The Fashion Committee

by Susan Juby

  My phone lit up in my hand and buzzed.

  Down in a second

  I stood in front of the four-car garage wondering WTF I was doing here.

  Tesla appeared around the corner of the massive house.

  “Hi,” she said, nearly whispering. “Bring your bike around here.”

  Massive beige pots with small, spindly trees in them crowded the walkway. Maybe these people were allergic to color.

  “You can just leave it here,” said Tesla, indicating a tall wooden fence.

  “Unlocked? This seems like sort of a sketchy neighborhood.”

  Tesla stared at me, super poised. Not laughing. Because why would she.

  “Okay,” I muttered, and left the bike leaning against the wooden fence.

  Heat waves rose from a pool set in a poured concrete deck that extended into a green lawn that rolled down to meet the narrow finger of lake. A pool and a lake. Some people have all the water features. Maybe there was a river around the other side of the house.

  I wondered if Tesla’s family left the pool filled and heated all year round. Maybe they fed five-dollar bills into an underground heater to keep it at optimal temperature.

  The door Tesla led me through was extra tall, like it had been built for a family of giants.

  “Come on,” she said, ushering me into a foyer the size of the one at my school, only cleaner. If I had to describe the design in one word, it would be “new.” When Tesla spoke, there was an echo.

  “My parents are away.”

  I stood on a bold black-and-white area rug.

  “Just you and your parents live here?”

  She nodded. “Our housekeeper used to live in, but she got married. Now she’s only here during the day.”

  Tesla wore a gray sweatshirt-y top, hanging off one bare shoulder, and a pair of leggings. Ballet slippers. Her hair was gathered in a loose bun off to the side.

  And once again, I couldn’t help but notice how golden she was. How perfect. How unlike this house, which wanted to be effortlessly classy, like her, but wasn’t.

  “Let’s go upstairs. To my workshop,” she clarified.

  I bent to take off my shoes, and she told me to leave them on.

  I followed her through a living room with groupings of cream and brown leather furniture, art that matched the furniture, and a stone fireplace that would have looked good in a Gothic castle, and we headed up a set of stairs.

  “I’m up here,” she said.

  We went up past a landing that probably led to an assortment of bedrooms and maybe a complete spa facility, to the third floor.

  Tesla’s habitat was immediately identifiable. Long worktables, mannequins, lamps, rolling racks, an ironing board, a steamer, and sewing machines.

  “This is my workroom,” she said.

  Life-size, framed photos of female sports figures and dancers hung on the walls. Voices came from invisible speakers. Tesla reached for a remote control. “Listening to the StartUp,” she said. “It’s a podcast about entrepreneurs. I like to listen to stories while I work. Makes me feel like I have a social life.” She fiddled with a button, and an eerie wail of Radiohead replaced the voices. Then the lights dimmed.

  The room was long and functional.

  “Are you an athlete?” I said.

  “Not really. I dance a bit. But I want to specialize in technical clothes. Yoga, ballet, running gear. And maybe board sports.”

  I turned in a circle. Four full-size chrome mannequins stood around the room. They wore boldly colored leotards and tights.

  “Speed skating,” she said. “And bobsled. I’ve been doing experiments with tech fabrics.”

  They looked like experiments with hallucinogenic color palettes, except for the one that looked like it had been dipped in mercury.

  “It’s cool.”

  Tesla smiled. I smiled back. The mutual smile-a-thon went on for too long and made my face feel tired and embarrassed.

  “So you went to Fab’s,” she said, at last.

  “I’m going to have to say it wasn’t that fab,” I said.

  “You should have known better than to go there on Fancy Friday. Seriously. What kind of a masochist are you?”

  A good question.

  “So what about you? Where do you get your . . . um, materials?”

  “I go with my parents to Vancouver pretty often. Sometimes we go to Toronto. Once a year we all go to New York. We’ve been to Paris. And I order fabric online if I have to.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I went to Victoria last year.” Again with the dickish comments.

  Tesla ran a finger lightly across her temple like she was feeling for the beginnings of a headache.

  “So show me what you’ve got.”

  Was I really going to show this girl whose house was as big as my whole dump of a school, a girl who went to Paris and New York on an annual basis, my drawings, which may or may not be total shit and confirmation that I have no taste and less talent?

  Screw it. I was.

  I reached into my backpack and started to talk.

  “It’s for this ten-year-old girl I met. She’s kind of haywire. Cute but not an easy life so far. She’s had to be a bit of a warrior just to, you know, survive.”

  Tesla’s perfectly shaped eyebrows rose in expectation.

  I pulled out my book like I was giving her my own beating, bloody heart.

  I opened it to the page with the drawing I liked best. It showed a girl who looked like Esther, kung fu fighting, all by herself in the dress. I’d abandoned the fashion figures. Gone with my own style.

  Tesla took the book from me and stared. And stared. Her eyebrows went up. Then down.

  She flipped a page and looked at the accessories for a long time.

  I stared at the floor, at the door. Tried to ignore the swishing noise in my ears.

