“Tila Tequila,”
Vivien ruffled in retort, “and I are
very
close friends. We go back to Ho Bag’s Beverly Center Grand Opening. Of
course
she deserves an invitation!”
“Daddy,” Melissa trembled in a valiant attempt to repress her mounting rage. Even the
words
“Ho Bag” pummeled her patience like a one-two punch. “Don’t you see what’s happening? The only reason she doesn’t want me
to hold the celebriteaser at the Pink Party is because she doesn’t want
Poseur
to take attention away from
Ho Bag
.”
“Is that true?” Seedy faced his fiancée with concern.
“Of course not!” Vivien gasped, pressing her hand to her heart. “How can you even
ask
me that?”
“Vee,” he apologized, reaching for her gold-bangled arm. “You know, I…”
“Listen.” She turned to address Melissa directly, her violet eyes growing glassy. “You are the daughter of the love of my
life
. And I am
proud
of your accomplishments. All I’m asking is for one night. For you, me,
and
your dad to put career stuff
aside
and take the
time
to honor what’s important.”
Melissa frowned at the floor, tracing the outline of a polished slate tile with the metallic toe of her shoe. The sincerity
in Vivien’s tone had her totally buggin’. It couldn’t be Vivien’s feelings were actually
hurt
, could it?
It couldn’t be Vivien had actual
feelings
?
“This is a celebration of our
love
,” Seedy’s fiancée continued, hand still on her heart. “And—I know you don’t believe me, but—you are
so
part of that love, Melissa. Don’t you
know
that?”
Melissa set her jaw and refused to look up, tracing and retracing the slate tile with her toe. She knew what she must look
like. Like a spoiled brat. But she
wasn’t
.
Was she?
“Well,” Seedy breathed, patting his emotional fiancée on her silk-draped back. “Friends-and-family-only sure as heck gets
my
vote.”
“But…” His daughter looked up and gaped.
“No celebriteasers,” he reprimanded sternly. “That’s final.”
In the great haystack of unfairness, her father’s I’m-so-disappointed-in-you tone was the last and final straw. Melissa exploded
into tears, jerked her stool back, and bolted from the room. “Fine!” she cried from down the spacious hall, slamming the heavy
oak door. A framed photograph of her father and Snoop Dogg at the Grammys quaked on the wall and crashed loudly to the floor,
fracturing in three places. Melissa crouched to her knees, tearfully picking up the pieces.
I really am a spoiled brat,
she realized.
A bad seed. The reason things suck
. In the words of Alec Baldwin:
a thoughtless little pig.
In comparison to me,
she grew nauseous with shame,
Vivien’s probably a saint.
The Guy: Evan Beverwil
The Getup: Tokyo tan Quiksilver Oxford Weekend pants, black My Morning Jacket Evil Urges Owl tee, black Havaiana flip-flops,
tattoo: to be determined
The summer before freshman year his mom called him into the kitchen where she was sitting at the table with her interior designer
(the
supremely
doable Heidi Meister) and was, like, “Evan, we’re redecorating your room.” At first he was all,
I like my room the way it is,
but then Heidi smiled, reached across the table—she was wearing this super tight white V-neck so he could see the outline
of her bra—and said, “Evan, sweetheart. I one-hundred-percent
promise
to work
only
within the bounds of your personal ass static.”
He must have misheard though, ’cause his mom just sat there calmly tying her hair into a bun, which he pretty much figured
she would
not
be doing if Heidi had just said what he’d
thought
she’d said. Still, it was pretty deadly: Heidi’s t-shirt + Heidi’s killer Southern accent + the whole
idea
of “ass static” = sending his system into total overdrive.
“Do whatever you want,”
he’d practically shouted, and got the hell out of there.
Well, for a solid three years he’d regretted that decision, and never more deeply than right now. Charlotte had just come
home from that business meeting thing of hers, and judging by the high-pitched frequency of girl noise downstairs, she wasn’t
alone. Under normal circumstances, he’d grimace in pain, retreating into his room to blast some Tom Petty—purify his ears.
This
time, however, he turned the music down, cracked his door open, and cautiously leaned into the hall.
“What about when he was like, oh, yeah,
Madonna
!” A girl’s voice gaspingly squeaked, trying to get the words out. “That
bustier
… was so…
mine
!”
