Catwalk Fail

by Jason Godfrey

  Slotted between two girls who are both taller than me in their heels, I glance at a glowing LCD screen showing the Vivienne Westwood show, which is happening right now in the other hall. Normally I’d be watching to ridicule the runway skills of the models, but now I’m watching to catch what might be my last glimpse of Taylor before she goes off to supermodel-dom in Milano or becomes the hottest girl at an NGO. She’s just as likely to do both things.

  “Champagne?” A blonde, her hair pulled up and eyes obscured with mascara says, stepping out of the queue and handing me a flute.

  “I don’t drink,” I say. Though Dr. Leung’s no sex order is days away from ending, and for the first time in months the pain in my penis is silent, I’m not the tiniest bit interested in talking to this model. And yes, somewhere, pigs are piloting aircraft.

  “I didn’t know you don’t drink,” she says, clinking her glass against mine. I squint at her wondering if we’ve met before. “I thought you were drunk on that boat. I was wasted.”

  Then I recognize the slur in her voice even if I couldn’t recognize her through the makeup. Britney catches the look of recognition on my face, angles her head, and gives me a suggestive smirk.

  I shield my genitals with the murse.

  “I never used to drink either, but when you’re a model alcohol is free.” Britney shrugs, and I’m sure one day she’ll be explaining the same thing to a therapist. “Come on, one for old times.”

  Old times being that one time she snapped my cock in two.

  “No, thanks.” I shake my head and stare at the screen. The Vivienne Westwood show is running on all cylinders, lights sweeping the stage, models moving up and down the runway.

  Jasmine opened the show. I don’t know if she got her walk from FTV

  or created it, but she worked the runway like a pro. She bounced with nubile energy, but with enough attitude in her expression for high fashion. My sister nailed it. I’m proud of her.

  “Fine, be a party pooper,” Britney frowns. She finishes her flute, being careful not to smear her lipstick, and grabs mine. “I didn’t know you were so boring.”

  On the screen, there’s a close up of the new girl on the runway and though her thick eyeliner and shimmering straightened hair makes her look like the other girls, I know instantly it’s Taylor. Her walk is sexy and competent, like she is in real life, and like always, she looks incredible. I was hoping seeing her would make me feel better, but it doesn’t. Seeing Taylor on screen makes me feel worse.

  “Oh, I get it.” Britney squints at the monitor. “Your girlfriend there must have you on some kind of leash and now you have to act like you don’t know me.”

  “What?”

  “And she’s old, she’s like a modelling grandma.”

  “Taylor?” I frown, realizing that talking to Britney is about as fun as having sex with her. “She’s 24.”

  “Yeah,” Britney nods. “Like I said, old.”

  She looks pleased with herself, sipping her drink while wobbling in her heels. If someone is taking bets on which model is most likely to roll an ankle and careen off stage, Britney is my horse.

  “Anyway,” I say. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  These words leave my mouth before I can think and after I’ve said them, I feel drained like there is an awful finality to this admission.

  “That makes sense,” Britney says into her drink. “Guys like you don’t have girlfriends.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Guys probably call you a player.” She empties the last flute down her throat and sets it on the wooden frame of the stage. “But girls know you’re just another sleazebag.”

  It feels like my appendix is about to splatter all over my insides and my head throbs like I drank formaldehyde. The bassline of Evening Star by Cannons blares from the speakers as the lights come up.

  A production assistant with one hand on her earpiece is staring at the first girl. When the beat kicks in, the PA taps a brunette and she marches on stage in her heels to open the show. I move up in the queue, squeezing my midsection through my Gucci jacket. It doesn’t help.

  The bass line vibrates the stage, light from the runway glares through the doorways into the dark behind the facade, and within minutes our calm communal changing area is chaos. Guys and girls are already rushing back from the runway and ripping their clothes off as dressers simultaneously pull new outfits onto them. The floor and racks are littered with worn Gucci looking as used up as salmon after mating.

  I’m motionless in the chaos. There won’t be any quick changes for me. I’ll come off stage and wait in the same outfit until the finale. I glance at my iPhone but have no messages. This entire situation is sad.

