Fairest of Them All Read online

  “Okay.” Dad shrugs, and he captures my pawn with his next move.

  I should have spent more time watching those chess videos.

  It takes Dad less than half an hour to beat me. Color him unimpressed.

  “What kind of strategies are they teaching you at this school Chess Club?” he complains.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “Different kinds.”

  Dad shakes his head slowly, looking at the board.

  “Things come too easily to kids these days,” he mutters. “You don’t recognize that good strategy can mean the difference between life and death.”

  You know him as a handsome prince, but behind closed doors, my father is a serious drama queen. Or prince, I guess, or whatever.

  “Well, I’ve managed to survive this long,” I tell him. “What you call strategy, I call street smarts.”

  Mom, who has been sitting on the sofa working on a quote for a party, laughs.

  “Now you know what I deal with, Bern,” she says. “Snarknado twenty-four/seven.”

  And on that note, I escape to my room as fast as I can, with Mozart trotting along at my heels.

  My nerves about the first taping build all week. Between worrying about my parents finding out and being excited and scared about competing on the show, I can barely hold it together by lunch on Friday.

  “Maybe I should just call and say I can’t do it,” I fret. “If my parents find out, I’m going to be grounded for the rest of my life.”

  “No way!” Sophie says. “Friends don’t let friends quit before they’ve even started.”

  “Especially when it’s something they really want to do,” Nina says.

  “Not to mention the chance of a lifetime,” Matt adds.

  “But—”

  “Breathe, Aria,” Dakota instructs me. “Take a few long, deep breaths. Come on. Breathe in for five counts.”

  I take a long, deep breath and inhale the smell of lunchroom disinfectant, ravioli (today’s special), and my own fear.

  “Okay, now exhale it out,” Dakota says. “For five.”

  I breathe out, trying to make it last for five seconds, but it makes me cough.

  Matt pats me on the back.

  “I don’t think I’m cut out for breathing,” I tell Dakota.

  “You’d be dead if you weren’t cut out for breathing,” he says.

  “I mean that earthy, crunchy deep-breathing stuff,” I say. “Maybe I’m just shallow.”

  “Maybe,” he says.

  He wasn’t supposed to agree with me. Does Dakota really think I’m shallow? Great, another thing to worry about.

  “You’re going to be fine, Aria,” Sophie says. “You’ve got this. Remember. Eyes on the prize.”

  “That’s right. You want that lunch with Seiyariyashi Tomaki,” Matt says. “So you can come back and tell us EVERYTHING, including what he ate.”

  “I have to win first,” I say.

  “Exactly,” Sophie says. “Keep your eyes on the prize. You’re not just doing it for you. You’re doing it for us.”

  I think she’s saying that to inspire me by making me feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself, but all it does is make me even more nervous, because now I’m scared of letting all my friends down too.

  “I’m going to the soccer game with Sophie and Nina, and then we’re going over to Sophie’s to watch a movie.” Lie Number 10. Or, wait, is it Number 11? I’m starting to lose count of how many I’ve told at this point.

  “Soccer game?” Dad says. “Since when have you been interested in soccer?”

  “Dakota, Nina’s brother, is really into it.” Lie Number 12.

  “Wonders never cease,” Dad says, going back to reading the news on his iPad. “Next you’ll be asking me to take you to a Knicks game.”

  “Don’t get carried away, Dad,” I tell him.

  “A man can live in hope,” he says.

  “Bernhard!” Mom frowns at him. “You have season tickets with Dad. If Aria wants to go, she’ll tell you.”

  The thing is, I wouldn’t mind going with Dad sometime, because I know how much he’d like it. Besides, basketball is fun and fast-paced, and best of all, it’s played indoors in the winter, not outdoors in the fall like football, where half the time you end up sitting there freezing your butt off and being miserable. It’s just that I wish he would meet me halfway—like offer to take me to New York Fashion Week or the latest exhibit at the Costume Institute at the Met—because that’s what I love. Then I’d be all over bonding through sports with him. I’d even be more willing to play chess.

  Okay, maybe that’s pushing it. But I’d totally go to a Knicks game.

  Whatever. I’ve got to get to the taping. “Okay, I’m off,” I tell Mom and Dad. “Argue amongst yourselves.”

