Food Whore

by Jessica Tom

  We rolled around more, but I couldn’t block out the neighbor. Why couldn’t she just move on? The thrashing of her keyboard drilled in my head.

  Elliott took off my top and then started on his. I looked at him while his face was hidden and cringed for some reason. But by the time he got his shirt off, I was ready to embrace him again. Whatever that feeling was, I had shaken it off.

  He unlatched my bra with minimal struggle, and I looped my big toes around his white athletic socks and peeled them off. He pressed his chest against mine and that feeling overcame me again. Heartache. Fear. I buried my face in his neck—­a neck and body that had been so good to me for so long—­and winced. I was sure he felt my face change against his skin, but he kept going. He kept kissing me and moving his hands across my shoulders. It was the same tempo and sequence as always. Kissing, undressing, him on top, done. Perfectly fine. But this was different in other ways. Suddenly everything filled me with an inexplicable sadness.

  Elliott’s sheets reeking of vinyl. His tiny studio with barely any light. The belongings he’d triumphantly swept off the bed. The fact that he’d thought this would be a wonderful surprise pinched my heart. He seemed so ravenous for me, while I was holding my breath, waiting to be seized by another wave of sorrow.

  My phone rang on that new end table. Rescue. I picked it up.

  MISSED CALL: MICHAEL SALTZ

  And then, a text:

  Call me now.

  I put the phone down—­a little too loudly—­as Elliott realized that he had lost me in the moment.

  “Hey, what, who,” he said, panting, his hands hovering over my topless body as if I were radioactive. “What is . . . ?”

  “Oh, Elliott. I—­ It’s just—­” I jumped out of bed and kissed him on the forehead to make up for the abruptness, but of course that didn’t help.

  He let out a ruffled, pained sound and wrinkled his face like he was talking to the sun. “Tia, come back. What are you doing?”

  “I have to—­”

  “Seriously, Tia? Please come back to bed. I miss you. I want you.” So he’d noticed our lack of sex, too.

  “Elliott, I have to do this thing . . .”

  “Come on! Can’t it wait? Who was that?”

  “No one,” I said, putting on my bra and shirt. “I just remembered I forgot to write up my report for my internship seminar. Which is in an hour. And that will take me at least an hour to do.”

  Elliott looked at my phone on the table, and I swiped it away. Nothing I said seemed to stick with him. He kept looking at me, expecting me to say something that would register. But I couldn’t do that for him.

  Still lying on the bed, Elliott slammed the wall.

  I’m sorry, I mouthed, as if uttering a sound would make this a real problem. This was a little blip. I was adjusting to Michael Saltz, and soon everything would settle into place.

  Elliott propped himself up on his new sheets and stared at me with round, searching eyes. The tiniest of frowns crossed over his face. “It’s okay. Let me know if you need help.” But he said it as an afterthought.

  “Thanks, I will,” I said.

  I called Michael Saltz back the second I got onto the street.

  “Okay, I’m returning your call.” My eyes climbed to the fourth floor of Elliott’s building. I wasn’t sure which window was his.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” he said. “Are you free Wednesday night? I’d like to go to Panh Ho.”

  Elliott and I were supposed to hang out that night and I had an internship report due on Thursday, but now that I had it within my grasp, I needed to get the NBT. Everything else would have to wait.

  “Yes, I’m free,” I said. “And . . .” I was searching for the little bead that had changed things with Elliott. “I want to go to Bergdorf, too,” I said, just to try it on for size.

  “Go anytime you want!” Michael Saltz said. “You have free rein over my account.”

  A rich and luscious relief washed over me. It came out of nowhere, as sudden as the wave of sadness in Elliott’s apartment. It rushed in like fresh air, something new and invigorating.

  As I hung up, I noticed Elliot’s wreath in the fourth-­floor window and ran down the street to the subway that would take me uptown to Bergdorf Goodman. I had to get away.