  There are half a dozen models before my turn to parade on stage with a strut-crippling leather man bag on my shoulder. This should bother me more than it does, but instead, I can’t stop thinking that if Taylor thought I wasn’t just another model, maybe things could be different between us.

  The models keep coming and going, every heeled step clomping on the stage. Only three models in front of me now, and that buzzing in my ear has become a piercing screech like metal tearing metal. I take another step up the stairs, already feeling the warmth of the stage lights, but I don’t feel better.

  Modelling has become me. Two models left.

  I eat, breath, and sleep this fashion life. Then one.

  Or maybe fashion has consumed me.

  Then it’s just me and the PA.

  She has her hand on her ear piece waiting on Boyd’s order to send me out. The momentary flash of the spotlight makes her look like an assassin waiting on a kill order.

  I don’t know how I’ve gotten here. Britney thinks I’m a sleazebag, Boyd thinks I’ll do anything for fashion, and—worst of all—Taylor thinks both these things about me. I don’t want to be this person, but I don’t know how to be anyone else.

  The PA slaps my shoulder. It takes me a second to refocus. “What are you waiting for?” She nudges me. “Go!”

  I step around the corner into the heat of the blinding lights. The music is instantly louder, and the crowd—a dark sea of heads surrounding the white runway—surges around me.

  A model girl is standing at the end of the T, her hip cocked in a pose. Hundreds of flashes pop and she turns and parades toward me. Light-headed and ignoring the pain in my stomach, I take the first few steps completely forgetting about my strut. Concentrate. I narrow my eyes trying to focus when something in my gut convulses.

  All eyes are on me at the top of the runway as I crumple, my hands bracing myself on my knees to keep from dropping to the floor. My inane leather man purse flops to the stage.

  Time slows and I feel like I’m going to spray vomit all over my Gucci loafers. The ringing in my ears overpowers the music, and more cameras flash as the crowd anticipates a potentially popular YouTube moment.

  Catwalk Fail!! Male model pukes on Gucci Runway! Hilarious!!

  I’ll be another twenty thousand views on the internet and then lost in a digital haze of cute cat videos and people who open products while simultaneously describing them. My other video was just the appetizer, this is the main course that will define me. Male model. A fucking joke.

  The girl on the runway passes, giving me a disgusted look like I’m doing this on purpose. Thanks for the help. There might be a blood vessel exploding in my brain, you twat. Somewhere in the audience, Giovanna and Boyd are witnessing my public self-destruction in Gucci while sipping champagne and giving exactly zero fucks. Any hope I had for Milano is done. My dream is finished.

  But I don’t care anymore.

  I try to stand but my stomach clinches like someone’s stapling my innards together, and I don’t want to walk for Boyd or Giovanna or Milano.

  Taylor’s right, my sister is better than me. Jasmine wouldn’t let herself become who I’ve become. I am the asshole Britney thinks I am. I am the desperate loser Boyd recognizes. I am the douchebag that Taylor sees. But I d
on’t want to be. I want to be better.

  And then I know how to do it.

  The ringing in my ear subsides, replaced by thumping bass and a girl singing we’re dancing in the dark, we’re spinning in circles. I will myself upright. Alone on stage, the crappy murse is laying at my feet like discarded shackles. I kick it out of my path, sending it flopping through the air and into the crowd. Everyone is staring at me and someone says, “Is this part of the show?”

  It is now, asshole. I’m marching down the stage, my eyes narrowed and jaw clenched, but this isn’t some fake practiced look—this is because I’m determined. I’m getting off this fucking runway.

  Meters from the end of the stage, a crescendo of snapping cameras erupts in hundreds of flashes. I spot Boyd standing next to the DJ booth with his headset on. His face is twisted with rage.

  Stopping to glare at Boyd, I raise my arm and then my middle finger. He shakes his head willing me to stop. I wave it at him like it’s a flag. The collective flashes of every camera in the place bathes me in light. I squint, holding this look longer than the standard three seconds models are supposed to pose at the end of the T. Fuck it, I’m making my own rules now.

