Poseur (9 page)

The Girl: Miss Paletsky

The Getup: Plum-colored oversized I.N.C. blazer with shoulder pads, brown stretch pants with side zip, gray pleather slouch
boots, gold starfish earrings

Miss Paletsky stuck Melissa Moon’s application in the middle of the thick pile of paper on her old oak desk, pushing the other
hand under her octagon-shaped reading glasses. She pressed a finger and thumb to each of her closed lids. She kept pressing
until she saw fireworks, which exploded around one question: were all of these students completely crazy?

In addition to Melissa’s campaign for world domination, Miss Paletsky read a proposal for a Naptime Alliance (why should five-year-olds
have all the fun?), a Pedicure Group (pedicure, from the Latin “ped” meaning “foot,” is an ancient art), and an S&M&M Society
(do you like to hit others and/or be hit by hard chocolate candies?).
What about a book club?
she wondered.
A new political party? A language society? A cooking class?

The young new teacher sighed, preparing herself for the mind-numbing task of compiling multiple proposals into a few solid
classes. For example, by combining the Naptime Alliance and the Dream Interpretation Club, she not only created a stronger
proposal, but also ensured the interest of at least two students. Unfortunately, she’d have to put the Pedicure Group and
the S&M&M Society in the REJECT pile.

Steadily she worked, listening to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations at a rebelliously loud volume. Every time she
reached Melissa Moon’s application, she’d stick it back into the middle of the pile. The girl’s ambition was compelling —
if a little scary — and Miss Paletsky could not decide where it belonged. She’d just about dropped Melissa Moon: The Class
in the “ REJECT ” pile when, during the very first notes of Variation 20, she read an application that created a mental spark.
A very interesting proposal for a “Costume Design” class, complete with an array of imaginative sketches executed with surprising
skill. It was easy to see that the girl who drew them had talent.

She decided to combine “Melissa Moon,” “Costume Design,” “Sewing Circle” and an outlandish but nevertheless noble-minded class
called “Moral Fiber.” She fanned the four applications in the center of her desk and nodded. Together, these four girls might
have real potential. Yes, their ideas were vastly different, but each sprouted from the same seed: fashion. Miss Paletsky
entered their names into her Excel spreadsheet.

Melissa Moon. Janie Farrish. Charlotte Beverwil. Petra Greene.

Miss Paletsky smiled, revealing her overlapping eyetooth. She liked the sound of the names together. There was a ring to it.
A harmony.

Yeah. You’d think a “music scholar” would know better.

The Girl: Janie Farrish

The Getup: Used Seven jeans, extra-long light blue cotton tank, red Pumas, black gummy bracelets

By the time the bell rang on the fifth day of class, that crazy, back-to-school buzz, that fantastic feeling of newness, had
completely disappeared. The shock of radical haircuts and drastic weight loss had dissipated. Flashy new cars were already
old, pens and protractors already lost, three-ring binders already busted. The freshest gossip had been passed around. Twice.
And there was already too much homework, too much pressure, too little sleep, too little time.

But perhaps the most obvious sign of hangover was the sudden irrelevance of summer. As a conversation piece, “what I did for
vacation” was way, way over. The only kids behind the curve were Jake Farrish and Charlotte Beverwil, both of whom found the
subject endlessly fresh and topical. Of course, “summer” was but a thinly veiled disguise for the
true
subject at hand.

Each other.

“We gotta stop at Charlotte’s on the way back,” Jake informed his sister as they prepared for their end-of-day drive home.

“Why?”

“I dunno.” Jake smiled at his black Nokia. “She just texted me.”

“She
texted
you?” Janie grimaced. “You guys were just
talking,
like, two seconds ago!”

“So?”

Janie pulled out of her spot so fast, Jake lost his next sentence in a cloud of dust. As she turned into the street, the car
wheels squealed — quite a feat for a Volvo.

“What is wrong with you?” Jake asked, leaning into the corner of his seat.

“Nothing!
You’re
the one obsessed with the Bever-bitch.”

“I haven’t put on my seat belt,” he pointed out.

His sister stared straight ahead. “Who am I, your keeper?”

When she was little, Janie had recurring nightmares. In one Jake fell into an ivy-covered well. In another, an escalator ate
him alive. But the one that really got her, the one that haunted her for hours after she woke up, was the dream where Jake
got into a strange car and drove away. Right when the car turned down the street, Janie would get this feeling, like something
horrible was about to happen.

She never let him not wear his seat belt. Ever.

“Fine,” Jake said, letting go of his shoulder strap. Janie listened to the nylon whirr and snap against the window. After
a few seconds, she jerked the car to a stop.

“Okay,” she surrendered. “Put it on.”

