Being Audrey Hepburn

by Mitchell Kriegman

  “Oh Nan, it sounds so possible when you say it.” Throwing my arms around her neck, I hugged her again. I needed so many hugs.

  Feeling better, I scooped a gob of whip cream frosting with my finger, popping it into my mouth.

  “I want to give you something,” Nan said, rising from the couch thoughtfully and walking to the sideboard. She opened one of the lower drawers.

  She was holding a bracelet I had never seen before—a simple platinum band. She hesitated a moment, looking at it in her hand, then returned to the couch.

  “This is from my days back then. It’s a gift from one of the ‘boys,’ and I want you to have it.”

  “Nan, it’s lovely,” I said.

  “And remember,” Nan said, jutting her jaw forward and stroking her chin—her version of a movie mobster—“one day I may come to you for a favor.” Her voice was an octave lower and raspy, an almost perfect Don Corleone impression. I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “What exactly is this?” I asked.

  “It’s a talisman for protection, inscribed by an old boyfriend of mine,” she added. “It will go fabulously with those dresses, and maybe it will keep you safe.”

  I turned the bracelet in my hands. It was elegant, just like Nan. Inside, there was an inscription in Latin: TUAM TUTAM TENEBO, SAMMY G. I marveled at how stylish and mysterious it was.

  “Be careful, Lisbeth,” Nan added. “As Sammy used to say, ‘a liar’s mouth can be full of truth, but he’s still a liar.’ Be careful who you trust.”

  As the platinum band slipped effortlessly around my wrist, I marveled at its soft beauty.

  “By the way, dear, I think you should know—your mother has seen the photos, too.”

  30

  “Why does everything I do for you involve lots of repetitive physical work?” I asked Jess as we pushed her steamer trunk up the five flights of stairs to her new digs in Chinatown.

  The scent of decomposing fruit, roasted chestnuts, and fresh fish intermingled with stale frying oil, the heated exhaust of industrial fans, and the cigarette smoke of the Asian men working in the market downstairs: Chinatown was one of those parts of New York that you could pick out blindfolded by the pungent smells alone. All those odors floated up through Jess’s new neighborhood.

  Jess had packed her mom’s station wagon with all her worldly possessions—three battered trunks filled with her own designs, as well as fabrics and salvaged clothes that represented years of flea market and church store scavenging. She also had two sewing machines, including a serger that she bought at a yard sale, three dress forms, and a cool antique sewing box filled with the tattered marble composition books she used as journals.

  It was Jess’s big move. In return for my moving skills, she promised to help me get my Purple Beast out of the Hudson Street parking lot. I needed to borrow some money to do it. I hadn’t been back for three days, and I was sure my beast missed me, although the parking guys were probably wondering by now if someone had left a body in the trunk.

  I actually liked lugging stuff around with Jess for a while. It seemed so normal after the last few days of high drama. The situation at home with Ryan and Mom was intense. The Hole wasn’t the same without Jess, and it was awkward around Jake. I felt like he was avoiding me, not that I could blame him.

  Hauling dress forms and sewing machines up five flights of stairs was good distraction therapy, and Jess’s apartment was awesome.

  Okay, it didn’t look awesome; in fact, it looked downright crappy. The building, 507 East Broadway, was home to a former sweatshop, after all. Jess said that, only a few years ago, there used to be sixty-three people per floor in the buildings around here. From the window in the stairwell, you could spy a sweatshop that was still in operation, where women were bent over sewing machines making cheap polyester clothes on the sixth floor of the building across the street. Even in Jess’s converted space, you could see the lines on the floor where the walls that divided the room into tiny sections used to be.

  But as grim as it was, the raw space was awesome because of what it represented—the city, a place of her own, freedom. Jess would make it ubercool. With lots of raw brick walls, no windows except one in the bathroom, and a big skylight—it was the perfect interior design challenge for Jess’s imagination. Jess said that it was fitting that her first apartment was a sweatshop; it suited her sense of industry.

  The last thing we carried up the stairs was Jess’s futon mattress, which we threw against the back wall beneath the skylight.