  I wished I was riding my bike back down that long, beige driveway, turning onto the dark street, heading away from this princess in her suburban mega attic. I needed—

  “Wow,” she said. “I absolutely and completely love this.”

  Everything stopped. My breath. The blood in my veins.

  “It’s like sporty ninja golfer.”

  Her words were the water I’d been dying for.

  “It’s so charming and slightly fantastical without being too too. You have a great eye, John. Seriously.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Really,” she said. “Carmichael is going to love this. He’s all about Juniors. And you’ve done something new. It’s this amazing mix of street and classic. And these accessories. They are can’t even.”

  The grin on my face was too big. Embarrassingly huge. Showing too many teeth.

  “But you are never going to get the right material for this at Fab’s. You need something special. The fabric for this has got to have some future tense to it.”

  I had no idea what that meant.

  She slid herself onto a slim orange couch, kicked off her silver ballet slippers, and patted the seat beside her.

  I sat next to her and started telling her about the design. She nodded, cheekbones bronzed in shadows. When I was done talking, she put up a hand as though to stop me from moving, took my sketchbook from her lap, closed it, and placed it carefully on the coffee table.

  Then we were kissing. My hands were moving up under the soft fabric of her shirt over her smooth skin, and she ran her hands up my sides. My head got stuck when she pulled off my T-shirt, and we laughed.

  “Look,” I said, when I was free. “You don’t— ”

  But she was kissing me again, her hands small and strong, and she smelled like fresh grass and I was pretty sure nothing was ever going to be the same.

  A Halfhearted Quote against Fashion

  School officials are investigatin
g why a fashion and sewing teacher used a class lesson that made fun of girls with fat in certain places.

  In teaching material titled, “How not to look fat,” one page says “busty” and “booty” are “good,” while anyone with back fat wearing a tight shirt looks like a “stuffed sausage.” A drawing shows the words “Uh-oh” and “sad” next to a sobbing girl with back rolls.

  —ELLEN YAN, NEWSDAY

  PART FIVE

  It’s Fitting

  twenty-six

  HERE’S AN IDEA © CHARLIE DEAN DESIGNS:

  Bored by your usual hair and makeup? Accessories getting you down? Open a book of fashion history and learn from your ancestors! In the nineteenth century people wore dead insects and birds in their hair for special occasions. You might balk at that, but a beetle hairpin might be just the ticket! If you don’t have a library of fashion history books, simply ask a five-year-old for advice. Children are awake to magic. You might end up with a Tonka toy on your belt and that would be for the best.

  DATE: MAY 2

  Days until Fashion Show: 2

  I’ve been neglecting my fashion journal in the service of making actual fashion! For the past month I’ve given everything I have to constructing my gown. It has been a time of hard work and pure magic. Nothing eventful or dramatic happened (thank Dior!) but each day was filled with important achievements and crucial milestones from figuring out how to execute the tricky elements on the bodice, adjusting the skirt so the crinoline wouldn’t show through, and, most satisfying of all, making the dress fit Mischa like she was born into it.

  It was good that Mischa was dating my father because she was almost always on hand for fittings. There were a lot of those. How incroyable to find myself grateful to have one of my father’s ladies around all the time!

  Not only was the construction process immensely satisfying, Charlie Dean’s home life was like something out of a wholesome family drama on the W Network. Jacques and Mischa behaved in such a normal way. They were usually in bed and asleep by two thirty a.m. and up by eleven and even cooked some meals! With vegetables! Early in April my father mentioned that Mischa’s ex-boyfriend had left town to take a job in Alberta. Many deep sighs of reliefs at Chez Dean at this news. With luck, the terrible ex would stay away for several months. Perhaps even forever!

  Jacques and Mischa were united in recovery and went to meetings almost every night. I worked every second when I wasn’t in classes. On breaks I visited some of my fellow contestants in the old art room. Not John, though. He never joined us again, even though I asked him almost every time I saw him in Careers class. I only saw Jo in the art room one more time, because she was off playing basketball. I wondered how she was going to finish her design with sports taking up so much of her time. She was playing a risky game being so balanced in her interests and activities!

  The whole thing was so fantastique and joy filled that I almost forgot to be on guard for problems.

  Now you must not misunderstand, there were difficulties. Of course there were!

  I’d hoped to do as much hand sewing as possible. I wanted to show off my abilities with running stitches, slip basting, and fell stitches and everything in between. But as the time began to run short I had to machine stitch some of the simpler seams.

  After the first fitting I carefully marked the corrections to the pattern. But not carefully enough, because I found small errors during the second fitting. There were puckers in the bodice, and the underarms gave me trouble.

  It took longer than I’d hoped to hand hem the skirt. The appliqué seams I used on the bodice and the sequined mesh section meant to conjure the effect of broken windows was très, très complex! Très unforgiving! But worth every second of my time. All of that was simple compared to the boning I used to showcase the structural elements of the skirt and bodice. And don’t get me started on the most technical aspect: the sculpted, asymmetrical Valentino-inspired crumb-catcher neckline, made rigid with a combination of boning, sweat, and tears. I fretted forever to make sure Mischa’s bosom was properly covered, but the edge of the bodice neckline extended up and out at the right degree and angle.

