If the Shoe Fits (Meant To Be #1) by Julie Murphy

She bites down on her bottom lip, and I’m pretty sure I’ve just asked for the one thing she can’t guarantee. She nods and marches off in the same direction as Irina.

I drop to the floor with all the items I’ve accrued and immediately begin to put any items back that I definitely can’t use. A trench coat. A sweater dress. A neon-yellow slip dress.

My eye lands on a shift dress with huge nude sequins. The fabric is some kind of synthetic satin with stretch. I pull it across the widest part of my hips, and I think it might work.

Irina returns with my requested tools and begrudgingly asks, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Yes,” I tell her as I stand up and begin to strip down with no mind for privacy. I step into the dress, and even though it’s meant to be oversize, it feels immediately too narrow.

“That’s a dress,” Irina points out.

“Not on me it isn’t,” I tell her, yanking it up to my waist in what is now a skintight pencil skirt. “I need you to snip out these straps and tape down the freshly cut fabric so it doesn’t poke out.” I point to something one rack over that’s white and billowy in shape. “What’s that?”

Irina steps through a gap in the clothing rack beside us and reaches for the item in question, returning with a long white beach cover-up.

“It’s a tent!” Irina says gleefully. “This is perfect.”

“Helpful,” I say, my voice flat as I take the scissors halfway up the front seam and then up the back, leaving only a deep V neck and a dolman sleeve.

I slip it on over my head and find that the fabric is sheer, so my black bra underneath creates a sexy silhouette. Pulling the two panels of fabric I just cut, I tie them in a knot in front of me and let the long pieces hang, creating a nice long line down the center of my body.

“Damn,” says Stacy from where she sits in a makeup chair. “I didn’t see that on the rack.”

“Oh,” I say casually. “This was definitely on the rack.”

Irina eyes me up and down. “It’s good.”

After we’ve sat through hair and makeup, Mallory and Zeke—who still has a job thanks to Anna—line us all up on the other side of the stage.

Jay peeks in from between the curtains with a camera in hand. “Visions! All of you! I come bearing good news. We thought we’d need a third judge to weigh in on this competition, so I am pleased to tell you that the Lucy Mackenzie has graced us with her presence on this fine day. Make her proud, people!”

My stomach plummets. As if I wasn’t already freaking out enough.

“His mom!” Chloe gasps. “Oh my God. This is a huge deal.”

“Uh, yeah, and not just because it’s his mom,” Addison says.

Sara Claire, in a fuchsia silk wrap dress, looks like she’s very nearly turning into a puddle. “Oh Lord. Moms hate me.”

Stacy shakes her head. “That can’t be true.”

“No, it is. A proven fact. My last boyfriend just broke up with me after his mom refused to give him her mother’s ring to propose. Said I was a firecracker and not the good kind.”

“I don’t think Lucy—I mean, Mrs. Mackenzie—would think something like that,” I tell her. “And everyone loves firecrackers!”

“Except when they cause forest fires,” Stacy points out.

I nod. “True.”

Sara Claire takes a heaving breath. “In fourth grade, my first boyfriend was Dylan Timbers and his mama told me that the only way she’d give up her son was if she knew the woman she was handing him over to could be a better mother to him than she could. I. Was. In. The. Fourth. Grade.”

I hold up a finger. “Okay, first off—men don’t want their partners to be their mothers…and if they do, those aren’t the men we’re looking for.”

Stacy holds up her hands and snaps in agreement.

“And second,” I add, “gross.”

Sara Claire throws herself against Stacy and me. “Hold me. I’m scared of mothers. Even my own. Especially my own.”

Stacy and I pat her on the back, and I say, “Well, at least you didn’t deconstruct his mother’s designs for her own fashion show the way that I did.”

Stacy grimaces. “‘Deconstruct’ is putting it lightly.”

The lights dim, and Mallory barks at us to get back in line.

“Ladies,” Wes says, “you’ll hit the runway one by one. There won’t be music, but we’re adding it in post, so just pretend you’re walking to music.”

“What if we’re off beat?” Jenny asks.

Wes looks at her briefly but doesn’t answer. “After we’re done, we’ll be lining you up onstage, and Lucy will have the chance to speak to you and ask any questions she might have. Break a leg!”

Luckily, I’m the second one on the runway and have little time to spiral into a panic. When it’s my turn to walk out, my hopes that it will be too dark to see Henry, Jay, or Lucy sitting in the audience of employees and random fans is immediately dashed. The lights are low, and the production lights on the runway are intense, but there’s still enough natural light bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows that the audience is fully visible.

I may have walked in a handful of student runway shows as favors to friends, but this is instantly nausea-making. What do I do with my hands? Do they just hang like limp spaghetti? How do models manage to look cool doing this? Maybe I just need to do the Zoolander pout. Tyra Banks’s voice telling me We were rooting for you rings in my ears.