by Compai
“Wow, intense much?” marveled Juliet. “Why does she need all that?”
“I’d rather not say,” Nikki answered.
“Translation: ‘I have no clue why she needs all that,’” mocked Carly.
“Of course I know!” Nikki bristled. “Melissa shares everything with me. It’s just not for y’all’s ears.”
“Nikki,” Carly began, crinkling her concealer-caked forehead and staring straight into her traitorous bestie’s cornflower blue eyes, “I know you’re lying right now. You totally have a tell.”
“I do?” squeaked Nikki, in awe of the casual way Carly tossed around poker lingo. “What is it?”
Carly waited patiently.
“Okay, fine,” Nikki began. “I don’t know why Melissa wants me to find out about Schizo Montana, but I do know that she would never put me on such a hard-core mish unless it were super important.”
“Thank you. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Carly inquired. “Oh, and b-t-dubbs, you don’t have a tell.”
Bitch!
“I’m just having a Scorpio moment,” Carly shrugged. (Carly had recently discovered she was born on the Libra-Scorpio cusp, instead of squarely in Libra territory like she’d always thought, an astrological distinction she believed justified virtually any social injustice.)
“Nikki, darling,” Carly continued, “Juliet and I are beginning to have some—well—curiosities about your internship. We have been listening to your accounts of the various duties you perform, and we have been paying particular attention to your alleged ‘friendships’ with your employers, and—”
“We don’t believe you!” blurted Juliet.
Carly smiled a slow evil smile: “Precisely.”
“You are always like, bla-di-bla, Melissa complimented my belly chain, and la-di-la, Petra smoked me out, but we’ve never even seen any of them talk to you!”
“That seems peculiar to me too, Juliet,” agreed Carly. “Does it seem peculiar to you, Nikki?”
Nikki’s eyes felt sore and a familiar lump was beginning to form in the back of her throat. She always felt exactly the same thing when she was about to burst out into tears. No, dammit! Do not let evil Scorpio lady win this round! Do. Not. Cry. But there was that same old gummy taste in her mouth, that telltale pressure behind the eyes…
And then something miraculous happened.
“Hey,” interrupted a decidedly postpubescent male voice.
Nikki, Carly, and Juliet turned in tandem to see the surf god of Winston Prep leaning against the cracked theater door. He had on this white t-shirt that brought out the bronze color of his skin. Yeah, bronze. He looked like he was actually carved out of bronze. Or wait—did you carve bronze or, like, pour it into a mold? Whatever. This guy, this god among men, looked like he was made out of bronze, however you made it. And the sun was right behind him, framing his impossibly chiseled face like some kind of astral halo, and his hair… his hair was actually glistening!
Nikki dropped her California roll; Juliet wet herself, but just a little; Carly’s nips were totally on fire. It was Evan Beverwil—Evan Beverwil!—and he was talking to them.
God, look at these fetuses, he thought, eyeing the blond one. She kinda stood out in those shiny pants and that jewel necklace thing around her stomach, and he was pretty sure she was the chick he’d seen floating around with the Poseur girls, bringing them coffee and shit.
“Was Janie, uhm, Farrish… was she here?” he asked. Carly and Juliet shook their heads, too stunned to speak.
“I’m pretty sure I saw Janie’s car leave the lot,” Nikki answered in her most enunciated voice. “Of course, she and Jake share the Volvo.”
“Yeah!” chirped Juliet.
“Yeah, they do!” confirmed Carly.
“So, you’re saying maybe you saw Jake leaving campus in the Volvo?” Evan confirmed.
“Maybe,” Carly concurred.
“That’s a totally good point,” Juliet agreed.
“Except,” Nikki recalled, “Jake was in Charlotte’s car at lunch. They went to Kate Mantilini. So it must have been Janie that left campus in the Volvo.”
Evan frowned. “Oh,” he grunted, letting the theater door swing closed behind him. “Okay.”
“Do you want me to tell Janie you’re looking for her?”
Evan paused and then shook his head. “Nah. It’s not, like, important.” And with that, he loped off toward the Showroom.
The Nicarettes clutched each other, imperceptibly vibrating, and squealing at a frequency nobody—save bats and a few breeds of dogs—could hear.
