Catwalk (45 page)

Clutching my coat and bag, I run to the bathroom, then decide it’s safer to sidle up to the counter next to Felinez and Elgamela, who are “oblivious” to the smoke wafting in our faces from the spit-fire grill. “I guess I can bypass my weekly Biore-strip ritual tonight,” I snicker, patting my nose.

“You don’t have any blackheads—except in your imagination,” groans Felinez. “I get them for real—even on my
culo grande
!”

“Puhleez, don’t call your butt big,” I scold her.

“My butt is big—but I don’t have the market cornered on blocked sebaceous glands, cuz according to Aphro, ‘black girls and blackheads go together’!” Felinez giggles.

Her channeling of Aphro’s angst reminds me that I have to find out why Aphro was MIA from the fitting today. It also prompts Elgamela to inquire about the whereabouts of the missing member of our “Bling Quartet,” as we’ve been aptly named by the haterade committee at F.I. “Why didn’t Aphro come to the fitting?”

Fifi rolls her eyes and snitches like a C.F.I. (confidential fashion informant). “At least she got invited. I had to invent a family tragedy to be granted VIP access!”

“Fifi, stop fibbing,” I snipe back. “You don’t have to invent family tragedies—in your case they
really
exist!”

Now I smile sweetly at Elgamela while I formulate my PC response to her probe, since I don’t know why Aphro didn’t show up—even though I suspect it’s all part of her escalating espionage. “Um, it was only the first fitting. I think Aphro had to work today and I just forgot,” I say, embellishing with relish.

“She did?” Felinez asks, puzzled. “I didn’t know the store was open already.”

I wince and don’t say anything.

“Call her and tell her to meet us at Angora’s, because we need her,” suggests Elgamela, sounding spookily clairvoyant while sweeping her long wild hair out of her face. “I don’t know why Aphrodite should join us. Let’s just call it intuition from the goddess Bast.”

“Oooh, citing sources for inspiration, I dig that,” I say, impressed. Elgamela goes on to explicate about the famous feline goddess revered by ancient Egyptians and often depicted as a woman with the head of a domestic cat.

“She sounds like a feline fatale
maximus
,” I decree.

“A lot of Egyptians name their daughters after cats,” Elgamela explains, proudly. “My father wanted to name me Muit, which means ‘cat’ in Egyptian, but my mother’s choice won out.”

“They always do,” I utter, involuntarily, but refrain from revealing that my name is probably my mother’s choice, too, since I don’t even know who my father is.

“So what does Elgamela mean?” asks Felinez.

Elgamela blushes. After hesitating, she shares: “It’s Egyptian for ‘the beautiful.’ ”

“Fitting,” I decide, swayed by Elgamela’s eerie energy. I dial Aphro’s number, hoping she won’t answer, but she does, and much to my surprise, Aphro’s flipping her own switch. Not only is she all ears—instead of mouth—about my Ice Très disappointment, she is brimming with more good news for herself. “Laretha wants to hire me for the photo shoot for her Web site!”

“Are you serious?” I gasp. The Aphro I used to know would have called me on the shoe phone,
pronto
, if she had news this hot off the griddle.

“That’s right—three hundred dollars for a day’s shoot!” Aphro screams into the phone.

“So, is that where you were today?” I inquire, gently, trying to squelch my Gucci Envy.

“Where?” she asks, sounding puzzled.

“At Jones Uptown. Where else?” I ask, testily.

“No, why would I be there?” she asks, defensively. “The store’s not open yet.”

“Then why didn’t you come to the fitting?”

“I had something to take care of,” she says, without offering any explanation.

“You should have told me you weren’t coming,” I say in a crispy tone.

“I didn’t know I wasn’t going to be able to make it till it was too late—so it didn’t matter if I called or not,” Aphro sighs, unapologetically.

I can feel my throat tighten around the indisputable fact: Aphro is acting shady. “Well, can you come to Angora’s?” I sputter, trying to regroup.

“I’m there,” she shoots, without buttering me up on crispy toast like she prefers.

“You sure?” I counter. I don’t trust her but pretend I’m catering to her incognito affairs. “I dread dragging you from the B.K.L.Y.N. into Manny Hanny for
nada.
”

“Get off the phone. In another five minutes, I’ll be just another black girl on the IRT—heading your way!” she claims, signing off.

I stare into the phone receiver. “I don’t know what’s going on with Aphro, but I think it’s time to stop pretending. I’m calling a bronze alert.” Felinez knows what I mean, but Elgamela doesn’t, so I explain. “We need to watch each other’s back from now on. I don’t know what’s going on—but the House of Pashmina is not falling like a deck of cards.”

