Working It (22 page)

I have tears in my eyes, but I can’t suppress my smile. I’ve missed my best friend’s outrageous imagination and unfiltered slang-peppered conversation.

“You were only in the pokey for three hours, Vivian.”

She rubs her nose with her thumb and sniffs gangster style. “Just enough to earn some serious street cred.”

The idea that my pink-wearing, exercise-hating, rock music-listening best friend could ever have serious street cred is laughable. Hold your sides, wet your panties laughable.

“As you can see”—I gesture at Calder’s jeep turning on to Halibut Point Road—“I did not stab the cocky cowboy.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, pressing her hand to her forehead and staring down the road. “You might not have lodged your Louboutin heel in his heart, but I think your words did just as much damage.”

“Pfft.” I wave my hand in the air. “You’re so dramatic.”

“Don’t pfft me, Stéphanie Elise! I live in France now. I know what you French mean when you pfft.”

“Fine,” I say. “I apologize for the pfft, but I won’t apologize for calling you dramatic.”

“Ooo,” she says, holding up her hands and wiggling her fingers. “Hurt me.”

We laugh again.

“Seriously, Vivian,” I say. “What you saw—it’s no big deal. It was just a kiss. There’s nothing real there.”

“I don’t know. It looked pretty real to me. In fact, Hottie McScottie looked really hurt.”

I can’t even process the guilt I feel over hurting Calder, so I switch subjects. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you I was having dinner with Calder.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She wraps her arm around my shoulders and squeezes me to her side, before letting me go and stepping away. “I thought we told each other everything?
Pas de secrets
.”

I am silent for a long time, and surprisingly so is Vivian. She is never silent for long, which tells me her question is serious—or for reals, as she would say—and she expects a serious answer.

“I didn’t tell you because I violated the girl code.”

“Girl code?” She rubs her hands together and stomps her feet. “You mean the one that says, ‘don’t poach your friend’s hairdresser or manicurist?’”

“No,” I whisper. “The one that says don’t date someone your friend once dated or—”

“I never dated Calder!”

“—or anyone they were into,” I say.

“But I wasn’t into Calder…like ever.”

“Yes, you were.”

“No, I wasn’t!”

I hold up my thumb and forefinger, leaving a tiny space between them. “
Un peu
?”

“
Non
! Not even
un peu
,” she says, mimicking me with her fingers. “Sure, he’s cute, and it was flattering to get male attention when I was in the throes of break-up agony, but nothing was ever going to come of it. Ever.”

“Why not?”

Vivian crosses her arms over her chest and purses her lips. It is the petulant, you-won’t-budge-me Vivian pose I have seen so many times before—like the time I tried to convince her to go on a juice diet with me, or when her mother begged her to work it out with her douchebag ex-fiancé.

“I won’t answer that until you answer something for me.”

“Okay, what?”

“Are you in love with Calder MacFarlane?”

“
T’es folle
!”

“You’re crazy if you think I didn’t see the look on your face when he walked off without saying goodbye.”

“I can’t be in love with Calder.”

“Why not?”

“I hardly know him.”

“I hardly knew Jean-Luc when we had crazy-hot monkey sex in Cannes, but that didn’t stop me from falling in love with him.”

“Who says we had sex?”

“Puh-leez.” She snorts. “He picks you up for dinner and brings you home the next morning with stubble burn on your jaw and a rat’s nest in your hair.”

I comb my fingers through my hair.

“Are you mad at me?

“What?” She frowns. “Of course I am not mad at you. I am glad you and Calder are hooking up.”

“You are?”

She nods. “Ever since you told me about your
un
peu l’engougement
I secretly hoped you two would hook up.”

“What
un peu l’engougement
? What are you talking about?”

“Remember when we were in Scotland and we went to that pub and ran into Calder and his mates?”

“I remember.”

“Do you remember returning to the cottage chatty drunk?”

“I was not chatty drunk. I am never chatty.”

“Ha!” Vivian laughs. “You kept hugging me and telling me all of the things you loved.”

“What? I did not!”

