Poseur (22 page)

“What?” Jake hesitated, looking around him. He was starting to feel guilty, but he didn’t know why. He followed her inside
a fitting room. “What,” he said again, as she slid the glass door shut.

“Look outside.” Nikki pointed. Jake looked through the glass door. The crowd churned under the disco lights, colliding into
each other, shrieking like they were being boiled alive. The DJ was blasting Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.”
Everyone danced their hardest, bestest, fastest, strongest. Jake felt like he was a little kid, pointing a kaleidoscope at
the sun.

And then, all at once, the glass door transformed into an opaque white wall. The party disappeared.

“Whoa,” he exclaimed, stepping back. Nikki giggled. Jake stared as the opaque wall faded back into a transparent, glass door.

“Look.” She pointed again. A silver dome sat on the slate-gray floor like a mushroom. The word
PRIVACY
was engraved across the top. “Press it,” Nikki instructed, like a character from Alice in Wonderland.

He tapped the silver dome with the toe of his shoe. Sure enough, the glass door transformed back into a wall. “Holy shit,”
he laughed, tapping the dome a few times in a row. The glass door flickered like a ghost. Jake beamed. “It’s like the future!”

Nikki giggled, stepping on his foot. Jake held his breath. The pressure of her foot on his was nice. So nice, he let her push
further — until the silver dome sank into the floor, the glass became a wall, and, just like that, they were alone.

“I should go,” Jake said. She whipped her foot away and nodded, staring at the floor.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“Hey.” He suddenly felt bad and jostled Nikki’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said again, this time with surprise. He held onto her
shoulder and tried to get used to it. She was totally
shaking.

“Listen,” Jake murmured, hooking a lock of Nikki’s hair behind her ear. And then, without thinking, he leaned in and kissed
her. He kissed her as a token of charity — because she liked him so much and, well,
he felt bad.
Except, once they started kissing, it felt good. And then it felt really good. Which is exactly when Jake stopped feeling
bad for Nikki, and started feeling bad for someone else.

“I can’t do this,” he declared, pulling back. “I’m sorry.” Jake closed his eyes to the spinning room. “That was really stupid.”

When he opened his eyes, he expected Nikki to be looking right at him, crushed. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking
through the door, which, to both of their confusion, had changed back to see-through glass.

They must have
stepped on the dome
while they were kissing.

When she finally looked at Jake, she didn’t look crushed. She looked terrified. About twenty feet away, in a weird, haphazard
frock, Charlotte stood like the Angel of Vengeance. She clutched a bottle of Cristal like a medieval weapon. Strobe lights
flashed across her face like lightning.

“Charlotte!” Jake called. “Wait!”

He pushed Nikki aside and exploded from the dressing room, weaving through the crowd. A clot of grinding dancers blocked Charlotte’s
path long enough for him to catch up. “Charlotte!” He reached for her arm.

“Don’t
touch
me!” The bottle of chilled champagne slipped through her fingers, smashing across the floor.

“Charlotte,” he pleaded. “It was an accident!”

“No!” She shook her head. “I
saw
you!”

“I know, but you’ve got to believe me. I don’t even know what happened. I just got really drunk and . . .”

“You had one glass of champagne!” Tears began to stream down her cheeks.

“I think it’s the Accutane.”

“The what?!”

“It’s this medication . . .”

“Is it for multiple personalities?” She trembled, wiping the hot tears from her face. “Because it’s
not working
!”

“It’s for my skin. For my acne,” Jake pleaded again, feeling miserable. The last thing Jake wanted to do was remind Charlotte
of who he used to be, and who, in his darker moments, he believed he still was: a zit-encrusted, pus-infested loser. Charlotte’s
silence was deafening. With all the courage he could muster, Jake looked into her cold, pool-green eyes. He couldn’t tell
what she was thinking.

Charlotte thought about the garden upstairs, about the lemon trees in their terracotta pots, the small manicured Cyprus, the
lavender, the rambling rose. She thought about the night jasmine blooming on the trellis and the checked blanket under it,
the careful way she’d spread it out, pinning the corners with bowls of blueberries and raspberries. She thought about her
straw picnic basket, which she’d packed to the point of bursting: baguettes and cheese, quiche and apples, figs and chocolate-covered
almonds. There were pears in gold foil and petite Madeleines. The tiniest pots of caviar. She’d lit the way with flickering
tea lights and, last but not least, sprinkled the path with Sweet Tarts. She tossed them by the handful, like bird feed —
like wedding rice. She made sure every single Sweet Tart was green.

“Omigod,” she breathed with a chilling little laugh. “I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.”

“Charlotte,” Jake pleaded again, this time reaching for her hand. She writhed from his grasp like a fish, escaping in a flash.
He stood in the middle of the dance floor. The broken champagne bottle glinted at his feet. Five minutes ago, that bottle
was worth over 7,000 dollars. But Jake didn’t know that.

All he knew was that it was worth nothing now.

His stomach surged with something sour.

Melissa staggered out of the Prada store with the heavy clear globe in her hands. The built-in fan was turned off and all
the white tags had settled to the bottom. She lowered it to the ground, slipping off Petra’s hideous Bjorn clogs to pin the
globe in place. The last thing she wanted was to see it rolling down the street — yet another departed guest. Except “departed”
was the wrong word.

“Kicked out” was more like it.

“Well, it’s official,” Charlotte sighed, joining her on the street. “We’re banned from Prada for life.”

Melissa closed her eyes. Vivien was going to
love
this. “I can’t believe it.” She shook her head. “This is so unfair!”

