Poseur (11 page)

The ex-pseudo-boyfriend.

Jake could narrow down his entire sex life to one girl: Melody Chung. He met Melody last spring in Advanced Kuman, a math
class taught according to a strict Japanese method. Melody Chung had tan skin, straight black hair, and long, wispy bangs.
She wore platform flip-flops and rolled the cuffs of her jeans. She had a pretty, tiny mouth — the same shape and size as
the drugstore butterfly clips she attached to her hair — and a freckle on her right ear.

At first sight, Melody looked timid and sweet. She wasn’t. She barked equations like a dictator. She clicked her Hello Kitty
pen as if it connected to an explosive device. She was fond of the expression “What are you, stupid?” But she was nice to
Jake. And she smelled like strawberry Runts. So when she sat next to him during class, Jake liked it. And when she continued
to sit there, even
after
class, Jake liked it even more. And then, out of nowhere, Melody Chung asked if he’d like to “sit outside.”

They commenced a frantic make-out session in the alley behind the Unitarian church where Evergreen Kuman rented class space.
They could hear the beginners’ class, which met directly after theirs, chanting through the open windows:
five times two is ten! Five times three is fifteen! Five times four is twenty!
Jake and Melody sucked nonstop face ’til
nine times eleven,
at which point he made the mistake of touching Melody’s nipple, and she stabbed her Hello Kitty pen into his ribs. This brought
things to a grinding halt.

The next day, Melody avoided him. She refused to make eye contact or speak — unless you count the time Jake blanked on a prime
number, at which point he heard (softly, from the back of the room), “What are you, stupid?”

So, that was it. Jake’s experience in a nutshell. The whole sha-bang (minus the bang). He was no match for Charlotte. He wasn’t
even a contender. Seriously, what had he been
thinking
?

At the most heated point of their laundry room make-out session, Jake had broken away from Charlotte and stared hard at the
floor. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. It’s just . . .” He tried to think up something to say, anything — as long as it wasn’t the truth. Charlotte folded
her arms across her chest as Jake looked up and gazed into her eyes, those twin pools of chlorine-green, and drew a blank.

She cleared her throat. “Does this have something to do with your sister?”

“Ye-es,” Jake agreed before he could think it through.

He felt bad pinning it on Janie, but what was he supposed to do? Pin it on his pathetic lack of
balls
? To
Charlotte
? Jake ground his palms into his eye sockets. If only he didn’t
like
her so much. Things would be so much easier!

But he did like her and so they weren’t.

“You wanna put on a CD?” Janie asked, interrupting his thoughts. With a little effort, Jake managed to return to the reality
of the Volvo. Down the street, the Beverwils’ automatic gates closed, locking into place. The wrought-iron shuddered.

Jake flipped through their CD case. “Here,” he handed her an Elliott Smith album.

“Uh-oh,” she said, examining his choice. “Is someone feeling saddy-poo?”

“Shut up,” he replied. But his heart wasn’t in it.

“Hey.” Janie smiled. “It’s alright. I’m saddy-poo too.”

After that, they let Elliott Smith do the talking. Jake leaned his head to the window, watching the sun disappear behind a
rust-tinged veil of smog. No doubt the Beverwil laundry was done by now: folded into tidy creased squares, stacked into those
tall cedar chests from Sweden, resting in the cedar-scented dark. The image filled Jake with a strange, hollow ache. His thoughts
tumbled in his brain, like sheets that refused to dry.

The Girl: Melissa Moon

The Getup: A&G denim miniskirt, pink Rebecca Beeson cotton t-shirt, silver Baby Phat puffy vest, silver stiletto mules with
rhinestone detail, saucer-sized platinum hoops, manicure (in Chanel’s “Paparazzi”)

Melissa Moon was not happy.

Her Special Studies proposal — which she’d spent a whole three hours on, skipping a much needed crystal therapy appointment
— had been rejected.

Not only rejected, but dragged off and held hostage by another Special Studies proposal. By something called . . . wait for
it . . .

The Trend Set.

As if she would sign up for something with so bland and inferior a title.

