by Compai
Jocelyn smiled a cabernet-stained grin. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “We hate that little high school skank, too!”
“Hate!” echoed Pepper, the unlucky one who got stuck having brown hair because Jocelyn had “called” blond back in high school, and Trish had quickly snatched up red. Pepper was convinced that her brown hair was the only thing preventing her from fully realizing her potential as a Christian pop singer, but Jocelyn insisted there could only be one blonde in the group. And you do want to be in the group, don’t you?
“Me-lis-sa,” Trish winced, screwing up her face like she’d just tasted Lysol. “She had the gall to sit at our table at Mariposa one day. Seriously, someone needed to give that girl a reality check.”
“A fat reality check,” smiled Pepper, looking to Jocelyn for props.
“What Pepper and Trish and myself are getting at here, Miss Ho, is that you are our idol. You are, like, the Mother Teresa of Rodeo Drive, representing all the women who have been irritated by that little gnat.”
“Wow,” Vivien replied, cause hey, flattery would get you everywhere with her, “thank you. I really did take one for the team, didn’t I?”
“Absolutely!” confirmed Pepper.
“You must come join us for a drink,” Jocelyn exclaimed.
“We insist!” Trish chimed in.
“This cab isn’t going to drink itself,” Pepper agreed.
They didn’t have to ask her twice. Vivien rose and joined their tiny table, and Pepper poured her a heaping glassful of wine. They watched, expectant, while Vivien enjoyed a long, slow swallow of the rich red medicine.
“Now,” Jocelyn began, leaning forward so her man-made mammaries were on full display. “Start at the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.”
“Okay,” Vivien began. “It all started on day three of my Master Cleanse, which, as I’m sure you ladies know, is the toughest day of all.” They nodded sympathetically. “So here I am, literally starving myself to fit into my eighteen-tier Vera, and Seedy starts talking about his daughter’s little sewing class, and how she is going to throw a big party to name her lame little company. He would not stop talking about it! Ba-ba-ba, Melissa and her friends, and ba-ba-ba, fashion label, and then I find out the girls are having the party at the Prada store! Well, since the tension between Prada and my own couture label, Ho Bag, is well documented, it’s obvious to me—and anybody with half a brain in their head—that Melissa chose the Prada store just to get my goat. And so I decide, in my highly unstable Master Cleanse–induced state, to teach Melissa a lesson. And so, when all those little twerps submit their proposed names for her ‘fashion label,’ I break in and swap out every last entry with the word ‘Poseur.’ ’Cause that’s what she is. Just a little girl playing dress up.” Vivien recoiled, surprised by her own venom (though not that surprised). “Anyway,” she continued, “I tried to explain my side of the story to Seedy, but he just wouldn’t listen.”
“That is so mean!” Pepper whined.
“I know!” Vivien agreed. “He says he will never trust me again.”
“Well, if there is one thing I know,” smiled Joss, “it’s divorce, and this guy owes you big-time if he calls off an engagement last minute like that. I know a lawyer who can get you a settlement you won’t believe—”
“Oh, Seedy already gave me a settlement,” Vivien interrupted. She gazed into her rapidly dwindling glass of cabernet and sighed. “He has been incredibly generous.”
Pepper and Trish exchanged a look, perplexed. “Then what’s the problem?” Trish intoned.
“The problem is,” Vivien began, really wishing she could sob while she delivered her sob story, “the problem is that my reputation is ruined! You know that website GuessWhoDied.com? Well, after Seedy released that murder ballad, “Vivien,” they pronounced me dead, and being dead has completely ruined my Ho Bag sales numbers. If things don’t pick up soon, I will have to live like some kind of pauper! Eating at California Pizza Kitchen and shopping in malls!”
“Pull yourself together, Vivien!” Jocelyn demanded.
“I can’t. Half of America thinks I’m dead and the other half hates me! I know the only way the public will love me again is if Seedy loves me first. I have to get him back! And plus”—she squinted her eyes hard and thought of her dead cat Noodles. Nothing—“I love him.”
“Vivien Ho, we will not rest until you are Vivien Ho-Moon!” Pepper assured her.
