Be Strong & Curvaceous (6 page)
___________________________________________________________________
To: DList_DYD_Committee
From: [email protected]
Date: April 16, 2009
Re: Kickoff meeting tonight
We’ll have our first official meeting with everyone on the committee tonight at 8:00 at TouTou’s. I’ve reserved the private room upstairs, desserts and beverages only.
We’ll welcome our new members Parker Potrero, Carly Aragon, and Lindsay MacPhail, as well as senior class liaison Summer Fremont. Remember, our job is to make this the biggest event the San Francisco fashion world has seen in years. But no pressure :)
Until tonight,
Vanessa
AT DINNER, I sat with Lissa and Shani and picked at my risotto. “I don’t think it’s worth it,” I told them. “I don’t know about getting between Mac and Vanessa, even if seeing Brett is one of the perks.” It was safer to let them think I was motivated by that. I was almost afraid to tell my friends about my bigger dreams. I didn’t want to jinx them. I was sure that just because I wanted to be in the show so badly, someone would take it away from me.
“It’s like what Dr. Ellis was talking about in history class,” Shani said. “The Wars of the Roses.”
I didn’t quite make the connection, but I got the war part.
“Can’t you just be on the committee and let Mac do whatever she’s going to do?” Lissa asked.
“I’m her roommate,” I pointed out. “And let’s face it—they only want me if they get her.”
Lissa speared a mushroom. “On the other hand, if Vanessa caves and you’re Mac’s friend, that could be a good thing. The girl could use some competition.”
“I’m not into competition,” I protested. “But I do want to work with Brett. Why does it have to be so complicated?”
Neither of them had an answer for me. And I still didn’t know what I was going to do when I slipped into our room and found Mac there, snacking on a bag of chips (or crisps, as she called them) and reading her e-mail.
She frowned at a message, swore under her breath, and stabbed it out of existence with one perfectly manicured nail. She opened another one, scanned it, and looked up, her forehead still creased.
“The Talbot requests our presence at someplace called Tou-Tou’s at eight,” she informed me. “Any idea where or what that is?”
“It’s a hundred and fifty a plate, is what it is,” I replied, sinking onto my bed. Okay, so the timing wasn’t great. She seemed ticked about something. But I needed to convince her to come. If she and Vanessa worked out their differences, I’d have met the condition and would be safely on the committee. “You’d probably enjoy it.”
“It takes a bit more than that.” She took a breath and the frown smoothed out. “Well, it’s drinks and dessert, apparently. I do hope a meeting is optional.”
Did that mean she would go? “You wanted to talk it over with Vanessa in person. That would be a good time to do it.”
“And perhaps there will be chocolate,” she said, as if she was adding up the pros and cons. Maybe there was hope.
“And I’d like it if you came.” Nothing like putting yourself right out there. I was getting good at this. Well, she could choose to flatten me again if she wanted. At least I was trying.
“Why?” Mac looked at me curiously.
“They . . . well, they’re not exactly my crowd.”
“So why go?”
“Because they invited us? And because I assume I have some kind of job to do?”
“I think there’s more to it than that.” She waited, but I buttoned my lip and resisted the urge to say, “Because I need your help. Because I have plans for my life, and this is one way to put them in motion. And because there are perks—maybe if I were friends with you, Brett would notice I was there.”
Uh-huh. Dream on, Carly. Anyone standing next to Lady Lindsay MacPhail disappears into the wallpaper, never to be seen again
.
Mac got to her feet. “All right. I’ll come with you. On one condition.”
Of course. How could I have expected anything less? “What?”
“You introduce me to that dishy lad with the dark eyes.”
Cold horror splashed into my stomach. “Which one?”
“You can hardly miss him. His equally dishy blond friend who insists on hanging around with Vanessa called him Brett.”
I dragged air into lungs that had quit wanting to work. “Sure,” I said in a completely beige tone. “I’d be happy to.”
She could get me what I wanted—a place on the committee. Too bad she could also take what I wanted—Brett. Achieving one dream would be pretty empty without the other.
