by Susan Juby
Before I could comprendre what was happening, a tall, hard-angled man had barged into our house. He stood, swaying slightly and glaring at me.
I knew instantly that I was looking at Mischa’s ex and that he was high or drunk or some unlovely combination of both. His too-pretty face was red and rashy looking, the way people get from skyrocketing blood pressure and rage. He had cupid lips pulled tight across his teeth.
“Where is she?” he said.
My mind went blank.
“I told her not to make a spectacle of herself. Get all cozied up, playing like she’s the mom in some happy little family.”
“You need to leave,” I said, hoping he didn’t detect the slight waver in my voice.
From my bedroom there came a noise.
The man’s head, bullet shaped, close cropped, swiveled mechanically.
I tried to put out an arm to stop him from going any farther, but he pushed me out of the way.
He was at my room in an instant, as though he had been in our house a hundred times. I reached the doorway in time to hear Mischa whisper his name.
Damon.
Damon the Demon.
“Don’t you look fucking fancy,” he said. “A real cherry tart, hey, Misch?”
Heat crawled over me. This man needed to get out of my room. Away from my dress. Away from my model. Away from the small oasis I’d created out of nothing but hard work and good taste.
“You need to leave,” I said, entering the room. “Now.”
Damon either didn’t hear me or didn’t care what I said.
Mischa tried to back up, but there was nowhere for her to go in a dress with a skirt the size of a VW. It was not a gown made for moving quickly or for escaping on foot.
“Get out of here,” I said through gritted teeth. Instinctively, I grabbed the flat iron from the table it had been resting on. It was still plugged in. Heat from the metal plates rose up my hand and wrist.
Damon had Mischa in the corner, wedged between two rolling racks.
“So you want everyone to look at you? See what a hot slut you are?”
Mischa’s made-up face had gone translucent with fear under the chalky makeup, her eyes too big.
This was like a bad dream or maybe a bad TV movie starring second-rate actors. How often had my life felt like that? Too many times to count. No more unseemliness could be allowed.
Damon, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, was quick as a mean thought. He reached out, grabbed the bodice of the dress, and yanked. There was a tearing sound. She put her hand to her chest, and he grabbed her face by the chin. Hard. Matte white-gray sequins cascaded onto the floor in a small stream.
“Get off her!” I screamed, taking a step toward him. He backhanded me with a wild swing, and his knuckles caught me across the face. I fell, and the naked dress form, adjusted to be an exact replica of Mischa’s body, came down on top of me.
I got to my knees in time to hear Mischa say, “I can’t take this anymore.” I saw only a billow and flap of ivory and palest steel satins coming in like a soft thundercloud, and then Damon was bent over, clutching at his crotch with both hands.
He reached again for the dress and pulled the skirt from the bodice. My beautiful neckline! My handstitched seams!
I jabbed at him with the flat iron and was surprised when he screamed and jerked away.
“Jesus!” he cried. “Crazy bitch!”
I dropped the straightener and watched in disbelief as Mischa aimed a kick at his shoulder but caught him in the head. Lucky for him the blows were softened by her massive skirts. He and Mischa went down in a swishing flurry of luxurious fabrics and sequins. One beautifully dressed girl, one drunken asshole, and one paralyzed designer.
“I called the police!” I screamed, even though I hadn’t. The whole nightmare had unfolded too quickly. “They’re on their way.”
The next thing I knew he was up and running out the door. On his way he shoulder checked me, and I went down. Everything went black for a long second when my head bounced off the wood of my desk. When my vision cleared, he was gone and the two of us sat, stunned, in a heap of fabrics and toppled dressmaker’s dummies.
“The dress,” I said, as my senses started to assert themselves. “Let me see the dress.”
Mischa gave me a look that I didn’t care for. As though I was the crazy one.
“LET ME SEE THE DRESS.”
She got slowly to her feet.
“MY DRESS!” I wailed. “HE’S RUINED MY DRESS!”
The bodice of the pale, structurally sophisticated dress was ripped all down the front. The left side of the skirt had been torn from the waistline and there was a long scratch down Mischa’s face and blood trickled from one nostril.
Rectangular sequins from the bodice continued to slide onto the floor like small waterfalls when she moved. And there was blood!
“You’re bleeding!” I yelled. “You’re hurt. Don’t move. Don’t touch anything. This cannot be happening.”
Mischa stared at me as though I was speaking complex French and not simple English.
“Are you okay?” asked Mischa.
I realized I had my finger in my mouth. My hand had been burned in the fracas. I held my other hand to my face. I was definitely going to have a black eye.
Silence settled over my bedroom as the adrenaline turned sludgy in my veins.
A strange chill calm came over me.
“You know, Mischa, I don’t think I like him,” I said.
We began to laugh in a hysterical way until I realized I was crying more than I was laughing. I hate to cry. There is nothing to be gained from it but puffy eyes.