  Boyd is screaming into his headset and hopping around, looking like a little haute couture jumping bean and I step right off the stage. Jumping down into the dark of the photographer’s bay, flashes blind me at point blank. I squint and push through into the audience. The music continues to thump and the lights are still drifting over the empty runway as I shove through the crowd and out the front door.

  CHAPTER 33

  Colin Bryce Hamilton

  I just torched a shit load of bridges.

  8 people like this.

  CLOSING ON THE entrance of the Vivienne Westwood show, I check my iPhone but there are no messages. The show ended ten minutes ago, right before Gucci started, and I texted Jasmine but she hasn’t replied.

  I’m hoping there’s still time to catch Taylor.

  At fashion week security pays zero attention to a model in full make up and wardrobe entering the other hall and breaking into a run. The place is crammed with staff disassembling the stage, stacking chairs, and generally obstructing like traffic pylons. I wish I had a gun to fire in the air and make these impeding fuckers scatter like frightened cattle. Navigating this obstacle course, I get backstage and see Jasmine.

  “Jas!” I trot towards her. A few models linger extracting pins from their hair and pulling on their own clothes. “You were awesome out there!”

  Jasmine turns.

  “Thanks,” she says, scanning my full Gucci outfit, and her mouth drops open. “The other girls were watching the Gucci show on the backstage screen and said one of the models gave everyone the finger and left. Uh, was that you?”

  “Yeah.” I say.

  “Was that part of the choreography?”

  “Not really.”

  Jasmine stands there looking at me like she’s waiting for me to explain. Then my iPhone rings.

  “Hold on,” I say, pulling it from my pocket. Private number is written across the top of the screen. It’s going to be Boyd, or Apple, or maybe the police. I did run out of a fashion show fully dressed. Technically, I just stole a few thousand dollars’ worth of clothes.

  I answer ready to tell them they’ll get their shitty clothes and to chill the fuck out.

  “Look, you’ll get-”

  “Colin! Darling, is that you?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Giovanna,” the voice says, and it takes me a second to link the voice’s enthusiasm with the aloof elitist fashionista I know as Giovanna. “Darling, that was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I frown. Is this some sort of trick to keep me on the line while SWAT teams triangulate my position? Maybe abseiling Special Forces guys are about to smash through the back windows and drop me with a bean bag bullet to the back of the head.

  Jasmine scrunches up her forehead at me.

  “Where are you?” Giovanna says. “You must tell me.”

  “The Vivienne Westwood show. Backstage.”

  “Stay there!” She hangs up.

  “Are you going to jail or something?” Jasmine winces. “No,” I say. “Well… Maybe. Have you seen Taylor?”

  “Not since the show ended,” she says, and a smile explodes across her face. “Oh my God, I knew there was something there! Did you walk off stage to defend her honour or something? You walked off for love!”

  “I have to find her,” I say, ignoring my sister’s school girl bliss. “I’ll totally help,” she grabs my hand. “Come on!”

  Jasmine and I are moving to the hall entrance when Giovanna and Boyd enter through the doorway. They pause, and when they see me, they immediately start marching towards us. Shit.

  Giovanna has this happy look in her eyes that makes her look psychotic, and Boyd is scowling like he wants to run me over with his Humvee.

  As the duo near, I pull my sister to me and say, “Jas, can you check for Taylor outside?”

  I want her out of here. This could get messy.

  “Sure.” Jasmine’s eyes dart between Giovanna and Boyd, then she whispers, “Call me if they try to put you in jail.”

  My sister dashes away, glancing back as Boyd advances on me like an angry, suit wearing pit bull.

  “What the fuck was that?” He jabs a sausage-like finger at me.

  “It was incredible,” Giovanna gushes, which sounds more impressive in her Italian accent. And although Boyd’s face has turned so red it looks like it’s going to explode into a fine red mist, he shuts up to let Giovanna have her say. The fashion hierarchy strikes again.

