Catwalk

by Deborah Gregory

  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!

  HERE, KIDDIE KITTY …

  A certain ambitious house in the Catwalk competition seems to have more than a few tricks up its sleeve—not to mention a “cat in a zebra hat,” but we won’t talk about that right now—even though we’re all wondering who’s scratching his belly and if he’s declawed. Now back to the house in question that Arm and Hammer built.

  First off, what offends us most are those annoyingly adorable and endless feline references that make us want to scream Ciao, meow! already. Secondly, there are the ubiquitious feline symbols—everything from goo-goo grommets to appliqués applied everywhere. And we do mean everywhere. If you haven’t had the pleasure of changing for gym class with members from this house, consider yourself lucky to be spared the annoyingly sappy sight of cutesy briefs with a Cheshire cat grinning on the rear view.

  But today was the last straw in the fun house: there was a recent procession of miniature models scampering in the school building. Okay, letting the cat out of the bag: it’s obvious we will have to endure kiddie kitties on the runway in a certain house’s fashion show.

  It’s also obvious that some of us will stop at nothing to reinvent the fashion wheel with their kitten-size talent—which will no doubt nauseate judges and guests in the process—in order to get their grubby paws on the prizes. We can only hope this feline flops like the ill-hatched marketing idea of recycling Scoop Away.

  It’s bad enough that the fashion business has always taken a lot of flack for, well, overheating its formula, ever since 1980, when Brooke Shields appeared in the controversial Calvin Klein jeans print and television ads at the ripe age of fourteen, proclaiming, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”

  That’s right, not all of us fall asleep in fashion advertising class, but some of us really should take a catnap to conjure up some new hat tricks for recyling the same ol’ ball of yarn, before the panel of judges take their front-row seats at the Catwalk competition fashion shows come June.

  Posted by Spadey Sense at 13:55:23

  7

  I wake up to the sound of my mother yelling in the living room. My bedroom is dark and I’m sprawled across my bed, fully dressed. I strain my eyes to see what time it is on the cat clock across the room. Ten o’clock. Rubbing the crust out of my eyes, I remember the afterglow of floating on the subway, encased in my pinkalicious bubble in Zeusland—until I came home and was hit with the sight of Chenille in drab gray. I barked at her, “Where are my shoes? I know you hid them!”

  But now that I’ve been rudely awakened, in more ways than one, I try to drown out who my mother is yelling at in another room; it’s obviously someone on the phone, because the heated exchange is limited to her booming voice.

  I prop myself on my fifty pink velvet and paisley pillows, gazing peacefully at Fabbie Tabbie, who is perched in the chair at my desk, gazing at the computer screen, where the Catwalk blog is still up. I was reading the blog because I was paranoid that there would already be rumors about my Zeus rendezvous posted online, but I drifted over to the bed, daydreaming about said rendezvous, before I passed out. Now I realize how silly that is—not the daydreaming part, but indulging in paranoia as a pastime. Or maybe not? Good thing Fabbie Tabbie is keeping tabs for me.

  “You’d better keep up, Fabbie Tabbie,” I mutter in approval. “Because in fashion, one day you’re in—furballin’ with the Fendis—and the next day you’re out with the kitty litter.”

  Fabbie Tabbie slowly turns her head, gazing at me with those Avatar smoldering eyes. I still don’t move. Not yet. I’m determined to languish in my daydreams about Zeus until I’m forced to face my dreary reality, but I can’t wait to give Fifi a finger-lickin’ report tomorrow at school—and to see Zeus and fall down the rabbit hole all over again. I’m also bringing Fabbie Tabbie to school tommorow for the Pet Pose Off. “You have to look purrfecto,” I coo to Fabbie Tabbie. We’ve been practicing prancing together for months in the courtyard. I don’t understand why Nole Canoli is putting my paws to the fire on this one. He doesn’t even let Countess Coco’s paws touch the ground, let alone those of his two cats, Penelope and Napoleon. How does he think Penelope is going to maneuver on a runway? “Mañana, we’re gonna knock Penelope back on her haunches.”

