Poseur (14 page)

The Girl: Charlotte Beverwil

The Getup: Strapless pearlescent Eres bikini, Marc Jacobs red-frame aviators, peach vintage silk kimono with blossom detail

Don John needed to practice
Hamlet
for his second week of Film Actors’ Boot Camp and — so long as he agreed to soliloquize by the pool — Charlotte was happy
to listen. The Beverwils’ pool was enormous; unless you stood on the roof, it was impossible to see the whole thing at once.
Swimmers were treated to hidden grottos and secret caves, pristine waterfalls and — for parties — an underwater bar. The water
was tempered with oil of eucalyptus, dead sea salts, and heated to a perfect 78 degrees all year round.

Don John, who liked to incorporate his surroundings into his performance, found Charlotte’s choice of setting a little annoying.
He was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Not Hamlet, Prince of Cabo.

Good thing he was such a great actor.

He held his compact body perfectly still — feet planted wide, small belly distended — like a toddler learning to stand. A
gentle breeze coaxed a trio of blossoms from the branch of a nearby Jacaranda. They twirled through the air like light purple
snow. Birds twittered and hopped. The great lawn stretched out and grew hazy in the sun. The pristine pool sparkled.

Don John clenched his Guerlain moisturized fist.

“‘T’ew be or
not
t’ew be,’” he began in a moaning whisper. “‘
Thaht
is the question. . . .’”

Charlotte drained the last of her calcium-fortified mimosa and reached for another. The sun blazed her Clarins sunscreen into
an oily slick, and perspiration puddled in her belly button. Her sunglasses slid down the bridge of her tiny, pert nose. Fortunately,
her parents’ bright white art nouveau deck chairs were fitted with Canvex, a state of the art fabric specially calibrated
to wick away sweat.

“‘T’ew sleep! Perchahnce to dream!
Thaht
is the rub!’”

Charlotte closed her eyes and let the words seep in like toxic UV rays. Anything to block out her thoughts. Nothing — not
even Don John’s pathetic attempt at a British accent in 666-degree heat — compared to the misery of thinking about Jake Farrish.

If only she had a lounge chair to wick away the pain.

When he was done, Don John threw his arms back like an Olympic gymnast. “YES!” he cried out to the sky. Charlotte took a long
sip from her mimosa and sighed. “Did I nail that or what?” he asked, flopping to the foot of her chair. Charlotte winced with
annoyance. She hated to be jostled.

“You’re amazing.” Charlotte rattled the ice in her champagne flute. “The next Ethan Hawke.”

“Except
tan,
” Don John pointed out, pulling down the elastic waistband of his metallic gold banana-hammock. “I think I’m tanner now than
when I started. You?”

“Ew!” Charlotte said, waving him away.

“What?”

“I can see your slings and arrows.” She gagged, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Whoops!” Don John grinned, snapping his bathing suit back into place. He got to his feet and padded around the pool, lolling
his head around his shoulders. “Okay.” He swept his highlighted hair into a sweatband. “I’m going to go through it one more
time. Except this time I’m going to stress every
fourth
syllable instead of every . . .
hello.
”

“I’m listening,” Charlotte assured him, resting an ice cube in the hollow at her throat.

“No, no . . . ,” Don John murmured. “Methinks we have a guest.” She propped herself on one elbow and twisted around. The ice
cube clattered to the deck.

Great,
Charlotte thought.
What was
she
doing here?

“Have you or have you
not
received my texts?” Melissa asked, folding her arms across her bountiful chest. She stood right between two verdant banana
trees, both of which bowed toward her like servants. She wore crisp white cotton shorts and a navy-and-white-striped silk
tank with enormous gold crests and fringe at the shoulders. Her hair was tied into a blood-orange silk scarf that read
VERSACE
in splashy black letters. In contrast, Melissa’s face appeared uncharacteristically pale and drawn — as though all the color
had migrated from her complexion to the bandana around it. Charlotte might assume she was hungover, but everyone knew Melissa
didn’t drink. She was the president (and sole member) of Winston Women for Temperance.

