Catwalk

by Deborah Gregory

  Ramon winces. “Who do you think I’m remodeling that bathroom for—not me, you know?” he counters, sitting slouched in a chair, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead with a cloth. My mom puts her hands on her hips, hovering over him. Little does he know that she’s not going to take that dress off until she’s danced thirty times to her favorite disco song, “I Will Survive,” by Gloria Gaynor. Meanwhile, Chenille is hovering over her, stabbing at her frosted wig with a teasing comb, determined to get every strand in place, despite the fracas.

  “Look at all this trouble Chenille went through fixing my hair!” exclaims my mom. She refers to all her wigs as her hair, which I’m sure Ramon hasn’t even figured out yet.

  “That’s right. I’m missing a client,” Chenille brags. She raises a can of Aqua Net hair spray at a ninety-degree angle to Mom’s head like she’s coming in to the finish line.

  Reluctantly, my mom puts her pounce on pause to turn and acknowledge my presence—her other, unemployed daughter. “Did you get the job?” she asks, like she’s having déjà vu.

  The spritz has obviously put my mom’s memory on the fritz, because I already told her I didn’t get the job at the Jones Uptown boutique.

  “Aphro got it,” I grunt.

  Chenille rolls her eyes, which makes me Double-mint paranoid that she knows something she’s not telling me.

  “Aphro got it?” my mom repeats, looking puzzled. “I thought she was going to work for a designer. Ain’t she designing something?”

  “Well, she majors in jewelry design—and Laretha is gonna let her showcase her pieces at the boutique, too,” I say, down for the count.

  “Now I know you’d better go dancing,” interrupts Chenille.

  “I am,” says my mom, glaring at Ramon.

  “Well, I gotta go get ready,” I say, quickly.

  “Where you going?” my mom asks me.

  “Out,” I say, not wanting to also remind her that I told her I was going out with Ice Très tonight.

  “With the computer guy?” she asks, teasing me.

  “Abso-freakin’—not!” I exclaim.

  “You need to be going out with somebody who can fix something around here,” she declares.

  “She’s going out with Ice Très,” interjects Chenille, matter-of-factly.

  I’d like to whack Chenille with the wig brush. Instead, I just glare at her. She has the nerve to brush up against me as she saunters by me to her bedroom.

  I turn quickly to follow her. “How did you know that?” I ask, demandingly.

  “I know.”

  “Well, since you’re in such a chatty-catty mood, tell me this,” I badger her, “what were you trying to tell me the other day? Something’s going on in the House of Pashmina? Did it have to do with Aphro?”

  “Could be,” Chenille says in a tone that lets me know water torture won’t loosen her tart tongue.

  “Could be not,” I counter, tired of the tawdry tango.

  I slam the door to my private sanctuary and commune with Fabbie Tabby for a few tranquil minutes before I decide what I’m going to wear. “Turn to the power of pink,” I say out loud for Fabbie’s ears only. I take out my pink pullover crewneck sweater embroidered with diagonal hot-pink hearts. As I ponder whether to pad my bra, and which pants to pair with my soon-to-be-ample hearts, my pink Princess phone starts ringing. Now my heart—the beating one in my flat chest—flutters nervously. I pick it up, half expecting to hear Ice Très’s giggly voice querying me about my wardrobe choices for the evening. He’s the only guy besides Zeus, Bobby Beat, and Nole who genuinely digs riffing about the fashion groove. Instead, I’m greeted by Snorty by Nature.

  “Your ears must be scorching,” I say hesitantly.

  “On fire,” Aphro says, gruffly.

  There is an awkward pause, which I know means Aphro has something she wants to get off her equally flat chest. “So what do you want to tell me?” I ask, trying to get this party started.

  “Hold up. Lemme finish this personality quiz in CosmoGirl,” she says, obviously stalling.

  “What for? I can tell you that without any quiz!” I snap. “You’re a bieeeotch!”

  “Oh, shut up and wait,” she starts. I almost want to tell her, Not now, please, I’ve had enough “reality” for one day—between Caterina and her crew, you, Benny, Diamond’s designing drama, Liza Flake, Ruthie Dragonbreath, and Shalimar’s shadiness—but I hold my pink tongue and listen.

  “Listen, I knew you would put me on blast about taking that job,” Aphro says, defensively. Yet again, she’s displaying her annoying attitude. When Aphro and I first became tight freshman year, I always allowed it, because secretly I felt bad about her situation—being in a foster home. Now I just wish I lived in a house as nice as she does with the Maydells.

