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Which means I must win that float contest. I don’t have any other choice.
My thoughts turning, I rose out of the water, pulled the stopper, and slipped into the bathrobe I hung on the hook behind the door. It had been a long time since I’d been this motivated, but I was. Robert had unwittingly given me an edge by letting me see a sliver of what he planned for the contest. If he was my biggest competition, I’d just been given an advantage I could use against him. I knew whathewas doing, but he didn’t know whatIwas doing.
I booted up my laptop and sat down at my kitchen table. Whenever my head spun like this, the best thing to do was write down every small thought I had, turning it all into a big brainstorm.I will sort through it later. I just need to get it down. Now.
As I drained the last of the pinot, I typed and banged on the computer, my fingers flying through the bullet points of a Word document that would serve as a roadmap for what I wanted to do and how I wanted to take my float to the next level. As I worked, I tapped into the deep recesses of my mind. No, I didn’t consider myself creative in comparison to the people I knew in the theater, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t capable of vision.And maybe some of their skills rubbed off on me.
A half hour or so later, satisfied with what I had on the page, I combed the internet, looking for patterns and examples that would help me illustrate a new, better theme. The initial Lady Liberty idea I had with Morgan had been a good one, but now that I knew Robert was also doing that, we had to come out stronger. Still, maybe we could build upon it. In order to make a splash, I was going to have to push my talents and skills to the next level.
Which was scary.
They were rusty.Iwas rusty. I hadn’t sewn much of anything since moving to New Burlington. The Singer machine I spent almost two thousand dollars on my junior year of college had been gathering dust in the linen closet, forgotten behind a pile of extra bed sheets. But now, it was my secret weapon.
That machine had been designed specifically for heavy use—costume designers, fashion creatives, and the like. The heavy bobbin and precise needle could go the distance if required, and Lord knew I’d pushed to that limit during senior year, when I designed a four-piece costume collection for a capstone theater class. I had no plans of doing costume design as a job, but I wanted to ace the class. I planned to graduate magna cum laude, and nothing was going to stand in my way.
And it didn’t.
Around eight, I pulled the machine out of the closet, along with some bolts of velvet and satin I still had on hand from my job at Second City. It wasn’t much, but it was a start, and I vowed I’d head to the fabric store as soon as it opened the next morning.
I hadn’t been motivated like this in a long time. And it was glorious.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ROBERT
“Mr. Kilgore?” called Brianna from the back doorway of the shop. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure do.”
I put down my paintbrush. To help things along, I’d started pitching in wherever Javier needed help. He’d done so much, and I figured this was a great way to speed it all up. That day, it meant painting baseboards, which was more backbreaking and awkward than I expected. I spent most of the morning crouched on the floor, eyeing each careful stroke. Now, I jumped to my feet and crossed the room.
“You can call me Robert,” I said when I reached her side. “You know that.”
“I know.” She hesitated. “But I think my mom would kill me if she heard me do that. She’s a stickler about that kind of thing.”
“Understandable.” I nodded at the doorway, which she’d propped open with a cement block. “Something wrong?”
