Catwalk (43 page)

Nole’s mom smiles again—but this time I can tell she’s letting me know that she approves of my feline feistiness. Now I stand quietly while Nole continues to pin me in—tightly. “Does that hurt?” he asks, smirking.

“Um, no sir,” I say.

“Too bad,” he swipes.

“Oops, excuse me, my breasts are vibrating,” shoots Nole’s mom, digging for a cell phone in her blouse. “What? He wants to see it today. Tell him to be there by four,” she shoots. “No. It’s sixty-five hundred. Not a penny less. All right.” Ms. Canoli flips the phone shut, then anchors it back under her bra strap inside her blouse.

“All right—I gotta get ready. Get those two lovebirds out the bathroom—time’s up. I gotta get in there!” she orders, wheezing. She commandeers her chair in the direction of the bathroom.

Suddenly, someone outside the door activates the brass clanker with more voracity than I did.

“She’s early,” laments Nole. “I wanted to have the skirt done, too, before anybody but you sees it.”

“It’s feline fabbie already,” I assure Nole as he pins the puffy sleeves into the sleeve sockets. “We’re lacing up the front, right?” I ask.

“Yup—and the back, too. Even Gaultier is going to gag when he sees that!” squeals Nole, running to the front door.

Aside from the late Gianni Versace, the only purrworthy designer in Nole’s book is French-born Jean Paul Gaultier—especially since he designed the costumes for Nole’s fave cult film,
The Fifth Element
.

“Omigod—you’re early!” echoes Nole’s voice from the hallway.

I suck in my stomach and scurry over to the mirror above the chartreuse velvet couch to look at how the lines of muslin are coming along. “Fabbie Tabby is going to love this,” I purr. I stand on my bare tippy toes and push up my small breasts inside the bra to see if I look trussed up like a turkey.

In a few seconds, Nole’s shadow makes its way down the hall. “Do you think maybe we can push up these catnip treats till they topple?” I ask him, staring at his reflection in the mirror.

That’s when I notice the reflection behind him—of the only zebra-striped mink hat I’ve ever seen … on Zeus’s head!

Zeus’s mysterious cameo makes me want to zap myself into an invisible hole in the floor, but where is that escape clause when you need it, huh? Instead, I screech involuntarily, “Omigod!” Then I attempt a mad dash to the bathroom, careening around the couch, but merely manage to stub my toe
hard
on its unforgivingly obtrusive corner.
“Ouuuch!”

“Omigod, don’t try that on the runway!” squeals Nole, imitating me—and getting off on his sneaky surprise, no doubt.

“You okay?” asks Zeus, coyly. He knows exactly how to perch his brim and curl up the corners of his mouth to make me gaspitate.

“It depends,” I reply, wincing.

“On what?” Zeus asks, squinting his dark magnetic eyes with curiosity.

“Are you my secret Santa?” I say, still clinging to the hope that a hole in the floor will magically appear and suck me in.

Before Zeus can answer, the whir of Ms. Canoli’s
Hoveround can be heard approaching the scene of the fashion crime again.

“Oh, dear!” she says when she spots the combo of the mad hatter and me, still standing in my
bloomers
. As the convo progresses, however, I realize that her exclamatory outburst is probably more in response to Zeus’s chiseled cheekbones and dark, fluttery eyelashes. “And who are you?” asks Nole’s mom, blushing like a Kabuki doll, thanks to the extra helpings of rosy rouge she has poufed on her apple-sized cheeks.

Zeus humbly introduces himself—and chatters effortlessly, displaying more of his, well, digable charm. He extends his hand to Ms. Canoli and she shakes it, giggling.

“Isn’t he gorgeous?” Nole says, finally warming up to his mom.

She counters with her own question: “Doesn’t he look like Stavros?”

“Who?” responds Nole.

“Stavros from the support group for people who’ve been abducted by aliens,” his mom says, nonchalantly.

“No need to spill all the refried beans!” hisses Nole.

“What? He does look like him. Stavros was a nut, but he was handsome,” counters Ms. Canoli.

“You have to forgive her,” Nole advises Zeus, obviously embarrassed. “She meets people in the strangest places.”

“Yeah, well, that’s where the best real estate leads come from these days, and I don’t see you complaining when we go to the Gucci outlet,” she explains, defensively.

“Um, if you’ll excuse me …,” I interrupt, planning my escape to the bathroom to lick my wounds, but Nole isn’t having it.

“Where do you think you’re going? We’ve got work to do. Let me fit you in the tattersall skirt muslin now—or we’ll be here all day!” he orders me.

