Run, Rose, Run(58)

The Burberry was beautiful, but it showed too much cleavage. AnnieLee didn’t like the flouncy Carolina Herrera at all, or the minidress with the eyelet trim. Finally she slithered into the floor-length yellow gown that Rachel had picked out for her, and when she looked in the mirror, she almost gasped. It fit perfectly, from the graceful neckline to the way it skimmed her slim hips. The dress was exquisite, delicate—“totally hand-sewn,” Rachel said proudly.

“Wow,” AnnieLee whispered. “I didn’t know I could look like this.”

Rachel beamed at her. “Just wait until you get out of hair and makeup.”

In another room, sitting before a huge, illuminated mirror, AnnieLee watched as a makeup artist rubbed bronzer and then blush into her cheeks, brushed smoky gray eye shadow onto her lids, and outlined her eyes in black kohl. A neutral lipstick with a touch of gloss made her mouth look lush and pouty. Then a stylist curled and sprayed AnnieLee’s dark locks, arranging them into cascading waves with even more care than Poppy had taken.

Once the makeover process was complete, AnnieLee went out to meet the photographer, Tyson Mitchell, in the studio. He was standing in front of a carefully constructed set that looked like the dark corner of a dive bar, complete with a nicked table, two crooked chairs, and a handful of empty beer cans placed artfully here and there. A guitar leaned against the painted backdrop.

Tyson Mitchell held out his arms in delight as she approached. “You look like an absolute queen,” he said. “I’d fall down at your feet, but my knees don’t allow that kind of thing anymore.”

Eileen giggled girlishly. “Tyson is a relentless flatterer,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons I love working with him.”

But AnnieLee couldn’t help staring at the complicated background and all the equipment necessary to capture it—and her. There were lights, umbrellas, softboxes, cameras, and fans. It almost looked like a movie set. She could feel the adrenaline tingling through her limbs.

“Are you nervous?” Tyson asked. “Don’t be, darling. We’re going to have so much fun.”

“The idea is one of contrast,” Eileen explained. “The dusty honky-tonk with the sparkling new talent. Glamour versus grit.”

“Two-dollar beer versus two-thousand-dollar dress,” AnnieLee said softly. She was thinking about the first time she walked into the dive that was the Cat’s Paw, hungry and desperate and smelling like a Popeyes. What would that AnnieLee think of this one?

She heard a surprised “Whoa” from behind, and she whipped around to see Ethan walking in, holding takeout from the taqueria on the ground floor. He looked her up and down in wonder.

“What do you think?” she asked, smoothing the dress self-consciously.

“You look incredible,” he said. “And…really different.”

Even as he said it, she knew that it wasn’t a good thing. And she realized that she’d known it even before she walked out of hair and makeup. This glittering, made-up princess wasn’t AnnieLee Keyes at all. She still wasn’t exactly sure what story she wanted to tell—she only knew it wasn’t this one.

She looked at Eileen and Tyson. “You’ll have to excuse me for a minute,” she said.

Then she turned and tottered into the dressing room, where she took off the dress and put on her jeans and T-shirt. In the bathroom, she scrubbed off most of her makeup and ran a brush through her shining hair.

When she reappeared in the studio, Eileen gasped in what might have been horror. AnnieLee walked onto the set, picked up the prop guitar, strummed a loud, wildly out-of-tune chord, and grinned. She felt a million times better already.

“You said I ought to love what I’m wearing,” she said. “And now I do. So let’s get this party started.”





Chapter

49



I truly can’t believe you did that,” Sarah Ortega said. The Rolling Stone writer was young, with a black pixie cut, a nose ring, and tattoos of cascading stars across her knuckles. “Maybe that’s my lede: How up-and-comer AnnieLee Keyes blew up a famous photographer’s perfect shoot. Talk about a woman to watch out for!”

“Please, no,” AnnieLee begged. They were sitting at the back of a cozy tea shop on West 3rd Street, and she was still wondering if she’d screwed everything up. Tyson Mitchell had ended up shooting her for two hours, but Eileen was convinced that AnnieLee’s defiance would come back to haunt her.

“I didn’t mean to. I just…” She stopped and took a sip of hibiscus tea. It was as bright red as Kool-Aid, but it sure didn’t taste like it. “I just wanted to feel like myself.”

Sarah placed a recorder on the table between them. “Look, I get it,” she said. “And in a way, it’s not even that surprising. Your songs are kind of defiant, don’t you think? Like when you sing ‘A rough road, we’ll walk it. Never give up, we’ll talk it.’”

“Yeah, there might be some truth to that,” AnnieLee allowed.

“And ‘Driven’ is almost painfully catchy,” Sarah went on. “I belt it out whenever I’m driving to work, which sucks because I can’t sing.”

AnnieLee laughed and then glanced over at Ethan, who was sitting at a nearby table, seemingly reading a newspaper but more likely eavesdropping on their conversation. Eileen was supposed to be here, too, but there’d been an emergency with one of her other clients and she’d been called back to the office to do damage control.