Fortunately, Melissa was not the type to just sit back and take it. She was the type to
take it out.
She turned from the library bulletin and started walking. Her stilettos popped like cap guns. Her bangles clanged like bells
of alarm. Her Cinnamon Inferno gum cracked like a whip.

“OmiGAWD-uh!” Deena shrieked from her left. Melissa stopped her with the clichéd, but always reliable, hand. Deena’s face
fell, but she’d just have to deal.

Now was not the time.

Melissa flung open Miss Paletsky’s dark-green office door. The director of Special Studies looked up from her computer, smiling
from behind her no-name octagonal eyewear. At the mere sight of those glasses, Melissa wanted to scream, “I have four words
for you!
Gucci rectangular tortoiseshell frames.
Buy them before I
slap
those damn stop signs off your face!”

But she didn’t.

Instead, in her very sweetest voice, she asked: “Do you mind if I shut the door?” Miss Paletsky invited her to take a seat.
Melissa stared at the green velveteen couch, where Miss Paletsky had propped a row of small, forest creature cushions. An
embroidered quail sat next to an embroidered rabbit. An embroidered squirrel ate an embroidered nut. The pillows gave Melissa
the embroidered creeps. Especially the squirrel, who seemed to be looking right at her.

“Is everything alright?” Miss Paletsky asked in her Slavic purr. She wondered why Melissa continued to stand, frowning at
her couch as if it had insulted her family’s good name.

“Not exactly,” Melissa sighed, perching on the very edge of the couch’s saggy arm. She clutched the squirrel pillow and pressed
it to her lap. “My Special Study . . . ,” she began, pausing for effect, “was rejected.” She sighed a heavy sigh, waiting
for her teacher’s gushing apology. It didn’t come. Miss Paletsky just smiled and looked generally pleasant.

It was infuriating.

“I was wondering,” she continued, hardening her tone, “if there was some kind of mistake?”

Miss Paletsky clasped her soft hands until they sat like a potato in her lap. “Dah . . .” She cleared her throat. “The main
mistake, I think, is choice of word ‘rejected.’ Your proposal was not rejected. It was
accepted
and
combined
with some other proposals to make it stronger.”

“So you’re saying my proposal was
weak.
”

“I am not saying that,” Miss Paletsky replied with a sweet smile. “All four proposals were very strong. But because they had
so much in common . . .”

“I don’t have anything in common with people who think ‘The Trend Set’ is a cool name for a class.”

“Well, I came up with that, not them,” Miss Paletsky admitted, a little embarrassed. She thought “The Trend Set” was pretty
clever, actually: a
set
of girls who
set
the trends.
Get it?
Miss Paletsky tugged self-consciously at her flower-print scrunchie.

“I’m sure you and the girls can come up with something more . . . how do you say it . . . catchy.”

“More catchy than ‘Melissa Moon’?” Melissa asked, incredulous. “If ‘Melissa Moon’ is not catchy, I don’t know what is.”

“Why not suggest it to the other girls and see what they think?” suggested Miss Paletsky.

“I can’t. They’ll think I’m an egomaniac.”

The teacher laughed lightly. “You’re not egomaniac.” (F.Y.I., Miss Paletsky’s job required her to
discourage
students from regarding themselves as egomaniacs. Even when they kinda were.)

“Well,
I
know that.” Melissa collapsed backward on the velveteen couch. “And my
friends
know that. But everyone else is, like, ‘Oh, Melissa! She’s so full of herself!’ Even though I’m not.”

“Of course you’re not.”

“I just have a strong personality!”

“Exactly.”

“I feel my Special Study should consist of me and my
friends,
” Melissa concluded. “My friends get the way I tick.”

“Yes,” Miss Paletsky nodded. “Your friends are passionate about fashion like you?”

“Oh yeah. They shop, like, all the time.”

Miss Paletsky raised her eyebrows and removed her glasses. “Is that how you define passion? By shopping?”

Melissa had a sinking feeling it wasn’t.

“Just so you know,” Miss Paletsky said, “Charlotte Beverwil studied embroidery and lace-making with Belgian nuns.” She lowered
her glasses to her lap, rubbing the left lens with the corner of her cardigan. “And Janie Farrish draws and designs her own
clothes.” She shifted the corner of her cardigan from her left lens to her right. “And Petra Greene wants to start her own
label, just like you.”