“We got your back—and nobody can take away our designs. We’re gonna win, because we’re the best,” Felinez assures me.

“Yeah, but there’s a force trying to sabotage our
situation,” I mumble, tapping my finger nervously on the raised glass counter.

“Now you sound like Darth Vader,” Elgamela says, clearly getting spooked. And I can tell that the exotic one doesn’t spook easily.

“All I’m saying is, I’m sleeping with one eye open from now on,” I predict, pulling my hair. “Oh—Aphro got a modeling job for the Jones Uptown Web site.”

“Stop it,
mija
. We’re in a restaurant,” orders Felinez, rescuing my hand from my hair. “And now I get it—you’re just jealous because Aphro got
two
jobs.”

The portly chef offers Felinez a corn on the cob, which she accepts.

“No, I’m not.” I wince. But I shut up quickly, because I am.

Felinez shakes her head at me like we’re in kindergarten and I’m stealing her pink crayons out of her box again. “You gotta try this—take the cob and dip it in this mustard curry sauce.”

“No. I do
not
want to get kernels stuck in my teeth. It’s not a cute look, Fifi!” I exclaim, turning my head away from the incoming cob.

Mr. Sphinx, who has quietly slithered behind the counter, interrupts our cobnobbing with a polite salutation, followed by a subtle nod and a quiet smile. Elgamela introduces us, putting me on blast: “Father,
Pashmina is going to be a model, too—and she’s the leader of our house.”

“No, I’m the leader of the house,” quips Mr. Sphinx, but I know he’s not impressed. I can tell by the way he levels his dark eyes, weighed down by droopy lids, then gingerly pats his forehead with a white hankie. Elgamela and her father carry on in Egyptian. Meanwhile, Felinez has gone mum, thanks to the unwanted attention of the Haitian grill cook, who is intent on foisting another cob of corn on her, accompanied by a wink and a greasy drool.

“No,
graci-ass
,” says Felinez, adamantly, letting him know she is not Poca Hot Pants who can be wooed with a few kernels and a pair of moccasins.

“Take it,” I whisper.

“No way,
mija
,” she says under her breath. For a few seconds, the frisky cook’s hand and the cob are suspended in midair.

“Okay, so what do you want, then?” I ask, annoyed, because I want to sit down.

“Some anti-pest-o,” snarls Felinez.

“Right.” I nod, then decide to take the cob for her. “You’ll thank me later.”

Felinez simply pouts, following me into the seating area. “Why do all the men who like me have to be greasy and fat?”

“Now who’s being superficial?” I hiss back.

“Look who’s talking. The only reason you like Zeus is because he’s a
papi chulo
, even though he doesn’t like you. And the only reason you don’t like Chris is because he’s short, but he likes you!” she snipes.

“Ouch! Just whip out a seam ripper, why don’t you?” I wince. Plopping my tray, piled high with a quarter chicken and pita bread, on the table, I counter, “It’s not true!”

“Yes, it is! You don’t like Chris
Midgett
because he’s too short,” says Felinez.

“That is not the only reason. He wears goofy glasses and tacky khakis, okay? The last time I checked my arithmetic, two fashion wrongs do not make a right!”

“We’re over the Catwalk budget—so who says you can count?” hisses Fifi. Now I’m pissed. I am over budget—and she is the only one who knows it besides Angora, who secretly agreed to loan me the money until I get the next installment of the Catwalk budget. With her father’s finances on the fritz, I doubt that’s going to happen.

“Say it louder, so Ms. Lynx can hear you! One of these days, I really will sew your lips shut with my wicked baste stitch—but trust me, those stitches will never come out!” I warn Felinez. “Besides, now that Aphro is aggregating commerce from every corner, she can kick in for the overdraft.”

Felinez stares at me.

“I’m just riffing Retail 101, okay?” I squinch.

Now Elgamela enters the fray: “My father doesn’t want me in the fashion show. Period,” she says, tears in her eyes, sitting down at our table.

I flop down my pita bread in protest. Elgamela bows her head, but not to pray: she’s steaming—and this time the spit-fire grill is not the cause. “What happened?” I ask her, fearing that something got lost in translation with her father.

“I told him about the fitting,” she says, embarrassed, “and he was furious. He’s worried the clothes will be too skimpy for me to parade in front of people.”

