Thread: Paradise Isle  (Fades & Good Girls)

Oh , she breathed into the microphone, as much a surprised and delighted little exhalation as it was a word, in the same instance that eyes more kittenish than catlike found themselves at their very corner. A glimmer of the sly among the glitter of the innocent, she stood stock still as her quiet seconds ticked on, having only lifted her arms so as to be certain her gasp was not mistaken for something accidental when her voice caught the attention of the crowd's growing restlessness. They got her voice the same moment his shoes touched the stage, his concern carrying him from hither to tither. He's impatient , she stage whispered, the sticky warmth of her caramel voice marred by the electronic fuzz of her lips nearly kissing the machinery and leaving an artificial hum around the edges. Her eyes ticked from catching his motion just on the furthest edge of her periphery, tocking to the polite titters that her observation got from those gathered. As though to prove she was not merely commenting on the kettle's dark sheen, she lowered the microphone to her center and very patiently waited for him to come and see what was wrong. Cold feet? Curious showwomanship? A lack of prepared remarks? Ariana waited, because she liked to keep people waiting. Just a bit. Just a smidge of, yes, diva. Ariana also waited because she hadn't actually met the man she was quite literally signing her life away to. She hadn't had the opportunity to look him right in the gorgeous eyes until, well, today. You could read up on someone rather extensively in this day and age, but you couldn't really know them just from scouring interviews and social media .. something that he clearly understood. So if they were to pledge their lives to a man on the same day, in the same hour that they walked on stage in front of him, did they really have a way to know what kind of man he would be? Emilia had quite clearly been ready to take that plunge all four of them had to be at least a little willing to make that particular risk. But until she signed the contract, as her predecessor had pointed out, there was nothing to keep her or any of them from deciding to walk off the stage and out the door instead. From her ascension to the stage to the signing of her name, those were the moments she had to learn who Jeffrey Tremonti was. In a lot of ways, it was the same for those attending. For the press it might have been just another opportunity for a wild story from a recklessly idiosyncratic billionaire, but if he was truly intending to retire away to his paradise island after this audacious parade, it might have been their first opportunity for something real and unburdened by the ideas of what would or wouldn't be best for his brand, his name, his stock. But then, maybe they should have been assuming he was telling them the truth all along if Emilia's kneeling repose was any indication. Ariana waited, breath bated, and let her eyes fall shut like little glittering waterfalls when his hands encircled her shoulder and his warm breath swept down against her tightly coiffed hair. Them? , she nearly asked, to put that same coy whisper far above the microphone so only he would hear it. The press had been eating out of the palm of her hand since before she could articulate just why that gave her power, before she understood what that kind of attention-grabbing could be . It was also before she understood just how devastating it could be, to be a pop-culture lightning rod, when others tried to turn that power toward something for themselves. Could that power be turned to a single man, simply with the promise that it would all be given up? He had three others, he didn't need her. He could have simply called her bluff, if it even was that, and if she even would have considered it that. But instead he came to her, and the timbre of his voice tickling the top of her head and somehow reaching the tips of her toes crackled like a fire in winter. It could have been bullshit, whispered into grapefruit, mint and honey shampoo yet lingering. But it wasn't. He wasn't just trying to talk her into something that had already ostensibly agreed to do. He was encouraging her to do what was going to be best for her. And without skipping a beat, he was telling her that being his was going to be best for her, because there was not even a sliver of doubt presented between his encouragement to make herself happy and then to explain why she was here. They knew why she was here. Mm , came a breath that didn't even part her lips this time, an acknowledgement that she had heard him even if the playful twist of not exactly answering him remained in the quiet little hum. This one was all for him, no microphone required what was left for those who wondered what was being said was nothing more or less than her lips suddenly parting, a perfect O framed between her cheeks with a scandalous widening of her eyes. So much for the privacy of his little pat. .. or whatever those assembled might have then assumed he had said or done behind the petite pop star's backside from her coquettish reaction. Thank you so much, she added quickly thereafter, wiping the faux-shock from her face before he had made it all the way back to the podium. Instead, she graciously spoke into the microphone her thanks to his unheard words of encouragement even as her smile made one wonder how the actress had been so nakedly open in her emotion before him and yet it was the singer who treated all the world as a play. So, my life has been a little crazy for