Fashionistas (24 page)

A
lex’s parents are in town for the night.

“It’s only a stopover on their way to London,” he said on the phone earlier, explaining why he couldn’t meet me for dinner after the van Kessel show. “They have an early flight tomorrow, so they should be back in their hotel room by ten. I could drop by your apartment afterward.”

Although I was disappointed that he hadn’t invited me to join them, I agreed to this plan and told him I’ll see him later. But I’m not surprised that he doesn’t want me to meet his parents. Our relationship isn’t the say-hi-to-in-laws sort. We see each other regularly and have fun, but we don’t talk about things. I don’t ask about the breathy blonde who lives next door and he doesn’t ask if I’m seeing anyone else.

The answer is no, of course. The answer is that I’m so thoroughly besotted by this charming ogre that sometimes I can’t think of anything else. But I’ve dated enough men to know when to keep my distance. I’ve been out here in singleland long enough to know when to play it safe.

At ten-seventeen he shows up on my doorstep with vanilla
Häagen Dazs and chocolate syrup and, while he makes sundaes, he asks me about the show. He questions me about Pieter van Kessel and my story ideas, and when I ramble excitedly for a half hour, he doesn’t interrupt. He just nods encouragingly, offering the sort of support you’ve always wanted from a boyfriend.

After he washes the bowls and spoons, he tells me he has to go home and walk Quik. He says he can’t stay but he does and when I climb out of bed at three in the morning, I have to crawl over his legs because a narrow set of drawers is in my way. When I come back, I stare at him. In the red glow from the alarm clock, I can see a beauty mark on his back. It’s just beneath his shoulder blade and I run my hand over it gently. I glide my fingers over his warm skin for a moment, but before I can move away he’s pulling me toward him. He’s pulling me toward him and wrapping my body against his. I’m held fast in a prison of warm skin.

I lie there awake for a long time, my arm encased in his, and I try very hard to remind myself of the truth. Despite what it feels like, this is not a relationship.

A
fter his tremendously successful show in a Lower East Side parking lot, Pieter van Kessel went into seclusion. He made polite and ecstatic conversation with everyone who came backstage to congratulate him on a brilliant collection and then disappeared into the night. No one has seen neither hide nor hair of him since except his assistant, Hans, and he’s not talking.

“It would be a huge coup for us,” the woman says, after she introduced herself as Leila Chisholm from the
Times.
“We’ve been trying to get something out of his people for hours, but everything seems to be in disarray over there. They don’t even have a publicity department.”

I think of the ramshackle basement I visited months ago during the height of summer. No, I’m not surprised they don’t have a publicity department. “Who told you about the interview?” I ask. I’m still trying to grasp the fact that the
New York Times
wants to buy a piece from me.

“Ellis Masters mentioned it to my editor,” she explains.
“She said you were proposing to do a series of articles charting the success of a hot young property.”

“It’s an idea I’ve been toying with,” I say, understating the case and playing it cool and collected as though my heart weren’t flying.

“We love it.”

“Excuse me?” It’s not that I didn’t hear the words the first time. It’s just that I want to hear them again.

“We love it,” she obligingly repeats. “We want you to do the series for us.”

“All right,” I say. Although I’ve signed documents giving Ivy Publishing ownership to any ideas I think of while working for them, I’m not worried. Jane isn’t going to suddenly be interested in Pieter van Kessel. He might be a sensation in the fashion world, but
Fashionista
isn’t about fashion.

“Good. We’d like to run the interview in Friday’s paper,” she announces matter-of-factly. “We’ll say three thousand words. When do you think we can have it?”

I do some rapid calculations. I have a dozen pages of notes to read through and organize and two hours of tapes to transcribe. “How is tomorrow?”

“In the morning?” she asks.

I was thinking in the afternoon, but I readily agree. The pile of work on my desk is boring and inconsequential and nothing compared with this. I have no intention of touching any of it until my piece on Pieter van Kessel is perfect. “By eleven?”