T
OUTOU’S. None of my friends had ever been there; Gillian had gotten close once, but the ratball who’d been her date had stood her up. It didn’t look all that much different from your average San Francisco bistro—lots of glossy wood and glass and orchids—until you noticed Robin Williams having dinner with his wife at the window table. Or Kate and Laura Mulleavy laughing together over drinks. Or the rented sedan with the long telephoto lens hanging out of the driver’s side on the opposite side of the street.
Of course Vanessa and her gang would choose to hang out there.
I dressed carefully, even running down to Gillian to beg for her blue silk Bottega Veneta swing jacket. It went perfectly with the Hanni Y. silver-and-white silk polka-dot dress I’d nabbed on sale at Bloomie’s in Palo Alto just before school started. I pinned my mop of hair up into a loose French twist and was feeling pretty good about my look when Mac stepped out of the bathroom.
In a Prada glazed-ice minidress I’d seen pictures of from the Milan shows.
It was already ten to eight, so there was no time for me to change or even to think about it. Oh, who was I fooling—I had nothing to change into anyway.
Cabs typically cruised the street at the end of the driveway after school hours, so we walked across the lawn to flag one. “Oh, please,” Mac muttered as a photographer leaning on the wrought-iron fence straightened and scrutinized us. Next to him was a skinny guy in a gray hoodie who whipped out a cheap little camera and snapped a picture. That couldn’t be a pro. It feels a little weird to go to a school that’s on the tourist radar. I turned my back, searching the street for a cab.
“Don’t bother,” the older guy muttered. “She’s nobody.”
Nobody? I tried not to laugh as Mac averted her face, too.
“The dark one, maybe, but the redhead’s Lady—” the younger guy began, but a cab slid up to the curb. High heels and all, we ran for it and I didn’t hear the rest. We made it to the restaurant ten minutes late, with me following Mac up the stairs, feeling like a seven-year-old in my polka dots.
Everyone else was already there.
Chin up, girlfriend. So what if the paparazzi don’t care who you are? You’re still not sliding in behind her
.
This was a make-or-break moment. If I started off in Mac’s shadow, I may as well cut a rent check and stay there. So when she stepped into the room hips first, in her model-like way, I did the same. I even stepped around her, greeting Vanessa and Emily with air kisses and that brush of arms that passes for a hug.
A cool, noncommittal smile tilting her mouth, Mac let me introduce her to as many people as I knew, and I tried to remember the names of the ones I didn’t as they introduced themselves. And then came the moment I’d been dreading behind my polka dots and bright smile.
“Mac,” I said steadily, “this is Brett Loyola, who’s in AP Chem with me. Brett, this is my roommate, Lindsay MacPhail, but she goes by Mac.”
“Nice to meet you.” The sexy grin Brett shot her would have made my knees dissolve if it had been directed at me.
And then it was. Directed at me, I mean. I think I actually forgot to breathe.
“What did you say your name was?” he asked.
Oh Lord, take me now
. A heart attack would be good. With an ambulance and a teary deathbed good-bye that would wipe out the utter humiliation of this moment.
“It’s Carly Aragon,” Mac said smoothly. “I do like all my friends to know each other.”
“Does that mean I get to be your friend?” he asked, with the kind of smile that already knows the answer.
“We’ll see.”
He grinned even wider at the promise in her tone. “Come on. Why don’t you join me and Cal?”
I didn’t stop to wonder if the “you” was singular or plural. I just went. This time last week, I’d have laughed if you’d told me I’d be sitting at a table in TouTou’s with Lissa’s ex, Callum McCloud, and Brett Loyola. It would have ranked right up there with winning
Project Runway
or getting an offer to intern with Tori Wu, who designs Gillian’s party dresses. Instead, I smiled and ate chocolate torte and drank a virgin peach bellini (much to everyone’s amusement—how much did they bribe the management to serve all these pretty martinis to minors?) and felt like I was cracking wide open inside.
“All right, everyone,” Vanessa said, when we all had drinks and dessert, “I’m calling this meeting to order.”