“
Petra
wants to start her own label?” Melissa snorted. “What’s she gonna call it — Baglady Mischka?”

“My point is,” Miss Paletsky continued, replacing her glasses, “is possible you will have more success with
them
than with shop-’til-you-drop friends.”

Melissa laughed. “No way.”

“Okay,” Miss Paletsky conceded. “Maybe I am missing something. Explain to me why going into business with
friends
is better option.”

“Friends are loyal.”

“Good!” Miss Paletsky nodded. “What else?”

Melissa thought it over, but the only trait she came up with was “fun,” and — in terms of her argument — “fun” wasn’t the
most persuasive. She’d watched her father. Starting a business was about focus and hard work, not fun.

She would have to play this another way.

“Nothing’s more important than loyalty,” she declared.

“Maybe so. But . . . loyalty without independence” — Miss Paletsky shrugged — “is like a dog, no?”

With great chagrin, she conceded her teacher’s point. As much as Melissa loved them, she had to admit her friends weren’t
exactly career-driven or brainy. In fact, they
did
have things in common with dogs (albeit well-groomed, adorable dogs), more than she’d ever realized. Melissa pressed her
lips together, tracing the edge of the pillow with her finger. As much as she’d
love
to go into business with a bunch of Pomeranians, it just wasn’t practical.

“I hear you,” she admitted after a pause. “I hear what you’re saying, yeah.”

She looked up, pleased to discover an expression of pure shock on Miss Paletsky’s overly powdered face. Melissa always knew
she’d said the right thing when people looked shocked. She stood up, returning the collectible pillow to its proper place
on the couch. Strange. The squirrel looked cuter somehow. His cheeks looked cheekier. Even his nut looked . . . nuttier.

“Alright,” she agreed. “I’ll try it out.”

“Wonderful!” Miss Paletsky beamed, clasping her hands and pressing them to her heart.

Melissa headed for the door, then stepped down the corridor and into the sun. “Loving these pillo-o-ows!” she sang. And then
she was out.

Miss Paletsky stared at the open door. As much as she would like to congratulate herself for the success with Melissa Moon,
she couldn’t help but think of the other three girls. Each one had come into her office convinced that The Trend Set was the
worst idea ever. And — unlike Melissa — nothing Miss Paletsky could say would persuade them otherwise.

She glanced to the willow branches outside her office window. If The Trend Set fell apart, then so would a substantial part
of her job. And she needed this job. It was the only thing that got her out of the house, away from Yuri, the overweight,
sweat-stained owner of the Copy & Print store on Fairfax. But Yuri was an American citizen. Unless Miss Paletsky found another
alternative — and found it fast — she would marry Yuri in order to obtain her Visa. She and Yuri . . .
married
! She tilted her head back, so as not to spill her tears. She hoped these girls gave their class a chance.

Maybe they could make her wedding dress.

The Girl: Petra Greene

The Getup: Floor-length almond-brown hemp skirt, rainbow-striped Danskin leotard, yellow chiffon apron, leopard print boho
bag, four-leaf clover wrapping paper ribbons

“Don’t you care about me at all?” Petra’s mother asked. She raised her carving knife, halving an apple in one resounding chop.
Mounds of sliced fruit rose on either side of her like sands in the scales of justice.

“You’re making
another
pie?” Petra asked, dropping her trusty boho bag to the Italian tiled floor. She leaned against the terracotta-pink refrigerator
and crossed her arms.

“Daughters who
like
their mothers,” Heather Greene continued, raising her knife a second time, “don’t go around dressed like that. Daughters
who like their mothers (
chop-chop-chop!
)
care
how they look. Because how they
look
(
chop-chop-chop!
) reflects how they were raised!”

“Why is Mommy mad?” Sofia tugged on the back of Petra’s skirt.

“Mommy is unhappy with Petra’s choice of attire, darling,” Heather explained.

“What’s
attire
?!” yelled Isabel from the other room.

