An Innocent Fashion by R.J. Hernández Page A

straight to me ”—and that was what I was trying to do.
    â€œWe thought we could add a couple of ‘new’ designers this time,” Clara was suggesting, finger-miming quotations on the word “new.” “Nothing too wild, just—you know, to give you a slight edge.”
    â€œA slight . . . edge?” yawned Edmund. “What for . . . ?” He was distracted by his contemplation of the wall—a pause of several seconds—then roused by the recollection of an important fact, which he repeated with the drowsy half-conviction of a bedtime epiphany. “I don’t like new designers.”
    â€œNo, of course not,” Clara gently agreed, but, wooing him into wakeful clearheadedness, continued, “though you know sales at Bazaar have been creeping up on us—it’s all their new stylists, they’re taking everything in new directions.”
    A cantankerous harrumph. “I don’t care about the new anything,” he grumbled, tightening his arms across his chest as the blue silk gleamed beneath the pressure. “The new designers, the new stylists—they last a year and then they all flunk out.” With a superior smirk, he peeked out over his upturned nose; whennobody corroborated his assertion, he let out a petulant sigh and conceded to ask, “Who are they, anyway . . . ?”
    Clara’s finger flicked into the air, then recoiled.
    â€œWell, who are they?” he repeated, this time with a tinge of suspicion. “Who are these new stylists you think I should be concerned about?”
    Still nobody answered, and it felt wrong to be eavesdropping from only two feet behind them so I chose that moment to whisper, “Your McQueen box,” and held it out toward Clara.
    Everybody turned to me at once, wide-eyed faces pulled back in shock. Sabrina’s own expression wavered on outrage, as though I had in fact climbed onto a table and revved a chainsaw in the air. If there was anyone who should have been surprised, though, it was me, because I found myself staring for the first time at the visage of Edmund Benneton.
    Of course, I had seen him in countless pictures, always swirling about in a cape or a fur coat, but I had never seen his face so close before. Compared to the others, Edmund seemed the least distressed by my interruption, but only because he appeared too tired to muster any expression at all—so unbearably, painfully, wretchedly tired. He wasn’t much older than forty, yet he had deep frown lines around his mouth and a perpetually worried crease above his brow. On his forehead, beneath the folds of his turban, glistened a layer of sweat as slick as if he’d just rubbed on an ointment, and all I could do was stare at the incredible bags under his eyes: two swollen gray folds like plastic bags full of septic fluid.
    â€œWho are you?” he asked, although he seemed to lose interest the moment the words left his dry, papery lips. I thought I saw his eyelids fall as they capitalized on a stolen moment of silence,while each pore in his loose skin seemed to gaze down like a prisoner through a barred window.
    I opened my mouth to reply, but Clara flicked her hand between us—a sort of delicate distraction. She smiled nervously, like I was her toddler and my cries had just interrupted an important dinner. “Don’t mind him,” she said, with a laugh so forced it reminded me of a girl with a finger in her throat, trying to vomit. “He’s . . .”
    â€œHe’s nobody,” Sabrina filled in. As if trying to inflict an electric shock, she clamped a hand over my shoulder then, not wanting to be associated with me, tore it away.
    With a hopeful gesture toward the shoes, Clara invited them all to resume consideration of other matters, and they turned away except for Sabrina, whose head directed me to the back of the closet with a nudge so severe I thought her neck might crack.
    I stood there for