“Um, where do you want me?” Zeus asks while trying not to say hello to the kitty on my bloomers.

“The sweatpants are ready—so strip down!” Nole orders. “I hope your undies are as interesting as Miss Purr’s!”

“I wore my Joe Boxer smiley faces just for the occasion,” he chuckles.

“Why don’t I put on Aretha? I just found the early Atlantic years,” Ms. Canoli interjects, then sends a swipe Nole’s way: “I told you it was here. It was behind Al Green. I bet if it was
Vogue
magazine, you would have found it under the piles of Pompeii!”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” hisses Nole.

“You talking about the Golden Reign?” asks Zeus, his hypnotic dark eyes brightening up like the epicenter of the solar system. Suddenly, Zeus spins around and takes in Ms. Canoli’s expansive record collection.

“Yes, I am,” Ms. Canoli says, proudly. “I’ve got every album she ever made.”

“Wow—this is unbelievable!” exclaims Zeus, fingering the record—
Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul
—like he has discovered the Holy Grail. He scratches the faint stubble on his face in approval as he scans Ms. Canoli’s expansive row of vinyl records. “This is a
serious
collection.”

Nole digs through a pile of clothes and pulls out pieces of the terry cloth fabric, which he has already cut into sweatpants.

“Heh, he doesn’t get the muslin treatment?” I ask.

“Not for sweatpants and a hoodie,” snipes Nole, like I should know better, which I do.

What I really want to say is
Let’s finish with my skirt fitting first
, but of course, that’s the moment when my cell phone rings in my bag on the other side of the room. No way am I answering it. “If that’s Aphro, she’d best be on her way instead of calling me to tell me about it,” I gripe.

“Tell her not to be late next time,” Nole orders me.

Zeus waits patiently to be fitted into the deep raspberry sweatpants. “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Nole challenges me, swishing the pants in my direction.

“Nope,” I say, nodding in approval at the sweatpants. “That color is so fierce.”

“The pink palette will be represented in full force in the House of Pashmina,” comments Nole.

“You can have this Aretha if you want,” offers Ms. Canoli, her dark lashes fluttering like a, well, schoolgirl.

“Are you serious?” asks Zeus in disbelief.

“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t offer it,” counters Ms. Canoli. “Take it.”

Zeus holds the precious album and bends down to kiss her on her full cherub cheeks.

“I got an op to spin for New Year’s Eve, so I’m trying to make sure my collection is tight by then,” he explains. “And this is as tight as it gets.”

“I hope you enjoy it,” she says, like she’s satisfied that someone finds her useful; then she steers her Hoveround out of the room in a hasty exit.

“Where are you spinning?” I ask Zeus. I definitely wouldn’t mind rubbing elbows—and more—with Zeus on New Year’s Eve.

“Native,” he says, humbly.

“You mean Native on Lenox Avenue?” I repeat in a squeaky voice. Nole shoots me a look like
This is definitely déjà vu
.

“Yeah,” Zeus says. “I was there Friday night. Ice Très hooked me up with the owner for the gig. I mean, it’s not a big spot—but the sound system is kicking and they get a nice crowd, apparently.”

“Yeah, so I hear,” I moan, then shoot Nole a look to let him know his kitty kat is definitely out of the Gucci bag. Obviously, it was Zeus who told him about the Ice Très and Shalimar sighting. Even Hello Kitty on my bloomers blushes as I ponder whether Zeus also knows that Ice Très left me in the booty dust for shady Shalimar.

Suddenly, the door clanker clanks again—and this time I simply plop onto the couch and pull a piece of the brocade bustier fabric onto my lap. “No more ‘peekaboo, guess who’ surprises for
moi
,” I blurt out at Zeus, then quickly divert my eyes from the bright yellow smiley faces emanating from his direction.

It takes only a
segundo
for me to realize that the loud cackling noises in the hallway belong to Felinez and Elgamela, who sail into the living room without so much as a minor mishap. “No wonder I can never find a newspaper!” squeals Elgamela, hugging Nole. Now I realize that even though she and Nole have been hanging tight, she has obviously never been to his house before. She gasps at Zeus. “I would hug you, but I can’t in that disrobed condition!” exclaims Elgamela, blushing. “If my father was here, I would never hear the end of his ‘chirping.’ ” We all laugh at Elgamela’s joke: her parents are Muslim and run Chirpin’ Chicken on Second Avenue, about five blocks from Nole’s house.