the last few years, she began, every bit the young woman starting a story over a frappe in a quaint little mass-marketed coffee shop rather than the poised, rehearsed pontification that might've been expected of someone expected to explain how they'd gone from the top of the charts to signing it all away. One hand left the microphone, gesticulating with measured and yet girlishly uncontrollable shifts and dives as she spoke and walked back toward the front of the stage. I don't think I need to rehash it all here I'm on Wikipedia, if you didn't know, but two years ago was probably the lowest point in both my professional and personal life, and it's been something of a roller coaster ever since. So aha , she's afraid that all of her successes are tenuous and she better cash out? she said, as though anticipating at least one of the attendant bloggers deciding. With a casual grace, she slid down to sit on the edge of the stage, right beside Emilia, her boots dangling into the dark below. If anything, sitting at her side, fully dressed, compared to her compatriot's nude and practiced kneel, was as much a show of contrasts as Jeffrey coming to stand at her back. She still feels guilty and responsible for the bad things that have happened in her life, and she wants to atone! she suggested, before her hand made a sharp little gesture to the side, metaphorically silencing her strawmen. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep my career going when someone used it to deplorable ends, that's true. I've had personal tragedy in my romantic life. That's true, she said, a little more somber, even as she tipped a bit to one side and pressed her shoulder against Emilia's, favoring her with a quick little smile. Emilia nudged her back with her own shoulder, smiling at her on the corner of her eye and the corner of her lip. But if I was here because I was running away from the possibility of bad things happening, I wouldn't be here for the right reason. Bad things are always going to happen. Even tropical islands get thunderstorms. Ariana kicked one of the heels of her boots up onto the edge of the stage, and her deciding to sit down became a matter more practical than conversational, unzipping the long zip up the back of her shoe so she could wiggle out of it and leave it standing just beside her. She repeated that with the other, and then hopped up onto her bare feet on point, the toenail polish matched the rest in pedicured pink, both boots lifted up in one hand while she worked the mic with the other like she was slinking away from a dorm room at 4AM. But there was no slump of the shoulders or dragging of posture while she did so. I've been in charge of my life and my career pretty much since before I knew what that would mean, and it's been the best and the worst thing I could have ever dreamed of. I've managed my brand, I've pep-talked myself, I've berated myself, I've written and co-written, I've sung and I've harmonized, and I've been excited and I've been tired. That's a lot for someone as small as me! she exhaled all at once in a burst of barely-exaggerated girlish exasperation, her foot making barely a sound when she stomped it with all the force of a tantrum and the bounce of her teased-out ponytail to prove it. She lit up, unsurprisingly, at getting another laugh. As tired as she was of Venti jokes, playing up people's assumptions of her was something that rarely got all that old. So I'm ready to let someone else make my decisions for me, she said, swinging her attention to the crowd while she reached center stage, and swinging her boots in an idle little two-foot chorus line at the side of her leg. I mean, I'd be the first to admit that I sometimes jump into long-term commitments without fully thinking them out, she said, getting a small buzz of amused recognition at her recent and very public return to bachelorette-status, but again, that's because I'm the one doing all the thinking for me! You're all starting to see the problem, she said with a knowing little sweep of her pointer finger from the microphone. I pride myself on being independent. I'm a dangerous freakin' woman, you know, she said matter of factly, bobbing her head to what she figured must have been common knowledge. I've spent the last several years with basically nobody even trying to tell me what to do, she added with a distinct note of pride, that her personal power and brand had lead her to be surrounded by suggestions and help, but almost never the presumption of authority over her own decisions or her own career or life. Her eyelashes fluttered, her head turned just so, and she peeked at Mr. Tremonti across the stage as though she were ever so gently leaning around a corner without really trying to let him notice her. But she made eye contact with him with a ferocity that wasn't at all unlike Emilia's fervent gaze into his own. I honestly don't know if that makes me more or less likely to listen if somebody tried, she invited. Her signatory sister might have been all too thrilled to give herself up on a silver platter, but he had encouraged her to do what made her happy. I might actually be kind of a brat, she suggested in more of a stage whisper, bringing the mic a little closer to her lips for emphasis. What made her happy, clearly, was seeing if she could push his buttons just the teensiest bit. And genuinely enough for a girl who had never had any reason to submit even metaphorically, there was something to be said for getting even the tiniest taste of it before she made her final decision, wasn't there?