Poseur #4: All That Glitters Is Not Gucci (13 page)

Could she put this bunny rabbit robe on her body?
Miss Paletsky was ecstatic at the thought.
But no!
She quickly realized it didn’t belong to her. Miss Paletsky turned to leave the room, but the mere thought of leaving the
robe behind almost brought her to tears. She had no choice. She slipped the lush fabric off of the silky hanger and wrapped
her orchard-scented skin in the luxurious garment, cinching the belt around her slender waist.

Clean, revived, refreshed, and giddy, Miss Paletsky wandered through the guesthouse. Beneath a several-paneled painting of
Marilyn Monroe, Miss Paletsky found a remote control the size of a paperback, with a series of buttons, switches, and lights
as varied and complex as the controls on an airplane. She flipped one switch, and heard a humming sound above. A panel of
the ceiling rolled away to reveal the ink-black, star-splattered sky. A gust of crisp night air rushed in, chilling her warm
skin so the dainty hairs on her arms stood up. Miss Paletsky found the brightest star she could and closed her eyes, like
she had so many nights before. But for once, she could think of nothing to wish for. And so she only whispered, “
Spasiba.
” Thank you.

Miss Paletsky pressed another button, and a glass orb in the middle of the room filled with lush orange flames. Then she flipped
a switch and heard the sound of a babbling brook. Was
this sound coming from hidden speakers, or had Miss Paletsky just turned on an actual river? It was all so impossible that
anything was possible! Another button caused a sixty-four-inch plasma screen to levitate out of the floor. But what use was
there for television when life itself was such a fantasy?

When Miss Paletsky wandered into the kitchen, the slate tiles felt warm against her clean bare feet. Was it possible that
the
floor
was even heated? Miss Paletsky knelt and pressed her hands to the deep gray tiles. Her heart rose into her tiny palms. They
were actually warm! Miss Paletsky felt so strange and silly and elated that she closed her eyes, laid her tiny chipmunk cheek
against the heated floor, and laughed aloud. When she opened her eyes, she spied the edge of something shiny and black through
the door, not unlike the water-slick river stones that bordered the shower. Curious, Miss Paletsky rose to inspect the next
surprise. A shiny black sports car converted into furniture, maybe? A human-size bust of Seedy Moon, carved out of onyx perhaps?

But once Miss Paletsky entered the room in question, she found something far more magnificent than a Lamborghini-turned-coffee
table. She found a piano, and not just any piano: a Steinway grand. Whose was it? And would they mind if Miss Paletsky sat
down on the glossy, smooth seat, just for a second? She didn’t even have to play it. She just wanted to
sit
on that seat. And what harm could that do?

But once Miss Paletsky slid down the smooth, glistening
bench, her hands seemed to lift the piano lid of their own volition, and soon enough, she was running her fingers over the
gleaming white keys. And then, it was only a moment until…

Ping!

She pressed a single key. The note was perfectly pitched, beautifully clear; like an ivory elevator door in heaven sliding
open. She couldn’t contain herself. As though possessed, Miss Paletsky pressed another key. Flawless. And another. Gorgeous!
And before she knew what had hit her, Miss Paletsky was swaying amorously from side to side, her tiny hands dancing over the
smooth white keys. She could have played forever. Miss Paletsky lost herself in the music and became so transported, in fact,
that she did not even notice the gentle rap on the open front door. Or the way Seedy Moon crept inside and stood behind her
while she stroked the keys. She did not notice, that is, until she did.

“Oh!” Miss Paletsky called in fright.

Seedy chuckled a low, steady laugh. “I’m sorry, Lena,” he said in that silky voice that was even smoother than the notes on
the Steinway. (
Seriously!
) “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Miss Paletsky counted the humiliations:

1. Seedy had caught her playing the piano without asking.

2. Seedy had caught her wearing the bunny rabbit robe without asking.

3.
She was wearing a robe!

“I just wanted to check up on you. Make sure you were settling into your new digs okay. How’s everything looking so far?”

Miss Paletsky gazed into her stocky savior’s smiling eyes and forgot all about her gaping robe. “Everything is perfect,” she
sighed. Then she remembered—and clutched it closed.

“So, what were you playing?” Seedy asked.

“Prokofiev.”

