled out the prosthesis from a bag hidden in the middle of the rack. It was boring and would be strange to dance in, assuming it even had the right kind of foot for what she needed to do, and if that wasn't bad enough, it was flesh colored... if you were Caucasian. "You don't wear ones like this, do you?"

"No," Sadie said, and turned to Meghan. "We're going to need Willa."

"Willa is not available for your every beck and call," Meghan said.

Carrie put a hand on Sadie's arm and then said, "That's fine, Meghan. Don't call Willa. We'll figure out this style malfunction ourselves. Sadie, you can wear what you have on, or I think Dee brought a pair of neon pink hot shorts that would probably fit you."
"Oh, yeah!" Dee squealed. "We're going to have so much fun, Sadie! This is really a blessing in ugly clothes."

Carrie smiled at Meghan and waited for her to make the call.

It only took a few minutes for Willa to show up, which made Sadie think that she'd been on the same floor of the building. Why she didn't deem being on the set of their first music video worthy of her time was beyond Sadie. What did managers even do?

"What's the problem?" Willa asked.

Gerri held up two of the pant suits.

"Speak," Willa said.

"Aren't they already loud enough?" Gerri asked. They stared at Willa until she looked up from her phone, only to stare back. "Okay, we're all wearing cute dresses, and skirts, and shorts, and you put Sadie in a hideous... what do you even call this? Is it meant for cleaning the bathroom?"

"It's a jump suit," Willa said, "and it was specifically designed for Sadie."

"Because why?" Gerri asked. "People aren't even going to know she's part of the band; they're going to think she's the cleaning lady."

"I think that's the point," Sadie said.

"Of course not," Willa said. "We thought you'd be more comfortable like this."
"Because the whole slinky dress thing she's got going on is so conservative? Her dresses hug every inch. Girl's got a rockin' body," Gerri said.

"Thanks, Gerri," Sadie said.

"Just tellin' truths, hon."

"Sadie, as I'm sure you can understand, we don't want the public to judge you unfairly," Willa said. "With how much scrutiny Deadly Divas is under already, we wanted to give you the opportunity to prove yourself as a strong and capable woman, and then do a reveal at a later date. Until such a time, we had clothes designed that would help blend you in and keep your leg hidden."

"I don't need to hide my leg, because I don't have one," Sadie said. The other girls all shifted where they stood, and Sadie's cheeks burned. If this was where they decided she'd said too much, made them too uncomfortable by saying out loud that she only had one leg, then so be it. She was used to rooms of people not being on her side, not understanding, too uncomfortable to act. It was nothing new.

"Yes, well,” Willa said, just as uncomfortable as the rest of them. She had the power to rattle even Queen B. It was too bad that wasn't what she wanted. “You see our point.”

"No, I don't."

"People already assume you can't do this, and your leg will only push them over the edge."

"Trust me, Willa, I understand very well what people think I can or cannot do. I also understand that they think a group of teen girls can't handle this, with one leg or two, so this is just one more thing. But I will not be part of your cute reveal, where I hide myself and then whip it out like a show piece later. Like, oh, oopsy, turns out I just have one leg! Isn't that, like, so inspirational?"

"I can't have your prosthesis take center stage on your first video,” Willa said, losing her patience. Good. So was Sadie. “This is a group, not a solo act."

"Oh, I never thought you'd put my beautiful black ass center stage, Willa," Sadie said. "I just thought I'd at least, I don't know, be on it. And not as a cleaning lady, as Gerri has pointed out. Let's make a bargain here, Willa. How about I pop out my tits?"

"Oh my god." Dee laughed. "Sadie said tits."

"Hey now," Gerri said. "I'm the one with the boobs. That's going to be my ID for a while."

"What about me?" Dee straightened her bra straps.

"You need to trust us, Sadie. Now, we designed this nice, seamless prosthesis for you—it should be very comfortable, it was extremely expensive. We had to consult your old prosthesist for measurements and had the most expensive prosthetist in the city put a rush on this design. We also had to rush order your new designer jumpsuit, which will fit perfectly.” She said “fit perfectly” but meant, “cover you up so no one can see you.” Sadie knew that.

"No."

There it was, the silence. Her mother had taught her to stand it.
If they want you to take the kind of disrespect where they're saying you're less, you say “No” and take their silence or their anger instead. It'll be awful, but it's an awful they'll have to take, too. You make them deal with you, baby girl. Whether they learn to accept you or not, at the end of the day,
you
always gotta accept you. Remember that
.

She did.

