When it was Ornette’s turn, she felt hot like fire.  A fire ready to ignite the stage and impress everyone with her blaze.  She was a tiny girl.  She was never the star of the show.  It was her time, even if she got eliminated in the second round.

She went out and did her catwalk the way she had been instructed.  Her heels were high, but Fen had been careful to get her heels that were natural for her to wear before he fitted them into her bodysuit.

He stood behind a podium, holding a microphone for traditions’ sake, even though he had a second microphone at his collar.  It was just nicer to hold something when you talked in front of a crowd and Fen loved the attention.  For once in his life, he wore a plain tuxedo because the last thing he ever would have wanted to do was outshine his creation (and the man could have outshone Ornette if he put his mind to it).

He stood up in front of all of them, the three bears, the designers, and the businessmen.  “Good evening.  I’m Fenrir Charming.  Doubtless, you’ve all heard of my brand.  Tonight, I’m here dressing contestant number twelve, Ornette.  I want to give her the last name of Charming as well because she is truly charming.  As I’m sure all of you designers know, dressing a woman with only seven days' notice is asking a lot.  It’s asking a lot more if she doesn’t have the standard model frame.  Ornette is tiny.  When my name was drawn for the lottery last week and I got her, I thought I was so lucky to be selected in the first round.  When she came out to be introduced, I thought I was unlucky.  When she turned out to be Varner’s favorite, I thought I was lucky again.  When I got her in my studio and I realized again how tiny she was, I believed I was unlucky again.  But then Ornette started talking with me.  I won’t share with you what she said, but she lit a fire in me I haven’t felt in years.  Let me walk you through our creation.”

Ornette beamed when he used the word ‘our’.  It was so generous of him, she almost spilled her heart out onto the floor.  

“Her name, Ornette, means little eagle.  Let me take you through the different parts.”  He named the types of fabric, the types of stitches, and the inspiration behind each aspect.  He finished with, “What you must understand about this design is that it was able to come about so quickly because Ornette found beauty in my existing designs and wished for something that was a mild, but powerful, variation.  Each and every part of this dress was something I was familiar with making and could have made in my sleep, but she was the one who envisioned something so fresh.  She said she wanted to look like Venus, not the goddess, but our world and an eagle flying through it.”  He said his last line in such a breathy romantic murmur that Ornette turned to see his face.

His brown eyes were alight with the yellow reflection of her dress and all the lights on her.

He was in love with her.

He snapped out of it and turned to face the crowd.  “Thank you very much.”

After Ornette had been shown, Varner got up and spoke to the audience and the cameras.  “Now that you’ve met our models for the second time, I hope you’re getting more comfortable with them and choosing your favorites.  The next part of the show is the lottery we did at the beginning of last week’s show.  All the models will line up under their numbers and we’ll choose the businesses they’ll represent in next week’s episode.”

Ornette went and stood under her number.  Yilin was next to her but didn’t say anything even though they were quite close together.

The names were called.  None of them meant anything to Ornette.  She saw Desmond in the crowd.  He was easy to spot because of his white hair, but he wasn’t chosen.  

Her businessman for the next week’s show was a man named Joel Fibers.  He owned a sporting equipment business.  Ornette was deeply jealous of Jane’s man.  She got a soft drink company president.  If only!

After the episode would be a reception with drinks and food where everyone could talk to the models.  It was almost the exact same party they’d had on the first episode, except this time it was a more intentional speed-dating scenario.

Ornette was passed around from man to man to man, never getting anywhere near Fen, Desmond, or Crois.  Instead, she ended up paired with a businessman who confused her.  His name was Albert Gilt.  He was older, ordinary-looking, and boring.  Him possessing those attributes didn’t confuse her.  What confused her was why she wasn’t getting passed off to the next man.  No one came to claim her, so she just ended up stuck in a conversation with him where he droned about the unfairness of doing business in the new world.  He thought everything was rigged to make him fail.  

Having a conversation of that nature with a model from Sleeping Beauty Inc. was the most ridiculous thing Ornette could think of.  He thought his freedoms were being removed (she bet he had never been refused reasonable pay and resorted to selling himself in a form of legalized slavery).  He thought doing business in the new age was hard (she bet he’d never had his ass slapped).  He thought everyone was out to get him (she bet he’d never been thrown across a room or electrocuted for saying no).  Because Ornette couldn’t bang him over the head with her champagne goblet (she actually would have preferred to shatter it and stab him with the pointy end), she decided to just start agreeing with him as loudly as possible.  

“And then they started taxing the fuel,” Albert complained, his face getting redder.

“Can you believe that?” she uttered in the most dumbfounded tone.

“And then they started limiting how much fuel you could buy,” he went on, getting redder still.

“No way!” 

“They fine us if we go over the limit,” he wheezed.

“How dare they!”

He raised his goblet in Ornette’s face to make his point and then he fell on the floor.  He was having a heart attack.  Ornette got on the floor with him and yelled for someone to call a doctor.  She put her hand to his throat to measure his heartbeats.  Her bracelet fell against his neck and he gasped all the harder.  

There was a doctor in the building who came running.

He was the president of a medical supply company and he couldn’t do a thing except shoo helpless Ornette away from Albert and wait for the ambulance like everyone else.

It was quite the scandal.  The cameras were all over it.

When things quieted down, Ornette got back to her place as twelfth in line as they toddled the girls back to their rooms.  When she went through the revolving door, Desmond grabbed her again. 

“You need your bracelet back,” he said pleasantly, grabbing her wrist and switching her bracelet for the one Fen had originally put on her.

She wanted to question him.  She wanted to ask him a million questions, but as soon as the change was complete, she was shoved back into the circle of the revolving door and the little closet Desmond had opened was shut tight.  She had to catch up to the other girls.

Fen was waiting for her in the dressing room.  Apparently, he got to have one more moment with her for him to ensure the dress he designed was packed up properly for cleaning and then for auction.

“Thank you for saying all those kind things about me,” Ornette said gratefully, “but are you sure it was the right thing to say them?”

“What are you talking about?” he said pleasantly. 

“You made me sound so wonderful.  If you sold those designers and businessmen on me, it might be harder for us to be together later on in the show.”

He scoffed.  “I thought about it too.  I think it’s in our best interest if you go as far in the show as you can.  I don’t know which way it will go, but I decided I want to play the long game.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, breathless.

“It means I want us to be together when your contract is up, no matter what happens on the show,” he said with a look of determination on his face.

“Are you sure?  What if I do badly?  Won’t that be an embarrassment to you?” 

“Don’t do badly.  Kill them.”  He kissed her one more time and said goodbye.

His last words were still dangling in the air over her head when she lay down to go to sleep that night.  

He said, ‘Kill them’, but she didn’t think she could put on a better show than the other models.  She couldn’t beat Claudia.  The woman looked like gold even if she wore a dishtowel.