She's All That (7 page)

“They're stone-washed, and hand-hewn. The material was left over from these awful things Shane is making, so I took the scraps and dyed them a decent color.”

“They're gorgeous. Thank you.” She pulls the jeans to her chest. “Listen, Lilly.” Morgan's tone turns serious, and when I look at her, she's lost all traces of her smile. “I have something to ask you.”

I feel my way down to the bed. “What?”

“I heard at the gym that my dad owes someone. Just whispers, it's probably nothing more than gossip, but I need you to ask Sara about it before you decide to leave.”

“You think she'd know anything?”

“That Union Square merchants' group is really tight. She might. He'd never tell me if it was true, and I don't want to find anything out from the
Chronicle
, if you know what I'm saying.”

“Sure,” I say.

“I just didn't want you to get on bad terms with Sara before you got a chance to ask.”

“Bad terms? What makes you think I'll be on bad terms with her?”

“Has anyone ever quit that she didn't try to ruin?”

I open my mouth to recite a list of Sara Lang protégés who've made it, but the realization strikes me: there are none.

Morgan nods. “There are some women you just fear for good reason. I think she's one of them.”

“I can handle Sara Lang.” I feel my back straighten even as I say it.
I imagine that's what Superman thought before he came
into contact with kryptonite too.

chapter 5

S
ome girls just develop later,” my Nana used to say. Here's the rest of that advice: “Some girls don't develop at all. Some girls stay stick-straight and will S only require a training bra for the rest of their natural-born lives.”

That's me.

But let's make it complete. Top this little-boy figure with a mop of wild, frizzy curls, and add the nickname “Q-tip” to the recipe. Send her to school in homemade miniskirts from the clearance polyester fabric bolts, and be sure and plop big, ol' brown clodhopper shoes on her, so her toothpick legs can get the full brunt of junior high ridicule.

Before it sounds like my youth was no more than a tale of utter woe, there is a silver lining to my billowy, gray cloud. In the fashion industry, they covet the woman's boyish figure. Granted, you have to be about five inches taller than I am, but still, I felt like I glimpsed my future when I saw an emaciated model with a dress hanging off her like an elegant sheath. (This was before the era of emaciated bodies
plus
enormous fake implants, à la Jessica Rabbit, so I was given hope without the desire for plastic surgery. I'm not big on pain.)

I wanted to look like the gaunt models in
Vogue
and wear tweeds and silks and be proud of my gangly frame. But first, I had to cover it up with something more than a miniskirt.

When I created my first pair of jeans, I knew I'd found my calling. Denim was my friend—it took my scrawny legs and swallowed them from visual range. When the jeans got too short, I added cool plaid cuffs. Eventually, I cut the jeans at the knees and made capris fashionable at school. There was simply no end to my freedom with fabric. Fashion was my saving grace until Nana introduced me to Jesus.

Speaking of my Nana, my heart beats rapidly. Spa weekend came to its glorious conclusion, and now it's time to explain to her that I've been offered a real job where I actually use my degree again (the easy part). And that I'm turning it down (the hard part). I've brought the Marc Jacobs handbag just to prove I have everything I need right now.

I pause on Nana's landing before actually knocking on her door.
She'll understand
, I tell myself.
She just wants me to be
happy
. But then I think back to those large, leather brown shoes with the miniskirt and wonder if that's true.

Nana lives in a lower apartment of a single journalist's home. She's in one of the swankiest parts of the City, the Marina. The area was ravaged in certain parts by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. I figure that's how the journalist must have afforded it. He probably bought it condemned in 1990. Max Schwartz is a television critic for the
San Mateo
Times
. In other words, as long as people can still
read
about television, Nana has a home.

I knock on her door. Nothing.

Knock again. Nothing.

Banging now. I think Nana is going deaf. “Nana!” I shout.

