Catwalk (36 page)

But Felinez just giggles. Then
I
start giggling. Now people are staring at us. I suck on the straw in my 7UP—and try to slurp away the whole Aphro thing.

“God, I’m really pissed,” I moan.

“With who and who and who?” asks Felinez, knowing my dark side all too well.

“Dame for putting me on blast—on camera. And Liza—I mean, what’s with not showing up? And Aphro, cuz she definitely does not have my back. And, most of all … at Ms. Lynx,” I admit. “I mean, she steered me down that thorny path. Clearly, Laretha Jones was not ‘
tinking
pink,’ okay?”

“I think she was really trying to help you get a job. I mean, she said they hadn’t actually seen each other. How was Ms. Lynx supposed to know about her African odyssey?” Felinez assures me, giggling.

As soon as I hit my courtyard, I hear someone whistling the
Catwoman
theme song. I look up at the second floor window, and of course, it’s Stellina, my
numero uno
groupie. “I gotta go home,” I yell up to her. But she’s not trying to hear that. “No! I’ll come right down!” she coos.

“No! I’ll be right there—but just for a
segundo
!” I warn her. As it is, Mr. Sunkist is tearing past the jungle gym, forcefully steering his “borrowed” Piggly Wiggly supermarket shopping cart, which is piled high with the empty cans he collects. He drops a few on the way, then dramatically bends over, swaying to pick them up, and puts them teetering on top of the pile again. “Got any for me, you tall drink of water!” he asks me giddily.

“Not today,” I say, calmly. Mr. Sunkist earned his nickname for the obvious reason. And I know that his cuckoo behavior must mean he’s “off his meds,” as my mom explains it. When he’s taking them, he walks around quietly like a zombie, going about his business. I worry about Stellina running around outside at night in case any of the assorted boogeyman types are also on the prowl. My mother’s “AMBER Alerts” are obviously wearing off on me. Instead of waiting for the elevator, I head to the stairwell to walk one flight up to Stellina’s apartment. But not before I examine the handiwork of the latest tagger to deface the graffiti-splattered walls.

Climbing the stairs, I ponder the tagger’s MADness as it relates to my own terms: see, the Catwalk competition will be televised, which will make me part of the fashion revolution, so one day I won’t have to be part of any corporation except my own, like Kimora Lee or Tyra Banks, with their high-yielding legs and enterprises.

“What took you so long?” quips Stellina as I burst into the hallway. She is hanging outside her door, canned laughter from the television set spilling into the hallway.

“I was pondering the revolution,” I announce.

Stellina squinches up her nose, looking puzzled, but gets right to her agenda: “Did you meet Eramus Tyler?”

“Oh, is that his last name? Same as one of the designers in my house,” I say, nodding sweetly at my future runway model.

“Yup. His parents got a divorce and his mother got a job in Atlanta, so she left him with—well, you know who, so don’t sue!” Stellina says, flashing her naughty nine smile.

“My, you’re a busy little bee,” I say. “Maybe you want someone to come buzz in your bonnet.”

She looks at me, seeming puzzled again, but this time she catches on. “I’m not feeling him. Yesterday, he was in the elevator with a sketch pad and showed me what he was drawing. No fierce outfits or anything.”

“Well, what was he drawing?” I ask, curiously.

“I don’t know. It was green—I think it was supposed to be the Incredible Hulk but it turned out like a Ninja Turtle. You see all that grease he got in his hair? And those corny outfits? That plaid is so sad.”

I already know that Stellina must be feeling him or she wouldn’t be taking his fashion inventory.

“Take it easy on greasy,” I advise. “It’s bad enough he’s stuck with a grandmother who carries a pitchfork in her purse instead of a tube of MAC lipstick so she’d look more glamourette than Grim Reaper, okay?”

“Why waste the good stuff on that trout pout!” shoots Stellina, poking out her mouth and pursing her lips together sternly like Mrs. Paul’s.

I double over in laughter until my giggles are dropkicked by Stellina’s sudden U-turn to my least favorite subject—my sister. “Speaking of greasy, Chenille pressed Taynasia’s mother’s hair today—and she got ten dollars!” shoots Stellina, her eyes sparkling like Lotto balls.

I nod knowingly, even though I’m pressed at the thought of some Hamiltons or even Washingtons not wandering my way. “So, you think I can talk to your
mother?” I ask, deflecting from my sister’s booming enterprise.

