She's All That

by Kristin Billerbeck

  Sophisticated. Elegant. Flawless. Best of the Season.

  These are the words used to describe the gowns in my employer’s current collection. Actually, the gowns I created under her name, Sara Lang. Lilly Jacobs. Doesn’t it just sound like a Saks Fifth Avenue Collection? Then the loft door jingles, and my passionate daydream is cut short.

  Kim Robinson, my roommate and fellow grunt at Sara Lang Couture, comes in and tosses her keys on one of our lone pieces of furniture: an old sewing table retrieved one time from near the dumpster. “Are you all right?” she asks.

  “I’m fine,” I say, thinking, How fine can I be? I’m the most overeducated, underemployed person on Sara Lang’s payroll. “Did anyone say anything about me not getting the job?” I ask.

  “Just murmurs. No more than normal when someone gets promoted. We meowed and then cleared out.”

  “I have to leave Sara Lang, don’t I? I mean, it’s now or never.”

  “It’s obvious what Sara thinks, Lilly. You’ll find something else. Maybe under someone else’s wing, you’ll find more options. Or you can always go back to fi—”

  “Don’t even utter the word!”

  I start pacing the whole twelve-hundred square feet of our loft—my high-heeled feet clacking on the cement floor with an eerie echo. “Nana’s gonna pass out when she finds out I didn’t get the promotion. I’ve been telling her this is it for us.” My Nana sold her house to pay for my education. She put up with my little design stint, thinking I’d be over it by now and back to finance—and good shoes. Alas, I’m a stubborn thing, and I really thought this dream was what I was meant to do. Nana, who raised me since I was a baby, seems to take a more practical view of God at work. “What does Sara Lang know anyhow? I can do this.”

  “Please, Lilly. Spare me the Evita speech. You’re best friends with Morgan Malliard. Let her wear your stuff, for crying out loud! Then, you’ll know if you have the talent or not, ’cause you’ll read about it on the society pages the very next day.” Kim’s got her head in the fridge, looking for a nonexistent snack. “That ridiculous pride of yours is going to keep Nana in a rental the rest of her life! If I had a friendship like yours, I’d use it! I sure wouldn’t let Sara Lang get any more of the credit. The last time that woman touched a sewing machine, it had foot pedals! She couldn’t use a computerized model if you locked her away with it for a year.”

  I sigh. “You’re probably right.” Of course she’s right. No one likes a whiner, and I’m sort of dwelling in that place right now. I’m the antithesis of yoga-calm Poppy. I’m Jazzercise on steroids.

  I just can’t use Morgan, though. Not after watching her own father toss her out into society to be devoured like she was a piece of meat thrown to lions. Morgan has been used enough. Her father actually asks her to preen when dirty old men salivate over her—thinking perhaps the additional testosterone will pry open their moth-ridden wallets. Ick! No, I just can’t do that to Morgan. If anything, I need to help her escape her gilded cage. Not add padding to the nest.

  Morgan is so beautiful, so put-together that when she befriended me in college, it made me forget I was an object of scorn, laughed at for my hair. Hanging around Morgan Malliard made me feel like the princess she is. She made me feel important. Naturally, I knew Jesus loves me for who I am, but in college, having Morgan and Poppy as friends was like having Jesus in the flesh, right in the dorm. They made me feel loved and accepted more than anyone ever had. They still do.

  “She’d put a sack on for you, Lilly,” Kim says of Morgan, and I know it’s true, which is the exact reason I won’t ask. Kim always seems like she doesn’t pay attention to anything going on around her, but she sees a lot more than she lets on. She’s the first to claim ignorance in any given situation and go on about her GED or lack of good breeding, but she’s got more sense than half the men in the Financial District, generally speaking. That’s not to say she doesn’t have her issues.

  My Spa Girls seem to inhabit a different universe from Kim and me. Morgan Malliard lives in a mansion on Nob Hill, wearing her father’s jewelry for a living at different social events. Poppy Clayton heals people by cracking their bones and doling out sage biblical wisdom, along with botanical herbs. I live a different existence, with debt the size of California itself, a futon, and an expensive education—that’s doing what for me again?

