a little bit of black with a little bit of pink

Overnight sensation

It's her third year walking in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show; Jennie Kim is quite at home among the flashing lights and glitter and lingerie, walking with a confidence few other models possess.

This year would be no different... if not for veritable overnight sensation Lisa Manoban, a musician on a meteoric rise, whom Jennie has had a crush on since the first time she saw Lisa singing covers on YouTube. For the first time, Jennie will be sharing a stage with the object of her affection, and she can't promise those feelings remain a secret.

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Jennie's make-up station--a lighted mirror and a tabletop covered with a mess of makeup and hair products, sits toward the end of the row, allowing her to look down the long row of identical tables and watch the pre-show party. The room is chaos. The deep bass of some Top 40 song, cranked up to fill the huge room, pounds deep in her bones. Producers in identical suits and headsets rush back and forth, with nervous young assistants on their heels. Cameramen try to squeeze their equipment through the crowd. Make-up artists toss supplies to one another, and set assistants hoist massive, extravagant, wearable pieces of art onto step-ladders, waiting to attach them to costumes. And in the center of it all are the models. Glowing. Gorgeous. They give interviews, make faces at each other in the mirrors, snap selfies with stylists, catcall their friends, dance in their seats as their hair is curled and blown out. The mood is electric backstage, the party atmosphere painstakingly crafted to turn nerves into confidence and put genuine smiles on the faces of the Victoria's Secret Angels, before the biggest show of the year. And it works, for all of them--except Jennie.

On any other day, at any other show, she would be among them, perfectly at ease. This is her third year walking in the show--she's not one of the famous centerpiece models, but she's an old pro, steady and experienced and beloved. Confident, naturally. Except today.

Her stylist finished early, leaving Jennie made-up, styled, photo-ready, and the idle moments before they get into position have allowed her thoughts to creep in and twist her stomach into knots. Getting desperate, she digs into the Pink branded bag gifted to her a few days previously and finds her phone. Pushing her earbuds into her ears, she pulls up the song, presses play, and turns up the volume until the soulful sounds of a girl and a guitar drown out the noise all around her.

"Always fall asleep when you're waking, doing the math on my hands... counting the hours to the time zone you're at was an unseen part of the plan..."

Jennie closes her eyes and breathes deeply, slouching lower in her chair as the singer's voice washes over her. This is one of her all-time favorite songs. It's a cover, performed live at a tiny, impromptu show over six months ago, recorded on a cell phone and posted to YouTube. Every so often, grainy screaming from the audience drowns out the music, but even still, it's well-worth listening to. Since the day she discovered it, it's been her go-to relaxation song, settling her nerves and steadying her heart.

Until today.

Jennie's nerves have nothing to do with the show, or the flashing cameras, or the other girls, or even the lingerie she wears. No; the true irony of the situation is that the butterflies flitting between the knots in her stomach stem from the fact that the voice in her ear, the same voice that usually calms her, is singing live, right now, out on stage, warming up the crowd as one of the headlining performances of this year's fashion show.

The audience members in the video scream again: "Lisa, we love you!"

Lisa Manoban. In just under two years, she'd moved from playing shows at local bars to the opening act on a pop star's world tour. She recently released her first album that is still climbing the charts. She's gotten airtime featuring on songs with RnB singers, she's performed with rock bands, she's announced her own tour to begin early next year--she's exploded to the forefront of public consciousness. But Jennie has been following her career since its inception, since the day she stumbled on a video of one of Lisa's early shows in the back of a bar and fallen irrevocably in love with the pretty, smirking blonde with the lilting golden voice and the ability to belt out everything from pop to country to indie rock, with a special passion for live covers.