“I’m sorry.” Charlotte frowned as Don John excused himself to the gazebo. “I missed the part where I said you could come over.”

“You think I
want
to be here?” Melissa scoffed.

“What are you saying? Is this a court order?”

“I left a million messages for you.” Melissa narrowed her eyes. “I e-mailed. I texted. I did everything possible to contact
you without having to see your ugly-ass face in person.
Obviously,
you left me no choice.”

“I turned my phone off for the weekend,” Charlotte answered coolly. The truth was a bit more complicated. She hypothesized
that — just as watched kettles never boil — watched phones never ring. So, in addition to turning it off, she locked her cell
in a drawer, asked Blanca to hide the key, and “forgot” about it. All she had to do was convince the universe she didn’t care
whether or not Jake called, and
then he would call.
It was classic reverse psychology.

“You turned off your phone?” Melissa gasped in disbelief. “Why would you
do
that?”

“It needs its beauty rest,” Charlotte snipped. “Can you relate, Meliss? ’Cause you
look
like you do.”

Melissa pressed her lips together and nodded. “So,” she observed with a chilling laugh. “You think I could use some sleep.”

Don John appeared with Charlotte’s peach silk bathing kimono draped on his arm and a fresh mimosa in each hand. “Somemosa
mimosa?” he chirped.

“Do you know how hard it is to plan a launch party all by yourself ?!”
Melissa exploded, blowing Don John two steps back by sheer force of volume.

“This is about Special Studies?” Charlotte’s amused eyes sparkled. Don John fluttered his eyelashes, stunned. “Melissa. The
meeting’s on
Wednesday.
”

“So?”

“Today is
Sunday,
” Don John whispered, biting the tip of his straw.

“I
know
” — Melissa registered Don John’s spandexed bulge with unadulterated disgust — “what
day
it is.” She returned her attention to her classmate. “Let me explain something, okay? This class means a lot to me.”

“That’s really
très
touching,” replied Charlotte.

“It means a lot more than some stupid once-a-week commitment.”

“Well, a stupid once-a-week commitment is all I signed up for.”

“How can you
say
that?” Melissa’s fury boiled over. “Haven’t you
ever
felt an
ounce
of passion about
anything
in your entire
life
?!”

“Oh no, she didn’t!” Don John cried, bobbing his head around like a rooster. Charlotte, meanwhile, did not reply. She slipped
into her kimono, knotted the ribbon at her waist, and shook her hair across her shoulders. If Melissa’s flesh-melting glare
made her the slightest bit uncomfortable, you’d never know it. She moved with the unhurried calm of a Buddhist monk.

Once her robe was secure, Charlotte turned to Melissa and cleared her throat.

“In regards to my ‘ounces’ of passion. That is a) none of your business, and b) just because I don’t feel passion for a silly
class does
not
mean I don’t feel passion
en général,
and c) I am not used to measuring things in
ounces,
passion or otherwise. Unlike
you,
” she continued, raising her chin as high as it would go, “
I
was not raised by
drug dealers.
Now . . .” Charlotte waited for Melissa to move aside. “If you would please . . .
excusé-moi.
”

But Melissa Moon would not
excusé moi.
Instead, she swept her foot across the French terracotta tile, tipped Charlotte over her ankle, and shoved her face-first
into the glittering blue pool. Don John clutched his face and screamed like a B-movie starlet. When Charlotte emerged, sputtering
and gasping — her kimono
ruined
— he screamed again. Melissa lined the toes of her Valentino pumps at the pool’s edge.

“Let’s try this again,” she said in the politest tone she could muster. “Charlotte. I need your help.”

“Don John?” Charlotte gasped, pushing a slop of wet hair off her face. “Fetch Blanca.”

Melissa stamped her foot. “Your
help,
Charlotte. Not your maid!”

