Poseur #4: All That Glitters Is Not Gucci (18 page)

Janie pressed delete, queasy.
Dress to kill?
How was she supposed to do that when Mama Farrish had put the kibosh on her spending? Janie headed for her closet, otherwise
known as her only hope. Surely there was
something
wearable in here….

But as Janie sifted through garment after garment, she soon realized her wardrobe was far from
Sex and the City.
At best, it was
Lizzie McGuire,
Season 1
.
In the front hung the few pieces Janie wore on a tiny rotation every day—Seven jeans, James Pearse tanks, vintage sweaters—and
behind them hung a veritable wasteland of fashion backward pieces: a Hello
Kitty baby tee, some Wet Seal capri pants, a pinstriped vest from Forever21, a plaid schoolgirl skirt Janie had never worn,
a cowboy shirt she’d stolen from Jake, a camo-print Hot Topic hoodie, some too-short Mudd jeans…. In the shoe department,
Janie had her choice of Rocket Dog platform thongs, vintage bowling shoes, Converse she’d drawn stars on with a Sharpie, and
Pumas with squiggle laces. In the life department, Janie had the option to kill herself.

She headed over to the matted sheepskin rug to curl up again. Maybe cry some more. But as Janie approached the rug, the matted
ball of Teddy P. duds beside it caught her eye. And she could not seem to look away.

Balled up next to the furry, yellowing sheepskin, the rich blue velvet of the bustier glistened against the inky black cotton
of the skirt, bisected by glimpses of shiny gold zipper, and a dog leash. Janie stared at the disparate fabrics until they
melded together into a swirl of yellow and blue and black and gold.

And she got an idea.

It was entirely possible that it was an entirely terrible idea, but one thing was certain: Janie was not about to walk into
the hippest hotel in Hollywood wearing a baby tee and Mudd jeans. She headed for her big red desk, where a pair of scissors
rested in an empty Progresso soup can, along with some colored pencils. Janie drew in a breath and reached for the scissors’
bright orange handle….

The Getup: Silver heels from Natalie Portman’s tragically discontinued vegan shoe line, indigo Twelfth St. by Cynthia Vincent
Navajo maxi dress with tassels (35 percent bamboo!), scalloped lace Free People headband with beaded floral appliqué

The Girl: Melissa Moon

The Getup: Jaguar print Roberto Cavalli dip-dye keyhole dress, fur-trimmed vanilla goat leather Manolo Blahnik lace-up boots,
diamond and gold cluster earrings and bangles by Neil Lane

The Girl: Charlotte Beverwil

The Getup: Pleated persimmon blouse and aubergine/purple color-block balloon skirt by Oscar de la Renta, black Valentino Bow
Booties, black Prada dress belt and headband

The Girl: Janie Farrish

The Getup: Just you wait….

Rudeness is an art, and the
Nylon
staff had mastered it. After all, they had studied under the best:
Nylon
’s editor in chief, Eric Snow.

When Snow—as everybody called him—interacted with the ladies of Poseur, he oscillated between vague curiosity and paralyzing
disinterest. His frequent and untelegraphed mood swings kept everyone at the shoot—stylists, makeup artists, photographers—perpetually
in awe of him. But the truth behind Snow’s failure to focus was far simpler than any of his minions imagined; he was just
crippled by ADD.

And also, he wasn’t the sharpest stiletto in the closet. Snow could read parking signs and most menus, but that was where
his linguistic abilities ended. Thus, Snow was more a figurehead for
Nylon
than an actual editor. The real editing was left to the ugly people. And Snow was far from ugly; more importantly though,
the guy had style. While every other man in L.A. had gone the way of the tousled pompadour, Snow had started wearing his hair
in a military cut, shorn close to the scalp on both sides, longer on top. His right eyebrow was missing a chunk in the middle,
which he shaved off fresh each morning, and his glasses had only one arm, so they hung slightly off-kilter from his largish
nose. During a recent one-night stand (who could remember which) a lover had stepped out of bed and onto Snow’s glasses. Within
the week, every scenester in L.A. was snapping an arm off his glasses.

“Snow,” mumbled the remarkably disinterested woman reclined on the couch beside him. Her blunt black bangs
obscured her eyes completely, if she even had eyes. “Time to shoot Poseur.”

Bang Girl wielded the call sheet, and from what Melissa Moon could tell, her entire job consisted of reading it aloud to her
semi-illiterate boss.

“Okay,” Snow mumbled back (before sending off a BBM that read, “At standerd shot u cmon/?”). “Are they here?”

“Hello, Snow!” Melissa sang in response, plopping down on the edge of the couch. She tossed her Brazilian Keratin–straightened
hair over her body-buttered shoulder and smiled big so her freshly bleached teeth gleamed against her LipFusion-plumped kisser.
“Poseur will be ready to rock in five minutes. One of our designers had a family emergency and she is rushing over here just
as fast as humanly possible.”