She and his sister dissolved into laughter, and Evan swiftly closed his bedroom door, leaning against it. There was no mistaking
that voice.
Janie Farrish was in his house.
Not to say she’d never been inside his house before. There was that one time when school just started and Charlotte was like,
“Distract her,” for whatever reason. Of course, he’d only been too happy to oblige, tromping downstairs in his bare feet,
big grin on his face, all ready to get his game on, or whatever.
What a douche,
he cringed at the memory. Talking to cute girls might be his forte, but “beating fortes into fairy dust”—that was Janie’s.
Because she was more than just
cute
, you know? She was smart, and cool, and funny, and… man.
She
was
pretty effin’ cute.
But she barely even
looked
at him, let alone talked to him. Not to say there hadn’t been
hints
of progress. Like, that one night at the La Brea Tar Pits when she was all, “In second grade the tour guide told me the elephant
statue was real,” and he was all, “I had nightmares about that elephant,” and she was all, “Me too!” and they laughed. That
was cool. Or the time she spilled her drawings and he helped pick them up and she thanked him with those moody gray ocean
eyes of hers.
Man.
That was awesome. But they were always just
moments
, you know? And then she’d get this look on her face—like his buddy Theo when he ate something and was all, “Dude, are there
peanuts
in this?!” and fisted his tongue with a napkin because he was allergic. Yeah. That was her expression. She’d be, like,
Bye
, and hightail it out of there, wherever “there” happened to be, which was to say, wherever
he
happened to be, which was to say, wherever she didn’t want to be.
It wasn’t his style to get into details, but for the sake of argument: how epically shiteous was their
last
interaction? For some tard-
tastic
reason, he actually thought she’d be
down
to design his tattoo—and maybe they’d get to know each other. But no. As usual, she’d been all
blah
about it. Like the way she kept drifting in and out of conversation, checking herself out in his car window. It was like,
come
on.
He’d been
this close
to grabbing her by the shoulders, like, “Listen. You are as drop-dead gorgeous now as you were two seconds ago. Could you
please
just
focus
before I lose my shit?”
The thing was—and he guessed this was pretty messed up,
but
—the whole “getting rejected” thing? It was kind of
addicting
. For as long as he could remember, girls had been pretty, you know… available. The phrase “shooting fish in a barrel” came
to mind, but no—even that involved a
little
effort. All he had to do was, like,
walk up
to the barrel.
Maybe
look inside. After that, the fish kind of just died. Like, of their own free will. And these were
quality
fish too. Like
models
, and shit.
So why did Janie hate him so hard? Another eruption of girl noise, followed by a percussive round of encroaching footsteps,
cued him to back step into his room and swiftly close the door. A few seconds later, the footsteps floated past his door,
headed down the hall. His sister’s bedroom door creaked open, and Janie said, “You really think so?” Then the door swung back,
clicked shut, and it was quiet. He sighed.
Why did the hate make her so hot?
But no, he would
not
talk to her. The time had come to end this humiliation parade. He scanned his room for some kind of diversion: the half-finished
take-home Algebra II quiz on his desk, the MacBook on the shelf
above
his desk, the
Pineapple Express
DVD on the floor
by
his desk. Wait. Combine those last two things with a certain something
inside
his desk?
He had a pretty decent excuse for the next two hours.
Crouching to his weathered boardwalk-style hardwood floor, he shimmied his bottom desk drawer open, pushed aside a rumpled
black sweatshirt, and curved his fingers around a familiar, cool column of glass.
To choosing your addictions,
he thought, and raised the bong into the air.
The Girl (sort of): Don John
The Getup: White Dolce & Gabbana Magic-Fit pants, Dirty English by Juicy Couture black-and-white argyle sweater vest, Penguin
Secret Utopia Mopia shirt, white Converse by John Varvatos, black Gucci messenger bag, and organic pearl quinoa, “Soul Food
of the Andes,” by Alter Eco
“That’s
it
!” Charlotte’s pot-bellied but perky neighbor, fashion adviser, and self-described “kindred spirit” burst into her spacious
bedroom. An ornate scarlet Chinese fan fluttered under his baby-smooth, foundation-slathered chin, the only splash of color
in an otherwise black-and-white ensemble: white pants, gray-and-white abstract-print shirt, a black-and-white cashmere argyle
vest, pearl white knotted silk neck scarf, and the
pièce de résistance
, a white Juicy Couture glimmer wool newsboy cap. “I am in a category five tizzy,” he panted. “This tizzy can
not
be tamed.”
