Braless in Wonderland (20 page)

“Bravo, Allee,” Dimitri said, patting me on the head like a dog. Excuse me, had he heard anything Miguel had just said? “And bravo, Miguel. You explain it so good. This is why you work for me. Not like those two, who don't work for anybody.” I followed his gaze toward the glass wall that looked out into the lobby. Irina and Vlada were going into Monique's office. They were wearing waitress uniforms.

“They're working at some new restaurant that's opening on Washington tonight,” Miguel said. “They said they'd come by and drop off party passes. They must be getting paid under the table.”

“At least they'll be getting paid somewhere,” said Dimitri.

I couldn't get over how exquisite they were, like two mythological goddesses, even in those waitress uniforms. “Why didn't they ever get booked?” I wondered out loud.

“Their pictures had no feeling,” said Dimitri. “No nothing. Cold. In photos, they had no life.”

Miguel nodded. “No ticket.”

It was nice to know
I
had one.

 

“You should go to Japan,” Sabrina said after I'd told her about the Japan offer.

“You think so?”

“Totally. Fashion is so wild over there.”

I sighed. “I wish I could go.”

“Are you impaired? Why can't you? I would die to go to Japan.”

“They said the money is really good too.”

“Then why wouldn't you go?”

“Because my goal was always Yale, not Tokyo. Besides, it's too crazy. And what about finishing summer school? Hello, graduating.”

“So take your courses online from Tokyo. If you could do it from Miami, you could do it from Tokyo.”

That was true. I hadn't thought about that.

“Change your goal,” Sabrina said. “Go to Yale later.”

 

I was at Intermix, trying on an Ella Moss wrap dress. I'd add it to the rest of what I was buying—Gucci sunglasses, a Red Carter bikini with an art deco architecture pattern on it, and a Chloé T-shirt for Sabrina. I only had another two weeks here, so I was getting in as much glam and fashion splurging as I could.

It was all expensive, and I knew every penny I made should go toward college, but this would be my big clothing splurge before summer school. Besides, those residual checks were coming in. Plus I figured this was also my reward for standing under hot lights for two hours this morning. It was an indoor shoot for a South American jeans company's online look book, and even though the rate was low, the client had given me three pairs of jeans to take home.

South Beach was starting to feel empty, quieter than usual. It would be time for me to go soon. I should be excited to finish summer school and go to Yale already.

So why wasn't I excited? I'd learn from the best of the best, be at the center of academic life, get to hang out with other kids who liked to study and read like me, maybe meet some hot, brilliant guy who'd sweep me off my feet. I'd fit in there, way better than I'd ever fit in here or in Comet. But then images jumped into my mind, of me walking through crowded Tokyo streets, of modeling in a Japanese runway show, of learning the language, traveling, maybe hanging out with Gwen Stefani and her Japanese girl posse. That whole Japan offer was really toying with my imagination.

But, of course, I couldn't take it. I'd always been Yale bound. I had to stick to the plan, not get sidetracked. Which was why I had to mail Yale my letter accepting their offer already. I had been waiting until I was sure I'd have the money, and I did now.

So what was I waiting for? This was what I'd always wanted.

“Hey, aren't you the girl from the Taboo commercial, the one who dances so funny?” It was the salesgirl.

“Yes.” I smiled.

“Oh, you are so hilarious. I didn't recognize you at first. Do you want me to ring that stuff up for you?”

“No,” I said. “I want to stay awhile. I'm not quite finished…shopping.”

 

It was Thursday night and Dimitri's facial stubble and tousled hair were looking ferociously hot this evening. I was sitting with him and Miguel at Nobu, at a tiny square table in the bar area. We were waiting for Claudette so we could get a big table in the dining room. Brynn was supposed to show up too, but I wasn't counting on it.

This restaurant was the most on-the-scene restaurant on the scene. It was in the Shore Club, and there was no sign that said Nobu anywhere, not in the hotel, not on the garden terrace, not even on the door to the restaurant. You were supposed to just know where it was, like an only those in the know can know kind of thing. It was dark with tons of candles, and it was model central. Everyone was striking poses, hair-tossing and eye-flirting. Miguel not only knew who half the room was, he could dish about them.

“Okay, time for dis and tell. That's Paula, thinks she's a model and she so isn't,
puro
deadweight, but her boyfriend is John Singer, you know, the photographer? So the agency signed her to get John's business. And that's Julie Marshand. 'Member her, Dimitri? We used to rep her for lifestyle. She was a high-class escort back in the day, before she married the real estate king Chaim Ludevitch.
Ay Dios
, Paula's coming over, don't look.”

