Poseur #2: The Good, the Fab and the Ugly (6 page)

“I’m Lena,” she introduced herself, putting an end to her manic calculations.

“I was wondering if we could talk,” Christopher continued. “Is this a good time?”

“Oh yes!” She exhaled and nodded, inviting him to sit. He plopped on her green velveteen couch, sinking deep into the needle-point squirrel cushions, his knees expanded at a distractingly obtuse angle.

“It’s about my daughter,” he began. “I’ve been a little concerned.”

“We adore Melissa.” Miss Paletsky clasped her hands so they sat like a peeled potato in her lap. “She is one our most . . .
energetic
students.”

“Yeah, but she is
obsessed
with finding out who vandalized this contest of hers. . . .” He ran his ruby-bejeweled, and (she couldn’t help but notice) wedding ring–free hand around his perfectly shaved head. “I try to be a good father, Lena. A provider. Someone who sets things up for their kids, you know — so they can have access to a future they deserve.”

Miss Paletsky fiddled with the oversized blue plastic beads at her flushed neck. Never had she been so moved by a parent’s concern. He was so invested. So sincere.

And he’d
so
just said her name!

“But ever since this contest,” he observed, innocent to the effect he had on his trembling listener, “my daughter’s been looking
backward
not forward. I know it’s hypocritical, but . . . I just don’t think it’s healthy.”

“How is that hypocritical?”

“Well, you know,” he replied with a knowing chuckle. He leaned back into the pliant velveteen cushions, cradling his head in the hammock of his hands. “I kind of built my whole career on looking backward, right? Grudges, history, revenge — those are the building blocks of my business.”

“I . . . I’m sorry.” Miss Paletsky shook her head. As far as she could tell, he was either a history professor, a bounty hunter, or a Winston eighth grade girl. “What is it that you do, exactly?”

“For real?” Seedy sat to attention, and broadly grinned. “Christopher Duane, aka Seedy Moon?” He awaited recognition, but she responded with only a blank, befuddled look. “Lord of the Blings,” he persisted. “The
Kimchi Killa?
Oh
man,
” he flopped back against the cushions. “Don’t you listen to hip-hop?”

Miss Paletsky shook her head. “No,” she admitted. “My music tastes are more, well . . . classical.”

“Oh yeah?” He brightened in an unexpected show of interest. “You don’t happen to know where I could find a classical pianist, do you?”

“
I’m
a pianist!” she blurted, unable to restrain her excitement. If she’d needed a sign, then this was it. She imagined meeting him at his recording studio, musician to musician — they would be professional at first, but gradually consumed by a simmering sexual tension. She would win him over with the Beethoven. No!
Prokofiev.
But wait, she was getting ahead of herself. All she
really
wanted was a small opportunity to get to know him outside her office, adult to adult . . . and after she’d applied some Lip Smackers.

“You’re a pianist,” Seedy repeated, amazed at his luck. “You’re not free this Saturday morning, are you?”

A perfectly timed burst of sun shimmered through the willow leaves at her window and sparkled like champagne. “I’m free.” She beamed.

“Would you be down to come by my house and play for us? Vivien — sorry, that’s my fiancée. She thinks it’s important for us to hold some kind of audition first, so . . .”

“I . . . I’m sorry,” Miss Paletsky stammered, attempting to hide her disappointment.
Of course, he had a fiancée!
She chastized herself.
Life is not Cinderella.
“What is this for, please?”

“Oh yeah.” Seedy covered his eyes and briskly shook his head. “Didn’t I say? It’s for my engagement party. It’s not until December, but we’re trying to get everything set early, you know.”

“Mm!” Miss Paletsky replied, plastering her face with her best flight-attendant smile. All at once the sparkling sunlight reminded her less of champagne than of a sudden blow to the head. “It is good to prepare,” she murmured, thinking of the festivities involved for her potential engagement to Yuri. Probably Yuri’s mother would throw a chicken bone at her head and call it a day.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Seedy invaded her thoughts with a knowing smile. “What’s a rap artist playing classical music at his engagement party for, right? Well, believe me, this is all Vee, not me. Woman calls
all
the shots.”

“Well, I look forward to it,” Miss Paletsky the Russian Robot Flight Attendant assured him, ushering him toward the door. “And in the meantime I will think up some solutions for your daughter.”

