Happily Ever After? (Sleeping Handsome Sequel) Read Free Page B

chatter will definitely fill the next hour or so.
    Her door whips open after the third
knock. “Well hello darling,” she says in greeting and whirls around
with the long fabric on her arms fluttering. A pair of scissors
hang from her fingers. “I’m in here,” she says and the tight curls
of her blonde hair bob as she saunters away.
    Realizing she means for me to follow,
I enter her room and shut the door. Instead of going to the sitting
area she passes through a connecting door. In the next room,
fabrics and tools cover almost every surface while costumes hang
from doorknobs, lamps, shelf edges, and movable racks.
    “ There’s room on the
couch,” Zoe says with a piece of thread between her lips. “You
couldn’t have timed a visit more perfectly. Tea will be here within
the half hour.”
    “ Great,” I say with an
acted out smile and find one open square on the satin couch. She
lifts scissors. Feeling out of place, I tuck my hands under my
thighs. “Do you need any help?”
    She laughs. The sound tinkles around
the room. “Ah no, darling. I design and sew then you wear and act.”
She stabs the flowing embroidery of a skirt dressed on a fabric
dummy and looks at me over her pink tinted glasses. “We can chat
while I work. I always have minor alterations during production.
Nothing ever goes precisely as planned. And my assistants?” She
waves a hand dramatically. “Might as well do it myself, you
know?”
    Nodding as expected, I
watch her sew. Long dresses and a variety of leather surround us. I
never imagined wearing such costumes, but I do daily. Valkyrie is an
adaptation of Norse Mythology centered on Brynhild, a Norse god
turned warrior chick. From what I could tell from Wikipedia—that
was as far as my research went—she was a god condemned to live as a
human when she pissed a bigger god off. The beginning of her story
is similar to Sleeping
Beauty . Instead of a wall of thorns, a
wall of fire encased her in a castle. And like Briar Rose she was
awoken by her true love. Rather than waking her with a kiss, he
took her helmet off—yeah romantic. And from there everything falls
to crap. No happy ending for Bryn.
    Of course, the movie doesn’t follow
the original mythology. In fact, after a few skirmishes, a big
battle, liberty won for the peasants, and the death of the witch
and her man stealing bitch of a daughter—me—Bryn gets her man. I’m
totally stoked about the death scene. What actor doesn’t aspire to
conquer such a scene at least once?
    Zoe flattens the skirt with a heavily
ringed hand. “Tisk, tisk, wearing your makeup out?”
    I touch my face. My skin feels
leathery. “No. I just forgot.” Usually I scrub my face after
reading Zach’s email, but today’s message threw me out of my daily
routine. “Guess I’m getting used to the layer of goop on my
skin.”
    “ Oh, your skin needs to
breathe.” She pulls the thread out and stabs the fabric again. “So
you can be fresh and lovely for another layer of paint tomorrow.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “I could never be a makeup artist,
but that Jane is an absolute wizard. She can be a bit of a menace
if she doesn’t get her way. We’ve gotten into dozens of arguments
already. Could be that I’m a Gemini and she’s a Capricorn, but our
visions between makeup and wardrobe don’t always synchronize. And
sometimes her team keeps you too long in the chair. We do need time
to dress you,” she says in a huff.
    I wince at the thought of that chair
as Zoe methodically stabs. Getting my face made up at the butt
crack of dawn is the worst part of the job. But I don’t want to
take sides between the makeup and wardrobe people so I try to
change the subject. “So how long have you been designing
costumes?”
    “ For movies?” The soft
swoosh of her thread sounds as I nod. She leans in and frowns at a
stitch before answering. “Over fifteen years. I tried the
runway-designing thing early on. I’m just too flamboyant.” She
laughs