Poseur

by Compai

  Jake watched the interaction between Evan and Janie with a puzzled frown. “You guys know each other?”

  His sister simultaneously nodded and shook her head. She couldn’t say she knew Evan. At the same time she couldn’t say she didn’t. All she could say for sure was, in a misguided effort to make him laugh, she’d imitated Tarzan in the middle of a Mexican restaurant, reaching levels of dorkyness not meant to be explored. When she thought about it ( Ahhhh-ee-yah-ee-yaaaaah-ee-yah-ee-yaaaah! ) she became too mortified to breathe. Which is why, the four times she’d glimpsed Evan on campus in the past two days, she’d darted for cover.

  “Evan darling, give Janie the tour!” Charlotte ordered from down the hall. She tugged Jake by the elbow.

  “So,” Evan said once their siblings were gone.

  “So,” Janie said back. Of course, she’d heard Charlotte’s brother had returned to Winston for his senior year, just as the guy in Baja Fresh claimed he had. Why hadn’t she put two and two together? Why hadn’t she realized Charlotte’s brother and Heath Ledger Boy were one and the same?

  “Can I, um . . . get you something to drink?” he asked, desperate to fill the silence. “A spritzer?”

  “Sure,” Janie replied, following him into the sleek, monochromatic kitchen. Evan pulled the heavy door of a silver Sub-Zero refrigerator, and it released a sound like a loud sucking kiss. He found an Orangina and handed it to her, unscrewing the cap.

  “Thanks.” She took a birdlike sip before returning the bottle to the counter. They’d stationed themselves on either side of the massive granite-topped kitchen island. Evan planted his hands on both corners, facing Janie like an air hockey opponent. He could really go for a game of air hockey, he realized with a pang.

  “I like the bottle,” Janie observed, turning her Orangina so the label faced her.

  “You’re exactly like my sister,” came Evan’s amicable reply. Charlotte liked the bottles so much, she refused to throw them out. She lined them on her windowsills like little glass soldiers.

  “I’m nothing like your sister,” Janie countered with a small laugh.

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “I guess not.”

  “Really?” Janie paused. “You really think we’re nothing alike?”

  Evan took a deep breath. He’d only meant the sister remark as a throwaway comment. How had it turned into this, like, big deal? But Janie was waiting on his answer, so he’d better come up with something. He scratched the back of his ankle with his flip-flop and thought it over. His sister was short. Janie was tall. His sister had curly hair. Janie had straight hair. His sister was his sister. Janie was not his sister. “I guess you guys seem pretty different,” he concluded.

  She nodded. Of course he’d say they were different. Charlotte was pretty and confident and rich and fashionable and popular. Janie was not. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared at the floor.

  It took Evan all of .5 seconds to realize he’d said the wrong thing ( why it was wrong remained a mystery.) But before he could retract his answer, her brother walked into the kitchen.

  “Jake!” Janie exclaimed with relief.

  Jake just stood there, his smile enormous to the point of distorting his face.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he responded in a vague sort of way. “Hey, man.” He nodded to Evan.

  “Whattup.” Evan nodded back.

  Janie turned back to Evan with a half-wave. “It was nice meeting you. Again.”

  “Yeah,” Evan murmured, watching her exit. Her narrow hips tick-tocked like a clock. Sorry, buddy, they seemed to say. Your time is up.

  Evan made a slow lap around the kitchen island and tried to make sense of what happened. He stared at Janie’s virtually untouched Orangina, his words echoing in his ears. Can I offer you a spritzer? He cringed at the memory. What kind of self-respecting dude says spritzer?

  Evan grabbed the Orangina bottle by its neck, carried it to the sink, and tipped it on its head. The orange liquid gurgled and fizzed. He watched it for a second, then turned on the faucet, letting the water run. Just like that, the drink was gone — out of his sink forever.

  If only he could get her out of his mind.

  If only he could get her out of his mind.

  As of only twenty-three minutes ago, Charlotte Beverwil had pulled Jake into her laundry room, where — amid the steamy hum of a polished steel washer and dryer — she’d given him, at long last, “that thing he left in her car.” Jake had been expecting his gray sweatshirt. Or maybe his Arcade Fire CD. Instead, he got a very urgent, extremely passionate, push-against-the-wall-style kiss. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting.