“Eleven’s a little later than I’d like, but it’ll do,” she concedes. “If you give me your fax number, I’ll send over the contract right away.”

I’ve had so few things faxed to me that I don’t know the number, and I spend several anxious moments rifling through my drawers for a piece of paper with this sort of information on it. After I hang up the phone, I stand at my desk, trying to decide what I should do next. Call my parents or hover by the fax machine? A paranoid sense that nothing good ever
happens to me washes over me and I run to the fax machine to wait. I don’t want any fingers but mine to touch that document. It takes fifteen minutes and the ink is faint but it’s beautiful to my smitten eyes.

Before calling my parents or doing a triumphant jig, I duck my head in Marguerite’s office and casually ask if she thinks
Fashionista
will ever be interested in my van Kessel article idea.

She shakes her head sadly. “Not the way things are right now. Maybe if I were editor in chief….” She lets the sentence trail off seductively, but I’m in no condition to indulge her. She has said exactly the words I want to hear.

I can no longer control my exuberance and I give her my brightest, happiest smile.

“Thank you,” I say, demure and breathless at the same time. Then I return to my office, close the door and dance around happily. Three thousand words in the
New York Times!
I can scarcely believe it. This is the sort of thing you dream about. This is the reason you went into journalism in the first place.

I take deep calming breaths and decide it’s time to get to work. However, before I find my Dictaphone and microcassettes, I write a thank-you note. I dash off a gracious letter to Ms. Ellis Masters and drop it into the mail slot, but it’s only a gesture and an inadequate one at that. The truth is I can’t ever thank her enough.

F
ifty-two hours before the party, Jane adds her maiden name to her already inflated appellation. Stickly distributes the memo, which Jane deems too time-sensitive to go through regular channels. It could take up to four hours for it to wind its way through the system, and she doesn’t want us to lose crucial Whiting-memorization minutes. The addition of her middle name has not gone as smoothly as she’d like, and she’s had to call a few unfortunate individuals into her office for inopportune dropping of “Jane McNeill.” One publicist has already been fired because of a slip in the
Observer.

The memo is printed on elaborate monarch-size letterhead, and Stickly wears a stoic mask of indifference as he drops it on my desk. He’s trying to be brave. He’s trying to keep a stiff upper lip but he’s practically radiating despair. This isn’t what Sticklys do. They deliver peasants to monarchs, not monarchs to peasants.

“Ms. McNeill will see you at one-thirty,” he says in that imperial voice that could fill amphitheaters.

I shake my head. I have no intention of leaving my office
right now. I will not budge a tiny fraction of an inch until I know what Leila Chisholm thinks of my article. I’m expecting the worst. I’m expecting her to hate it. I’m expecting her to scream loudly in my ear that it’s the worst tripe she’s ever read in her entire life. I will suffer her abuse unflinchingly. I will endure it without a whimper; then I’ll hang up the phone and weep.

The article is on my desk, but I can’t bring myself to look at it again. I’ve read it too many times already and still cannot decide if it’s good or not. I’m exhausted from lack of sleep and suspicious of my own judgment and terrified that the sort of genius that strikes at three in the morning is just nonsense in sheep’s clothing.

“One-thirty’s no good for me,” I say, taking my eyes off the phone. A watched pot never rings.

“It’s very important.”

I raise an eyebrow. There are many important things to be done, but Anita Smithers’s assistant is devoted and thorough and is taking care of all of them. There is nothing important that Jane has to do. “Is it?”

He nods. “Ms. McNeill wants to discuss whether she should stand in front of the blue
Fashionista
banner or the red
Fashionista
banner.”

Jane doesn’t have discussions; she takes polls, gives quizzes and lectures. “What did you say?”

“The blue.”

“The blue?”

“Yes, mum is wearing a red dress and would run the risk of clashing.” Stickly is still using his imposing voice and holding himself with dignity, even though neither one befits the subject matter.

