An Innocent Fashion by R.J. Hernández Page B

a second in silence. Even in my most pathetic childhood moments I had never been called “ nobody. ” I wanted to shrivel into a fetal ball like the big baby I evidently was, but instead my feet moved inexplicably toward the back of the closet, one dead weight in front of the other.
    The small Alexander McQueen box suddenly weighed a hundred pounds. I let it tumble out of my hands onto the floor by George’s feet and fell into my chair.
    â€œYou’re late,” George said cheerfully, popping a mint into his pasty mouth.
    I groaned, and propped my forehead in my hands on the desk.
    â€œWhat?” he asked innocently. “I’m sure they’re not mad. I mean, I’d have thought from the way you just went up to them that you were all best friends—you, Edmund, and the rest of the gang.” He pointed to my shoes. “Go ahead now, why don’t you kick back and make yourself at home while you’re at it?”
    I turned my head up. For an indeterminate number of minutes, I stared at my screen saver—the Régine logo twirling blithely about—and when I regained my senses, George was opening the McQueen package, running the box cutter over the top with his pinky out. I had a twisted vision of George slicing his hand, gushing blood all over the Régine closet floor. Would the editors stop to help? Or would the run-through continue while Sabrina exiled George to the bathroom before he could stain any of the white clothes?
    â€œThese won’t work,” Edmund was saying now, “this plastic. Who thought that was a good idea?”
    I peered at them through a gap in the garment racks.
    â€œIt’s Lucite,” explained the male editor I hadn’t yet met, a blond man in his thirties who I’d soon learn was Will, the associate fashion editor.
    Sabrina swiped the offending tray of accessories from Edmund’s view and laid it to the side.
    â€œI need quality,” Edmund said, ignoring him. “ Not plastic. Who shoots a beautiful woman in plastic?”
    I cringed a little at his directness. If before Edmund had given the impression he might fall asleep at any moment, now he was skimming along fast. He seemed to have remembered that there was an office waiting for him, and that the sooner he finished the sooner he could fall asleep in it.
    He stared at a tray full of gloves I had laid out earlier and snapped, “I need gloves. Why aren’t there any gloves?”
    â€œThese are all the ones in white from the Fall-Winter collections,” Sabrina assured him. “If you’d like, I can bring you a bigger selection from our archives.”
    â€œYes, what are they doing there, Susan? Please get them.”
    â€œOf course, Edmund.”
    â€œSusan?” I whispered to George, mystified. “He doesn’t know her name?”
    Sabrina, otherwise known as Susan, had taken two steps in the direction of where the archival gloves were stored when Edmund’s voice punctuated the air. “Susan, where are you going? Stay here.”
    â€œOf course, Edmund.”
    â€œYou know better than to just walk off like that in the middle of my run-through.”
    Sabrina mumbled an apology, while I struggled to decide on a train of thought; obviously I was amused to see Sabrina relegated to such an insignificant realm of Edmund’s consciousness, but I was also slightly horrified that he would forget the name of someone who worked so closely with him. I turned it over in my head, and decided that because Edmund was a genius didn’t mean I should expect him to be perfect; he was required by his job to remember a million names, so why should I villainize him for forgetting one?
    â€œCan we not get anything better?” remarked Edmund, who was now bent over the shoes like a fishing pole over a pond.
    I heard Sabrina emit a faint “Ow!” as he flung a pair of needle-nosed pumps over his shoulder.
    He was on his feet again.