Poseur #2: The Good, the Fab and the Ugly (21 page)

In addition to her pink Nokia cell phone, Nikki also owned a mint-condition princess phone from nineteen fifty-five, a relic of her grandmother’s first marriage. The candy blue phone hunkered on her white side table, the size and shape of a curled-up cat. Because it never rang, Nikki assumed its purpose was decorative — much like the broken grandfather clock in her father’s study. Imagine her confusion at 8:42 that Sunday morning, when the phone rattled her awake with a terrifying
brrrrriiiiiinnnngggg!
She sat up with a start, blinking behind a tangled veil of flaxen hair. The phone rang again, and whipping aside her butterfly-patterned Tommy Hilfiger duvet, she swung her longish bare feet to the plush white carpet, and half-walked, half-stumbled her bleary-eyed approach. As she neared the phone, the ring seemed to increase in volume and urgency. Slowly, slowly, she lowered her hand, her fingers gripping the vibrating receiver until — kuh-
click
— she picked it up, and the thing went dead in her hand. She raised the heavy plastic receiver to her ear and took a deep, fortifying breath. Maybe it was irrational, but . . .

“Tom?”

“Nicoletta!” a disappointingly familiar voice rasped on the other line, and Nikki exhaled, her cornflower-blue eyes smarting with disappointment. “What are you doing up there? You are on the Fruit Machine?”

Nikki sighed. Her grandmother referred to anything developed after medieval times as “machines,” including but not limited to televisions, microwaves, Dust Devils, toaster ovens, cars, and those kids’ shoes that blinked red lights when they walked. Nikki once tried to demystify her Apple laptop to her grandmother, but the only detail retained was the machine’s all-important relationship to fruit. Within just a short amount of time, “Apple Laptop” became “Apple Machine” became “Fruit Machine” and, finally, just plain “Fruit.”

“The Fruit is
no
good,” her grandmother cried into the phone. “It is bad! You have not come out of your room in . . . how long, Nikki? Days.
Weeks.
You need sunlight,
cara.
Fresh air. You need
people
!”

“Nonna.” Nikki forced a smile, attempting an optimistic tone. “Please, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

“Ha! Fine, she says.
You are not fine,
cara, you are
sique
! The Fruit eats up your thoughts and then holds you like a hostage!”

“Just leave me alone!” Nikki wailed helplessly into the phone. And then she did the unthinkable — she hung up on her grandmother. Eight seconds later, the phone rattled to life, and Nikki flung herself to the bedroom floor, grinding her hot cheek into the plush white carpet, and breathed in the pleasant, vaguely mineral scent of residual vacuum breath, covering her gold-studded ears with her hands. When, at long last, the phone stopped ringing, she turned her face upward. Her white laptop snoozed on her painted oak desk. On the lower panel, a little Tic Tac of light brightened and darkened, breathing in, breathing out. Sliding into her simple ladder-back desk chair, she punched the space bar, and the laptop buzzed awake. She felt herself relax, beginning to type.

Are you there, Tom . . . ?

She took a moment and smiled, weakened by the opiating effect of those four little words. Except they weren’t words anymore — they were an addiction. She resumed typing, fingers atremble, and succumbed fully to the heavy-yet-light sensation of giving in.

It’s me . . .

“Nicoletta!”

Her white bedroom door sprung open and
thwacked
against the adjacent wall, upsetting her very favorite framed Anne Geddes photograph. The baby-in-a-lettuce-cup slammed to the floor with guillotine-blade finality, the glass pane cracking in three places.

“Get away from The Fruit Machine,” her grandmother rumbled, pointing a waxen finger. Nikki closed the laptop with an obedient click. Nikki the First hadn’t ventured from her bedroom, let alone
upstairs,
in as long as she could remember. She was almost
always
in bed, to the point that Nikki hardly perceived them as distinct, separate entities. Like a mermaid, or a minotaur, her grandmother was a glamorous creature of myth: half human, half mattress.

“Get dressed,” she ordered, raising a shakily drawn crayoned eyebrow. Gone was the virgin white, lace-trimmed nightgown, and in its place a matching skirt and jacket in beige silk jacquard. Biscotti brown pumps molded to her small, knobby feet, and nude stockings wrinkled about her matchstick-thin ankles. Bright orange coral lipstick and slapdash streaks of blue eyeliner made her wrinkled face pop, and a shining helmet of hair clamped to her head like a vise.