I compliment this excellent reasoning and exhort him to tell Jane that I too say the blue background. Stickly wants to argue further with me—my intractability offends him—but he has to move on. He has to hand out the memos in less time than it would take the in-house mail service to do it.

Stickly leaves and I return to my previous activity of phone staring. When Leila Chisholm finally calls three hours later, I’m fast asleep at my desk. My head is at an uncomfortable angle and there are paper clip indentations in my cheek. The ringing telephone is jarring, like a splash of cold water on my face, but I’m still groggy when I answer it. My thoughts are muddled, and it takes me a full minute to realize that she doesn’t hate it.

“It needs tweaking, of course,” she says, before rattling off a list of changes that I’m too slow-witted to understand. I’m not used to the fast-paced world of daily newspapers. “Don’t worry if you didn’t catch all that. I’m going to fax over my notes right now. Same fax number?”

After picking up the fax, I head to the kitchen to get a fresh cup of coffee. Leila’s notes are dense and copious and require an alertness that I’m not capable of right now without artificial stimulants. Flipping through her comments, I realize that the word
tweaking
is an understatement but I’m not worried. I’m exhilarated and thrilled and on fire to start the second draft.

Tweaking aside, the future is bright. The editor from the
New York Times
said she was sure I’d have a better feel for their style next time.

M
aya loves hotel lounges and bars. She loves their glamour and evanescence and the way they make her feel as though she’s almost far away from home. Here people are immersed in their lives; elsewhere they are running away.

“I never loved Roger,” she says after the waiter brings her a capirinha. She’s never had one before but she’s looking for a new drink—cosmopolitans are for mourning Roger, whom she never loved—and she fancies the idea of alcohol made out of sugar cane.

I take a sip of my mojito—a new drink in the spirit of new beginnings—and wait for her to elaborate on her topic sentence. I have revelations of my own to share, but they must take a back seat. Relationship conversations always trump.

“It’s not like I ever thought I did,” she continues, after the capirinha passes muster. “That ring was like Kryptonite, it made me weak. When I found it in that drawer, I felt something overwhelming and assumed it was love. I think now that it was just nostalgia for something—the Cleavers at the dinner table—that doesn’t exist,” she confesses with a hint of
embarrassment. It’s hard to realize that you are just as susceptible as your friends from the suburbs who want to stay in the suburbs.

“The smell of other people’s barbecues,” I say.

“Hmm?” she asks, her eyes on the entrance, as if she’s waiting for someone. We are in the bar at the W hotel in Union Square. We are surrounded by sleek counters and large velvet couches and beautiful people in tight skirts, but don’t let the W fool you. It’s still your parents’ Westin.

“The smell of other people’s barbecues when I’m sitting on my fire escape. It’s the same thing,” I say, explaining.

She nods understandingly. “And some songs.”

“It’s a universal,” I say, as if our three examples are proof of basic human experience.

She turns to me and smiles brightly. “Which means this thing with Gavin isn’t completely doomed. I can’t be rebounding if there’s nothing to rebound from.”

I’m in the act of swallowing rum and lime juice when she makes her statement, and the randomness of it causes me to cough and sputter. I’m aware of no things with Gavin. “What?”

“Gavin and I have been in touch,” she says, looking away. She is somewhat abashed.

“Why haven’t you said anything?”

“What am I going to say? ‘Hey, Vig, Gavin and I talk every night and have really great conversations. I think I’m falling in love,’” she says, mockingly. “It’s embarrassing. I can’t even say the words
really great conversation
without cringing.”

I sweep by her hyper self-consciousness and zoom in on the significant piece of information. “You’re in love?”

She shrugs, trying to appear indifferent. She didn’t mean to reveal so much and is now trying to backtrack.

“You like him a lot?” I ask, trying to temper the immensity of the admission.

Her eyes shift again to the entrance, which she expects Gavin to walk through at any minute, I realize now. He ar
rived in town late last night and went directly to the gallery first thing this morning to oversee the final stages of setup.