“Hey, that’s great,” a somewhat confused Seedy replied, obligingly exiting her office and stepping into the breezy corridor. He turned around with another dazzling smile. “Talk about killing two birds with one stone, right?”

“Exactly,”
she agreed, and politely waved before retreating into her office and closing the door. She slumped into her swivel desk chair, staring with bewilderment at the gray computer screen, which revealed the cruel state of her plastic clip-on skeleton earring: tangled in her hair like a trapped, semi-crazed bug. Had it
really
looked like that for their
entire
conversation?

Of course it had.

Willing herself to focus, Miss Paletsky slid open her top desk drawer and extracted a floppy, pocket-sized book: her English Idiom Dictionary. She thumbed the onionskin-thin pages until she found the desired entry.

When you kill two birds with one stone, you resolve two difficulties or matters with a single action.

She sighed, tracing and retracing the phrase with her finger. After a moment, the phone rang, jarring her from her trance.
Ch’ello.
It was Yuri. He wanted her to know just
one more thing.
She stopped him mid-sentence, stunning him into a rare silence. All it took was a single word. It fell from her mouth like a stone.

“Yes.”

“Alright, that’s twelve fifty,” Melissa announced, her coffee-black eyes eschewing that lame-ass classroom wall clock for her
far
more glamorous diamond-and-stainless-steel, pink crocodile-strap Gucci watch. Raising her pint-sized silver Tiffany gavel, she rapped her desk four times — one tap for each girl. There was languid Petra, lying on her stomach by the blue plastic recycling bin; delicate Charlotte, perched like a pedigreed cat on the sun-drenched windowsill; and, of course, plainie Janie, the only member boring enough to sit at a desk. At least Melissa had the savvy to pick the teacher’s desk, advantageously positioned at the front of the class and gleaming with a solid sense of its own importance — just as she did.

“It is with great regret that I begin this
POSEUR
meeting with some upsetting news.” She sighed, resting her gavel next to her pristine white sparkle notebook. “Petra and I went to Rodeo Drive this morning, and despite a thorough and optimistic investigation, our best efforts have proved . . . futile.”

“Oh,
quelle tragédie
!” Charlotte sighed, swooning against the windowpane. Seriously, she couldn’t care less who the culprit was. “Can we puh-
lease
change the subject?”

“Change the
subject
?” Melissa clutched her poppy-orange Prada turban in shock. “I’m sorry, but justice has
got
to be served.”

“But justice
has
been served,” Janie countered. At Melissa’s flashing attention, she ran a nervous finger under and around the green rubber band on her wrist. “I mean, in a way . . .”

“We
did
get our label name out of this,” Petra leaped to her assistance.

“Exactement,”
Charlotte sang, having smoothed the A-line skirt of her green and gold floral Blugirl dress. She returned to Melissa with her haughtiest glare. “Frankly, Melly, I find this little grudge of yours . . . how do I put this?” Her porcelain forehead scrunched in thought. “
Boring.
I mean, you might remember I was
cheated on
at that party, but have I given it a second thought? No. I moved on.”

“That’s so inspiring,” Melissa cooed, sweetly batting her Shu Uemura curler-curled lashes. “But before we quote-unquote
move on,
” she tightened her tone, “can I ask you just
one
question? ‘
POSEUR
.
’
That’s a
French
word, right?”

Charlotte gasped with laughter. “What are you suggesting? That it was
moi
?”

Melissa folded her arms across her daunting cleavage, lowered her chin, and pointedly cocked an expertly tweezed eye-brow. “Well?”

“Melissa.” As a longtime pot addict, Petra felt it was in her authority to say: “You’re being paranoid.”

“Oh, am I?” Melissa scoffed, recollecting Petra’s behavior that morning: the startled gasp, the brutal hand-grab . . .
the compliment of that woman’s purse?
Petra was animal-rights
obsessed,
and that was a Nancy Gonzales shiny croc tote. You know:
croc
as in
croc-o-dile
? The whole thing had been without-a-doubt
weird,
she thought, savagely redirecting her eyebrow for Petra’s benefit.

“Listen.” Janie cringingly eased her way into the building tension. “We all need to just chill. I mean, if you think about it, we all want the same thing. Melissa wants to find the vandalizer, and the rest of us want to
design
something.”

“How is that the same thing?” Melissa snapped.