“Huh. I’ve been struggling with the bridge for this new song I’m working on, and that tune you were playing kind of gave me
an idea.” Seedy motioned toward the empty space on the bench beside Miss Paletsky and inquired, always the gentleman, “Do
you mind?”

Do I mind?
thought Miss Paletsky.
Do I mind if traveled from class to class on a cloud of vodka vapors?
But Miss Paletsky didn’t say that. Instead, she only shook her head no.

Seedy smiled and slid onto the bench beside her. Miss Paletsky scooted over to give him space, but they were still close enough
that they were almost touching. Then he reached his strong hands over the keys and began to play the opening bars of his latest
tune. Miss Paletsky tried to focus on the music and not on the intoxicating closeness of this man, this tightly bound package
of muscle wrapped in smooth dark skin whose mere proximity woke her up
like a jolt of electricity. Breathe in, she reminded herself. And out. In… Out…

“So, right here,” Seedy said, interrupting Miss Paletsky’s emotional combustions, “something like that Prokofiev thing. Not
the first part, but the, ya know…” Seedy began to hum, and Miss Paletsky instantly recognized the melody he wanted. She nodded
comprehension and played the bridge with her right hand.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed. Miss Paletsky blushed, giddy like she’d won a prize. “Play it again,” he instructed, and Miss Paletsky’s
fingers flew across the keys. While she played her part, Seedy closed his eyes and nodded, absorbing the tune. “Again,” he
whispered when she reached the end, and Miss Paletsky played the bar again. Seedy, still nodding, reached for the keys and
began to riff off of her, his low notes diving into her high ones and bringing them down to earth. When they reached the end
of the tune, Seedy kept playing, improvising in low, sultry notes. Feeling brazen, Miss Paletsky chimed in with some high
notes, and a slow steady smile crept across Seedy’s face while he continued to play. He led. She followed. He hung back. She
took the reins. He followed her lead. Then, drunk on the moment, Miss Paletsky lurched into the low register just as Seedy
reached for a high note. Their arms touched, the keys mashed—
ching-ka-plunk!—
and Miss Paletsky jumped back, embarrassed.

But Seedy didn’t look embarrassed.

“That was cool,” he nodded.

“Yes,” agreed Miss Paletsky. “And the song you wrote is very beautiful. What is it called?”

The song was called “What You Done
.
” It was the last installment in Seedy’s latest trilogy about Vivian’s betrayal: “What You Do,” “What You Did”
,
and “What You Done
.
” When he turned to answer her question, Lena was so close he could almost smell her. Like orange tree leaves and cinnamon.
Wow. Like morning.

“It’s called ‘What You…’” He trailed off. Miss Paletsky gazed into his eyes.

“Yes?” she prompted. He inhaled. Cupcakes. Exhaled.

“Uh… ‘What You…’ doin’ for dinner?”

The Getup: Mourning garb: black Diane von Furstenberg feather-embellished Thane dress, black Wolford tights, Yves Saint Laurent
Tribute platform sandals, oversize black-on-black Fendi shades, and the omnipresent Ho Bag

The sushi platter was positively prismatic. A thick slab of ruby red tuna drooped over a warmish cube of sticky white rice,
three hunks of yellowtail sashimi glistened like rose quartz, and a dainty ribbon of seaweed surrounded a pile of translucent
yellow fish eggs, which glistened like just-cut amber. The thick blob of wasabi, of course, was the color of money.

A wooden chopstick plunged toward the decadent spread and impaled a quivering baby octopus. It then lifted the briny morsel
to a collagen-injected kisser, slathered needlessly with BlingFusion After Hours lip plumper. The grease-slick lips belonged
to none other than Vivien Ho. Contrary to popular belief, Seedy Moon’s infamous ex was alive and well. Or she was
alive
at least; the jury was still out on the
well
part.

Ever since the six-foot Korean stunner with the violet eyes (which she
swore
were not color contacts) and the yard-long stick-straight shiny black hair met rapper-cum-
producer Seedy Moon on the set of his “Lord of the Blings” music video, the pair had been inseparable. Vivien was a backup
dancer, but she managed to strategically place herself to catch Seedy’s eye, and soon enough, she was engaged to the hip-hop
heavy and living in his Bel Air palace, with everything she’d every wanted within snatching distance. She started her own
handbag line—Ho Bag—which had already branched out into apparel, and her memoir,
The Audacity of Ho
, had just been released in paperback. A perfume—working name Just Ho
—
was in the sniffing stages, and her manager was shopping around a reality show about Vivien’s newlywed years with Seedy (although
he didn’t know that yet). She’d had it all.