  “I don’t care that you took the job, but you coulda given me the heads-up before I had to hear about it from my assistant—in front of everybody else in the Catwalk meeting!” I exclaim, getting my piece out before she interrupts me like she always does. And I hate that about her, too.

  “Oh, hold on to your hot sauce, Miss Purr. I was gonna tell you, but you’ve been avoiding me like I gave you meningococcal meningitis!” protests Aphro.

  “Don’t be so dramatic with the teen diseases,” I say, twirling my hair nervously, but what I really want to blurt out is You gave me more than that—you sent me a computer virus! “Well, now that you’ve got a job, you can kick in for supplies for the jewelry.”

  Although I’m half teasing, Aphro isn’t. “Hello, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I went down to Chinatown today after I got a hot tip on some counterfeit Chanel ivory bangles,” Aphro states emphatically. “That backroom action down there is fierce. They look like Chanel, for sure, and I did kick in so I could get two dozen of them!”

  “Okay, well, whatever blows your circle skirt up,” I say, still confused. On one hand, Aphro seems down for the Catwalk twirl, but on the other, I sense she’s trying to sabotage my leadership.

  Right now, I’m more interested in strategizing my ensemble, so I interrupt Aphro’s flow for feedback: “Should I wear the pink velvet jeans with my sweater tonight—or the leggings?”

  “Wear the jeans and the pink shoes with the kitty pom-poms,” she suggests.

  I pull out my pink velvet jeans and search for stains. Once they pass my inspection, I plop them on top of Fabbie’s head as she lies on the bed in her royal kitty pose. She loves when I do that. Why else would she just sit there on the bed and not move the cover-up till she’s good and ready?

  “I gotta jet,” Aphro announces, abruptly.

  “Hold up.” Before I can press my edit button, I blurt it out: “You didn’t send me that virus, did you?”

  Aphro doesn’t even pause. “I’ma act like I didn’t hear that, cuz you’re tripping. I’ll see you at Nole’s for the fitting.”

  “Right,” I say, my cheeks flushed. “So are you going to tell me what is going on with you?”

  “No, because there is nothing to talk about,” claims Aphro.

  “Okeydokey,” I say, signing off. And Aphro knows what that sign-off means: I’m not buying it!

  I have to get ready, so I scurry to the bathroom to start beating my face with Glam Kitty cosmetics. First I apply meowverlous cream foundation in my shade—tawny beige—then set it off with a pouf of loose powder applied with a big plump brush. After I sweep my eyelids with moody pink frosted eye shadow, I apply shy pink shimmery booty dust to the corners of my eyes and my imaginary cleavage. Bobby Beat turned me on to this feline fatale finish—and it will be de rigueur for all the models in our fashion show. “Meowch,” I moan to myself when I approve my handiwork.

  My mom yells out from the living room, so I fling open the door to my pink palace to see what she wants. Like I thought, her plans are about to spring into action despite the original setback—Ramon’s fatigue. “We’re going. Don’t be back later than eleven.” Although Ramon has ditched the scruffy work gear and
changed into a striped burgundy shirt and black pants, he still looks like he just crawled out of a bomb shelter—frightened but happy to be alive.

  “I know. I’ll be home,” I concede, although eleven is not the bewitching hour I had in mind. I’ll probably get Ice Très to walk me home, anyway. Then maybe we can make out in the stairwell—right under the goofy red graffiti: Treva 4EVER.

  “Call me on my cell at ten o’clock sharp, and then when you’re back home,” Mom warns me, squelching my shot at a stairwell interlude.

  “Will do. You look nice,” I say, smiling.

  I hear my bedroom phone ringing and I run back to get it. “Hello,” I answer, in a breathy voice. This time it’s a distressed Angora.

  “What time is he picking you up?” Angora asks, sounding concerned.

  “He said seven o’clock but he hasn’t gotten here yet,” I say. “Should I call him?”

  “Absolutely not, according to The Rules,” advises Angora.

  “Oh, right,” I say, chuckling. Angora, the sound bite queen, swears by a dating manual that advises, “Never call a boy unless it’s to return his call. And never e-mail him first, either. No smiley faces. No recipes. No YouTube videos! Nada. Niente. Nietzsche. (The last part I added for good measure.) Exasperated, I sigh to Angora, “How is he gonna call if I’m talking to you?”

