Poseur #4: All That Glitters Is Not Gucci (12 page)
“Zee penguins,” chuckled Doctor Bonnaire. “People
always bring up zee penguins. Two penguins can make the heart shape together with their beaks, and so
quoi
? People sink zey are in
love.
”
“No,” Jake rejoined, beginning a long and futile attempt to illuminate Dr. Bonnaire on the intricacies of penguin mating rituals
that proceeded to eat up the remainder of the session. Finally, thankfully, the good doctor cut him off.
“
Ah non!
It is time,” Dr. Bonnaire announced. She stubbed out a final Gauloise in the matte white box and rose to escort the couple
out.
“Can I just ask you one last question,” Jake began when they reached the blond wood door. “Why do you even bother working
as a therapist if everything is meaningless anyway? Or for that matter, why do you even get out of bed in the morning?”
Dr. Bonnaire nodded. “The truth eez everyone is bored, and devote d’emself to cultivating ’abits.” Then she smiled that freaky
clown smile. “Camus,” she confessed.
“Yeah, well maybe you should give up the therapy thing and find a different ‘abit,’” Jake rejoined. “Like making lanyards
or something.”
“Good-bye,” said Dr. Bonnaire. “Call me to schedule another session. Or don’t.” Then she closed the door.
Back at the Volvo, Jake discovered he had gotten a parking ticket. Forty-five dollars. Lovely. He started the car, but then
turned it off and looked at Charlotte, who was curled up in the passenger seat as far away from Jake as physically possible,
staring out the grimy closed window. The words WASH ME were printed across it backward in a childish scrawl.
“Before we go, I just want to say—”
“Jake,” Charlotte interrupted, without even turning her head. “Just drive, okay?”
Wow. So this was really it. He had really lost her. Jake turned to face forward and cranked the key in the ignition.
They were off.
The Getup: Plaid Burberry shorts, nude Hide & Sleek Spanx cami (shhh…), red Modern Amusement tee, clear Baby-G watch, gladiator
mandals
When Charlotte strolled into her backyard at 7 p.m. that Friday for some “twi-bathing,” her brother Evan was already on his
fifty-fourth lap, and counting. Evan was one of the lucky few that dealt with depression not by shopping, binge drinking,
or shoveling entire jars of peanut butter down his gullet, but by exercising. And exercising. And exercising. Since Janie
flaked on their projection room date one day earlier, Evan had already run seven miles, surfed for four hours, and swum fifty-four
laps—wait… fifty-five!—in the Beverwils’ Olympic-size pool. So why didn’t he feel any better?
An equally lovelorn Charlotte laid her Gucci beach towel on a lawn chair and sprawled out, for once, sans reading material.
Twi-bathing sans
Vogue
was usually as unthinkable to Charlotte as steak au poivre sans pommes frites
,
but she just couldn’t focus today. And so the gorgeous Beverwil siblings cradled their respective agonies in shared solitude,
while melancholy Erik Satie music poured out of the rock-shaped speakers. That is, until…
“Poo-kie!” wailed a painfully peppy voice from behind the ivy-covered fence. “Where be-ist thou?”
There were sixteen beeps, followed by a loud buzz and the steady purr of an electric gate opening. Ugh, why had Charlotte
given Don John the key code? She really could not handle him right now. Or anybody else for that matter.
Don John skipped like a doe across the fresh-cut grass to the foot of Charlotte’s lawn chair and gasped.
“Eres!?” he intoned. “I die!” Don John was referring, of course, to Charlotte’s dazzling midnight-blue Eres bikini.
“Eres indeed,” Charlotte confirmed, slipping her massive Oliver Peoples Ballerina shades down over her eyes, despite the fact
that it was dark out.
“So, you’d better get changed,” Don John began, “unless you’re wearing that to
la cinema
, which, b-t-dubbs, you totally should. But in the event that you do not want to see
Pierrot le fou
in a bathing suit, chop-chop!”
“
Pierrot le fou
,” Charlotte repeated.
Merde.
