Catwalk (15 page)

“We have fizzies, too—ginger ale?” I squeak as he exits hastily down the hall. “
See ya
, Mr. Darius!” I say, shutting the door.

“Bravo!” yelps Angora, clapping loudly. “That’s what I call effective Catwalk leadership skills!”

Caterina grins at me, while Angora decides to turn the table, asking, “Who decides what footage you’re going to use?”

“The network has final cut,” Caterina reveals.

“Are you going to let the competing houses see each other’s footage to create more drama?” I ask.

“They’ll see it when it airs,” Caterina says firmly.

“Do you leak stuff to the media?” counters Angora.

“We do send them footage, or ‘items,’ in the hope that they’ll give us some coverage,” Caterina admits.

“What’s an item?” Felinez asks.

“Newsworthy tidbits, like the stuff we read in the gossip column in
Women’s Wear Daily
or ‘Page Six’ in the
New York Post
,” Angora explains proudly. She
is
the fashion journalism major among us.

“So, you mean there may be something printed about us in the newspaper?” I ask, getting excited.

“Could be. The news editors decide what they’ll print or air,” Caterina continues. “We’re gonna shoot a lot of footage—there’ll be plenty of opportunities for media coverage.” Then, in her clipped tone, Caterina commands: “Okay, how about some questions now?”

“Abso-fre—” I say, then stop myself mid-word.

“Pashmina, I sense there is tension between you and your sister, Chenille. Does she want to be in the House of Pashmina, too?”

I gagulate at Caterina’s candor and start mumbling. “No, maybe she doesn’t, but she understands that I’m an, um, aspiring modelpreneur,” I say, diverting the drama from my cranky sister. My mother will skin me like a rabbit in a Maxmilian fur trap if I dis Chenille on camera.

Luckily, Angora steps up to the fashion plate. “Not everybody is on board with our agenda. They just think we have it easy. But they don’t realize, if a model doesn’t plan her career carefully, she’ll have nothing more than some pretty pictures and a pocketful of poses when it’s all over, and there’s no greater fashion tragedy than a marked-down model.”

Caterina instructs the camera to go to Zeus for input. “Um, my family isn’t totally cool with what I’m down with. I mean, if that’s what you want to know,” he reveals. The camera keeps rolling, so does Zeus. “I
think they’d rather I do something else. But I see modeling as a way to help my family. I mean, my dad works hard. He’s a custom tailor and has his own shop, but he could have been a designer, I mean he’s got the skills.”

“Were you deejaying in the Fashion Café yesterday when everyone was voguing?” Caterina continues.

Now my clunky clogs come in handy—because I kick Zeus on his left Adidas under the dining room table. After a few seconds of silence, Caterina realizes that we aren’t going to break from twenty years of covert tradition, not even for our five minutes of fashion footage, so she continues probing with supa-catty questions.

“Who’s the bigger threat—Shalimar or Ninja, Jr.?”

“They are not our enemies—merely the competition,” I respond calmly. The four of us do the Catwalk handshake on that one.

“What is that you’re doing?” Caterina asks.

“That’s our Kats and Kitties handshake,” I explain proudly. “You know, crossing paws.”

After fifteen more minutes of sound bites, we take a snack break, then get back to our meeting. By the end, we’ve compiled a list of all the candidates we need to assemble for team members and we complete the copy for the flyer I’m putting up on the Fashion Board.

“Ayigght, I’m gonna hook up the cat graphics and the type tonight on my computer, and I’ll have the poster ready in the morning. Cool?” Zeus asks, beaming at us.

“Abso-freakin’-lutely!” I say emphatically.

After the Teen Style Network crew leaves, we start squealing. “You were fierce!” declares Aphro.

“Really? I felt like a Bazozo,” I say jokingly, referring to our Catwalk code for dunce.

“Miss Biggie Grande, you’re gonna have to stop with the hoochie shout-outs, or we’re gonna end up in the haters’ corner,” warns Felinez.

“For true,” I second, issuing a gentle warning before dolloping praise on Fifi: “You were on
punto
, too,” I say, giving her a much-needed hug. I think all that model talk sometimes does bother her now that Aphro and Angora are in the mix.

“Caterina is
très
inquisitive,” notes Angora, who is helping me clean before my mom gets home from work, which will be
pronto
.

“Mos def,” I concur. “I bet she even knows where all the squirrels in Central Park bury their acorns.”

“Well, you definitely put your landlord on blast, that’s for sure,” Aphro teases.

Zeus looks at us, puzzled. After we brief him on Operation: Kitty Litter, he gets his heckle on heartily. “Well, I definitely think you got his attention. I don’t
know if that ceiling is gonna get fixed, though,” he says, trying to suppress his laughter.

We all laugh so hard that my disappointment about Ice Très’s disappearing act melts away. Who cares, cuz I definitely earned my zebra stripes today by snagging Zeus for the House of Pashmina—even if I don’t get to keep him all to myself.

“I still can’t believe Ice Très stood me up,” I bemoan to Felinez, slamming my locker shut. “Wait till I see him, I’m gonna be so shady—”

“I know: it’s total eclipse time,” Felinez interjects, because she understands my dark side too well.

What I don’t understand is why I can’t stop
obsessing
about the Fashion Thug—that is, I can’t stop until Zeus strolls up with the fabbie flyer we’ll post on the fashion board. He opens his black vinyl messenger bag and holds up his handiwork like it’s a delicate soufflé. “Think potential Kats and Kitties will dig that?”

