Beneath the Glitter: A Novel (Sophia and Ava London) (15 page)

Which is why she didn’t see it when Dalton completely cracked up. “Judgey McJudgeypants,” he repeated to himself, laughing so hard he could barely see as he pulled away from the curb.

LonDOs

Puppy rescue

Secret bottles

Rappelling up and down cliffs

Boys with nice chests

Giving boys a piece of your mind

LonDON’Ts

Boys with bad manners

Being late for meetings

Not answering your phone

Not letting your sister know where you are

Not letting your sister see your photos

13

kiss and makeup

“Need help. See you @Life.”

That was the note, in Ava’s big loopy writing, that Sophia woke up to that morning. At the time she’d assumed that it meant someone (?) needed her help and Ava would see her at their meeting at LuxeLife.

Sophia was at one end of a rectangular conference table in a conference room that looked like a set for a show based in 1984. The carpet was dark green pile and the walls were a golden-brown veneer and the pictures on the walls, framed magazine covers, were all from before 1981. Even the ficus plant in the corner looked like a relic from another time.

Only the people around the table looked modern. To Sophia’s right was Shoshanna Beck, the LuxeLife head of product, flanked on one side by two women in black and on the other by two men in black, who were simply introduced as “My Team.” On Sophia’s left, Corrina, the London sisters’ agent, was occupying herself answering messages on three BlackBerrys at once. Not at the table but behind it, giving her a commanding view of the proceedings without having to take part, was Lucille Rexford, in her wheelchair. Today she wore a black cable-knit sweater with black fur sleeves, black leather pants, and a black fur hat. Cuddles was dozing on her lap but he’d periodically give a little bark of surprise as he was jolted awake when he started to slip off the smooth leather of her pants.

Other than that, and the clicking of Corrina’s thumbs as she typed, the room was silent.

Sophia’s head was a different story.
If only you hadn’t gone out last night,
a voice inside whispered.
If only you’d stayed home then—

Then another voice asked,
You could have watched Ava text?

We could have talked. Made up.

But Ava had told you to go. To leave her alone.

I shouldn’t have listened. I should have known there was something wrong, should have—

Don’t even think about it,
the voice warned as she started twirling her gold bird ring around her finger. It was her nervous habit, and anyone who knew her well could tell she was growing more anxious by the minute.

Sophia had dressed carefully for the meeting, wanting London Calling to make the best possible impression. She was wearing a red suede pencil skirt that came to her knees and looked both polished and chic with a matching red-and-white-striped boatneck sweater. The outfit presented precisely the polished but chic, reserved but fun, image she’d been hoping for. She and Ava were so young and while she knew that was part of their appeal, it could also work against them professionally. They had to appear twice as responsible, twice as hardworking, twice as dedicated, and twice as fun.

Being perfect but carefree was part of their brand. Being late was not.

Ava knew all of that too. Ava took their company as seriously as Sophia did. And Ava was never late.

There were three easels set up at the front of the room with large pieces of artboard on them that were covered. Sophia’s eyes went to them but in her mind all she could see was Ava’s note.

“Need help. See you @Life.”

What if the note had been a cry for help? What if “See you @Life” meant—

Sophia cleared her throat and addressed the room. “When you use that little symbol, the A with the circle around it—”

“The ‘at’ symbol?” one of the team suggested.

“Yes. Right.” Sophia picked up the pen in front of her to keep from twirling her ring. “That one. It doesn’t mean anything else, does it?”

“It can mean whatever you want,” another member of the team said. “Everyone has their own shorthand.”

Shoshanna gave Sophia a look of distaste through her black cat-eye glasses and leaned forward like she was leaning into a microphone at a hearing. “Symbols don’t play well for makeup lines. They’re too cold.”

“Oh you thought—no.” Sophia shook her head reassuringly. “This isn’t about our line. I’m just curious.” She turned back to the team member who had spoken. “Like what? What do people use it for?”

He shrugged. “I use it for ‘about.’”

“I know people who have used it for ‘along,’” one of the women said.