When I was sure I was calm enough to speak, I called the police.
twenty-seven
MAY 2
Which confession should come first? The confession that I went to Tesla’s most nights for over a month? The confession that she looked through her huge collection of fabrics and chose the material to make Esther’s dress? The confession that she made the pattern and cut and sewed the pattern into the dress while I watched and said I was trying to learn, but was really just staring at her?
Maybe the first confession should be about how the whole time I was seeing Tesla I was telling Barbra lies about how I was busy working on the design or accessories. When I left Tesla’s, I’d text B and tell her that I loved her, which I did, but not enough to stop me from seeing Tesla behind her back.
The only true thing I said to Barbra in my Month of Being a Deceptive Cheating Bastard was the part about working on the accessories, which had started to seem as important as the dress, or maybe more important. After all, I had dick-all to do with actually making the dress. Working on the extras, which is what I am calling the accessories because I hate the term “accessories,” at least made me feel marginally less useless.
I started to resent both Barbra and Tesla, with their questions and their offhand remarks but mostly their questions, such as:
“What are you up to tonight?”
“Where have you been?”
“When am I going to meet your friends? You do have friends, right?”
“Who just texted you?”
Don’t get me wrong. I appreciated Tesla basically making the whole dress for me. But I also felt like a door leading nowhere by the end of it and blamed her, even though it wasn’t fair.
A few times I tried sewing or working on the pattern or whatever and Tesla laughed and said I should wait until I’d gotten into Green Pastures and my whole future wasn’t riding on the dress looking good.
That made me mad. Not so mad that I stopped sleeping with her or told her to let me sew the dress. I’m not a complete 100 percent moron. I’m more like an 85 percent moron.
When I went to get the finished dress, the Thursday before the fashion show, Tesla met me out
side. She seemed on edge.
“My parents are here,” she whispered. “They just got back.”
“Should I leave?”
I hadn’t met her folks yet. She said they traveled a lot, and the trip they’d been on had been extended twice. I got the impression she wasn’t in a big hurry for us to meet. I couldn’t tell whether it was because she was embarrassed of me or them.
“No. Of course not,” she said.
A voice called out behind her.
“Ah, Tessy, there you are.”
I stopped and slowly turned around to see a woman with a lot of TV announcer–type blonde hair watching us. The woman wore a sweater that matched the beige house siding, tight black pants, and tall brown boots. If the cops needed a description of her, I’d have said she was about 75 percent legs, and the other 25 percent hair. Tesla’s mom was hot, which made sense. Noticing that made me feel crappy about myself. Again.
“Tes-la,” muttered Tesla.
“And who is this?” asked the woman.
Tesla still hadn’t turned around.
“Hi, ma’am,” I said, showing off my retail-honed communication skills. “I’m John.”
“John. How do you do? I’m Liz Wharton, Tesla’s incredibly embarrassing mother.”
“Hello,” I said.
“Nice to meet you, John.”
I have very little experience of rich people. I can sometimes guess their salad preferences, but that’s about it. My mind went to the movies. Tesla’s mother would be the greedy type. Hitting on Tesla’s boyfriends. She’d be dumb. A second wife. Maybe even a third.
“Why don’t you kids come through the living room so we can say hello. Now that we’re finally home from our trip to Asia, your father and I want to spend at least one or two minutes with you. We feel like we haven’t seen you forever.”
“Maybe because you haven’t,” said Tesla.
We followed Mrs. Wharton into the massive living room. A massive bonfire crackled in the fireplace.
My mind had already prepared me for Tesla’s dad. He’d be tall and broad-shouldered. Flat-bellied and squint-eyed. His teeth would be extra square and white.
The image disintegrated when I saw a smallish man with thinning blond hair seated in what was either a small loveseat or a huge chair.
“Here’s Tessy’s friend,” said her mom.
“Aha!” said the man. He put his book aside and stood. He was a good four or five inches shorter than Mrs. Wharton. He looked a little pouchy and tired, but happy to see Tesla.
She dutifully walked over and gave him a kiss.
“I’m John,” I said when she didn’t introduce me.
I put out my hand for him to shake.
“I’m Cliff Wharton. So you and Tesla are working on some sort of a project?”
“Yes, sir.” I was glad my grandparents were such sticklers for the ma’ams and the sirs. No adult ever gets tired of hearing that, especially not parents and consumers of salad.
“We’d love to hear about it.”
I shot a look at Tesla.
“It’s for a fashion show, Daddy,” said Tesla.
“You’re in the fashion program, too?” he asked me.
“Uh, no, sir. Not yet. I’m trying to get in. The school, I mean.”
He nodded.
“Is that right? Well, good on you. I had to claw my way into a private school. You know, I paid for almost half my tuition myself at St. Mark’s, which is where I went starting in tenth grade. The rest was a scholarship. Did it with golf balls.”
“Pardon me?” I said, struck by the realization that it had never crossed my mind to try to pay for Green Pastures myself.
“Started collecting them from ponds. By the time I got into St. Mark’s, I had a team of people collecting for me. You would be astonished how many golf balls end up in water and how much they’re worth on the resale market.”
“No, sir, no idea.”
“But it was worth it. St. Mark’s helped get me into Stanford, and from there I went to MIT. That’s where I met Liz.”
