The Allure of Julian Lefray (The Allure #1)(61)

I stepped into the dressing room for the final show of the season. Marc Jacobs. Everyone who was anyone would be sitting in the audience and I was backstage working as a glorified janitor. A janitor surrounded by couture wearing black pants, a t-shirt, and a black baseball hat with “NYFW STAFF” stretched across the front. God, why have you forsaken me?

Models, hair stylists, makeup artists, stylists, and designers were running around like worker bees in the center of a hive. Elbows, knees, arms, fists—at any given moment, various body parts were colliding with me as people rushed to finish their jobs. I went back to emptying the trashcan in the corner of the room just as I heard someone start to yell at the front of the room.

“Where the hell is Gillian Grace?” a man spat, spinning in a circle and flailing his arms wildly. “Do these models think contracts are a joke?!”

He was short and completely bald with circular framed glasses perched on his nose. He was dressed in all black, like me, except his clothing probably cost more than all of my organs combined would go for on the black market.

He clapped his hands and started yelling again.

“So help me god, if she doesn’t arrive in three seconds, I will murder her entire family.”

I reached for my broom and took a step back, lest he catch sight of me and direct his anger at me.

Wrong move.

He whipped around and narrowed his eyes on me. I froze as if I were trying to fend off a bear. Don’t let him smell your fear! He scanned over me once, all the way up and all the way down, and then he took a step closer.

“You,” he yelled, pointing in my direction.

Every single person in the area paused and turned toward me. I whipped around to see if there was someone behind me; there wasn’t, only a black concrete wall and craft food services. (Which I’d been sneaking food from for the last ten days. What? It’s not like the models ever touched it.)

“Don’t play dumb. I’m talking to you,” he said, stepping another foot closer.

I gripped my broom tighter and smiled tentatively.

“Uh, yes?”

“Who are you?”

His question felt philosophical, like I was supposed to respond with a treatise on existentialism. Instead, I just replied with my name.

“Josephine.”

He waved his hand with impatience. Clearly my name wasn’t what he was looking for.

“What are your measurements?”

I glanced from him to all the other people watching me and waiting for my reply. I was supposed to say my size in front of a room full of models? I should not have eaten that Chipotle burrito last night.

“Uhh—it depends on what I’m wearing. Usually I can pull off a smaller size in pants—”

His patience wore out somewhere between the “u” and the first “h” in “uhh”.

“You’re literally boring me to death. Enough. I need you to model. Take off that heinous uniform and see Nikki for sizing. Tell her you’re filling in for Gillian Grace.”

I laughed. Cracked up, in fact. Wow, this was a really bad reality show. He wanted me to model in a Marc Jacobs fashion show during the finale of New York Fashion Week? I didn’t even know where to begin with my protests, so instead I stood mute, with deer-in-the-headlight eyes.

He wasn’t pleased by my reaction. “I know. Believe me, I wish this were a joke. Now stop sweeping and go get changed. I don’t have time for this.”

With that, he turned and walked away. His departure acted like an on/off switch for the insanity in the room. The second he walked away, the room returned to chaos and I determined that my life had taken a sharp turn into Crazyville.

I was still clutching my broom when a short Latina woman with purple cropped hair and dark lined eyes stepped up in front of me and pursed her lips.

“I’m Nikki,” she said, giving me a onceover, much like the other guy had just done.

“Josephine,” I said, pressing my hand to my chest.

“Are you like a custodian or something? What’s with the hat?”

I reached up to feel the brim. I knew the bright white NYFW letters illuminated my lower-middle class status.

“Yeah. Uh, I work here and I don’t think I fully understand what’s going on.”

She popped her hip out with a touch of attitude. “Martín is down a model, so he’s enlisted your help. We’ll get you fitted and push you through hair and makeup as quickly as possible.”

“No. No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“So you’re turning down $3,000 and the chance to model in New York Fashion Week? What, do you love your current gig that much?”

Hold the phone.

No one said anything about three grand! I’d do a whole hell of a lot for three grand and most of it was illegal in Texas and New York. Walking in a fashion show for money hadn’t even seemed like an option.

“You’ll receive a check before you leave tonight. They hand them out before the after party. I’m sure someone will fill you in on everything, but there’s no time for me to explain it all right now.”

Nothing she was saying made sense to me and worst of all, I had no time to argue. In a straight up movie montage scene, ten things happened around me at once: someone pulled the broom from my hand, another person ripped the shirt off my head, a measuring tape appeared around my boobs, and two women crouched down in front of my legs. HEYO.