“Vivian,
ma cher Vivi
,” she says, affecting a horrendous French accent and slurring her words. “I love you sho much. I love you and my Louboutins. I love wine for breakfast and the Luxembourg Gardens at twilight. I love Shcotland and the sheep.”

“Now I know you are lying. I did not say I loved the sheep.”

“I love you, Vivian,” she continues. “And I think I am a little in love with that stupid grinning, winking sheep cowboy.”

I am about to protest, but the words colliding in my head become a twisted, tangled mess. I stand there with my mouth hanging open. Did I really say I was in love with Calder a year ago? How is that even possible?

“Stop trying to talk yourself out of it, Fanny.” Vivian wraps her arm around my shoulder again. “If I hadn’t been head over heels, sappy rom-com, can’t-think-of-anything-else in love with Jean-Luc, I would have hit that.”

“Vivian!”

“Sorry, but he rides a horse like a rodeo champion, shears sheep the old-fashioned way, pilots freaking helicopters, and rescues people for a living. Who wouldn’t hit that?”

“Shut up!”

“What?” She laughs like a cheesy sixties movie villain. “Is the pricey heel on the other foot, Frenchie? Remember how you teased me about Jean-Luc? You were merciless.”

“And now payback is a
salope
?”

“Damn skippy!”

She opens the door to the cabin, and I follow her inside. I consider apologizing for teasing her about her budding feelings for Jean-Luc—if only to stop her from singing the song I sang to her back then—but resistance is futile. Vivian is an unstoppable force.

We go to my bedroom, flop on my bed, and she grins at me.

“Go ahead, Vivian. Get it out of your system.”

“Fanny and Calder sitting in a tree. K-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes—”

Mommy Issues

Text to Calder MacFarlane:

I am sorry.

Text from Calder MacFarlane:

Does that mean you still like me?

Text to Calder MacFarlane:

Yes.

Text from Calder MacFarlane:

Enough to let me take you ice fishing tomorrow?

Vivian didn’t exaggerate when she said she traveled to Sitka to help me pick up the pieces of my pathetic life. In only three days, she has managed to bring Hector out of his shy shell, convinced Laney to sing at Ernie D’s open mic night, brokered a deal on my behalf to work with Netty to design an exclusive line of sweaters for Make Knit Work, and located my stolen luggage by telling the Anchorage Police Department she was researching a story on the crime wave against tourists.

She’s even unraveled the complex, angry ball of yarn that is Nolee Alooni.

“Did you know Nolee’s mother took off when she was just a baby?”

“No.”

“Yep,” Vivia says, popping a moose ball into her mouth. “Her father is an alcoholic, and her mother is totally MIA. Might explain her rough edges, huh?”

“I guess.”

“Did you know she has had a job at Make Knit Work since she was old enough to see above the counter?”

“No.” I close my eyes and rub my temples. I feel a Vivian-induced headache coming on. She is going to probe and prod me to ponder deeper meanings and feelings. “How did you find all of this out?”

She drops her chin and looks at me through her eyelashes. “How did I find all this out? I’m a reporter, Fanny.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

“Did you know Nolee was set to attend Parsons, but someone stole the money she saved to buy the ticket to New York?” Vivian pops another ball into her mouth. “Some people think her father took it.”

I sigh.

Vivian narrows her gaze.

“What, Vivian? What are you getting at?”

“Well, your mother left you when you were a baby.”

“My mother died, Vivian. It’s not the same.”

“Same exit wounds, though.”

“So what is your point?”

“My point?” She pushes the candy bag away and rests her forearms on the kitchen table. “My point is that every person who comes into our lives enters for a specific and divine purpose.”

For the love of Papa Allight. Not divine purpose talk.

“I doubt my Higher Power—if I even have one—sent a bitter, snotty feminist Inuit into my life for any reason except to torment me.”

“Or maybe He sent Nolee to you to force you to delve into your shuttered psyche and bring your mother issues into the light.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means, the loss of a parent—whether through death or cruel and conscious abandonment—leaves deep and permanent scars on a child’s psyche.”

“Drama.”

“I am not being dramatic.” She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “Fanny, you know I love you, but you have serious intimacy issues.”

I pull my hand away. “No, I don’t.”