They’d had plans to see the film for weeks because a) Charlotte adored French New Wave cinema, and b) Jamie, Don John’s gorgeous
copper-headed acting-for-television teacher, also adored French New Wave cinema, which
had nothing whatsoever to do with the purely coincidental fact that
c) Don John suddenly adored French New Wave cinema.
But there was no way Charlotte could sit through a movie right now. She was far too enchanted by her own misery for distractions.
“I’m really not in the mood right now,” she said. “Rain check?”
“
Quelle tragédie
,” Don John exclaimed, barely concealing his mirth. He kicked off his gladiator mandals, slipped his newly pedied feet into
Charlotte’s gold Dior thongs, and asked, “so where should we go instead? It’s Friday, so Social Hollywood will be off the
hook, but Mike and Mike promote Tropicana Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel on Thursdays, which means we could totally get in, and
then we could sneak into Teddy’s through the back entrance! Or we could do Hyde? But I really think Hyde is going downhill.
Last time I went, Jeremy Piven was the only celeb there, and every girl in the bar was stuck macking on him. It was really
depressing. Actually, that guy from Sum 41 was there too, and he’s actually much cuter in person, P.S., but he was there with
Avril, so obviously he was off-limits. Did I ever tell you about how Avril stood up on her chair and started dancing?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Okay, so anyway, I’ll give you my top three and then you give me yours. Mine are Social, Teddy’s, and Bar Marmont. Oh,
wait, and Winston’s! Can I have four?”
“You can have as many as you want, DoJo, I’m not going out.” Charlotte flipped onto her stomach to sun her back in the dark.
“Eew, why?”
“Because I have a big decision to make and I need to think,” Charlotte replied.
Don John kicked off Charlotte’s thongs and pouted.
What was it with people always thinking
alone
? Couldn’t they think
and
party?
“A bunch of people are going to the Creatures of Habit show at the Troubadour later if you want to do that,” she offered.
Also,
she thought
, he can report to me on Jake, who will totally be there.
“Creatures of Habit?” Don John inquired.
“It’s a band,” Charlotte explained. “Kind of punk rock.”
Don John actually shuddered.
No, thank you.
He’d rather dance in an empty 7-Eleven parking lot to the sound of a distant car alarm. He was fully prepared to tell Charlotte
precisely that, too,
except
, he realized in awe,
Evan was emerging from the pool
. Was it just Don John or did that boy actually walk around in
slow motion
? The twilight shone against Evan’s impossibly chiseled abdomen, illuminating the water droplets that clung there like morning
dew. He looked like Ryan Gosling without the totally distracting and therefore entirely unnecessary DARFUR t-shirt. Evan looked
even tanner than he had earlier that day. How was that possible? Had he
not
just been swimming in the dark? But Evan had that gift, he guessed. Just when he got as tan and blond and generally godlike
as a guy could get, he got a tad tanner, a bit blonder, and just a touch more generally godlike.
Instead of reaching for one of the fluffed and folded towels in the bamboo hutch behind Charlotte’s chair, Evan shook off
like a frisky golden retriever, soaking his sister and
her gawking sidekick in the process.
“E-van!” whined Charlotte, scrambling up to sitting.
“
E-van
!” he mocked. “You know you’re outside, right? By a pool? You’re supposed to get wet.”
“There’s this great new invention called a towel,” Charlotte rejoined, plucking a chartreuse Ralph Lauren beach towel from
the always stocked hutch and chucking it at her dripping brother. “Learn it, live it, love it.”
Evan roughed his sandy locks with the towel, then tipped his head to the side and smacked it to knock the water out. “Hey,”
he inquired, balling the towel in his fist. “Were you guys just talking about Creatures of Habit?”
“Yeah,” Charlotte replied.
“Janie’s friend is in that band.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t know.” He frowned. “I’ve actually been meaning to check them out.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes in suspicion behind her oversize shades. “You know they sound nothing like Bob Beaver or whatever,
right?”
“
Seger
,” Evan corrected, rolling his chlorine green eyes. “So when are they playing?”
“Ten,” Don John informed him.
Evan nodded, chucked his wet towel at his prissy sister, and headed for the French double doors.
“I’ll come with you,” Don John volunteered. “You
shouldn’t be left alone with those troub-boobs.”
