Page 33 of Glass Wings
“She looks perfect,” Reign interjected, pulling Hadley out of the chair.
Reign handed Hadley a small decorative bag filled with makeup and beauty products and thanked the clerk as they turned and walked away. Instead of going to the next area, Reign pulled Hadley down one of the branded makeup aisles, searching until she found what she was looking for.
“This is an old theater trick. It’s not great for your skin though, so we only want to do this when there could be a lot of acrobatics involved in the night,” she smirked, holding out a can of hairspray towards Hadley’s face.
Hadley raised her eyebrows and took a small step back.
“Close your eyes,” Reign commanded, and Hadley’s eyes snapped shut as if they were never to open again. Reign pressed down on the hair spray sample as it shot out of the bottle, landing on Hadley’s skin. She scrunched her face, feeling sticky and stiff.
“Alright, now you're set for your super secret fancy masquerade sex party,” Reign winked with no shame of anyone overhearing.
“Am I expected to just . . . do it . . . with any random guest who walks up to me?” Hadley asked in horror. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. If that was what the big leagues meant, maybe she wasn’t ready.
“I think you are expected tominglewith guests when it seems right,” Reign said, putting her forehead to Hadley’s. Hadley grabbed Reign’s hands.
“How do you get through all this? Sometimes I feel so guilty. I think my mom would be horrified if she saw what I am doing to get by right now,” Hadley asked. She bit her lip to hold back tears welling in the corner of her eyes.
Reign pulled her head away and looked at Hadley, her mouth a straight line, her eyes unreadable.
“Even if it feels like you don’t, even if it feels like you’re all alone, you always have a choice, Hailey. You don’t have to go tonight. You don’t ever have to see me again. You don’t ever have to see Grant either. I know you can forge another way if you try.”
Hadley tried to slow her breathing, tried to push the guilt away, and tried not to overanalyze the weight of Reign’s words. She straightened up, letting her hands slip away, holding them to her heart.
“Where do we go from here? What’s next?” Hadley asked, pushing those thoughts, those feelings, back down inside her.
Reign’s face remained unreadable for another second, and then Hadley saw the flicker that turned on the act that she wore in front of the world. Reign smiled, showing all of her meticulously white teeth.
“Next, we will find you a dress.”
After two escalators traveling up, the pair reached the woman’s formal section. Hadley felt like she was shopping for prom with all the glitter and pale blues that were hanging proudly from the mannequins.
Reign hit the rack on the very far right of the section, obviously knowing what she was looking for.
“Vixen, vixen, vixen,” Hadley heard Reign chant as she passedover dress after dress, the hangers clanging together after a metal slide on metal.
“Found it!” she exclaimed, victory on her face as she held a garment above her head. Hadley examined the black fabric adorned with shoulder feathers, a plunging neckline down to the belly button, and a transparent lace skirt.
“Is that a dress or lingerie?” Hadley laughed in disbelief.
“Why don’t you just try it on?” Reign rolled her eyes and walked toward the fitting rooms at the back of the store.
“This must be the goddaughter; sexy dress,” the overly enthusiastic woman running the fitting room exclaimed as Hadley approached.
“That sounds like me, I guess,” Hadley responded, unsure why that detail was a part of their ruse. She pointed to herself with both index fingers and, once again, felt that she was pretending to be a grown-up. Hadley walked to one of the three dressing rooms that lined a mock runway area set up with a full-length, four-paned mirror.
“Do you need help getting into this?” the attendant asked, hanging the dress up for her in the furthest of the rooms as Reign made herself comfortable on a chaise lounge right outside the privacy curtains.
Hadley mouthed a polite “no thank you” and began the challenge of undressing without wiping a face full of makeup off onto her fitted shirt. After some light gymnastics, Hadley managed to pull only the muscle in the left side of her neck, stretching to accomplish the task.
“Shit,” she whimpered, frozen in light pain.
She replayed Reign’s words from earlier, imagining what she could do from here. She could find another part-time seasonal job as the holidays came around. That seemed to be the only time a company was desperate enough to hire a teenager with no skills.
She could try to go to community college. Maybe there was a scholarship she could get for English, for writing, even. She hadn’t considered college. She wrote it off as a future she could have had ifher mother hadn’t passed away. She wasn’t sure how that would solve her more immediate needs of continuing to pay rent, though.
“Are we doing okay in there?” The bright voice of the attendant came through on the other side of the curtains, snapping Hadley’s shoulders back down as the muscles around her neck relaxed.
“Almost done,” she lied as she pulled the dress off the hanger. With the grace of a neurosurgeon, Hadley pulled it over her head and wiggled it down over her body. It hugged her hips tightly. She found herself grateful for the depth of the neckline, making it much easier to avoid sliding the fabric over her face.