  Right now there’s a soft knock on my bedroom door, but I don’t answer. I’m still not in the mood to deal with Chenille, who probably wants help with her holas—or maybe this time it’s her English homework.

  “Pashmina?” my mom calls out, entering my bedroom without waiting for a response.

  I sit straight up, noticing that her eye makeup is smudged so she looks like a raccoon. Clearly my mom is rattled about something. I just hope it has nothing to do with me.

  “Fabbie Tabbie—go to bed!” orders my mom. Fabbie hops off the chair and scampers to her bed. Now Mom turns her stern attention to me. “I called you earlier, but you didn’t answer. Why didn’t you pick up your phone?”

  “Oh, I turned it off. What’s wrong?”

  My mom slowly sits in the chair, folding her purple satin bathrobe across her legs like a trained geisha. “Can you show me how to use that Facebook thing?” She dabs at the corner of her eyes in a feeble attempt to remove the smudges without looking in the mirror.

  “I tried to show you how to do Facebook before, remember? It’s really easy. Even you can learn it. Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that,” I apologize, rising from my bed.

  “Not now,” she insists.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” I ask again. I plop back down against the pillows on my bed. She’s got me spooked.

  Slowly, my mom starts in on her tale of woe. “You remember Aradora, who worked with me but I had to let her go because, um—” My mom stops. Obviously she’s too rattled to talk. She starts massaging her forehead, like she’s trying to formulate her scrambled thoughts.

  I decide to help her. “You had to let her go because she was scratching herself all the time—like she was a victim of the current bedbug epidemic?”

  “That’s right. You remember. And I brought Lonni over to her house once to play cards with Aradora and her husband,” she continues. Lonni is one of my mom’s girlfriends; she runs a dance studio in Brooklyn—the Dancing Diablo. “Actually, Aradora was supposed to come over here to play cards. Remember that time we were playing cards and you came in with that guy to fix your computer?”

  “Yes, Chris Midgett.” I don’t want to think about him now and feel guilty. I just want to think about Zeus.

  “So anyway, that time I brought Lonni to Aradora’s house was the only time they ever met,” my mom explains carefully.

  “I got you, Mom. Go ahead,” I say, nodding.

  “Aradora called me today and told me that Lonni contacted her on Facebook, trying to add her as a friend.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you do—you can contact any member on Facebook and ask them to add you as a friend.”

  “Well, that doesn’t make any sense—someone is either your friend or they’re not,” my mom says.

  “It’s just a social networking thing, Mom,” I explain, wondering where the story is headed.

  “All right—whatever. So Lonni is saying to Aradora on this Facebook thing, ‘Let’s get together for drinks, girl, and you can meet my new boyfriend.’ So Aradora was like, ‘I thought you were married.’ Lonni responds, ‘No, I’m separated and I have this new boyfriend—and I’m in love.’ ”

  I nod for my mom to continue. In love. That’s exactly how I feel about Zeus after tonight, but I realize that now is not the time to tell my mom that tiddy.

  “So Aradora was asking Lonni about the boyfriend and Lonni said he’s really handsome—Dominican and Jamaican—and a fabulous interior designer. So Aradora is thinking, That’s funny, isn’t Vivian’s boyfriend Do
minican and Jamaican? It’s not like you hear that combo platter every day of the week. So anyway, she asks Lonni what is her new boyfriend’s name, and where did she meet him? And Lonni was acting all cagey and cryptic with that information, so that’s how Aradora knew something was ‘frying in fish town.’ That’s what she said,” my mom says, letting me know she thinks Aradora’s phrasing is corny.

  “Go ahead.”

  “So Aradora tries to milk Lonni for more information, like do you have a photo of him up on Facebook? Lonni says she did have some photos up, but she took them down because she’s trying to be sensitive to other people’s feelings. So Aradora thought maybe she meant the ex-husband, but something didn’t feel right, so she contacted me and told me the whole story. And she asked me to go on Facebook and she would show me the stitches of what Lonni said—or something like that—which I didn’t understand.”

