Material Girls (5 page)

“I hear there's a fringe number coming in today that one of the Junior Courts approved unanimously,” Olivia chirped. “Can't wait. Let's be honest, is fringe ever not fun?” She took a sip from her travel mug, and a tiny black feather floated away into the elevator compartment.

I should just tell her,
I thought.
She'll know soon enough anyway.

But I rode the elevator all the way to the fifth floor, and when Olivia got out, I mumbled an excuse about having left something in the lobby by mistake. Not meeting Olivia's eyes, I said “lobby” into the voicebox. Only when the door had closed did I add, clearly and quietly: “basement.”

It was as depressing as I remembered. Rows of rectangular tables, with three feet of space between them, stretched from end to end. The drafters sat elbow to elbow, three on each side. Along the tables' middles, like centerpieces, copies of every fashion magazine on the market were scattered, along with white paper, pencils, pens, colored pencils, and markers. At least the lighting was better than I remembered—had they fixed that?—but the floor was concrete, and the walls were exposed brick painted a dingy white. The vast room felt cold. I would have to remember to wear an extra layer tomorrow. I tried to remember if any sort of cardigan was in right now.

Helplessly, I looked around as the drafters got settled for the morning. Some of them chatted with one another; a few were opening magazines and beginning to page through them. Others were filling their mugs in the near corner of the room, under a sign that spelled
Coffee Bar!
in pink neon. The sign's enthusiasm was unfounded. On the fifth floor, I had refilled my mug with caramel cappuccinos and mocha lattes that a shiny gold contraption frothed forth at the touch of a button. This was a countertop with some burners on which glass carafes of brown liquid sat, uncovered. Torn sweetener packets spilled their contents on the Formica surface. I couldn't believe how sad it all was.

“You must be the new one.” I turned to find a solemn-faced bald man peering at me. He wore a gray pinstriped three-piece suit with a light blue tie. Ties, at least the kind that hung straight down, hadn't been trendy for a few seasons. And the suit—where to begin? Did he actually work for Torro-LeBlanc?

He consulted his Unum. “Marla Klein, is it?”

Did he really not know me by sight? It wasn't as if the Superior Court members were exactly a big secret in the company. Still, I didn't want to say anything rude and screw things up on my first day. “Yes, I'm Marla.”

“Welcome. Godfrey Gibson. Director of Torro-LeBlanc's Drafting Division.” He was chewing something as he spoke. I picked up the scent of strawberries. Placidophilus pills. I was surprised, but I felt a little better. If he used, he probably wouldn't be a bad person to work for. Calm, anyway.

“We have your stool set up. My assistant will show you the ropes. Now, you must be here because you have some artistic talent worth speaking of. Have you sketched the human form before?”

I wondered what the right thing to say was. I hadn't tried to draw anything for years—hadn't needed to. I remembered the hundreds of fashion drawings I'd posted to my Tap site. I'd had a ton of hits, so I must have been pretty good back then. But what if my talent had dried up? “I used to be okay,” I said, “but I haven't really sketched anything in a while. I've been looking at sketches for years, though, on the Superior Court. It's sort of the same thing, isn't it?”

I could feel Godfrey studying me. The pace of his chewing increased. “Of course,” he said at last. “You'll get the hang of it. Winnie!” He snapped his fingers over my shoulder.

“Now we have one rule here,” he continued. “Talking about anything other than fashion is discouraged. Run your ideas by your colleagues. Show them your sketches. But if your mind is on other things, you're not imagining new trends, and that's what Torro-LeBlanc is paying you for. Don't think we aren't watching. We are.” He winked at me and laughed a high, fluty laugh.

His words gave me the creeps. The familiar face that appeared by his side, however, made me forget my worries. It was Winnie Summers, the judge who had left the Superior Court just after I had begun serving on it.

“Hi, Marla! Thanks, Godfrey. I've got it from here.”

Godfrey nodded and turned away.

“Nice to meet you!” I said as enthusiastically as I could to his back. He swiveled around and gave me a quick wink.