If her dad hadn't died in the military after Anthony was born, and her mom hadn't had to work two—sometimes three—jobs to keep them eating, her mom would have ruled the world.

Ten seconds of that lonely silence had passed when Jo moved to Sadie's side, and before she could wrap her head around that, Gerri and Carrie joined her.

Dee, still staring down the jumpsuit, said, "Are you going to give her an outfit and a prosthesis she wants, or are you going to make her hop around out there? Because, like, that's not cool. We'll have to all hitch our legs up to make it look more uniform, and it's harder to hop when you're this short, you know? Especially in these heels, and I am not getting shorter heels, in fact, I could use something a little higher. Are you hearing me? Who do I talk to about these shoes?"

Willa put her hands up. "Fine. No jumpsuit. You can wear,” she pointed to Sadie's leg, “that one.” It was shiny and silver, her favorite prosthesis. “Can you work with this, Marcus?”

"On it," his assistant said.

Willa bent over her phone and left them.

"Holy shit," Gerri said. "I can't believe we won against Queen B."

"Especially on this," Sadie said. "And damn, Dee. Good job in the end there. Sometimes you're just too awesome."

"
Sometimes
?"

"Yeah, sometimes," Sadie said.

"Better watch yourself, honey," Gerri said. "Princess Dee is a force to be reckoned with."

"You guys think I don't know you're making fun of me, but I know things," Dee said, "like where to hide a body."

Gerri burst out laughing.

"She really is like our little mascot," Carrie said. "Our little, scary, mascot."

"Oh, no," Gerri said. She'd pulled on one of her dresses, which looked cute enough on the hanger, but might as well have been a paper bag on her body. "Do you think calling Willa back in here will get me anywhere?"

"We can fix this," Dee said.

"It's like my mother talked to these people," Gerri said. "She probably did."

“What's wrong?” Carrie asked. “I can't see over here."

"Gerri's clothes," Sadie answered. "They're not, exactly, her size."

"Oh, they think they're my size," Gerri said. "This was on purpose. Cover up the fat girl. They looked so cute hanging up, with the pink and purple print." She groaned and shook her arms high above the clothing racks, like she was cursing the gods.

"I know, I know," Dee said. "That's how they get you. Tricking fashion victims everywhere. I've seen it happen a thousand times."

"What are you doing?" Gerri asked.

"You think I look this good and don't have a few tricks up my sleeve?" Dee asked. "Please."

Marcus had finished remeasuring Sadie, freeing her to get a look at Dee with a hand full of pins, pulling and tucking at Gerri's clothes.

"Just a few darts," Dee mumbled around the pins in her teeth, "whole new outfit. Promise."

Carrie came around the clothing rack separating the spaces, looking stunning as ever. A vest of gray feathers, tight purple shorts, and shoes that very few people could walk in, let alone take out a zombie in.

"It suits you, honey," Gerri said.

"Where's Jo?" Sadie asked.

"Hiding," Jo called out in a much smaller voice than Sadie would have thought she was capable of. She rarely talked, but it was always with confidence. Sadie bent down and spotted her two clothing racks over. She pushed her way into the alcove of clothes Jo had hidden herself in. Jo asked, "Is it too late to call this off?"

"If it's really bad, I promise, we'll help you fix it," Sadie told her. “I've got your back just like you had mine, okay? And anyway, I don't think Dee will go out there with you if it looks really bad. She's fixing Gerri's. It'll be okay.”

Jo's face flashed what could possibly pass for a smile.

"Could you stand up and let me see it?"

Jo grimaced. "I knew I'd have to wear stuff like this, I just didn't
know
. It's just so..."

"Revealing?"

"I'm okay with that," Jo said. "It's just so silly.”

"Let me see," Sadie said.

Jo quickly stood up straight, like she was ripping off a bandage.

"Wow," Sadie said.

Jo cringed.

"No, Jo, damn," Sadie said.

"No Jo?" Dee called out. "What's going on with No Jo?"

"Show them," Sadie encouraged.

Jo, who Sadie had witnessed wiping zombie guts off her pants without a flicker of a facial expression, cringed, again. But she stepped out from her hiding spot. Gerri gasped.

"So unfair," Gerri said.

"This is more like it," Dee said.

"What do you think?" Carrie asked Jo.

"I don't know," Jo said.

"Of course you don't," Dee said. "If you did, you'd have been dressing like this all along."

"Way to be sensitive, Dee," Sadie said.

"What?" Dee asked.

"You look so good," Gerri said.