Paula came over and Dimitri did his whole kissing-on-both-cheeks bit. And then I glanced down and screeched to a halt, almost dropping my Coke.
Dimitri's hand was clasped firmly in Miguel's
. How long had this been going on? I thought they were strictly a working duo.

In the middle of fumbling with his chopsticks and sushi, Miguel noticed I'd noticed. “Allee, will you keep it on the down low? It just started, and we're trying to keep it private.”

“Sure, but…”

“What?”

“He drives you up the wall. You said so yourself.”

“Oh, that.” He waved his free hand. “He does, but that's just his office personality, when he's stressed. He's different when we're alone.”

“Should you be dating your boss? All the magazines say you shouldn't.”

“Which is why you have to shut up about it.” I mimed locking up my lips and throwing away the key. “Look, he needs me and…I think I love him. I just realized it. Sometimes a person is right in front of you and you don't really see them, you know?”

“I know. My sister's been right in front of me my whole life, but I never really saw her for who she is until I left home. It took being away from her for me to understand her.” I sipped my Coke, thinking about the parade of mistaken identities that had marched through my life since January. I'd thought Summer was genuine and sweet when she was dangerously toxic. Brynn had some problems, but she wasn't mean or out for my blood, like I first thought. She was just brutally honest and thought life should be a party. And what about Claudette? I wrote her off as a primo weirdo when I met her. Her train was a little off the tracks, it was true, but she was one of the warmest, most intelligent, open-minded people I'd ever met. I'd been wrong about a lot of people who'd been right in front of me. “Does Dimitri love you?”

He nodded and actually looked embarrassed. I bet if it wasn't so dark in here, I'd see him blushing. Paula left, and Dimitri turned to Miguel with this look of pure adoration. They were in their own world until Miguel screamed, “Omigod, is that Ricky Martin?!” It was, and after a while, we saw Pamela Anderson and after that, Mickey Rourke. “Look at Pam. She gives white trash a bad name, but you know what? I still love her. Poor Mickey, though. He looks like a science project. His face is more quilted than a Chanel bag. And what is that, is he carrying a dog? Ooh, do you see who I see? That's…oh, wait…no, that's Summer.”

“Where?” Dimitri and I asked.

“Over there.” She was with midlife crisis man, shaking hands with a group of people, looking every inch a movie star. The group left the bar, and she went with them into the dining room. “See the fat guy with the beard she just said hello to?”

“Yeah.” He looked like a demented mountain man, the kind who kidnapped female joggers and took them for brides.

“He's a movie producer. Like, a really big deal in Australia. They were interviewing him on
Deco Drive
last night. He's here for some film festival.”

Whatever. Good for Summer. I'd be traveling on a different path soon anyway, far away from this one. This had all turned out to be a learning experience, and Summer was part of it.

Miguel came over. He threw the covers off me. All I had on was my
A WOMAN NEEDS A MAN LIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE
T-shirt and underwear. I'd been in bed all day, tired out from a three-day job in Nassau. My flight had come in at two in the morning. It was probably my last job this season, a nonunion educational film. The pay was crap, but I got to swim with dolphins
and
stay at an amazing resort. I loved it, but after three days smiling underwater, I was exhausted. I pulled the covers back over me so Miguel would take the hint.

He didn't. “I know you're awake, Allee cat. Come on, you're missing the art deco festival.”

“Miguel, I love you, but go away.”

“No. You've been here all day, and I don't know how to tell you this,
niña
, but you need to take a shower. Badly.” He opened the blinds, sat on my bed, and took out a Styrofoam box with Cuban pastries,
pastelitos de guayaba
.

“Mmmm, those smell good,” I said, opening my eyes.

“
Coño
, Allee, when was the last time you brushed your teeth?”

I pulled the covers over my mouth. “Yesterday.”

“Well, it's time for some Scope.” He poured
café cubano
from a big Styrofoam cup into a tiny cup and handed it to me, then picked up my copy of
Pride and Prejudice
from the floor and dropped it on my bed. “I can't believe you read that for fun. You're not gonna have time to read in Japan, you know. You'll be too busy.”

“Miguel, I am not going to Japan.” He kept pushing me to go.

“Why not? If I was you I wouldn't even bother with Cape Caca for summer school. I'd get a GED and be on the next plane to Tokyo.”

