Poseur #3: Petty in Pink: A Trend Set Novel (6 page)

Janie narrowed her eyes. Of all the things she’d love to call Charlotte right now, “old-fashioned” was so
not
one of them. And then something occurred to her.

“What about you and Jake?”

The turn signal clicked, sproinging downward, and Charlotte screwed up her face, shifting in her seat. “What
about
me and Jake?”

“If there’s no such thing as—”

“Jules and I are
really serious
,” she cut her off, cranking the polished wood wheel.

“I know,” Janie began.

“No,”
Charlotte snapped before she could continue. “You don’t.”

Janie faced the window and flinched, fighting off the sting. Charlotte was right, of course. Pretty much the closest Janie
had come to a serious relationship was back in fourth grade, when Michael McFadden handed her a green M&M and said, “The green
ones make you horny.” Since then, it had all been downhill.
Still,
she thought, watching the neon signs on Sunset Boulevard flash dimly in the daylight. That Charlotte just
said
so with such absolute
authority
. Like Janie’s utter lack of experience was just, like,
splattered
all over her face.

It pissed her off.

“I know more than you think,” she informed her condescending driver, still glaring out the window. “It’s not like I’ve never
had a boyfriend.”

Charlotte exhaled quickly through her nostrils and curved the corner of her mouth into a smile. “Really.”

Janie moistened her slightly chapped lips. She hadn’t
wanted
to embellish her lie, but Charlotte’s rage-inducing response all but forced her at gunpoint. “You know Creatures of Habit?”

“Sounds familiar,” she replied slowly. Janie smiled. Her best friend Amelia had a pet peeve with people who said “sounds familiar.”
It’s only, like, the deadest giveaway they have no idea what you’re talking about,
she’d scoff, dripping with contempt.

“Oh, they’re just this band,” Janie continued in her best I-can’t-believe-you-haven’t-heard-of-them tone. “Anyway”—leaning
forward in her seat, she gripped the glove compartment and smiled—“he’s the bassist.”

“Oh,
really
?” Charlotte waited out the light on Sunset and Hillcrest, pale fingers toying with the clustered cabbage ruffles at her throat.
“What’s this bassist’s name?”

Janie’s seat belt tightened against her chest. Something about saying his name out loud: it made her nervous. Her instinct
was to backpedal, maybe make up a name—but what if Charlotte Googled Creatures of Habit? She fretted, examining Charlotte’s
haughty profile.

She kind of seemed like a closet compulsive Googler.

“Paul,” Janie croaked, and pulled the seat belt toward her lap. “I mean, he’s not, like, my
boyfriend
boyfriend. He’s more like… you know.” She swallowed. “We’re kind of off and on.”

Charlotte drummed her clear polished fingernails against the wheel. Was it just her, or was Janie making “off and on” sound
way more appealing than “serious”? With all those breathy little pauses and glazed faraway looks. Uch!
She totally was
. But off-and-on relationships
aren’t
appealing, Charlotte reminded herself. Off-and-on relationships lead on to heartbreak!
And passion,
countered the beret-wearing devil on her shoulder.
All of your favorite couples
. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Napoléon and Josephine. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Miss Piggy and Kermit?

Admit it,
he cackled.
You miss that feeling
.

“Hey, sexy!” A shrill voice called from a neighboring lane, and Charlotte gave a start, glancing left.
“Mm!”
Petra leered over the passenger side of Melissa’s gleaming platinum Lexus convertible, purple shades glinting in the sun,
hair flying all over the place. “You ladies are looking
fine
.”

“Get a grip, creep,” Charlotte deadpanned, just as the light flicked green. She barely had time to react before Melissa slammed
on the gas, peeling off with an impressive squeal.
“Merde!”
she cried, fumbling for the pedal while Janie clutched the sides of her buttery leather seat. Ahead of them—so far ahead!—Madame
Pearlbutt lifted her tan arm in mocking salute, bright bangles flashing on her wrist. Charlotte swallowed a hard lump of pride,
daring to ask a question she never, in a
billion
lifetimes, thought she’d ask.

Why can’t I be more like Melissa?

The only man on
her
mind was Ted Pelligan.

The Gent: Ted Pelligan

The Getup: Lime green seersucker suit and white shirt by Paul Smith, lavender sunshine medallion silk tie by Ermenegilda Zegna,
traditional two-tone wing tips by Salvatore Ferragamo, silver silicone Men’s Elite Gardening Gloves by Bionic Gloves

In Theodore Pluto Pelligan the IV’s humble point of view, luxury retailers existed not merely to
clothe
souls, but to
alter
them. Which was to say, even if a customer entered his store and left buying
nothing
, he or she should still feel ineluctably
changed
. A store’s
ambience
—the lighting (tasteful), the prices (wasteful), the staff (unsmiling), the music (beguiling), the scent (a bouquet-stuffed
boudoir
), the attitude (make
luxury
, not war)—was as important, if not
more
important, than the objects it sold. He compared the experience to his own—many years ago, now—at Harvard; he was there for
ten glorious minutes, left with
nothing
(save a Polaroid of Mother on the steps of Widener Library), and yet, he’d been forever
transformed
. The true worth of Harvard, he decided, was rooted in
ambience
—not the paltry
degree
it peddled.

So formative was his experience, he designed his flagship Melrose store with the university in mind: an impressive building,
bordered by pathways of venerable red brick, and absolutely
covered
—from the lip of the sidewalk to the tip of the two-story roof—in
gorgeous
green ivy. Of course, in places his leafy creepers had to be (ah! his favorite word)
pruned
; that is, cleared away to better showcase the window displays,
not to mention
his
name,
which appeared on the wall in alternating blue and crimson letters. He hoped Ted Pelligan, like Harvard, would one day become
synonymous with “crème de la crème.”