  I take the Fifth Avenue bus downtown and then the crosstown bus over to the West Side to where the studio is located.

  After I show my acceptance letter to the security guard, he gives me a badge on a lanyard and sends me up to the second floor.

  The receptionist tells me to have a seat, and then a minute later a young man with a clipboard and a bright smile bounces into the reception area.

  “Good morning! You must be Aria,” he exclaims with so much enthusiasm and energy I suspect he’s had more than one humongo coffee with triple shots of espresso. “I’m Justin. Are you ready? I’ll take you back to meet the other contestants.”

  Maybe I should have stopped at Starcups on the way here, I think as I follow Justin down a hallway, trying to answer the questions he’s machine-gunning at me. I’m starting to feel way too low energy.

  “Here we go!” he says as we get to a door with a sign that says GREENROOM.

  He throws open the door and we enter a room that isn’t actually green. There isn’t even any green furniture in it. The greenest thing in it is the short, spiky hair of a girl sitting on one of the sofas that line the walls, along with a few comfortable-looking chairs. There’s also a coffee machine, a small fridge, a fruit plate, and a big basket of assorted pastries that are calling my name despite the fact that I already had breakfast.

  The girl sitting in the closest chair turns and looks daggers at me. I realize, to my dismay, that it’s the Break My Leg Girl from Adele Bonrever’s waiting room.

  “Go on, have a seat!” Justin chirps, like Mr. Overcaffeinated Sunshine. “Get to know everyone. Someone will be by soon to take you to makeup.”

  I take a seat as far away as humanly possible from Break My Leg Girl, on a sofa next to a thin guy with brown hair and glasses wearing a polo shirt with the collar popped and a Vineyard Vines belt. He looks like someone who “summers” instead of going on vacation like everyone else.

  “Hi, I’m Aria,” I say. “Aria Thornbrier.”

  “I’m Hugh Waters,” he tells me. “The Third.”

  Are Hugh Waters the First and Second still alive? I wonder. If they are, it must get super confusing when they’re all together at Casa Waters.

  “Do you live in the city?” I ask.

  “Connecticut,” he says. He speaks so softly I have to lean closer to hear him. “I came in on the six forty-three train, which arrived at Grand Central Terminal at seven forty-four. So we had time to have breakfast before coming here.”

  “That’s good. Although those pastries look pretty yum.”

  “They are!” says a dark-haired girl wearing a necklace that looks like it’s made out of the letters from a computer keyboard. “I recommend the chocolate croissant.”

  “The almond one is good, too,” adds Spiky-Green-Haired Girl. “My name’s Pez, by the way.”

  “And I’m Liah,” the dark-haired girl tells me.

  “That’s Mia,” Pez says, pointing to Break My Leg Girl. “And the fruit-salad-only chick is Marissa.”

  Marissa is around my age, but she’s light-years ahead of me in the elegance stakes. She’s wearing dark skinny jeans with a chunky cashmere sweater and massive pearls, which look like they migh
t be real. And her plate is loaded with fruit salad—not a pastry in sight.

  “I like fruit,” she says, shrugging her blond hair off her narrow shoulders. “Since when is that a crime?”

  “It’s not. I like fruit too,” I say, getting up and helping myself to some. Then I look at the basket of croissants and assorted deliciousness. “And pastries.”

  I grab a cheese Danish.

  But I get to take only one bite before a thin guy with hair bleached so blond it’s almost white pops his head around the door of the not-green room and says, “Aria Thornbrier? You’re next for makeup.”

  I sadly leave my plate of goodies on the table; after telling the others I’ll see them later, I follow Blondie Boy down the hallway to makeup.

  “I’m Eddie,” he tells me. “I’ll be touching up your face. Nothing too much—you’ve got good features.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’m lucky in the DNA department,” I tell him.

  There are three people already in makeup chairs, being worked on.

  Eddie points to a chair. “Make yourself comfortable,” he says.

  I’m not sure if comfortable is something I can feel sitting in front of a mirror with lighting that seems to highlight every single skin flaw I have. I guess that’s why they want to put on makeup.

