Fake Plastic Girl

by Zara Lisbon

  “Listen up, everybody!” The megaphone made a high-pitched squeak as she turned it on. “Time to go home. Party’s over, fam.”

  Josie winced.

  “Oh boy,” she said. “By midnight this will be viral.”

  The crowd looked up, confused, then looked to each other, then collectively shrugged and resumed whatever it was they’d been doing.

  “What the hell?” Eva-Kate looked to Josie. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Tell them you’re gonna call the cops,” Olivia suggested.

  “No, no,” Josie pleaded. “Remember what we said about not making a scene? Just … just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Be polite, okay?”

  “Hey, bitches!” Eva-Kate turned the mic back on and screamed into it again. “The cops are on their way. Please leave before this gets difficult.” She looked back to wink at Josie. “Thank you.”

  This time they got the message, scattering like marbles in every direction.

  “Works every time,” Olivia deadpanned. “Everybody hates the cops.”

  “Tomorrow when she’s sober she’s gonna see herself on YouTube or TMZ, probably both, and scold me for not stopping her,” Josie told me. “I have you as my witness that I tried my best.”

  “To the pool!” Eva-Kate sang out, shooting one arm into the air. Immediately I forgot whatever it was Josie had said. I was too distracted by the way Eva-Kate looked like the Statue of Liberty with her arm up, bottle in hand like a torch, and the fact that I already couldn’t remember my life before her.

  CHAPTER 10

  WHIPLASH GIRL CHILD

  I felt nauseous in the back seat of Eva-Kate Kelly’s custom periwinkle Audi S7, but I didn’t care. I was squished up against the window next to Josie, who pulled her bony shoulders inward as if to avoid touching me. Next to her were London and Olivia, both embracing their hangovers with big bug-eyed glasses and floppy wide-brimmed hats. Princess Leia rode shotgun, Eva-Kate had insisted on it. An unopened package of Red Vines poked out from under the driver seat.

  It was nine in the morning and we hadn’t slept yet. Time had flown by, reclining by the pool, soaking up the stories they told, watching them like a movie, feeling more awake than I’d ever felt before. I drank Reign until I felt brave enough to get in the water and curl up comfortably into the inflatable swan, carelessly making faces for Spencer’s camera. I bobbed up and down with the water, going with the flow. I was in the swim. At sunrise we wrapped ourselves in towels and Eva-Kate ordered an assortment of pastries, which we ate by the fireplace while she told us about the time she went on a date with Robert Pattinson. Spencer said he didn’t believe her, so Josie got out the tabloid pictures, and Eva-Kate said, “See? I wasn’t lying. I can’t have you going around telling people I’m a liar.” But I didn’t care if her stories were real or not, I loved listening either way.

  Have you ever felt that what was happening to you was just too good to be true? That there was no way reality could be giving you exactly what you wanted, that it had to be a dream? A rule of thumb, something I’ve learned, is that when something seems too good to be true, it is.

  “Eva-Kate,” London groaned, pressing her palm against the window, “this car wasn’t designed for four people back here.”

  “So?” Eva-Kate shot back, making a right on a red light where a sign clearly warned that this shouldn’t be done. She was playing with the radio but wouldn’t pick a station, she just scrolled through them so that all we got were staticky snippets of songs spliced together.

  “We’re squished,” said Olivia.

  “Oh, you’re fine,” said Eva-Kate, fiddling with the dial. “Together you skinny bitches weigh a total of, what, a hundred pounds? Plus, we’ll be there in a second.”

  She barreled down the Pacific Coast Highway with her left arm dangling out the window. She took us zigzagging wildly in and out of lanes, sometimes veering into two lanes at once, always followed by a disgruntled blare of a horn, always slamming on her brakes at the last possible second.

  “You’re gonna get us killed,” London complained lazily, like she didn’t care one way or the other. I didn’t care either. I figured dying in a car crash with Eva-Kate Kelly at the wheel would be the best possible way I could die. A death like that would make the news. A death like that would be remembered, go down in history. That death would not be in vain.

  “Don’t you think if you’re gonna be driving like a fucking lunatic you should get a less conspicuous car?”

  “Okay, yes, here it is,” Eva-Kate said, finally landing on a station. “I knew I’d find it.”