The Girl: Janie Farrish
The Getup: About to get much better…
“I’d like to return this shirt, please?” Janie cleared her throat, holding the offending tank at arm’s distance like a dirty Kleenex.
“Okay,” the Ted Pelligan salesgirl mumbled, plucking the silky green garment from Janie’s outstretched hand and shaking it out. She was the same salesgirl as before, but her star-lashed amber eyes betrayed no sign of recognition, and so—instead of complimenting her Afro, which twinkled today with glitter—Janie kept quiet, examining her nails.
She felt a little better already, just having that cursed green top out of her possession. ’Cause it was the exact same chlorine green color as Evan’s eyes. Those eyes that had seemed so adoring that night by Melissa’s pool, that day in the projection room; those eyes that had so enraptured her as they locked with hers.
God, how blind could one girl be!
Janie had actually thought Evan might like her, when all along, he was really just thinking about how repulsive it was to kiss her. Or maybe what Janie did with her mouth couldn’t even be called kissing. Maybe it was so gross that it didn’t even classify as kissing. But if Evan was so disgusted, why had he gazed at her like she was some kind of goddess? Oh God… maybe that was just the way his face looked all the time! All milky and lovesick. Maybe that was the face he made no matter what was happening, even when he was thoroughly repulsed. Like when he tasted spoiled milk. Or stepped in dog doo. Or kissed somebody seriously repugnant.
Janie’s scuffed navy Samsung vibrated in the pocket of her Cheap Monday skinny jeans. It was Amelia. Pretty much the only call she would answer right now.
“What a jerk!” Amelia erupted in greeting.
“Whatever,” mumbled Janie, picking at a frayed cuticle. “I mean… it’s not his fault I kiss like a, like a…”
“Stop!” ordered Amelia. “You do not kiss like that. And by the way, what straight dude talks to his sister about how some chick kisses anyway? Seriously, Janie, that seems kind of gay to me. It sounds like he’s not attracted to girls, but since he’s this manly surfer dude, he has to pretend he is, so to get out of having to be intimate, he makes up some weird lie about the girl he’s dating and spreads it around to—”
“Spreads it around!” gasped Janie.
“Okay, scratch that part,” amended Amelia. “But seriously, Janie, he sounds gay to me. Didn’t you say his room was covered in shells or something?”
“He’s not gay.”
“Then why does he spend all his free time paddling around on an eight-foot phallus?”
“Melia,” Janie pleaded, her lips forming something vaguely resembling a smile for the first time all day.
“Seriously, Janie, screw Evan Beverwil. There are gonna be so many hot guys at the Troubadour on Friday, it’s gonna be obscene. Like, it’s actually gonna be disgusting how many sexy, brooding, tattooed guys come out to this show. Older guys. Older musician guys. All you have to do is show up looking crazy-hot—which you always do anyway—and we will douche this douche nozzle out of your system for good, alright? I will not permit you to get all sniffly over some dude who listens to Bob Seger!”
By now, Janie was full-on grinning. When it came to her particular brand of misery, Amelia was better than Prozac. “Can you please consider a career as an inspirational speaker?” Janie begged. “Because you just made me feel approximatel
y five hundred percent better.”
Janie looked up from her ravaged cuticle to find that as her mood had skyrocketed, the salesgirl’s had nose-dived in equal measure; she looked seriously miffed.
“Lemme call you back,” Janie said, and clicked the end button. “Sorry about that.”
“Yeah,” replied the salesgirl. “So, this tank you bought? It just went on sale, so you can’t return it. I can either give you store credit or you can exchange it now.”
“I,” Janie announced, puffing up with a peculiar feeling of invincibility, “will exchange it now!”
The salesgirl looked at her like she was deranged, but Janie didn’t care. She was royally hopped up from Amelia’s speech, and she was gonna find some ferocious new threads to wear when she showed up to the Troubadour on Friday night and flirted with one of those brooding-tatted-musician guys Amelia was talking about… or at least some ferocious new threads to wear while she gawked at them.
Janie spotted an amazing gold sequined minidress on the mannequin. It had a dainty layer of white chiffon at the hem and neckline, and a racerback, Janie’s favorite cut. She located the dress on a nearby rack and eyed the relevant tags: designer (Gryphon), size (S), price ($570). She put it back on the rack. With tax, a $570 dress would bring Janie perilously close to her $1,000 spending limit. Plus, she still needed shoes, not to mention accessories. Janie’s vision of her first, super-cool entrance at the Troubadour did not include her usual Converse and gummy bracelets.
