Material Girls (8 page)

Felix had nearly as much artistic talent as Vivienne. His problem was that he refused to compromise his rough, distressed aesthetic. He ignored the current direction of trends and designed clothes that looked like
nothing
anyone was wearing. He pretended not to care and always scowled as Winnie passed by with the pile of selected sketches under her arm. Still, I had a hunch that he held out a little bit of hope each time. When a biker jacket of his was finally selected, he rolled his eyes and said, “I'm off—another exercise in futility!” But he didn't fool me. I watched him stroll to the elevator with a small spring in his step.

Kevin, Dido, and Randall had the opposite problem: they tended to play it safe. Again and again, I realized how tough a drafter's job was. To be good, you had to hit the center of this continuum—nothing too radical, nothing too familiar—every time.

Not that I planned to get stuck in a rut like Felix, but I started to think about my own design aesthetic. As a judge, I'd needed to keep an open mind to different styles, but now I was free to develop my own. Maybe it was all the time I was spending in the park outside my apartment avoiding Karen, but nature kept influencing me. A hummingbird whizzed nearby—and I sketched a blouse with wispy, translucent fabric. The rain dampened the ground one afternoon, and I came up with a mossy-textured scarf. A black cat skittered under the bushes, and I submitted a strapless dress with puma sleekness.

And then one day, four weeks after I had begun in the basement and one week after I'd really started submitting sketches in earnest, Winnie handed me a familiar piece of paper and patted my shoulder.

It was a one-shoulder, leopard-print dress with an attached gold belt. I'd submitted it along with my puma dress, thinking it might spin nicely off the safari line Torro was promoting. Feeling myself flush, I turned to Winnie. “What do I do now?” I asked.

“Head up to Garment Construction with your sketch. You'll advise a patternmaker on a prototype of your garment. Good luck!”

I rode the elevator with some drafters whose sketches had also been selected. When the doors opened, the bustle of Garment Construction electrified me. Patternmakers and drafters ran around the room, clutching giant fabric bolts or wheeling half-garbed dress forms. Everywhere, scissors snipped, sewing machines clacked, and people shouted over the fray.

Patternmakers approached the group of us as we emerged. I held my selected sketch tightly. One guy with a receding hairline and goatee nodded at me. “Come on then,” he said. “What've you got?”

He introduced himself as Vaughn, glanced quickly at my drawing, and led me to the high shelf of animal-print fabrics.

I stood on my toes to look them over. “What if I can't find what I have in mind?”

“There's something there that'll work,” he said. His voice was brusque but not unkind. “Trust me. Besides, you don't get to custom order your own fabric until you've had something like ten sketches approved.”

Together, we settled on a print that I was happy with. The leopard's spots were the way I'd imagined—about the size of my thumbnail and densely packed. Then we found a stiff and shiny gold material for the belt. Vaughn's experience as a patternmaker was evident as he traced the dress's lining and positioned it on the dummy, asking me for input as he folded and puckered. In no time, we captured the silhouette I had created in my sketch. Honestly, I felt it was coming along even better than I'd hoped.

“How long do we have?” I asked as Vaughn dug into a bin of belt buckles.

“A week for difficult garments that require custom ordering. Everything else they like us to finish in under three days. Yours is simple—it should be ready for the fourth floor tomorrow morning.”

I had to ask. “Do you think I have a good chance?”

Vaughn shrugged his shoulders. “You never can tell with these things.”

I couldn't sleep that night. I envisioned people walking down the street in my dress, going to work, going out afterward in it. I thought what it would be like to wear it
myself
and casually mention that I'd designed it for the Torro-LeBlanc line. Even my mother would have to be proud of that. I woke Braxton up with a call to share my excitement. I chattered on, full of nervous energy, hugging the bear he had given me.

“Wow, Marl. I never thought you'd like being a drafter so much,” he said when I finally paused.

“Yeah, I don't know why drafters get such a bad rap,” I told him. “Creating clothes is fun.”

After a drowsy goodbye, Braxton hung up. I lay on my back, clutching the bear, imagining my look coming down the catwalk again and again.

