Poseur

by Compai

  “Are you guys coming?!” she demanded as Janie shut the door.

  “In a minute!” Melissa and Petra yelled in unison. After all, they were as upset as Charlotte. Maybe even more.

  “I refuse to go out in this.” Melissa glowered into the lap of her Guatemalan-style peasant dress made of 100 percent natural hemp. The dress, which boasted no waistline whatsoever, billowed over her breasts and just sort of floated. Adding insult to injury, Petra had decorated the neckline, sleeves, and pockets with teeny-tiny painted peace signs. As a general rule, peace signs inspired Melissa toward violence.

  “How could you possibly spend four hundred fifty dollars on this?” she choked out, smacking the window with her open palm.

  “I didn’t,” Petra lashed back. “I made the dress and donated the change to PETA.”

  “What! How much change?”

  “I don’t know. Four hundred and thirty-eight dollars?”

  “What?!”

  “It’s the least you could do for making me wear this!” Petra cried. She turned to the Bentley’s dark, tinted window, mourning her new reflection. Melissa had put her in a baby pink Juicy Couture mini-shorts-attached-to-tube-top thing called a “romper.” The romper’s sole mission in life was to expose as much skin as possible. If Petra yanked it up to cover her cleavage, out came the bottom of her butt. As soon as she pulled it down, pop! went the cleavage. How was she supposed to move in this thing, let alone romp? How was she supposed to even breathe?

  “You know you look good,” Melissa quivered in defiance.

  “Um . . . no!” Petra replied. “I look naked.”

  “Well, I brought you a jacket!”

  “Made out of rabbit fur!”

  “Do you even know?” Melissa clutched the jacket to her breast like a child. “This is Miu Miu bunny bomber.”

  “You think I give a crap?” Petra recoiled to the corner of her seat. “I told you. It’s cruelty to animals!”

  “Cruelty to animals?” Melissa repeated with a rueful laugh. “At least I’m not cruel to human beings.”

  Petra gasped. “Neither am I!”

  “Oh yeah? Lemme let you in on something. I am a human being. And as a human being, I personally accuse you of cruelty.”

  “Me?!” Petra trembled with indignation. “I accuse you!”

  “No, no . . . I accuse you!”

  “Well, I accuse you!”

  “Okay, shut the HELL up!!!” Charlotte screamed from the opposite side of the car. Melissa and Petra clamped their mouths shut and stared. Charlotte never, ever screamed. She sneered. She snipped. But screaming she regarded as a repugnant sign of weakness. Babies screamed. Crazy people. Charlotte cleared her throat. “This is our party,” she continued calmly, “and we’re totally missing it. Have either of you even looked outside?”

  For the first time, the two others peered at the window for the view and not their own reflections. The face of Prada boasted a row of gleaming glass doors and an enormous, brushed-metal cube. The cube, which was lit from underneath, hovered over the guests like a UFO. The place was absolutely swarmed — a buzzing hive of flushed faces and bare shoulders, of giggling girls and gorgeous guys — some familiar, some deliciously unfamiliar. From east wall to west wall, East Coast to West Coast, anyone who was anyone was there: Marco, Deena, Kate, Laila, Jake, Evan, Don John, Bronywn, Christina, Theo, Joaquin, Tyler, Luke and Tim. . . . Plus there were Malibu High School kids, Brentwood kids, Harvard Westlake kids . . . the striking sons and daughters of their parents’ agents, managers, producers, personal trainers, their ex-model, ex–best friend’s exes. Not to mention the cute guy from the Coffee Bean on Sunset, the even cuter guy from the Puma store on Melrose, and that one rock-star-hot assistant from the Endeavor Talent Agency.

  And that wasn’t even counting the mind-blowing hotties they’d all brought with them.

  A girl who looked liked Kirsten Dunst sloshed a lemon-drop martini across her hand and squealed. She turned around, the light hit her in a new way, and suddenly it became clear: she was Kirsten Dunst. But then she bent to fix the strap of her strappy black heel and was back to being “the girl who looked like Kirsten Dunst.” Not that you noticed. By then you were already staring at the guy who looked exactly like Justin Timberlake. Except, wait . . . was that Justin Timberlake?

  Melissa rolled down the window. A thumping smash-mix collided with the tide of overlapping voices. The sound swirled, filling the inside of the Bentley like a bubble bath. A flock of UCLA film students swooped in. Camera lights popped.

