Catwalk (44 page)

“Do you wanna rip the runway or flip chicken wings the rest of your life?” asks Nole.

“Don’t get chirpy with me,” Elgamela snaps back, making me realize why I dig her so much: she is fierce, inside and out. “I’d work in a retail store if I could afford to—but my father pays me better, okay?”

“I hear you. Somebody has to bring home the bacon,” I quip, because it sounds like Nole is making
fun of Elgamela’s family venture. “I wish I could get any job.”

“Well, it’s not like you’ve really looked,” Nole says with his signature surly attitude.

Now I’m bona fried. How dare he put me on blast like that? “I have too looked, because we can’t all spend our Saturdays at the Gucci outlet!”

Elgamela interrupts our claw fest with her very real concern: “I can’t wear this. I can’t.”

“Are you serious?” I ask, also concerned.

“I can’t wear a bathing suit on a runway,” squeaks Elgamela.

“Yes, you can,” I counter. “If your picture appeared in the dictionary, it would be in a bathing suit. ‘Slinky sphinx’—those two words go together.”

Elgamela covers her face with her hands, then shrieks: “You don’t understand. I don’t even wear a bathing suit to the beach!”

“Do you really want to be a model?” I ask her, peering into her beautiful, exotic eyes.

“More than you do,” she says.

“Then you’ll trust us?” I ask, earnestly.

“Okay,” Elgamela says, firmly. “But I’m not wearing the bathing suit.”

We stand there in awkward silence while I marinate in having a real model drama on the rotisserie.

“I can’t believe you’re acting so shady!” shouts Nole, stomping his foot.

“Stop stomping your foot—I’ll go put it on,” I blurt out, taking charge of the situation like I’m supposed to as the house leader.

“Awright,” whines Nole, his chubby cheeks more flushed than prawns at a picnic. Elgamela goes into the bathroom without an ounce of remorse and hands me the bathing suit when she comes out. It’s bad enough I’m having my doubts about Aphro’s loyalty to our house, but now I have to deal with this, too. Slipping into the slinky number, I wonder, Where is Aphro? I realize that the vaudeville show must go on. “That is gonna look so fierce with the pink cat on the bodice.”

Nole sits there, pouting, arms crossed over his shoulders, before I throw him my house leader glare, which makes him hop to it. He begins adjusting the seams at the shoulders. “You’re smaller in the shoulders than she is.”

“It’s the black-girl syndrome,” I accurately point out. Zeus snickers, then blushes. Now even Elgamela smiles. Her shoulders and hips are equally proportioned. My hips and butt are bigger than my shoulders even though I’m skinny, too.

Suddenly, I feel self-conscious that my legs aren’t as long as Elgamela’s. “I think the legs should be higher cut,” I point out.

“Agreed,” Nole says, adjusting the legs. “Always makes the legs look longer—and your legs aren’t as long as hers.”

“I know that,” I snap, then quickly turn the dial to Lite FM. “With high heels, though, my legs will be through the roof,” I predict.

“Let’s keep it moving,” I instruct Nole, getting tense as I start thinking about our Catwalk budget. “At the rate we’re going, I’m gonna have to sell my stuff on eBay to make some money.”

“I bet there would be a bidding war on those Hello Kitty, um, you know,” blurts out Zeus, blushing.

“Awright, Mr. Auctioneer, let me fit you in the muslin for the vests,” smirks Nole.

“Sounds like a plan,” says Zeus, taking off his T-shirt.

“Whoo-hoo!” Nole swoons at the sight of Zeus’s pectoral muscles, which are more chiseled than I imagined.

“Wow, your ancestors would be proud,” I say. After all, Zeus is named after a Greek god.

While Nole adjusts the armholes, Felinez continues to show me the bags and belts. “Wow, this is what you call wide,” I say, picking up a belt. I adjust it around my waist really tight. “I like it like this.”

“I agree,” seconds Elgamela.

After Nole finishes with Zeus’s fittings (two more pairs of pants, one vest, and a coat), Zeus slithers back
into his T-shirt and baggy pants. Not surprisingly, he also zones in on the record collection and comes across vintage James Brown. “Oh, this is a must,” he declares.

Sweating profusely, Nole stops to pat his forehead with a hankie, then drops it onto the floor, which is our secret code for initiating a Pose Off. “Set it off!” shrieks Zeus as James Brown croons his old-school classic “Hot Pants.” Even Felinez stops pouting long enough for us to vogue our hearts out for a few minutes. Elgamela twirls in a circle with her arms stretched above her head. I can’t wait to see her do that signature move on the runway for our fashion show.

“Work it, Snake Charmer!” coaches Nole, calling the “exotic dancer” by her on-screen identity.

When the song ends, I come out of my voguing trance and realize that Ms. Canoli has been observing our relaxation ritual with a satisfied smirk. “Did you ever hear of Xenon?” she asks no one in particular, but Zeus answers the question.

“Nah, I haven’t.”

“That was the club I used to go to—every Thursday night. It was hopping—line around the corner, but me and my girlfriend always got in,” she recalls.

“Now you know where I get my moves from,” Nole informs us, proudly.

And he’s not the only proud one: beaming brightly, Elgamela declares, “I
was
born to wear a bathing suit!”

“I made a pitcher of iced cappuccino,” announces Ms. Canoli.

“I’d like one,” I say. After drinking two full glasses, I run to the bathroom to pee, then run out of the bathroom when I hear my cell phone ring. This time I dive into my purse to answer it. “It’s Angora,” I say out loud after seeing the number. “I’m almost finished—and coming your way,” I coo into the phone. Angora sounds even more out of breath than she did Friday night, which usually means she’s seriously stressed and her asthma is kicking in. “I can’t believe it,” she says, barely able to contain her anxiety. “Je’Taime is taking Daddy to Magikal Mamma’s to get some voodoo remedies to heal him, but I think there’s something really wrong—and he’s not telling me.”