I’ve come up against the Maya brick wall enough times to know when I’m about to bash my head against it. “I sold an article to the
Times.
”

She flings her head around and she grabs my hand with such tremendous force that my drink spills. “You what?”

“I sold my interview with Pieter van Kessel to the
New York Times.
And not just the interview,” I say, drying my arm with a cocktail napkin. “They liked my idea for a series. They want the whole thing.”

Maya is speechless for a few seconds; then she starts hitting her hand on the bar. “My good man,” she calls, when she finally has the bartender’s attention, “we’d like a bottle of your worst champagne.”

“That’s not necessary. I—”

“What? We can’t have a celebration without champagne. What are you going to toast with?”

I’m about to say that we can toast with mojitos and capirinhas, but the bartender is already opening a bottle of Moët.

“Besides,” she adds, handing me a flute, “I’ve got something I want to toast to as well.”

“What?”

“No, no, you first.” She raises her glass. “To my dear friend Hedwig Morgan, journalist.”

It sounds weird and lovely, and I swallow six ounces of champagne in a single gulp. “All right, now your news.”

“I started a new book—”

“That’s excellent. What’s it about?”

“Trying to poison an anorexic, but it’s not a mystery because nobody dies.”

I refill our glasses and raise mine for a toast. I gesture for her to do the same, but she does not comply. “To literature!”

“I don’t think—”

“Uh-uh. If I must suffer your toasts, then you must suffer mine.”

Maya knows better than to go up against a slightly inebriated Vig. “All right. To literature.”

She doesn’t say it with any sort of feeling, but I let the lack of conviction slide. At least she said it.

“Anyway, the point is that I gave the first few chapters to an agent in New York who is friends with Gavin’s agent in London. She read it as a favor to Gavin, but she thinks it’s promising. She wants to see the whole thing as soon as I’m done.”

In rigorous compliance with term of reference, August 15, the word
agent
has not passed my lips in almost three months. I’m happy and relieved to discover that others haven’t been so circumspect. “That’s excellent.”

“It doesn’t really mean anything. It could be that she’s just being polite and there’s always a very good chance that she won’t like the rest of the book,” she says discouragingly. “It’s a long way from being something.”

Her knee-jerk pessimism is an uninvited guest at the party and I brush it aside. “To promising.”

This toast has a melancholy mix of hopeful and hopeless (the possibility of succeeding, the inevitable falling short) that appeals to Maya and she raises her glass with enthusiasm.

By the time Gavin shows up, we are invincible. We are invincible and giddy and convinced that anything is possible. We are like Godzilla, and all those tiny obstacles in our way are just the rooftops of small Japanese villages.

Maya throws her arms around Gavin and gives him a sloppy, enthusiastic kiss, which he receives with a shy smile. He makes eye contact with me over her shoulder and waves. Because their only dates have been really great telephone conversations, I leave them alone for a few minutes. I go to the bathroom and admire the fixtures and feel a little sorry for myself that Alex isn’t here. When I called earlier to tell him the good news, I’d intended to invite him. I’d intended to ask him out for a drink, but something stopped me. Celebrating huge lifetime milestones seems too much like a relationship thing.

When I return, Maya is signing the credit card receipt. With our debt settled, we bundle into a cab and go to Maya’s favorite restaurant for dinner, where we gorge on mushroom crepes and olive crostini and crème brûlée. Someone orders a bottle of wine, and I eagerly accept a glass, even though I know I’m about to be ambushed by exhaustion. Because he missed out on the earlier round of ecstatic toasting, Gavin makes a series of toasts that are hilarious and sweet and bring tears to drunken Maya’s eyes.

The evening concludes happily with the customary scuffle over who gets to foot the bill, which I win because my reflexes are the least impaired by alcohol. Outside the air is chilly and fresh and before I grab a cab home, I insist on walking them back to Maya’s apartment. The Future is just around the corner.