  My Nana, who raised me, is living in a six-hundred-square-foot attached studio, for which I feel fully responsible. She sold her house when my undergraduate scholarship ran out—never even told me she was selling, though it had been my childhood residence and the only place I knew as home. She didn’t put a sign out or anything. Just one day she had her crumbling foundation, Formica-countered house, and the next day she had a cashier’s check for $375,000 after taxes and mortgages. Welcome to the Bay Area. Doesn’t that sound like a mint? Yeah, it did to us too. Once upon a time, before I slept on a futon.

  I grab my bag, a freebie that has Sara Lang written across it. Ugh, like I needed that. I spray it with Lysol just to show Sara what I actually think of her. “I’m going to the spa this weekend,” I say to Kim. Translation: Don’t get drunk. I won’t be here to drive you home. “Morgan’s paying for it yet again. You’d think with all the spa dates I need, God would have seen fit to provide me a better income.”

  Kim is moving around the room with an iPod bud in one ear. “Quite frankly, if I had a friend like Morgan, I’d harass her to no end until she wore my designs. What would I have to lose?”

  This from the woman who thinks being the designated driver is the job description for roommate. And I don’t even have a car!

  “Is this what you planned for your life? Living in an airplane that never leaves the runway? That’s what it sounds like.” Kim yanks her hair up into a ponytail, pulls out the earbud, and changes the now-heated subject. “What are you doing until this weekend? Are you showing up at work tomorrow? What are you going to wear?”

  “Of course I’m showing up. I can’t pay for all this luxury,” I sweep my hands around the dumpy room, “without a job.”

  “I’m going out with the gang tonight,” Kim explains. “We’re going to diss Shane at Happy Hour. Want to come? Free food.”

  “No thanks.” I look down at my Bible and a twinge of guilt suddenly explodes within. “Maybe Shane deserved that promotion.”

  She lifts an eyebrow. “Being a Christian doesn’t mean you should lie just to be nice. Am I right? Besides, he’ll be worried about our opinions tomorrow, so I figure that gives us this one day to vent, but good. And what better way than over cosmopolitans and free food?”

  I toss the Sara Lang bag on the bed and grab some microwave popcorn while Kim gets dressed in her “bedroom,” better known as behind the Chinese silk screen partition—a Poppy hand-me-down. I chug my first Diet Pepsi of the binge. My eye wanders to a picture next to the fridge: Poppy, Morgan, and me in Stanford sweatshirts with mud packs on our faces.

  What a weird threesome: Morgan, the aloof, nearly friendless princess everyone loved to hate; Poppy, the flaky, hemp-wearing Stevie Nicks of the late 1990s; and me, at Stanford on a government grant, meeting their “affordable-education” quota. Three misfits brought together out of sheer necessity (no one else wanted anything to do with us). It’s amazing what social ineptitude can do for female bonding.

  We three dateless wonders somehow all ended up at a Stanford social, but there must have been something better going on somewhere else because we were the crowd. We had a dorm lounge, a TV/VCR combo and Edward Scissorhands all to ourselves. We bonded over Johnny Depp sighs, Now & Laters, and our love for Jesus.

  Most importantly, that night we learned that all of us were raised without a mother. Mine ran off when my dad was killed and left me with my Nana. Poppy’s was in and out of her life in between communes, and Morgan’s died young from an unexpected stroke. It was enough to bond us for life. And it did.

  Since that time, I’ve realized that it wasn’t all that accidental that the thr
ee of us are dateless. Morgan runs everything past her overbearing and ridiculous father, who never approves of anyone without a solid portfolio and an advanced age. Poppy, meanwhile, often runs dates off with her alternative- medicine diatribe, telling them how their headaches are caused by poor liver function and the like. She makes men feel completely emasculated, as though she’s saying, “You are absolutely void of testosterone. I cannot find a male hormone within you.”

  Me? As I’ve said, I am incapable of speaking properly when attracted to a man, so I tend to stick with men I’m not attracted to. With all our quirks, this makes for a rather passionless existence for all three of us. So rather than plan our weddings, we go to the spa and whine about the complete and utter lack of available men in San Francisco. When crises arise, we head to Spa Del Mar in central California. It’s a pretty cheesy spa, as far as luxury goes, but now that we (meaning Poppy and Morgan) can afford better, we’re too attached to our precious, dumpy Del Mar. Morgan always pays for my portion of the spa. She insists, and I’ve stopped fighting her. It’s like paying for 7-11 coffee for me: insignificant to her bank account. If we were going to the Golden Door or something, I could understand, but Spa Del Mar? Not an issue.

