The Fashion Committee

by Susan Juby

  “I’m Edward,” he said. “Nice to meet you, John and Barbra and . . . ?”

  Booker stuck out his hand. “Booker. Moral supporter!”

  Edward shook the outstretched hand.

  “We’re all really excited about this. We think Esther looks amazing all the time, but it’s cool that she inspired an actual designer.”

  He shook my hand, and for a second, I felt like I really was a proper designer and a decent boyfriend and righteous friend.

  “So, Esther,” I said, putting the backpack on the kitchen table and taking out the dress, which I’d wrapped in brown paper, “you go put this on. We’ll make sure it fits like it’s supposed to. I made some other stuff for you. To go with the outfit.”

  Esther twined one leg around the other, as though to stop herself from racing off in all directions.

  When I glanced at her, Barbra smiled.

  “Okay,” said Esther, her eyes huge.

  Sheryl took the brown-paper package from the table and grabbed Esther’s hand.

  “Let’s do this,” she said.

  Not even a minute later a piercing squeal came from whatever room they’d disappeared into.

  “It’s sooooo coooool!” cried Esther.

  Barbra grabbed my hand. She was with me now. Booker gently punched my shoulder. Edward grinned, big relieved smile on his open face.

  A minute later Esther bounded into the room, and the dress was, if I do say so myself, perfect. Sporty and fierce and cute as hell on her.

  “That looks awesome,” said Edward, who had the dad-type comments down cold.

  “I love it!” said Esther, turning in a circle.

  “It’s perfect on her,” said Barbra seriously. “The fit. The material, all of it.” That made me feel like King Turd of Septic Mountain and also like Thor.

  She was right. The dress fit Esther perfectly. It made her look every inch the oddball gorgeous kid, every inch funny, completely different, and completely herself. She could skateboard in it, go to a museum, graduate, kill it at a fifth-grade dance. She didn’t look like a kid trying to be a twenty-year-old swimsuit model. She looked exactly like herself and no one else, which is what good clothes can do for a person.

  “So you like it?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s like my brother’s jersey. But it fits me, and it looks so cool. I love how it smells like grass.”

  “Grass?” said Barbra.

  “Like a lawn right after it gets cut,” said Esther, lifting an arm and taking a deep sniff at the inside of the elbow of the three-quarter-length sleeve.

  To avoid meeting anyone’s eye, I dug around in the backpack.

  “Let’s talk accessories,” I said. “And discuss how things will work on Saturday.”

  While Sheryl and Edward and Esther stood watching, I pulled out the various packages containing the things I’d welded and woven and soldered. I was more excited about them than the dress, since I actually made them. But before I could show them off, Booker said he had to go.

  “How can you stand to miss this?” said Barbra.

  “I can’t stand it,” he said shortly.

  He said good-bye and left without looking at me.

  x x x

  AFTER THE FITTING, B AND I WENT BACK TO HER HOUSE. WE had an hour before her parents were due back, and while we lay in her bed I thought about how comfortably and neatly we fit. This was my girl. I made a mistake with Tesla. It didn’t even feel real, what I’d done. That was another life. Another version of me.

  “You are the bomb, B,” I said. “The dynamite, the plastique. You are whatever nukes are made of.”

  “Do I have to be a bomb?” she said. “Can’t I be a firework?”

  “A firework is just a decorator bomb,” I said. “I’m the luckiest of all the basically unlucky guys.”

  “Well, you’re the luckiest guy in this house,” she said.

  “Luckiest guy on this street?”

  “I’ll give you that. I’ve met the neighbors. They are not a lucky people. Especially that guy who lives on the corner. He has a face like a wanted poster. It would suck so bad to go through life with that face. But all that luck will run out if my dad comes home and finds you in my room.”

  B’s folks probably know we’re sleeping together, but they would prefer not to know know, which I get.

  Maybe what people don’t know know won’t hurt them. I rolled over to the side of the bed, and felt around for my underwear and jeans.

  Barbra leaned on one elbow, watching me.

  “I have a fear,” she said.

  I turned to look at her.

  “You’re going to win this competition and then you’re going to start wearing your hair all trendy. Or you’ll get one of those square-faced watches and red suspenders and a surfboard that you never ride, and I won’t know you anymore.”

  “I promise no man buns and only round-faced watches. And anyway, who do you know who’s like that? Have you met someone new while I was so busy?”

  She rolled onto her back. “I looked up street style. Read some street-style fashion blogs. You mentioned that was the look you were going for in the competition. A lot of the street-style guys have ridiculous hair. And square watches. Especially in LA. Do you think we’re going to end up in LA when you’re a famous designer? I’m never getting plastic surgery.”

  “B, I am very unlikely to win this competition. Even if I do, I’m not going to be a designer. The best-case scenario for me is probably a job at the mill. Or maybe I’ll get my very own Salad Stop franchise someday.”

  She turned onto her side and stared at me. “I think you’re better at fashion than you or anyone else realized. You seem to be able to create a whole different reality with clothes. It’s kind of freaky.”