They did that thing some couples do where they gaze fondly at each other.
Did they let people with cascading hair into institutes of technology? It was beginning to occur to me that I was a little too in love with stereotypes and preconceptions.
“Just two young mechanical engineers in love,” said Mr. Wharton.
“Someone should make a romantic comedy,” said Mrs. Wharton.
More loving stares at one another.
“Ha, ha,” I said, so far out of my depth with these two that I might as well have been tied to a chunk of concrete and dropped in the middle of the ocean.
“Okay, so we’d better get to work,” muttered Tesla.
“Nice to meet you, John,” they called together as we left the room and headed up the stairs.
Neither of us spoke until we were in Tesla’s workshop. I had about seven hundred questions and wasn’t sure how to ask any of them.
“So your parents,” I said, leaving a lot of room for her to fill in the blanks.
“What about them?”
“They seem nice.”
“They are. They have pretty bad taste, but they’re nice. They love each other. They love me. But mostly they love each other. Can we move on?”
I couldn’t move on. I hardly knew anyone whose parents loved each other. It was like Tesla won the happy family sweepstakes. The Good Life Lottery. She was rich, beautiful. Talented. Had a loving family. I knew some people’s parents loved their second wives or husbands, at least for a while. Barbra’s parents act like roommates who wished the other one would move out. Booker’s mom doesn’t even like her kids. My mom seems more like my second cousin than my mom.
“So that’s crazy, eh?” I said. “Them being so nice and happy and everything. Plus all this.” I swung my hand around to take in the giant workroom. The massive McMansion. The inground pool. The redundant lake.
“Not really. Can we not make a big deal of it?”
I sat on a yellow chair covered with some kind of swirling upholstery.
“Why don’t you want to talk about it? If I had parents like yours—”
I didn’t finish the statement because I didn’t know what I’d do if I had parents like hers. I literally couldn’t imagine it. Then again, I was also full of shit. My grandparents had been together for a long time, and they were pretty much peanut butter and jam together. They loved me. That should have been enough.
“I know, I know. I’ve got everything and you have nothing.” Tesla’s pale, perfect face was set in a frown.
“I never said that.” But I had said it. In a thousand little remarks I’d said exactly that.
“Can we just focus on the dress? Then we have to decide about accessories and hair and music.”
Tesla started running her hands down the length of the small navy dress on the dressmaker’s form. “I should come to the fitting with you,” she said. “Make sure it’s perfect.”
My nerve endings sizzled at the thought of showing up at Esther’s with a different girl. The questions. Oh man, the questions.
“First tell me why you’re being strange,” I said.
Tesla sighed, still staring at the dress.
“I’m not being strange. Maybe I just feel bad for you,” she said.
There it was. The single sentence that activated all my carefully hidden shame.
“You’re so angry. You have no parents and you hardly seem to have any friends. It makes me feel bad. I care about you, but you seem really lost and . . .”
“And?” I said.
“You don’t have a nice thing to say about anyone or anything.”
For some reason, I decided this was the moment to defend my parents. Made no sense, but there it was.
“I have par
ents,” I said stiffly. “But they’re not married, and my mom and I live with my grandparents. I mean, I do, and when she’s not working overseas my mom lives with them, too. Your parents aren’t the only ones that travel, you know. Not every family is composed of two rich mechanical engineers with one perfect blonde daughter. In fact, I’d say most real families aren’t.”
She’d gone very still as she stared at the dress.
“We’re not real?”
“You’d last about ten minutes in my . . . never mind.”
Her face was full of confusion and—oh hell—pity?
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why did you do all this—?” I waved at the dress. “Did you sleep with me because you feel sorry for me?”
Tesla flinched. “No. That’s not— It’s just that I have a lot. And you don’t. I mean, you can’t even sew. And I like you. You seem so . . . unhappy.”
Barbra likes how I am, I thought. Then I corrected myself. Barbra liked how I was. Before I started to change. Before I started to want something different for myself.
Had Tesla meant all the compliments she’d given my design? She’d always seemed sort of hungry for me. Like I was her new favorite dish. Maybe I wasn’t a main course, though. More like an appetizer. A single potato chip.
“I like you, John,” she repeated. “But I don’t totally get you. It makes me sad that you’re so lonely.”
I’m not lonely, I wanted to yell. I’ve got Booker and Barbra. But Tesla hadn’t heard me talk about Booker since the day she met him, and she sure as hell didn’t know about Barbra. And maybe I was more lonely lately, since I’d left my integrity in a Dumpster somewhere.
“I’m not lonely,” I said, then added, like a five-year-old, “you are.”
Tesla, hardworking, honest, ultra-advantaged Tesla, said, “Of course I’m lonely. Everyone is a little lonely, John. But I’ve chosen this. If I’m going to succeed in fashion, I have to work hard instead of hanging out. You don’t seem like you’re choosing anything. You entered this competition, but you haven’t really done anything. You don’t even seem to like fashion, really. Successful people, successful artists, are driven. They have to be.”