The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1) (3 page)

The car lurches to a stop at a red light. Danny spins around. “Oh, you’re not sleeping! I was worried I was going to have to wake you. I hate interrupting someone’s peace. Although you didn’t sound too peaceful.”

I frown.

“You were mumbling all these things.”

“Like what?”

“I couldn’t understand much. Heard the words
man
and
quilt
a couple times.”

I concentrate on the outside world to forget my inside world.

“Must be the stress from the competition,” he says when I don’t speak for a long time.

“Yeah.”

When we pull up, there are swarms of people with flailing arms and smartphones propped in the air.

“Ready, sweets?”

“Ready.”

He smiles and hops out his door to open mine. “I got your back.” He extends one arm.

“I’m good,” I tell him, pushing out of the car, but he keeps his arm over me anyway. The stench of wool and perspiration prickles my nostrils.

I hear my name. It’s being screamed left and right. I also hear
number eight
hollered. I raise my eyes and get lost in the grand stone building before me. Voices and street noise die away. It’s just me and the block-long museum I’ve longed to visit since my early teens.

“My wife just saw us on the news,” the driver says, pocketing his phone. “She’d like an autograph. Can you do me the honor?” He already has a pen and a dollar bill out.

As we push into the museum, I sign my name across the creased green and white paper.

“Break a leg, Eight.”

And then he leaves through the revolving doors and I’m alone in the mammoth entrance, underneath a row of carved columns holding up a mezzanine. I step further inside, looking up and around like Charlie when he entered Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The walls stretch up neck-breakingly high, vaulting together into giant arches and wrapping around magnificent skylights. The octagonal desk at the center of the space has been turned into a giant vase enclosing a landscaped mound of orchids, peonies, and calla lilies.

“Thought you’d never make it.” A woman in jeans, a black tee, and a headpiece is standing right in front of me.

I didn’t hear her approach.

“We got to get going. The show starts in an hour. Follow me. Number Eight’s in the building, Jeb.” I don’t see anyone else around, so I assume she’s speaking into her mic. When we arrive in front of an elevator, she says, “I’m Cara, your assistant.” The doors open and we step in, and then they close and we’re whisked away from the beautiful lobby. “You’ll be on the third floor throughout most of the competition. The other floors are off limits, unless you’re escorted there. Receptions and events will take place in the Temple Room. I’ll be accompanying you everywhere.” She pushes her short, bottle-blonde hair behind her ear to clear her mouthpiece. Her roots are shockingly black.

The elevator pings and the doors open. Cara goes right. I follow. We continue down a short hallway toward an open doorway. The walls inside the vast room are wainscoted wood with a repetition of pale rectangular patches at eye level—probably where paintings were hung.

“They removed the artwork for insurance reasons,” she explains when she notices me studying the walls. “Your prep table’s over there. Number eight.”

There are eight stations with the same three-sided mirrors adorned with round light bulbs. The numbers stick out above the top of the mirrors, large and gold—impossible to miss. People are milling around. Most are dressed casually and sport the same headpieces as my assistant, though I spot some sitting in front of the vanities—other contestants. Two of them turn to glance at me. The third doesn’t turn, but his eyes follow me in the mirror. In spite of the light shining into them, they’re dark, practically black.

“Over here will be your living quarters,” Cara is saying.

We weave out of the room into a contiguous one. A long band of beige fabric stretches from floor to ceiling, spanning the entire width of the stripped gallery. We penetrate a flap in the middle. It’s a tent, but not just any tent—it’s something out of Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. The entrance is paved with a forest of potted trees strung up with twinkling lights. There’s a white oval table on one side of the garden, and a living area made up of a long couch and plush armchairs on the other.

I trail after Cara down a grassy corridor lined with the same lit trees. Every fifteen feet or so, there’s a zippered flap with a large number painted in silver. Number eight’s the last one.

“Your room,” Cara announces, unzipping the entrance.

We leave the garden theme behind, and enter a luxurious bedroom. It’s hard to believe we’re still in a tent, what with the hardwood floors, the velvet upholstered headboard, the king-size bed, and the mirrored bathroom in the back.

I must look awed, because Cara smirks. “Nice, huh?”

I nod.