“People like me don't get GEDs. I've dedicated the last four years to school and my grades.”

“Correction. Three and a half years. The last few months you've dedicated yourself to being a model.”

“I got into Yale. I'm not giving that up. My modeling days are gonna be over soon.”

“You don't mean that.”

“Yeah, I do. I have to go to college.”

“You don't
have
to do anything.”

I sighed. He didn't get it. “Japan is not in the Allee plan, okay? It's, like, out of the question not to go to Yale. I would totally be letting my parents down if I blew off an Ivy League education to go to the other side of the world and model.” I snorted. “You don't
not
go to Yale if you get in. Nobody does that.”

“Are you nobody? Hmmph. My mistake. I always thought you were somebody.” He tapped my head with my book. “Somebody who needs to learn that there's a lot of freedom in not caring what other people think.”

“It's not that simple, Miguel. I wish it was, but it's not.”

“It is simple. It sounds like you're just going to Yale to please your parents. Where's that mind of your own you're so proud of?”

“Please my parents? Believe me, they would rather I take a full scholarship to a school right here in Florida and stay close to home. They'd deny it, but I know it's true. Yale was always my idea.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why haven't you sent Yale your letter saying you're going?”

Damn. I forgot he knew about that. I sipped my coffee and pretended to be watching the palm trees out the window. I didn't know why I still hadn't sent in my acceptance. I didn't have a good answer for Miguel, so I just shrugged and said, “Haven't gotten around to it, that's all.”

“
Mentirosa!
Liar. Deep deep down, you don't want to go anymore. Japan is calling your name. Come on, you know you're thinking about it.”

“I haven't s
eriously
been thinking about it.” Did fantasizing count as thinking about it?

He smoothed out my comforter. “You know, when I left home, I said good riddance,
no joda
, never looked back. It's time to show your new self to the world, try new experiences.”

“I showed myself to the world. Didn't you see my lingerie editorial?” I said with a mouth full of
pastelito
.

“I'm serious,” Miguel said. “College isn't going anywhere,
niña.
You can always get your degree. But in a couple of years, you'll be too old to go to Japan and make a ton, and I do mean a ton. You'll regret it if you don't go. Truth. Tokyo is a golden opportunity.”

“For other models.”

“For anybody. And you'll look fantabulous in a kimono. Except why do geishas wear socks with those wooden sandals? I don't get it.”

He had me smiling.

And wondering. Could I really just give up my Yale plan and go to Japan?

What if I did?

What if I were to, maybe not give up Yale, but postpone it. I could still go to Yale someday. Just not now. I could always reapply or get a deferral or something.

Couldn't I?

It just seemed like such a crazy thing to do.

But coming here seemed crazy at first too, didn't it?

 

“This is Yale you're talking about, Allee. Yale. You crazy, talking about running off to Japan?”

I totally didn't expect this reaction from Claudette, Miss Live Life and Be Free. We were sitting in the sand, watching the sun go down on the beach.

“I'm not saying I won't go,” I told her. “I'm just saying I might not go
now
. I could put Yale on hold for a year.”

“On hold. I was gonna put college on hold, model for a while, travel some, and then go back to school. But it didn't work out that way, now, did it?”

“So why don't you go back now?”

She smiled at me the way I smiled at Robby when he asked me something that was hard to explain. “What, and join a sorority? Live in a dorm, write papers? Not for me. I'm a gypsy. But you, you're different. You should go to college. Take it from me, Allee, one year turns into two years and then three and then you never go back.” She put her hand on my shoulder and looked at me eye to eye. “Don't make the biggest mistake of your life. Go to Yale.”

Go to Yale.
Don't pass go, don't stop to collect two hundred dollars, just go straight to Yale. Play it safe.

But what if I didn't play it so safe? Would I end up like Claudette in a few years, living in a model apartment and still making the casting rounds? I mean, I could say that that wouldn't happen to me, that I'd only take a year off and I'd force myself to go back to school.

But what if that didn't happen?

What if I reached a point where I was beyond living in a dorm and going to class? Maybe you just can't get off the modeling road once you're on it for a while. Maybe if I went on traveling and modeling more and more, it would be too hard to walk away from the glamour, the good money, the excitement, the travel, the freedom.

It was hard to walk away from all that now.

 

Sabrina was on the phone. “Mom and Dad found the
Dietra
magazine.”

“Sabrina! I told you to hide it.”

“I did, but then I forgot where I hid it. Mom found it.”