And it had.

H
ARVARD
+ T
ED
P
ELLIGAN
: A C
OMPARATIVE
A
NALYSIS

Common Peasant:
Where did you go to college?

Someone Fabulous, Like You:
In Cambridge.

Peasant:
Where in Cambridge?

You:
Oh, um… Harvard.

Peasant:
Really? Wow. Harvard. Well, tra-la-la, Little Miss Fancy-Pants!

You (lying):
It’s not really like that.

Common Peasant:
Omigod! Where did you get that top?

Someone Fabulous, Like You:
On Melrose.

Peasant:
Where on Melrose?

You:
Oh, um… Ted Pelligan.

Peasant:
Really? Wow. Ted Pelligan. Well, tra-la-la, Little Miss Fancy-Pants!

You (lying):
They were having a sale.

But the two institutions’ affinity wasn’t meant to last. In the 1980s, when Harvard
removed
their ivy due to
apparent
wall deterioration and steep labor costs, it stung, to be quite frank, like a spank in the face. Beside himself with grief,
racked
by betrayal, Ted did what any self-avenging citizen would do: angrily, he wrote them a letter.

Dear Harvard,

I, for one,
valeu
my ivy, and as for stepe labre costs,
I
trimm the stuff
myself
.

Disgustidly,

T.P.
¹

“Teddy?” His assistant, Gideon Peck, who spoke in the low, respectful tone of a funeral director even when ordering pizza,
pushed open the polished wood door, ducking his solemn young face into the large, stately office. Discovering the brass-studded
burgundy leather wing chair empty, he heaved his hangdog gaze to the opposite side of the vast room. As expected, his silver-haired
superior crouched catlike by one of four dormer windows, an enormous pair of steel shears in hand. A tiny green tendril of
ivy, having stealthily unfurled in the dead of night, peered through the open window, quivering in the breeze.

“Just look at it, Giddy,” he murmured in his unplaceable accent, like a 1930s film star’s, and squinted behind his rimless
rectangular glasses.
“Brazen as a Peeping Tom.”

The assistant stepped into the room. “Sir…”

“Just a moment.” Mr. Pelligan hushed him, quietly crept forward, and wet his pale lips with the tip of his tongue. The shears
flashed—
snippity-snip!
Exhaling, he retreated a step, stooped, and pinched the tender green sprig between his fingers. As he marched it toward his
desk, Gideon bowed his head, clasping his hands.

“His green seraglio has its eunuchs too,”
Mr. Pelligan intoned, beautifully trilling his
r
’s. His silver-gloved fingers parted, and the sprig fell soundlessly into a waiting brass bin.
“Lest any tyrant him outdo.”

A moment of silence.

“Yes?” He turned suddenly, sweeping his rimless eyewear from behind his smallish pink ears and fluttering his silver lashes.
“What is it?”

“Your four o’clock, sir.” Gently, Gideon wrested the shears from his superior’s small, garden-gloved hand and carried them
to the antique maple highboy behind the desk, cleaning the blade with a brisk motion across his sleeve. “The young ladies
of Poseur,” he droned, taking care with his pronunciation as he slid open the second-to-top maple drawer.

“Ah!” his superior exclaimed, yanking the squared fingertips of his garden gloves one by one. “My sweet damsels in design.
My most
darling
of discoveries
. Allez!
” He freed his hand and wiggled his plump, bejeweled fingers. “Send them in.”

Gideon cracked a small smile. Teddy loved nothing more than to hatch new talent, and he always
could
spot a good egg. His prodigies included Chloë Sevigny, Vikki Beckham, Stella McCartney, and, of course, Miss Ashley and Miss
Mary-Kate. “When I found them they were just a couple of impossibly thin, identically pouted billionaires with all their Tiffany
hearts could desire!” he was fond of recounting. “But they had
pluck
, Giddy, and I could tell… these girls were
going
places. I took them under my wing. I said,
‘I know what you’re going through.
The world seems a warm, friendly place… you feel so happy it’s a damn
miracle
you make it out of bed!
But,
my lovelies, you have
got
to move
on
.’ ‘How?’ they asked. Can you
imagine
? The darlings! ‘I know it’s easier
done
than
said
,’ I told them, ‘
but
…
why not start a fashion line?
’ The
looks
on their faces, Giddy. Like I’d just opened a door into a world of privilege
exactly
like the one they were already in!”

The Olsen girls went on to create two industry-respected luxury labels, The Row and Elizabeth & James, and then flew the nest,
making a permanent home of New York. The move was only natural—it was New York, after all, not its yoga-panted West Coast
cousin, where fashion names were
made
. Nevertheless, the transition was difficult for Teddy; on more than one occasion, Gideon had discovered him at his massive
mahogany desk, stabbing his Pimm’s Cup with a cucumber spear and staring into space.
He absolutely needs a new project,
noted his concerned assistant.
This much was clear.

The question was
who
?

Stepping lightly downstairs, the attentive assistant swept into the reception area, where two girls, one dark, the other fair,
looked up from twin green-and-gold silk jacquard seats, their hands placidly folded on their crossed knees, their eyes alight
with excitement.

“Mam’selles,” he greeted them gravely.

Bing!
Behind him, the gilded elevator doors shuddered to a halt. “Wait!” twittered a high-pitched, panicked voice. Their operator,
Mr. Finch, unlatched the ornate brass gate, sliding it open with a clattering bang. Two girls, one tall, the other small (
with lapis lazuli for eyes,
noted Gideon) burst from the lift like crazed canaries.

“Sorry we’re late,” panted the silky-bobbed taller of the two. “We—”

“Got lost?”
offered the dusky diva from her chair, pursing her voluptuous pout. The sylphlike blonde to her right elbowed her in the
ribs.