Friends with Benefits by Melody Mayer

Author:Melody Mayer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307433961
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2009-04-14T04:00:00+00:00

17

“Esme, no quiero hacer esto. ¡No quiero!” Weston was sobbing, her face buried against Esme’s right leg.

“Remember, this is what we practiced for,” Esme told her in both English and Spanish, trying hard to sound calm and composed when she felt exactly the opposite. The girl shook her head violently and burrowed in even closer.

Esme felt as if she was going to shatter into a thousand pieces. They were backstage at Tent B, where Emily Steele’s early-evening kids’ fashion show was about to start. All around Esme and the girls were dressers and assistants, makeup artists and designers. Each of them was charging around, sure that their particular mission was worth their state of panic.

Tol and her trans-whatever assistant, Chantal, didn’t help matters as they barraged Esme with questions. The two of them were backstage to ride herd on all the Major Modeling clients who were modeling the Emily Steele fashion line.

“What’s the problem?” Tol demanded.

Esme stroked the girls’ hair. “They don’t want to do it.”

“But every little girl in the world wants to be a model!” Tol insisted.

“Tell them this is how I began my brilliant career,” Chantal suggested, shaking her long mane of hair off her face.

Just let me get through this, Esme prayed silently. She could hear Diane out onstage welcoming the standing-room-only crowd. Jonathan had to be there too, to cheer on his little sisters. Esme didn’t care; he was the last person she wanted to see.

Her boss had been more than gracious after Esme explained that a friend of hers had been in a terrible accident and asked for a few hours off after the show to go to County General. Diane had told Esme to go to the hospital as soon as she could. Not that Diane was going to watch over the girls herself; not in the midst of FAB. Instead, she had asked if Mrs. Castaneda, Esme’s mother, could be brought to FAB by the Goldhagens’ driver and step in for Esme. After all, she could communicate with the children. That phone call had been more than an hour and a half ago, and still Esme’s mother had not arrived.

Esme wanted her mother, and not just so that she could go to the hospital. Part of her wished she could bury herself in her mother’s arms much the way Weston was hiding now. She had no idea what she would say to Junior when she saw him. While she’d been having sex with Jonathan, he’d been out on the streets, part of the thin line between life and death. What had Esme given him in return? Lies and more lies. Cheating and more cheating.

“And now . . . the international children of Emily Steele!” Diane’s voice sang out through the sound system with its backstage feed. The audience on the other side of the curtain applauded; there were even a few whoops and hollers.

Chantal immediately took charge, pointing to the three kids with the Texan names, dressed alike in royal blue flowing silk pants and matching vests embroidered with Chinese characters.

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