“Are you looking for Mildred?” A voice from overhead calls after me. It's the TV dork. He's typical for what you imagine a journalist might look like. Fairly small in stature with a goatee trying to make him appear so anti-establishment; dark, closely-cropped hair; over sized glasses. But his strong, straight jaw is somewhat unexpected. He appears intellectual, but of course, he writes about today's television shows. Since critiquing
America's Top Model
doesn't exactly attract the Pulitzer Prize Committee, he's got a steady nine-to-five and not much opportunity for advancement. We have that much in common. A life without passion, but a job like the other drones in the Bay Area. The biggest difference? He's got a majestic view of the San Francisco Bay and a job after Monday. “Do you know where my grandmother is?” I shout up at him.

“She's up here. I'm getting ready for the new television season.”

Sigh. And my Nana is up there—why?

“She's making a roast chicken,” Max adds.

Of course she is.
“Can I come up?”

“Yeah.” He buzzes a gate, and I gain entry to his elitist iron staircase. At the top of the stairwell, he rubs his hand through his hair, then thrusts it toward me. Noticing his
faux pas
, he wipes his hand on his jeans and tries again.

I take his hand. “Good to see you, Max.”

“You too, Lilly. Your grandmother was just talking about you. Saying you're still trying the fashion thing.”

“Yep, still working at it. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.”

“How long do you think you'll give it?”

I open my mouth, but nothing good will come out, so I snap it shut. I walk into Max's house, which is one-fifth living area, four-fifths television screen. My Nana is bent over the stove, a big commercial Wolf one, which is entirely strange, but considering the television, I question nothing. Nana has two oven mitts on her hands and props the chicken on the stovetop.

“Nana, what's going on? I pounded on your door.”

“What do you mean, what's going on? I wasn't home. It's August. Nearly time for the new fall preview schedule. Do you live in a hole?”

“I just don't watch much TV.” I shrug to Max. “The rabbit ears, you know. It's not really a
season
at my house.” I look at Max, and he winks at me.
Oh brother.

“Look at that television.” Nana waves a wooden spoon out of the salad bowl towards the enormous flat screen that could double for a drive-in should they ever come back into vogue. “The paper bought him that. Isn't that incredible? Our Max, he knows how to watch television.”

What a gift.

“Lilly, have you met Valeria?” Max asks as a tall, lithe figure emerges from the living room easy chair. She's got that exotic look, perhaps a mixture of Indian and something else. She could model if she didn't have such an expansive chest.
Sigh.

“Nice to meet you.” I smile at Valeria, rhymes with malaria, trying not to gaze down at my own chest. Or lack thereof. I suddenly feel very deflated and for more reasons than just Sara Lang.

“Your Nana has makes me right at home here in San Francisco. She makes me to learn to cook.” Valeria's broken English only makes her that much more exotic.

She's in her early twenties, I would say. Max is in his mid-thirties—and a geek. Have I mentioned that? This is the inequity in the world that makes you want to give up on the male species altogether.

“Really?” I say to gorgeous Valeria. “Nana's helping you cook?”
Just what the world needs, a goddess who can cook.
“Where are you from?”

“I am Russian. My father was Indian,” she says with the accent you expect from an übermodel.

“Wonderful. Glad to have you here.” I grab my grandmother's arm. “I need to speak with you about something.”

“After dinner. Sit down, it's ready.”

“I'm not hungry, Nana. It's sort of important.”

“That's why you're so skinny; you never eat. Don't be rude. It's been ages since Max has seen you, and I don't want Valeria to think I didn't raise you right. Max always asks what you're up to, don't you, Max?”

“I'm skinny because of genetics,” I explain to Valeria, as if she has any interest or desire to know about my DNA structure.

She smiles condescendingly. Like we don't have a complete lack of eligible bachelors here in the City, we have to import beautiful women from other countries to completely throw our chances out the fifty-fourth story window?
Melting pot, my
foot!
The immigration laws should definitely say something about being homely or married. It's one or the other, people! Good-looking? Available? No entry. I mean, doesn't the Statue of Liberty even say that? “Give me your tired, your poor, your homely…” Something like that.