“Well, good thing he isn’t, because I have to fit you for the bathing suit,” says Nole.

I try to motion with my eyes to Fifi that I’m in dis
tress
, but she just looks puzzled, holding tightly on to the jumbo shopping bag she’s lugging. I lose all sense of modesty and jump off the couch to hug her. “I’m so freaked out!” I whisper in her ear. But she pretends not to hear me.

“You’ve never been here before?” she asks Elgamela, who is taking in the apartment like it’s a cultural exhibit.

“I know, it’s weird, but Nole is quite the divo—he never has time for his friends,” she says, hugging Nole again. “But I love that we get to see each other all the time now, though, thanks to the House of Pashmina!”

“Big up!” Zeus says, swooning, then ducks behind the armchair for cover as if he suddenly realizes his smiley faces are showing. That’s when I’m finally sure that Elgamela and Zeus have never had any clothes encounters of any kind, or else the mad hatter wouldn’t be blushing—big-time.

Nole hands me the sample for one of the evening skirts. I step into the skirt and Nole starts fitting me. “I think the waist is too high,” I comment.

“No, it isn’t,” he snaps.

“I think it’s too long,” says Felinez, finally plopping down her jumbo red cotton shopping bag as if it’s safe from shoplifters.

“I don’t mind the length but I’d like to see a little
more sweep on the bottom—so it really shows off the ruffles,” I advise.

“You’re right,” snaps Nole, before ordering me to step out of the skirt so he can add another panel.

“You next!” screams Nole, prompting Elgamela to stop her snake charmer act and get undressed.

“Right here?” she asks, her eyes bulging.

“Yes, your father is not here!” bellows Nole.

“Well, I’m going in the bathroom,” insists Elgamela.

She waltzes off in the wrong direction—confirming that she hasn’t been to Nole’s humble abode before. Nole doesn’t stop her but watches as she walks into an ambush. “Omigod, I’m so sorry!” we hear Elgamela yelping—obviously to Ms. Canoli, whose bedroom she walked right into. Sheepishly, Elgamela walks back into the living room with her head lowered in embarrassment. “Was she getting undressed?” Nole asks, smirking.

Elgamela nods. Nole hands her the black Lurex bathing suit and points toward the bathroom.

Felinez, who obviously can’t wait any longer for my approval, pulls a flashy feline tote out of her never-ending shopping bag like she’s pulling a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. “What do you think?” she asks anxiously.

Nole examines the roomy tote bag like a forensic scientist. “You don’t think this is too big?” he asks.

“No, I don’t think so,” I answer for Felinez. The whole point of winning the Design Challenge is that the audience will be able to see the handiwork.”

“Stevie Wonder can see it!” counters Nole.

I grab the tote bag from him and look at both sides. “I like that it has separate billboards on each side. This is really clever!” I exclaim, gazing approvingly at the “ABSOLUTE FELINE” faux vodka ad that Felinez concocted for our purposes. On the other side is a faux ad for the Broadway play “ALLEY CATS.”

“Absolute Feline—that’s us,” I say.

Felinez breaks into a dimpled smile, then dumps the rest of the bags and belts and hats out of the shopping bag and onto the hardwood floor. Nole snaps up one of the vinyl hats and puts it on Elgamela’s head: “This looks like a dunce hat. It’s so pointy!”

“No, it’s not,” I snap, getting, well, snappy from Nole’s endless objections.

“We should do brimmed ones,” he counters.

“No, we shouldn’t—then you won’t be able to see the advertisement as clearly,” I snap again.

I stand in front of the mirror, positioning the hot-pink vinyl hat till the black cat is front and center, then decide: “I think it’s
purrfect.
”

I pick up the vinyl hat for the male model and stand in front of Zeus. “Oh, right,” he says, smiling, then takes off his beloved zebra-striped mink hat and rests
it right on top of Ms. Canoli’s prized vinyl record collection.

Zeus strikes a pose and Nole quips, “Taking it to the brim.”

“Brimless it is,” I order.

“I still think the bag looks too beachy,” claims Nole.

Felinez shows him the bucket bag and the duffel bag designed to sling over the shoulder. “Now, these work with the urban wear.”

“Awright,” I say, giving in. “We can use the tote bags for the swimwear segment. You happy?”

“Delirious,” seconds Nole.

Elgamela comes out of the bathroom wearing the slinky black one-piece bathing suit. “Omigod, can I really walk down the runway in this?”

“I think so,” Zeus says, his dark eyes beaming.

“My mother will faint—and my father will disown me,” she predicts somberly.