“Ah well,” Charlotte sighed.
“C’est la vie.”

“Easy for you to say.” Melissa narrowed her eyes. “It wasn’t
my
boyfriend who vomited all over the dance floor.”

“He is
not
my boyfriend! Anymore!” Charlotte warbled, turning pale.

As if that’s the important detail,
Melissa thought. And not that Jake Farrish’s vomit caused a stampede of epic proportions. Poor Jake. After Charlotte dumped
him, he couldn’t hold it together. And once he couldn’t hold it together, he realized he couldn’t hold it down. The vomit
came up like a geyser, spewing a distance of at least ten feet. At first no one noticed. But then Kate Joliet slipped, landing
smack in middle of the acrid swamp of barf. She shrieked at the top of her lungs.

And then all havoc broke loose.

Melissa could still hear the sounds of their screams, the thousand flailing hands clawing for the exit. They weren’t sure
why they were running, just that everyone else was running, which was reason enough to run. But then Bronwyn Spencer’s Sergio
Rossi heel spiked the train of Deena Yazdi’s floor-length midnight blue gown, sending Deena into a full-on frontal free-fall
— right into the crotch of a female mannequin. A conga line of mannequins toppled like dominoes, crashing their way toward
the last mannequin in line: a gigantic man mannequin. He was ten feet tall and absolutely ripped. The female mannequins collapsed
at his feet like hysterical groupies. Man Mannequin teetered back and forth; then he toppled to the floor, mere inches away
from Laila Pikser’s beloved black alligator Dior pumps. Laila screamed as Man Mannequin came apart on impact, his gigantic
limbs rolling downstairs like renegade logs. His giant torso came last, thudding downstairs like the world’s angriest parent.
Then came the horrible, inevitable sound of shattering glass. The party was over.

So, it seemed, were their lives.

Imagine Janie’s confusion when, at around 12:15 a.m., she and Evan rolled up to find the once raucous Prada store empty, dark,
and still as a tomb. As Evan eased on the brakes, Melissa, Charlotte, and Petra stepped toward the street, lining at the curb
like ducks in a row. Janie sunk down in her seat.

The ducks looked angry.

“Well, if it isn’t the Fast and the Furious,” Melissa scoffed, sucking in her cheeks. “Nice of you to show up,” she added.
All eyes were on Janie, which Petra seized as an opportunity to spark up a joint.

“Come on,” Evan replied, his hand on the gear shift. “We just went for a ride.”

“Oh, I bet you did,” Charlotte sneered, eyeing Janie’s disheveled hair. Their eyes met. “Keep your hands off my brother,”
Charlotte snapped.

Evan gritted his teeth. “Shut up, Charlotte.”

“Oh, whatever, Evan,” Charlotte retorted. “I just don’t want you to make the same mistake I did.”

“What are you talking about?” Janie got out of the car and slammed the door. “Where’s Jake?”

“Jake had to call a cab,” Petra replied, exhaling a thin stream of smoke.

“Why?” Janie asked, whirling on Charlotte. “What did you do?”

Charlotte’s eyes flashed. “What did
I
do?!”

“Thanks to your
brother,
” Melissa announced, “we’re banned from Prada for
at least
the next three years.”

“Oh, who cares about Prada!” Charlotte snapped, her eyes growing glassy.
“Prada n’exist pas!”

Melissa gasped. She didn’t have to understand French to know blasphemy when she heard it.

While the girls continued to bicker, Petra slipped out of Melissa’s excruciating crystal-beaded stilettos and into the comfy
Bjorn clogs stranded on the sidewalk. She felt numb with relief, so numb it took her seconds to register the clear globe rolling
down the street. She stood there and stared, then, using all the energy she had left, she said: “Um . . . you guys?”

The three girls followed her pointed finger and peered down the street. In an instant, they were off, neck and neck, like
a pack of Saratoga racehorses.

“Who are you betting on?” Evan joked, joining Petra on the sidewalk. She sucked on her dwindling joint and looked pensive.

“No one.” She inhaled and held her breath. “They’re all losers.”

“Not Janie,” Evan insisted. Even in high heels, Janie was yards ahead of Melissa and his sister. Evan watched the leaping
shadows of her perfect legs through the thin gauze of her pale yellow dress. A familiar tightening in his stomach cued him
to look at something else. He stared at a gray wad of gum on the street.

“Not Janie?” Petra teased, watching his somber face. “Guess you guys
did
touch each other.”

Evan shook his head. “Why do girls think everything’s so
sexual
? It’s so annoying.”

Petra blushed, averting his gaze. At the other end of the street, Janie, Charlotte, and Melissa continued to scramble. The
clear plastic globe had cracked against the gutter and split into two perfect halves.

“That’s just great!” Melissa yelled as a few Ferraris whooshed by. Hundreds of white tags lifted into the air and scattered
across the street. Janie, Charlotte, and Melissa darted around, scooping up as many as possible. Another car sailed by, horn
blaring.

“I should probably . . . help them,” Petra muttered. Evan’s Porsche responded with a guttural purr. Petra looked up as he
zoomed down the street. She sighed, heading toward the girls. One of the white tags floated down the sidewalk. She leaned
over to pick it up, unfolding it as she walked. A single word was written inside:

Melissa sat on the sidewalk, going through the tags one by one. She shook her head in disbelief, and her heart began to beat
faster.

“What the hell
is
this?” The stiff, white tag trembled between her fingers. “Some kind of joke?”

“They all say the same thing,” Charlotte realized, unfolding another tag. Janie nodded in stunned agreement.