  “Rob’s new song?” London made a face. “Ew, I hate it already.”

  Rob Donovan’s voice oozed from the speakers, soulful and melodic, accompanied by a catchy collision of strums and drum machine, a whirlpool of synthesized sounds I couldn’t exactly identify. Eva-Kate instructed us to be quiet as the song played. It went like this:

  When I met you we were young and wild

  I liked your soul, you liked my style

  I used to stay awake just to hear your voice

  Hanging on to every word like I didn’t have a choice.

  Now you say you’ve had enough, that I just make you tired

  But I’m gonna have to call your bluff, ’cause baby you’re a liar

  Every night you’re in my dreams I can’t pretend you’re not

  I liked your cries, you liked my screams, or at least that’s what I thought

  What can I do except pick up the phone and call

  Only to hear that empty ringing, or hear nothing much at all?

  Days like this I wish we’d catch some rain

  I could wash these memories from me and watch them swirling down the drain.

  Then the chorus came, and repeated itself three times:

  Look at you standing there

  You smile at me and you taunt

  You know what I need

  You know what I want

  Meet me in the hotel lobby

  At the Chateau Marmont.

  “Wonder who it’s about,” said London.

  “It’s about me, obviously. We were definitely still together when he wrote it, who else would it be about?” Eva-Kate asked rhetorically.

  “Dunno.” London shrugged. “Anyone. Or maybe no one.”

  “He thinks he’s a real artist now.” I could see Eva-Kate rolling her eyes in the rearview mirror. “It is the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard. Chateau fucking Marmont? Yeah, real artsy, congrats on being such an innovator.”

  “Dear Lord,” Josie said. “You guys should have heard him talking about how he has a responsibility as a public figure to talk about what really matters instead of putting out more catchy hits like everyone else is.” She sounded just as invested in the Rob-as-a-pathetic-relic-of-our-past as Eva-Kate was. “Does he not get that that’s literally what pop stars do? It’s not his job to be political, it’s his job to write fucking catchy hits.”

  “Oh, as if he writes his songs,” said Eva-Kate. “Unless by songwriting you mean jotting down notes and handing it to an actual songwriter.”

  I didn’t like the song. In an attempt to be experimental it was clunky and disjointed sounding. It conjured images of gulls butting heads and falling into the sea. But that didn’t matter—it was a Rob Donovan song and therefore, at this point, a guaranteed hit. Whether it wanted to be or not.

  “He’s always wanted to be a rock star,” said Olivia, “but he’s just not.”

  “Lol,” said Eva-Kate. “Hashtag that awkward moment when you think you’re a rock star but you’re actually just a more famous version of Aaron Carter.”

  “Who’s Aaron Carter?” asked London.

  “Seriously?” Eva-Kate was annoyed. “You don’t remember Aaron Carter?”

  “I don’t either,” Olivia admitted.

  “Ummmm, Nick Carter’s little brother?”

  “Okay, who the fuck is Nick Carter?” London giggled.
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br />   “From the Backstreet Boys,” Josie condescended. “You can’t pretend to be too cool to know who the Backstreet Boys are.”

  “I mostly grew up internation—” Olivia began, but was cut short by Josie.

  “We know, Liv, you mention it at least once a week, and this time it won’t help you look cool and mysterious because, guess what, the Backstreet Boys were international celebrities and you know it.”

  “Saying you don’t know who the Backstreet Boys are is basically just admitting to being a liar,” Eva-Kate agreed, clearly proud of her new adage.

  “Whatever,” Olivia said, and seemed to really mean it. “Justine, you’ll have to excuse these two, they romanticize the year 2000 so much you’d think it was the twenties.”

  “It’s true.” Eva-Kate wasn’t ashamed of this. “I’d say every year between 1995 and 2005. I have a crush on just about every song and every trend from those years.”

  That explained the clear plastic phone and answering machine pulled straight out of Nickelodeon Magazine.

  “Ugg boots and Juicy and tattoo chokers and those clunky chain-link bracelets from Tiffany’s,” Josie recited. “Nobody realized how tacky they were being.”

  “‘All My Life’ by K-Ci and JoJo,” Eva-Kate wistfully recalled. “‘Sex and Candy’ by Marcy Playground.”