“Is it difficult to walk in heels along the river Denial?”

“Ha-ha.”

“I am serious.” Her smile fades. “Your mother’s death affected you profoundly. If you can’t admit, you can’t commit.”

I roll my eyes. “Thank you, Johnny Cochran.”

Vivian sits back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. She is silent for several long beats, but she never breaks eye-contact. I think she is wrestling with herself over what to say, how far to push me.

“Have you ever considered that the roots of your blind devotion to all things Dior were planted by your mother?”

“What?” I shake my head and scoff. “What are you even talking about, Vivian?”

“That brooch your father gave you on your fifth birthday?”

“What about it?”

“It belonged to your mother, didn’t it?”

“So?”

“Okay, Appaloosa, I’ve led you to the water, but I can’t force you to drink.”

The conversation ends there, but I play it over and over in my mind, throughout my class, during dinner, and now, as I am lying in bed beside Vivian.

I finally, grudgingly come to the realization that my frequently dramatic, always intelligent best friend is right: I have mother issues.

My desire to please my dead mother—even if it was only her unseen spirit—propelled me into a career in fashion. Her love of couture, especially Dior, is one of the few details my father ever shared with me about her.

My grandmother rarely spoke of her either. I asked her once why she never spoke of my mother. Her gray eyes grew misty, and she stared at a place far in the distance, perhaps a place where she was still the young, gay mother of a beautiful, vibrant daughter.

“It was easier to bury her body than it is to resurrect her memory,
mon enfant
. How can I speak of her when just saying her name inflicts lacerations on my heart?”

Then, she patted my cheek, took me to Angelina for
chocolat chaud
, and to La Samaritaine for a new dress.

Two years later, when my grandmother collapsed on Dior’s runway during Paris Fashion Week, I took it as a sign. People will abandon you, but fashion is forever.

I pursued a career at Dior with a determination that bordered on obsession because I believed working there would somehow keep me connected to my mother and grandmother.

What if I finally got hired at Dior and didn’t like working there? What if I don’t even want to work in high fashion?

The thought makes my breath freeze in my chest.

You know how we do that word association thing when we look at ourselves in the mirror? Brown hair. Brown eyes. Nice smile. Likes chocolate. Hates pepperoni. Dreams of being a world famous designer. I am afraid the next time I look at myself in the mirror my mind will go blank. I will stare at person in the mirror and see only a strange shell person.

What if Vivian’s Dead Mother-Dior Theory is more than a theory? What if, deep down, I don’t even like fashion?

Embracing My Inner Bush Woman

I have just finished my shower and am slathering tinted moisturizer on my face in preparation for a day of fishing with Hottie McScottie, when I have an epiphany. The only way to prove or disprove a theory is through rigorous testing. Before I can repudiate Vivian’s Dead Mother-Dior Theory, I will have to embark on a scientific exploration of my psyche.

I have been operating under the premise that fashion is my god and Dior is my temple. Like any religious fanatic, I have been moving through life as if on automatic pilot. Fashion is good. With couture, all things are possible. Praise be to Dior. I have been showing up for the services, my prayer book of Vogue tucked neatly under my arm, listening to the rhetoric, but not really hearing, not analyzing what the word meant to me.

I have never considered the alternative. What if fashion doesn’t exist? What if couture isn’t the only answer? What if Dior is merely a building, a place for the lost and searching to gather so they might feel less alone?

I stop rubbing the moisturizer into my cheeks and stare at my fuzzy reflection in the steamy mirror.

A bold, brave, and frightening idea is taking shape in my brain. What if I go on a fashion fast? What if I purge myself of all things fabulous, all things refined, for a specific period of time? Maybe I will be cleansed of my dependency on worldly goods. Maybe I will gain clarity and wisdom and a greater sense of purpose.

Having a plan, even if it is a nebulous plan, makes me feel empowered. I will not allow myself to wander aimlessly through the world with no purpose, no clarity, no depth. Maybe I will discover my passion for fashion is as phony as the Prado bag Vivian purchased from some random shady street vendor, but that doesn’t mean I have to spend the rest of my life in Passion Purgatory. If I discover fashion is no longer my passion, I will find a new one.