Poseur #4: All That Glitters Is Not Gucci (16 page)

The Getup: Brown herringbone dress by Ralph Lauren Blue Label, beige cashmere capelet by Giorgio Armani, cranberry beret by
M Missoni, raspberry ballerina flats by Elizabeth and James, manicure (in Essie’s “Mademoiselle”)

Charlotte answered the door in a capelet. A freaking capelet. And at the sight of her perfect glossy curls, her perfect glossy
lips, her perfect glossy nails—even her teeth were glossy—Janie was overcome by the urge to mash her china cup face in.

“Janie!” gasped Charlotte, taking in the beer stain on Janie’s ocean blue bustier, the torn hem of her brand-new mini, the
knee-high stilettos, and the smeared mascara. “Let me guess… you are going to the ‘Thriller’ tribute at Staples?”

Janie wanted to strangle Charlotte with her cashmere capelet. But instead she announced, “I need to talk to Evan.”

“He’s not here,” Charlotte replied. Jake strolled up the combed gravel drive and met them at the door to the Beverwils’ 8,000-square-foot
Spanish colonial estate. “Hello, Jake,” Charlotte intoned, kissing him once on each flushed pink cheek. “Come in.”

Jake strolled into the house, headed for Charlotte’s sprawling candy-colored bedroom. “Catch ya later, Courtney Love,” he
called to Janie.

“Where is Evan?” Janie asked.

“Why?” Charlotte inquired. “Are you, like, obsessed with Evan? That’s so cute!”

But Janie did not have time to cook up an excuse—or to give Charlotte a black eye—and so she grabbed her copy of the Volvo
key out of her ratty hobo and bolted back down the long gravel drive.

“Tell Jake I said sorry,” Janie called behind her. Jake would have to find his own way home. Janie had to take the car. She
had to find Evan. But if he wasn’t home, where could he be? There was only one place Janie could think to look. Something
inside her said that’s where he would be, but how could she be sure? Janie had been (oh so) wrong about Evan before. She started
the engine and hoped for the best, placated by the fact that at the very least, things couldn’t get much worse.

It was one of those overcast late afternoons inching into early evenings in Santa Monica that leave the beach all but empty.
A slumbering homeless man on a bench and one lone Rollerblader were all Janie could see as she swept the Volvo
into the parking lot in front of Station 26, the only place she could think to look for Evan. He’d told her once that he liked
to go there to think. And also when he didn’t want to think. When he just wanted to clear his head. It was a throwaway comment,
but Janie remembered it clearly. And everything else Evan had ever said to her, for that matter. Janie leaped from her vehicle
and slammed the door, click-clacking toward the beach in her scuffed Louboutins. She reached the sand, pulled off her boots
and socks, and ran toward the lifeguard station in her bare feet. In the murky gray late afternoon light, the station was
just a blur. But as Janie padded closer and closer, it slowly came into focus, and as it did, so too did the sandy-haired
boy sitting on the edge of the platform, letting his long legs dangle off the edge, and staring into the endless ocean before
him.

“Evan!” Janie cried, sprinting toward him like she might miss him if she didn’t run as fast as her bony legs could carry her.
She probably looked like a hooker the morning after, in her unraveling, cigarette-burned miniskirt and beer-stained bustier,
but Janie did not care. She had to get to Evan. She had to explain.
Now!

“Evan!” she called again. This time he turned, but Janie could not make out his expression. Finally, out of breath, she reached
the foot of the lifeguard station, huffing and puffing to regain her composure.

“What are you doing here?” Evan asked.

“I have to talk to you,” Janie announced. “Can I come up?”

Evan stared into the ocean and mumbled something.

“What?” Janie asked.

“Free country,” he repeated. Janie mounted the stairs and crouched down on the painted wood floor beside him, folding her
bony legs beneath her and facing Evan while his chlorine green eyes remained trained on the water. Janie had never seen Evan
at the beach before. It looked so natural. His eyes were sea glass, his skin was driftwood, his soft steady breathing was
the tide itself.

“You are not going to believe this,” Janie began, “but there has been a horrible mix-up.” Evan remained stoic, unmoving. A
salty breeze rushed past them and chilled Janie’s bare shoulders. The sun was beginning to set, streaking the foggy sky with
the murky golds and battered purples of a fading bruise.

“Evan, I know you probably hate me right now for being so flaky lately, but there is a reason for everything that happened.
The other day at Ted Pelligan’s, I overheard Charlotte talking to Jake about Nikki Pellegrini and how she kissed like a dogfish.
When Charlotte got off the phone she lied and pretended she was talking to you, and so I thought that you had told her kissing
me was like—well, you know—and then I was so hurt and insulted that I did not show up at the projection room or text you back.”
Janie felt like she could
finally exhale. “How tragic is that?”

Evan turned to face her, his expression still empty. “So it was all Charlotte’s fault,” he said.

“Yes!” Janie exclaimed, relieved.

“It was Charlotte’s fault you thought I said something bad about you, and it was Charlotte’s fault you did not meet me in
the projection room, and it was Charlotte’s fault you never texted me back….”

“Exactly!”

“… and it was Charlotte’s fault you made out with some guy who was old enough to be your father at the Creatures of Habit
show last night.”

Janie froze. “No—wait, what? Who told—”

“Nobody told me anything, Janie. I
saw
you.”

The sky was the sickly smeared purple of a mashed prune.

“I can explain that too,” Janie began, but Evan cut her off by laughing aloud.