“I already asked her if I can audition to be in your fashion show and she said yes!” Stellina announces loudly. Then she turns and yells into the apartment. “Pashmina is here. I told her I’m gonna be in her fashion show!”

“You are so sneaky—I caught you in the act,” I say, shaking my head. “Look, um, you have to audition, because the other members of my house have to approve the junior models. Okay?”

“I got the job. But I understand—auditioning is just a formality,” Stellina says, bugging her big eyes.

“Exactamundo,” I say, making a note to my fashion self to talk to Mrs. Warren and double-check if this is cool. “Auditions will be in January; then we’ll start runway rehearsals after that if you’re selected.”

“Who else do you want to be a junior model?” she asks, like she’s vying for selection approval.

“Well, let’s see. We have Felinez’s brother, Juanito, and Aphro’s foster sister, Angel—”

“Can Tiara be one of the other models?” asks Stellina.

I should have known that Stellina would try to hook up her best friend, who is also nine, but I don’t want to tell her that Tiara is not runway material,
because she, well, marches like a penguin on thin ice at the North Pole.

“Um, lemme get back to you on that. See, I have to give the other team members in my house a chance to bring their junior talent to the table. Ya dig?”

“I dig. You don’t like Tiara,” Stellina says, astutely.

“That’s not true,” I say, trying to deflect from a dis.

“Okay, well, who’s gonna be doing the training, cuz I can teach you a few moves, okay?” she informs me, gleefully. Then she pops out the door and struts, twirls, and perches herself in the doorway.

“Aphro,” I start, realizing that I’m avoiding referring to Aphro as my best friend, “is the designated runway modeling trainer.”

Suddenly, Mrs. Warren yells out to Stellina from the living room. “You’d better get in here and do your homework!”

“I already know how to work the runway. Okay?” she giggles.

“Right—well, soon you’ll be showing all my team members that sashay. I’m counting on you,” I say, coaxing her. “And I’ll talk to your mother about everything.”

“Awright, gotta go, supermodel,” Stellina whispers, “and tell Eramus a little dab’ll do ya!”

I shake my head, laughing. “Will do ya.”

I take the elevator to my floor and stand in front of my apartment, fishing for my keys. I know that my mom is busy with her cronies at the card table and they are wickedly serious about bid whist.

I hear Mrs. Paul’s door creak open, so I turn, and I see Eramus peek his head out. He waves at me like a shipwrecked survivor on a deserted island.

“Hey, wazzup?” I say, tilting my head to the side. I refrain from telling him that I was just talking about him.

“Hi,” he says, sweetly. His dimples deepen and his eyes twinkle. What a cutie patootie.

“So, what are you up to?” I ask, smiling back at him. I can’t help noticing that he is wearing the same dull green plaid shirt with brown high-water pants from yesterday. I wonder why he’s rockin’ the same dingy outfit two days in a row. I gotta figure out how to prime his purrlicious potential.

“Nothing,” he says, shyly.

Within the next few minutes of awkward silence, it slowly dawns on me it was no accident that Eramus stuck his head out of the door at that precise moment. He was probably waiting for me to come home. The elevator door opens and a short, brown-skinned boy with wire-rimmed glasses and a heavy backpack steps out. He smiles at me warmly as he walks down the hall.

“Are you Chris—um,” I start, but I decide not to say
his last name, just in case it isn’t pronounced like the word
midget
. Maybe it has a French twang to it—like
Brigitte
with an
M
. One thing is for sure: there is truth in advertising, because Chris is definitely short.

“Yup, that’s me,” he says. “Are you Pashmina?”

“Yup, that’s me,” I respond. I try not to stand too close to him so I don’t tower over him and make him feel uncomfortable. I realize that with my heels, I’m almost a head taller than him.

Awkwardly, I introduce Chris to Eramus. Now they both stand there, grinning without saying a word. Luckily, the raucous cackling from my mom’s card game crowd inside my apartment breaks the silence. “Take me to Boston, baby!” someone screams out, which is the code for getting a winning bid whist hand.

“Well, I’ll see you later. Maybe tomorrow, okay?” I say to Eramus.

“Okay,” Eramus says, shyly, then recedes back into the apartment like an apparition.

Chris smiles at me, his chubby brown cheeks glistening. I look at his tan zippered Windbreaker and the sage green cotton button-down shirt he’s wearing underneath—both so neat and clean without a stain or a crease. Suddenly, I get the image of a raccoon eating an acorn without dropping a crumb. “So where do you live?” I ask, apprehensive as I open the door to Chicken Little Central, aka my apartment.