Jake did as he was told, shaking his head in exasperation. In fact, he was relieved. It was one thing to deal with his sister’s
wrath, quite another to deal with her apathy. That she still cared whether he lived or died — it meant a lot to him. It meant
so much he wanted to hug her. Jake stole a glance at her. No, he decided. Way too pissed off for hugs. He sighed, resigning
himself; he’d have to express himself in some other, more stealthy way.

And so he farted.

“You are disgusting!”
Janie exploded, rolling down the window while Jake cackled in triumph. She leaned her face into the wind. “Seriously, what
is wrong with you?!”

“I’m sorry.” He arranged his features into a “sad clown” face. In retaliation, Janie flipped him off. Jake widened his eyes,
touching the tip of her middle finger with the tip of his.

“Friend,” he croaked in his best E.T. voice.

Janie withdrew her hand. The corners of her mouth twitched, but she stopped herself. If she cracked a smile, Jake won. She
gritted her teeth. “How is it everyone in school knew about your big Summer of Love before I did?”

“Would you stop calling it that?” Jake groaned. “All we did was
chill.
”

A rueful laugh escaped her lips.

“Look. Charlotte and I spent twenty-four hours a day for three weeks on a movie set in the middle of nowhere. It’s weird.
You’re, like, cut off from the world, in this artificial yet real place. It’s pretty intense. Charlotte’s like . . . she’s
like my
army
buddy.”

Janie looked at him as if he’d confessed to public urination.

“I’ll do it.” She nodded after a long pause. “I’ll drive you to her place.”

“Thank you.”

“Where did you say she lived?”

“On Mulholland,” Jake sat up in his seat. “Just east of Beverly Glen.”

“Okay, but just so you know” — she flipped the blinker — “I’m gonna tell her you fart in the car.”

Jake looked stricken. “No, you are not.”

Instead of answering, his sister turned the radio up and bopped her head like a demented metronome. Jake stared. The grin
on her face was seriously unsettling.

“You’re not,” he repeated with feigned confidence. Nevertheless, he — and his butt — stayed quiet the rest of the ride.

The Girl (sort of): Don John

The Getup: Vince plaid Bermuda shorts, yellow Lacoste polo, blue Burberry frill scarf, Gucci sandals, blue plastic headband
from Target

Ask Charlotte Beverwil to describe her bedroom in one word and she would answer
parfait,
the French word for “perfect,” and the American word for “pastry.” She fit her four-poster mahogany bed, imported from a
luxury store in Martinique, with a silk coverlet of meringue white and lemon yellow brocade. Her pillowcases, made from the
finest Egyptian cotton, were the color of mint. A centuries-old shoji screen from Kyoto was placed, half-unfolded, beside
her tiny fireplace. When the fire was lit (she made sure it almost always was), the delicate pattern of cherry blossoms lit
up and flickered like stars. As a final touch, she hung a line of vintage slips all along her floor-to-ceiling bay windows.
The sheer lingerie floated and filled with sunlight, an effect, Charlotte decided, that was quintessential
parfait:
pastry-sweet, picture-perfect, and undeniably
Français.

But that afternoon, as she clung for dear life to her mahogany bedpost, the word of the day was
pain.
Behind her, his foot against the bed frame, Charlotte’s friend Don John strained with the laces of her jade-green corset,
cinching her already tiny waist to an excruciating degree.

In addition to being the Beverwils’ next-door neighbor, eighteen-year-old Don John was also Charlotte’s true confidant. His
round face, with its eternally flared nostrils and bulging “Bette Davis” eyes, was unremarkable, and his endless devotion
to Tweezerman, salon hair products, and Guerlain self-tanner made the situation ten times worse. Nevertheless, Don John was
convinced: his was a face that would take Hollywood by storm.

Six months ago, Don John ran away from Corpus Christi, Texas, changed his name (from the spirit crushing Dee Jay), and moved
into the adobe guesthouse next door, a poolside affair belonging to the Beverwils’ ancient wheelchair-bound neighbor, an ex-Hollywood
producer who went by the name “Mort.” In exchange for “light housework, meal preparation, and stimulating conversation,” Don
John got to live at Mort’s rent-free. Charlotte had no idea how he managed to fulfill his duties to Mort
and
spend nearly twenty-four hours a day with her, but he did. If she so much as mentioned his real job, Don John clucked his
tongue and said, “Oh, the old bean can wait.” Who was Charlotte to argue? She
needed
Don John. Don John was the best personal stylist a girl could ask for.

Or so she thought until this afternoon.

“I can’t possibly wear this!” Charlotte cried once the corset was in place. She turned toward one of her many gilded mirrors.
“I look like a
Moulin Rouge
background dancer!”

“And?” Don John cocked his head, perplexed. What kind of girl didn’t want to look like a
Moulin Rouge
background dancer?

“Just, get it off! Get it off!”

“Yes, Miss Charlotte,” Don John grumbled like Mammy in
Gone with the Wind. Gone with the Wind
was Don John’s favorite movie.
Moulin Rouge
was a close second.