“Blanca is a
dame de la maison,
” Charlotte corrected, lifting her arm in the air. Don John pulled her to the deck like a clump of tangled seaweed. Charlotte
staggered to her feet and squared her thin shoulders. A gray bead of mascara slalomed down her left cheek. “Fine,” she sniffed.
“I’ll help you.”

“Really?” Melissa gaped in surprise. She’d been expecting more of a fight. Don John looked appalled.

“Ask me now before I change my mind,” Charlotte added.

Melissa cleared her throat. “Your mom’s tight with Prada, right?”

“Well, she
is
the face of their fragrance.”

“Do you think she could ask the Prada store on Rodeo to be the venue for our launch?”

Charlotte raised an arch eyebrow and paused. But for the dripping sound of pool water, the world was quiet.

“I can’t promise anything,” she answered at last. “But I can ask.”

“Thank you.”
Melissa breathed a sigh of relief. And then, with a final withering glance at Don John’s repulsive bulge, she turned to go.

“Are you crazy?” Don John hissed once they were alone. “That girl pushes you into a pool and you give her what she
wants
?” Don John shook his head in quiet dismay. “Honey, that is
not
how it’s done on
Desperate Housewives.
”

Charlotte shrugged, pleased with her decision. All weekend she’d wanted nothing more than to not think about Jake Farrish,
with no success. But then Melissa pushed her in the pool. For six glorious, transcendent seconds, Jake hadn’t entered her
mind once.

For that luxury, Charlotte would have given Melissa the world.

The Girl: Vivien Ho

The Getup: Frankie B. jeans, pink Uggs, pink shrunken driver’s cap, white HO BAG baby tee, pink lace La Perla thong, and a
rock the size of the Ritz

“So then he opens the door . . . and we walk inside . . . and there are pink rose petals
everywhere.
And, like, a million candles. And oh, the candles? Are all shaped like roses. I
know!
”

As challenging as Charlotte proved to be, the girl was small edamame compared to Melissa’s ultimate nemesis. She could no
longer hear Vivien Ho’s voice without wincing. Every rose-petaled word out of Vivien’s mouth pricked her like a thorn.

Vivien had been on the phone, relating the details of her marriage proposal to everyone from her mother to her manicurist,
for eight hours straight. The marathon conversation began in her bedroom, worked its way into the kitchen, the elliptical
trainer in the gym, back to the kitchen, and eventually into the front room, where she lay sprawled in the middle of their
newly imported zebra skin rug. Melissa crossed the floor, stepping over Vivien as gingerly as she would a newly imported zebra
turd.

“So then, he’s like, ‘Baby — every one of these rose petals represents a beat of my heart. Every beat of my heart belongs
to you.’ And I’m like, ‘Seedy! That is so sweet, but
get to the point
!’ A-hahahahahahhahaha! Yeah, so he gets down on one knee and says, ‘Vivien . . .’”

Melissa did not wait around to hear the rest. She’d heard the story so often, she could repeat it back word for word. She
knew, for instance, that in any average telling, the word “baby” appeared eighteen times. The words “rose” and “petals” appeared
ten times each. The phrase “I swear I was, like . . .” appeared five times. As did the words “heart,” “yes,” and “love.” The
only words to appear one time each were (in order): “eighteen,” “point,” “five,” and “carats.”

They were also the only words Vivien screamed out loud. Which is why, less than two minutes later on the other side of the
sprawling Bel Air estate, Melissa heard them clear as a yodel: “EIGHTEEN POINT FIVE CARATS!!!”

Melissa could not believe that, of all the women in the world, her father chose Vivien Ho. Vivien had been a featured background
dancer in Seedy’s “Lord of the Blings” video.
And she couldn’t even dance.
The most she could do was stand by a wind machine and point. Still, okay. Vivien had a “look.” She was a six-foot-tall, smokin’
hot Korean chick with fake boobs and violet eyes that (she insisted) were 100 percent real, “just like Elizabeth Taylor’s.”
Melissa knew better. Vivien stocked enough Bausch & Lomb for an eyeball the size of the Epcot Dome.