Snow looked bored. As usual. “Okay,” he shrugged. He slipped his BlackBerry into the pocket of his gray jeans, leaned his
head back, and closed his eyes.
Was homeboy seriously taking a nap?

“Great, thanks!” chirped Melissa, before scurrying off into the adjoining room, where all the designers being featured in
the issue were milling nervously. The Standard had offered up two primo rooms to the
Nylon
shoot in exchange for some name-dropping in the issue. Not that the überchic Sunset Boulevard mainstay needed the publicity.
Hollywood’s hottest already swarmed there daily to languish in
the palm tree–lined pool while big-name DJs spun the hottest tunes, unwind in the globe-shaped Lucite chairs that hung from
the ceiling, dance at the windowless purple-lit lounge, and eat the famed burger at the throwback diner. And, of course, to
gawk at the model who lay slumbering in a glass case in her underwear in the lobby all day. She represented everything the
Standard stood for: beauty, sloth, and complete and utter indifference.

One person who was feeling far from indifferent at the Standard that day was Melissa Moon. Her brain was in overdrive, trying
to figure out what to do if Janie did not show up soon. Janie had e-mailed the night before to say she was grounded and would
have to sneak out to attend the shoot, but what was taking her so long? Melissa checked her rhinestone Sidekick again. Still
nothing. Where the hell was Janie Farrish?

Melissa stomped over to the foot of the metallic beanbag chair where Petra was slouched, crocheting a bonnet.

“Hey Greene-bean,” she whispered. “What am I supposed to tell Snow? It’s two-thirty and Janie is still not here!”

Charlotte, who was sitting in the rotating wicker chair beside Petra, spun to face them.

“If she is not here in five, we go on without her. Just say she was never even part of Poseur. Say her name was just a big
typo on the call sheet.”

“A big typo,” considered Melissa. “That’s way harsh, Tai.”

Charlotte shrugged. “
C’est la vie
. As long as Ted Pelligan doesn’t tell Snow we’re missing a girl, we can totally get away with it. And Ted is always late.
Unless he gets here in the next five minutes, we’re golden.”

Melissa considered Charlotte’s proposal. Dishonesty wasn’t really her thing, but neither was squandering huge opportunities
because other people couldn’t get their you-know-what together. Melissa looked down at Emilio Poochie, slumbering soundly
beside Petra’s vegan ballet flat. He looked so chic in his Tiffany choker and rabbit fur stole. Melissa laughed inwardly; she
had totally lied to Petra and said E. Poochie’s stole was a fake. Why did fur get such a bad rap anyway? What was more natural
than an
animal
wearing
animal fur
?

“Okay,” agreed Melissa. “It is now two-thirty-one. We give her till two-thirty-six, and then… Janie who?”

“Deal,” Charlotte agreed.

Melissa poked her patchouli-scented coworker’s beanbag chair with the toe of her Manolo Blahnik goat leather heel.
“Pet?”

“Whatever you say, Stalin.”

Okay, so that was settled. If Janie did not somehow materialize in the next five minutes, she would be good as dead to them.
Melissa felt better. But not all the way better.
Because she still knew that any minute,
he
would be arriving. Ariel Berkowitz, the nasty-looking creator of the even nastier-looking t-shirt line, Schizo Montana. Just
knowing she would see his gnarly crooked grin in person made Melissa want to upchuck. Ariel’s call time was two-thirty. Melissa
knew that because she had checked the call sheet. And she had only checked the call sheet so she would be prepared to avoid
him. Which is exactly what she planned to do. Like the fluorescent plague. Emilio Poochie leaped up and darted across the
room.

“Emilio Poochie, no!” squawked Melissa. She watched Emilio bound across the shag rug toward the open door to the hallway.
Then she watched him stop at a pair of leopard print men’s tennis shoes and start licking the adjoining skinny ankles, wagging
his tiny tail like he’d just eaten puppy chow.

“Hey little lady,” called the owner of the ankles, kneeling to swoop up the fluttering furball. “Nice jacket,” he laughed.

He cradled Emilio to his bony chest, where his t-shirt featured a photo of a homeless woman dancing on the Santa Monica pier.
“Life’s a beach,” read the childish letters below the picture. Melissa felt ill. It was him. Ariel Berkowitz. And he was touching
her baby!

She scurried across the room to the idiot in question, who was currently rocking Emilio like a newborn and
rubbing his warm fat belly.

“What’s your name, little mama?” Ariel intoned. Then he read the tag aloud: “Emilio Poochie. Oh, you’re a dude?” He lifted
the dog for confirmation. “You are! So how come your owner dressed you like a chick?”

Melissa stood before Ariel, toasted-almond arms crossed beneath her water bra–perked double-Ds. Ariel looked up and met her
eyes.