“Pourquoi?”
Charlotte looked up from the Ted Pelligan Christmas catalog she and Janie had been perusing on her sun-dappled four-poster
mahogany bed, and Janie watched on, mystified. Was it normal for bug-eyed, unabashedly bronzered boys to burst at random into
her bedroom? “What
happened
?” Charlotte twinkled merrily, widening her thickly lashed chlorine eyes.
With a jerk of his wrist, the butterfly-bright fan clapped together.
“
Morticia
happened
,
” he breathed, referring, of course, to Mort, the ancient wheelchair-bound retired Hollywood producer to whom, in exchange
for luxury guesthouse living and twenty-four-hour pool access, he’d sold his tender bohemian soul. As a small act of rebellion,
Don John referred to his master only by nickname—assigning one to each of his myriad moods: Mort-hog for his emotional-eating
days, Morgie-Porgie for his crybaby days, Mortata for his sassy days, Auntie M for his gassy days, Moriah for his diva days,
and, lastly,
Morticia
… for his out-to-obliterate-what-remaining-shreds-of-sanity-Don-John-has-left days.
“Oh no…” Charlotte observed her flustered friend from under a delicate, knitted brow. “Is he making you
work
for a living?”
Don John slid his black aviator sunglasses to the tip of his nose and squinted.
“Dawn,”
he barked in what Janie guessed was a notso-good imitation of Mort’s Long Island accent. “Where the
hell
is my remote?! Wait-ta-minute. Is the
heat
on? How many times do I have to tell you, NO HEAT. I need some of that tea, what-tis-it, you know what I mean—the
digestion
kind! Wait-ta-minute… I can’t feel the left side of my face. Dawn? Dawn! DAWN!!!” The nineteen-year-old aspiring actor collapsed
into Charlotte’s pale green velvet chaise longue and flailed a doughy yet tan arm behind him. “Gaahahahah!” He quietly affected
a sob. “I thought he’d never
stop
!”
As Charlotte slid off the frothy yellow and mint meringue four-poster bed, Janie tucked her foot under her butt and smiled.
If Charlotte or Don John happened to glance her way, she’d want to look relaxed, amused, and, well,
included
—which is to say, the opposite of how she felt (which is to say, ignored).
“Poor Don John.” Charlotte oozed, gazing into the oval gilded mirror above her flickering fireplace. She curved her delicate
arms into a lazy arabesque, teasing a lacquered black pin from her all-business bun. “You’re here now,” she reminded him,
ringingly dropping the pin into the shallow rectangular porcelain dish on the marble mantel. “Can’t you put it behind you?”
“There is only
so much
I can put behind me.” He sassed a finger to his starched lapel. “I’m not Kim Kardashian.”
From her bed-corner perch, Janie snorted a laugh.
“Don John,” Charlotte continued to pout into the large mirror, loosening her dark, shining tresses under her hand. As they
tumbled freely down her perfectly vertical back, Janie blushed. The only thing worse than being ignored, she decided, is
laughing
and being ignored. “Aren’t you going to ask about my
meeting
?”
“Duh, I was just gonna!” clucked the young fop. He planted his elbows on his crossed knees, clasped his manicured hands under
his chin, and tilted toward her, rapt with interest. “Okay,” he ventured. “On a scale of Gap to Gucci—how did it go?”
With a dainty
demi-détourné
, Charlotte disengaged from the mirror and presented her beaming face. “Givenchy!”
“Not
Givenchy
!” He gasped to his feet, plunged a hand into his black Gucci canvas messenger bag, and tossed a fistful of gleaming pale
pellets into the air. “You
broke the scale
, you
greedy sow
!”
“Ow!”
Charlotte winced as the bone-colored granules hailed down around her head, bounced on her shoulders, and caught in the strands
of her hair. “Tell me you did
not
just throw rice at my face.”