“Okay…so before I go, I need your cell phone and any other electronic devices you might’ve brought with you.”

I dig my phone from the front pocket of my duffle and give it to her.

“Nothing else?” she asks, brows drawing together over her large brown eyes.

“Can’t afford anything else”—I give her a wide smile—“yet.”

“You can unpack later.” She eyes my bag. “Your stylists are waiting by your station. Go out in a bathrobe and slippers.” She juts her chin to the bathroom wall where a white robe is hanging. “I’ll pick you up and take you to the venue as soon as you’re ready. See you in a few.”

The second she vanishes, I drop my bag on the bed and sprawl out on the comforter. The duvet is so soft, it molds around my body. I don’t want to move; it’s heaven.

A shrill, “All contestants to the dressing room!” echoes from a concealed speaker. I pry myself off the bed, wondering if someone saw me, but the zipper is shut tight and there are no cameras on the cloth ceiling—at least none that are apparent. It was probably an announcement meant for everyone. I kick off my sneakers and strip. And then I look at the mess, and it reminds me of Aster, and I don’t want to be reminded of her right now, so I fold everything up and place it neatly on the wooden bench at the foot of the bed.

As I wait for the shower to heat up, I tie my hair up. In the mirror over the sink, I see Aster staring back at me with her haunted blue eyes. I fling the door of the shower open to allow the steam out. When it has completely blurred my reflection, I step inside and breathe. It feels like breathing fire and yet it’s the freshest breath of air I’ve had since leaving Indiana.

Too soon, I get out and dry myself in the honeycomb bathrobe that is softer than cashmere. I wonder if I’ll get to take it home. The number eight is stitched on the breast pocket in silver thread. The slippers are fuzzy and thin-soled. They fit a little big, but stay put. Casting one last glance around, I return to the grassy hallway and retrace my steps to the makeup room.

“About time,” a woman with black hair all the way down to her waist says. “I’ll be your makeup artist for the duration of the show. Amy, get your ass over here. We have thirty minutes left to get her ready!”

A twenty-something girl with pink hair and extra-wide hips scampers over with an apron full of pins and brushes. “Hi,” she says, smiling warmly.

“Get to work,” the makeup artist tells her as she wipes my face with a damp cotton disc.

Amy’s smile evaporates. In silence, she yanks my hair, while the other one stabs at my face with brushes and pencils.

“Is this the first time you’ve worked this competition?” I ask.

“Look up,” the makeup artist says. I still don’t know her name. Then she adds, “I’ve been here since the beginning. I was assigned to the past two winners.”

“Wow,” Amy whispers.

“I only work with winners,” she adds, looking straight at my reflection. “Let’s hope you won’t break my streak, Eight.”

“I have every intention of winning.”

Amy pulls on my hair as she brushes it, bringing moisture to my eyes. “This is my first time.”

“And your last if you make our contestant cry and ruin my work.”

“Oops…sorry, Leila. She has
a lot
of hair,” Amy says.

I do. I have a proper mane, like my sister. Unlike Aster, though, I brush mine out religiously and coat my strands with gloss and softener. If I didn’t, they would tangle and look like the frizzy mess she doesn’t mind sporting. We assume we got our hair from our father. We never met him, gone long before we were born, but apparently he was a handsome, dark-skinned man with a strong southern accent. Although Mom wasn’t a romantic, she loved our father. She never straight-out said it, but when I took an interest in stitching quilts, she unlocked the bottom drawer of her sewing table for me, and I understood…I understood so many things about my mother that day.

“Time?” Cara’s right behind me. I can see her in the mirror.

“Five,” Leila says.

“Okay, good. I’ll go inform Jeb.” She walks back out of the gallery.

The blow-dryer shuts off. Amy made my hair stick straight. I raise my hand to feel it. It’s smoother and softer than I’ve ever managed to achieve.

Leila rubs something into my cheekbones. It makes them shimmer like copper. “Your outfit’s in the dressing room. Amy will show you.”

Amy leads me to a curtained room with a purple velvet pouf and a floor-length mirror. I let the bathrobe fall to the floor, which makes Amy blush. People are so funny about nudity. We’re all just flesh and bones.

“Arms up,” she says, staring at the blue material she’s clutching.