  “Hey, what happened to Marcy Playground?” Josie asked.

  “You weren’t even alive until 2000,” Olivia reality-checked. “And there’s no way you remember pop culture from when you were five years old.”

  “Obviously,” Eva-Kate said. “That’s why we can romanticize it, because we weren’t around to see how it sucked. Just like you weren’t alive during Prohibition even though you act like you were.”

  “Maybe I was,” Olivia challenged her. “In another lifetime.”

  “Sure, maybe,” Eva-Kate said. “That doesn’t mean you can pull off a cloche hat, though, does it?”

  “Oh please, and you think you can pull off Juicy fucking Couture?”

  “That’s entirely different,” Eva-Kate calmly insisted. “My Juicy tracksuits are a part of a plan.”

  “A plan to look like Federline-era Britney?”

  “No. Well, yes, sure, but that’s not the point. The point is to bring back a moment in fashion that people believed beyond a shadow of a doubt was dead and buried for good. Sure, yeah, people still love their Juicy Couture, I’m not doubting that. It’s just that the last thing people are expecting is for Federline-era Juicy suits to make a comeback; that’s what will make it such an impressive feat when I single-handedly bring them back in style. Think of it as corpse resurrection.”

  “What a strange new way to play God.” Olivia feigned intrigue. “Very important work, Eva-Kate.”

  “Like whoever brought back tattoo necklaces from the nineties,” Eva-Kate ignored her and went on. “That was cool. Once those were over I thought they were going down in the embarrassing-fashion-choices hall of fame for eternity. Watching them reappear has been like watching the dead brought back to life, I swear.”

  “Who was responsible for the tattoo necklace revival?” I asked, completely enthralled with her train of thought. As far as I was concerned, her plan to bring back Juicy suits was a work of art.

  “That’s the thing.” She sat up excitedly. “No one knows. Whoever it was didn’t make sure people knew it was her. She was probably just some rando ‘it’ girl who thought it would be funny to wear one, and then people followed blindly, as they will with an ‘it’ girl. But I won’t make that mistake, everyone is gonna know that Eva-Kate Kelly brought back Juicy suits.”

  “Again,” Olivia joked, “I have to say that this project is not only important, but also admirable. Girls, do you think she’ll win first or second place at the Nobel Prize convention?”

  There’s no such thing as a Nobel Prize convention, you sycophant, I thought. I could feel myself getting defensive, but for no reason at all. Eva-Kate clearly didn’t need protecting from anybody, let alone from me. She could hold her own, I knew; she could stand her ground in a 9.5 earthquake.

  “They actually made one covered in Swarovski crystals that I’ve been bidding on,” she said, ignoring Olivia completely. “It’s up to twenty-five thousand right now. The tide is high, but I’m holding on. That thing is gonna be mine.”

  “I love this conversation,” said London. “And just FYI, if I had to pick a decade to live in, it would be the sixties so I could fuck JFK. Or wait, would that be the fifties?”

  Eva-Kate made a sharp left into a parking lot. Every car there was either black or white or silver and cost over $150,000. Eva-Kate’s stood out like a jelly bean. I could tell she was proud of this; watching the pleased sideways smirk creep across her face as she tossed the keys to a valet. Her pastel hair poked out beneath the black velour hood of the Juicy jacket with a diamond-encrusted J hanging from the zipper, and some kind of iridescent lotion was rubbed into the exposed skin of her chest bone. Her black-as-night sunglasses balanced precariously on the tip of her nose. This girl, I thought, this girl wants to be noticed.

  This was Soho House Malibu (also known as the Little Beach House), an exclusive club for the mostly rich and somewhat famous. I trailed behind the group into the lobby with Princess Leia in my arms, thinking that I had died and gone to heaven.

  “Excuse me, miss?” The hostess approached from behind and tapped me on the shoulder. I had to smile so wide it hurt to pretend she hadn’t scared the hell out of me. She wore horn-rimmed glasses, and her chestnut hair was in a suspiciously impeccable top bun. “We only permit service dogs.”

  Never trust a girl with a flawless top bun, I thought.