“Nonna.” Nikki struggled to button her pink-and-green Ralph Lauren cardigan. “Are you . . . is that . . . are you wearing a wig?”

“What,” she chuckled, patting the blond orb with her hand. “You think I grow this overnight?” She coughed, thumping her upper chest with her fist. “Of course, we call it a wig only between us. Once we are outside, it is my
real
hair.
Capiche
?”

“Outside?” Nikki’s hands dropped to her sides, appalled. “What do you mean?”

“I am taking you out,” her grandmother declared, popping open her navy quilted Chanel purse. She extracted a ball of used tissue, held it to her nose, and sniffed. “You need to see the world! Appreciate nature, air, art . . . humanity!”

“But . . .” Nikki’s eyes darted to her laptop.

What if Tom sent her a message, and she wasn’t here to receive it? What if she didn’t write him back right away? Maybe he’d think she wasn’t serious about their friendship. Maybe he’d . . .

“Do not even
look
at The Fruit,” her grandmother interrupted her thoughts, clutching her arm. She tugged her toward the open door. “You are coming with me!”

The Girl: Janie Farrish

The Getup: Unisex black-and-white wide-stripe cardigan and black leggings by United States of Apparel, and Red flip-flops by Havaianas.

“Janie,” Mrs. Farrish murmured, training her eyes to the pile of junk mail in her lap. “That’s the third time you’ve brushed pencil sharpenings on the floor.”

“Sorry,” Janie muttered in her seat at the opposite end of the dining room table, still squinting at her design.

“Unbelievable,” her mother clucked, shaking her messily ponytailed head in dismay. “These
people
with their ‘one-time-only’ credit card offers. I swear . . .” She pushed another envelope into the shredder, listening with satisfaction to the resulting chainsaw buzz. “They’re like
drug
dealers.”

Janie stared at her drawing and blew, pursing her Carmex-slathered lips. At the noise, her mother looked up, blinking behind her turquoise cat-eye reading glasses.

“You
do
realize you’re cleaning that up.”

“Obvie,” Janie sang, just as her cell phone flashed awake, buzzing across the table like a dying bee.

“Obvie?”
her mother repeated, as her daughter lunged. She grimaced. “Is the word ‘obviously’ really too much of an effort?”

“Hey, Charlotte,” Janie answered, scooting back in her chair and padding into the kitchen. The digital microwave clock read 8:48 a.m. “I was going to call you, but I thought you’d still be asleep.”

“No, how’s the design?” Charlotte’s delicate voice chimed on the other end, whipping in and out of a breeze. The tangerine tree outside Janie’s kitchen window rustled its leaves. “Are you done?”

“Just finished.” Janie nodded, pacing back to the table. She pinched the corner of her sketch, lifting it to the light. “I just need to pack up, and I’m on my way.”

“No, no . . . I’m in the Valley!” Charlotte informed her, still chiming in the wind.

“What?” Janie blanched. Maybe she’d misheard. Maybe she’d said,
No time to dally!
Janie wouldn’t put it past her.

“My friend Don John’s acting class is about five minutes from where you live,” Charlotte explained, crushing Janie’s hopes in an instant. “I thought he could drop me off at your house and pick me up after?”

“You want to come
here
?” Janie’s entire circulatory system pulsed in horror. Mrs. Farrish glanced up from her bills. “Um, I . . . I don’t know. . . .”

“It’s fine,” her mother silently mouthed, wagging her palm. Janie hugged her ribs and frowned, turning toward the wall.

“He says his class is only . . . what was it again? Oh, an hour and fifteen minutes. I thought if I came by we could go over your sketch together . . . make sure we’re on the same page?”

“Oh, right. Yeah,” Janie replied, her voice hoarse. “Okay, sure.
Bye.
” She clapped her phone shut, covering her eyes with one hand.

“Was that
Charlotte
?” her mother’s wry and all-knowing voice rose behind her.

Janie dropped her hand to her side and turned. “Yeah.”

“So, she’s coming over?” Mrs. Farrish stacked her remaining bills into a pile.

“I . . . I don’t know exactly.” Janie shrugged, still hugging her ribcage with her arms. Off her mother’s baffled look, she continued. “I mean, she
might,
but it . . . it all kind of depends on this friend? I don’t really know. She was kind of unclear on the phone.”