“You put the ‘fly’ in flyer!” I squeal, marveling at our tagline:
ONLY CAT LOVERS NEED APPLY
.

“Check the groovy graphics on the borders.
Hello!
” adds Aphro.

Angora takes notes on the curlicues. “
J’adore
this typeface. Is it from Font Book?”

“Nah, I designed this jammy myself. We can use it for all our graphics needs—the programs for the fashion show, our little hype handouts, everything,” explains Zeus.

“
Major
purr points,” Angora concurs.

“Okay, let’s tack and roll,” I order, grabbing the flyer and Felinez’s arm. Aphro is chaperoning Angora to the ladies’ room.

“Non-Catwalk business,” I inform Zeus with a wink while we stand there whispering among our fabbie three selves.

Zeus smiles knowingly: “I got two sisters. I got you,” then jets to his locker in the next row.

“Oy, now I’m getting like Ice Très,” I comment to Felinez as we walk to the fashion board. “Winking and blinking.”

“What happened?” Felinez asks in an agitated tone.

“What’s bothering you, Blue Boca?” I ask, taking the spotlight off myself.

Felinez’s apple-size cheeks turn bright red as she explains what happened on the way to school this morning. “Outside the bodega, this fat guy with his stomach hanging out of his T-shirt yells at me, ‘
Hola
, fat ass!’ So I turn and blast, ‘Who you calling fat?’ He laughs like a stuffed
puerco
. ‘I said,
flat
. FAT asses I like,
mami
!’ ”

“What a jerkaroni,” I snarl, comforting Felinez, at least until I see Ice Très helping Shalimar put up
her
flyer. Now I’m the one who needs to be comforted. My mouth open like a guppy’s, I read the overly hyped header on Shalimar’s poster in disbelief:
CALLING ALL FASHION THUGS. HOLLA
. Suddenly, that’s exactly what
I’d like to do: scream and make some noise. “So now she’s into ghetto couture?” I hiss under my breath, grimacing at the musical-chair turn of events. Ice Très has obviously become her graffiti guru. Fifi pries the pink tacks out of my hand to prevent me from sticking them into Ice Très’s pointy head instead of on the corners of our prized poster. The guilty one grins in my direction, instinctively realizing that he’s just escaped the wrath of a killer kitty. Meanwhile, I pretend I can’t see the brightness of his rabbit teeth bouncing off the fluorescent lights.

Felinez nudges me back to business. She points to Chandelier’s poster—the most blinged-out on the board. “She must have gotten here at six a.m. with the other fashion vampires,” I comment as we walk away. “Well, at least we beat Anna Rex and Willi Ninja, Jr.”

Against my will, I turn to stare at Ice Très. Shalimar winces at me and points to the meowch pouch strung around my neck on a piece of pink rawhide. “What you got in there—voodoo mojo? Don’t think it’s working!” she giggles. I ignore her and try to meet Ice Très’s gaze so I can level my signature shady glare, but now
he’s
pretending he doesn’t notice, his head shrinking into his Rocawear hoodie.

“I can’t believe I’ve been
hoodwinked.
” I wince, walking away to lick my wounds in private.

Now Anna Rex and Elisa Pound whiz by us, their
poster in hand. “Sorry I’m late,” Anna moans to her black-clad disciple. “I had to beg my mother to give me money for Alli.”

“I wish I could go get Alli, too,” Felinez laments.

“Who’s Alli?” I ask her, secretly wondering if she’s losing it. That’s when I discover the only thing she’s trying to lose is weight, as usual. “Alli” is the half-dose of the prescription drug Xenical—a fat-blocker pill—with disgusting side effects I can’t repeat.

“This one
is
approved by the FDA, though!” Felinez blurts out. “But I wish it didn’t cost fifty dollars a bottle.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not the only price you pay. Do you really want to become known as Senorita Poops-a-Lot?” I ask. “I hope when we win the competition, you have better things to do with your prize money.”

“Well, I hope people show up for our interviews later!” Felinez counters sarcastically.

About that, Fifi is right. “And I hope we don’t get any
LOSERS
,” I add nervously, twirling a loose strand of hair at my temple at full throttle. “Even if they have been approved by the FDA!”

At four o’clock sharp, Aphro, Felinez, Angora, and I are the only ones sitting at our appointed table in Studio C. Tapping my meowch pouch against my chest, I
order everyone to fill out their membership forms. Then I cup my head in my frozen hands. “If nobody shows up, I’m gonna have a meltdown like five-day-old mac and cheese.”

“Well, at least Zeus is down for the twirl. He’ll be here,” Aphro says, jabbing my elbow. “My lips are chapped. Gimme your lipstick.”

Aphro swipes the Baked Brownie Swirl Stick from my hand and pops open the tube. “This ain’t frosted, is it?”

“Of course not,” I reply.

“Good, cuz I was about to get frosty with you,” she hmmphs.

I know that Aphro hates bling-bling on her
boca
because she thinks it makes her lips look too plumpalicious, even though I wish I had a smoocher like hers.

“Speaking of frosty,
chérie
, I’m going to risk my life telling you about a certain blog entry,” Angora starts in, intently filling out her form. “Ice Très is waxing his Magic Markers about joining a certain house—”