  It was exactly what he’d been looking for.

  Only now, as he sat in the Volvo with his brooding sister at the wheel, did panic begin to seep in. Because this was the thing: Charlotte Beverwil had experience. In fact, according to his buddy Tyler, she hadn’t even gone to embroidery school in Belgium. According to his buddy Tyler “embroidery school” was just an elaborate metaphor for, well, you know. “Yeah, even I do that kind of embroidery,” he snickered, tying his shoe by Jake’s locker. “The needle goes in, the needle goes out. The needle goes in, the needle goes out. Dude, you know what she was up to in jolly ol’ Belgium.”

  Jake slammed his locker shut, grimacing at his friend. “Man, are you as dumb as you sound?”

  But Tyler had a point. Girls like Charlotte didn’t just not have sex. They exuded sex. They were sex. And they definitely did not jaunt all the way to Europe to sew. No doubt about it, Charlotte Beverwil had experience. And experience led to another dreaded ex: expectations. A girl like Charlotte expected a lot — and Jake wasn’t sure he could deliver. After all, he was still a virgin. What if she were to find out? What if she could somehow tell? Jake paled at the thought. If Charlotte knew he was a V-boy, she’d realize how uncool he was and Jake would turn into the worst form of ex there was:

  The ex-pseudo-boyfriend.

  Jake could narrow down his entire sex life to one girl: Melody Chung. He met Melody last spring in Advanced Kuman, a math class taught according to a strict Japanese method. Melody Chung had tan skin, straight black hair, and long, wispy bangs. She wore platform flip-flops and rolled the cuffs of her jeans. She had a pretty, tiny mouth — the same shape and size as the drugstore butterfly clips she attached to her hair — and a freckle on her right ear.

  At first sight, Melody looked timid and sweet. She wasn’t. She barked equations like a dictator. She clicked her Hello Kitty pen as if it connected to an explosive device. She was fond of the expression “What are you, stupid?” But she was nice to Jake. And she smelled like strawberry Runts. So when she sat next to him during class, Jake liked it. And when she continued to sit there, even after class, Jake liked it even more. And then, out of nowhere, Melody Chung asked if he’d like to “sit outside.”

  They commenced a frantic make-out session in the alley behind the Unitarian church where Evergreen Kuman rented class space. They could hear the beginners’ class, which met directly after theirs, chanting through the open windows: five times two is ten! Five times three is fifteen! Five times four is twenty! Jake and Melody sucked nonstop face ’til nine times eleven, at which point he made the mistake of touching Melody’s nipple, and she stabbed her Hello Kitty pen into his ribs. This brought things to a grinding halt.

  The next day, Melody avoided him. She refused to make eye contact or speak — unless you count the time Jake blanked on a prime number, at which point he heard (softly, from the back of the room), “What are you, stupid?”

  So, that was it. Jake’s experience in a nutshell. The whole sha-bang (minus the bang). He was no match for Charlotte. He wasn’t even a contender. Seriously, what had he been thinking?

  At the most heated point of their laundry room make-out session, Jake had broken away from Charlotte and stared hard at the floor. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just . . .” He tr
ied to think up something to say, anything — as long as it wasn’t the truth. Charlotte folded her arms across her chest as Jake looked up and gazed into her eyes, those twin pools of chlorine-green, and drew a blank.

  She cleared her throat. “Does this have something to do with your sister?”

  “Ye-es,” Jake agreed before he could think it through.

  He felt bad pinning it on Janie, but what was he supposed to do? Pin it on his pathetic lack of balls? To Charlotte? Jake ground his palms into his eye sockets. If only he didn’t like her so much. Things would be so much easier!

  But he did like her and so they weren’t.

  “You wanna put on a CD?” Janie asked, interrupting his thoughts. With a little effort, Jake managed to return to the reality of the Volvo. Down the street, the Beverwils’ automatic gates closed, locking into place. The wrought-iron shuddered.

  Jake flipped through their CD case. “Here,” he handed her an Elliott Smith album.

  “Uh-oh,” she said, examining his choice. “Is someone feeling saddy-poo?”

  “Shut up,” he replied. But his heart wasn’t in it.