“The Catwalk competition is
not
a parade—hello! And he can’t nix you from the mix just like that,” I warn.

“I can help you get another model,” Elgamela says, defeated.

“You can help me get disqualified as house leader, that’s what you mean,” I groan, swallowing hard to keep from regurgitating the dollop of dread that has been expanding in my stomach since Friday night. The Catwalk rules are Swarovski crystal clear: all deletions and additions in regards to team members must be reviewed by the Catwalk committee, which will render its decision. And that decision is final. No appeals, thank you. “It will be a wrap and a falafel.”

“I can’t disobey my father,” Elgamela whispers, her forehead twitching. Felinez stops eating, which means she is also distraught by Mr. Sphinx’s unfitting response to a Catwalk fitting.

Twenty minutes later, I still haven’t managed to convince Elgamela to call off her runaway from the runway, but we have to jet, because Angora is waiting. As we exit in defeat, Mr. Sphinx nods at us politely. Felinez makes sure not to meet the gaze of the grillmeister, whose eyes are glued to her every bounce. Even after we get outside, he stares through the steamy glass front, licking his lips like a hyena waiting for a lost lamb to wander within his predatory reach.

Once we’re in a taxi, I sigh deeply. “I don’t think your father digs us.”

“Please forgive him. He thinks modeling will lead me to the pole!” blurts out Elgamela.

“What, what?” I ask, imitating Aphro.

“A
stripper
,” Elgamela says, emphatically.

“You’re
joking
,” I punctuate in return, because the image of Elgamela twirling around a pole in a gentlemen’s strip club instead of strutting on a chic runway simply doesn’t click.

“I can’t even bring a Victoria’s Secret catalog into the house without his throwing a fit—and falafels!” admits Elgamela, sheepishly.

I ponder Elgamela’s plight, taking out my tube of
lip gloss to freshen my pout and my point of view. “So where do you get your fashion groove from? I mean, you always seem like you’re flaunting the fierceness—except for the bathing suit episode today, of course,” I spurt.

“I guess hanging out with you and Nole has taught me the first rule of fashion,” Elgamela starts: “act like you’re fierce even if you’re not feeling it.”

“I think you’re on to something,” I say. Watching her take out her tube of MAC Lipglass and press the opened applicator across her pouty bee-stung lips makes me realize that I am rubbing off on the exotic one. Brainstorming, I whip out my notebook so I can formulate another tenet for our Catwalk Credo. “The first rule of fashion: Act fierce even when you’re not feeling it.”

“That’s a good one,” Felinez says, approvingly.

“I’m beginning to realize that the second rule of being a good house leader is acting like a therapist,” I think out loud. “So, Miss Feline Fatale Maximus, can I ask you to declare a moratorium on your decision for now until we can all discuss it together in a group session?”

Elgamela nods, despite the troubled glaze over the glint in her dark eyes.

“I’m not off my therapist duties just yet,” I mutter, dialing my cell phone to check on Diamond Tyler. A
little while ago, she left a message when her call went straight to voice mail. “I just need to make sure she’s on schedule for a fitting next week.”

Judging from the sound of Diamond’s voice, I realize that the only thing she needs to be fitted for is a straitjacket.

“I haven’t had time to work on anything!” Diamond drones on, trumped by the sound of a television.

“Oh, really?” I say, surprised. “What’s that ruckus?”

Sounding flustered, Diamond hesitates, then comes clean: “I’m watching the animal news. See, Polo is the only gorilla in India who doesn’t have a mate, so the zookeepers are really worried about him. They’re making a global plea to help find him a mate.”

“What’s newsworthy about that? We’re all desperately looking for love!” I blurt out, exasperated.

Felinez smacks my hand. “Speak for yourself.”

“All right, Diamond—can we please put Polo’s problems aside for now so I can make my own desperate plea for a fitting, tomorrow?” I say, trying to tune in to Diamond’s channel.

“No, I can’t, I’m sorry,” Diamond says, quietly.

“Can you give me an ETA, then?”

“A what?” asks Diamond.

“An estimated time of arrival.”

“Oh. Um, I don’t know, Pashmina,” responds Diamond, not even attempting to tempt me.

“You don’t have any idea?” I ask again.

“No, but I have to get back to watching the news,” Diamond says, impatiently.

“Okay, whatever. Give my regards to Polo. And maybe you should introduce him to Maxie Pad the macaw, since she’s been rejected from every port. From the way things sound in India, I bet the Bay of Bombay could be an option. Problem solved, no?” I say, signing off.