The Standout (8 page)

“Right,” I say with half a laugh.

“Yeah. . .” Ted blinks and looks over his shoulder, towards his parked car. “I should go. Call me after you get kicked off. You can stay with us for however long you need.”

“Thanks, Ted.”

He nods and walks toward the parking lot. Although his direction is clear, his steps are tentative. An unexpected surge of nerves makes my feet wobble against the sidewalk. I should just run and capture him in a reckless hug. We should just return to those days when we cared about each other.

Then he pauses before he gets into his car.

“Robin!” Ted calls, jiggling his keys as he stands by his Lexus. “Don’t worry about your cyber stalker. I’m going to look into it for you. I know how to take care of stuff like this and it’s going to be okay.”

Stunned, I hear myself say, “Great, thank you.”

He gives me a genuine smile, and for a moment my big brother looks like the shaggy-haired, late 80s teen he used to be, so long ago. My heart twists with nostalgia.

The train pulls in and I board. At first it’s fairly empty, and I stare out a window as the scenery rushes by. But with each stop, more and more people board, and soon the space becomes tight. I take my copy of
Vogue
from my bag, flip through the pages and study the fashions, trying to incorporate all the latest, hippest trends into my mind before I’m in a high-pressure design situation. I’m analyzing how big the cuffs are, and how every blouse seems to be white chiffon or beige satin, and how they’re all fitted with big lapels. Then I feel a set of eyes on me.

I glance around. The train pulls to a stop and several people stand. One of them is a woman in her early-thirties, with reddish brown hair secured in a low bun. She’s wearing dark rimmed, square-framed glasses and she’s pretty without being remarkable, like the best-kept mom at playgroup. But there’s something familiar about her.

She shifts her gaze. Her eyes had been on her shoes, or the opposite wall, or on the door which was about to slide open, but now she looks squarely at me and my stomach drops straight into the earth’s molten core.

It’s Clara.

My body temperature skyrockets, blood rushes to my face, and I’m torn between saying hello and bolting out of sight. But bolting is impossible, and anyway the train doors open and she gets off before I can think of what to say. When the train pulls away I see her standing on the platform, watching me, and for a crazy, irrational moment I fear she’ll lunge forward, jump back onto the moving train and track me down.

But it can’t really be her. I’m nervous and emotional and my mind is playing on tricks on me.
Get a grip
, I tell myself.
Now is not the time to fall apart
.

Getting ready for the first
Standout
fashion show is a flurry of activity and over-stimulation. I should feel awed, star-struck, and intensely competitive. And I do. But every so often the image of Clara, with her silent accusations scorching me on our morning commute, disorients me all over again.

“I love the dress,” says my model, Zelda. She reminds me of Andrea and she looks just as young. Her huge, doe-like eyes make her seem innocent, and unlike all the other models here, her brown hair is in a pixie cut.

“Thanks.” I inhale, breathing in the scent of steamed fabric and deodorant. “Why are all the other girls wearing their hair back, in buns?” I ask.

“Didn’t they tell you?” Zelda arches her eyebrows at me.

“Tell me what?”

“The entire season is a ballet-theme. Most of the models here are actually ballet dancers.”

“Oh.” I look around the room; all the designers seem self-assured as they fit their models into dresses that look like something from the extra-expensive section of Bloomingdales. Does everyone here know more than me? “What do you mean: a ballet theme?”

“You know, like all the challenges will be based off of famous ballets, with their themes of
passion and betrayal
. . .” She keeps talking, but passion and betrayal reverberates in my head. “. . .and we’re supposed to really move in the outfits you design. Maybe even dance in them.”

“Oh.” I’m trying to tighten a seam so it’s more closely fitted to Zelda’s waist, but my fingers feel like they’re covered with cotton and so does my brain. “Well, at least now I understand why you’re so graceful."

Zelda blushes at my compliment but I’m being sincere. Her limbs don’t simply move; they levitate. She stands up straight and I drape the halter dress over her body.

I dyed the muslin a charcoal grey, to mirror the shadows in a Mats Gustafson drawing from my Mom’s book. I also took a portion of the fabric and beat it, stretched it, washed it a dozen times, and then beat it and stretched it some more. I dyed it a lighter shade of grey, so it would look transparent, like an extra layer floating over the base of the dress. That extra layer also crisscrosses in front, and turns into a knee length train in back.