  “Hey.” Janie smiled. “It’s alright. I’m saddy-poo too.”

  After that, they let Elliott Smith do the talking. Jake leaned his head to the window, watching the sun disappear behind a rust-tinged veil of smog. No doubt the Beverwil laundry was done by now: folded into tidy creased squares, stacked into those tall cedar chests from Sweden, resting in the cedar-scented dark. The image filled Jake with a strange, hollow ache. His thoughts tumbled in his brain, like sheets that refused to dry.

  The Girl: Melissa Moon

  The Getup: A&G denim miniskirt, pink Rebecca Beeson cotton t-shirt, silver Baby Phat puffy vest, silver stiletto mules with rhinestone detail, saucer-sized platinum hoops, manicure (in Chanel’s “Paparazzi”)

  Melissa Moon was not happy.

  Her Special Studies proposal — which she’d spent a whole three hours on, skipping a much needed crystal therapy appointment — had been rejected.

  Not only rejected, but dragged off and held hostage by another Special Studies proposal. By something called . . . wait for it . . .

  The Trend Set.

  As if she would sign up for something with so bland and inferior a title.

  Fortunately, Melissa was not the type to just sit back and take it. She was the type to take it out. She turned from the library bulletin and started walking. Her stilettos popped like cap guns. Her bangles clanged like bells of alarm. Her Cinnamon Inferno gum cracked like a whip.

  “OmiGAWD-uh!” Deena shrieked from her left. Melissa stopped her with the clichéd, but always reliable, hand. Deena’s face fell, but she’d just have to deal.

  Now was not the time.

  Melissa flung open Miss Paletsky’s dark-green office door. The director of Special Studies looked up from her computer, smiling from behind her no-name octagonal eyewear. At the mere sight of those glasses, Melissa wanted to scream, “I have four words for you! Gucci rectangular tortoiseshell frames. Buy them before I slap those damn stop signs off your face!”

  But she didn’t.

  Instead, in her very sweetest voice, she asked: “Do you mind if I shut the door?” Miss Paletsky invited her to take a seat. Melissa stared at the green velveteen couch, where Miss Paletsky had propped a row of small, forest creature cushions. An embroidered quail sat next to an embroidered rabbit. An embroidered squirrel ate an embroidered nut. The pillows gave Melissa the embroidered creeps. Especially the squirrel, who seemed to be looking right at her.

  “Is everything alright?” Miss Paletsky asked in her Slavic purr. She wondered why Melissa continued to stand, frowning at her couch as if it had insulted her family’s good name.

  “Not exactly,” Melissa sighed, perching on the very edge of the couch’s saggy arm. She clutched the squirrel pillow and pressed it to her lap. “My Special Study . . . ,” she began, pausing for effect, “was rejected.” She sighed a heavy sigh, waiting for her teacher’s gushing apology. It didn’t come. Miss Paletsky just smiled and looked generally pleasant.

  It was infuriating.

  “I was wondering,” she continued, hardening her tone, “if there was some kind of mistake?”

  Miss Paletsky clasped her soft hands until they sat like a potato in her lap. “Dah . . .” She cleared her throat. “The main mistake, I think, is choice of word ‘rejected.’ Your proposal was not rejected. It was accepted and combined with some other proposals to make it stronger.”

  “So you’re saying my proposal was weak.”

  “I am not saying that,” Miss Paletsky replied with a sweet smile. “All four proposals were very strong. But because they had so much in common . . .”

  “I don’t have anything in common with people who think ‘The Trend Set’ is a cool name for a class.”

  “Well, I came up with that, not them,” Miss Paletsky admitted, a little embarrassed. She thought “The Trend Set” was pretty clever, actually: a set of girls who set the trends. Get it? Miss Paletsky tugged self-consciously at her flower-print scrunchie.

  “I’m sure you and the girls can come up with something more . . . how do you say it . . . catchy.”

  “More catchy than ‘Melissa Moon’?” Melissa asked, incredulous. “If ‘Melissa Moon’ is not catchy, I don’t know what is.”

  “Why not suggest it to the other girls and see what they think?” suggested Miss Paletsky.

  “I can’t. They’ll think I’m an egomaniac.”

