Catwalk (33 page)

“Not that one—this one,” Angora says, placing the plumage on her pen at the ad in question.

“Oh. Less infectious,” I say. I read the listing in question.

“That can’t possibly be his name, can it?” I ask in disbelief. The eavesdropping ears behind me answer instead of Angora.

“Yep, that’s his real name, but maybe I can help you?”

I turn abruptly to face the nosy intruder. “My computer is frozen,” I reveal.

“Is it a Mac?” he asks.

I stammer for a second, because I’m busy peering into his glasses, which are so thick I wonder if they’re bulletproof.

“No, it’s a PC,” interjects Angora.

“Oh,” he says, snobbily. “Well, I could look at it…. But mostly everyone has a Mac now.”

“Right. I’ll run right over to Apple and charge one—in pink,” I say, sarcastically.

Mr. Mac Attack turns sheepish. “Well, I’m just telling you—nobody is into the disk operating system anymore. It’s virus city.”

“Um, you know what? We’re good,” I reply.

Mr. Mac Attack treats our lack of interest like it’s a phase in his computer programming. “So, you go across the street?” he asks rhetorically.

“Yes, siree,” Angora says, sweetly.

“You’re models, right?” he asks, his lip twitching.

“Almost, but we’re not
flattery
operated,” I say, determined to move to final phase.

Mr. Mac Attack does his version of freezing, because he stands as still as a statue while we ignore him and scribble down a few more freebie listings. Then I drag Angora by the arm away from his gooey gaze.

Once we’re outside, Angora lays on a dose of Ms. Ava’s instruction. “Pash, you don’t have to be so mean.”

“Yes, I do,” I retort.

When we’re safely back on our side of the “strait,” Angora takes a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” I ask, concerned. Angora was born with an asthma condition that she almost never complains about.

She nods. “It’s not my breathing—it was the dreary decor I did not adore.”

“I have two words for that dog pound—
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
,” I add.

“Pash, that was four words.”

“I’m being generous today,” I quip. “Ramon could do wonders with that place.” After a moment’s pause, I add, “Well, let’s hope he keeps doing wonders at my house.”

Heading to the side entrance of school, I whip out my cell phone to dial Chris Midgett. “I hope this is worth it,” I moan after I leave a number on the answering machine.

“How does he sound?” Angora asks me.

“Like someone who can fix my computer,” I retort.

Deep house music pipes up over the loudspeaker—our cue for changing periods—which means we have to hustle to get to the next class. (At Fashion International, loud bells are prohibited.) I have fashion merchandising and Angora has fashion journalism class.

“You know, I wish you could go with us to Colombia for Christmas,” Angora says, looking back at me longingly.

“Trust me, I know,” I coo. And I really do. “But I’m going to Native next Friday—and that sounds exotic enough for
moi
!”

At five o’clock on the polka dot, most of my crew is inside Studio C for our bimonthly Catwalk meeting. That includes Aphro, Felinez, Angora, Dame Leeds, Lupo, Nole, and Diamond Tyler. Dr. Zeus strolls in at one minute past, wearing his mink zebra-striped hat, a black turtleneck, baggy black cargo pants, and Adidas sneakers. He walks up to me and gives me a tight hug with his taut, muscled arms, then kisses me on my cheek. “I got a great idea for the scrims on the runway,” he says.

I beam at Zeus approvingly, despite wishing his ideas involved
moi
personally.

By five-fifteen, it seems that all my team members have arrived. I stand at the head of the conference table to address the furbulous forty. After carefully scanning the room, however, I notice that one adorable kitty is missing. Instantly, I switch gears from heady head of state to fretting Fabbie Tabby who has just given birth to the largest litter in feline history. “Anybody seen Liza
FLAKE?
” I ask, directing my probe at Dame Leeds, who is the lead hairstylist and Liza’s immediate boss in the
hierarchy of our house. “An answer in this lifetime would be groovy.”

Sucking his teeth, Dame crosses his arms against his tangerine cashmere sweater. “She was
supposed
to be here with my sketches!”

Lupo Saltimbocca, who is sitting with his arm resting on his prized Nikon camera, decides to lighten the tension: “Pashmina. What did you do to your hair today? I
love
it.
E molto bellissimo
. It reminds me of fusilli!” he says. Involuntarily, I twirl one of my curls. “
Fusilli—
funny how that word keeps coming up,” I mumble under my breath.

Aphro throws me a weird look, which reminds me that I still have to get to the bottom of
that
barrel of crabs. At last, my assistant, Chintzy Colon, tries to put Liza in the loop. “I saw her running out of algebra class early today, and I tried to say hi and that I would see her later, but she didn’t answer me,” she offers, her head swaying, which causes her thick, dark ponytail to swish to the side like a horse’s mane.