“It's
really
great to see you, Winnie,” I told her. It was comforting to be with someone who could actually understand what I was going through. “Godfrey seems nice,” I muttered as we walked along one side of the room. “But those clothes . . .”

Winnie shrugged. “He's so old he's just stopped caring. He's really all right, if you can look past the suit. So you're here now!” she said, beaming a bright smile at me. “Welcome to the basement!”

I tried my best to return the smile.

“Trust me, you're going to love it here,” she continued. “I mean, the money's not as good as it was on the court, and you don't have the final say anymore, but you're
creating
the trends! You'll see someone walking down the street in your clothing and know
you
drafted the original garment. What's better than that?”

I leaned down to whisper into Winnie's ear as softly as I could. “But we always thought the drafters were sort of pathetic.”

“Look around! There's nothing pathetic about your new colleagues.”

I looked. Was Winnie nuts? For every drafter who was sketching intently, there was another idly folding a paper airplane or stabbing holes in a magazine page with a pencil point. Okay, maybe
pathetic
was harsh, but lots of people looked tired or distracted. Better coffee wouldn't hurt.

I recognized some familiar faces from the upper floors. Carín was down here now, as were Bruce and Petra. They still wore trends. But the older the drafters got, the more obsolete they became. Some of the clothing gave Godfrey's suit a run for its money.

I also noticed that substantially fewer of the older drafters were women. The older men were generally the ones combing the magazines and sketching earnestly. This was odd, as girls tended to outnumber boys on the third, fourth, and fifth floors. “I didn't think this many guys worked at Torro,” I said to Winnie.

“A lot of the women leave when they have children. Tap preparation becomes more of a priority. But you'll find some of the most inspired workers are the slightly more . . .
mature
men,” Winnie said seriously. “The ones that are the principal wage earners in their families are especially motivated.”

Desperate was more like it. I began to feel panic creep in. “I don't know if I can do this,” I said. “Maybe I should go home today and think about it and start tomorrow.”

Winnie faced me and grabbed my shoulders. “Marla, look at me. You're a drafter now, and you need to accept it. Trust me—it's really not that bad. Lots of people quit, but you could be really great. Torro would be sad to lose you. Give it two weeks. Then decide. 'Kay?”

I thought of home and imagined my mother painstakingly measuring the ingredients for the lava cake. I swallowed and nodded.

“Now,” Winnie continued, “for the first week, nobody's expecting much. Don't even try to draft your own designs yet. Just copy models out of the magazines. You must have been good at art pre-Tap or you wouldn't be here. Retrain yourself. It'll be easier to communicate your own ideas later if you master some basics.”

I thought back to working as a sifter. The sketches that looked elementary—like a toddler had drawn them—were never promoted beyond the third floor. Again, I hoped my artistic ability hadn't left me.

“There are those that believe in quantity,” Winnie went on. “They try to maximize their chances by generating as many sketches as possible in a given day. One every half hour or so. Then there are those who work harder on fewer sketches. Either approach is fine. Whatever works for you.”

We neared the end of one of the long rows of tables. Winnie gestured to an open stool. “Shout if you need anything. Happy drafting!” With a smile and a wave, she was gone.

I put down my travel mug and looked around at my five neighbors. Directly across from me was a guy with dark wavy hair whom I didn't remember seeing recently in front of the court. But I knew the drafters on either side of him. To his right, diagonally across from me, was the woman who had brought in the black dress yesterday: Vivienne Graves. Not surprisingly, she was again wearing a plain black turtleneck, no embellishments, no texturing. I wondered where she'd even found the piece. Kevin Chen, the designer of the terrible trench coat, sat to the guy's left.

On my own left was a girl with blond pigtails around the same age as I was. To my right sat an older drafter with graying hair.

The ring of faces stared at me. “Hi,” I said, sitting down. No one replied. I couldn't think of what to say next, so I grabbed a piece of paper. As I reached for a pencil with my other hand, the drafter across from me spoke.

“Fresh meat, Viv,” he said, nodding to his right. He grinned at me, not nicely. “How does the princess feel now that she's out of her little tower? Not so nice to swim in the moat with the fish, is it?”