The next morning at work, Vaughn and I examined the dress with a critical eye and decided to raise the hem two inches to better reflect current skirt lengths. He steamed the fabric and added the finishing adjustments.

“I love it! Thank you,” I exclaimed. I had the sudden urge to hug him but settled for an awkward arm squeeze.

“Good luck,” said Vaughn. He smiled. “I hope to see you up here again soon. For ex–Superior Court, you're actually not insufferable to work with.”

I laughed, pushed my creation to the elevator with pride, and headed to the fourth floor.

The rejection happened so fast I didn't have time to cry. Terrence, one of the three Junior Court directors I'd worked with, led me to the garment-judging room where Junior Court B sat. I wheeled in the dress form and maneuvered it to face the judges. I recognized one of them, a redheaded girl I'd been a sifter with. I tried to catch her eye and smile, but the girl didn't seem to remember me. I cleared my throat and opened my mouth to speak.

“Hoochie-tacky,” said one judge.

“Totally crustaceous,” said another.

“Sad, desperate housewife, fossil-in-training,” announced a third.

Someone snorted.

“Defenders?” asked Terrence. A beat of silence. “All opposed?”

Each of the nine judges raised a hand.

“Thank you very much, Maria. We hope to see you again soon,” he recited. And I was back outside, alone, my one-shoulder creation mutely mocking me.

Maria
. He didn't even remember my name.

Trying to swallow the lump in my throat, I rode the elevator back down to the second floor, where, evidently, the news of my failure had already been delivered. Vaughn was nowhere in sight, but a woman grabbed my dummy and sliced down the carefully constructed seams with a small blade.

“What happens to the fabric?” I asked hoarsely.

“Scraps bin,” the woman muttered before shooing me away.

I didn't want to return to the basement. I knew I had to, but I wanted to go home and have Karen make me chicken soup and fudge brownies. I rode the elevator down, walked to my table, and laid my head on my folded arms.

“P pill?” I lifted my head to see Dido offering the tin. I glanced at my colleagues. Vivienne was watching me intently. Felix was frowning.

“I'm not trying to tell you what to do.” Randall's voice came from my other side. I turned, but he didn't look up from his sketch. “But those are incredibly habit-forming, you know.”

“They're harmless, Randall,” said Dido. She smiled, but there was irritation in her voice.

“Up to you, Marla,” said Randall, “but I'd save them for when you
really
have a bad day.”

I glanced at the little pink pill in Dido's palm. It looked like candy. I did feel pretty miserable—but I wasn't sure about trying placidophilus pills just yet. No one on the Superior Court used. My mother only indulged once in a great while for what she called “unbearably taxing moments,” such as the days that led up to my Tap. Randall was probably right—I'd have moments that hurt worse than this rejection. I could wait. “Thanks. Maybe later,” I said to Dido. “I should get my own, anyway.”

Dido tucked the tin away in her bag. “Suit yourself. I can recommend a dealer if you want,” she added.

“Jennifer Tildy, coming up on
your left,” Naia whispered into Ivy's ear.

Ivy turned to see the actress approaching with her nymphs, the whole group in safari-inspired clothing. Jennifer's khaki hat hung around her neck by its drawstring and rested on her back. Ivy guessed there was no way Jennifer's publicist would have let her cover up her signature bob.

“Love
the new album, Ivy,” Jennifer said, a sheen coming off her hair even in the dim light of the ballroom. “
Super
prime.” She pulled out her Unum. “Any chance I can get a shot?”

“No problem,” Ivy replied.

Jennifer handed her Unum to one of her nymphs and positioned herself next to Ivy. Ivy draped her arm around Jennifer and smiled an aloof, close-mouthed smile at the Unum camera. There was something about having her arm around the actress's shoulders, not the other way around, that tilted the balance of power in her favor. She was the one gracious enough to give the hug. Jennifer, a huge star in her own right, was lucky to be around
her.
It felt good.

The Unum flashed. Jennifer thanked her, and Ivy continued gliding through her album-release party, thrown by Warwick Records. The ballroom buzzed with celebrities. Actors, models, and other musicians mingled, grabbing hors d'oeuvres off trays. She felt a dizzy euphoria as they all clamored to spend a few minutes with her as she passed. She knew most of the guests personally, but if not, it was Naia's job to whisper names into her ear. Naia never missed.