  “You mean, the thread of the conversation?” I probe.

  “I guess so,” my mom says, crumbling. “I told her I didn’t go on any Facebook thing, but I appreciated her letting me know.”

  “So what do you think is going on?” I ask, even though I dread the answer.

  “Lonni hasn’t said anything to me about having a new Dominican Jamaican boyfriend, or one from the hinterlands, for that matter.”

  Suddenly, I remember that time when Lonni was here playing cards, so was Ramon. There was something about the way Lonni winked at Ramon. I saw the exchange. But I thought Lonni was just being Lonni—kinda wild and in your face. After all, that’s what Mom has always liked about her. Lonni used to be a customer at the Forgotten Diva before she lost fifty pounds from dance classes and then started working at the dance studio where she now teaches hip-hop.

  “So you think Lonni is, um, seeing Ramon?” I ask, shocked.

  “Well, I tried to reach him all day to find out. And I called her, too. She finally picked up the phone and brushed me off, denying it. Said she couldn’t talk because she was busy,” my mom says, choking back her tears. “That was him on the phone just now. He said you can’t own people, and he is a grown man and what he does is his business.”

  “So in other words, he was saying he is, um, seeing Lonni?” I ask, puzzled.

  “That’s what it sounds like to me,” my mom says, defeated. “I just can’t believe it. Interior decorator? He ain’t nothing but a handyman who works at a Queens hardware store. She’ll get hers. Lies always catch up to you. Always.”

  Suddenly, I shriek. “Omigod, Ice Très! I forgot I made a date with him to watch his wheelies at the skating rink—I mean, the duck pond.” I jump up and get my purse to turn my cell phone on. Sure enough, there are five text messages from Ice Très.

  “Why did you forget?” my Mom asks.

  “Because I ended up, um, hanging out with Zeus—the model, deejay, and graphic designer on my Catwalk team,” I explain carefully. Now is not the best time to tell Mom that our relationship has progressed. Embarrassed, I pick up a pillow from my bed to cover my face. “What a sham. That’s what I am! Ice Très is never going to stop quacking about this!”

  Suddenly, my precious missing kitten heels fall from behind one of the pillows. “Oh,” I say, surprised.

  “Well, I guess the other shoe has dropped after all,” my mom observes. “Go apologize to Chenille.”

  “Right,” I say sheepishly. I completely forgot that I had hidden my heels from Chenille in the first place. Fretting, I ask my mom, “So, what should I do about Ice Très?”

  “Well, whatever you do, tell him the truth. I can’t take any more liars around me. Never again,” my mom says, getting up from the chair. She tightens the sash on her purple robe as if she’s tying up loose ends. “I’m going to bed. You’d better go ahead and call that boy back.”

  “No, I’ll see him tomorrow at school,” I say, like a coward.

  My mom glares at me.

  “Okay, I’ll call him now.”

  “I think maybe you’re taking on too much. You always do that,” my mom warns me.

  “You think that’s what the dream was trying to tell me?” I shriek. “That I’m going to fall on my face?”

  “So you told Shalimar, I take it?” my mom asks.

  “Yes, I confronted her—or I should say, she confronted me and turned it into a showdown at the okie-dokie—right on camera!” I inform her. “Should I apologize to her?”

  “That would be a good idea,” my mom advises me.

  “Oy, I hate groveling.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  I send Shalimar a text: “Sorry about the shoe mix-up. Please accept my sincere apologies. Pashmina.”

  “So what are you going to do about the shoes?” my mom asks, concerned.

  “Oh, I’ll tell Fifi I found them. She was pissed, too.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant the shoes for your fashion show.”

  “Oh, right.” I take a deep breath. “Well, we still don’t have any.”

  “You’ll figure it out—you can do anything you put your mind to …,” my mom says, her voice trailing off. I can tell she just got a bolt of inspiration. “You know what? I’m calling Ramon back. You can’t fault someone for telling you the truth—but enough with the lies already.”