“Isabel, VOLUME!” Heather bellowed from the kitchen sink, squeezing her eyes shut. After a tense pause, Isabel appeared in
the doorway, struggling with the twisted strap of her navy blue pinafore. “What’s
attire
?” she silently mouthed to Petra.

“She doesn’t like what I’m wearing,” Petra replied, kneeling to untangle her sister’s strap.

“But me and Sofie picked it!”

“Yeah,”
Sofia echoed softly. At four and a half, Sofia’s sole duty involved saying “yeah” after everything her six-and-one-quarter-year-old
sister said. She took her job very seriously.

“Sofie and
I,
” their mother corrected, turning to Petra. “Is this true?”

“Isabel’s upset about having to wear a uniform now, so I told her, if she wanted, she could choose my clothes for me. It’s
not like I care.”

“I can be as imaginative as I want!” Isabel declared with a sassy purse of her lips.

“I see,” Heather forced a smile, flicking her eyes up and down Isabel’s latest selection. Petra was dragging around a long
hemp skirt in a dusty shade of brown. She paired it with a rainbow-striped strapless leotard and a 1950s apron in yellow chiffon.
Ripped
yellow chiffon. Her hair hung in two tangled braids — one slightly thicker than the other — tied with wrapping-paper ribbons.

Heather looked away from her eldest daughter and ripped open a bag of Sugar in the Raw. “Don’t you have that first meeting
of your fashion class today?”

“Yes.” Petra grimaced. She still couldn’t believe she’d been roped into such a stupid waste of time.

Her mother, however, had been thrilled.

“Don’t you think you should wear something that expresses
your
sense of style, not your six-year-old sister’s?” She emptied the sugar into a large metal bowl, releasing a sound like faraway
school bells. “I know! What about that darling Miu Miu sundress we bought in Florence?”

“You mean the darling Miu Miu sundress
you
bought,” Petra reminded her mother. “Expressing
your
sense of style, not mine?”

Heather sighed over her rolling pin, sinking all ninety-one pounds of her body weight into a pale glob of dough. “What happened
to you?” she asked. She directed her gaze toward Isabel and Sofia, widening her eyes for dramatic effect. “Who stole my daughter,
my
beautiful
daughter, and replaced her with this
derelict
?” The two little girls — who found grown-up vocabulary hysterical — erupted into giggles. Heather smiled, delighted. Petra
barely noticed the whole exchange. She was too busy staring at the rose-pink marble counters, at the lopsided piles of flour
and apples and sugar, the cracked eggshells, empty and oozing. The sight filled her with dread. Petra’s mother only baked
when she wasn’t eating. And she only wasn’t eating when she wasn’t taking her medication.

“Mom. Didn’t you make four pies last week?”

“I like to bake!” Heather trilled, brushing her hands. “And Sheryl’s dinner party is coming up.”

“Yeah, in three weeks.”

“I’m perfecting a new recipe, alright? Try not to be so
critical.
”

But Petra couldn’t help herself. The first time her mother buckled down to “perfect a new recipe” she’d baked twenty-eight
pies in one weekend. Soon after, she left for what Petra’s father, Robert, referred to as a “restorative, relaxation retreat,”
and everyone else called “the psych ward.” Three weeks later, when Petra’s mother returned, Robert announced their mutual
decision to adopt. According to him, his wife’s depression was due to a “lack of responsibility.” When it occurred to Petra
it might have to do with Rebecca, her father’s still-in-college bombshell receptionist, her father just laughed and laughed.
“Don’t be ridiculous!”

Two months later they brought home Isabel and Sofia. And Rebecca was “let go.”

Petra’s mother ripped a sheet of tin foil from its long, rectangular box, wielding it like a shield. “Now, which side goes
up?” Petra heard her say absently. “Shiny or dull?”

“Shiny!” Sofia and Isabel clapped, jumping up and down. As a general rule, her younger daughters preferred the bright side.

“I’ll be right back,” Petra announced to her mother. She slipped out of the kitchen and punched 3 on her cell. “Dr. Greene’s
office,” dripped a syrupy voice on the other line. “Please hold . . .” Before she could say
okay,
Petra was connected to a blast of vibrant, call-waiting violins: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. (As an inside joke to his patients,
Dr. Greene only played one season — spring — on repeat.)