  “Graduating high school meant nothing, you going to college first meant nothing, your first girlfriend meant nothing, but the first apartment in the city all your own—that’s a big deal between friends,” I said as I flopped down on the mattress.

  Jess dropped down beside me.

  “Jessica Giovanna Pagliazzi, you have my official admiration, envy, and undying resentment.”

  “Yeah, pretty crazy, huh?” Jess said, leaning back against the wall.

  “Someday I hope I’ll do it, too,” I said.

  “So does your mom know yet?”

  “That I’m dressing up in Nan’s Chanels and crashing galas at the Met?”

  “No, that you’re not going to college.”

  “Oh, that.” I took a deep breath. “She’s snooping around. She knows something is going on. I’ve got to get out of there before it blows up. Ryan is way too weird. He’s always baiting Mom, and she might have to homeschool him if they don’t take him off suspension. But why she hasn’t shut him down is even stranger.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go to school after all? I mean, you could change your mind, right?”

  “I guess. I don’t know. I can’t bear to live at home,” I said. “I wish I had more options.”

  “Have you seen Jake?”

  “I saw him at work. I can tell he’s moved on, and I don’t even know what to say to him. I’ve got to get out of there.”

  “You know, you can actually get out any time,” Jess said.

  “Yeah, sure.” I couldn’t help staring at her like she was nuts.

  “You could get a place of your own if you really wanted to.”

  “I couldn’t even afford a deposit, but it’s a nice thought,” I said.

  “Well, you could stay here,” Jess offered. “I mean, you’ll have to pay rent after a while—when you get a job. Hell, there are plenty of restaurants and diners in Manhattan with lots better tips than the Hole.”

  “Really? I wish I could…” I leaned back against the wall. “I don’t know. I just feel so adrift about everything.”

  I was going ask Jess if she thought she’d come home much. But before I could say anything, she leaned toward me, and, honestly, why I didn’t see it coming is beyond me.

  My eyes caught hers as she paused for a second a fraction away from my lips. It wasn’t indecision; I could tell she wanted to give me the chance to know what was about to happen. I felt her warm breath brush my cheek and then slowly our lips touched. Her breath took mine away. I closed my eyes as I felt her fingertips on my face, in my hair, pulling me nearer, and I thought about how many times we were close enough to do this but never did. It was something that had occurred to me dozens of times, but we never talked about.

  When Jess came out in the tenth grade, I was the last one to know. She never confided in me, so when I found out from all of our friends, I walked right up to her in study hall and told her that it was totally cool with me that she was gay, but if she ever didn’t tell me something important like that, we were through.

  “I was afraid,” Jess said at the time, “that if I told you, we wouldn’t be friends anymore.”

  That’s what I was thinking while we kissed—not surprised that we were kissing but wondering why we had never kissed before. How long we kissed I couldn’t tell you, but when it was over, I just sat there for the longest time, breathless.

  “Kissing is such a strange thing,” I felt compelled to say for some reason. “I don’t kno
w about you, but I tend to avoid people’s spit, I mean…”

  “It’s okay,” Jess said. “I just wanted to do that. We’re cool.”

  “But I don’t…”

  “You don’t have to. It’s all right,” Jess said.

  “Was that something you thought about for a while or just did?”

  “Thought about lots of times and don’t know why, just did, now.”

  “Oh,” I said, and just sat there. “A lot of times?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and we both laughed.

  “Wow, so that’s what it’s like.”

  “Kinda.” Jess stood up, breaking the moment. “Well, I guess, we better get your car.” She put her hand out to help me off the futon.

  “Yeah, we should,” I said, feeling disoriented as she helped me up and somehow disappointed that we weren’t going to talk about it more.

  “Right, and I better get to class,” Jess said. “Let’s get the Beast out of hock, and you can drop me off at FIT on your way home.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Jess opened the closet and grabbed a Chanel jacket that she had reworked to make the waist more shapely. Then she plucked out a pair of jeans on a hanger.