  Kim emerges from behind the screen wearing a micro-mini skirt, a faux fur jacket, and a matching furry purse. She takes notice of my silent disapproval. “Just never mind. It’s what I’m wearing. At least I have a place to go.”

  “Suit yourself,” I say. Or not, I add silently, unwrapping the popcorn and putting the bag in the microwave.

  Someone knocks at the door. “That must be my ride.” Kim opens the door, and her expression visibly falls. It’s Nate, our upstairs neighbor. He looks at Kim’s skirt, or should I say lack of skirt, and I see his face contort in confusion.

  “Hi, Nate,” I say from the kitchenette.

  “Hey, gals.” Nate lets himself in, as Kim has deemed his presence unimportant in her life and has walked away with the door open. “I just wanted to come by and let you know someone tried to break into my place today. The police came, but if you hear anything suspicious, just call them, okay?”

  Nate has completely remodeled his loft, and it looks like something out of an architectural magazine. He’s also an engineer, so the entire contents of his office look like a Best Buy store. Ah, the soothing style of slick, black particle board. Trendy, and oh-so-practical.

  We, by contrast, have a TV set. An old nineteen-inch TV set. With rabbit ears—pointed ineffectively at the raised window.

  “I don’t think the burglars will be by here, Nate,” I counter. “I mean, I bet they could get a whopping fifty cents for that sewing table on eBay. With shipping, it’s completely worthless. Sadly, I think we’re safe.”

  “I just don’t like you two down here alone. You want to borrow Charley for a couple days?” Nate asks.

  Charley, his mutt who smells worse than my musty loft? The dog with a draining ear issue? “No, thanks. I’m going away this weekend, so just keep an eye on Kim. Kim, do you want Charley?”

  Kim wanders back into the loft. “I can handle myself. I’ll wait for my ride downstairs.” Kim rolls her eyes. Nate is about as mainstream as they come, and therefore of no interest to Kim. She tends to lean toward bad boys who ride “hogs” and who are more covered by tattoos than not.

  Kim breezes by Nate, and he watches her go down the hallway. “She’ll have plenty of offers for rides in that getup.” He shakes his head.

  “You’re probably right, but you can’t tell Kim anything. At least she’s not driving, so I can keep my ten o’clock bedtime. Come on in for some popcorn. It’s almost done,” I say, listening to the quick succession of pops in the microwave.

  Nate saunters in, wearing his UC Davis sweatshirt and a pair of holey jeans. He’s just heavenly to look at, sort of a cross between Hugh Grant and Bill Gates. I wish he was my type, but he’s too into electronics and technological advancements for me. A conversation with him always includes acronyms that make me think he’s speaking another language. MIS, IT, JPEG—it all gives me a vicious headache.

  Maybe working with creative types is warping me, but life with Nate has got to be exasperating. And with Charley as part of the deal? It’s simply not negotiable. There’s not enough Lysol in the world. Nate has a view of the Bay Bridge and a complete lack of desire to “venture out” into the beautiful city he takes for granted. He’d rather see the world through the Internet, international phone calls, and ethnic takeout. His speed dial reads like a mall food court:

  Pradeep (chicken tandoori)

  Rupert (shepherd’s pie)

  Hao (sweet and sour pork)

  Junien (brie—not mall court fare, but what else do the French eat?)

  “So where you going this weekend?” Nate goes to my fridge and pulls out a Diet Pepsi for himself.

  “It’s a Spa Girls weekend.” Even as I say it, I feel my body relax.

  “Ah, girls and goop. Doesn’t get much better than that, huh?” He takes a swig of soda.

  It sure doesn’t. I flop onto my futon and grin at him. “If you’re destined to be a loser in this lifetime, a chemical peel can at least make you look good while you’re at it.”

  chapter 2

  Only half a day of work. That’s what I tell myself to gear up for the coming storm. I can feel the squall in the air as I think about my ride to work on Muni, San Francisco’s glorious (not!) public transportation. I wish I could sneak Lysol aboard. Or I should at least remember to wipe Vicks VapoRub under my nose to ward off the lovely combination of body odor, sweat, and stale cigarettes that stick with you long after you and Muni go your separate ways. The gift that keeps on giving. I sit down at the sewing table for a gourmet breakfast of generic Grape-Nuts. Someday, I think, I’ll be able to afford the real thing.