  “Call-waiting?” quips Angora.

  “No, I mean … I gotta go get ready!” I blurt out before I realize that Angora probably called for reasons of her own. “Wazzup?” I ask, concerned.

  “My father’s freaking out,” she admits. “He got his profit participation statement today from Bandito Studios and there’s no money.”

  “What, what?” I ask, confused.

  “The profit participation statement lists all the money the studio brings in from Funny Bunny everything, and how much they pay the creator—in this case, my father—after all their expenses. So the statement says they’re in the red—they’ve lost money, to the tune of five million dollars!” Angora explains patiently, but she’s having trouble breathing, like she does when she gets stressed.

  “What a sham-o-rama. That sounds like a three-card monte,” I say in disbelief. When Angora’s dad first moved to New York, he went to Times Square, where these shamsters used to always be set up with cardboard boxes, ready to empty tourists’ pockets with their confidence card game. In it, the mark—in this case, Mr. Le Bon—was tricked into betting his ducats that he could find the money card—for example, the queen of spades—among three facedown playing cards. Of course, the shamster had always perfected his sleight of hand, which guaranteed that the mark would always pick a losing card.

  “Je’Taime told him that he was going to get a lot of money—and apparently, Daddy has been counting on that. So we’re not going to Colombia for Christmas,” laments Angora.

  Now I feel bad for her, but still I can’t help giving her advice: “I think maybe your father should be taking advice from a lawyer and not from his psychic. Don’t you think?” I say, gently.

  “I know. He’s been on the phone with one all day. Now he’s running around the apartment so hyper I’m worried about him,” Angora confesses.

  “Well, maybe I can come over on Sunday,” I say, my head whirling with my weekend schedule. I have to do my homework, go over to Nole’s, and see Felinez.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Angora says, trying to catch her breath. “I don’t want to call Ms. Ava. And Je’ Taime spent all day making her famous gumbo, but Daddy won’t eat a drop. And his eyes look crazy because they’re so bloodshot.”

  “Well, make him some of your mint julep tea. Try to get him to calm down,” I suggest.

  “I know. I will. Well, have a good time tonight,” Angora says, sweetly.

  “Um, listen,” I interject, quickly, “have you heard anything?”

  “About what?”

  “About anything. About Aphro. About Liza Flake. About the bubonic plague. About the computer virus. Anything,” I say, exasperated.

  “Settle down, chérie,” Angora says, calmed by my cuckoo episode. “We have to be very careful how we deal with this situation.”

  “Now you sound like the AOL warning. ‘If you don’t know who sent you this e-mail, open with caution.’ What a crock!” I hiss.

  “I’m sorry, Pash. I’m not AOL, but I feel like saying the same thing. What else are we supposed to do except be careful?” advises Angora.

  “You’re right. Okay, signing off,” I say, giggling. “And don’t forget that I love you.”

  When I get off the phone, I look at my Glam Kitty clock on the wall and notice that it’s seven-thirty already. I’m starving and my stomach is now fueled by jitters. And now where is Ice Très? Spacing out, I stare at the Eartha Kitt poster over my bed. I continue floating, orbiting on the image of Chris “Panda” Midgett trolling with his PC pals at the Jacob Javits Center. Well, at least he’s probably having fun. I switch on my computer, which is now working, thanks to the shortie with a techno plan. I search through my files for my Catwalk competition document so I can examine the call-of-show lineup for our fashion show. Scrolling down through my files, I start to feel creepy about the corrupted file that contained the virus. When I asked at school, nobody else reported their computer going into deep freeze. Shrugging off my feelings, I numbly start reordering the lineup of my fashion show. Definitely the canvas hoodie with the graffiti cargo pants should go before the chiffon drawstring gown—and not the other way around. After fifteen more minutes, I decide to ditch Angora’s advice. I pick up the phone and dial Ice Très’s cell. It goes straight to voice mail. I listen carefully and leave a squeaky message. I don’t want to sound like I’ve hit the panic button, even though I have. We were supposed to take a bus down to Lenox Avenue together so we could get to Native around eight o’clock! Obviously that’s not gonna happen and he hasn’t even called to cancel. Suddenly struck by lethargy, I force myself to get up and finish getting ready. There is no way Ice Très would stand me up. Nobody would primp up their plumage just to pluck out my kitty whiskers by standing me up. Would they?

  I shake off such feline-foolish thoughts and sashay for myself in front of my full-length mirror after I’m dressed. Staring at my long reflection, I smile. There is nothing like head-to-toe pink for earning personal purr points.