  “I scored some True Religions that were on loan to the school for a photo shoot that I have to return first thing Monday. I’m pretty sure they’re your size. You’ll be quite the fashionable shoppette,” she said, smiling. “I threw in some shoes I’ve been working on, too.”

  I grabbed our backpacks as Jess locked up, wishing we were still on her mattress sitting together, talking. We walked down the stairs, and she stopped like there was something she forgot.

  “Hey listen,” Jess said. “I mean it. If you need a place in the city and want to keep your stuff here, like the dresses, I can still work on them. And if you do, you don’t have to…”

  “No. Sure. I get it. I’m fine,” I said, not knowing what I really felt, wondering if I ever would.

  “Good. And hey, you know, I’m getting my own line together, and I need your help. I’m going to do this thing, a show, my term project at FIT. It’s going to be pretty fierce, but I can’t do it without you.”

  “Sure.”

  “Maybe you can get some of your fancy friends to come?”

  Yeah, I thought, me and my fancy friends.

  31

  I stared at the text on my phone for most of my morning shift at the Hole.

  “Whr shd Mocha pick u up ?! :)”

  Tabitha, the Princess of Pop, beckoned. I had never felt more like Cinderella than that day at the Hole—the bad side of being Cinderella—the part where she’s on her hands and knees in the fireplace, cleaning out the cinders and ashes that were her namesake. Buela was in a terrible mood. I had missed two shifts, and it felt like she was punishing me. I spent an hour and a half of the morning refilling all the caked-up ketchup and mustard bottles.

  I spied Jake on the other side of the diner. He purposely turned the other way and wouldn’t meet my eye. I tried to talk to him twice in the freezer when I ran into him, but he only nodded. I couldn’t help remembering his unexpected kisses. Before, he would have helped me with the ketchup bottles, but not this time. We seemed worlds apart.

  Then there was the new girl, Crystal. She was totally put together in that Jersey way, with heavy makeup, cosmetically perfect teeth, plucked eyebrows, spray-bronzed skin, thick accent, and a great bod. I grew up respecting girls like Crystal because, contrary to popular belief, they aren’t necessarily promiscuous, no matter how they dress, and they are smart and tough.

  Crystal took all of Jess’s shifts and was scoping everybody out. High on her list was Jake. She was already hip to the fact that there was something between us—just because he wouldn’t look at me. My phone buzzed again.

  “Can’t wait 2 see you darling ;) what time is Mocha comin ?”

  My shift ended at 1:30 P.M. How could I turn down a Fifth Avenue shopping spree with the fabulous Tabitha Eden? I already had the modified couture combo in the garment bag that Jess had given me. It’s not like I would ever get to wear that anywhere else.

  “2:30 ?” I texted back.

  For years I’d surfed the endless pictures of Paris and Nicky, Kim and Kourtney, the Olsen twins, and everyone else dressed in their latest as they balanced an avalanche of shopping bags from Jeffrey’s, Chanel, Lanvin, Alice and Olivia, and others on Rodeo Drive, Fifth Avenue, or Oxford Street. The ritual of the celeb shopping trip was as much about what you wore as what you bought. This could be my only chance to see what it was like.

  Buela had her eye on me, so I had to look busy. I kept moving, covering my tables, cleaning, and finding little projects like restacking the to-go containers behind the counter. My phone buzzed.

  “Soooo where ?” Tabitha texted.

  Since Jess’s East Broadway address was too downscale and I hadn’t yet found that friendly Manhattan doorman I might talk into fronting for me, my first thought was a hotel lobby, something on the Upper East Side. If I could find an address near a hotel, I could step out as Mocha arrived.

  I watched the last few moments tick by on the diner clock. At 1:30 P.M. sharp, I punched out my time card and grabbed the garment bag from the locker. Buela gave me the evil eye for being quick to leave, but I kept going.

  * * *

  The Mark Hotel on Seventy-seventh and Madison was described on its Web site as “situated in the heart of Manhattan’s most elegant neighborhood.” I figured that would do and texted Tabitha.

  “16 E 77 ST.”