  Everyone was having fun but them.

  “I’m going in,” Charlotte announced with a toss of her small chin. “Je ne regrette rien.”

  With that, she spiked the cement with her black satin platform pump and got out of the car. She slammed the door. She steamed into the crowd. She felt defiant. She felt badass. She felt a little insane. She hated to admit it, but she owed it to the Marilyn Manson yack-dress. For once, she didn’t have to be the delicate flower.

  For once, she could be the mushroom cloud.

  The Girl: Gretchen Sweet (aka “Naomi”)

  The Getup: Black cotton shirt, black short-shorts, black “Sparkle and Fade” fishnets, black platform Mary Janes, lizard-green eyeliner, silver serving tray

  Jake squeezed through the suffocating crowd until he located a square foot of personal space. It took a minute to realize he was standing on a window. The window was watermelon seed-shaped and big as a bathtub. Under the glass, at the end of a short tunnel, an impeccably dressed mannequin perched on a nest of purses. Jake wished he could lift the glass and climb in next to her. She looked tons more fun than the brainless people at this brainless party. She was brainless, but she had a good excuse. She was a mannequin. And she had no head.

  “Sir?”

  Jake looked up. A knock-out Naomi Watts look-alike smiled from across a serving platter. The last thing he wanted to hear from a Naomi Watts look-alike was the word “sir.”

  “Please,” Jake insisted, holding up his hand. “Call me ‘dude.’”

  Naomi laughed, and her light-gray eyes sparkled. “Okay, dude. Would you like a tuna tartar wasabi wafer?”

  “Uh . . . ,” he hesitated, spying the wafers. They looked a little Fancy Feast.

  “Come on,” she pretended to beg. “I made them myself.”

  “Okay,” he surrendered, pinching one from the small round tray. “Seeing as you slaved away in a hot kitchen. . . .”

  “You have no idea.” Naomi came one step closer. “How hot . . . my kitchen is. . . .”

  Jake stared, the wasabi wafer hovering in front of his open mouth. Naomi tossed her peroxide-blond bob and smiled. “So . . .” She glanced around the packed lobby. “What’s this ho-down about?”

  “Uh . . .” (He hadn’t quite recovered his ability to speak.) “It’s a fashion thing. Like a label thing. For fashion. Thing.”

  “Really?” Naomi cocked a pencil-thin eyebrow. “I’m a fashion designer. Well, aspiring. You know the story.”

  Jake nodded. He was still thinking about her hot kitchen.

  “You gonna eat that thing?” she asked, nodding to the appetizer in his hand.

  “Oh yeah.” He tossed the wafer thing into his mouth and felt a sharp tug on his arm.

  “Holy sh-sh-tuh!” Jake squeaked, turning around. His eyes smarted with instant tears. Wasabi flashed across his tongue like a Malibu brush fire.

  “What?” Charlotte pouted, her hands on her hips. “Do you think I look stupid?”

  “No!” he huffed, waving his hand. “No, you look really h-hh-hot.”

  She beamed, smoothing the shredded folds of her deconstructed skirt. “Really?”

  Jake grabbed a glass of champagne and downed it in two gulps.

  “Hey-hey,” Charlotte tsked, wresting the glass from his grip. “Don’t waste yourself on this rot-gut.” She plunked the glass on Naomi’s tray, who narrowed her eyes and took off. “I brought along some private reserve,” Charlotte explai
ned, leaning toward Jake’s ear. “Cristal . . .”

  Jake raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Uh-huh,” she murmured. “We need to celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?”

  Charlotte stepped back, grinning like a sly cat. “Gimme your hand,” she ordered. She fished a mystery object from her vintage satin clutch and placed it in the middle of his palm. Jake peered down with a baffled smile. It was a small plastic water gun. Charlotte closed his fingers around it, one by one.

  “There’s a garden on the roof,” she said, giving his belt buckle a surreptitious tug. “Meet me there in twenty minutes?”

  At that, she walked away, raising her arm like a tango dancer. With a twirl of her wrist, Charlotte disappeared into the crowd. Jake watched after her, pressed the barrel of the water gun to his heart, and pulled the trigger: click.

  He was starting to feel nervous again.

