Moving in Reverse (25 page)

I looked at him
questioningly.

“
I didn’t go — I got
signed right out of high school, just like Blake. Most of us with
fairly successful careers don’t throw it all away to follow a girl,
you know.”

“
Yeah,” I said. “Well, for
those of us who don’t have successful careers by the time we’re
nineteen, college is pretty much a must.”

“
So what
happened?”

I don’t want to talk about
it
, I thought to myself.

But then I reconsidered. Talking to
Sophie had made me feel so much better, like I could actually make
it through all of this.

“
All this dumb stuff,” I
started to explain. “It seems so shallow and stupid when you
actually talk about it. These idiot frat guys put a bet on who
could be the first to hook up with me, and this one guy, Jeff, told
everyone that he had. My debutante-wannabe southern roommate
flipped out at me because
she
had a crush on him, which I didn’t even really
know about, and she thought I’d totally betrayed her with
this
fake hookup that never even
happened.
Soap opera stuff. Meanwhile,
she’d known about the bet the whole time and never told me. Some
friend.”

Tanner whistled. “Maybe you’re the one
who needs the reality show.”

I snorted. “Well, that’s not
happening,” I shook my head. “Got a Plan B?”

“
I’ll fly to New York and
beat up the fratboy for you?”

“
Blake already tried,” I
sighed, remembering the night of Halloween like it was a year ago.
“Didn’t help much.”

Tanner paused at a stoplight and
looked over at me. “It may surprise you, Snow,” he said, looking
straight into my eyes. “But there are actually a few things that I
can do better than Blake Parker.”

His eyes sparkled, and there it was
again — that same tension from Sophie’s house. I tried not to let
my mind wander to what other ‘things’ he was talking
about.

“
Turn here,” I said,
breaking eye contact and pointing across the street to an unmarked
building that looked like a warehouse from the front.

Tanner looked at the building
suspiciously. “You sure you don’t want me to walk you
inside?”

“
No,” I said firmly. “I’ve
got it.”

We paused for a second, neither of us
moving.

“
Have fun on your date,
Tanner Cole,” I said with a shy smile.

“
Have fun with your shoot,
Casey Snow,” he echoed, and then paused. “Maybe I’ll see you
round.”

“
Yeah.” I found myself
fumbling with my bracelets, suddenly nervous. “Maybe.”

And then I was out of the car, walking
towards the warehouse, not looking back.

Two more days. And then back to real
life.

“
Makeup—” The Japanese
photographer yelled the second that I walked into the studio, a
petite woman with short, dark hair. She gestured for me to head to
the other side of the room.

The photo studio was almost a
warehouse space, with bare concrete walls and a conference table
set up on one side, where the hair and makeup artist had spread a
hundred different powders, brushes, applicators and curling irons
next to a huge mirror.

I wasn’t wearing any makeup and I’d
spent most of the day before crying hysterically, so for the sake
of everyone involved in this photoshoot, I was hoping the
makeup-guy was about the caliber of the special effects guys from
Avatar.

Only without turning my skin
blue.

Unless that was big in Japan
now?

I took a deep breath, trying to seem
cool and confident, and spotted Lauren across the room. She was
talking with the stylist arranging the racks of clothes that would
be used in the shoot, which I guessed included a lot of options
from her clients. So everyone got something out of this. Including,
I guessed, me.

I thought about going over to help
pick out the clothes, but I was immediately ushered by an intern
over to a folding chair next to the makeup artist.

Sort of understandable,
priorities-wise.

He took one look at my red, puffy skin
and kind of wrinkled his nose. “Late night?” I could hear the
disapproval in his voice.

My boyfriend broke my
heart,
I wanted to answer, but bit my lip
instead. You never knew who was going to end up selling information
to the tabloids. “I watched
Titanic
,” I said, face stone cold,
daring him to contradict me.

Instead, he gave me half a smile.
“Let’s get to work, then.”

An hour later, he’d managed to bring
some color back to my skin, to tone down the puffiness with a cool,
soothing cream and to cover the dark circles with perfectly-matched
concealer.

You’d look at me and just think I was
Casey Snow. A prettier version of Casey Snow, actually, once he’d
finished with the blush and eyeshadow and mascara. Not the broken,
lost girl underneath the glossy finish.

When he’d finished with my hair, the
photographer blinked at me twice. “You look great,” she said,
grinning at me. “Maybe we should tweet some of these photos to
Blake as we go along.”

“
Blake doesn’t have
Twitter,” I said, not pausing. Blake didn’t even have a private
Facebook page—he just wrote stuff up for Moving Neutral’s page
every once in a while.

“
Ok, yours, then,” the
photographer grinned.

I looked at Lauren helplessly. “I
don’t—”

“
I’ll take care of it,”
she said smoothly, giving me a look that stopped me from saying any
more. “Case, you want to go check out the clothes?”

“
Sure,” I said, taking her
hint, and I followed her away from the photographer.

“
I don’t have a twitter,”
I whispered as soon as we were out of earshot, and Lauren
grinned.

“
Give me your phone.
You’ll have one in ten minutes, hon.”

I looked at her warily, and then set
my iPhone into her hand.

“
Take a look through the
racks, and see if there’s anything you like. You need five outfits,
three day and two night, anything from jeans to cocktail dresses,
okay? When you find something you like, try it on and show
us.”

She pulled a makeshift curtain across
the racks to give me some privacy, and waited outside, typing
frantically on my phone.

