Things I can’t Explain (10 page)

What I hate most in fashion is
coordination
, like when you wear blue shoes with a blue jacket and a blue something in your hair. I like fashion when you invent it. Not having been blessed with the sort of mother from whom I could glean any real sense of style (Janet Darling was all about the mom jeans and the polo shirts—tucked in!) left me in an open field to experiment and develop my own style.

I still rock my wardrobe enough to make some people wonder about my sanity, but as my taste evolves, I get way more compliments than ever before—especially from women asking me where and how I pulled it together.

In high school, people always wanted to know the secret of my clothes. Someone even accused me of being a postmodern Pippi Longstocking, which slightly offended me at the time. Even I didn't know how to answer them until I discovered that my secret actually had a name: Loulou.

Loulou de la Falaise.

Louise Vava Lucia Henriette le Bailly de la Falaise was her christened name. And I used to think Clarissa Marie Darling was a burden. Just imagine if one of your three middle names was “Vava”?

Loulou was radiantly beautiful with a tangle of curly hair and a laugh that crackled with delight. Best known as the charismatic muse of Yves Saint Laurent, she was much more than that to me. She was the woman who epitomized my self-made, put-together sense of who I am.

To have lived her glamorous life!

La Falaise was allegedly baptized not with holy water but with “Shocking,” the scent by fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, her mother, Maxine de la Falaise's, employer. Loulou inspired YSL's famous women's tuxedo “Le Smoking” and his see-through blouses. She was a woman who flaunted her well-worn beauty with mermaid insouciance and a sense of amused irony and detachment.

If Hugh Hamilton was my writing mentor, then Loulou de la Falaise was my fashion muse before I even knew it.

Thanks to her shining example, I browse my quirky cache of clothing until the right ensemble avails itself. I have a sense of completeness that settles over me when I pull on a snug-fitting striped jersey skirt that clicks with a twelve-dollar pair of super-clunky secondhand platform sandals. I invite my pale peach not-too-see-through blouse into the mix, topped off with an unexpected chunky red necklace, and voilà—it's magic!

Hopefully this won't prove too challenging to my hoped-for new boss MT and my future position as financial writer. But just in case, I add my ace in the hole—cherished St. Anne's thrift shop YSL black blazer—to bring it all together.

Standing before the mirror, adjusting my blouse, I perform the usual full-bod scan as Elvis slinks between my legs. For a girl who grew up on tofu, I ended up with a pretty enviable metabolism. Not quite a yoga body, but not light-years away from it either. My physique changed a lot in my first year after high school.

Yes, I'm that snappy, lighthearted girl who mixed prints with ease and had an affinity for leggings, scarves, and Doc Martens; but now I'm a woman in my late twenties, and I have curves—mostly in the right places—and eye makeup. My once naturally blond hair requires Sun-In to stay blond, but it's grown thicker and lusher. Sometimes I tie it up in some random way just to get rid of it. Thank God the gap-toothed smile that always made me seem younger than I really was is gone—it never kept me from smiling anyway, but now I just feel better about it.

After my first year in the city, my body forecast was looking stocky with a chance of thighs. But then I had a growth spurt and put in time at SoulCycle downtown and my local Pilates joint. Since my recent budget shortfall, I've been missing in action at the gym, but thanks to my longer-than-average legs and slender ankles, I'm okay.

Do I wish I were more curvaceous up top and a little less curvaceous down on the bottom? Sure, but I can rock a tube dress when I want to and I'm not a skinny malinky, like Aunt Haddie—sister of dread Aunt Mafalda—used to say. To sum it all up, my body and I are good.

My interview isn't until two p.m., so I've planned some boning up on the financial sector or at least cramming into my head enough terms to talk my way through a half-hour interview. I slide my laptop into my bag and scan the apartment to say good-bye to Elvis, but he's already gone. Witchcraft, I tell you.

My phone buzzes just as I open the door to leave. “C! SOS JOD!!”

As cryptic as it looks, I know this is Jody's usual message when she's having a panic attack. It's the double exclamation points at the end that confirms it. I'm pretty sure she's on a shoot for some cosmetics magazine.

