A Rhapsody Of Sorts

A Drabble Of Sorts: Trust Me, Petal

June 1, 2010.

The Katsy Finch Morning Show was kind of a big deal. I had never done a live performance on television before, and according to Victoria Gold, everyone in Britain would be watching. She was probably wrong, but I still promised Gio that I would do my best not to fuck it up.

However, it was barely nine in the morning and a grumpy French makeup artist had already called me a salope — which I suspected was not a term of endearment — three times over, and Gio was running around the studio like a chicken with its head cut off because I'd managed to spoil the performance before it even began.

"I don't know, petal — I reckon I could make you just as pretty as Lucien can," Matthew said, clapping his hands on my shoulders and kinking an eyebrow at me in the mirror as soon as Gio slammed the dressing room door behind him.

"Lucien is a professional makeup artist, and you've already had six mimosas. I could do a better job than you with my eyes closed." We both knew it was a lie. My hands had been trembling since we arrived at the studio, and I'd already dropped two champagne flutes on the floor.

Lucien, the makeup artist in question, had barely looked me in the eye before he told me that he'd have to pluck my eyebrows and cake me in no less than three layers of foundation to make me look halfway decent. Already on edge and practically thrumming with pent-up nerves, I'd shot him my nastiest glare and sneered a few choice words at him, prompting him to throw a fit and storm out of the room before he could get his tweezers anywhere near my offensively unkempt eyebrows.

With thirty minutes before show time and a cluster of stress pimples still visible on my forehead, I was left alone with Matthew to twiddle my thumbs and hope that Gio would be able to calm Lucien down enough for him to do my makeup without accidentally carving my eyeball out of its socket with an eyelash curler.

Matthew spun the chair around, interrupting the stare-down I was having with my reflection, and bent down to look me in the eye. "You underestimate me, Rosie." He flicked me in the forehead, and then reached behind me, his hand reappearing with a dozen eyeliner pencils grasped in it.

"Oh Christ, Matty, you're going to get me in even more trouble."

"It's not my fault this Lucien fellow abandoned his post. Maybe he'll appreciate me...speeding up the creative process a bit." He paused to sort through the pencils in his hand, whistling lowly as he examined each color with care. "Let's see. Shall we go with royal blue or sapphire isles? Both are horrendously similar, so I'm not sure. What do you think?"

"Matt," I laughed, pushing him in the chest. "He'll probably be back any minute, and he's going to start yelling at me in French again if his makeup's all amok."

"Shh." His cheeks were stained a rosy hue of pink and his blue eyes were bright with glee, as he tossed a handful of the sticks back on the table. "I'll just do one eye royal and one eye sapphire, as not to hurt either color's feelings."

"You're ridiculous," I hissed, but he was already uncapping a pencil and holding my chin in one hand as he moved the sharpened tip towards my eye. "Don't stab me."

"I'll be gentle. Promise." His tongue darted out between his teeth as he twisted it in his mouth, biting down on it in concentration before he touched the pencil dangerously close to me eye. I felt him slowly draw across my bottom eyelash line as I tapped my fingers on my thigh in anticipation. "Hey," he said, pulling away and cracking a smile, "that's not half-bad."

"Let me see." I started to turn back towards the mirror, but he gripped the arms of the chair and held me in place.

"Nnnnnope." He grabbed my face again. "It'll be a surprise. I'll even use the same color on both eyes. Trust me, petal. This is easy-peasy."

"Hmm." I clutched the armrests in tight fists, my back stiffening as I felt my nerves jumping around in my belly.

"Close your eyes," he murmured, and I did without hesitating. I heard him grab a few things from the vanity table, but I was less interested in what he was doing than I was in trying to stop myself from vomiting.

"Don't get too fancy," I forced out as I felt him skim a brush over my eyelids. "It's daytime telly — wouldn't want to frighten the grannies." Maybe him doing my makeup had started as a joke, but it felt more serious now. He was being careful, lightly gliding the bristles over the creases in my lids and blowing the loose remnants of shadow off my cheeks. When I felt him smooth his thumbs over my eyebrows, I screwed my eyes firmly shut and pretended that he knew what he was doing.

He laughed under his breath. "You're gonna have to tell me how this concealer stuff works because I haven't a bloody clue what it is exactly that I'm supposed to be concealing."

I opened my eyes to walk him through it, picking out the correct color to match my skin tone from the massive palette of options Lucien had and shaking my head in disapproval when he asked if he was meant to smear it all over my face. While he dabbed at the bags under my eyes and the blemishes on my forehead, I watched him gnaw on his lip until it turned a rich shade of raspberry red. I wondered if Lucien had a lipstick in the same vibrant color for me to wear.

I sputtered when he brushed powder foundation over my face without warning, and then sneezed uncontrollably for at least a full minute when he got even more of it up my nose. Still, he carried on with his task, nearly jabbing my eye out with a mascara wand and getting more gloss on my teeth than he did on my lips.

"Rose," he began in a soft voice, reaching for a tissue and using it to wipe away the liner smudged in the corners of my eyes, "don't be scared."

I gulped, flickering my eyes up to meet his sincere stare.

"I can't help it," I said, shaking my head. "I can't believe I'm doing this, Matt. Me." I swallowed down the lump in my throat but he patiently waited for me to continue. "I'm actually doing this. I'm doing..." I waved my hand around my face, desperately reaching for the right words. "Music. I'm making music. Real music."

"You've been making real music for ages." He dropped his hands on my shoulders again and I wrapped my fingers around his wrists to hold him in place. "But now a few more people are listening. Like, a lot more people," he laughed.

I let out a long breath, licking the gloss off my top lip. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"You can tell me many secrets."

"Sometimes I think...I think I'm more afraid of succeeding than I am of failing," I admitted under my breath. Matthew frowned, tilting his head to the side. I squeezed his wrists tight, using him as an anchor on my mind — because if he let go of me now, I was afraid my thoughts would retreat into the depths of my conscience again. "This—this fame thing? I'm not sure it's for me, Matt." He rolled his fingers against my shoulders. "I'm not sure if I can do it properly."

"Rosie," he said, smiling sadly. "Don't sell yourself short."

"Whether this whole being a celebrity thing lasts or not," I continued, letting my hair fall in my eyes, "I'll be fine as long as I've got you."

"You've always got me, petal, " he said, crinkling his nose. "And you've got your mum, and your mental little brothers, and Fox — and I think you've even got Gio, if I'm being honest."

"You lot are all I need, really," I murmured, nodding along with him. "You're all I'll ever need."

We jolted apart when the door banged open, and Gio waltzed in, breathing heavily through his nose as he dragged Lucien in the room by the scruff of his neck.

Gio's dark eyes met mine as he sneered, "We've got five minutes before you're due out there, so you and your sodding eyebrows better—oi!" He paused, halting in his tracks and ignoring Lucien as he tried to flail out of Gio's vice grip. Sighing in relief, Gio glanced first to Matthew then back to me as he said, "You look...well, I suppose you'll do all right like that."

I spun my chair around to look in the mirror. Matthew stood behind me, grinning sheepishly as he twirled a makeup brush around in his hands. He hadn't done perfectly — the eyeliner was a little too jagged, the shadow wasn't as evenly spread as it could've been, and the foundation might've been a shade too light — but Gio was right: I would do.

"Yeah," Matthew said, catching my gaze in the mirror, "I reckon she'll do just fine."