She pulls the gown over me, making sure her fingers don’t graze my skin. The cool satin feels divine. I touch it, and it reminds me of the first quilt my mother showed me how to stitch.

“Same color as your eyes,” Amy says, pulling me back into the present.

It’s the exact same shade, which looks striking against my skin. Especially around the waist where there are large cutouts lined with blue stones. She hands me a pair of silver platforms. With them on, the hem of the dress barely brushes the carpeted floor.

“Jewelry,” she says, plopping a big silver ring and a pair of earrings in the palm of my hand. I slip the ring on, and then hook the blue chandelier earrings through my lobes.

I swing my head from side to side to admire my reflection. “Are the stones real?”

“I think so.”

Cara pops her head into the makeshift dressing room. “Good. You’re dressed. Let’s go.”

The remaining people in the room stare at me as I traipse out. The attention gives me such a rush that I feel as though I’m walking on air. We return to the lobby, turn left, and walk by the mountain of flowers toward a wing of dimly lit corridors filled with Egyptian treasures. We tread so quickly that I don’t have time to take everything in. Not that I can concentrate on much else than the imminent introduction ceremony. When I hear music and loud voices, my heart somersaults and I forget all about the artifacts and statues.

“Most of the events will take place in the Sackler wing,” Cara explains.

The music is getting louder. We’re getting closer.

“It’s where they keep the Temple of Dendur,” she continues.

“The Temple of what?”

“Dendur. A gift from Egypt to the United States in 1965.”

“A real temple?” I ask.

She nods. “It’s something,” she says, just as we veer through a disproportionately small entranceway—disproportionate because the room stretching beyond it is majestic, rising thirty or forty feet high with a twinkling, glass-paneled ceiling that echoes the vertiginous slanted wall of windows framing Central Park. I can still make it out even though the sky is dimming.

Dominic Bacci stands on an elevated stone platform between two structures—a thick pale arch, and a larger, columned structure covered in chiseled hieroglyphs and animal carvings that crop up in the warm glow of the overhanging projectors. To his right, on a gold bench, sit Josephine and Brook, and behind him sit the other contestants. A hundred—or perhaps more—round tables dripping with candlelight, white flowers, fine china, and jewel-toned spectators girdle the stage and the sharp, U-shaped pool filled with coins.

“Go,” Cara whispers, giving me a little shove into the room.

Shoulders held back, I step from obscurity into the light. Dominic spots me right away.

“Eight! Lucky number eight, you made it!” His voice erupts out of his microphone.

Everyone spins in their seat to stare. I put on my best smile and strut toward Dominic, the icy satin dancing against my naked skin. I set aside Aster and the mess that awaits me in Kokomo, and focus on this dream that has become a reality. One tiny dream bobbing in a raging sea of nightmares.

Chapter Five

Aster

Wow
. I’m not sure if I say this out loud or not. I don’t really care. The only two people in proximity are Dreadlocks, who gaped at me in the cafeteria, and another girl with a thick body and a black mullet. Most of the other inmates are busy reading or playing board games.

Dreadlocks swivels her head from the screen to me so many times that I snap at her. “What?”

After a beat she says, “You look a lot like that chick in the blue dress. What gives?”

“She’s my twin,” I admit, although we don’t even look alike anymore. They made her into some sort of Hollywood siren while I resemble Frankenstein’s daughter.

“What did I tell you, Cheyenne?” Dreadlocks scoots to the edge of the couch, bends at the waist, and holds out her hand. “Pay up.”

The hefty chick—Cheyenne—digs into the top of the V-neck tee she wears beneath her prison-issue jumpsuit and slaps a hand-rolled cigarette into Dreadlocks’ palm. I expect a prison guard to intervene, but the one present is too busy twirling the knobs on her walkie-talkie.

“I’m Gillian, but you can call me Gill,” Dreadlocks says, settling back into the battered couch.

“Aster,” I say, leaning away from her until the armrest jabs into my ribs.

“What you in for?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

“That must’ve been some pretty ugly nothin’,” Cheyenne pipes in.

“Self-defense.”

One of Gill’s orange eyebrows hikes up her freckled forehead. “They locked you up here for self-defense?”