“Yeah,” Trish agreed. “We need a new philanthropic project anyway, ’cause the cleft palate kids are really played out.”
“You are in good hands,” Joss said. “Yossi and I have been married three times.”
“Really?” Vivien inquired.
“Really,” Joss replied. “Hey, what are you doing tonight, sweetie? The three of us are headed to the Transcendent Cream show, and there’s one spot left in Trish’s Range—”
“Transcendent Cream is this totally transcendent Cream Tribute band,” clarified Pepper. “The best I’ve heard by a landslide.”
“Especially when you want to feel, like, mmm! You know?” Trish added suggestively. Vivien managed to stifle her gag reflex.
“So, are you in or are you in?” asked Joss.
Not again, Vivien thought, eyeing the three remarkably taut, expectant faces before her. How was she always getting stuck in positions where she had to pretend to like music she hated? First, it was Seedy’s jams (which all sounded exactly the same to Vivien: wack), then it was classical music (because isn’t everybody cultured supposed to have classical music at their engagement party?), and now it was this… what? Music to Perform Vaginal Reconstructive Surgery To? Vivien shuddered. Why couldn’t these women just listen to Fergie like normal people? But while “My Humps” played softly in the back of Vivien’s head (my lovely lady lumps…) she eyed Joss, Pepper, and Trish and knew she had no choice. From the mountain of Neiman Marcus bags at their Jimmy Choo–clad feet to the suitcase-size Balenciaga bags that dangled from their chairs, one thing was clear as the flawless twenty-six-carat diamond she refused to remove from her ring finger: bitches knew what they were doing.
“I’m so in,” she announced.
The ladies squealed, simultaneously raising their hands in the air. Having never had a friend before, Vivien was confused. But soon realized what she was supposed to do.
So she high-fived them each in succession and let out the best white-woman-dying-seal squeal she could muster.
The Girl: Janie Farrish? Or her smokin’ hot older sister?
The Getup: Ocean blue velvet bustier by Marc Jacobs, black miniskirt with funky gold zippers by Preen Line, handcuff necklace by Juliana Eshaya, giant studded cuff by CC Skye, black knee-high Christian Louboutin boots
The band wouldn’t be coming on for another ten, but the club was so packed you had to, like, really need to pee to justify the bathroom trek. All the chicks were dressed in a style best described as toddler chic: lacy baby-doll dresses, slouchy ankle boots, blunt bangs, and either torn tights or stripy thigh-highs. Eyeliner, smudged beyond recognition, completed the look.
Hours of preparation went into looking that messy.
But it was worth it because, he-llo? This was the Troubadour. You couldn’t just show up like some geek off the streets.
Only one Creatures of Habit fan’s I-don’t-give-a-damnness came from the heart, and—quel surprise—she also happened to be the girl everyone looked at. Damn you, Petra Greene. With her cutoff jean shorts, braided hemp belt, and vintage silk scarf, ingeniously tied into a makeshift (and precarious) halter top, she was a study in effortlessness and cool. If she was an iHuman, she’d play something like Jeff Buckley’s “Everybody Here Wants You,” while everybody else played,”Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera, trying (and failing) to make themselves feel better.
Of course, what Petra lacked in effort, her date for the evening, Janie Farrish, more than made up for. The willowy girl with shy gray eyes had spent half the day absorbed in virgin sacrifice–w
orthy preparation, starting at the top and working her way down. She shampooed, blow-dried, and straight-ironed her hair into the sleekest bob imaginable, plucked her brows into perfect arches, painted her fingernails pitch-black, and outlined her eyes in so much kohl eyeliner she outsmoldered Bollywood, not to mention outaccessorized. Janie’s swanlike neck and pale décolletage boasted the feminine-yet-completely-badass handcuff necklace she’d coveted all season, which (in case her wrist got jealous) she paired with the Vogue-featured gold stud CC Skye cuff, you know, as seen on Eva Mendes? Or AnnaLynne McCord?
Or Janie Farrish.