Felinez rolls her eyes at Chintzy, to whom she has an aversion, like artificial sweetener. A stern glance at Fifi, however, swiftly communicates
Keep your eyelids to yourself!
I’m not going to lie: I was also skittish about the PR Chica myself, because she ran against me in the Catwalk elections and plied half the student body with homemade chorizos during her campaign. (The
PR
stands for
public relations
—Chintzy’s major—not
Puerto Rican
, although that applies to her as well.) Now I’m glad that Chintzy was so persistent about joining my house. She’s turning out to be the one fashionista I can rely on.

“All the members of my house know they’re supposed to clear absences with me prior,” I state, annoyed. “If anyone else has a valid reason for not attending a meeting, now is the time to let me know—not
after
you pull a Houdini.” I glance over disapprovingly at divo Dame, who should keep his assistant hairstylist in check. “Absolute-tamont,” he says in accordance.

“Well, I got a job at Tracy Reese!” belts out Ruthie Dragon. Ruthie is Nole Canoli’s and Diamond Tyler’s appointed design assistant. Adding my model appreciation classmate to the roster was the one concession I had to make to get Nole Canoli to join the House of Pashmina. “It’s not gonna interfere with me coming to meetings, though.
And
I can borrow shoes and accessories from the wardrobe closet for our show! Well, some, anyway.”

“Wow, pieces from Reese’s. That’s quite a coup,” I say, squelching my Gucci Envy. As I circulate our latest hookup list, I secretly wonder how Ruthie, out of tens of dozens of students, snagged the position with the only black designer garnering respect right now on Seventh Avenue. I hand the thick stack to Kissa, one of the
models, to pass around the table. Swiping her honey blond–streaked eye-covering bangs to the side, Kissa hands the stack down to Bobby Beat, our lead makeup artist, whose bangs are even blonder and longer than hers. The rest of his hair is tucked neatly into a stubby, short ponytail. “Ooh, you are so Too Faced today,” he quips to me. My cheeks burn from embarrassment as I wonder what he’s getting at, until I realize that he is referring to my golden beige sparkly eye shadow—from Too Faced Cosmetics. “Oh, thank you,” I say, graciously.

While the sheets are still making their way around, Chintzy chirpily asks, “Didn’t you just get a job, too, Miss Aphro?”

Aphro squirms in her chair before she responds. “Oh, right—um, I just found out.”

I shriek inside. By the look on Angora’s face, I realize she’s as puzzled pink as I am.

“I’m going to be working at this new designer’s boutique—um, Jones Uptown—in Harlem as soon as it opens,” Aphro spurts out.

“That’s faboo!” exclaims Bobby Beat, clapping his hands together. “Who is the designer?”

“Laretha Jones—it’s her first time out the gate,” explains Aphro, like she’s describing a Thoroughbred at Belmont.

“Is she a black designer?” asks Ruthie Dragon, curiously.

Aphro nods. “She worked for years for Adolpho on Seventh Avenue. Ms. Fab—um, I mean, Ms. Lynx—was even the showroom model there back then.”

I crumble again inside while Miss Aphro sits there repeating spoon-fed fashion herstory! I earnestly try to make eye contact with Miss Bright, but she won’t look at me; instead, she gazes blankly at the conference table, twirling the ends of the lariat wrapped around her neck like a lasso.

“Oh, I never heard of her,” admits Bobby Beat, apologetically.

“See, everybody is always sleeping on
black
designers,” quips Ruthie Dragon. “But let Jessica Simpson or some other tawdry no-talent-of-the-moment come out with a clothing line—that they ain’t even designed—and everybody from
Women’s Wear Daily
to the London
Tatler
puts them on blast like they’re
haute
!”

“Preach!” quips Nole. “That’s gonna change, though, when my Canoli label drops and kicks off a Black renaissance like
haute
buttered soul!”

“I can dig that,” Zeus says with a nod.

Twirling my curls furiously, I ignore the fashion forecasting, obsessing about Aphrodite getting mighty employed.

“Well, black designers aren’t the only ones who have it bad,” interjects Diamond Tyler. “I mean, I can’t believe what they’re doing to police dogs in Düsseldorf.”

“Break it down, Diamond,” chides Nole Canoli. Even Countess Coco’s ears perk up at the prattle. As usual, Nole’s prized Pomeranian is perched in a black Prada bag.

Flustered, Diamond explains: “The German and Belgian shepherds have been fitted with blue plastic-fiber shoes, supposedly to protect their paws, but it’s really so they can work longer hours in the harshest weather conditions. In an interview, the police spokesman had the nerve to say, ‘The dogs don’t like it, but they’ll get used to it.’ ”

Suddenly, there is a loud knock on the door.

“That better be Miss Liza before I reprise her!” Dame exclaims, dramatically popping up from his chair to open the door. Turns out, of course, it’s the usual suspects—Caterina and her four-man crew.

“Can we come in?” asks Caterina, rhetorically. While her crew plunk down their equipment and hurry to get into focus, Caterina apologizes profusely for interrupting. “I would have been here on time but the meeting for the House of Moet ran over,” she reveals.