  BERGDORF WAS UNLIKE any store I had ever seen, more like a museum than a place to buy clothes. I didn’t see cashiers, or lines, or even many ­people. Each designer had his or her own little boutique with its own type of carpet and mannequins and sales­people. The Chanel boutique was black-­and-­white Parisian elegance. The Roberto Cavalli boutique screamed with color and print and leg. The Chanel saleslady wore a prim black sheath and cardigan, while the Cavalli woman wore a whipped tropical number slit to her upper thigh.

  A tiny, impeccably dressed Italian woman approached me. She wore towering black patent leather ankle boots and had very arched eyebrows, the best-­looking woman in sight.

  “May I help you?” she asked. She had no name tag, nothing that would puncture a hole in her beautiful blouse.

  “Yes, I’m looking for Giada Fabrizio? Michael Saltz sent me.”

  “Ah, I am Giada! Signore Michelangelo is very nice. Come with me to lingerie, yes?”

  “Lingerie! No, no.”

  “You don’t want something . . . pretty?” Just then I saw the obvious: older man sends young woman to “get some nice things” with his money . . . I shuddered at the thought.

  “I need something that will make me look polished and sophisticated.”

  “Of course,” she said, though she looked disappointed. “Is it for special occasion? What sort of thing you like? We go polished and tough, perhaps Balenciaga? Or polished and modern like Prada? Or do you like the polished and . . . how do you say . . . girly? Like a Temperley or Matthew Williamson, do you suppose?”

  “Oh! Um, well, I don’t know.” I suddenly wished Emerald could help me with this. “I need to look older and more professional.”

  “Okay, do not worry. I will get you something so beautiful. I gather clothes for you, and I call you into room when I am ready.”

  I sat on a taupe suede couch and watched her walk away, two long zippers trailing down the backs of her boots like silver invitations. She was born to be a lingerie personal shopper.

  I got to my feet and made a little tour of the floor, focusing on each designer name and committing the different looks to memory. Each boutique was its own little stage, mini lifestyles living side by side, ripe for the choosing. If I was going to play the part of the elegant diner, this was a world I needed to know.

  I watched older women inspecting the seams of each garment and younger women holding slinky dresses against their bodies. Husbands sitting on the couches, playing games on their cell phones. Gorgeous six-­foot models listening to the advice of their gay best friends. Two women wore their sunglasses even though we were very much inside and argued where they would spend Thanksgiving, the one’s house in Southampton, or the other’s house in Bridgehampton.

  And then, at the far end of the store, someone caught my eye, a woman sitting in a leather armchair in the Michael Kors boutique. She was hugging her arms around herself and rocking slowly, strangely. It looked like she needed help.

  When I stepped closer, the woman’s eyes darted around like those of a caged animal. She sank back inside the chair, a tiny plant among a forest of faceless mannequins.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” I said to the woman, crouching down to eye level. The Michael Kors boutique smelled different from the rest of the store, of white flowers like jasmine and gardenia. “Is everything all right? Are you here with someone?” I looked for her companion. I couldn’t imagine that she’d have come here on her own; she seemed afraid to move.

  The woman said nothing. She actually wasn’t an old woman at all, maybe in her forties or early fi
fties. She had a beautiful face and a dignified look to her, if you could imagine a time in which she didn’t look so fearful. Her hair was high and tight like a ballerina’s, a style that called attention to her hollowed cheeks but also gave her a look of strength and grace. She wore a pink cashmere sweater decorated with delicate crocheted flowers and two rings with large ruby stones. They must have been a weighty burden on her weak fingers.

  Then I heard a worried voice from some faraway Bergdorf chamber. “Mom? Mom, where are you? Mom?”

  The woman looked up and shrank even farther into her chair. She pulled the neck of her sweater up to her mouth. I didn’t know how to help her, whether it was best to reveal the woman to her daughter, or hide her instead.

  Still, I couldn’t see the girl, just hear her voice.

  “Mom? Mom? Excuse me, miss? Have you seen my mom? She was sitting right here. Her name is Janelle. If you see her, can you tell her that Emerald is looking for her?”

  Five boutiques away, I saw her gesturing wildly at a saleswoman. Emerald. I took another look at the woman in the armchair and ran off to the Dolce & Gabbana boutique, where I hid behind a rack of large wrap sweaters.

