Rina stared at the crowd wide-eyed, yet to process her emotions. She knew this was going to happen. It was the reason she had been so skeptical about coming out during the fashion show. But now that it was in the hands of the public, it was impossible to take it away. Joel held her hands in his and pulled her along with him, going backstage where all the models were gathered and waiting. Rina could see the divided looks on the faces of the designers of O. S. N. While some of them were pleasantly stunned at the identity of the anonymous model, the unasked questions visible in their gazes, the others didn’t bother to hide the disgust they felt from the situation.
She could see it in the way they stood, defensive and angry. It wasn’t hard for Rina to guess what was going through their minds in those minutes. They probably felt bad for Joel, thinking he was one of her victims, and would never have let her into the fashion house if she hadn’t held something against him. And even if Joel barely noticed it, shepherding her away from their hungry gazes into the dressing room, Rina felt every bit of it.
And even though she knew she did nothing wrong, at that moment, she felt bad for Joel. There was no doubt that this was going to affect the sales at the fashion house, and although, Joel wasn’t thinking about it, at least not yet, it was the one thing that plagued Rina.
“Hey,” she turned around the instant they got into the dressing room, devoid of everyone. Joel closed the door behind them, his eyes searching hers. “Your sales at the fashion house…”
“Are you really thinking about that right now?” Joel questioned, a disbelieving look on his face. “The whole crowd wants to devour you alive, yet you are bothered about my little fashion house and what this would mean to us.”
“Somebody has got to think about it,” she sighed. “And besides, that’s all the crowd can do. Shout and yell, tweet and upload harsh words about me. But I am much stronger than that. I have been through it once before. What’s to say that I can’t handle it again?”
“Rina…” Joel breathed. “It’s not a wrong thing to worry about you, is it? I don’t know how you feel right now, but I know it is more than half the emotions I felt out there on the runway with you. And nobody should be made to go through that all alone.”
“I’m not all alone,” Rina would have said, but instead, she turned back into the room with her arms wrapped around her face. She didn’t want to have to think about what happened out there until she got home, so she plopped down on the stool facing the mirror, and pulled the drawer open, grabbing her purse.
“Rina,” Joel tried again. She could hear him further inside the room, planted right behind her. “Say something. Please.”
“Joel, you don’t have to worry about me.” Rina looked up at him with a smile on her face, even though it didn’t reach her eyes. “These things happen right? I didn’t expect them to accept me with open arms in the first place, after everything they’d been made to believe. I just wish they would hear me out.”
“I wish I could do something about this,” Joel started, with sympathy in his voice, and it sent a weird feeling through Rina, so much so that she resisted the urge to shudder. She hated it when people were sympathetic towards her, talking to her in that very tone.
“You don’t need to,” she replied, grabbing her vase of flowers along with her purse. “I can return the dress tomorrow, right?”
“You don’t have to come in tomorrow. I’m giving everyone a break over the weekend. You don’t have to come in too on Monday if you don’t feel up for it. I could easily send someone to pick up the dress at your cottage.”
“No,” Rina said a little bit too sharply, but it was too late to take it back. “I want to come in to work on Monday.” She wasn’t going to let the public tell her what to do. “I’ll return the dress then.”
Joel sighed for the umpteenth time and rubbed his face with his hands. He wished Rina would talk to him, tell him how she really felt. But from the moment on the runway when the crowd went haywire, Joel physically felt her putting up a high wall around herself, too high for him to scale through. And it made him hurt that she wasn’t talking to him.
“Oh my God!” Rita’s loud voice filtered in before she rushed in, her eyes frantic, waving her phone in front of her. “You won’t believe what the trending hashtags are on Twitter.”
Rina could take a wild guess, but she let Rita do the honors. “It is #sensationalbitch! #golddigger #RinaPowerisaslut.
“Rita!” Joel tried to stop her. He’d heard enough and he believed Rina had too for one night. But to his surprise, Rina snatched the phone from Rita and went through the contents, scrolling through the tweets, comments, and retweets. But what stunned Joel the most wasn’t that. It was the fury in her eyes as she got further into the content, worsening with every scroll. Although her face remained stoic, Joel’s gaze remained focused on her eyes, which went through different emotions, but never sadness.
“Here.” Rina handed the phone back to the model and flashed an exhausted smile their way. “All I need is a glass of dirty martini, tiny ice cubes, and a spot by the beach side.”
“You can come with me tonight,” Joel was quick to suggest. “I’ll get you through the backdoors easily so the reporters and the rest of the crowd won’t be all over you. We can talk about what happens next when we get to mine. Or wherever you want to be.”
But before Rina could respond, the doors were pushed open and some men in dark suits filed in.