  The girl sitting next to me is wearing a head scarf, killer pink wedges with a pair of skinny jeans, and a pink blousy top. There’s an amazing black patent tote with fuchsia accents sitting on the floor by her feet.

  I felt put together when I left the house, but now I feel like a bag lady.

  “Hey,” she says as the makeup artist working on her finishes applying eye shadow so she can actually look at me in the mirror. “I’m Iris.”

  I introduce myself. “Do you live in New York?”

  “Philadelphia,” she says. “My mother and I took the train up last night.”

  “Wow. So you’re going to have to come up every weekend for tapings?”

  “Well, yeah, assuming I don’t get eliminated, that is,” she says. “But I’m not planning to do that.”

  “None of us is planning on doing that, jeva,” says a dark-eyed guy with dark, curly hair who is sitting in the chair to her left, having his face brushed with powder. “Who comes here wanting to lose?”

  “No one comes here to lose, muchacho. Otherwise the bosses wouldn’t have picked you,” Eddie says, placing a smock around my neck and starting to apply a thick foundation. “You’ll need this so the lights don’t make you look washed out,” he explains.

  The muchacho’s name is Manuel Pardo. He apparently moved here from Argentina when he was eight. The guy on the other side of him, a dark-haired, gray-eyed boy who sits observing everyone without saying anything and responds to the questions his makeup lady asks with monosyllabic answers, is called Lazlo.

  Then the door opens and Justin bounces in.

  “Last but not least—here’s our final contestant, Jesse Ffionn.”

  I glance in the mirror to check out the newcomer and have to stifle a gasp—because he’s the drop-dead gorgeous guy from Adele Bonrever’s office.

  Chapter Six

  JESSE WINKS AT ME AS he walks to the empty makeup chair. Does that mean he remembers me from the tryouts, even though I was nearly asphyxiating on water? I check to see if he winks at Iris, too.

  He doesn’t. That means . . . OMG, that means he winked at me specifically. Me, Aria Thornbrier!

  It’s a good thing I’m already sitting down, because I think my knees have gone weak. He’s even cuter when my brain is fully oxygenated.

  “I’m just going to give you a little tinted lip gloss, okay?”

  “What?”

  “Tinted lip gloss,” Eddie says. “To pink up your lips a bit.”

  All the better for them to be kissable . . .

  “Sure. Great. Go for it!”

  “I’ve never heard anyone get that excited about lip gloss before,” Eddie says. “Well, anyone over the age of . . . seven, that is.”

  Iris giggles.

  “Guess I’m not going to need much blush, huh?” I mutter, immediately feeling my face flush.

  “I’m just teasing. You should hear all of us when we go to Sephora. Right, Coco?”

  Coco, who is doing Iris’s makeup, nods. “Oh yeah. Eddie shrieks like a banshee when he finds a new color.”

  Jesse is looking at me in the mirror as Eddie applies fix to my newly glossed lips. It looks like clear nail polish. I never realized there was so much technology involved in having kissable lips. Being a girl is so complicated. The only makeup the guys get is a bit of foundation, a little hair wax, and powder.

  “Okay, gorgeous, you’re done,” Eddie tells me. “Make me proud.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I say.

  Iris, Manuel, and I walk back to the greenroom together.

  I manage to take a bite of cheese Danish and swallow it before Jesse walks in with a guy who introduces himself as Bob Adams, the stage manager.

  “Okay, folks, I’m taking you into the workroom, where you’ll meet Arthur Dunn, the host of Teen Couture,” Bob says. His announcement is met with a collective gasp. Arthur Dunn is legendary. He’s the director of fashion for Lemieux, one of the most exclusive men’s fashion labels, and he also hosts Chic Cheap Couture, one of the top-rated fashion shows on cable. Matt was jealous about me being on the show before, but he’s going to totally lose it when I tell him about meeting and working with Arthur Dunn. “Then you’ll be issued the first challenge. You’ll have four hours to complete the challenge, and then you’ll go before the judges.”

  “Do we get to choose our models?” Jesse asks.

  The guys all find this very funny. Iris, Pez, Liah, and I look at one another and roll our eyes.

  “You’ll be assigned models by Mr. Dunn,” Bob says, keeping it all business. “At the end of judging, one of you will be eliminated from the competition.”