  My mom closes my bedroom door. I’m haunted by what she said: “You can’t fault someone for telling you the truth.” It reminded me of what Ice Très said to me outside school today. He was telling me the truth about the Shalimar situation, even if he was embarrassed. “She dangled, he angled.” I smile, thinking about Ice Très’s goofy smile and how much I relate to him. I’m just as desperate as he is to make it—big-time. But right now, I can’t think about Ice Très because it’s all about Zeus. My mom is right. Enough with the lies.

  I pick up the phone and dial Ice Très’s number, hoping he doesn’t answer. But he does.

  “Where you been?” Ice Très asks, concerned.

  “I got caught up in the Catwalk meeting,” I quaver, losing my courage to be honest. I blather about the Diamond drama before I blurt out the truth. “Then afterward I went with Zeus to the Barbiecue Hut.”

  There is silence before Ice Très responds. “Oh, so you can go out with him, but you can’t go out with me?”

  Now I feel guilty. “Okay, I can.”

  “Let me take you to the Lipstick Lounge, this new—”

  “I know all about it,” I interrupt. “But this isn’t going to be a repeat of Native, is it?”

  “I knew you would say that,” he moans. “No, there will be no repeat of the Native no-show. Just give me the chance for us to sit down and talk. That’s all I’m asking. If after that, you don’t want to have anything to do with me, I won’t ask you again, not even for a soda pop in the Fashion Café, okay? Do we have a deal?”

  “In principle,” I say, stalling. Now I feel guilty for different reasons, like I’m doing something behind Zeus’s back. But that’s ridiculous. I owe Ice Très this much for standing him up tonight.

  “Okay, we have a deal. And a date. But if you stand me up this time—then we will really be even!”

  “You won’t regret this, boo kitty. I promise.”

  I hang up the phone and sigh. I hope I won’t. One thing is for sure: I don’t regret my date tonight and how sparkly Zeus makes me feel inside.

  If I had known how quickly my sparkles were going to fade, I would have bottled the sensation. The next day, Shalimar Jackson wastes no time in flaunting my apology in my face. “Thanks for the ‘heartfelt’ apology. Don’t you wonder—how did cowards communicate before there was texting, huh?”

  My cheeks are burning, but I keep my mouth clamped shut.

  Shalimar eyes Fabbie Tabbie by my side in a large mesh carrier. “Oh. Since when are cats allowed?”

  I opt not to reveal sensitive creative info about the Pet Pose Off to my Catwalk rival. I can hear Angora’s gentle voice ringing in my head: “Chérie, sometimes the truth is just plain inappropriate!” Shalimar brushes off my silence as a
nother dis and flounces through the security checkpoint with J.B. in tow. It burns me that Flex, the security guard, doesn’t even ask her for J.B.’s access pass.

  But in my case—no such privileged posturing. “Access pass, please,” he barks at me.

  “Fabbie Tabbie’s only here for one day,” I protest. “And I’m checking her into the Petsey Betsey Lounge until she has her, um, business appointment after school.”

  “She needs an access pass,” snaps Flex. The towering security guard rolls his large eyeballs like he’s heard better explanations from preschoolers.

  I don’t want to go to Principal Confardi’s office to procure the pass but I have no choice since Flex isn’t flexible.

  “I thought Chenille was bringing Fabbie Tabbie to school?” Fifi asks me as we inch toward Mr. Confardi’s office.

  “I did ask her. She curtly informed me that she is not my assistant in the House of Pashmina!” I relay.

  Fifi holds the carrier while I fumble in my pink suede bag for Fabbie’s health documents. “Maybe you should apologize for accusing her of hiding your shoes.”

  “Maybe I should apologize for being taller, too.”

  In the administrative office, we gingerly plop down on the bench outside of Mr. Confardi’s office.

  “You know, she’s just jealous of you,” Fifi advises.

  “I know,” I say, weary from the stress of sibling rivalry. “It’s not my fault Chenille didn’t get into any of the houses. But what did she expect? She’s a freshman with no track record except in drab attire.”