  “Oh … I…”

  “She’s with me,” Eva-Kate interjected, extending an arm between me and Top Bun.

  “But is she a service dog?” Top Bun tried again, the corners of her mouth turning down in a preemptively victorious smirk.

  “BB, listen.” Eva-Kate slipped her sunglasses onto the top of her head, knocking off the velour Juicy hood so that her hair cascaded out in a mesmerizing swish. “I’ve never seen you before and I’m here all the time, so I’m guessing that means you’re new. Now, I pay a lot of money so that I can feel at home here, and you bugging my friend about her dog is not making me feel very at home. So, if you could drop the snobby shopgirl vibe, that would be great. Unless of course you think it would be easier if I spoke to your manager?”

  The girl turned her smirk into a rigid smile, then turned the rigid smile into a gracious smile.

  “No need, Miss Kelly.” She waved us on. “Enjoy your afternoon.”

  “We sure will, BB,” Eva-Kate said, moving on as if the interaction had never happened. “We sure fucking will.”

  We walked on a Persian rug down a corridor decorated with vintage advertisements and oil pastel flowers on black paper. I followed Eva-Kate up a black wood staircase pressed against a glass window overlooking the gray ocean stretched out beneath us and into a terra-cotta restaurant.

  “Justine, come.” Eva-Kate beckoned me. “Sit next to me. You can have the head of the table.”

  “Me?” I felt my voice catch in my throat. My temples throbbed, I felt uneasy on my feet. I was simultaneously starving and repulsed by the idea of eating.

  “Yes, you. I can sit next to any of these morons any time I want. You’re the guest of honor.” She pulled out the chair at the head of the table and gestured grandly for me to sit in it.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  I walked to the chair, feeling the burn of everyone’s eyes on me.

  “Guest of honor, wow,” Olivia mumbled. “This one’s really getting the special treatment, huh?”

  “Don’t take it personally,” Eva-Kate said to me. “Olivia’s mean to everybody. You wouldn’t think someone so pretty would have such a chip on her shoulder, but she does.”

  “Love ya too, whore.” Olivia stuck her tongue out at Eva-Kate and slid languidly into her chair. The chairs were cream-colored suede
on mahogany legs that wobbled on stylistically uneven ceramic floors. Eva-Kate sat so that she was in between me and Josie with London and Olivia across from her. Princess Leia curled up complacently by my feet. Eva-Kate raised her wrist limply into the air, holding out her thumb, pointer, and middle finger to catch the waiter’s attention. He hurried over, pouring ice waters for everybody.

  “Hello, hello, I’m Dennis, I’ll be taking care of you this morning. Can I get you kiddos started with some drinks?” Dennis had surfer-blond hair and vividly white veneers. I couldn’t tell how old he was, but guessed thirty trying for twenty-four.

  “We’re ready to order, actually,” Eva-Kate yawned, looking down at the menu that was printed in burgundy onto ivory card stock. “Let’s do the lemon ricotta pancakes, three of those, please, two acai bowls, the avocado toast, four sides of bacon, and an Elixir of Life for everyone. Thanks so much.” She handed the menu over to him, resting her chin in her hand like an egg.

  “And…” Dennis looked around the table, trying to make eye contact with the rest of us. “Is that for … does anybody want anything else?” London opened a pack of sugar and poured it onto a dish. Olivia examined her naked fingernails.

  “We’re good,” Josie spoke up. “That’ll be all.”

  “All righty then.” He jotted the order down on a pad and stuck the pen behind his ear. “I’ll go ahead and get those menus out of the way for you.”

  “I do the ordering,” Eva-Kate said to me, leaning in. “It’s just sort of my thing. But you’ll love this food, trust me. And the elixir is honestly to die for.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said. “Yeah, cool.”

  “Oh, you’re just the cutest.” Eva-Kate squeezed my cheek between two fingers. “You guys, isn’t she just the cutest?”

  “Well, don’t patronize her,” said Olivia. “She’s not a doll.”

  “Can we not talk like she’s not sitting right here?” London proposed. “It’s creepy. Justine, you’re not a doll, are you?”

  “Um, no.” I cleared my throat. “No.”

  “I’m so hungover I could fucking die,” said London. “Does it have to be so bright in here? Jesus.”