“Well, make sure you clean up that mess,” her mother instructed, scooting back in her chair. “Whether or not she
does
come.”

“Uh-huh.” Janie swallowed, glancing into the kitchen to recheck the time. The microwave was splattered with spaghetti sauce, and the plastered hole seemed to eclipse the entire wall. She reached for her phone.

“Oh, and do you have any laundry?” her mother called from the opposite side of the house, pervading the ring in Janie’s waiting ear. “I’m doing whites!”

“Hey,” Jake’s recorded voice clicked into gear. “This is Jake Farrish. Please leave a message. And don’t be embarrish.”

Beeeeeeep!

“Jake, hey . . . ,” Janie murmured, cupping the mouthpiece with her hand. “I know today’s your day to have the car, but I really, really need it. Please come back as soon as you can,
please
?”

The Girl: Charlotte Beverwil

The Getup: Dark blue skinny jeans by Chloé, blue dot print shirt by Rebecca Taylor, brown suede T-strap sandals by Oscar de la Renta, and heart-patterned neck scarf in nutmeg, gold, and sapphire silk by Christian Dior (courtesy of Jules).

The Farrishes’ house was small and square, with two front-facing windows and a triangle birthday-cap roof painted a cheerful robin’s egg blue. The rest of the house was pale yellow. To the left, a pocked gravel driveway, occupied by Mrs. Farrish’s much newer white Volvo station wagon, a not-quite-spherical basketball, and a looping sprawl of garden hose, sloped to the gray residential street. The lawn, though browning in patches, was neat, and freshly mown, and a leafy walnut tree offered shade. By the end of October, a fair amount of fallen nuts attracted a posse of neighborhood squirrels — they dawdled, poking about the stiff winter grass, pausing every three seconds to sniff whatever it is squirrels sniff.

Charlotte pulled her 1969 Jaguar to the leaf-littered curb and slowly braked, allowing the gleaming cream car to lumber. As the great French songstress Edith Piaf warbled and emoted inside her speakers, she checked a crinkled sheet of antique-toned paper in her lap, peered across the quaint suburban street, lowered her Havana brown Dior sunglasses, and squinted.

“Car ma
vie
. . . ! Car mes
joies
. . . ! Aujourd’
hui
. . . CA COMMENCE AV —”

“Well . . .” She finger-punched the stereo, cutting Edith off mid-climax. “This is it!”

Nineteen-year-old Don John looked up from his Juicy Couture Sidekick, tilted forward in his passenger seat, tipped his Dolce & Gabbana aviators to the end of his well-exfoliated snout, and winced. “Yes, but . . .” He winced again, returning his sunglasses to their rightful place. “
What
is it?”

“It’s a
house,
Don John,” Charlotte sighed, shutting off the engine. “Obvie.”

“Wait, like a house where you
live
?” he gasped, bulging his light gray Bette Davis eyes to maximum capacity. “It’s so
small
!”

Charlotte drew herself up in her seat, flexing the great ballerina muscle of social consciousness. “You know what?
Small is relative.
”

He yanked his gelled eyebrows into a puzzled knot. “Y’all are relatives?”

“No,”
Charlotte groaned. “What I mean is
just
because it’s not a ten-bedroom estate does
not
mean it’s quote-unquote
small.
Compared to another structure,” she ventured, “it might look quite large.”

“Compared to
what
structure?” Don John snorted, unconvinced. “Ashley Tisdale’s nose?”

“You are
not
funny,” Charlotte snapped. But a ghost of a smile twitched behind her peony-pink pout as she glanced into her lap, unzipping a quilted white leather Chanel makeup bag. “So,” she said a moment later, fixing her trusty MAC compact with a haughty glare and applying another layer of lip gloss. “You’ll remember to pick me up at eleven o’clock, right?”

“Oh yes, yes!” Don John agreed, clasping his hands on the polished walnut dash. At
last,
stingy old Beverwitch had agreed to let him borrow her car (he’d only asked three
million
times, and she’d always replied, “Can’t you just borrow Mort’s wheelchair?”). Her timing could not have been more perfect. He was desperately in love with Jamie Law, his Advanced Acting for Television teacher, who (despite Don John’s boyish good looks and
indisputable
razzmatazz) remained bewilderingly aloof. He absolutely
had
to get Jamie to notice him, and the cream-colored Jag was his last and only hope.