Falling Fast Read online

  He wondered if he should call the whole thing off. After all, it had been less than twelve hours since he had signed away his future, and the lawyers probably couldn’t hurt him too bad.

  He took a large swig of beer, mulling it over.

  Yes, that was what he’d do! He’d go by the producer’s office first thing in the morning and say that he had thought it over and couldn’t go through with being Mr. Right after all. He’d explain that he had just filled out the application on a whim, that they’d surely be able to find a better Mr. Right. Then, with a clear conscience he’d come back to the bar and find out her name.

  Once they’d been together for a while he’d tell her all about it and they’d have a good laugh about the whole thing.

  Deep in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the bartender coming over to the booth, until he was standing there looking down at him, with, if Brandon wasn’t mistaken, traces of pity in his eyes.

  “You need a refill?”

  The bartender’s words doused cold beer all over Brandon’s new plan.

  As he shook his head and the bartender walked away, he realized that even if he were a free man, she probably wouldn’t want to go out with him anyway. He had to face facts. If the speed with which she left him sitting in the bar was any indication, not only was she not the least bit interested in seeing him, she was dying to get away from him.

  Brandon downed the last of his beer and got up with a sigh. No wonder he had signed the contract for the show. At the least, being the eligible bachelor on Falling For Mr. Right would be an easy, painless way to find a wife.

  Which was a good thing, in view of the fact that he had clearly lost his touch.

  *

  By 2am, Brandon had his fill of counting cracks on the ceiling. Heading out to the open kitchen in his loft, he grabbed a box of Frosted Flakes off of the stainless steel cabinets and dumped the cereal into a big white bowl. Sloshing milk over it, he dug in his spoon and looked at the crumpled up piece of paper on the butcher-block island.

  “I’d better fill the stupid questionnaire out, or they’ll find me thirty one-legged, mustached women,” he muttered. Grabbing a pen from a cup next to the telephone he reached for the paper and smoothed it out.

  What are three adjectives that describe your ideal woman?

  Brandon rolled his eyes. “Figures that these questions are stupid beyond belief.”

  His words echoed off of the huge expanse of cream walls, wood-plank flooring, and high ceiling above his head. Brandon was sorely tempted to toss the questionnaire into the fireplace.

  Tapping the pen against his head for a few seconds, he couldn’t help but be tormented by the image of the woman who had run out on him earlier that evening.

  “She was amazing,” he said. “She was gorgeous, not to mention witty and self-confident.” “What the heck,” he said, writing Witty and Self-Confident down on the questionnaire, then added, Sexy as hell.

  Brandon smiled. Suddenly, filling out the asinine list of questions didn’t seem quite so difficult. All he had to do was conjure up the delectable vision of the girl he had fallen for on the sidewalk, with her long legs, her hazel eyes, her soft brown-black hair, and his answers were clear as a bell.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alexa woke up just in time to meet with the personal shopper. Dragging herself in and out of the shower, she threw on jeans, a well-worn t-shirt, and tennis shoes and caught the bus outside of her apartment building.

  Even though she was heading off to be tortured by fashion and clothes, she still enjoyed the ride to Union Square. Plenty of interesting people got on and off the bus at every stop, and Alexa’s brain went into overdrive as she thought up a story to fit each person.

  The teenager in private school clothes was sneaking away from her Catholic School to meet her boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks.

  The middle-aged woman had finally gotten up the courage to leave her husband and kids to pursue her dream of painting in Italy.

  The old man had lost his fortune in the 20’s stock market crash and never quite recovered from the shock, so he’d lived in poverty ever since.

  What about me, she wondered. What would my story be if I saw myself? Twenty-something girl going shopping at Nordstrom, she thought, pleased that she could still laugh at herself, considering all of the stress she was under.

  The bus dropped her off in front of the huge department store and Alexa felt nauseous. “I have to go in there?” she asked herself apprehensively. Deciding she was no coward, she squared her shoulders and walked inside the large glass doors.

  She hadn’t been inside a department store since her mother had forced her to go on one last, awful shopping trip when she turned sixteen. In her ten year absence, shopping centers had grown bigger and shinier. By the time she found the right corner of the store, she was out of breath and out of patience.

  Stopping in front of the desk marked Personal Shopper, she propped her elbow up on the high counter. “I’ve got an appointment at 10am.”

  The woman behind the counter slowly looked her up and down. “I’ll see if Mary is ready to see you.”

  Alexa tried to keep her temper reined in. “I can’t believe the way she looked at me,” she hissed to herself as the receptionist walked away. “As if I’m some vagrant who just popped in off of the street with nits in my hair.” Feeling wicked, Alexa was tempted to start picking at her head, but even she had her limits, so she forced herself to sit quietly and fold her hands in her lap as demurely as she ever had.

  She was tired from a nearly sleepless night where that damn guy from the hot-dog stand’s face smiled down at her from every dream, looking so gorgeous and perfect. She slid down in the chair and kicked her heels out in front of her. She had planned to only close her eyes for a minute, but must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, a very elegant, kind looking lady was standing beside her, softly shaking her shoulder.

  “Alexa?”

