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THIS SEASON'S CONFESSIONAL managed to be even more elegant than the last.
Coco thrived on being prim and proper twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and she wanted that to reflect in everything she did. In her albums, her EPs, the show, the events she attended. My sister was the embodiment of elegance, her swan-like grace making millions of people around the world swoon.
Since Coco Says was to be as realistic as possible, the confessional was located in her Malibu beach house. She only came here in the summer for her "vacation"—a home away from home, she called it—even though I didn't think she needed it. Coco could vacation in her Calabasas backyard if she was being logical, but I guess people who had a lot of money liked to get themselves nice things that may or may not make sense to other people. Besides, who was to say I wouldn't buy a plane if I had the money for it?
The plush regal-ish couch adorned with throw pillows hemmed with gold thread sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the beach in what used to be her TV room, and everything seemed to sparkle beneath all the extra lights that had been set up in here.
I was getting ready to go on camera in a joint session with my sister, the wardrobe assistant struggling a little to get me into a skin-tight blouse, while one of the makeup artists rapidly ran a brush across my cheeks. It wasn't every day we had a wardrobe malfunction, but it happened more times than I liked, and Coco was usually the one on the receiving end, partially because of her perfectionist tendencies.
These clothes had been sent to the house prior to today. I'd put them on, and they fit perfectly. Today, the zipper of the blouse was refusing to go up, leaving half of my back open as the poor woman tasked with handling our clothes worked to get it unstuck. None of the backup clothes fit right, with me either not having the boobs or shoulders for them, so unless the other wardrobe assistant got back with the backup's backup in time, we were screwed.
"All right, can you arch your back for me again?" Laney asked behind me, and I did as she said, careful enough to not make any movements that would jeopardize my makeup. Chaos begat chaos.
In front of me, CJ chuckled. "This is such a disaster," he said.
"Tell me about it. Why me, right?"
"Like, you're the nicest person I know. Coco deserves this way more than you do." He tilted my chin up, and I blinked at the bulb that delivered a sudden burst of white light into my eyes. My head was still pounding, even more now with all this pressure, and I was very sure I needed about seventy-four hours of sleep.
The iced coffee Coco had gotten me on the way here—which was now sitting warm and unattractive on one of the vanity tables—was not helping my cause.
"Ha-ha. I see what you did there."
For the first time in five minutes, Laney laughed, right before admitting, "This isn't working. I think I'd just do a crisscross stitch on the back as a last resort."