  “Meowch!” I squeal out loud, staring at Fabbie, who is still propped on my bed without a care in the world. I’m so glad nobody keeps her waiting. I know it would make her fluffy fur wilt.

  By eight o’clock, the phone still hasn’t rung, so I pick it up just to check that it’s still working. Now I’m bona fried. I call Ice Très’s cell phone again—and this time my message is extra-crispy. “I don’t know if you’ve been washed up by the Pineapple Express, but if you have, I hope you’ve drowned!” I whisper fiercely into the phone before hanging up. Instead of feeling better, I feel guilty. Ice Très told me that the reason his family had moved from Hamilton, Washington, to the Big Apple was that their house had been flooded several times by tropical waters originating in Hawaii. Suddenly I’m flooded by horrible thoughts: What if Ice Très is trying to get back at me for getting him expelled? Maybe he sent me the virus! Nobody told him to write that corny graffiti in the school stairwell, but I bet he blames me for the Cupid misfire. Phase two of his get-even plan: he stands me up! All along I assumed it was someone in my house—but what if it’s the handsome hoodwinker hovering on the horizon with twinkling eyes and dangerous dimples?

  FASHION INTERNATIONAL 35th ANNUAL CATWALK COMPETITION BLOG

  New school rule: You don’t have to be ultranice, but don’t get tooooo catty, or your posting will be zapped by the Fashion Avengers!

  TAKE IT TO THE BRIM …

  Some of my friends in my neighborhood out on Long Island give me static about being in the mix at F.I. As a matter of fact, I don’t even say the name of my school when talking to my skateboarding brethren, because I don’t want to deal with their raised eyebrows and si
lly smirks. Since the news circulated around the bushes that I’m competing in something called the Catwalk competition, names like “Sissy-rella” and “primping pimp” have been flying around my hat, attempting to make a landing too frequently for my fly tastes.

  I also know that right across the street from F.I., the dogs at D.T. (don’t see any reason to spell out that school name, either) are barking big-time about the male students at F.I. Personally, I think they should stop with the haterade conventions and focus on student amalgamation that would force D.T. school officials to lighten up on their constricting dress code. I would have a problem with attending a school that prohibits me from wearing headgear. I know D.T. isn’t the only one with this kind of crimp in its pimp. My cousin Demeter goes to a school in the UK where you either lose the baseball cap or be moved out of the classroom and taught in isolation. Taking all these creative restrictions into consideration, I feel lucky to be a part of my school. I recognize that I’m a serious sneakerhead, which means I must bring the headgear—always. As a matter of fact, I hope that after hearing about my blog entry, the F.I. faculty will take a cue from Bell Academy in Bayside, Queens (which my younger sister, Olivia, attends—and yes, I come from a big, tight family), by instituting “Crazy Hat Fridays.” At that progressive school, students are encouraged to wear their most creative headgear on a designated day. F.I. was, well, designed for that type of display in creative thinking out of the hatbox.

  Wearing lids isn’t about exuding attitude—it’s about claiming your angle with “hattitude.” These days, I’ve been hinged to my mink zebra-striped-brim hat, because my dad made it for me. My dad, Mr. Cronus Artemides, is an old-school tailor in every sense. The man can make a suit that would put the House of Armani out of business. I’m not bragging—this is a serious fact. My father was trained by his grandfather back in Greece. I don’t think you can get that kind of training anywhere else, from what I can see. No disrespect to the fashion design situation here at F.I., either. My father could have been a world-class designer, but he had to raise a family and has been successfully running his own tailor shop for two decades in Manhattan. Unfortunately, with the escalating greed of New York landlords, my father may be forced to take his tailoring skills elsewhere. I really think that’s foul. Let me ask you: how can you expect a small retailer to pay $10,0000–$30,000 a month on rent for a retail operation and still be able to pay all their other expenses that we’ve learned about in Retail 101 AND expect them to turn a profit? You don’t have to be a student at Fashion International (okay, there, I said it) to see that is straight-up pimping. Now, I don’t want to go off on any retail riff here and now, but rather get back to basics: I plan on wearing my mink zebra-striped hat proudly to the Catwalk competition, where I will be taking the competition to the brim. And hats off to the winning house, cuz there’s nothing sissy-relish, or whatever, about winning a trip abroad and $100,000 in prize money—which could buy some serious Italian headgear.