  Alexa quickly sat up, mortified to be caught napping. She hoped Jane wasn’t going to call the store to check up on her. She didn’t think falling asleep in the waiting room at Nordstrom was going to win her too many points with her editor.

  “Um, sorry about that I-”

  Alexa stumbled over herself to explain, but the woman cut her off with a smile. “No need to apologize. I’m no stranger to being exhausted every now and again myself. My name is Mary.”

  “Are you actually going to be nice to me?”

  Mary held out her hand to help Alexa unfold herself from the seat. “I am indeed,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes, devoid of any traces of judgment or pity. Giving Alexa a professional perusal, she said, “Trust me, honey, you are going to be the high point in my week. It’s not often that I get the pleasure of working with someone with as many good features as you have.”

  “I have good features?” Alexa blurted out, confused by the whole interchange. She had expected to be as brutalized by the personal shopper as she’d been by the other members of her beauty SWAT team. Which was fine with her, because then, at least, she could have held onto to her self-righteous anger. But now that this woman was being so nice to her, she didn’t know what to do with herself.

  “Oh yes,” Mary said, her smile growing broader. “It’s my job to show you just how beautiful you really are. If you want to come with me into my office, we’ll begin by taking a few measurements.”

  Alexa followed mutely behind her and didn’t offer up any protests when Mary wrapped a measuring tape around her breasts, waist and hips. Mary looked pleased as she jotted down the numbers onto her notepad.

  “If you will just excuse me for a few minutes, I’ll be gathering several ensembles for you to try on,” the woman said as she glided out of the room.

  Alexa sat down on the couch facing the full-length, three way mirror and stared at herself.

  She felt an instinctive urge to scream, to fight the changes that were happening to her. She kept telling herself that when this
story was over, she could easily go back to being the girl she was before — the un-pretty one who could disappear into the woodwork to do the journalistic work that she was so passionate about.

  But she couldn’t ignore the nagging voice in her heart that said maybe it wasn’t going to be so easy to undo these radical transformations. What if these superficial changes were seeping into her soul? What if she became like her sister Mel, who was always buying new clothes to attract a husband? Or worse, what if she turned into her mother, Sophie? Alexa had never been able to shake off the feeling that her mom blamed her and her sister for messing up her perfect body and skin tone by being born.

  Alexa didn’t like to dwell on the fact that neither she nor her sister had ever known their fathers. Her mother had always been banking on a man to step up to the plate and provide her with the security she craved, in exchange for her good looks. But when it came to the fathers of her children, neither man had been willing to give up his freedom to support a wife and baby.

  Mary knocked on the door of her office. “Could I come back in?”

  Alexa was so glad to be pulled out of her miserable train of thought that she leapt up and opened the door. But as she moved out the way for Mary to wheel in a rack stuffed full of every imaginable type of clothing, from lingerie to shoes and matching jewelry, the smile slid right off of Alexa’s face.

  “You don’t actually expect me to try on all of this stuff do you?”

  Mary smiled comfortingly. “You know what, I’ll bet this goes quicker than you think.

  And if you need anything — a mocha or something to eat — you let me know right away and we’ll have it sent up.”

  Alexa’s expression brightened considerably. “I’d love a burger and chocolate shake, actually.”

  Mary picked up the phone. “I knew I spotted hunger.” After ordering a burger with the works, a shake, and a platter of fries, she walked over to the clothes rack and handed several hangers to Alexa. “Why don’t you go try these on in the dressing room next to the mirrors so we can see how everything fits?”

  Mary was being so nice, Alexa couldn’t imagine being surly, so she took the clothes and got busy putting them on. After she had changed into the soft black silk slacks and deep red sweater set, Alexa slipped her feet into the sleek, black high-heeled boots Mary had set under the door for her as well.

  Alexa was sure she looked ridiculous in these clothes. She’d never really worn anything other than jeans before. She was sure she couldn’t possibly pull off such trendy looks. It was like dressing up a chimpanzee in sequins and pearls. She shoved back the curtain, ready for Mary to laugh at her.

  But when she finally looked at Mary, she didn’t see laughter. Instead she saw a look of approval so clear she was stunned. It was the look she had given up ever seeing on her mother’s face when she was a kid.

  “You look stunning,” Mary said. “Turn around. Look at yourself in the mirror,” she instructed. Alexa gaped at herself in shock.

  Who was the woman staring back at her in the mirror? With nothing more than a few pieces of clothing and the right shoes, she had been transformed from a twenty-something girl who made no discernible impression, to a woman straight from the pages of the magazines she despised.

  “I can’t do this!” she cried, making a quick move towards the dressing room to rip off the clothes that turned her into a foreign object before her very eyes.

  But Mary, for all of her gentleness and understanding, would not let her go. “Alexa,” she said softly with a firm grip on Alexa’s elbow. “Don’t you think it’s time for you to stop running from the woman you were meant to be?”

  Blinking back the sudden onslaught of tears, Alexa worked to find the inner-strength that had held her firm through her past twenty-two years. I need to act like she’s right, Alexa told herself. I need to let everyone think they are helping me until I’ve made my mark with this story.