“Yeah, I bet you can. It seems like you have an explanation for just about everything right now.”

“I swear—”

“Listen, you don’t have to get into it, okay? It’s not like I’m your boyfriend or something. You don’t owe me anything.”

“I know I don’t, or, you’re not,” Janie stammered, “but… just… what you saw? That guy…? That wasn’t
me last night.
I
wasn’t me last night. I smoked pot for the first time ever and drank some beer and… I don’t know. It’s like I was possessed
or something. And to be totally, humiliatingly honest here…” Janie slowed. Was she really going to say this? Wasn’t this conversation
already mortifying enough? But hey, she’d gone this far; might as well go for broke.

“All I could think about all night was you. And as crazy as this is going to sound, I thought that maybe if I kissed somebody
else it would help me get over my feelings for you. But instead, I woke up today feeling lower than I ever have, and not just
because it felt like somebody was mashing an ice pick into my ear, but because kissing that guy did not make me miss you any
less. It just made me miss you more.” Okay, that was enough. Janie officially needed to stop talking now. She had said
more than enough
and now it was up to Evan to reply.

Evan stared into Janie’s slate gray eyes like he was searching for something. His gaze was piercing, probing; she resisted
the urge to avert her gaze. Finally, Evan turned away, shaking his head so his sandy blond locks shook in the icy air. The
waves crashed loud and hard like a bookcase collapsing.

“Don’t you believe me?” Janie pleaded.
Talk about groveling,
she thought.
This was unbearable. What more did he want her to say?

“Do I believe you?” Evan pondered, staring out at the
murky horizon. He shrugged. “I don’t really know anymore.” Janie was broken. How could she make Evan understand that it was
all just a horrid misunderstanding? That she had never meant to hurt him? That she had never even thought she
could
hurt him?

“Please,” Janie begged, hearing the telltale quiver in her voice that meant she was probably going to cry soon. Oh God. She
really, really did not want to cry right now. “Tell me what I can do to make things normal again,” she whispered.

“You know,” Evan replied, “I think you’ve done enough already.” A lump rose in Janie’s throat. So that was it? It was all
just over? Because of something
he
never said and something
she
never meant to do?

“But I like you!” Janie wailed.

“I like you too.” Evan nodded. “I
liked
you.”

It was the first time Evan had ever told Janie he liked her. And it was already over.

“Liked?” Janie repeated. Evan let out something like a growl. Like he was holding in a fury that could consume him completely
if he wasn’t careful. He cracked his knuckles and then his neck and took a deep breath. He balled his hands into fists and
then stretched them out again.

“I just”—Evan looked down at his lap and shook his head—“I need to think. I can’t handle this right now.”

He didn’t even say good-bye. Evan rose and walked back
down the ladder, keeping his beautiful face trained on the steps all the way. Then, he left. He just started walking across
the sand toward the parking lot, alternately shaking his hands out at his sides and running them through his tangled hair.
At one point, he kicked the sand hard, and it spewed up in front of him like a desert geyser. Then he quickened his pace.
Soon, Janie could not see him at all. He was gone. Evan was gone. Janie had lost him forever.

If the traffic light on the corner of Ocean Avenue and Pico Boulevard changed from red to green, and Janie had not given in
and cried yet, Evan would call her. Janie trained her gaze on the light, feeling the growing burn behind her eyeballs but
refusing to let the dam break. The light changed. She checked her cell phone. Nothing. Okay. That was okay. She could do it
again at the next light. And the next light. And the next light. And one of those times it was bound to work. She just wasn’t
trying hard enough. She just wasn’t believing enough. If Janie could truly believe that Evan would call, then she could make
him call. Janie had read
The Secret.
She knew all about the Law of Attraction, capital L, capital A. Believe it and it is so. Imagine it and it will be. And so
Janie kept on believing happy things. As hard as she could. While she inched down Ocean Avenue, catching
every single red light.

Evan is my boyfriend,
she envisioned.
He takes me surfing sometimes after school and I am really bad at it but he thinks it is just adorable. I get my first tan.
And sometimes we just sit on our boards out there in the surf until the sun sets while the waves lap past us, talking about
everything that has ever happened to us and laughing so hard and kissing each other even harder and feeling like there was
never a time before the two of us were an “us.” And we look back on that day at the lifeguard station when he told me he needed
“to think” and walked away as the saddest day of either of our lives, and we are both so traumatized by that memory that we
never spend a minute apart again. Okay, maybe a minute, but not much more. And Evan decides to get one of my drawings tattooed
on his bicep—no, on his back? Yeah, on his back, and on my seventeenth birthday he tells me he loves me; that he has always
loved me. And I don’t say it back yet but I feel it too. And all of this joy and love and general awesomeness begins today—just
moments from now—when I arrive at my house and Evan is sitting on my porch just waiting for me. (I’m not sure how he finds
out where I live… maybe Charlotte tells him?) And when I walk up to him, Evan looks at me all hard at first and says, “Janie,
don’t you ever let another guy touch you again.” And I am scared by the gruffness in his voice and the fire behind those pool
green eyes, and I gulp and say, “Never.” And he says, “Ever,” or something sort of like that but better—in his own words,
you know?—and then he reaches for the back of my head and just tears me toward him, wrapping me in
that sandy salty strong embrace and I just relax into his body like I did that first time on the lawn and that second time
in the projection room and then he kisses me hard, like a promise. And I surrender into him now and forever.