“Great, thanks a lot. What did she say?”

“Um, she's right here, bye.”

“No, wait, I don't want to talk to—”

“That's some outfit you have on, Allee.” Mom sounded mad, like the way she used to get on me if I was reading at the dinner table. “What will people think when they see this? Aren't you embarrassed?”

“No.”

“Well, you should be. I'm embarrassed.”

“Who's gonna see it? Does the PTA read German magazines?”

“They might. You know, if you look up close, you can see through—”

“I know, I know.”

Somebody picked up another phone in the house. “I made a naked picture once.”

“Abuela, you did not.”

“But that was before the aquanet. Now you will be in the computer with your
tetas
showing. I told you. Nobody listens to me.”

“
Mamá, por favor!”
Mom shouted. I could hear Sabrina laughing.

“They're not showing,” I said. “I'm wearing a bra.”

Robby shouted, “What are
tetas
?”

“Here's your father,” said Mom. “He's very upset.”

“I'm very upset, Allee,” said Dad. “What are those goddamn people in Miami thinking? You're seventeen years old, for the love of God. It's completely inappropriate!” he yelled.

“It's high fashion!” I screamed back, really pissed now. They just didn't get it. “I was
lucky
to get that job. Lucky!” And then I repeated something I heard Claudette say once. “Appropriateness is highly overrated.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Have you looked at this picture up close? You can see—”

“Then don't look!” I shrieked. “And tell Mom she won't have to worry about me embarrassing her again. I'm going to Japan!” I slammed down the phone.

 

I really wasn't going to Japan. I mean, I'd just said that to freak him out because I was so mad. I hadn't decided what I was doing.

Dad called back an hour later. I was on the futon eating Oreos and milk, a treat I hadn't had in months, and looking through my portfolio when the phone rang. “Hello.”

“Hi, Allee.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Are you really going to Japan?” I guess he was done ranting about the lingerie picture. “I called Monique. She told me about it.”

“I don't know.”

He sighed. “It's just not practical, Allee. You're not going to model for the rest of your life, are you? Modeling was just a way to get that extra lump sum in the bank to finance your education. You're forgetting that.”

“So you think I should just go to college. Not even consider it.”

“What will come of it, Allee? You can always go to Japan on a vacation. Come home, finish high school, and go to college. You have a brilliant mind. Don't waste it.”

“You just want me to stop modeling because of the whole lingerie editorial.”

“That's true, yes. I think you've forgotten who you are. It will be easier for your mother and me if we know you're not modeling anymore. We'd like you to come home for summer school and then go to college.”

So that was it. He was making the decision for me. I was about to hang up when suddenly, I remembered what the March Hare told Alice:
Say what you mean and mean what you say.

“Look, Dad, this isn't about you and Mom. I have a big decision to make, and it shouldn't be about how you and Mom feel.”

Seconds ticked by. I was trembling a little. It wasn't easy being assertive with the people you're closest to.

He sighed again. “I know that, I know. But why did you do that lingerie picture? I thought you were against women being portrayed that way. You look…you look…”

“Like a model, Dad. Because that's what I am. You were all supportive of me being a model back in January.”

“I never thought you'd do a picture like that. You can't tell me you were comfortable being photographed like that.”

“No, I wasn't. I should have asked more questions about the booking, taken more control of what I was getting myself into. I know that now. But I didn't know it then.” I paused to see if he said anything. He didn't. I looked down at my portfolio, at all the interesting and beautiful photos. “The thing is, Dad, I kinda like modeling. A lot more than I thought I would, you know? And maybe in the future, when I'm older, I might even feel comfortable doing a lingerie shoot, who knows?” I checked to see if he was still there. He cleared his throat, so I added, “It's something I have to figure out for myself.”

“So what are you saying? You're saying you're going to Japan instead of
Yale
? Is that what you're saying?”

“I don't know where I'm going right now.”

“Oh. Great.”

“Does Mom want to talk to me?”

“She's taking a nap.”

“Oh. Okay, well, I guess I'll say good-bye then.”

“Okay, bye. No, wait. Don't hang up.”

“Why?”

“I just wanted to say that, uh, I love you. No matter what you decide to do, your mother and I will always love you.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

 

Running always helped me figure things out. I didn't know if it was the breathing getting more oxygen to my brain or what. It could have been what I was listening to that got my synapses connecting (Green Day, Linkin Park, Brainless Wankers) but after about forty minutes of beach jogging, everything was clearer.