I hesitate. Prep for MT and high-finance summons.

Then again, Jody's always there when I need her.

If I hustle now, I might be able to see Jody, drop into Starbucks for a job cram, and still make it to meet MT on time.

“What's the haps??” I text back in Jody-speak. Can't hurt to be optimistic.

“IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!”

Oh darn. I hate to say I know what this is.

 

CHAPTER
9

I'm in luck. Jody's big photo shoot today is not far from the Nuzegeek office, which happens to be right near the South Street Seaport: all within walking distance from FiDi.

She's seated at a table at Jack's Stir Brew where she's already ordered us each a cup of the patented house drink—stir-brewed java. Naturally, the whole upscale barista atmosphere makes me think of Nick. I'm starting to worry I live in a coffee-centric universe. What does that say about me? That I'm serious and focused and willing to look into the future unblinkingly? That I've been awake since the '90s?

I think it's true that the coffee an individual drinks says a lot more about them than just that they're caffeinated. Here's how I see it:

And don't get me started on people who drink coffee with soy and almond milk.

Fortunately, one look at the expression on Jody's face tells me she's so totally frazzled that it'll be easy not to dwell on Nick and the myriad ways that coffee has recently led to disappointment.

Even stressed out, Jody looks gorgeous. Every woman I know would kill for Jody's lush red hair. It's practically another person she happens to carry around on her head.

“Rad threads,” Jody says, taking a sip of her macchiato. Her hand is shaking. Her camera-ready lipstick leaves a magenta kiss on the rim of the cup. “Totes profesh.”

Allow me to translate: Jody is telling me my wardrobe choice is “totally professional.”

“Thanks,” I say. “How's the shoot going?”

“Way behind skedge. 'Cause of moi,” she says and tries to smile, but I can see she's about to cry, which would ruin her rather extensive eyeliner and probably drive the makeup artist crazy.

“It's okay,” I say. I put my hand on hers, hoping I can:

A) stifle the tears,

B) be the best friend I need to be, and

C) get the hell out of there in time for my interview.

“Gaston is freakin', but whatevs,” Jody says, as if she doesn't care. But I can tell she cares a lot. She looks over her shoulder out the window where the crew mulls around and there's a very Frenchie-looking guy with a dozen cameras hanging around his neck—Gaston, I assume. He looks like he wants to kill someone. “Needed caf in my sys asap or I'd be use. Told him, then IM'd you,” she adds.

I squint at her as I mentally translate. I notice the dark circles under her eyes hidden beneath the makeup.

“Is this a big magazine?” I ask.

“Totes for me, big bucks,” she says, by which I know she means yes. “
Modern Orthodontia
. I'm the cover.” I guess those Invisalign braces are big biz.

I can see that
Modern Orthodontia
's makeup artist has made a valiant effort to hide Jody's dark circles, employing what I'd estimate to be about a million dollars' worth of Clé de Peau Beauté concealer. Jody's sparkling pearly whites will dazzle them, but clearly she needs to catch up on her Zs.

“Jods, you look wiped.”

“Zhausted, no winks, not one.” She sighs, looking sad, chasing her coffee with a swallow of Vita Coco coconut water. “I should never go on a big one the night before a shoot. But he was leaving for Europe.”

“You didn't.”

“I did. It was our last chance. I wasn't going to see him for another month.”

Okay, now I notice the purplish bruises on her shoulder sneaking out of her Prada. I'm hoping they can use Dermablend or even Sephora tattoo concealer on that. And I guess there's always Photoshop later. I know from Jods that models are always showing up with bruises and stuff. In this case it's not nearly as alarming as that sounds because I know she hasn't been knocked around by some guy. In fact, her BF Rupert is a pipsqueak.

Beneath all that lithe beauty, Jody Dicippio is one tough cookie. She's got four older brothers who taught her to throw a punch the minute she showed signs of becoming a serious hottie. She's also got a couple of uncles in Witness Protection, which is why any asshole stupid enough to ever lay a hand on her wouldn't live to tell the tale. Not if Lenny, Paulie Jr., and Gianni have anything to say about it. Jody could probably send the guy to the ICU herself, long before
la famiglia
even knew what happened.