Melissa felt a jolt of electricity zap her body. She blinked.
What the eff was that?
Maybe her new snake-venom supplements were kicking in?

“This little guy belong to you?” Ariel asked, and then he looked back down at Emilio and grinned that crooked grin Melissa
had come to know and hate in the preceding week of cyberstalking. She set her jaw and reached out her arms.

“Dog,” Melissa demanded. Ariel looked up at her, confused. And there it was again! When his eyes met hers, something pulsed
through Melissa, threatening to erupt.

“Oh, sorry,” Ariel said. “Here.” He gently handed Emilio off to his seething owner. “I’m Ariel.”

“Good for you,” Melissa shot back, not daring to meet his beady black eyes lest she should be electrocuted again.

Ariel cocked his head to the side and squinted. “Wow, what’s your problem?”

“My problem?” Melissa huffed. “I don’t have a problem. Congratulations on the cover. I have always said there should
be more mermaids in fashion. It really is discrimination that there aren’t.” And with that, Melissa spun around on her four-inch
stacked heel, feeling fierce. But a slimy hand grabbed her by the body-buttered arm. She whipped around to face him.

“You’re Diva Twelve or whatever!”

“I don’t know what…” Melissa began, feeling oddly weak and out of sorts. Must be her new diet: sixteen small meals a day.
Her system just wasn’t used to it. Melissa felt like she was going to pass out. “I don’t know what you are talking about,”
she finished, finally. She wrested her arm from Ariel’s greasy grip, hoisted Emilio into the crook of her armpit, and strutted
back across the room.

“I thought you’d be ugly,” Ariel called as she click-clacked away. Melissa whipped around to shoot him a death glare, but
when she did, she felt that damn feeling again.

Z-z-z-Z-a-A-a-P!

“Ted Pelligan is here!” hollered Nikki Pellegrini, whose job at the
Nylon
shoot up to that point had consisted of calling Janie, texting Janie, yelling “Janie!,” and posting frantic messages on the
wall of Janie’s Facebook page.

“What!” gasped Melissa. “He was supposed to call when he was leaving the store. Where is he?”

“He just got out of the elevator and he’s walking down the hall, surrounding by all these little yapping dogs.”

“Oh my God, Nikki, he’ll be here any second! Quick, go distract him!”

“Okay!” Nikki exclaimed. How?”

Melissa widened her eyes in disbelief. “Please do not make me go Naomi Campbell on you right now.”

Nikki swallowed. “I’ll figure something out,” she chirped.

But just as Nikki turned to chase down Teddy P., the-man-the-myth-the-legend himself came barreling into the room, surrounded
by a veritable fleet of papillons.

“My darling!” he bellowed at the sight of Melissa. The other designers turned to stare at the tottering man with the turquoise
bow tie. He had to be somebody with an entrance like that. Emilio Poochie yip-yip-yipped at the approaching army of papillons.

“Emilio, shoosh!” scolded Melissa. “Hello, Ted,” she smiled, and kissed him once on each round, ruddy cheek.

Upon Ted Pelligan’s entrance, Charlotte actually deigned to rise from her wicker chair for the first time all afternoon. “Ted!”
she exclaimed (careful not to lift her arm in greeting since she had a heinous streak of self-tanner there that she could
not seem to scrub off).

“Hallo!” Petra sang, waving with her crochet hook from her comfy spot in the beanbag chair.

Melissa was trying to act calm, but inside she was having conniptions. If Janie did not materialize soon, they were toast.
This was supposed to be Poseur’s debut magazine spread, and one-fourth of the company was MIA. What if Ted told
Nylon
to call off the whole shebang?

But that’s when Ted Pelligan said something that shocked Melissa and made her think that maybe they were going to be just
fine.

“You all made it on time!” he announced. OMG… Ted had completely forgotten about Janie’s existence!

“Actually—” Petra began.

“Yes, we did!” Melissa interrupted.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” winked Teddy. “Traffic was horrendous.”

Cousin It Bangs materialized then. “Poseur?” she called from the doorway.

“Ready,” yelped Melissa.

“Knock ’em dead,” Ted Pelligan smiled. “And remember: hate the camera. Detest the camera. And it will love you. Try it for
me quickly before you go.”

Petra wrinkled her nose like she smelled something gross. Charlotte pretended to yawn. Melissa pursed her lips and acted pissed.

“Brilliant!” Ted exclaimed. “Now, go, my lovelies! I’m right behind you.”

They all followed Cousin It Bangs into the other room,
where a rumpled California king was to be the set of the shoot. Could things get any cooler?

“So, the look I’m going for here is Hollywood Bad Girl,” explained the black-clad Aussie photog. “I want you all sort of relaxing
around the room the way you do when you hang out in real life. It should look like you just got home from a party together,
but the real party is just about to start….”