  Then I’ll discard the new packaging they’ve wrapped me up in, and I’ll be me again.

  Smiling at Mary in the mirror, she lied through her teeth. “You’re right, Mary. And you know what?” she forced out. “I’m starting to see how this could be sort of fun. What should I try on next?”

  If Mary saw through her acting job, she didn’t let on. She had Alexa try on one outfit after another. They took a quick break for Alexa to wolf down her food when it arrived, but Mary was relentless. By the time Jane called Alexa’s cell phone to make sure she wasn’t going to be late for the 5pm interview with the reality TV producer, it was just after 3pm.

  “I’ve got to get going,” Alexa said as she hung up, utterly exhausted. “Plus, I’ve got to put on my makeup before I go which will probably take me at least an hour!” She pulled her big new bag of cosmetics from her backpack, feeling incredibly sorry for herself.

  “Actually, Alexa, before I was promoted to personal shopper, I was a makeup artist for Clinique.”

  Alexa never thought she’d be so happy to hear the words makeup artist again. “Would you mind?”

  Mary dumped Alexa’s bag of makeup onto the previously spotless desk. “It would be my pleasure.” Mary deftly applied the cosmetics to Alexa’s face and Alexa felt increasingly guilty for having lied to this nice woman.

  When all of this is over, she told herself, I’ll come back here and apologize for not being straight with her. Clearly her guilty conscience was something she was going to have to overcome if she was going to be successful undercover, she decided as Mary slid on a coat of lip-gloss and pronounced her to be “simply gorgeous!”

  “I’m assuming you would like for us to have these clothes sent to your house, given that they are already paid for?”

  Alexa blurted, “They are?”

  Mary nodded. “Your company paid for them all in advance, didn’t you know that?”

  Alexa shook her head. “I guess I didn’t really think about it. Geez, they sure spent a lot,”

  she added and then realized she needed Mary’s help with one more thing before she left. “I have a really important interview at 5pm today, and I was wondering if you could help me pick out the right outfit to wear?”

  Mary nodded, asking in her efficient voice, “What is the interview for?”

  Alexa searched her brain for a good lie that wasn’t too big of a lie. “I’m trying out for this TV show. I think I’ll need to look good on camera.”

  Mary riffled through the racks for the first outfit Alexa had tried on. “This will work perfectly. It’s slimming — not that you need it, but it never hurts on TV — and the red highlights your coloring to perfection.”

  After Alexa put the clothes on and gathered up her things, she turned back to Mary.

  “Thanks for your help. I know I’m sort of different and…”

  Mary surprised her with a quick hug, cutting her lame thank you off mid-sentence. “I had a better time than you know,” she said. Giving Alexa’s hand a reassuring squeeze, she said,

  “Just remember to be yourself, honey. Who you already are is more than enough.”

  As the door closed behind her, Alexa stood in a daze in the waiting room. “Why was she so nice to me?” she asked herself. Even though the image she currently projected was of a stylish, sophisticated, and self-confident woman, on the inside, Alexa was on shakier ground than ever before.

  The reactions from the people around her on the bus didn’t help her gain her equilibrium one bit. In the past, it had been easy to convince herself she was imagining any admiring looks she got from men. But now, the signs were blatant — whistles, telephone numbers offered, and unabashed staring.

  She wanted to go back to being the old ugly Alexa as soon as was humanly possible. She didn’t like this overpowering male attention one bit.

  *

  Alexa was several blocks away from the TV studio when her sports watch, which was stuffed in her bag in deference to the shiny gold-plated timepiece currently on her arm, beeped 5pm. The audition materials Jane had given her last night mad
e it very clear that the doors would be locked after 5pm.

  At 5:05 pm she stood in the lobby of the TV station, trying to get the unsympathetic receptionist, who hadn’t even looked up from her computer screen yet, to cut her some slack.

  “You should have been here waiting all afternoon like the other girls,” she droned.

  Alexa barely held her temper in check. “I’m so sorry,” she said, lying again. “I was so busy getting ready for the audition, I ran a little over.”

  The receptionist snorted derisively. “Too bad. Doors locked at 5 pm.”

  Alexa’s temper burst through and she slammed her palm down onto the shiny metal counter separating her from the receptionist. It was going to take more than one bad-attitude gatekeeper to keep her from getting into this audition.

  “Maybe I wasn’t making myself perfectly clear,” she said, raising her voice and enjoying the sound of it echoing in the steel and glass entryway. “I am going to audition, whether you like it or not.” Alexa marched past the receptionist who was, just as Alexa suspected, relatively easy to outrun.

  Hearing the clicking heels of the woman behind the front desk close behind her, Alexa threw herself against the door, barely managing to open it and stick her body halfway in the large auditorium.

  “Mr. Randall,” the receptionist cried, out of breath from her exertions. “I tried to tell her the auditions were closed!”

  Joe got up quickly to deal with the situation. One look at the woman who had barged into the room, and he knew he had his ratings secured.

  He shook Alexa’s hand and said, “I’m really sorry about this. Please, have a seat. I’m thrilled you made it here just in time for the audition.”

  Grabbing the receptionist’s arm firmly, he led her out of the room and back into the foyer.