And now it was all gone.

Vivien masticated the baby octopus slowly, her violet eyes far away. Her shopping bags, however, remained close by. She had
popped into Neiman Marcus on her way to Urasawa that evening for yet another dose of Rodeo Drive retail therapy, but no matter
how many chinchilla shrugs she charged to her Visa black card, no matter how many jewel-encrusted Manolo Blahniks she acquired
and then promptly forgot about, no matter how many size 8 Dior cocktail dresses she bought and then had her assistant sew
in a size 4 tag, nothing could console her.

Vivien missed Seedy Moon so bad it hurt.

And now, just because she’d played an innocent little
trick on his daughter, Melissa, Vivien was stuck alone at Urasawa, with nothing but a $250 platter of sushi to catch her tears.
If she ever happened to shed any.

But even though Vee lacked the ability to cry or otherwise express human emotion, she was still all torn up inside. Here’s
how it all went down, as anybody who had visited a single gossip blog in the last week already knew: Vivien’s soon-to-be-stepdaughter
Melissa couldn’t come up with a name for her fashion line (
and how hard was that, really? Vivien Ho had thought up the ingenious name Ho Bag without outside assistance
), and so Melissa and her little “colleagues” included a Name Our Label contest as part of their launch party. For reasons
that continued to evade Vivien, over one hundred people showed for the bash. Each and every attendee scrawled a potential
name on a clothing tag and dropped it into the huge clear globe that served as the centerpiece for the soiree. Later on, when
nobody was around, Vivian snuck in and changed every last submission to the word “Poseur.”

Melissa threw a fit when she cracked open the globe and discovered the stunt, and so Seedy set out to apprehend the saboteur.
He hated to see his little girl upset. Vivien wasn’t worried though. She’d covered her tracks perfectly; or so she thought.
Eventually, and against all odds, Seedy had managed to crack the code. His Koreatown private eye took on the case and found
traces of sea kelp on every last tag reading Poseur.
Sea kelp?
Seedy thought his K-town wizard
was losing his magic at first. Until he caught a glimpse of the ingredients in Vee’s lotion one day, that is. Numero uno:
Seaweed.
Seedy didn’t want to believe it, but in the end he had no choice; at the famed Pink Party, in front of everybody they knew
and plenty of people they didn’t, he called off the engagement.

First, Vivien attempted denial. But when that failed, she caved, confessed, and begged Seedy to see her side of the story.
She explained that it had all been a misunderstanding, easily attributable to temporary insanity, brought on by an excess
of acid in the system. You see, Vivien had been on the Master Cleanse Diet for two weeks when she sabotaged Little Miss Princess’s
little contest, meaning she had subsisted for fourteen days on nothing more than lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup.
Sure, one could drop twenty pounds in two weeks from the acidic bevy, but one could also go mildly insane. It was a seriously
serious diet with totally legit health risks, both physical
and
mental. So you see, Vivien had not been herself at all when she pulled that little prank on Lissa. She’d been a woman under
the influence.

As somebody who had never done the Master Cleanse, however, Seedy was tragically unsympathetic. He kept insisting that even
if Vivien
was
temporarily insane from her diet, she still should have confessed to the sabotage after the fact.

But how could Vivien confess after the incident when she had
no recollection
of the incident! Because along with temporary insanity, yet another (undocumented) side effect of the Master Cleanse was
amnesia
!

Vivien felt so sorry for herself she could cry. That is, if she could cry. Seedy would not listen to reason, and had insisted
that Vivien had pulled the prank because she hated his daughter. His little princess. His Melissa. Which, of course, was ridiculous.

Vivien stared unblinking at another baby octopus, trying to will herself to cry. She affixed her gaze to the small, spiny
tentacles and her vision blurred into a kaleidoscope of burnt orange and cinnamon brown. When her sight refocused, however,
eyes still dry, Vivien was horrified. The octopus had Melissa Moon’s face on its teeny-weeny brain head! And all eight tentacles
were waving into the air, like “Talk to the hand, talk to the hand, aha-ha-ha-ha!”