Of course, the accessories kind of paled in comparison to the main event: the clothes. Her narrow torso spilled into an asymmetrical chartreuse velvet Marc Jacobs bustier, and a black Preen Line miniskirt, replete with edgy gold zippers, hugged her slender hips, putting her long, toned legs on full display, aside, of course, from the portion covered by her polished black leather knee-high boots (Christian Louboutin, thank you very much). In her daring new Ted Pelligan threads, Janie looked like the girl she’d always envied and secretly wanted to be: cool, rebellious, and just a little dangerous. And isn’t looking like the person you always wanted to be a tiny-yet-significant step closer to being the person you’d always wanted to be?
Janie was about to find out. And Jake could sling all the insults he wanted: nothing would steer her off course. She climbed into the passenger seat of the Volvo that night, ready for the sharpest of jabs. So when Jake announced, at the sight of her, “Nobody told me this was a Halloween party,” Janie was ecstatic. “That’s honestly the best you can come up with?!” she exclaimed. Wow, turning into a badass was going to be way easier than she’d thought.
They picked up Petra on the way and headed to the Troubadour. Then, as Jake pulled the car into an awesome street parking spot across from the venue, Petra informed him that she needed to talk to Janie. Alone. About her period. She didn’t have to ask Jake twice. He turned off the Volvo and leaped from it as though ejected, reminding his skanky-looking sister to lock up ol’ Bess when they were done.
But when Jake closed the door and disappeared from sight, Petra didn’t get into the age-old question of Tampax vs. DivaCups. Instead, she fished an Altoids box out of her hemp hobo and popped it open, revealing a lighter and a joint, rolled special for the occasion.
This was Petra’s favorite part of the day. There was nothing like that first hit of weed, the way it entered your system daintily at first, and your brain stopped yapping, and there was only that sweet, soft high. As she exhaled that first toke, it was like somebody had taken the remote control of Petra’s life and turned the volume down on all of her anxieties and stresses. And then, when she had taken enough hits, it was like they’d pressed the mute button. She enjoyed that part too; that utterly stoned, anything-is-funny-even–Dude Where’s My Car, out of your mind high. When cereal tastes like Christmas morning and a Ben Harper song can change your life. Yeah, getting crazy high was cool. But for Petra, nothing beat that first drag. When reality just, like, receded…
“Don’t babysit it.”
Petra turned to find Janie staring back at her from the front passenger seat, cocking one impatient eyebrow. Petra burst out laughing. What movie was that from? Whatever it was, it was hilarious. But as she giggled and ran her fingers through her gloriously tangled honey blond hair, Petra soon realized that she was the only one laughing. And that Janie looked pissed.
“Sorry, I thought you were kidding,” Petra explained, holding out the joint. “I didn’t realize you blazed.”
“Why?” asked Janie, pinching the spliff between her black-manicured fingers. “’Cause I don’t play hacky sack at lunch and think flax seeds are a food group?”
Janie placed the joint between her well-glossed lips and sucked hungrily, burning through a good half-inch of paper. It was quite the toke. Then she proceeded to die. Janie coughed harder than she had ever coughed in her life and her eyes filled with water. She coughed and coughed and coughed, and for a moment, she thought, Okay, I will never stop coughing. This is just what I do for a living now. I cough. It is my occupation.
“Are you okay?” Petra asked, gently patting Janie’s back but knowing no amount of patting could remedy the hacking fit that was bound to follow an obviously amateur rip like that. Petra reached for the spliff and took a drag while Janie’s coughs finally, mercifully subsided. Then, she cracked a window to let some smoke out; Janie was so not ready for the hot box.
As Petra gracefully exhaled out the window, those blackmani’d fingers came pinching at the joint again, and pulled it away.
“Um, maybe keep it to one hit for now,” Petra suggested, reaching for the roach lest Janie should cough up a lung this time.
“Why?” Janie snapped back. “It’s not like I’ve never done marijuana before, Petra.”
“No, I know,” Petra lied. “It’s just that… this bud is pretty brutal. It might be different from what you’re used to.”
“Thanks for the warning, Mom!” Janie mocked, and took another defiant toke. Petra narrowed her tea green eyes, confused. Who was this megabitch hogging her weed, and what had she done with sweet little Janie Farrish?
