Author's note: This began as a Halloween story then went too far off course and became to long for me to salvage it, but as I like the story I have decided to trim it down into chapters and post it here instead. I hope you like it. Thank you to JK Moreland for his copy-editing It is much appreciated. ~ellie
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"I won't ever ask you for another favour if you just do this for me," Adam pleaded.
"I just..." Grace looked into his face seeing the look he gave her. "What about..."
"I have asked everyone, including you, so many times that people have stopped answering my calls," he said plaintively exaggerating the situation.
"I am not a model, look at me!" Grace said in exasperation.
"I look at you all the time," Adam said softly, "You forget we grew up together, I know underneath that sack you call a dress there's a hot body. No one will even recognise you I promise."
Grace glared at him over the rims of her glasses. That was a backhanded compliment and it stung a little. She had never in her life been considered hot, occasionally she may have bordered pretty in some eyes but she was too short, too dull, too average. She had dated a little at college, mostly with equally nerdy guys but nothing very serious. Now a year after college, she and her best friend from childhood Adam had become a pseudo couple while waiting for the great loves of their lives to come along. They attended reunions and some parties together but it was only ever as friends. It wasn't that they hadn't tried to date from time to time, they loved each other as friends and it was only natural to want more, but the timing always seemed off and it had never really worked for them. Adam lived life at full speed and Grace found it hard to keep up, even as just his friend. She stood considering him.
"Come on Gracie, please. I really want to do this, it's an awesome opportunity. I can't do it without you." Adam was begging now.
"Only because you can't convince anyone else to go along with your ridiculous scheme, yet again," Grace sighed.
Adam saw her eyes roll as she began to give in and let a wicked smile slowly cross his lips. "I promise you won't regret it Gracie. Thank you Thank you Thank you! No one will even know it's you once I am done."
Grace let Adam pick her up and twirl her around happily. She knew, just as he knew, that she would eventually give in. He must truly be desperate if he had asked her in the first place over some of their more statuesque, beautiful friends.
"There are stipulations," she laughed at his enthusiasm. "You have to share the prize money with me."
"Fine, that's fine really. What else?" Adam put her down and stepped back looking at her imagining in his mind what he could do.
"No one and I repeat no one can know it's me," her voice had become serious, "Promise me Adam, I am still living down the last time I helped you out like this."
"I promise, I promise. Even your own mother won't recognise you," Adam flashed a beguiling smile at her. Knowing he had her and not wanting to waste any more time as his deadline approached he took her hand and led her into his artist's studio. "I need to get some photos and quick sketches and colour matches done first."
Grace looked around, he had known she would give in to his sincere pleading and had readied the room with a few bottles of their favourite wine and a huge fruit and cheese platter. She groaned realising she could have held out for much more than a share in the prize money but acknowledged it was probably too late to renegotiate terms.
"Why do you want to do this weird little show anyway? It's not like a huge spring show or anything." Grace asked as she plucked a small bunch of grapes from the platter and sat in the battered old chair she favoured in his studio. Adam was an artist who had fallen in love with textiles in high school. He had been screen printing alternative senior shirts for each of his friends playing with the colours and effects and different materials when he decided that was what he wanted to do forever. He had gone to an arts college that also had courses in fashion and business and had been determined to take on the large fashion houses of the world with his fabric designs.
He found that getting his fabrics and off beat designs noticed by eminent designers harder than he had planned on and increasingly looked for alternative routes to those people who dictated the worlds sense of what was in or out at any given moment. This latest venture of his though was too far out in left field for Grace to understand why he wanted to do it so badly.
"Are you kidding?" Adam looked at her incredulously. "This is where the money is, the Nuevo riche. They don't depend on celebrity or old world money and publicity they are all self-made or mostly. Designer brands mean nothing to what they like and will pay through the nose for. And..." he paused adding a flair of the dramatic, "They are gonna love me and in turn you, my Grace-ful one."
"Alright so explain it to me like I am a two year old. Step by step every little detail and we will see if I need to renegotiate my terms," she said with a smile finding his enthusiasm for this new project as infectious as all his other schemes.
"Walking Art," Adam said simply.
"No, Adam. The whole story from the time you heard about it and how," Grace picked up the glass of wine he poured for her and settled back in the chair.
"We really should get the initial stuff done first. This could take a while," he said. Noting the stubborn look on her face, Adam put down his camera and sat in the chair opposite hers picking up his wine and looked at her. He told her the story of how a few weeks prior he had met up with his brother on a boy's night out. Several of the guys from his brother's place of work had been there and they had started talking about the new club that opened up on Turbo Street in the CBD where the old theatre had been on the corner. Grace had look surprised, she had heard about that club. The first of that type to open publically in the CBD rather than hiding away in an industrial area somewhere away from the horrified general public's awareness.