  “Testing . . . ahem . . . hello?” At the sound of Melissa’s voice, the volume of the crowd, which had swelled to maximum capacity, took a mild dip. Marco glanced to the top of the wide, polished wood staircase. His girlfriend held a mic to her lips. At least, he thought it was Melissa. For some reason, she was crouching behind a cube-shaped shoe display, hiding most of her body and face from view.

  “LISTEN UP!” Marco yelled in support.

  But the crowd lost interest and grew even louder. Melissa panicked. She never freaked out in front of an audience — she lived for an audience! What was wrong with her?

  She grabbed Petra’s hand as she walked by, pulling her down behind the shoe display.

  “I can’t do this,” Melissa whispered into her ear. “I cannot make my speech dressed like this.” She pushed a thin pack of index cards into Petra’s hand. “You do it,” she instructed. Charlotte and Janie were God knows where and Melissa wasn’t about to search for them wearing this brown trash bag.

  “Me?” Petra shook her head in terror. “I can’t. I don’t do speeches.”

  “Well, I don’t hide behind shoe displays. But I am right now, and you wanna know why? ’Cause you dressed me like the kind of person who hides behind shoe displays!”

  “You’re still you,” Petra reminded her. “I can’t . . .”

  “Yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-YOOOO!” Melissa belted into the mic, cutting short her colleague’s protest. A hush fell over the crowd. Everyone knew eight consecutive yo’s meant business.

  “Go!” Melissa ordered, stabbing Petra’s thigh with a fingernail. Petra yelped, bounding to her feet. She turned around. Three hundred expectant faces looked right at her. She swallowed, staring down at Melissa’s first card.

  “Congratulations,” she read with all the passion of a robot. “Y’all have arrived to the . . . OW!” Petra yelped a second time, glaring at Melissa and her evil death nail.

  “Smile!” Melissa hissed like an overbearing stage mother. “Have fun! And whatever you do, don’t be yourself !”

  “Fine.” Petra smiled through clenched teeth. She whipped around to face the crowd. “WhaaaSUUPPP!!!” she called wildly into the mic.

  “WHOOOOO!” the crowd screamed back. Marco bounced on his toes, waving his arms like a conductor.

  “No need to introduce myself!” Petra grinned. “Y’all know my name . . . the one and only . . . Melissa Moon!”

  Everyone exploded into laughter. All at once, Petra’s out-of-character outfit made perfect sense. Oh, their faces seemed to say. Now we get it. Meanwhile, Melissa’s death-nail continued to stab her like a scorpion. Petra didn’t care.

  “Yeah, baby!!!” She cupped a hand to her ghetto gold-hooped ear. “Tonight y’all have been invited to be sighted . . . where? To the block to end all blocks. To the drive to end all drives! Y’all know what I’m talkin’ about! Roh-DAYYOOOOOO!!! Give it up!”

  The crowd whooped and whistled as Petra cracked her gum. Melissa sunk her face into her hands.

  “As you may or may not have heard — my sisters Charlotte, Janie, Petra, and I have united the forces of style to create our very own fashion label. We are all very, very different people. But we do share one thing . . . clothes!” Petra lifted her lanky arms into the air and shook her baby-pink, romper-clad butt. A mass of half-drunk faces screamed in delight.

  “But we also share something else!” Melissa snatched the mic from Petra’s hand. Under the flashing lights, her light brown hippie bag-dress looked ten times worse. She looked like a hugely pregnant Oompa Loompa on her way to Woodstock.

  “Omigawd-uh,” Deena squawked in the distance. Marco’s jaw dropped.

  “You dirty hippie!” someone yelled to the crowd’s tittering amusement. Melissa responded with an aggressive-looking peace sign.

  “Yes, hello . . . my name is Petra Greene, and I am a dirty, dirty hippie.”

  The crowd reacted with a talk show caliber, “Oooo-OOHHH!!!”

  “Cat fight!” another someone yelled.

  “I would like to point out,” Melissa continued, “that on this very special night — we share much more than clothes. We share a dream. A dream that one day, people of all colors, genders, and creeds will come together in support of life, liberty, and . . .”

  Petra leaned into the mic. “The pursuit of kuh- yoot-ness!”

  At that everyone went absolutely wild. Melissa stared at Petra in disbelief. “That was good,” she admitted. Petra smiled, retrieving the mic.