  Emerald couldn’t see me in Bergdorf Goodman. She knew this wasn’t my kind of place. We’d be put in some awkward situation that wouldn’t benefit either of us. She had her secret, and I had mine. Facing her would rattle the divisions we’d created. So I remained hidden, poking out from behind a large sweater threaded with frazzled yarn that leaped out like rainbow eyelashes.

  From there I saw Emerald spot her mother, then grab her with a force that surprised me. “Mom! I told you to stay where you were! Why did you move?! I told you to stay, I told you to stay!”

  This had to be the “hard life” Sherri at the thrift shop had been talking about.

  The woman looked up at Emerald blankly. “Mom, please, please don’t do this again,” Emerald said. The woman rose out of her chair and hid her face, as if ashamed.

  They passed the Dolce & Gabbana boutique and Emerald had tears in her eyes as she mouthed the word fuck over and over again. Her mother looked back at me and I almost knocked down a mannequin dressed in a stretchy black dress covered with silver ziti-­shaped tubing.

  I waited until they entered the elevator, then turned around to find Giada behind me as close as my shadow.

  “Are you ready now? I think I have everything you need,” she said. “I had lots of fun with the bedroom things, even though you say you don’t like.”

  Now didn’t seem like the time to try on clothes—­much less lingerie.

  “Would you be able to send the outfits to my home?” I said. “I can just return them if they don’t fit.”

  “Of course, miss. I have it couriered to you tomorrow morning, and we can pick them up if you do not like.”

  “Great. But the delivery must be discreet,” I said, echoing Michael Saltz.

  “Say no more, miss. I understand.”

  I wrote down my name, address, and cell phone number on a cream linen card.

  “Ah, very nice, Miss Monroe,” Giada said. “We have another delivery to the East Village tomorrow morning. I will tell the courier, Piotr, to call you when he is outside your building.”

  I nodded, then took the escalators down. Outside Bergdorf’s, tourists had taken over Fifth Avenue. Emerald and her mother were nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 10

  MY CELL PHONE RANG AT NINE THE NEXT MORNING.

  “Hello, Tia Monroe? This is Piotr from Bergdorf Goodman.”

  “Okay, I’ll be down in a second.” I threw on a hoodie, picked up a laundry bag, and ran downstairs, thinking I’d hurry everything into my room while Emerald and Melinda slept. But when I arrived in the lobby, I saw an entire rack of garment bags and boxes next to a big man. He dressed like a bellhop but looked strong and sharp-­eyed enough to be secret ser­vice. Both he and the doorman looked unfazed. I guessed they had seen weirder things.

  My laundry bag wouldn’t even fit a quarter of the stuff. The delivery was crazy. I hadn’t asked Giada for this much. She, or maybe Michael Saltz, must have taken liberties with my request.

  “Okay, well, I suppose the garment rack has to come up. But we have to be quiet so my roommates don’t wake up,” I whispered to Piotr.

  “Very good, miss,” he said. We took everything into the elevator and I wanted him to break the spell and say the truth, that this was strange. But he didn’t. I made him stay in the hallway while I peeked inside our living room.

  The coast was clear, but Emerald’s door was now a little open. Had it been open when I left? Or had she left and gone down another elevator? I hadn’t seen her in the lobby, but maybe I’d missed her. Or maybe she hadn’t spent the night at the apartment at all.

  After Piotr left, I locked my bedroom door and put everything away, but Emerald stayed in the back of my mind. When would she come back? Could she have seen Piotr and this mountain of clothing?

  There was so much in the delivery, I didn’t know where to start. So I started everywhere. I opened garment bags stuffed with four or five things, then took something out of a tall bag, then something from a box. Inside one garment bag I found a navy suit with an ever-­so-­faint paisley design woven into it. The tag said Valentino. Got it. An Italian name, with luxe flair.

  And then I uncovered two sleeveless silk shirts, structured with expert-­looking pleats around the shoulders and bust. These were by a guy named Narciso Rodriguez. Or was that a woman? They were subtle and somehow mathematical, something an architect would wear for herself and not necessarily for others.