Petra and Janie waited in line behind two impossibly gazelle-like model types, who either were twins or had the same plastic surgeon.
“So Pet,” Janie began, staring straight ahead, “are you gonna, like, tell everyone I didn’t know how to smoke pot?”
“What? No,” Petra replied.
Janie turned and narrowed her murky gray eyes at Petra like she wasn’t convinced, and then nodded. She handed five bucks to a highly perforated bouncer and flashed him the inside of her wrist, which he proceeded to stamp with a giant smiley face. Without even looking back at Petra, Janie charged into the crowd, stomping in her knee-high boots. Petra, perplexed and highly creeped out, handed a crumpled fin to the bouncer and offered him the inside of her milky white wrist. He slammed a giant happy face on to it. Welcome to the weirdest night of your life, Petra thought to herself.
Paul Elliot Miller was wearing what could only be described as a onesie. It had a hood attached to a zip-up sweater thing attached to pants. Thankfully, it had no feet. On his feet, instead, Paul wore Birkenstocks. His neck was dripping in necklaces from the Venice boardwalk, all of them adorned with massive blown glass beads. One of the beads had a tiny mushroom encased inside. Petra was overcome by the unfortunate urge to hide.
Paul stood off to the side of the stage while the rest of the band set up, shielding his eyes from the lights and trying to find somebody in the audience. He found her. Paul waved giddily and flashed Petra a peace sign. Yes. Her punk-rock prince, her badass beau, her death-metal dreamboat reached his henna-tattooed hand into the smoke-filled air, and he actually flashed her a peace sign. Petra did the only thing she could think to do: she flashed one back.
“Yo, is my sister on drugs?” Jake called from behind her. “She’s acting like a total freak.”
The freak in question was sidling up to the bar as they spoke, high on chronic and couture. Janie leaned on the edge of the bar while Creatures of Habit started in on their first number: “Adolescent Anarchy.” Damn, she loved this song. Janie closed her eyes and began to nod and sway with the music. Wow, she was in a highly public place—and a highly awesome public place at that—and for once, Janie wasn’t worried about what she looked like. Being stoned was awesome! Why hadn’t anybody ever told her how awesome it was before?
Janie felt a tap on her bare shoulder and opened her eyes to find a ferocious-looking guy in a wife beater glaring back at her. “Oh, sorry,” she mumbled under the blaring music, and started to move out of his way.
“Wait,” he called, catching Janie by a lock of her silky brown bob. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Janie answered.
He had a cleft chin, sunken cheeks, and longish greasy hair; think Robert Pattinson after a bar fight. A tattoo of a cross peeked out of the stretched neck of his wife beater. Everybody a
t Janie’s high school talked about getting tattoos, but nobody she knew actually had one, which made Janie think this vampirical stunner might not be in high school at all. His eyes were half closed, meaning he was either half drunk or wholly into Janie. Or both.
“You here for Nocturnal Hunger?” he inquired.
“No,” Janie replied, “Creatures of Habit.”
He nodded. “They’re good.”
“Yeah, my best friend is the singer.” Janie glanced at the stage and found Amelia looking back at her while Paul fiddled with her amp between songs. Amelia gave a double thumbs-up, and Janie quickly looked away.
“So, you’re with the band,” the mystery man smiled, revealing a row of oddly appealing crooked teeth. Then he extended his clear plastic cup and asked, “Beer?”
“What?” Janie yelled. The bar area was loud enough that she could buy an extra minute of panic time by making him repeat himself.
“I! Said!” he yelled over the noise. “Do! You! Want! Some! Beer!”
Like Natalie Imbruglia, Janie was torn. On one hand, it was working! She had officially turned into the kind of person that tattooed older guys offer beer to like it’s nothing. But on the other hand, what about her Accutane? Janie was on this insanely strong acne medication called Accutane, and one of its side effects was high sensitivity to alcoholic beverages. Wait, Janie realized slowly… high sensitivity to alcoholic beverages? Awesome!
She grabbed the cup and took a long swig of the frothy amber liquid. Then she smiled a syrupy smile and wiped the back of her mouth with her hand.