  That address was just a few doors down from the Mark according to Google Maps. I reached the hotel a half hour early and slipped through the lobby, ducking into the bar restroom, where I changed in one of the bathroom stalls.

  Unzipping the garment bag, I discovered that Jess had left me a surprise. She had transformed a pair of Nan’s Ferragamo flats from the 60s, overdyeing them in a deep, lush red and adding a small heel to match. The shoes were stunning and perfect for what I was wearing.

  After a touch-up in the mirror, I emerged with my remixed Chanel and True Religions, ready for an afternoon of rampant consumerism, even if it would be only window-shopping for me. I figured there was plenty of time to be on the street and grab Mocha before he began ringing doorbells. I walked over to the Concierge to check my garment bag with my old clothes but as I took my ticket, I saw Mocha through the massive picture windows walking up to the townhouse door early.

  I ran quickly to the car, hoping he’d follow. “Mocha, darling! Over here!” I yelled. But he had already pushed the buzzer. He turned, confused. If someone was home, they would be coming down, and soon it would be difficult to explain.

  “My apologies, Miss Dulac,” Mocha said and hustled back to the limo to open the door.

  “It’s my Nan. I don’t want to wake her,” I said. “She doesn’t quite handle the stairs the way she used to.” As I entered the limo, I almost fainted when I slid inside.

  Tabitha, sitting comfortably in the back corner, had watched the whole thing.

  “You’re here!” I said, barely able to disguise my confusion.

  “Will she be okay?” she asked.

  “Who?” I asked, sitting, hoping we could leave immediately.

  “Your Nan,” she replied.

  “Oh, Nan! Yes, of course … we have a nurse … yes … ole Betty, must be as old as Nan. She’ll be fine … but this is her day off. Anyway, it’s all fine.” I wasn’t sure I even knew what I was saying anymore.

  Tabitha wore a blush cashmere cardigan over matching silk shorts and white Louboutins, all highlighted by the glittering rose cuff on her wrist—Tiffany’s latest metal “discovery”—RUBEDO. We’re talking seventy-five-hundred smackers for that kind of bling. I know how much it cost because they advertise it like crazy on the Tiffany’s Web site. In her arms, she was holding a white slipper of a dog that perfectly matched her shoes that I recognized from her publicity shots: Galileo, a Pomeranian.

  As we drove away, I
stole a glance back at the townhouse entrance, where a very annoyed elderly man opened his door to no one at all.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked.

  “Oh, no, everything’s fine,” I said and wondered if I had blown it. Tabitha seemed subdued. I realized I sounded heartless about Nan, even though everything was utterly fabricated.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Tabitha said quietly. “We need to go somewhere first.”

  Galileo barked.

  That didn’t sound good.

  32

  Tabitha was silent. There was definitely a bad vibe in the limo, which made my mind race and my stomach ache. I was the most weak-willed poseur ever. I started to panic. Was Tabitha experiencing one of her mood swings?

  “You know, darling,” I said, summoning my inner Audrey, “if you need to go somewhere and it’s not convenient, we could shop later.”

  “I’d rather not,” she said. Her tone of voice reminded me of the time in the bathroom when she demanded to know who I was, severe and regal despite her dress being up around her ears. It occurred to me that she was most arrogant when she had something to hide.

  “I have to go to the studio first.”

  “The recording studio?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’ve been avoiding it,” she answered. “But I need to tell you something.” I folded my hands in my lap and tried to remain composed and calm. “I need someone there with me, and I wasn’t sure you’d come along if I told you first.”

  I tried to think of some way to respond. There was a long pause before she spoke again.

  “You might as well know the night you showed up, I had taken a shitload of pills. I was trying to kill myself,” she continued. “That would have been a great TMZ story, right?” She seemed as if she might fall apart. The image of her beaded purse on the bathroom floor flashed through my mind. I remembered fishing for lip gloss and finding all those bottles of pills.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”

  “It should have worked. I did some blow, too, but it made me throw up.”

  I became keenly aware of Mocha in the front seat. The glass partition was closed, but couldn’t he be listening? How much did he know?