I step back to assess it.

“It’s gorgeous,” Zelda says.

“Really? You think so?”

Zelda nods fervently. “I’ve never liked anything I’ve put on so much. Of course, I mostly wear leotards, sweatpants, or tutus, but I totally think you’ll win.”

“Okay, designers!” Jim Giles’ sudden entrance into the workroom is punctuated by his officious, well-projected voice. “It’s time. Line your models up.”

I gulp and let my hands flit, because they’re unsure if they ought to be adjusting the dress or clawing their way to safety. I settle on stretching, reaching up and out, so I can almost skim the fluorescent light beams that hang from the ceiling. “Thank you,” I say to Zelda, and I try not to puke all over the workroom floor or into the camera lens that’s pointed at us. “You’re going to be a great model.”

Zelda takes a steadying sigh, and we walk together, past the workroom’s purple walls and towards the bottleneck of models and designers trying to get through the doorway. “I’ve actually never modeled before,” she says. “I’m sort of nervous. All those cameras, and standing up there in front of Hilaire Kay. . .”

“Be brave, Zelda.” I myself am melting with fear so I’m not cool enough to manage her pangs of doubt. I will pretend I am someone else, someone who has studied in New York, someone who knows the difference between Cashin and Cassini, someone who didn’t have to postpone her wedding and risk so much, just to be here.

I will not get sent home before the show even begins.

I will be a winner.

Zelda enters the runway and my dress floats exactly as I wanted it to. She’s the beautiful woman behind a sheer curtain, just like the Mats Gustafson picture: the essence of light and beauty without corruption.

Then Zelda’s toe snags against the floor and she falls: ripping my dress, my hard work, and my aspirations, all with a gut-wrenching shred. There’s a collective gasp followed by a moment of stunned silence and the music is turned off. “Are you okay?” Hilaire asks her.

“Fine,” Zelda mutters as she stands back up. “But I ripped the dress.” She cups her hand over her eyes, trying to find me in the audience against the glare of the stage lights. “I’m so sorry, Robin.”

“Robin!” Hilaire demands. “Get on stage and look at the dress. Is it too damaged to be judged?”

I shuffle from my seat and onto the walkway. I imagine my dress as a roadkill squirrel that I just ran over with my car. I don’t want to see but I must.

“The straps are torn,” I tell Hilaire, “and there’s a rip in the back. The train is all messed up.”

“So you’re saying it is destroyed?” Hilaire asks.

“Umm. . .”I falter. “I don’t want to forfeit, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But we can’t judge a ripped dress.” Hilaire crosses her arms over her chest like she’s been insulted.

It is hard to be a winner with a ripped dress. With a ripped dress, I am just me, posing as a designer in my purple jeans and thrift-store tunic. With a ripped dress I am still from Des Moines and I never went to fashion school and I’m nearly old enough to be the mother of the youngest contestant here, had I been a teen, no a tween, mom. With a ripped dress I am waylaid in defending myself because I have momentarily lost my voice.

But Zelda surprises me by speaking. “It’s not Robin’s fault! Fire me if you want, but you can’t hold this against her. That isn’t fair.”

Hilaire looks at Zelda like she’s the roadkill. “You are a model. Models do not talk.” Now Hilaire addresses me. “Your dress should be strong enough to endure a fall.”

Suddenly my voice returns and it’s chauffeured by my temper. “But it’s made from muslin!”

“Still, if you’re stitching was strong, this would not happen.”

“I disagree.” I tilt my chin. “I want ten minutes to repair the damage, and then you can judge me however you want.” I square my shoulders and using false bravado, stare down at Hilaire and at the other two other judges.

Hilaire narrows her almond shaped eyes. “You give me permission to do what I am already able to do, whenever I wish.” But she then turns her head, lowers her voice, and confers with the other judges.

“Fine.” Hilaire says. “We will take a ten minute break. You can use that time to mend the dress, and afterwards, your model will walk down the runway again.”

“Thank you,” I say, doing my best to sound reticent. I grab Zelda’s hand and pull her to the workroom. Within an instant I am assessing the damage, sticking pins in my mouth and then into Zelda.

