Growing into the Job, Post 532: Retail Therapy, p6

Shanette Stevens eased her foot onto the gas, her manicured fingers drumming against the leather-wrapped steering wheel. The midafternoon sun spilled through the windshield of her gently humming Lexus, turning her gold hoops into glints of fire and tracing a soft sheen across her freshly glossed lips. The GPS guided her steadily toward the Vendare Center, just fifteen minutes out. Her nerves hummed a little louder than the engine.

Modeling. On a runway. In front of people. Her lips parted slightly in disbelief. Not because she didn’t believe she could do it - she could - but because she’d never done it before. That was the thing about the world lately: it was moving fast, and women like her - tall and commanding of figure, with a full, curving silhouette and natural physical charisma - were suddenly being asked to step into the light, do things like be models or run the government. About time.

And then singing? In public? Girl, she told herself, you better hydrate.

Grabbing her hydro flask and a draw of water, she tossed a quick glance into the rearview mirror - not at traffic, but at the little guy curled small in the back seat: Scottie. She saw how he was slouched in a zip-up hoodie far too big for his newly thin frame, earbuds halfway dangling from his ears, legs crossed like a fidgety kid trying not to get carsick. He was looking out the window with that soft, passive little expression of his, hands clasped in his lap like he was waiting to be told what came next.

Feeling himself being watched, he caught her eye in the mirror and hesitantly piped up.

“Um…Shanette? Shanette?” he asked, “Do you think…do you think they’ll have like… chairs for guys at this place?”

She blinked, cocked her head. “What?”

“You know, ones they let us sit in. Sometimes they don’t, and-”

“Scottie,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Baby, nobody’s gonna throw you in the corner with no chair. Just sit tight and don’t worry about it.”

“Oh. Okay. Okay.” He lowered his eyes immediately, retreating like a puppy reprimanded mid-whimper.

Shanette didn’t mean to snap - not really - but her mind was already spinning back to the runway. She needed heels. Real heels, not those sad kitten ones she wore to Far Horizons on casual Fridays. What if they didn’t have any in her size backstage? Her feet, these days, were big. She didn’t want to be that girl holding everyone up because her foot was too real for whatever plastic Barbie stilts they handed out.

She’d stop at Hera’s; she heard they had one at this new Vendare Center. She could see if they had something strappy, high, commanding. She imagined herself at the end of the runway: lights in her eyes, hips swaying slow and deliberate, her name called out over the sound system. And then she’d need them for the performance…her performance. Her voice. The spotlight on her, in a gorgeous, fancy new dress. She could look magnificent. 

She smiled at that thought - then again at the idea that little Scottie in the back seat would be watching it all, wide-eyed like a preschooler at his first circus show. And - for some reason even more thrilling - Dr. J will be there, with Josie and Lakshmi and Aubrey. The idea of him also wide-eyed, watching her walk, hearing her sing…that’s what excited her the most.  And they will all be like that, maybe, in fact, she mused, the whole crowd of little people, watching me, looking up at me. Shanette felt the hum in her chest turn into something else - nerves, yes, but mostly that quiet certainty that today, she was going to be seen. I am going to be-

She was roused from her reverie by a tapping on the back of her seat: Scottie, trying to get her attention. 

“Do you want me to carry your bag when we get there? When we get there?” he offered timidly.

She gave a single amused snort. “That’s sweet, baby,” she  said, “but Mommy can carry her own purse. We do have some shopping to do, though. You just try to keep up.” Or maybe I’ll have to find a stroller that’ll fit you. 

“I will try to keep up,” Scottie agreed, looking back out the window again, “I will.”

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