“Why does everything make me look like I’m trying
so
hard?” Charlotte complained.

“Because you are,” Don John replied, sitting on the edge of her bed. “You need to
relax.
It’s not like you’re getting married.”

“I know,” she sighed with a dreamy smile. What if she and Jake
did
get married? Stranger things were possible.

“Okay, okay, okay!” Don John snapped his freshly buffed fingers in front of her face. “What’s your mantra?”

“Clothes before bros,”
she replied. But she’d never believed it less. Charlotte peeled the loosened corset from her waist and, like a true
chipie,
threw it against wall. Don John was not pleased.

“Just look what you did to Dylan Leão!” he scolded.

Technically the corset was by the British designer Vivienne Westwood — but Don John never called clothes by their maker. He
had a whole other method, one he imposed on Charlotte like a military commando. Per his instruction, she must a) keep a journal
with a strict record of every outfit she ever wore for every boy she ever kissed, and b) if the guy got so far as to actually
remove
something, name that garment in his honor. In addition to “Dylan Leão,” Charlotte christened her lavender Chloé halter “Henry
Fitzgibbon,” her Nanette Lepore bolero “Max Bearman,” and her fringed Missoni mini-dress “Gopal Golshan.” And then, of course,
there was Daniel Todd, the gorgeous nineteen-year-old photographer she met on the Côte d’Azur last spring. For their final
night together, Charlotte paired a shrunken cashmere cardigan with a Dolce & Gabbana skirt, the back of which came together
in a thrilling row of hook-and-eye clasps. Most guys would be daunted (isn’t undoing a bra enough of a challenge?), but Daniel
Todd managed — hook by hook, eye by eye — until, finally, the skirt lay on the floor of his room, empty as a book jacket (and
just as easy to read). Moments later, Charlotte rewarded his efforts with her virginity. Which made “Daniel Todd” the most
important outfit in her closet.

“Most important outfit does
not
mean most important guy!” Don John reminded her when, three weeks after the event, Charlotte lay crumpled in a sobbing heap
at his feet. She’d been back in L.A. for three weeks and Daniel had not called. Even though she gave him her flower.

Even though she gave him the
entire bouquet.

“You know what this man is?” Don John had snipped. “A cheap trend! Something you try on, take off — then
pfoo
! You throw him away!”

“But
why
?” Charlotte moaned in despair.

“Because he is
out of style
!”

“Are you sure?” she whimpered. “I mean, how can you know?”

“How can you know?” he repeated for his invisible audience. Returning his focus on Charlotte, he posed the ultimate question:
“Charlotte. Who decides what’s in style?”

“Vogue?”

“No, not
Vogue
! You!
You
decide what’s in style!”

From that day forth, Charlotte Beverwil reformed. Never again would she let a guy mean more to her than the latest accessory
— the stupid trinket you pick up as an afterthought only to forget about in the car ride home from Neiman’s. Guys were no
more than that
thing
you wear on impulse, only to later reexamine in photographs and ponder,
What the hell was I thinking
? Once you see guys that way, it’s so much easier to get involved. Which is to say not involved. For months Charlotte went
on this way. For months, she had it all figured out.

And then she met Jake Farrish.

Just the thought of him made her feel soft and sweet and gooey, like a Cadbury egg left in the sun. To think she’d once ignored
him. To think she’d been so clueless! It seemed impossible now, and yet — who could have known that underneath the pimple
lived a prince?

As Don John disappeared into her closet, Charlotte returned to the idea of marriage. The more she thought about it, the more
inevitable it seemed. She and Jake would fall in love, date through high school, and, because of outside pressure, break up
before college. Charlotte would attend
La Sorbonne
in Paris, consume nothing but coffee and cuticles, and begin a destructive affair with a handsome but cruel professor of
. . . botany. Meanwhile, Jake would inherit the craft service business, take up fishing, start drinking, and date a simpleminded
wardrobe assistant named Charlene. Five years later, Jake and Charlotte would run into each other (perhaps at a gas station
in Cherbourg, France?), look deeply into each other’s eyes, and . . .

“This is
it
!” Don John pranced from her closet, pinched the corners of a red DVF skirt, and snapped it out like a bullfighter. “Am I
right
?”

Charlotte sighed. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay, who is this guy?” He threw the skirt to the walnut and maple chequerboard floor. “Orlando Bloom?”

She collapsed across her bed. “Imagine the one guy in the world who never goes out of style.”

“Oh, sweetie. Everything goes out of style.”

“Not everything.”

“Name one thing,” Don John challenged. “Besides this boy, I mean. And Orlando Bloom.”

She furrowed her brow in thought. There had to be
something.
And then in a flash it came to her. “That’s
it
!” She bolted upright.

“What? What’s it?”

Charlotte faced her dear confidant with an expression so bright, he actually winced. She clapped her hands like a baby seal.

“I figured out what to wear!”