Melissa hadn’t seen her real mom, Brooke, since she was ten years old. The courts wouldn’t grant her mom visitation rights
unless she proved she could hold a job and stay sober for a minimum of six months. Whenever her mother entered rehab, she
sent Melissa letters on bright pink stationary — sometimes as many as three a day. She wrote in bubble handwriting, just like
Melissa. She cut out pictures of celebrities and glued them to the page.
“She looks like you!”
she’d write next to a photo of Halle Berry. Or Jessica Alba. Or Lindsay Lohan. Or Lucy Liu. She ended every letter the same:
“Misses and kisses for my baby Melisses!”

She’d promise to see her soon.

Melissa scooped up the dozing Emilio Poochie and flopped into her father’s favorite chair: a custom-upholstered La-Z-Boy by
Louis Vuitton (Seedy christened his creation the “Louie Boy”). She kicked off her heels and reached for the remote. There
was only one escape from Hell with Vivien. TiVo.

“Excuse me!” Vivien invaded the living room wearing jeans tucked into pink Uggs, a shrunken driver’s cap, and a baby tee that
read stick it in your ho bag. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, snapping her jewel-encrusted cell phone shut.

“What does it look like?” Melissa punched the remote. A row of automatic window blinds clicked into place like dominoes, shutting
out the stream of sunlight. An enormous plasma screen emerged from the floor.

“Muh-
lissa
!” Vivien cried. “The event planner’s going to be here any minute.”

“So?”

“So, you can’t be in here!”

Melissa punched the remote a second time.

“I am paying this man by the minute!”

“
You’re
paying him,” Melissa repeated, cranking up the volume. She didn’t care what was on. As long as it was loud.

Vivien stamped her foot. “I am serious!”

“Sorry, what?” Melissa increased the volume another notch. On the screen, two women with pixie haircuts and khaki capris curled
up on a couch. They dipped spoons into small containers of yogurt.

“Melissa!” Vivien yelled.

The television blared: “THIS YOGURT IS
DATE WITH THAT CUTE BARTENDER
GOOD.”

“I can’t hear you,”
Melissa mouthed, pushing two fingers to the back of her ear.

Unfortunately, her father heard every word.

“Are either of you aware of something called THE MOTHER MCMUFFIN CREATIVE PROCESS?!” Seedy Moon exploded from the confines
of his second-floor office like a crazed cuckoo bird. Melissa scrambled for the remote as her five-foot-six and extremely
cut father paced the length of the second floor, robe flapping. Melissa and Vivien glanced at each other — briefly united
by fear. Seedy just used “McMuffin” instead of the F-word. And her father only watched his language when he was truly pissed.

“How the HECK am I supposed to write — let alone maintain my DOGGONE SANITY — with you two goin’ at it like MOTHER MCMUFFIN
O.J. AND NICOLE?!”

“Baby,” Vivien began, “we were just . . .”

“Yeah, I don’t give a FRYING DUCK!” Seedy quaked at the top of the stairs. He was wearing his writing uniform: gray sweats,
no shirt, a black silk bathrobe with the Korean flag on the back, and the Bugs Bunny slippers he’d worn since eighth grade.
Between the two slippers, only three teeth, one eye, and three ratty ears remained. Melissa cringed as her father Hapkido-kicked
the air. One slipper flew to the wall.

The two yogurt ladies closed their eyes, mouthing their ecstasy in muted silence.

“Okay . . .” He panted himself into relative calm and sat on the top stair, kneading his glossy, bald skull. “I apologize
for losing my temper.”

“It’s okay, Daddy,” Melissa assured him.

“The last thing I want to do is yell at the people I love!”

“Oh baby,” Vivien replied, walking up the stairs to him. She ran her fingers under the collar of his robe, fixing him with
her narrow violet eyes. One look and that was it: Seedy belonged to her. “I
tried
to talk to her,” she murmured under her breath. “She won’t listen.”