“Queens,” he says proudly. “Astoria.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” I say, nodding approvingly. Inside, however, I feel slightly embarrassed. I can just picture the house he lives in—nice and neat, with clean hand towels and a white wrought-iron fence outside and big fat juicy cucumbers and tomatoes growing in the backyard garden.

When I open the door, the bellowing from my mother’s best friend, Lonni, greets us like a blast of hot air: “Mind your ugly business!” she shouts out as she slams down a card on the table with a flourish. Then she winks at Ramon, who is seated to her left, and rubs her hands on her close-cropped platinum blond Afro like it’s Aladdin’s lamp.

“You need to be shaving somewhere else!” counters Mr. Chisolm, stroking his gruff beard, “cuz I can tell by the hair on your forearm that it’s gonna be a full moon tonight—and I’m about to get paid!” Mr. Chisolm slams his hand down on the table.
“Bam!”
he shouts. Amid the oohs and aahs, I take it he is going to Boston, too. Mr. Chisolm looks up at me, which shifts the attention of everyone in my direction—including Chenille, whom I cannot believe my mother has allowed to watch her card-playing cronies. Chenille gives me a smirk like she’s having a four-star day: clocking Benjamins earlier, now learning bid whist.

Everyone else seated at the card table gives Chris
the once-over, like he’s lunch meat I’m about to layer in a Subway sandwich. I clear up that gourmet mystery—pronto—especially for salacious Lonni. “This is Chris—um …” I stall, still refraining from saying his last name. I just can’t get the dreaded
M
word off my lips. “And he’s here to look at my computer.”

“Well, take a look at mine, too, while you’re at it!” my mom shoots at him, then laughs loudly. She only gets this rowdy when she’s around a lot of people—and her personality becomes unleashed. I kind of like it, even though I’m miffed that she has allowed Chenille to be in her bid whist mix. She always wants me to learn how to play, but I’m more interested in tallying scores on the runway, if you catch my drift.

“I can if you want me to,” offers Chris.

I squelch my automatic reflex to nudge him like I do my crew, because he’s not.

“Well, how many ways I gotta say it? I do!” my mom shouts. Ramon darts his eyes in her direction. It must bother him that he can’t fix everything. Lonni winks at him again.

“Well, we’ll see you later,” I pipe up.

“Let the man get a drink or something,” bellows Mr. Chisolm. “And take your coat off, cuz Lord knows you gonna be here till the sun rises anyway. Your Pink Highness probably done jinx the thing is all!”

I hate when Mr. Chisolm embarrasses me, but he’s
been doing it since I can remember. He still lives in our old neighborhood—back in the Edenwald Projects, across the street from where we used to live. We moved down here to a bigger apartment so Mom could be closer to her job, since she got a promotion. Chris takes off his jacket carefully, then folds it neatly on the black leather couch.

“Lord, hang up the child’s coat!” orders Lonni. I grab Chris’s jacket like it’s a royal vestment and take it to the hall closet.

When we push open the door to my bedroom, Fabbie Tabby greets us. She rubs her plump body against Chris’s pants leg. He just stands there. I’m impressed. At least he isn’t feline phobic. He looks around my room, then rests his bespectacled gaze on the large meowverlous poster of Eartha Kitt poised in her black pleather Catwoman gear.

“Um, that’s very interesting,” he says, adjusting the silver-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose. I take another look at Chris’s corny outfit and realize that fashion is not his passion. He’s probably just being polite.

“She’s my idol—you know, part of feline iconography,” I explain, snobbily.

“Yes, I’m familiar with the concept,” he shoots back.

“What do you know about walking feline?” I challenge him.

“I meant iconography—using something as a frame
of reference for what you aspire to. I’m familiar with that,” he clarifies.

“Wow,” I utter, involuntarily. He’s
deep
. Chris stands there like he’s waiting for my instruction.

“You can sit here, Mr. Chris,” I say, motioning for him to sit at my desk in front of my deadbeat computer.

“Um, you don’t have to call me Mr.,” he says, straightforwardly.

“No, of course,” I say, embarrassed. I refrain from informing him that at F.I. “Miss” and “Mr.” are terms of endearment—as in “Miss Thing” or “Mr. Ninja.”