The End of the Runway: Chapter Two

ONCE INSIDE THE tent (actually a wood pavilion snapped together in a day), Stacy made a beeline for hair and makeup. The good thing about working was that you never had to do it yourself, so getting ready was a breeze. From behind she felt her shoulders pinched and squeezed. She knew it had to be Unla, one of her new agency's reps and her minder in Paris.

"Vhere do you sink your going?" she bellowed. Unla never just said anything, she always bellowed, and through an impenetrable fog of a German accent.





"I was, I. I was going to hair-," Stacy stammered. Where else would she be going?

"Vell you should have been at ze meeting. Didn't you know about ze meeting?"

This was the first Stacy had heard anything about a meeting, but then again her cell phone didn't work in Europe and she had never figured out how to check her messages on her hotel phone, with its perpetual blinking light.

"Can you show me where the meeting is?" Stacy said. She was trying her best to be polite.

To her relief, Unla said nothing and led her through a thin crowd, who were huddled up in groups, buzzing, likely, of Anya Tom.

The meeting, when Stacy finally arrived, consisted of about thirteen models and about thirty people, some teary-eyed, that Stacy didn't recognize. She might have if she ever read the Paris magazines like the other models did. Fashion, she told herself, was just a paycheck and a chance to see the world. Still, there was something terrifying about the way Red Linton could make or break a model's career with a few well-chosen words or a photo in Style. Admittedly, he was pretty scary. I mean, look what happened with him and Anya. Stacy glanced at a few of the other attendees wiping away tears behind sheets of Kleenex. Yeah, scary was definitely the word.





During the meeting, Stacy hid behind a few of the taller girls and said nothing. The gist of the meeting was that the show would still be going on as planned, but with a respectable moment of silence for Anya at the beginning.

Just then, she was spotted. "There she is," one of the men in the center of the pack exclaimed as Stacy approached. Stacy winced, bracing herself for another telling off.

"Hi, honey," he told her. He sounded sweet. The lanyard around his neck said his name was Wolf, but was that his first name or his last? "Hurry up and get ready! We need you!" This was not as sweet. "We need someone to close the show. Now! Anya clearly won't be doing it as planned."





Stacy froze in fear. Close the show? Absolutely not! She was looking to escape attention, not bask in it. She couldn't speak, but shook her head from side to side and shrugged.

"Well you have to do it," Wolf said, simply, as if Stacy's input wasn't an issue. "All the other models have been assigned."

Stacy winced as he pronounced that last word. Was he kidding? Didn't these fashion types communicate? Didn't anyone else know about her "lackadaisical pacing?" Her knock knees?

"You want me to close the show?" She was buying time. How was she going to get out of this one? She couldn't close a major fashion show. She had never walked a major fashion show.

"Yes, yes! Of course!" Wolf was getting impatient. "Get to hair and makeup and we'll fill you in. You don't have much time."

Stacy stared back blankly. "I, I'm flattered because of, because Anya can't -- but I can't close I, I." She was stammering again. "I mean, I haven't walked. I can walk, but, uh, lackadaisical pacing! That's it." This wasn't very persuasive, she realized.

Wolf ignored her and motioned for an assistant to lead her back to hair and makeup--as if she didn't know where it was, and wasn't halfway there five minutes ago!

"My name is Irene," the girl said. She was French, but had only a trace of an accent. "You are closing the show now. You must be so excited!"





Stacy didn't know what to say on the way to hair and makeup, so she ended up talking about the one thing she vowed not to. "What happened to Anya? I mean I know she died, but what happened?"

"Isn't that sad?" Irene said. "No one knows, but one minute she's here, and now she's dead. But the show must go on."