“It's good to eat and enjoy; that's what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes. He was the wisest man in all the Bible,” Nana continues as she puts more dishes on the table.

Valeria whips out a new place setting, and I sit down.
I
know when I'm beat, and my education has nothing on Solomon. I
don't need the sermon to that effect.
If I want to have a conversation with my Nana, I will be eating.

“I'm here every Sunday night, Lilly. If you ever came to see me, you'd know that. Max, do you want wine?” Nana is poised with a bottle opener.

“No, thanks. Valeria might.” Max sits down and grabs Valeria's hand.

“Is Valeria old enough to drink?” I ask, and everyone stares at me. Apparently, this was not the choicest of commentary. Here I thought I was doing well avoiding her statuesque figure.

Valeria shakes her head to wine, and our whole dysfunctional party sits down for dinner. Max and his very warped harem.
Where's Dr. Phil when you need him?

“Where have you been, Lilly? It's been a long time since I've seen you around,” Max comments, while scooping up some salad.

“I spent the weekend at a spa with my girlfriends. But I've been working a lot. I was hoping for a promotion, but I didn't get it, so now I have to make other plans.” Here's where I stuff an over sized piece of French bread in the mouth.

“That's because she's not using the degrees she earned.” My grandmother sits down. “Hold hands; we're going to pray.” We do. She does. She's back to nagging. “That incredible brain God blessed her with, and she's going to be a hunchback as much as she bends over that sewing machine and sketch book and now, the computer too.” She directs her attention toward me. “Is that what you want?” Nana shakes her head. “A Stanford education she doesn't even use. Valeria, if your grandmother worked herself to the bone for your education, you would use it, no?”

When I say that my Nana gave up everything for me to be educated, including her home for my master's degree, I neglect to mention that I will hear of nothing else for the rest of my natural born days. When my Nana is gone, her words will haunt me like the
Telltale Heart
under the planks.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump. Fi-Nance. Fi-Nance.

“So, Nana, don't you think Valeria and Max might want to be alone?” I ask, hoping we can excuse ourselves.

“It's dinner time,” she says, as if without her, Max and Valeria might starve. “It's Sunday night. We watch the new pilots on DVD from the affiliates. I can't give Max my opinion without seeing the shows.”

“Nana, Max gets paid for
his
opinion—not yours.”

“Little good it would do him without me. He hasn't lived life. What does he know about quality television? He was a mere baby when Vietnam happened. He needs me.”

Quality television, a definite oxymoron. Oh please, mother
earth. Swallow me up into the deep crevice that is the San Andreas
Fault.
Dare I point out that
Desperate Housewives
and the significance of the Vietnam War have very little in common?

And then it dawns on me that this is my moment! Everyone is very lost in their own lives. They don't have time for the insignificance of mine. If I tell Nana my plans in front of Max and Valeria, I have the buffer I need. The highway median of a human sort.

Just as I see Nana fork the first piece of chicken into her mouth, I speak. “So Nana, Sara offered me a finance job.” Wait for it. “But I'm not taking it. I'm going to be starting my own business within six months.” Now keep in mind, I've just said this with the same tone I'd say, “Nana, I'm taking the garbage out.”

Nana starts to cough, choke actually, and Max rises up to tap her back. He's hovering over her, waiting for her to recover, slapping her as she coughs. Nana gulps some water, and now all three of them look at me as if I'm the human form of evil.

“My own design business,” I clarify.

“We know what you mean, Lilly,” Max says. “Just where will you get the money to start a business?”

Shoot. I never counted on Mr. Television piping up.
This must have been one of the past plots on
CSI: Miami
or something
.
Or did
The Apprentice
offer some sort of business advice last week?

“I'm planning for capital now. That's using my degrees.” Little white lie here, but if I tell Nana I have no business model, she might feign another heart arrhythmia and next thing you know, I'll be waiting for my exorcism. Clearly, I can cross Max off my potential investor list, considering his collateral is probably the sum total of that television set. Now everyone has stopped eating, waiting for me to say something more.