  “Darling, your performance on stage tonight was phenomenal,” Giovanna says. “That attitude, that fire… IMD will happily represent you in Milano.”

  For a moment, all I can do is gawk. Then I recover and, even though I suspect it’s beyond her scope of human emotion, I ask, “Are you fucking with me?”

  “Bello, never!” She grins, her eyes radiating a level of enthusiasm that is slightly frightening. Fashion is so severely fucked. It’s like the whole industry was abused as a child. It’s super needy for the wrong things.

  Everything I’ve tried to get to Milano—and this is what worked. It’s ludicrous. It makes no sense. Taylor was right, the entire industry is random. Fashion is pointless chaos.

  “Thanks, Giovanna,” I say, the freedom I felt walking off that stage, was the best I’d felt in a long time. I’m not giving that up for the inane whims of a broken industry. “I’m going to pass.”

  Beneath her vanity glasses, Giovanna’s expression turns to confusion. I turn to leave when Boyd leaps in front of me like a little yapping dog. “You’re still wearing Gucci clothes,” he says, with his hands on his hips.

  “You can’t go anywhere in those.” Boyd stands there like he expects me to cower at his fashionista presence, but I’m not scared of him, he has no power over me anymore.

  “You’re right.” I stop and take my jacket off. Dropping it on the floor, I pull my shirt over my head and throw it aside. Then I walk past him, flipping my loafers off one by one and leaving them overturned on the ground. All he can do is stare open-mouthed as I squirm out of my pants, abandoning them in a pile on the rug. “All yours.”

  As I exit the Westwood hall in nothing but my underwear, Boyd is scurrying around gathering discarded clothing from the floor as Giovanna watches in awe. And before the door slams shut, I swear I hear her say bravissimo.

  Sprinting through the convention hall in my underwear gets its share of looks and whistles from drunk fashionistas but I have no time to pause and let them admire. I return to backstage at the Gucci show and pull on my own clothes. Then, pushing models out of the way, I’m running for the big glass doors of the convention hall exit.

  My iPhone rings, it’s Jasmine.

  “Where are you?” She says, like she expects to hear the slamming of metal bars in the background.

  “Don’t wo
rry, I’m not going to jail,” I say, scanning the crowd as I move to the exit.

  “Great,” Jasmine breathes. “I can’t find Taylor, I think her phone is off. No one can reach her.”

  A tuxedoed usher opens the glass door for me, and I run outside. I take a few steps onto the sidewalk with the phone to my ear. I don’t see her anywhere and turn to look back at the emptying convention centre. There is a row of glass doors and every time one swings open, it coughs out a handful of smirking guys in suits and lip pursing girls in gowns.

  Pausing, I watch as group after group of drunk fashionistas, mostly still carrying flutes of Moet, pile into their Bentleys and limousines. Models are flooding out looking just as chic, but they’re headed for taxis and buses. I don’t see Taylor anywhere.

  “Colin?” My sister says on the other line. Taylor’s phone is disconnected, and she’s not here. She’s probably at her apartment packing, eager to return to her life before fashion, and leave all of this—and me—behind.

  “Don’t worry about it, Jas,” I say, realizing I’ve missed Taylor. “But—”

  “I’ll talk to you later.” I hang up.

  Surrounded by designer suits and dresses, models and fashionistas, I suddenly wish I had a non-fashion life to return to as well. I pocket the phone and begin the long agonizing walk to my crappy room. Alone.

  “Hey,” A voice says. Ahead of me, away from the entrance and the fashionable crowds, a model leans against the glass façade looking at me. Her green eyes shine behind layers of eyeliner.

  Taylor.

  “Hi.” I say. “Listen, I wanted to tell you—”

  “I saw you on stage,” Taylor smirks. “Giving everyone the finger. Interesting technique.”

  “Yeah, that was me quitting.” Models aren’t big on memos.

  “That’s what I thought,” she says. We stand there for a second and I take a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry, I lied to you about my sister,” I say. “I just wanted things to be cool between us. I know it was stupid. I wanted to tell you the whole truth but there was never a good time.”