“Okay, take this off,” I tell her. “I need to use a machine.”

“I really am sorry,” Zelda murmurs.

I shake my head and the words just fall out. “This morning my brother was like, ‘call me after you get kicked off.’ He was trying to be nice, but after I thought about it, I’m annoyed that he thinks so little of my chances.” I lower the dress straps from her shoulders and then I’m tugging it all the way off her. Zelda crosses her arms over her chest in modesty. “And I almost didn’t come at all, because my life is like a Lifetime movie lately, and my fiancé is all, ‘you’d be pissed if I told you to stay,’ so of course I came even though I’m paranoid that a dead woman is following me. And now Hilaire hates me and I postponed my wedding. So I can’t get kicked off first. I just can’t.”

“I get it.” Zelda says. I take my eyes off the stitching for a second and look at her face instead. “I mean,” she wavers, “I get what it’s like to feel pressure, to not know if you’re making the right choice, like everyone is judging you and everything is at stake. So I won’t mess up again. I promise I’ll make your dress float down the runway exactly how it’s supposed to.”

“Thanks,” I tell her, but I’m more grateful that she listened to my tirade than I am for her promise. “Come on, let’s put this back on you. There’s not much time left.”

I refit Zelda into the dress and practically push her back onto the runway. She makes it down and back, and both my dress and my model survive without falling apart.

After every designer’s piece has been seen, Hilaire and the judges tally the scores. Then they call all the models onto the stage, turn up the house lights, and tell the designers to stand next to their models.

“You did great,” I say to Zelda, patting her hand.

“If I call your name, please step forward,” Hilaire says. “Amos. Simon. Casey. Nadia. Elliot. Tara.” Half of the designers have now stepped forward, and the other half, including me, are still in the back. Hilaire pauses and suspense drips from the air. “If I called your name, congratulations. Your score was high enough to qualify you to be a contestant on this season of
The Standout
.”

The chosen six let out a whoosh of relief and they are excused back to the workroom.

Once they’re gone, Hilaire addresses those who are left. “The rest of you represent the highest and the lowest scores. One of you will win this challenge, and two of you will be out.”

Standing up there, waiting for Hilaire to declare my fate, is like ingesting an acid that eats away at my soul. I can speak from experience on this, because once I had food poisoning, and the stomach cramps that followed made me want to die.

But anyway, I don’t get kicked out.

Only because the judges decided that two other designers were more of a disaster than me. One couldn’t seem to muster the enthusiasm required for the show. He shrugged when Hilaire asked him why he made a shapeless sundress as his signature look, and his garment swathed him in defeat. The other designer had “taste issues.” Her ensemble barely covered her model’s crotch and she had actually tie dyed her muslin. Hilaire said it was part Grateful Dead, part “I Wish I Was Dead.”

So, hooray, I’m officially on the show! But I sort of wish I could go home, curl up into a ball, and mumble all my woes into the curve of Nick’s neck. I’d tell him that I was put on the bottom, because the “crafting” of my dress was “poor”, how Thomas Craig, one of the judges, joked that my dress looked like the apron for a sexy maid costume, and the other judge, Evie Messina, said the execution was stiff. Meanwhile, Hilaire questioned my vision, implying that I don’t have one.

And I wasn’t allowed to defend myself or tell them my dress looked a million times better before it was ripped, because that would be making excuses while I’m supposed to be grateful for their critique.

Now I’m in the apartment that I share with three other contestants: Nadia, Casey, and Tara. Everything is shiny, like living in an Ikea showroom, with white walls and furniture and red accents. There are no televisions or computers allowed, and the bedrooms have two single beds each. I’m bunking with Casey, who is twenty-five and from LA. She strikes me as the bohemian, granola type.

Casey unpacks her bag, which is full of soft, flowing blouses with cords that have little bells tied at the end, and skirts that will touch the floor when she wears them, because they’re long and her legs are short. “Where did you go to design school?” she asks in a husky, musical sort of voice that reminds me of an oboe.

I try to make myself comfortable and recline on the bed but the mattress is stiff, and there’s only one thin pillow. “I went to Hoyt College, in Iowa, where I majored in theater. I worked in the costume shop all through school. But basically, when it comes to design, I’m self-taught.”