Vivien left the room and Seedy sighed, getting to his feet. As he walked downstairs, Melissa set her jaw. She refused to look
at him. Seedy cleared his throat and prodded her with his foot. Nothing. He squeezed in beside her. The leather cushion released
a low ripping sound. Seedy grinned, nudging his daughter in the ribs. “That you?” he teased.

Melissa was not amused.

“ ’Lissa. I know how hard this is for you.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“Vivien isn’t the insensitive person you think she is,” Seedy insisted. “She’s just excited. And it makes her not think about
stuff.”

“Daddy, that woman has no problem thinking about
stuff.
It’s
people
she don’t think about.”

“That is
not
true!” Vivien’s voice yelled from somewhere down the hall.

Melissa turned to her father and continued in a whisper. “First, I’m not allowed to throw a party. Now I’m not allowed to
watch TV
? It’s like you’re getting married and I’m not allowed to exist!”

“You can exist,” Seedy confided in a low voice. “Just exist on the DL.”

“Daddy,
what
?” Melissa’s jaw dropped. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“If you gotta watch TV, watch it in your room. And I told you, if you wanna have a party, go ahead! Have a party. Just not
at the house.”

“You know,” Vivien reappeared with a Diet Coke in her hand. “I was thinking about that party of hers. . . .”

“That party of ‘hers,’” Melissa repeated for her father. “Hear that? She talks like I’m not even here!”

“Like
she
doesn’t?!” Vivien gasped, pointing her fire engine–red finger-talon. “She just called me ‘she’!”

“Okay stop!” Seedy yelled. Two more seconds of this and he might implode. He gripped his head in his hands and visualized
a quiet stream. “Vivien,” he continued in a calm voice. “You were saying?”

“I was saying,” his soon-to-be-bride continued, “since she can’t have the party at the house, she could try reserving some
tables at the Bel Air Public Park. People have parties there all the time.”

“At the
park
?!” Melissa trembled with rage. “Are you for real?!”

“Vivien’s just trying to help.” Seedy patted her arm.

“Daddy!” Melissa whirled on her father. “I am launching a label!
Not
a piñata!”

“Well she can’t have the party here!” Vivien declared.

“I’m
not
having it here!”

“Seedy!” Vivien pleaded.

“Would you please listen to me?!” Melissa screamed at the top of her lungs.
“I’m having it at the Prada store!”
Her announcement exploded across the family room like a sonic boom. The three of them stared at each other in silence. Vivien
stood upright and perfectly still, like a diver at the edge of the board.

“
What
did you say?” she whispered.

In last month’s issue of
Vogue,
Prada described their spring handbag collection as, “chic, intelligent . . . very modern. Simply put: the Anti–Ho Bag.” For
days, Vivien staggered around in shock. She felt like she’d been spiked through the heart. To make her feel better, Seedy
banned everything Prada from the house. Even the word itself.

“I’m sorry,” Melissa apologized to her father, only his head was back in his hands. “I meant to say the P-word store.”

“Did you put this together for her?” Vivien squeaked with an accusing glare. Seedy held his hands up in surrender.

“Don’t look at me.”

“Okay.” Vivien nodded. “I won’t.” She turned on the heel of her pink Ugg and headed for the doorway. “I’ll never look at you
again
!”

Seedy got to his feet, fixing his daughter with a severe stare.

“It was Charlotte’s idea,” Melissa blurted. “Please don’t be mad.”

“Charlotte?” Seedy furrowed his brow. “Who’s Charlotte?”

“My colleague. For my, I mean,
our
fashion label.”

“Your
colleague,
” Seedy repeated, his face melting with gradual pride. He shook his head and planted a kiss on the crown of his only daughter’s
head. “Alright,” he said.

As her father shuffled off in the direction of his high-maintenance fiancée, Melissa smiled. Without wasting another second,
she pulled her white Special Studies binder from her black Fendi tote and flipped it open. At the top of the page she’d written
“Word Ideas for New Label.”
She pressed her purple pen to the end of a growing list. She had one more word and letter to consider.
T.

For
Triumph.