“What about ‘after’?” Sophia asked.

“Sure. I guess it could.”

Need help. See you in the afterlif—

That was it. Rising from her seat Sophia said, “I’m sorry but I have to—”

Cuddles gave a little bark and Miss Rexford a little snort as they both awoke at the same time. Miss Rexford’s head went left and right, and behind the smoky lenses of her glasses, her eyes blinked five times as though she was trying to remember where she was. As she got settled in her wheelchair, she seemed to realize everyone was looking at her. She snapped, “What are we waiting on? Where are you going? Let’s get started.”

Sophia said, “I was just going to find my sister. It’s not like her to be late.”

“On foot? Would you like to summon a horse brigade? Perhaps some hounds? Last time I checked it was the twenty-first century. We have phones for that.”

“She’s not answering.”

“Ah. I don’t rate your chances of being able to find her in a city of seven million when
AT
&
T
cannot as very good. We have a meeting, young lady. Let’s get started.”

Sophia lowered herself back into the seat.

Shoshanna nodded to the team and one of the assistants rose and flipped the covers off the two outermost easels. They held mood boards, one that said A
VA
and the other S
OPHIA,
with objects, words, and colors representing the two girls.

“Our idea for the initial season of London Calling for LuxeLife is to play off the fact that you’re siblings, one blond and one brunette, one who likes cats and one who likes dogs, different but related, with that special closeness but also tension that only sisters can have,” Shoshanna explained. She nodded to the assistant again and the cover of the middle easel was flipped back.

“We wanted something that real girls could relate to, but with a slight edge. Something authentic but aspirational. So the concept we came up with is ‘I Told You So.’ It’s a celebration of the unique relationship that sisters—and good friends—have, the push-pull, the similarities but differences, the joys, the fights, the…”

Sophia rolled the pen beneath one finger as she thought about the concept. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea, especially for London Calling. Their brand was all about united sisters and this felt catty, divisive, and not to mention a little—

Sophia stopped rolling the pen and looked down at the note as she’d transcribed it. “Need help see you @Life.” Maybe she’d been focusing on the wrong part.

Who would Ava go to for help?

Liam! She pulled her phone from her pocket. She didn’t have Liam’s number but she could get it from Hunter if she—

“Do we bore you, Miss London?” Lucille Rexford’s acerbic voice cut through Sophia’s thoughts.

Sophia turned toward her. “No, I just thought of a way to find my—
sister
?” Sophia gaped and all the heads in the room swiveled to look at the figure who had burst through the conference room door. She looked like she’d been blown there by the wind. Her hair was a wild tousled tangle, her outfit looked like it had been packed in a shipwrecked trunk, her cheeks glowed with the kind of perfect pink that only nature could achieve, and her eyes sparkled. She was wearing almost no makeup.

“Ava?” Sophia said, as though she wasn’t sure. Sophia thought she knew every one of her sister’s expressions, but she couldn’t quite read what was on her face now. It looked like exhilaration and … fury?

She watched with a mixture of fascination and horror as Ava dropped her luggage—
luggage?
—against the wall and slid into the nearest seat. Sophia discreetly pointed a finger behind Ava, indicating Lucille Rexford’s presence, but Ava apparently misunderstood.

Instead of turning around, she addressed everyone else in the conference room. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said. “But I’ve had an incredible morning. I volunteer at a pet shelter and this morning they got a call about a litter of newborn puppies and their mother who were trapped on Zuma Beach and about to drown.”

“What happened?” Sophia asked.

Ava faced her and it was like there were just the two of them in the room. “We had to rappel down the seawall to the beach. Then I calmed the mother down—she was so terrified she couldn’t tell the difference between a friend or an enemy—and Dalton gathered up the puppies and then—”

“Dalton?” Sophia interrupted.

“I
know,
” Ava said. “He is totally insufferable. Especially when he’s talking. Or breathing. But he did the most amazing thing, Sophia. One of the puppies got out of the basket we’d put them in and he threw himself after it, saving its life.” She shook her head. “It was incredible. And best of all, we found this.” She set a battered green bottle on the table triumphantly. “A message in a bottle.”