I thought about Tanner the night that
we’d met, when he’d stolen my cell phone and typed a message to
Madison at the Fall Guy concert.

It felt like a hundred years ago. It
had only been two weeks.

“
By the way,” Lauren
called through the divider, “I heard from the denim line. They want
to shoot in December or January, either in Los Angeles or New York.
Does that work for you, schedule-wise?”

I hesitated for a second. My first
semester exams were the first two weeks of December.

“
January, if they can,” I
said quietly, not even wanting to think about exams at this
point.

“
Great,” she said.
“They’ll send over the contracts. This stuff always gets pushed
back anyways. How excited are you? So excited?”

“
So excited,” I hoped it
didn’t sound flat.

I appeared from behind the curtain in
an oversized tee-shirt and cutoff shorts, a dozen bracelets on my
wrists. I gingerly stepped into a pair of nude ankle books, and
looked over at Lauren.

“
Does this
work?”

She grinned. “You’re gorgeous, Casey.
Everything works on you.”

I rolled my eyes and went back behind
the curtain, looking for a second outfit. I looked in the mirror –
she was right. Thanks to the miracle of hair and makeup and great
clothes, I was suddenly gorgeous.

But it didn’t change a
thing.

Two more
days
, I said to myself.
And then Blake.

Lauren’s fingers slipped through a gap
in the curtain, holding my iPhone. “Congrats, Case. You have
Twitter. Twelve hundred followers.”

I blinked my eyes at her. “It’s only
been thirty seconds?”

“
Everyone wants to know
about you, Case,” Lauren grinned at me. “Just try to stay away from
the nudie pictures. ok?”

I snorted and rolled my eyes at her,
finally relaxed. “I’ll try my best,” I said sarcastically. “Let’s
get this show on the road.”

Chapter
Thirty-Eight

I showed up at the airport with a
giant suitcase of new clothes from Lauren. The Madonna outfit, and
everything that Blake had bought me, was folded and hung in the
closets in his house. I’d hardly worn anything, so he could take
most of it back if he wanted to.

I tried not to hold my breath as I
checked in with the confirmation number on my ticket, flicking my
eyes across the seat confirmation. The check-in machine told me
that the seat beside me was booked, so as far as I knew, Blake
hadn’t changed the ticket. I took a deep breath, and hoisted my
suitcase onto the weight station.

“
The first class lounge is
down that hallway behind the double doors,” the check-in person
told me helpfully. I’d almost forgotten that Blake had booked us
first class tickets, but I figured the lounge would probably be the
best place to look for him.

It was an early afternoon flight to
New York, which meant that with the time difference, it would be
almost midnight by the time we got in. The timing was actually sort
of great — Darby would be sleeping and had early morning classes on
Mondays, so I’d at least be spared a night with her.

And after that? I shuddered. I was
about to become the shortest-lived sorority girl in the history of
Kappa Theta Beta, and I had a feeling Darby wasn’t exactly going to
take that well.

Maybe I could look into off campus
housing for sophomore year.

The lounge was full of men in suits —
consultants or lawyers or whoever traveled for business often
enough to get automatic perks like first class upgrades. I ordered
a diet coke and found a quiet table to make a call.

Madison picked up on the second
ring.

“
Casey, don’t come back,
it is seriously snowing here right now,” she moaned. “It’s only
November, and there’s already snow. Just stay in Los Angeles
forever.”

I laughed. “If only that were actually
an option.”

“
Are you at the
airport?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Any news?”

“
Nada. Zilch.”

“
He’ll show
up.”

“
He has to,
right?”

“
Yeah. He
will.”

We could both hear the lie. Casey Snow
had to go back to Columbia, had to make it to her Monday
classes.

Blake Parker didn’t have to do
anything of the sort.

“
Now boarding First Class,
Elite Access, and any travelers with small children or medical
needs. Now boarding…”

I’d been waiting for twenty minutes,
and it was becoming crystal clear that Blake wasn’t at the gate.
I’d stayed in the first class lounge until a few minutes before our
flight started boarding, and then I’d searched the terminal,
peeking inside every bookstore and food stand. No Blake.

He wasn’t in the waiting area by the
gate when they started calling our flight. I looked down at my cell
phone, futilely checking for texts or missed calls.
Nothing.

I took a deep breath.

My ticket was crinkled from clutching
it so hard, and the man behind the counter had to smooth it out so
that the machine could read the bar code.

It clicked, with red letters appearing
on the screen.

SNOW, CASEY

He gave a quick nod and waved me
through. I looked back, one last time, at the lines of people
waiting to board the plane, and tried to force myself to keep
breathing.

I had the second seat on the plane, on
the aisle. Even after the first class cabin finished boarding, the
seat next to me was empty, and a flash of hope ran through me.
Maybe he was just late.

The rest of the plane filed on, a
jumble of overstuffed suitcases and crying children. I stared at
every single person who stepped through the door, looking for
Blake’s piercing blue eyes so hard I could almost see
them.

And then I saw a guitar case. My heart
fluttered, and I felt myself rising up in my seat, trying to get
closer, trying to see him for the first time in more than a
week.

“
Um, excuse me? You can’t
have that as a carry-on,” a stewardess said, stopping the case
halfway down the aisle and blocking my view. “I can check it for
you from here, and you can get it in baggage claim on the way
back.”

I leaned forward, trying to see around
her, and saw her take out a claim tag and attach it to the handle.
Sighing heavily, like this was a massive inconvenience for her, she
hoisted the guitar out of the guy’s hands and walked back in the
direction of the cockpit.