  We look around the room. We’ve barely even had a chance to get to know one another, but one of us is going to be cut by the end of the day.

  I just hope it isn’t me.

  It’s not going to be me.

  “Okay, everyone ready?” Bob asks. “Follow me.”

  My stomach feels like it’s inhabited by a colony of ballroom-dancing ants as we head downstairs to the workroom. It’s a huge, loftlike space with tables, sewing machines, mirrors, bolts of fabric, and mannequins. And on each table, so, so many pins and needles. My parents would have a heart attack if they saw me in this place.

  What they don’t know won’t hurt them. Hopefully it won’t hurt me, either. Then I remember that they are going to see me in this place, as soon as the first episode airs. If this is going to give my parents so much grief, maybe I should just drop out now. As much as I want to do it, maybe I should just admit I made a bad decision.

  But then Arthur Dunn walks into the workroom, and my moment of doubt passes like a sun-shower on a summer’s day.

  Arthur Dunn is shorter than he looks on TV, but his personality fills the room. He’s dressed impeccably, his checked suit tailored to perfection, a colorful pocket square that matches his tie peeking crisply from his left breast pocket.

  “Good morning, contestants, and welcome to Teen Couture. Each challenge is going to involve making a fashion item out of the materials available to you on set in the short time you have allotted. Now tell me your name and a little bit about yourself.”

  As we go around the room, I learn that Mia is from Staten Island, her uncle was a firefighter who died on 9/11, and her nonna taught her how to sew. She wants to have her own label.

  Liah’s mom is from Barbados and her dad’s from San Francisco. She first got interested in fashion because her dad loves taking apart computers, which drove her mom crazy because there were always parts all over their apartment. So Liah started taking the parts and making jewelry with them. She’s got a decent online business already.

  Now I feel like a total slacker. What have I done w
ith my life besides lie to my parents and make a skirt?

  As I guessed from his precision with train times, Hugh is really into timepieces. He shows us Hugh Waters I’s gold pocket watch, which he carries with him always.

  “I respect a young man who carries a pocket watch,” Arthur Dunn says. “Or even uses a wristwatch instead of his phone to tell time.”

  Marissa lives on Park Avenue and spends her weekends at her family’s farm in Duchess County. Her dream is to have a ball gown she’s created put in the Met’s Costume Institute.

  “I want people to wear my clothes, not just look at them in a museum,” Pez says. “Maybe that’s the difference between Astoria, Queens, and Park Avenue.”

  Marissa gives her a dirty look. Pez doesn’t seem to care. I hope their impending class war doesn’t get in the way of things.

  “I want people to live, eat, and dance in my clothes,” Manuel says. “It’s my Argentinean-Jewish heritage. Steak, tango, and tailoring.”

  “I’m probably here because of my heritage,” Iris says. “But that’s okay, because I want people to see that you can be observant and fashionable at the same time.”

  Jesse speaks up next. “Being on this show is my destiny,” he says. “Ever since I was born, my grandmother told me this time would come.” He glances over at me and smiles. “And now it’s here.”

  It’s hard to tell if he’s joking or serious. I don’t know what to make of him, but he’s so adorable it makes it hard to think objectively. There’s an unfamiliar flutter in my chest, and I can’t help noticing how his hair seems threaded by different shades of gold under the workroom lights.

  There’s just Lazlo and me left to go, but I’m too busy being distracted by Jesse’s smile.

  “I was inspired to enter fashion by the pictures of my great-grandparents in court dress back in Hungary,” he says. “I want to update that look.”

  So he’s got a Once Upon a Time thing going, too, I realize. But there’s no way I’m going to talk about my family background. No way. If I win this competition, it’s going to be on my own merits.

  “I’m Aria. I live here in the city, and I’ve always wanted to be a fashion designer, but . . . well, let’s just say I haven’t had much encouragement. I’m hoping that if I win this competition, it’ll prove to my family that following my dream is the right thing to do.” I look straight into the camera when I say it. It’s easier to say to the red eye of the camera than it is face-to-face with Mom and Dad. The camera doesn’t cut me off with “But, Aria, you know the tale!”