  It’s only a mere few hours until the smell of peppermint foot salts will put an end to this misery I call daily reality. It’s depressing that I should be wasting my freshly-straightened hair on this day, but as I said, if I hadn’t been out of the office thermal-reconditioning—I might be the hot, new, young designer at Sara Lang.

  Kim gets up, looking like the kiss of death. Her ashen skin and bed head plastered with last night’s gel give me a run for my money. She is smacking her tongue against the roof of her dry mouth, and I have to say, it’s grossing me out.

  “Do you have to do that?” I ask. “I’m eating.”

  “My mouth is like the Sahara. Too much alcohol last night. I always regret that.”

  I raise my eyebrows at her. “You’re not twenty-one anymore, Kim. I think your body’s rebelling. I know mine is. Sit down, and enjoy some fiber with me.”

  She rubs her forehead. “It’s downhill from here, isn’t it, Lil? First, we’re eating fiber. Next thing you know, we’re drinking prune juice and doing crafts in the rec room.” She lets her head fall in her hands. “Once, we were the talk of the town. The young designers coming in to take Sara Lang into the next millennium. Remember, they even did a story in the Chronicle. Now we’re has-beens and we haven’t even been anywhere.”

  “We’re not has-beens. They say fifty is the new thirty, so I figure we’ve got a good twenty years left to make it.”

  “Shoot me if I try that long.” Kim cradles her head in her hands. “At this rate I won’t even be able to afford good plastic surgery when this job has sucked out my very essence. I’ll be visiting one of those guys who advertises on billboards: “FACE LIFTS: $4,000.” She pulls her jet-black hair up, yanking her face unnaturally tight. “I’m going to get myself a respectable job that pays. I’m tired of walking by the window at Saks and drooling. Heck, the windows at Macy’s! Pretty soon, I’m going to be drooling over the windows at Target. And they don’t even have windows,” she moans.

  “You’re just saying all this because it’s the morning after the Shane debacle. We’ve had other designers rise beside us. It’s our turn, Kim! Sara’s making big changes, and this could be our opportunity. Maybe Shane got the job
because Sara has something better for us.”

  “No, Lilly, the Lang train has passed us by, and we’re pathetically sitting on the platform waiting for the next. Only, it’s not coming. It’s been and gone. Sara herself is becoming passé, which is the only reason she promoted one of us in the first place. She needs someone young to remind her that people actually have a social life beyond ruining their daughter’s lives.”

  “You’ll feel better after you brush your teeth,” I say, hoping the reminder of minty-fresh breath will spark some action.

  Kim grabs me by the shoulders and jolts me back into the moment. “What part of this are you not getting? We’ve wasted three years! Not to mention that you are wasting your college education and missing out on a decent job handling other people’s money! Avoiding dog-breath is not going to fix this. Good oral hygiene is not our problem, Lilly.” She looks at my collection of Lysol cans. “There is not a spray available that can wipe away the infection we know as Sara Lang. It’s over. She’s taken over, like a resistant strain of bacteria. She’s impervious to antibiotics.”

  “We’re on the brink of something big, Kim. I feel it.” But do I really? Or am I just avoiding the obvious: that maybe it’s time for a real job. “I had a plan. Granted, this diversion wasn’t in it, but we can take our designs to our own business. We’ve got everything we need. My sketching, your computer experience. All we need is a tad more work on color and we’re gone! This is the springboard to greatness, don’t you see?”

  “This is why you should drink, Lilly. At least the delusions I live under are fun. Listen to you, Pollyanna! And the thing is, you don’t even believe it. There’s no way you could.”

  She’s right. I hate that. Even with a hangover and eight piercings, Kim makes sense. I’m twenty-nine with a master’s degree, and I can’t afford windows. I can barely pay to maintain my mop. Without a steady dose of pomade and hours in the stylist’s chair, I’m Lilly from high school again, the girl with big hair and bad clothes.