I didn't respond. I opened a magazine and began to look at it.

“Stinks, in fact, doesn't it?” the drafter went on. He twirled his pencil slowly between all five fingers.

“I bet she owns a luxury trendchecker and scanned every article of clothing she has on,” said Kevin, chuckling as he leaned back and folded his arms across his chest.

In spite of myself, I glanced up at Kevin. What was he getting at? Maybe he had an economy model, but it was obvious he scanned too. His blouse and musketeer vest were part of Torro's current line. But there was something different about the vest—something about the proportions of the silver cross, and the way the thread on the border was fraying . . . It hit me. It was a
knockoff
. And this drafter was shamelessly wearing it inside the design house that manufactured the original. Where was his self-respect?

“You'll soon get over that little habit,” Kevin continued. “Trendchecking gets too depressing.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said, looking down once again at my magazine. My mother was always talking about catching flies with honey, and smiling your way to the top, and stuff like that. I really,
really
wanted to call him out on his outfit, but I bit my lip.

“Want to know how long it took me to get my first sketch approved?” The dark-haired drafter leaned toward me. “Four months. Four months of watching my savings dwindle. Of watching the trends in my closet expire without being able to replace them. Of working day after day in this underground refrigerator, drinking crappy coffee and talking to these obsolosers.” He pointed the pencil at the others, who smirked. “Six months is the limit—no approved sketches, and . . .” He sliced his pencil across his neck and grinned. “Want to know how long it's been since my last sketch was approved?”

So much for Godfrey's no-gabbing rule. I returned to flipping the pages of the magazine and tried to ignore him.

“Hey, I'm talking to you, princess.” He leaned across the table and yanked the magazine out of my hands. I could feel tears starting to prick at my eyes. I blinked furiously and cast around the room, wondering if Winnie was near enough to witness the exchange. The drafter seemed to read my thoughts.

“You think Winnie will save you? Think again. She likes one quality in people: the ability to make Torro-LeBlanc money. You don't draft trends and she'll fire you with that perky smile still frozen on her face. And, judging by the fact that the powers that be sat you with
us
, I doubt they have much faith in you.” The guy inclined his head toward the opposite end of the row. I looked. Tess Peterson, the drafter of the bear-fur purse and those ridiculous alpaca boots, was sitting down there, surrounded by a number of drafters I had seen recently in front of the Superior Court. Was the seating really arranged by talent? I refused to believe it—because that would mean I'd failed before I'd even started.

With a faint rattling sound, the pigtailed drafter to my left shook a tin over her palm. She popped the tiny pill that emerged into her mouth and began chewing.

“Maybe she's here to motivate us,” said the older drafter on my right. I looked at him to see if he, too, was mocking me, but his expression was earnest, even hopeful.

“Yes, Randall. Our insecure, shallow child muse. Lucky us,” the dark-haired guy spat. I pictured Braxton shoving him against the basement's brick wall and telling him off.

Vivienne, the drafter of the black dress, looked up from her piece of paper, where she was sketching something that looked like a hammer or a gavel—an accessory, I guessed. She sighed. “Lay off, Felix.”

So that was his name. Felix's face registered his surprise. “She's
Superior Court,
Viv.”

“Oh, so what,” the pigtailed drafter interrupted. She gave me a wistful smile. “I'm Dido. I was a sifter for three years but never got promoted. You must have been really good.”

Finally, someone who
got
how much of a big deal the Superior Court was. I returned the smile willingly. “Thanks. I'm Marla.”

“Exactly.” Vivienne was looking at Felix. “She's Superior Court. She knows
every member
of the court right now.” I watched Felix's scowl slowly dissolve. I wondered what they both were thinking. On the verge of asking, I stopped when Vivienne added: “And she's not full of malice like the rest of those prepubes.”

Kevin peered across Felix. “How do you know? Did she say something in the judging room yesterday?”

“Call it a hunch.” Vivienne looked at me. Flakes of mascara were lodged in the depressions below her eyes, making them look even more sunken. “But I'd be willing to bet she's entertained the notion recently—maybe just once or twice—that trends are stupid.”