“Remember in Town Meeting you said the contest winner should ‘step forward and claim their prize’? Well, if it was
me
who did it,” she hypothesized, studiously avoiding Melissa’s accusing crazy eye. “Not that it
was
me, but
if it was . . .
I’d be way more likely to come forward if I
knew
what the prize actually was, you know?”

“And you’re saying the prize should be one of our designs,” Petra clarified.

“Yeah, but something super cool,” Janie rejoined. “It’s easy to resist a prize in theory. But when it’s right there, like,
dangling
in front of your face . . .”

“Dangly!”
Charlotte brightly chimed, clapping her well-manicured hands.

Melissa sighed, frowned into her white glitter notebook, and made a quick note. “Janie” — she looked up at last, smiling — “I like the cut of your jiggy.”

“Yeah, Janie,” Charlotte agreed, not without an edge of competitiveness. “What did you have in mind?”

“Oh.” She blushed in her seat, turning her yellow Puma–clad foot toward her ankle. “I . . . I really didn’t get that far.”

“Well, I have an idea!” Charlotte virtually spilled from the windowsill, approaching the teacher’s desk in light dancing steps. “Melissa, do you mind?” She unfolded a small square of antique yellow paper and smiled, facing the so-called class. “I prepared a little speech,” she began. “Or as I like to call it . . . ‘The Prettysburg Address.’”

“Oh my God.” Melissa rolled her eyes, then joined Petra on the floor.

“So,” Charlotte glanced once at her pristine paper and dropped it on the desk. “Kate and Laila and I were talking about what we were going to do for Halloween, and Jules —
so cute
— was confused, because Halloween’s done a little differently in Europe. Anyway, I started telling him about all my favorite Halloweens growing up. Like when I was eight, and I was Marie Antoinette, and Daddy hired a beautiful horse-drawn carriage to take us all trick-or-treating —”

“Charlotte,” Melissa interrupted, glancing at her watch.

“Okay, fine.” She rolled her pool-green eyes. “Short version. Remember when we were kids, and we went around with those horrid little pumpkin buckets?”

“Not me,” Melissa cackled. “I had a Ralph Lauren pillowcase,
hey-ya
!”

“Precisely my point,” Charlotte pertly replied. “Pumpkins, pillowcases — all that makes perfect sense . . . for a
child.
But Halloween is increasingly a holiday for adults, and
hello
— we have outgrown the plastic bucket. So, assuming we want to celebrate
in style
. . . what
is
there to turn to?”

“A new designer tote by
POSEUR
!” Melissa lit up.

“But,” Janie timidly intruded, “isn’t it a bad idea to design a bag that functions only once a year?”

“That’s why we make sure the design is versatile,” Charlotte arched a delicate eyebrow. “All we have to do is create something with non-season-specific appeal. That way, after Halloween, people will still want to use it.”

“Okay.” Janie nodded. “So then, the Halloween thing is just . . .”

“A marketing gimmick!” Melissa busted out, and her eyes actually glinted. Of all the
M
words in the English language,
marketing
had to be her favorite.

Well, that and Melissa.

“Just a little idea that popped into my head. I even came up with a slogan.” Charlotte tipped her rosy mouth into a winning smile. “The Trick-or-Treater: a Piece of Candy Couture.”

“Brought to you by
POSEUR
,” Melissa added as Charlotte bobbed into a mock curtsy.

“So, we like?”

“Halloween is a cheap excuse for girls with low self-esteem to parade around like total sluts,” Petra sighed, still thinking about
that woman
. “But yeah.” She attempted a smile. “I like it.”

“Well, I for one la-la-
love
it,” Melissa crooned.

“I want to marry and elope to Belize with it,” Janie added. Melissa laughed, rapping the wall with her Tiffany hammer.

“We’re on!”

“Okay.” Janie scribbled a note to herself on her sketchpad. “If you guys want to bring written descriptions of your designs by Friday night, I’m pretty sure I can have the drawings by Monday.”

“And I’ll manage the buzz!”

“And I’ll make sure it’s environmentally friendly.”

“And I’ll sew it!”

“All we have to do is vote on which Trick-or-Treater we should make!” Melissa concluded with an enthusiastic smile. Charlotte, Petra, and Janie flashed one right back at her. And why wouldn’t they? Wasn’t each of them equally sure
her
design would be the best?