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-Mia
Dangerous Hearts
Prologue
"Kia? Kia! Earth to Kia, hello?"
I nearly fell off my chair when I looked up and saw Rayna standing over me impatiently. "Shit girl, how long have you been there?"
She looked pointedly over her shoulder at the clock over the studio door. "Long enough. Geez, you get ridiculously focused, Kiki."
I bit my lip. I had asked her not to call me that. That was my mother's name for me, no one else's. But that wasn't a fight I wanted to get into at eleven o'clock at night.
Instead, I looked down at the fiddly piece I was draping. Focus wasn't even the half of it. I needed everything to be perfect for my garment for patternmaking class. "Focused. Yeah, I guess I am," I sighed ruefully, rubbing my hands over my face.
Rayna's impatience suddenly switched over to puppy-dog pleading. "Could you take a look at my bodice?" she begged, her big brown eyes wide and innocent. "I don't know what I did."
I sighed and stood up, stretching out the kink that had settled into my back. Patternmaking was giving me old lady aches and pains at twenty years old. "What's going on?" I yawned.
Rayna shook her head. "It just won't...fucking...work!" she spat hysterically.
I recognized the sound. It was the panic of the last minute. We were all in the studio late, under the gun to finish our final projects before midterms. I was sympathetic, though still resentful of the intrusion. I had my own work to do.
"Here it is, the fucker." Rayna gestured impatiently towards a scrap of floral chiffon she had pinned to the muslin bodice.
It took only a glance for me to see the problem. "Rayna, it's not on grain," I sighed. "That's why it's pulling."
"Oh fuck," she moaned, "I knew it. What should I do?"
"Nothing else to do," I said. "You need to cut it again."
Rayna made a little choking noise. "I don't have time for that!" she half-screamed. Several heads poked up from the whirring industrial sewing machines to stare daggers at us. "I can just fake it."
"You really can't," I warned her. "It'll never lay right."
"Whatever." She rolled her eyes, turning away from me to jab pins into the mannequin.
I waited a beat, and then turned back to head back to my work, shaking my head. She was making more work for herself by insisting on using the bad piece. Better to just start over again.
If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right. I couldn't help but hear my mother's voice in my head during situations like these. She had drilled that little saying in my head so hard that even now, with her gone these past eighteen months, I could still hear it as clearly as if she were standing right next to me.
I shook my head to clear it. I didn't have time to get wistful about my mother, not at this late hour. I knew she was in a better place now, one where her body wasn't slowly betraying her a little each and every day. She saw me through to college, she helped me get into Forest University on scholarship, one of the only Black girls accepted into the design program. And now I was here making her memory proud.
I bent my head back down again and picked up my needle. Padstitching the lapel of the suit I was working on was laborious, a step a lot of other people would have skipped. But not me.
"Hey!" Leilani Holt, our TA, burst into the studio, makeup still expertly applied even at this late hour. She punctuated her entrance by banging the door open dramatically, making sure all eyes were on her before she went on. She smiled a wicked smile and took a deep, breath before continuing. "You guys ready for this? They posted the internship recipients!"
She waited a beat while we all stared at her in shock. It was 11:04 PM, the day before midterm critiques began, why was the notice going up now? We all eyed each other in mute incomprehension....
Then pandemonium broke out.
I hung back, watching everyone else shove and stumble over one another to be first. The bulletin would still be there when I was done with this lapel. And besides, it was nice to be alone with my thoughts.
The door burst back open and Rayna stood staring at me. "Kia!" she shrieked! Three more girls piled behind her, all staring at me like I had sprouted another head.
I froze, needle held aloft. "What?"
"The Kingsley internship...," Rayna stared at me. "They gave it to you!"
Nakia
¤ ¤ ¤
"Attitude is everything," I exhaled.
And with that one last affirmation under my belt, I straightened my shoulders and stared down my reflection in my full-length mirror.
"You can do this." I wrinkled my brow and tried to look fierce. "You've already done it."
Landing the internship as only a sophomore was one thing. Actually succeeding at Kingsley Designs was going to be something else entirely. I was going to have to work harder than ever to balance this with my classes and oh hell, maybe even sleep once in a while. But if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right and there was no way I was going to let this opportunity pass me by. It would be an affront to my mom, her memory and everything I had worked for.
"You've got this," I scowled sternly, aping my mother's fierce expression.
I tried to convince myself that the confidence I was now feeling was genuine. I was smart; there was no denying that. Smart enough to have the highest GPA in my sophomore design class. I had a scholarship to maintain, and grants I still needed to apply for. All of that left very little time for a social life, much less a dating life. But that was the price I paid to be able to attend the most elite design school in the state. Putting my nose to the grindstone from day one is what had gotten me an internship and I wasn’t about to slow down now.
I figured there would be time to date and have fun once college was over.
I stood naked in front of my closet, smoothing my fingers over the row of hangers as I considered my wardrobe options. You couldn’t walk into the offices of Kingsley Design wearing just any old thing…
I needed something special. I needed something I’d made with my own two hands.
The 50s style cardigan was a deep saffron yellow color that brought out the gold tones in my caramel skin and made the gold flecks in my brown eyes stand out. I’d spent days pouring over different merino wools before deciding on this exact color. It was perfect.
I needed the right blouse…
I reached for one of my favorites - a deep V-neck blouse in a bright teal color that I had hand sewn to both flatter and minimize my generous cleavage. It was conservative enough that I wouldn’t look like I was trying too hard, and revealing enough to be fashion forward.
A simple A-line skirt completed the look. I pulled it free, holding it in front of my curvy waist, admiring the way it flared flatteringly over my hips. Each wave of fabric was perfectly uniform and I’d spent hours hand stitching the belt loops in a delicate pattern nobody would ever notice.
But I noticed, and it made me smile every time I put it on...
If something was worth doing...
That brought me to the shoes. My slim ankles were my favorite body part, and I had chosen a pair of kitten-heeled slingbacks with a delicate ankle strap. They were the finishing touch. A dash of something old to go with something new.
They once belonged to my mother. And though they pinched something fierce, I knew they were exactly the right choice. In some small way, I was taking her with me today. If she was watching, I hoped it would make her proud.
Once more I turned to my reflection and gave myself deep consideration. I smoothed down my thick, natural hair, wishing the humidity wasn't so oppress
ive. It was October, for heaven's sake, there was no excuse for how hot the weather still was. And there was no excuse for what it was doing to my curls. In a fit of frustration I wound it into my usual quick bun, slicking it back and tucking the loose strands behind my ears with a set of bobby pins.