  Her long legs poked out of the sheets. Her feet were thin and pretty and she never wore nail polish on her toes, just like she never wore makeup or curled her hair. She didn’t approve of vanity. I wondered if she knew how lucky she was to be basically satisfied with herself. I wasn’t satisfied with one thing about myself or anyone else. Except maybe my grandparents.

  I jumped to my feet and bent over to give her a kiss. Then I left, feeling more chipper than I had any right to.

  x x x

  BOOKER WAS WAITING ON THE FRONT STEPS OF MY GRANDPARENTS’ house. He had a Mountain Dew sitting between his big skate shoes, made clownish by the orange laces. He took a big drink when I walked up.

  “Want to come in?” I asked him when I reached the stairs.

  “You want to tell me what you’re doing?” he asked. “Who sewed that dress?”

  “My gram’s friend. The one who sews. I told you.”

  “If I go inside and ask your gram about her friend who sews and I call that friend, your story’s going to check out?”

  I felt nothing at his threat.

  “Do whatever you want.”

  “So this friend of your grandma’s has fancy perfume that smells like grass?”

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know. I never noticed her perfume. She’s in her sixties.”

  “Come on, man. You’ve been hooking up with that girl, haven’t you? The one from Green Pastures. B deserves so much better. If I could find a girl a tenth as amazing as B, I would count myself the luckiest bastard alive.”

  There had been too much talk about luckiness today.

  “Maybe ease up on the neediness and the snacks, and you’ll find a nice girlfriend who’ll stick around.”

  “Screw you, man. This isn’t about me. I don’t get you. This contest has turned you into the kind of asshole you’ve been complaining about for years. Look at your jeans. Since when do you wear skinny jeans?”

  A few days after I started seeing Tesla I’d gotten myself a pair of skinny jeans out of the donation bin. I told
myself it didn’t matter because they were basically stolen.

  “That’s your problem? You don’t like my clothes? B’s worried I’m going to get a man bun and a square-faced watch. How much time do you guys spend talking about all the things that might go wrong with me? Or things that are already wrong with me?”

  Booker wasn’t going to let me distract him. And he was right. I was wearing skinny jeans because I thought Tesla would like them and because they seemed like the kind of thing someone who went to Green Pastures would wear. They hung down my ass and weren’t even that comfortable.

  “You need to tell B. She deserves the truth. It makes me sick to think about her being so supportive, and you pay her back by screwing around with some little piece from a private school.”

  Don’t call Tesla a piece, I wanted to say but didn’t. And B hadn’t been supportive. Not really, with her cracks about the school and what a joke it was for me to apply. Sometimes I thought Barbra and Booker didn’t want anything to change. Didn’t want anything to ever get better. Barbra didn’t want me to succeed.

  Booker stared, red faced.

  “You’re ripping my guts out, man. I hope this thing is worth it. A fashion show. For a fashion show you did this.”

  “For art school,” I corrected. And silently added, and because I want a future. But that wasn’t right either. I didn’t sleep with Tesla and lie to my girlfriend and my best friend because I wanted a future. I did it because I wanted what I wanted.

  “Look, nothing—”

  “Don’t,” he said. “Just don’t. If you are too much of a coward to tell B, I’ll do it.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” I said lamely. “It’s the chance you’ve been waiting for all this time.”

  He didn’t dignify that with a response. He got up and pushed past me, tall and wide and unstoppable.

  He was nearly running when he grabbed his bike, jumped on it, and started pedaling.

  “You,” he yelled when he was halfway down the block, “are breaking my heart, man.”

  Too tired to troll my own journal.

  —JOHN THOMAS-SMITH

  thirty

  HERE’S AN IDEA © CHARLIE DEAN DESIGNS:

  Why not make every second count from a looking-fantastique perspective? Whether your job is arresting people, curing arthritis, or collecting garbage there’s nothing to stop you from doing it stylishly! A police officer can pay careful attention to polished shoes and a hairstyle that looks sharp with a cap. A scientist can wear a saucy ensemble under her/his lab coat for when that Nobel committee comes calling. And the hero who collects garbage should wear wonderful muscles, tousled hair under the hard hat, plus perhaps a little scarf/bandanna appropriate for skin tone.

  DATE: MAY 4

  Days until fashion show: 0

  Charlie Dean rallied. She pulled herself up by the bias tapes and went to work! She did not go to school on Friday because she needed every second to salvage the dress.

  As my premier pas, I contemplated the damage done, and naturally I thought of Japan. The Japanese have a highly evolved sense of design, at least as sophisticated as that of the French. Most relevant to our case was kintsugi. This is a method of repairing an object and drawing attention to the broken places. In the case of pottery, kintsugi involves filling in the cracks with lacquer dusted with gold, silver, or platinum. The troubled history of the object becomes part of its beauty. Can you even stand the perfection of that solution? It’s part of the philosophy of wabi-sabi, which is the Japanese appreciation for the flawed or imperfect. It’s too much, really. When I have finally mastered le français, I may begin to study le japonois.

  The damage to my gown was not as bad as it had at first appeared. Some seams needed to be repaired, and because I wouldn’t be able to fix the sequined section of the bodice, I decided to kintsugi it. This meant using a large fabric insert on the right side.