  “So now the question is . . . what to name that dream?” Petra added. The lights dimmed and an enormous clear plastic globe descended from the ceiling like a disco ball. Inside the globe, a built-in fan blew hundreds of tiny square tags around like snow.

  “As you know, we need a name for our new label. Each of you received a blank tag in your invitation. We sent out one hundred and sixty-eight invitations and received exactly one hundred and sixty-eight tags in return.” Melissa put her hand to her heart. “Your participation means so much.”

  “Even though we haven’t read them yet,” Petra said, “we know for a fact — every one of your suggestions is an act of pure genius.”

  “But we can only pick one!” Melissa reminded her audience.

  “Sadness!” Petra fake-pouted.

  “So we’ll post the name of our wonderful, amazing, perfect-in-every-way winner on Monday.”

  “But until then have fun, ’cause . . .”

  “Tag!” The two girls yelled in unison, pointing their fingers at the audience. “You’re it!”

  They threw their arms around one another’s waists and bowed to the floor. The applause was deafening — like a million shining pennies falling on an old tin roof. Petra and Melissa turned to each other and smiled. They had to admit, it was a beautiful sound.

  But only if the coins were lucky.

  Janie ran up the small set of creaky stairs, praying the fragile hem of her dress wouldn’t snag on a splinter or a nail. She stepped onstage, ducking the glare of stage lights, and tip-toed around intricate webs of wires and little flecks of glow-in-the-dark tape. Then she saw him. He was crouching next to an amplifier, twiddling a knob, and pressing his ear to the speaker. The bicycle chains around his narrow hips draped to the floor. His blue-tipped faux-hawk reached for the sky. The silver ring on his lower lip glinted like a fleck of drool.

  Except Janie was the one drooling.

  “Hey,” she said. But the word got swallowed in a surge of feedback. She cleared her throat and prodded his shoulder. Paul Elliot Miller’s shoulder. His threadbare black-sleeved baseball shirt was warm and damp with sweat.

  Paul Elliot Miller’s sweat.

  He looked up, flicking his gaze along Janie’s slender frame, his mismatched bluish-green, greenish-brown eyes smudged with black coal eyeliner. “You can’t be here,” he spoke at last, returning his focus to the speaker.

  “Oh,” Janie replied, crushed at his aloof demeanor. She finally got up the nerve to say hello and his response was “you can’t be here”? What about “I love you”?

  Didn’t he know his lines?
>
  “I need to see Amelia,” Janie announced with as much confidence as she could muster.

  “Wish I could help you,” he muttered, then turned another knob, grunting with effort. Turning knobs, it seemed, was very hard work.

  “Come on,” she pressed, praying the tremor in her voice wasn’t as obvious to him as it was to her. “Where is she?”

  “Look,” the beautiful mouth spat. “Amelia told me no one backstage. It’s, like, no seeing the bride before the wedding—right?”

  “She’s not a bride.”

  “She’s a lead singer, okay? Same rules apply.”

  “Well, I need to give her this,” Janie insisted, lifting the Trader Joe’s shopping bag in her hand. Paul peered down the length of his lightly freckled, aristocratic nose. He rolled a toothpick from one side of his lip to the other. “It’s her wedding dress,” she explained, accepting his terms.

  He sighed, spitting his half-digested toothpick to the floor. Janie stared. If he hadn’t been right there, she would have swooped to the ground and cradled it in her hand. She would have taken it home and sealed it in a plastic bag. She would have handled it with sterilized tweezers. But he was right there, so she could do nothing but stare and say:

  “You’re disgusting.”

  Paul grinned, relishing Janie’s response. And then, without warning, he leaped offstage. He pushed his way through a throng of girls with leather bracelets and Bettie Page bangs, a bunch of guys in slouchy hoodies and studded belts. They watched Paul pass, sucking on their beers like grumpy babies. He turned around, staring at Janie with aggressive contempt.

  “Are you coming or what?!”

  “Oh,” she startled, and obediently headed downstairs. Paul did not wait for her; in fact, he walked faster. Janie scrambled to catch up. She followed him behind the bar, past rows of glinting liquor bottles, the cat-pee smell of fresh beer and old vomit. She followed him through two saloon-style swinging doors. Black sheets were stapled to the ceiling. Graffiti webbed the walls. Music thudded like a distant heartbeat. Janie concentrated on the small of Paul Elliot Miller’s back. Take me, she thought. Push me against this greasy, gross wall and take me.