Catwalk (11 page)

“He never talks to us,” Aphro says matter-of-factly.

Dame Leeds’s ears must be buzzing like a yellow-jacket, because he motions for Zeus to come over. Zeus shrugs and humbly says, “I’m glad you dug the track.”

As Zeus trails off, Aphro yells after him: “I think she digs more than that!”

I shove Aphro like a harried passenger on the IRT: hard and with no regard.

The hallways are buzzing like beehives from the success of our pose-off. Even Ice Très is trying to store honey for the coming winter. “You posed for purr points. I’m digging it, pussycat,” he coos, winking coyly at me as Aphro and I sashay down the hall.

“Then why don’t you come to my house?” I offer boldly. If Shalimar wants a pillow fight, let the goose feathers fly.

“You haven’t seen my portfolio, but you want me in your house?” he counters coyly.

“Rewind. This is prequel to a sequel, hopefully. I said
come
to my house, not
be in
my house. And bring your portfolio if you want. We’re having a preinterview strategy meeting,” I explain, then hit him with the time and locale like a professional house leader.

“Okay, your crib, I got you,” Ice Très says, accenting his nod with another wink.

I try to pretend that I’m just scouting talent, which I am—
sort of
.

Meanwhile, Aphro’s trying to suppress a smile, but
Ice Très’s goofiness is even melting her sugar cane shell, not that she’ll admit it. “That’s a
lot
of winking and blinking, if you ask me,” she says, and hmmphs as we exit the apiary.

“Who’s asking?” I gently nudge Aphro down the stairs and squeal,
“Showgirls!”
Last Saturday night we all watched this
scandalabrious
movie on TV at her place about two competing Las Vegas showgirls prancing around with the most awesome plumage on their heads. Anyhoo, one of them pushes the other down a flight of stairs to secure star status in the show. Sure their ways are wicked. Just like the fashion biz.

“Well, it could lead to a hoodwink, that’s all I’m saying.” Aphro continues. I ignore Aphro because I’m feeling hyped by the fact that Ice Très accepted my prescreening invite. “Purr points. He’s good.” I giggle, marveling at Ice Très’s dead-on imitation of
moi
. “M.O. to the I.”

Aphro and I head to the job board for more cold calls, but after fifteen calls, “chilly” would be a more appropriate word.

“What a buzz-kill. Don’t they know I’m the leader of the House of Pashmina?” I gripe to Aphro while I force myself to keep dialing for dollars.

Finally
, we get an appointment at Loungewear Lulu, a flagship boutique on West Broadway off Grand,
which manufactures its own line of leisure and loungewear—or so explains the nasal person on the other end of the phone.

“I’ve never heard of this designer before. Have you?” Aphro asks me, twirling one of the feathered ends of the sequined purple lariat artfully wrapped three times around her long graceful neck, setting off the short, chic, sharp lines of her Cleopatra bob.

“No, I can’t say I’ve seen Lulu riffing about ruffles on the Teen Style Network,” I declare, “but that’s what I dig about the fashion biz—another day, another designer.”

Chenille walks past us, barreling toward the exit. “Hey, Chenille. Was you at the pose-off?” Aphro asks.

“No, but I gotta
pose my way
to a client,” my showoff sister announces proudly.

“Well, sashay to a payday,” I suggest sharply. Chenille takes my hint and saunters on her merry way. Secretly, I feel a twinge of Gucci Envy that my younger sister is snagging ducats before I do, but I say, “I don’t understand how she plans to get into one of the houses if she can’t even represent at the pose-off.”

“I know. It’s
unbeweavable
,” retorts Aphro.

“Bet this. I won’t be calling on Shrek’s secret assistant to be in my house—and she can take that to Banco Popular,” I sassyfrass.

My cell phone does a ringy-ding. “It’s my mother
calling again.” I assure her that I’ll be home by six o’clock to let Mr. Darius in to fix the toilet. But I protest, “You think he coulda came this morning?”

“Never mind that. It’s not like there was anybody home who needed to
use
the toilet,” my mom gripes in the agitated tone she gets when she deals with Mr. Darius.

“Well, it’s a good thing Fabbie didn’t have company,” I joke, but Mom is not in the mood, so I quickly change my iTune. “Don’t you want to know where I’m going now?” I ask teasingly, then blurt it out before she responds. “I have a job interview in SoHo!”

I should have known, however, that my mom would take this info to negative town: “Can’t you find something further uptown? I don’t like the idea of you traveling so far, especially at night.”

I stand still, tapping my foot, listening to my mom as she drones on about the sharp increase in predators on the prowl for pubescent flesh.

“Well, I guess I’m lucky I’m not wearing my red hoodie today to tempt the hungry wolves,” I retort, anxious to eighty-six this conversation. Instead, I succeed in further pissing off my mother, who drops the latest crime statistics before she releases me from her rant.

“Bad kitty! I
should
be declawed,” I grumble after snapping my cell phone shut like a Venus flytrap.

“What you
shouldn’t
have to do is deal with Mr. Darius,” counters Aphro.

I shrug, unfazed. “Frankly, I think Big Daddy Boom should watch a few reruns of
Flip This House
and pick up pointers. Consider yourself lucky Mrs. Maydell is a home
owner.
”

“Actually, she ain’t, and
Mr
. Maydell lets us know every time
they
get into a fight,” Aphro says, and provides a gruff demonstration:
“This is my house—I’m the one making the mortgage payments around here so y’all better straighten up and fly right!”

