“Exactly what Tyler says every year. Only it’s his bank account, not the earth.” Tris parked the car in an area that had been sectioned off with thick cords of gold.
“I put off rehearsal and told Savannah I’d do it this morning, so . . .” Tris said.
“So she’s going to swoop down and take you away?”
“Pretty much. Will you be okay?”
She glanced around and saw Roan’s beat-up old pickup a few spaces away. “Lucy and I will be drowning in clothes and kids. That should keep us busy.”
“Looks like I’ve been seen,” Tris said as a tall, expensively dressed woman strode toward them.
“I take it that’s Savannah. She should audition for The Real Housewives of Edilean.”
“I dare you to tell her that,” Tris said as he got out of the car.
Savannah ignored Jecca, as though she weren’t there. She slipped her arm through T art="0em">ris’s and led him away, as though he belonged to her.
Jecca just shook her head and started for the tent. But Lucy met her before she entered.
“They won’t let you or me in.”
“Who won’t? Savannah?” Jecca asked. “Really! This is too much. First she takes Tris and now she—”
“Not her. Livie, Addy, Roan. They say we’re to enjoy the show and let them do the rest of it.”
“But they’re my designs.”
“And I made them,” Lucy said.
They looked at each other in silence for a moment, then Jecca said, “Cool. I’m so nervous I know I’d make a mess of it. So what do we do to kill two hours?”
“Let’s go explore Savannah’s monster house and redesign it in our minds,” Lucy said.
“What a deliciously wicked side you have to you,” Jecca said, and the two women walked away together, laughing.
By the time the show started at eleven, Jecca and Lucy were in their seats. At first they’d taken seats in the back row—after all, it wasn’t really their party—but then a young man came to tell them that Dr. Tris had seats for them at the end of the runway. Smiling, Lucy and Jecca moved forward.
The first thirty minutes of the show were just as Jecca had imagined. Overly confident girls—some of them nearly as pretty as Nell—strutted down the runway in their idea of being models.
The audience politely oohhed and aahhed at the sight of the girls, their clothes, and the sedate, refined music, but there was nothing that anyone would remember by tomorrow.
Tris, as MC, read from his cards, dutifully reporting what had been written for him to say. Jecca thought he looked as handsome as a movie star, but to her mind, he sounded a bit bored.
The girls each had three outfits to wear and there were some delays, but it all went smoothly.
When the last girl walked to the end, there was some commotion, as though people in the audience were about to leave, but then something odd happened. Someone blew a car horn. Not just blew it, but laid down on it and held it. The sound was fairly far away, so it wasn’t jarring, but it seemed to be a signal. Out of the tall trees and shrubs that surrounded Savannah’s multiacre garden, people started walking toward the runway.
Jecca recognized some of them as people she’d met in Edilean. It looked like half the residents of the small town had come to see the second part of the show.
The guests in the chairs sat back down as the residents of Edilean surrounded them, five to six people deep. Jecca saw Savannah peep out from behind the curtains, and there was a smile on her face. Obviously, she’d been expecting the people.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Tris said into the microphone, his voice rich and deep, “it looks like the show has just begun.”
The music was changed from insipid to down-and-dirty rock and roll—and out came Nell. She was wearing theas ear and red jacket, black skirt, tights and shoes, a black beret sitting jauntily on the side of her head.
Tris’s voice rang loud and clear—and the boredom was gone. “The clothes in the rest of the show were designed by Miss Jecca Layton, made by Ms. Lucy Cooper, and this one is modeled by Miss Nellonia Aldredge Sandlin.” He read the design card that Jecca had written for him, then told about Nell, that someday she would be Edilean’s resident doctor. Jecca noted that no one seemed to be surprised by this announcement.
Next came shy little Kaylin—only she was anything but shy. She had on a pink silk top done in rows of soft ruffles and short trou