It was the perfect event to distract her from Constantine's Tap failure. Even if she'd wanted to dwell on her visit home, she couldn't. In front of the crowd, as Fatima constantly reminded her, she had to be on. Spontaneous. Sexy. Wilde.

“Kev duPrince, action film star,” Naia whispered in her ear.

“Duh,” Ivy whispered back as he approached. “He's huge, Naia.”

“Ivy Wilde,” Kev said with a thousand-watt grin. “The girl of the hour.”

“Hey, Kev,” she replied, playing it cool. She'd always thought of Kev as a bit of a pretty boy—not her type, really—but she knew her nymphs thought he was prime. She felt Naia press against her side in an effort to get closer.

“I have a favor to ask.” One of Kev's satyrs held out a felt-tipped marker. In a gesture that momentarily shocked Ivy, Kev ripped open his shirt, popping all the buttons off. He was a little on the skinny side, but he'd clearly been hitting the gym. “Sign my chest, will you, hot stuff?”

As guests and reporters raised Unums and cameras to catch a shot of Kev's bare chest, Ivy smelled an agent at work here. It was probably Kev's—though she could imagine Jarvis orchestrating the moment too. It didn't matter. She knew what she was supposed to do. First: Show that she wasn't, actually, shocked. She began fanning herself dramatically with her right hand, as if she loved what she saw, as if he were too hot to handle.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on here?” Clayton Pryce stalked over, playful anger on his face. It was clear he wasn't really jealous . . . but Ivy could tell everyone was loving the show nonetheless.

“I mean no disrespect, man,” said Kev. He took the marker from his satyr and held it out to Ivy. “I just want the primest pop star on the planet to leave her mark on me. You get her all the time. Let me have one moment.”

Clayton crossed his arms. “Careful, now.”

Second: Prove that she was a “Wilde” girl, wilder even than Kev. “Gimme that,” said Ivy, snatching the marker and removing the top. “Clayton, I love you, baby. But you're going to watch”—she bumped her backside against his hip while the crowd whooped—“and you're going to like it.”

On Kev's chest, in loopy black script, she wrote,
Stay wild!
❤
Ivy.
The marker glided over his sweaty skin, bleeding a little here and there. Kev's cologne made her eyes water, but she ignored it and gave him an affectionate bite on the neck as the cameras flashed.

Third: Patch things up with Clayton. Once Kev left, she snuggled up to him and sucked on his earlobe to show everyone there were no hard feelings. She imagined Fatima somewhere in the room, beaming.

All the while, her new album,
Laid Bare,
throbbed through the overhead speakers. Boys fighting over her, celebrities eating it up, gazing at her in her new Torro-LeBlanc minidress of beige silk—it was work, but it was fun, too. To have the spotlight for the evening, the theatrics were totally worth it. She was a pro by now, anyway.

And tomorrow she could sleep in and lounge around all day. Fatima had canceled rehearsal. All she had to do was get dressed up again and head to Scalpel for a club night. She thought again of her brother with a touch of sadness. Poor Adequates. Maybe her father really did like chemistry; maybe her mother was happy enough. But no matter what they said, their lives were so feeble compared to all this.

The morning after
my garment rejection, to my surprise, Vivienne plopped down next to me, in Randall's usual seat to my right. She waited until Winnie was walking by to announce: “I'm switching seats with Randall for a few days so I can help you with your sketches. We'll get you in front of the Superior Court yet!” She even made a point of giving Winnie a fluttery finger wave. It was so out of character that I figured Winnie would be suspicious. But Winnie just returned an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Was Vivienne actually going to offer me instructions? I took out a half-finished sketch of some black rocker jeans with chain embellishments I had begun the night before. I had yet to try boyswear and thought it was as far away from “fossil-in-training” as I could get. I studied the jeans, chewing the polish off my fingernail. Glancing down, I realized I'd really let my nails get into a terrible state. I remembered how I used to
paint them each morning to coordinate with my outfit—but now, well, I wasn't around people who would notice or care. At least none of the clothes I was wearing had expired yet.