  The repairs, if done well, would enhance my theme of the beauty to be found in neglected, forgotten, and injured places and people.

  I tied off all the threads so no more sequins fell off. The sequined parts of the bodice were meant to suggest glittering, broken windows in an abandoned mall. I took apart the lining so I could get at the inside of the bodice. I pinned muslin into the damaged place, marked it, cut it, and basted it in place. Then I cut and sewed together several strips of pale metallic silks in silver and steel, taking the Pucci metallic mini bandage dress as my inspiration.

  I laid the insert pattern over the stripes and cut it out. Then I sewed the metallic striped insert into the dress bodice and re-stitched the lining. Et voilà! Ooh la la! The section of gleaming stripes suggested not only kintsugi but also luxurious bandages wrapping the ribs beneath the glamorous gown! Layers of distress healed by fashion!

  The dress was, if anything, even more beautiful and fascinating than it had been.

  We, meaning the fashion show candidates, had been told that we could get into the dressing room at eleven a.m. to prep our models. The show started at one p.m. I was sure someone would be at the school long before eleven. I would arrive early and convince them to let me and Mischa in. That would give us an advantage, which is what one must seek in any competitive situation.

  Several times over the course of the day and the evening, I called the number the police had left and checked whether they’d found Mischa’s terrible ex. When I called the last time, the male officer asked why I was still up, which was not his business and was condescending. He informed me they had not found Damon, and his tone told me they didn’t expect to. My only consolation was that Damon had seemed on his last legs on Thursday night. He was probably due for a big crash that would keep him down for days.

  I finished all of my preparations at three thirty Saturday morning and allowed my gaze to rest upon the dress for a long while.

  I went to bed, slept lightly but peacefully, got up at seven a.m., and prepared to meet the day that would change my life.

  I packed the dress into a garment bag of my own design, and put the shoes, makeup, and hair supplies in a huge, hard-sided rolling case. I collapsed the crinoline and panniers and put them into a huge fabric bag. My outfit for the day, a highly structured little number, totally chic, 100 percent my own design, was laid out on the worktable, awaiting me. I’d burned a CD with the music and had saved it onto my iPad as well.

  Then I sat in my meditation area. It was so peaceful in that moment, I could scarcely believe that less than forty-eight hours earlier a man had barged in, attacked Mischa and me, torn my gown, and tried to destroy my dreams. How beautifully and efficiently I’d recovered from that contretemps! Charlie Dean was resilience itself.

  We would all get past this. Me, Mischa, my father. Even the awful ex. He had been burned in the fracas, which had probably taught him not to throw his weight around.

  I set my timer for twenty minutes, rang my bell, and breathed.

  Then I showered, assembled my coif, hid the bruise around my eye with a dramatic makeup application, ate a piece of fruit, put a handful of nuts into a darling little tin container, and put two bottles of mineral water in the Marc Jacobs bag I’d found at a thrift store in Red Deer.

  My father says that I behave like a thirty-two-year-old who went to an Ivy League college rather than a sixteen-year-old living in reduced circumstances. I say it sounds like those Ivy Leaguers have the right idea about how to live!

  At eight I knocked on my father’s door to wake Mischa, and at nine the two of us were on our way in her van.

  thirty-one

  MAY 4

  Yeah, I considered bailing. I tried to come up with a bulletproof excuse that would justify the fourth-inning dropout. But I couldn’t do that to Esther.

  No kid has ever been more stoked to wear anything than she was to wear the dress I’d designed, if not made.

  I spent the night before the show
alone in the garage, working on the metal accessories. I ignored my phone except for a text I sent to Brian, the guy I met at Green Pastures, the metalwork guy who’d been halfway encouraging and whose metal business tag I still had.

  I sent him a photo of the throwing star I’d made for Esther’s madwoman hair.

  He texted right back.

  Shuriken. Wicked. What’s it for? Ninja rumble later?

  It’s for the fashion show.

  Teachers will enjoy confiscating that.

  Any idea how to attach something like that to a hairclip? Any idea where to get a hairclip?

  Let me check with my sister.

  A pause of not quite five minutes.

  Score! I can give you one of hers.

  We made arrangements for him to drop it off. It turned out he lived about fifteen minutes away.

  When he knocked on the door, he looked healthier than he had the last time I saw him. Bigger. More color in his face.

  Bites went after Brian with only about half his usual nastiness. His schnauzer face quivered with outrage, but he kept his teeth to himself as he jumped up and tried to jam his nose into Brian’s crotch.

  “Nice dog,” said Brian mildly.

  “Bites. Quit.”

  Growling and grumbling until he was sure we understood we were not the boss of him, Bites stalked off to lie irritably on his bed.

  “Sorry. He’s got some borderline sociopathic tendencies,” I said.

  “Don’t we all.”

  We walked past the living room, and Brian waved at my grandparents, who were watching TV. They waved back, smiling in that blissed-out way they do when they get in front of a screen.

  We headed into the garage.

  “Holy. This is a helluva setup,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

  “Yeah, my gramps is an old-school metal guy. But he got me set up with all the newer stuff.”