Janie’s cell vibrated in her purse. She figured it was Amelia again and fished it out. She figured wrong. It was a text message from Evan.
@ BAJA FRESH
At Baja Fresh? At Baja Fresh? Great! Here, Janie had thought she would be able to reclaim some shred of her dignity by “forgetting” to meet Evan in the projection room, and the guy hadn’t even shown! He probably assumed Janie was in that dank little windowless prison right this instant, just twiddling her thumbs like some simpering loser. She pictured Evan sitting at Baja Fresh eating a stupid quesadilla with his stupid mold green eyes and his stupid frog-shaped toes, making stupid jokes to his stupid friends and imagining that she was actually stupid enough to be waiting for his stupid ass in the projection room.
Ooh! A slinky sleeveless silver dress with an awesome tiered skirt and zip-up back caught Janie’s eye. Relevant tags: “Doo.Ri”; “Size 4.” Irrelevant tag: “$995.00.” In her first act of reckless abandon since conception, Janie pulled the grotesquely overpriced garment off the rack and tossed it over her arm. And once she’d broken that seal, there was no going back. Janie raced through the store, as ravenous and giddy as a binge eater in an overstocked pantry. She grabbed a caramel-colored leather jacket by Mike & Chris, a slouchy lace blouse by Stella McCartney, a leopard-print skinny belt by YSL, an asymmetrical bandage dress by Rodarte, a velvet bustier by Marc Jacobs… it was shopping porn, and Janie was seriously turned on. Every time she filled her hungry hands with another helping of couture candy, the salesgirl whipped over and transferred her booty to a nearby fitting room, leaving Janie to stock up anew. She was on fire. There were so many options!
Finally, Janie headed for the changing room, snatching up a pair of knee-high, black Christian Louboutin spiked-heel boots on her way. They were so beautiful Janie wanted to cry. But she didn’t. Instead, she tore off her pill-ridden vintage V-neck sweater, kicked off her Steve Madden gladiator sandals, wiggled out of her Cheap Monday skinny jeans, and started trying on the most luxuriant garments that had ever touched her pale white skin.
Twenty minutes later, Janie marched out of the dressing room cradling a pile of leather and zippers and studs. The telltale red soles of the Louboutins dangled beneath the mound of fabric.
“I’ll take these,” Janie announced, heaping her dream wardrobe onto the pristine white counter. Then she motioned to the ocean blue velvet bustier she was wearing. “This top, I’d like to wear out.” Janie had left her nubby old V-neck sweater—along with her nubby old self—back in the changing room, suffocating under a faux fur vest by Rebecca Taylor.
The salesgirl snipped the tag off Janie’s new favorite shirt and scanned the remaining items, folding each with origami-like precision and wrapping them in tissue paper before dropping them into a Ted Pelligan bag; the large one this time, with the stiff cardboard bottom and the braided rope handle.
“This skirt is bananas,” gushed the salesgirl, folding a tiny square of black cotton into an even tinier pellet. “We just got it in.” Janie was silent.
“That will be $3,480,” beamed the salesgirl.
Whatevs.
Dogfish handed over the card.
The Guy: Ted Pelligan
The Getup: Gray twill vest and trousers by Penguin, lavender-and-white-striped button-down by Paul Smith, navy boat shoes by Sperry, pink paisley ascot with matching pocket square, colorless mani/pedi
Wendy Farrish was… bemused. Sitting beside her, in one of the lushly upholstered green velvet chairs in Ted Pelligan’s Melrose office, was Bud Beverwil, the ultimate multi-hyphenate. Not only was Bud an Academy Award–winning actor, but he also wrote, directed, and produced. Plus, he just so happened to be an avid art collector, a triathlete, and the impossibly glamorous husband of the impossibly glamorous, chlorine-eyed ex-model Georgina Malta-Beverwil.
Georgina Malta-Beverwil sat in a cushioned wicker chair at her husband’s side, fishing for something she never seemed to find in her quilted Chanel tote. What movie had Wendy seen her in back in the eighties…? She couldn’t quite remember. And neither could anybody else. But that didn’t really matter, because for the last decade and a half, Georgina had been playing her most famous role to date: Bud Beverwil’s wife.