“What does it say?” Sophia asked.

Ava flashed an ecstatic smile. “I don’t know. That’s the magic of it. It could say anything. It could be a love letter or a treasure map or someone’s will or a dying confession! We can imagine any story we want.” Ava beamed around the table at everyone else as though expecting them to be as enthralled as she was.

But the LuxeLife team wasn’t looking at her, she discovered. They seemed to be looking through her, as though she were invisible. She turned to Sophia and saw that her sister was doing the same thing.

Then there was a little bark and an imperial voice from the corner behind Ava said, “Well, at least you’re not boring.”

Ava jumped and turned in one motion. “I didn’t know you were here, Miss Rexford.”

“Evidently.” Keeping one hand firmly on Cuddles, who was wriggling on her lap trying to get to Ava, Lucille Rexford’s eyes moved to Shoshanna and her team. “Come with me. All of you. Not you two,” she said to Sophia and Ava as they started to leave their seats. “Not you or your agent. You stay and wait.”

Wordlessly but as a group, Shoshanna and the rest of her team followed Charles as he wheeled Miss Rexford through the door.

Leaving Sophia, Ava, and Corrina alone at the table. Taking, Sophia thought, their entire deal, their future, with them. Ava opened her mouth but before she could say anything Corrina pointed at her and hissed, “Not another word from you. I mean it.”

Ava closed her mouth.

As they sat in complete silence for the next ten minutes, Sophia found the I Told You So concept growing on her. A lot.

I told you we had this meeting.

I told you to be more careful.

I told you that one day your reckless behavior would get us in troub—

Shoshanna and her team filed back into the room. They looked somber and wouldn’t meet Sophia’s eyes.

Lucille Rexford was nowhere to be seen.

As she sat down, Shoshanna pointed at the storyboards. “Somebody get those down. Out of here. We won’t be needing them.”

Sophia’s heart sank. There had to be something she could do, some right thing that could make this all okay. “What if—” she began but Shoshanna was already talking.

Animatedly. And what she was saying was, “—just great. After listening to you”—she looked at Ava—“our original concept felt tired. Banal. We realized we didn’t need to hit the sister note so hard—you’re sisters, that’s what binds you together. It’s the glue, the backbone to the story but not the story. The story is about that feeling of possibility, of the moment between childhood and adulthood, whimsy and responsibility, that you two capture so well.”

All six members of the team were scribbling furiously as Shoshanna went on. “The romance of the unknown, the things to come, the possibility of magic, of strangers in the night, old-fashioned glamour, accidents that act like destiny, lost wishes and found secrets.” Shoshanna stopped and looked around at them. “Can you feel it? It crackles.”

It did. Sophia’s body tingled with excitement. A glance at Ava showed she felt it too.

“I’m just going off the top of my head here,” Shoshanna said. “But I’m thinking a palette based around sea glass, muted grays and browns and greens, an ocean blue—”

“—or a series. The ocean at different times of the day,” one of the team members put in.

Shoshanna nodded, tapping the table in front of her, apparently the sign to write something down. “Good, remember that.”

“Soft wind-kissed blushes,” someone else said.

“Shimmery made-for-whispering lip glosses.”

Shoshanna’s eyes looked up as though she was remembering a prewritten speech and then she said in the voice of an announcer, “LuxeLife and London Calling are proud to present their new line, Message in a Bottle, embracing the eternal values of friendship, romance, adventure, Old World glamour, and New World possibility.”

“Message in a Bottle,” Sophia repeated, like she was trying it out.

“It’s good,” Ava said in a hushed, almost awestruck voice.

“It’s great,” Sophia agreed.

Ava looked at her and Sophia saw that there were tears in her sister’s eyes. “It’s us.”

Shoshanna was beaming. “We’re still thinking about packaging, although right now we’re leaning toward something smooth like sea glass or maybe sand dollars, and maybe having the lip gloss shaped like a bottle.”

“Or a perfume,” one of the team suggested.