Click.

“Dr. Greene’s office,” the voice repeated like a machine.

“Vicki?” Petra asked.

“This is Amanda.”

“Can I talk to Vicki, please?” Vicki, a cheerful, brassy blonde in her fifties, had been her father’s receptionist for the
past three years. She wore glitter eye shadow and punctuated her laughs with a hacking cough. The chances of Petra’s father
making a pass for Vicki were zero to none (not that Vicki would have him).

“Vicki left a couple of months ago,” Amanda sighed. “May I help you?” Petra cupped her hand to the receiver and turned to
the wall.

“Hello?”
Amanda sighed.

“I’m sorry, but . . . what do you look like?” Petra blurted.

“Excuse me?”

“Pet, darling?” Heather called. At the sound of her voice, Petra almost dropped her phone. She found the
END
button with her thumb and slowly exhaled, then returned to the kitchen.

“You’re going to be late,” her mother observed.

“Sorry.” Petra watched her mother pinch foil around the edges of a baking tray.

The dull side was up.

At sixteen, Petra still didn’t have her license. Not because she’d failed the permit test (she’d missed only one question).
And not, as everyone assumed, because of the environment (her parents promised her the brand-new hybrid of her choice). She
didn’t drive because she was scared. And the longer she went without a license, the more scared she got. And the more scared
she got, the more she was
just like her mother.

Which scared her the most.

“Good morning,” Lola, the girls’ nanny, chirped as Petra slipped into the front seat of the Greenes’ gargantuan black Hummer.
“Everybody ready?”

“YES!” Sofia and Isabel called from the backseat, squirming behind their seat belts.

“Almost,” Petra said. “Iz? Hand me a soda, please?”

“ ’Kay.” Isabel used both hands to pull open the built-in mini-fridge. Petra stretched her hand behind her.

“Thank you.” She smiled, resting an icy Hansen’s Grapefruit soda in the lap of her textured hemp skirt. She looked out the
window as Lola reversed down the drive. Petra’s home could best be described as the mutant love child of the Capitol Building
and a New Orleans whorehouse — an overstuffed monstrosity of white columns and wrought iron, French windows and balconies
and glacial staircases. The exterior walls were the creamy pink-orange color of sherbet. The hedges were stiff, symmetrical
cubes. And then, in the center of it all — surrounded by sparkling white gravel and half-moon plots of petunias — her father’s
pride and joy: a two-ton marble sculpture of Aphrodite
.
Dr. Greene loved to show her off to his guests, pointing out her “many” physical flaws. “You see?” he’d chuckle, patting
the statue’s bulbous bottom. “Even the Goddess of Beauty could use some improvement.”

Petra pressed her forehead to the window, allowing the bumps in the road to rattle her brain. She imagined one day they’d
rattle her sanity right out.

Maybe they already had.

As soon as Lola dropped her off at Winston Prep’s shaded south side entrance, Petra beelined for the gymnasium. The back of
the gym bordered the base of a steep muddy hill; after climbing just a little ways, she could disappear from sight. She hung
on to a tree branch and pulled her way up, crouching among the decomposing leaves, then cracked open her soda and emptied
it on the ground. The clear liquid fizzed, scurrying downhill in rivulets. Petra pulled a bobby pin from a tangle of hair,
poked it into the top of the can and made a small puncture. She could make a pipe out of anything: cans, apples, shampoo bottles,
corncobs, dictionaries. At age sixteen, Petra was to pipes what Martha Stewart was to centerpieces.

She sprinkled a small amount of weed over the puncture and, using the glassy blue lighter Theo gave her during their class
trip to Joshua Tree, lit up. She pulled the smoke into her lungs until her throat itched, closed her eyes, and listened to
Coach Bennett yell over the steady drum of basketballs, the squeak of tennis shoes, the
sproinggg
of missed baskets.

“Lemme see some hustle, now! Lemme see some hustle! Remember, you’re a winner! You’re a winner! You’re a winner! You’re a
winner!”

Petra exhaled:
winner . . . dinner . . . thinner . . . sinner . . . spinner . . . grinner . . .