Charlotte shot him an accusatory glare.
“What?” he defended himself, bugging out his Bette Davis eyes. “You
said
you needed to think. And besides,” Don John sniffed. “Evan’ll need a wingman.”
The Getup: Knee-length stonewashed denim skirt, purple Merona turtleneck sweater, “suntan” L’eggs pantyhose, black suede Capezio
pumps, sterling silver dangling sun and moon earrings
It was too much. This couldn’t really be the
guesthouse,
could it? Miss Paletsky looked down at the key in her small, pale paw; the key that dangled from a silver heart-shaped Tiffany
key chain; the key that had been waiting in an envelope marked “Lena” underneath the doormat of Moon Manor; the key to her
new life.
The Moon guesthouse was so luxurious that Miss Paletsky feared she was dreaming, only she knew she could not be; for she did
not possess the imaginative capacity to conceive of such gorgeous design, such plush fabrics, such glistening surfaces, such
magnificent artwork, such complete and utter unfettered luxury…. So this really was the
guesthouse
?
Miss Paletsky’s new home was a microcosm of the main house where she had once played piano for Seedy Moon. It boasted the
same slate-tiled floors, imported from Africa, the same original Warhols, and the same impossibly spare modern glamour that
characterized Moon Manor.
She headed for the bedroom to put away her floral-print
rolling suitcase, and there she espied the most lush, regal bed she had ever laid eyes on. The all-gold bed was so high that
one had to mount a custom-carved wooden ladder to reach it. It was a bed for a king! And yet it was a bed for Miss Paletsky.
She ran her delicate, pale hand over the Frette duvet cover, and pressed gently. Her hand sank into the most decadent feather
bed money could buy. Miss Paletsky felt like Dorothy when she wandered into the field of poppies, eyelids heavy. If she climbed
that hand-carved ladder, if she peeled back those 400-thread-count sheets, if she sank into that foot-deep feather bed, Miss
Paletsky feared she might never get up again.
Before she could even entertain the idea of entering that pristine bed, she needed to take a shower. Miss Paletsky located
the bathroom, which wasn’t hard, since the bathroom in its entirety was visible from the bedroom through a wall of barely
frosted glass. Even the toilet! Miss Paletsky couldn’t help but blush.
She bid the king-size bed adieu—but only for now!—and headed for the shower. As she crossed the threshold into the bathroom,
the temperature changed rapidly from the perfect 68 degrees of the bedroom to a carefully calibrated 75. More comfortable
for undressing, which Miss Paletsky promptly did. She stripped off her casual-Friday ensemble—a stonewashed denim skirt, a
purple turtleneck sweater, and “suntan” L’eggs—and dropped it into a deep
bamboo hamper. She stepped into the doorless, curtainless shower and turned the lever, releasing a torrential downpour from
two bowl-shaped showerheads.
Using a watermelon-size sea sponge, Miss Paletsky lathered her body with one luxuriant product after another. The shampoos
and conditioners and salt scrubs and soaps, all aptly named “Bliss,” scented the room with sour lemon, cleansing sage, warm
vanilla, tangy blood orange, and spicy pepper. As Miss Paletsky scrubbed and scrubbed, it was as though all of her sad memories
and toxic stresses were disappearing into the invisible drain beneath the cedar planks. Gone was her past with Yuri, her pending
return to Russia, her unrequited love of Seedy. For the first time she could remember, as the warm clear water stroked her
tired body like a baptism, Miss Paletsky wept from happiness.
She turned off the shower, stepped through the cloud of fragrant steam, and reached for the cleanest, whitest, plushest Egyptian
cotton towel she had ever seen. Wrapping herself in the giant bath sheet was like the hug Miss Paletsky had needed so badly
since her tumultuous arrival in America. And then she saw, hanging on a pink silk hanger, an impossibly beautiful white cashmere
bathrobe. Miss Paletsky touched the sleeve of the garment and recalled with astonishing clarity the only other time in her
life she had felt such softness. As a young girl, her mother had once taken her to a pet store, and she had held a bunny rabbit
so soft
and white that she refused to put it down until her mother forced her to, making her cry as they left the store.