  Next, a white Carolina Herrera blouse. A female designer, that I could understand. But what I couldn’t understand—­its buttery weight, a silkiness that enveloped your hands. This woman is casually wealthy. She may roll up her sleeves, but the blouses are dry-­cleaned and steamed the second she takes them off.

  I marveled at a blazer by Missoni. It was black on the outside, but lined with what I would later learn were the house’s signature zigzags. This one seemed like a stretch for me, but that made me like it more.

  A round, pumpkin-­orange box labeled Hermès beckoned. I didn’t know whether to expect earmuffs or a necklace or a bathing suit. It was none of those things: a beautiful silk scarf patterned with hot-­air balloons. Now I remembered what Hermès stood for. Scarves, yes, but also bags. Could I get my hands on one of those?

  I crouched down and found a navy shoebox etched with a silver triangle and discovered a pair of red patent leather slingbacks. Prada. They were clean and sturdy, yet subversive. There was a lone spike on the underside of the sole, in the space where the toes vault up to the heel.

  I worked to internalize everything as if it were a dream that might fade away. With each garment, I studied the tag—­who made it, where it came from, what materials. Like the restaurant dishes at Madison Park Tavern, I wanted to learn everything. There was security in that complete knowledge.

  I turned my attention to three dresses that were definitely not made for dining. They were going-­out things, dancing looks. One was a swingy black dress made of a wet suit–like material, with a high neck and stiff A-­line skirt. Alexander McQueen. Another was a red Gucci with little loops of textured fringe. It should have looked Elmo-­like, but the sophisticated shape overrode the thought. I twisted the dress on the hanger, and the skirt rose and fell like the swelling of the ocean. The last dress was surprisingly heavy even though it was the shortest, narrowest, lowest-­cut garment in that day’s shipment. The tag said Hervé Léger and the dress was ribbed like a mummy, a very tight, shiny, green-­and-­gold mummy.

  I skipped three other boxes and opened the big one on the bottom, a white box sealed with satiny tape labeled Jimmy Choo. Inside was a pair of black knee-­high boots in a beautiful glossy crocodile pattern. I wondered if they could really be crocodile, and then realized I had never touched c
rocodile before. I looked at the side of the box, but couldn’t find the price tag. Not that I knew how much crocodile cost, anyway.

  I didn’t know how much anything cost, and that added to the surreality of it all.

  The last thing I opened was a classic trench coat with sharp, precise lapels, whimsical hooks and snaps, and a silk lining that spoke something about me that I was not. In coat check, I never saw coats with so much detail and beauty. I tried it on and it lay on me as a new identity would, heavy and complete and consuming. I wanted to live in this coat and have it do all the talking for me. The label said Burberry. At that moment, the name meant little aside from shiny magazine ads and Chinatown knock-­off scarves. I could only pay attention to the quality, the luxuriousness of the thing itself.

  I used to think that fashion was a disguise. ­People depended on those bells and whistles to prove something about themselves. I still felt that way, but was it so bad? It was like speaking many languages. Each one gave you a new entryway into the world. That’s what clothing could do for me. I could step out as someone different.

  There were so many brands I didn’t know, so many things—­like brooches and clutches and silk neck scarves—­that totally stumped me. Millions of women would have killed for this, all this stuff, all this possibility. I didn’t have to pinch myself to prove it was real—­I just had to touch it, press it against my face, spritz it on the inside of my wrist.

  I looked at the rest of my bounty and realized that it would take me a good part of the morning to open everything and put it away. And actually, I had miscalculated how much closet space I had. Even though I had received a flood of clothes, more than I had ever bought in my life, I still fit everything in my closet. It had started big and empty. But now it was full, finally full.

  I took out one last package and unwrapped it on the bed. Out came black lingerie with laser-­cut lace, beautiful pieces that were romantic yet strong. Modern and sexy. Giada had left a note on another of Bergdorf’s signature cream linen cards: Enjoy your new clothes.