Today, however, Georgina had come to Ted Pelligan not as Bud Beverwil’s wife, but as Charlotte Beverwil’s mother. She was here, with Charlotte’s classmates’ parents, to talk to Ted Pelligan about the launch of her daughter’s latest little hobby. So what was her plastic surgeon doing here? Yes, Georgina was positive that was Dr. Greene hunched behind the antique maple highboy, tapping away on his BlackBerry Storm. Dr. Greene’s wife, Heather, appeared to be as far from her husband as space permitted, leaning against the wall near the polished wood door.
Heather had panic attacks sometimes, and standing near exits calmed her down; she liked knowing she could escape quickly, should the need arise. But Heather didn’t think she’d have to make a break for it today. She’d popped half a Xanax on the car ride over, and plus, Ted Pelligan: Melrose was her sanctuary. She spent at least two days a week shopping here. She actually bought the lavender Juicy Couture sweatsuit she was wearing today at Teddy P’s. After the meeting, Heather planned to reward herself with some lite shopping downstairs, followed by a Bloody Mary in Ted Pelligan’s shady outdoor café. There was no place she felt more at home, including, tragically, her actual home. Heather pulled a turquoise elastic off her bony wrist, swept her ash-blond hair into a high ponytail, and gazed amorously at Seedy Moon. Now, that’s a man….
Seedy Moon was looking as dashing as ever, dark smooth skin contrasting handsomely with his white-on-white Adidas tracksuit. The amber ceiling light glistened softly against his just-shaved head, and Seedy smiled a small peaceful smile, like he had found some secret to joy that nobody else knew.
Dr. Robert Greene was not feeling quite so serene. “Hey, folks, how ’bout we get this show on the road, huh?”
That’s when a dreidel-shaped man with a pink paisley ascot popped out from behind the tall velvet curtain.
Wendy Farrish, who was sitting closest to the curtain, gasped in surprise. Georgina Beverwil clapped her manicured hands, amused.
“Hullo!” exclaimed the jowly newcomer. “I am Ted Pelligan.” And with that, he wobbled over to the massive mahogany desk. With his unplaceable British-ish accent, immaculate silver eyebrows, and vintage pocket watch, Mr. Pelligan seemed transported from another time. But he looked perfectly at home in the aggressively antique office. In stark contrast to the spare
modernity of the store downstairs, Ted’s office—from the finely bound, never cracked first edition books that lined the ceiling-high bookcases to the antique maps mounted on the eighteenth-century fleur-de-lis wallpaper-lined walls—was an absolute time warp.
“You must be Petra’s parents,” Ted intoned, eyeing the man with the Blackberry and the woman in purple terry pants. “Your daughter is a rare and beautiful bird. You,” he told Bud and Georgina Beverwil, “must be Charlotte’s parents. Your daughter reminds me of Audrey Hepburn, before I made her who she is today. And you!” he told Seedy Moon. “You must be Melissa’s father. That girl has more fire than a dragon with a vendetta.” Then Ted noticed the lady in the turquoise cat’s-eye glasses. “And you…” he began, crinkling his freckled forehead so his long gray eyebrows met in the middle.
“Janie—Janie Farrish’s mother,” Wendy said.
“Yes, of course!” Ted replied, with a dramatic “silly-me” slap to his blotchy forehead. “Jamie’s a lovely swan. A lovely, lovely swan, I tell you.”
“Janie,” Wendy corrected.
“So,” Ted continued, sinking into the brass-studded burgundy wing chair behind his humongous desk. Ted’s chair was so low and his desk so high that once he sat down, the parents could see only his thick white hair, floating over the slab of mahogany like a dollop of cream. “Your daughters have created a beautiful product,” he began, cranking his chair to a higher level. “As I’m sure you all know by now, I came across the Trick-or-Treater bag through a fortuitous accident, and became enamored on sight. We at Ted Pelligan have since begun production on one thousand copies of the enchanting parcel, with many more in the pipeline after that. Once the Trick-or-Treater lands in stores, I have no doubt it will replace everything from the Kelly bag to the Hefty bag.”
“That’s great, Ted—can I call you Ted?” bellowed Robert Greene from his spot by the antique maple highboy. “But I just want to know how you plan to keep these kids from squandering all that loot.”