  The teacher laughed lightly. “You’re not egomaniac.” (F.Y.I., Miss Paletsky’s job required her to discourage students from regarding themselves as egomaniacs. Even when they kinda were.)

  “Well, I know that.” Melissa collapsed backward on the velveteen couch. “And my friends know that. But everyone else is, like, ‘Oh, Melissa! She’s so full of herself!’ Even though I’m not.”

  “Of course you’re not.”

  “I just have a strong personality!”

  “Exactly.”

  “I feel my Special Study should consist of me and my friends,” Melissa concluded. “My friends get the way I tick.”

  “Yes,” Miss Paletsky nodded. “Your friends are passionate about fashion like you?”

  “Oh yeah. They shop, like, all the time.”

  Miss Paletsky raised her eyebrows and removed her glasses. “Is that how you define passion? By shopping?”

  Melissa had a sinking feeling it wasn’t.

  “Just so you know,” Miss Paletsky said, “Charlotte Beverwil studied embroidery and lace-making with Belgian nuns.” She lowered her glasses to her lap, rubbing the left lens with the corner of her cardigan. “And Janie Farrish draws and designs her own clothes.” She shifted the corner of her cardigan from her left lens to her right. “And Petra Greene wants to start her own label, just like you.”

  “ Petra wants to start her own label?” Melissa snorted. “What’s she gonna call it — Baglady Mischka?”

  “My point is,” Miss Paletsky continued, replacing her glasses, “is possible you will have more success with them than with shop-’til-you-drop friends.”

  Melissa laughed. “No way.”

  “Okay,” Miss Paletsky conceded. “Maybe I am missing something. Explain to me why going into business with friends is better option.”

  “Friends are loyal.”

  “Good!” Miss Paletsky nodded. “What else?”

  Melissa thought it over, but the only trait she came up with was “fun,” and — in terms of her argument — “fun” wasn’t the most persuasive. She’d watched her father. Starting a business was about focus and hard work, not fun.

  She would have to play this another way.

  “Nothing’s more important than loyalty,” she declared.

  “Maybe so. But . . . loyalty without independence” — Miss Paletsky shrugged — “is like a dog, no?”

  With great chagrin, she conceded her teacher’s point. As much as Melissa loved them, she had to admit
her friends weren’t exactly career-driven or brainy. In fact, they did have things in common with dogs (albeit well-groomed, adorable dogs), more than she’d ever realized. Melissa pressed her lips together, tracing the edge of the pillow with her finger. As much as she’d love to go into business with a bunch of Pomeranians, it just wasn’t practical.

  “I hear you,” she admitted after a pause. “I hear what you’re saying, yeah.”

  She looked up, pleased to discover an expression of pure shock on Miss Paletsky’s overly powdered face. Melissa always knew she’d said the right thing when people looked shocked. She stood up, returning the collectible pillow to its proper place on the couch. Strange. The squirrel looked cuter somehow. His cheeks looked cheekier. Even his nut looked . . . nuttier.

  “Alright,” she agreed. “I’ll try it out.”

  “Wonderful!” Miss Paletsky beamed, clasping her hands and pressing them to her heart.

  Melissa headed for the door, then stepped down the corridor and into the sun. “Loving these pillo-o-ows!” she sang. And then she was out.

  Miss Paletsky stared at the open door. As much as she would like to congratulate herself for the success with Melissa Moon, she couldn’t help but think of the other three girls. Each one had come into her office convinced that The Trend Set was the worst idea ever. And — unlike Melissa — nothing Miss Paletsky could say would persuade them otherwise.

  She glanced to the willow branches outside her office window. If The Trend Set fell apart, then so would a substantial part of her job. And she needed this job. It was the only thing that got her out of the house, away from Yuri, the overweight, sweat-stained owner of the Copy & Print store on Fairfax. But Yuri was an American citizen. Unless Miss Paletsky found another alternative — and found it fast — she would marry Yuri in order to obtain her Visa. She and Yuri . . . married! She tilted her head back, so as not to spill her tears. She hoped these girls gave their class a chance.

  Maybe they could make her wedding dress.

  The Girl: Petra Greene

  The Getup: Floor-length almond-brown hemp skirt, rainbow-striped Danskin leotard, yellow chiffon apron, leopard print boho bag, four-leaf clover wrapping paper ribbons