  All of this meant many nights I worked until one or two in the morning. Still, I tried not to miss school. I wasn’t even that tired because I was fueled by passion and excitement!

  I took photos of every stage—the thread tracing on the garments, the various adjustments to the toile and patterns, the darts and easing, and close-ups of my stitches and intersecting seams and interfacing and backing. I documented everything and made sure my techniques were worth documenting! Two days before the fashion show the dress was ready for the final fitting. Formidable!

  That Thursday, after an afternoon DJ-ing a coffee shop opening in a senior center for fifty dollars, my dad came to my room to see how things were going.

  “Holy Hannah, Charlie girl,” he said, stopping to stare at the dress on the form. “That is absolutely stunning.”

  I looked up from where I sat at my big table trying out possible hairstyles on my dummy head. The dress with its skirt draped to its full extravagant width over the pannier-and-cage corset was impressionnant. There is no point denying it.

  Any serious student of fashion history loves crinolines and bustles, and I already had almost every style in my collection, including a mantua, which I made myself. The mantua is the most theatrical skirt shape in all of fashion, and panniers are essential not only for people who ride bikes, but also to create an extravagant hip profile. I don’t know about you, but I take great comfort in knowing that if I ever need a bustle, a bum roll, a French farthingale, or a massive hoop crinoline, I’m ready! Also, there’s something about keeping the world at a distance with the circumference of your skirts that has beaucoup appeal!

  “We’re doing the final fitting tonight,” I said. “I’m so nervous. I can’t believe the show is in two days.”

  “Come on, Charlie,” said my dad. “You’ve got this. I can’t even get my head around your talent. How many fittings so far?”

  “Four,” I said. “This will be the fifth.”

  I’d double-checked every seam, zipper, button, and stitch. Mischa had started to get giddy every time she got into the dress. One couldn’t blame her.

  Tonight, during the final fitting, I would test makeup and hair and try out accessories. That way there would be no surprises on Saturday. I would spend Friday night getting everything ready, visualizing every aspect of the show. Visualizing winning.

  In less than forty-eight hours Mischa and I would show the world, or at least Green Pastures, what Charlie Dean could do! We would shine!

  “You want me to pick up some pizza for you girls?” asked my dad.

  I felt my eyes bug out unattractively. The last thing I wanted was pizza in the same room with my gown! Mais non! I didn’t even want pizza in the same house! What if someone touched the gown with a greasy finger? What if a pizza smell clung to the exquisite fabrics so Mischa walked the runway trailing eau de Luigi’s Pizza Pies?

  Non, non, non!

  The dress fit Mischa like the peel on the banana, which is to say there was no room for her to develop a late-breaking pizza belly! Not that I would ever say that, of course; I don’t approve of fashion’s tendency to lead to eating disorders and unhealthily low body weights, even though it’s true that it’s easier to make clothes that look good on wand-thin bodies. That’s why I focus on custom clothing: it can be adjusted to showcase any body type.

  “Not for me, thanks,” I said. “Too nervous.”

  “Got it,” said my dad, who right then was as good as any dad who ever lived. “No pizza. How about a bag of apples?”

  I laughed.

  “Mischa can have a single apple,” I said. “We’ll share it.”

  “I thought so,” he said. “Maybe I should move out until this thing is over tomorrow.”

  “Can I
have your DJ equipment, then?” asked Mischa, coming up beside him and slipping under his arm.

  “Afraid not. It forms the basis of my entire worldly savings,” said Jacques. “Between that and my guitars, I am a one and one half thousandaire!”

  “No wonder I’m with you,” said Mischa. She wore no makeup, and her hair was in a ponytail, slightly dirty, as I’d requested for ease of styling. She had on a simple button-down shirt and looked like she attended an all-women college.

  My dad kissed her on the top of her head.

  “Come in,” I said. “We’ve got to do the final adjustments on the dress, plus hair and makeup. We need to time how long to get you changed. And we’ll walk you with the music.”

  Mischa gave a little squeal of happiness.

  “Every time I come in this room I feel more like Cinderella.”

  “Which is funny, since you’re sort of like ma belle mère?” I said, regretting the comment as soon as it left my mouth. I was relieved when she laughed, perhaps because she doesn’t know that belle mère means “stepmother.”

  My dad retreated from my room, saying he was off to a meeting, and we got down to the serious business of back-combing, braiding, hair spraying, and putting makeup on and taking it off, and putting accessories on and adjusting them, and then, finally, Mischa stepped into the dress.

  We were both quiet, assessing her reflection in the mirrors around the room.

  Mischa was like a flare of incandescent elegance that someone had set off indoors. She was an astonishment. I felt a single tear of simple, perfect joy come to my eye.

  Before I could say how I felt, the doorbell sounded, followed by a knock. I wondered if my dad had gone and ordered takeout for us. Perhaps a small tray of crudités, sans dip? He was being such a superfather lately, anything was possible. More likely it was the landlord, come to see if there was any creeping that needed doing around the house.

  “Don’t move,” I said, and went to see who it was.

  As I began to open the door it was shoved open roughly, and I was knocked backward.