“Do you have to?” Callum called. “Bo-o-ring.”
“You know the rules. We have to at least say the words
charity fashion show
.”
“Charity fashion show!” half a dozen people chanted helpfully. “Can we have another drink now?”
“No,” she said. “Work first. I want to get people on task, and then you’re free to do whatever you want.”
Despite their moaning and groaning, it went pretty smoothly—until Vanessa got to Mac. “Lady Lindsay, I’m so glad you came. Your job will be the best of all.” She leaned, all chummy, on Callum’s arm as he half-sat, half-stood on the long-legged stool. Unlike me. My feet dangled inches above the floor.
“As far as I know, I haven’t agreed to any sort of job.” Mac took another bite of her olallieberry and amaretto parfait. “Since I wasn’t actually asked.”
“Emily asked you.”
“Check your facts. Emily asked Carly.”
“And Carly must have asked you, since you’re here. Which is good enough for me. Now, let me brief you on what we’re going to need.”
“I’d prefer to be invited personally, which I believe I made clear.”
Vanessa sighed and rolled her eyes, her whole body demanding, “What did I do to deserve such a diva?”
I sat, frozen, watching as my one chance to get on the committee wobbled like a high-wire act between two opposing wills.
Just give in. Don’t do this to me
. Maybe I should have taken the risk and told Mac what this meant to me.
“Lady Lindsay, don’t you think you’re overworking this?”
“Please stop calling me that.”
“It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“I prefer Mac. Less pretentious.”
“Pretentious,” Vanessa repeated, as if to say, you’re worried about your name? What about your whole attitude?
I resisted the urge to bury my face in my hands.
“Mm.” Mac spooned up a berry and regarded it with interest. “These are lovely. What do you suppose they’re called?”
Social conversation was not on Vanessa’s menu. “I’m giving you what amounts to the chair. It’s going to be your face in the magazines and on the advertising. People would kill for this. Are you going to help or not?”
“Is that a personal invitation?”
From the depths of my despair, I had to hand it to Mac. She had actually challenged Vanessa in public. Imagine having that much confidence—not to mention the skill to turn a room that belonged to Vanessa into an arena where whatever she did, Vanessa would lose.
“Oh, give it a rest,” Vanessa snapped. “
Yes
, if that’s what it takes to get some help.”
“Thank you. I’d love to.” Mac smiled as though she’d just been handed a present, all tied up in glossy ribbon. “How kind of you to include me.”
Vanessa snorted. “I hope you don’t plan to be such a b—I mean, be this difficult with everything. Your job is the most important and visible of all.”
“So I understand. I’m delighted.”
“Now that that’s over, can we get another drink?” Brett complained. As Vanessa tossed her hair back and walked away, a server materialized to take his order, and Brett glanced at the rest of us at the table. “Anyone else?”
“A cinnamon latte, please,” I said.
“Coffee?” He sounded like I’d asked for motor oil. “Why don’t you get a real drink—not one of those mocktails you had before. The girls tell me the Cosmos are good here.”
“I’d love one,” Mac said.
I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, Brett glanced at the server. “Two Cosmos and two Stellas.”
“Certainly, Mr. Loyola,” the guy said, and vanished.
Problem.
Last week I’d have shrugged and spent the whole evening nursing it, since it was Brett who’d ordered it for me and I didn’t want to look like a complete prudie in front of him. But last week I hadn’t made a certain life-changing choice that meant I’d have to make other choices, even if they were just little ones. Like now.
The server put the drinks, decorated with paper-thin orange slices, in front of us with a flourish. I took a breath and pushed mine back toward him. “I ordered a latte, please. Cinnamon.”
“I beg your pardon, miss. I’ll be right back.”
Brett turned to me, puzzled. “Is something wrong with it?”
“No, I’m sure it’s great.” I smiled, amazed that I was sitting across from him and he was actually saying something more than “Can I borrow your notes?” I went on, “But I ordered a latte. I guess he didn’t hear me.”