“What?” I ask in disbelief.

Now Felinez is hovering near the phone to hear what’s jumping off.

“I don’t know—Daddy seems like he’s flipping out. I can feel it. Just hurry up and get here,” Angora says, her voice cracking.

“Okay,” I whisper. Then I ask, “Is it okay if Fifi comes, too?”

But Angora has already hung up the phone. I stand there, stunned.

“What happened?” asks Elgamela.

“More drama and kaflamma,” I say, without revealing Angora’s business. I scroll through the missed calls to see who called earlier. Looking at the unfamiliar number, I realize that it wasn’t Angora. I read the number out loud, but no one seems to recognize it. Suddenly, I wonder if Ice Très is trying to reach out to me from a private shoe phone, or something.

“I’d better not call back or maybe he’s programmed a virus into my phone, too!” I yelp.

Zeus looks puzzled but doesn’t ask what I mean. Instead he announces, “I gotta jet.”

“Where you going?” Nole asks, nosily. “To see your girlfriend?”

Zeus smiles, shyly, smoothing down his wavy hair, then puts on his mad hatter. “Could be.”

While Nole fits Elgamela—again—in the hot black one-piece bathing suit, I stare at the unfamiliar number on my cell phone screen. Finally, curiosity gets the best of me and I dial it, hoping I don’t win the booby prize in the process. Someone picks up quickly and says, “Hello, how are you?” After a few seconds I realize that the caller is Chris Midgett. Covering the phone with my hand, I mouth out loud, “It’s Panda!”

“Go out with him and forget the shady scribbler,” orders Nole.

I wave my hand in disgust and continue my convo with my cyberspace crony. As if he’s channeling Nole’s wish, Chris asks me out on a date. “You wanna go to this place uptown that I really like?” he starts.

“Don’t tell me—
Native
?” I ask.

“Well, I have to be honest—I wasn’t going to say Native, but we can go there if you’d like,” admits Chris.

“Oh, no, let’s go to the place you like!” I exclaim quickly.

“Um, it’s a diner called Googies on Fifty-seventh Street,” he says, sounding unsure of himself.

“Wow,
Googies
,” I repeat in a goofy voice, resisting the urge to say
goo goo ga ga
instead.

Nole holds his pudgy stomach and bends over laughing. What was I thinking? Panda and his posse aren’t on point with groovy spots like Native. They probably hibernate at the corny spots advertised at the Welcome to New York booth in Times Square.

“Go out with him,” orders Elgamela.

I heed her advice. After all, why am I hesitating? It’s not like my dates show up; they’re too busy cyberjacking me.

“Awright,” I hear myself saying, almost involuntarily.

When I get off the phone, Nole claps. “Bravo, Miss Purr. Now that’s a fitting end to a fitting! And don’t forget to bring me back the doggie bag!”

Felinez looks at me suspiciously. “Oh, come on, Fifi—I’ll bring you back a doggie bag, too!”

“No,
graci-ass
,” she snarls, looking at me like she’s going to make me into a bulletin
borsa
with a fake milk-carton ad featuring a missing BFF.

“Well, I’m out,” announces Zeus again. I love that he doesn’t have to bend down much to kiss me on the cheek. Then he props the Aretha album under his arm and makes a point of giving Ms. Canoli a warm and fuzzy good-bye.

Fifi and Elgamela help clean up before we head over to Angora’s. Nole pulls me aside. “Save the PR spin and just give it to me straight with no chaser—where is freakin’ Aphro?” he whispers, boxing me in with his strong, chubby arms.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

He looks at me like my answer isn’t good enough.

“What do you want me to say?” I ask, defensively.

“The truth, that’s what.” Nole holds my arms in place.

“These days the only messages I’m getting from her are computer viruses, okay? She doesn’t even tell me she gets a job that I interviewed for. I have to find out with everybody else,” I hiss, referring to Chintzy’s announcement at the last Catwalk meeting.

“You’d better find out what is going on with Biggie Mouth,” he warns me.

When we’re leaving, Nole has shifted back to his grand self and gives me a grand good-bye and hug. “I deserve that after putting up with your divo drama for a whole day!” I quip in return.

“I know, Purrlicious One, but we did good work today.”

“No doubt,” I say, hugging him back like the victory belongs to both of us.

Since we’re so close to Chirpin’ Chicken, Elgamela charms us into making a pit stop. “We can eat and ask my dad for cab fare to Angora’s. It’s a win-win, no?”

“It’s a done-done, yes?” I second, enthusiastically.

Once inside the blazing hot and brightly lit Sphinx family–owned chicken grill, I tear past the counter toward the back in search of seating so I can unload my coat and bag; a few feet farther, I spot a small archway on the right that leads to the promised plop-down area, though it’s totally dark. “Why are the lights off in here?” I ask no one in particular as I slide my hand around the wall, feeling for the light switch. I got plenty of practice using this tactile technique during the “dark” years I lived at Grandma Pritch, who habitually kept the lights off to save money on electric bills. Within seconds, I locate the switch and flip it on, only to see a man facing the wall, bent on his knees with his head bowed and hands clasped together in prayer. Mortified, I flip the light switch off and back out, walking into Elgamela, who I didn’t know was right behind me. She pats my arm, assuring me, “That’s just my father.
Don’t worry—he’s oblivious.” She goes on to tell me that Mr. Sphinx prays five times a day, like most devout Muslims, regardless of his whereabouts.