Mr. Maydell is kinda scary; according to Aphro, he’s always ready to rumble with her younger foster brother, Lennix, for the slightest infractions.

I feel a breeze by my ear as Chandelier and Dame Leeds whiz by us, chomping on strategy cuds like hype-hungry cows. “I’ve got all the members I need to win. Getting the rest of my team together is going to be easy breezy,” Chandelier brags.

“I heard that, Miss Thing,” agrees the dramatic hairstylist. “And you know I’m going to work it for points on the Dow Jones. I’m thinking we should feature short hair so we can angle the dangles—chandelier karats!”

I try not to cringe as I concede that Dame won’t be working his dangle-proof drama for our house.

“What about you, Miss Pashmina?” Chandelier
turns and asks me in her taunting voice. “Who’s down with feline fatale?
Meowch!
”

Aphro and I pretend we don’t hear her, so she continues dropping lines from her brag book. “Don’t know why I’m bothering going on this job interview, because I know it’s already mine!” she says with assurance, then pecks Dame on both cheeks like they do in Europe.

“Snag it, Gucci girl!” shrieks Dame, pecking back before he hurries down the hallowed hallway.

“Oh, bye, Miss Aphro … scratch, scratch!” Chandelier singsongs before grandly descending down the stairs to the doorway of the main entrance, where the attention deficient can get stroked by the ogle-ready Dalmation techies who linger outside after school.

“Why she always putting me on blast?” Aphro asks, her eyes blazing.

“Because she knows you call her Gucci hoochie behind her back.” I giggle as Aphro and I walk toward the less frequented Eighth Avenue exit, for those of us whose own initials are enough, like Bottega Veneta.

“
Chan-dee-le-ay
better not be going on the same job interview we are.” Aphro groans in protest as I fling open the door.

“Don’t even trip—” I start in, ready to squash her doubts, but squash my riff instead when I spot the Teen Style Network crew crouched right outside the pink wrought-iron gates. By reflex, I adjust the headband
plastered to the center of my forehead. The lady hones right in on us like a heat-seeking fashion missile. “Hi, I’m Caterina Tiburon. I’m the field producer for Teen Style Network—assigned to cover the Catwalk competition,” she announces, confidently extending her right hand. Her handshake is firm and forceful in contrast to the soft, rumpled condition of her drab, baggy khakis and pocket-plenty camouflage jacket. Secretly, I wonder if Caterina Tiburon has gone AWOL from the U.S. Army. She isn’t exactly what I expected a producer from the Teen Style Network to look like.

Before I respond to her courteous introduction, I tug down my mini from the micro end. “Hi, I’m Pashmina Purrstein.”

“You’re one of the house leaders, right?” she asks rhetorically, her eyes darting around at the other students coming out of the building.

“Yes,” I say proudly.

“We knew she would get elected,” Aphro chimes in. “True talent always rises above the din of the sales bin!”

I keep the Silly Putty smile plastered on my face despite the fact that Aphro sounds like one of the shady fabric merchants on Orchard Street—desperate to move bolts of raw silk that will unravel as soon as you get them home.

Caterina smiles faintly, then cuts right to
her
yardage requirements. “I’d like to get you on camera.”

I freeze, but luckily my lips move. “Abso—um, yeah … of course,” I say, fussing with my headband again.

“Not now,” Caterina clarifies, excusing herself; then she whispers to Jay and a tall guy crouched next to metal cases of camera equipment. After she finishes, the tall one comes over. “By the way, I’m Boom,” he says, extending his hand. I wonder what they’re up to, but the way Boom cracks a smile puts me at ease.

“I’d like to schedule some time with you—I’m interviewing all the house leaders,” Caterina says firmly.

“Um, okay. We can do it tomorrow, whenever you want. We can meet in Studio One downstairs—right next to the Hall of Fame?” I offer.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to see you in your natural habitat first. This is the more candid up-close-and-personal take before we get into the nuts and bolts—of fabric—of the competition,” Caterina continues. I can tell she’s trying to make a joke because she senses my hesitation.

“Nuts is right,” I joke back, then get embarrassed that Caterina might get the wrong impression of me.

“Look, it’s just establishing shots,” Caterina continues, using production lingo. “I already have an appointment with Shalimar Jackson. We’re going over to her apartment to tape her at seven o’clock while she holds a meeting for her social club.”

Now my apprehension is bona fried. Shalimar is going to be shot in her Limoges-laden penthouse with the members of a
bourgie
-woogie organization, all of whom go to private schools like Huxley, Baumgiddy and Tense. That makes the fur on the back of my neck stand at attention.

“Um, okay. Lemme check with my mother first,” I say, stalling. “I know she usually has her bridge club on Wednesday nights. I’ll call you on the cell as soon as I clear the schedule?”

Caterina hands me her card, and I scribble my cell number on a page and tear it out of my Kitty notebook. “I look forward to it,” she says.

After they leave, Aphro says, “You are so shady.”

“What was I supposed to say—Spades?” I quip. Spades is a card game that my mother plays with gusto, but Hector, her quasi boyfriend, hasn’t been around lately for her to even do that. Aphro and I played with them once, since it requires four players.

“What’s the name of Shalimar’s social club again—Hansel and Gretel?” I ask sarcastically.