by Susan Juby
“Can I ask what exactly you’re doing hanging out with such nasty girls?”
“Dahlia’s mom is taking me out for her Moms Make the Difference volunteer commitment. We went to Cathedral Grove to look at the trees.”
“Really.”
“The trees were huge. But I already knew that. Quite a few people have taken me to see trees.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because everyone thinks disadvantaged kids need more trees.”
“Oh,” I said. I felt a little stab of shame. I totally would have taken a poor kid to see trees. Of course, I was and still am a fairly poor kid, and trees are free.
“My foster mom already shows me lots of trees. She bought me all new clothes for this trip.”
“Oh yeah?”
I peered over the counter and saw that Esther wore the same outfit as the other three. A hoodie, patterned tights. On her feet she wore the same fancy rubber boots as the other girls.
“As soon as Dahlia and Morgan and Brittney saw me they said I was copying them.”
“I’ve seen lots of other girls in wearing those kinds of clothes,” I said, trying to make her feel better.
“I don’t even like this outfit very much,” she said, lifting her chin a bit. “Even if it is comfortable.”
“What kind of clothes do you like?” I asked.
She squinted suspiciously, like I’d said something creepy.
“I don’t really know. Maybe sports clothes? Sometimes, I wear my brother’s basketball jersey. But it smells like sweat no matter how many times my foster mom washes it.”
I thought for a second. Processing. “So are you interested in clothes?” I asked, an idea dawning in the dustiest reaches of my brain.
She crinkled her nose suspiciously.
“I’m not stranger-dangering you. I’m in this, uh, competition. A fashion competition. We have to design an outfit for someone. To win a scholarship to art school.”
“You can use a kid as your model?” she said.
“Why not?”
“What would I have to do?” she asked.
“Tell me about what you like to wear. Then I guess I’d measure you and then make you something to wear in this fashion show. Do you think new clothes would make a difference? You know, in dealing with them?” Outside in the parking lot, the other three girls were getting into a shiny sport-utility vehicle.
“I don’t know,” she said. “They’re all obsessed with modeling and stuff like that.”
“Well, what say we make you a model first?”
“That,” she said, all serious faced, “would put sand in their eye.” She was obviously repeating something she’d heard an adult say, the way I repeat things my gramps says. I got a huge kick out of the small, hilariously sinister smile on her face.
“Here. I’ll give you my number. Give it to your mom.”
“Foster mom,” she corrected.
“Right. I’ll explain the project to her. The fashion show is in May, so we have some time.”
I wrote my cell number and scribbled a note on the back of a Salad Stop card: Dear Esther’s Foster Mom: Please call about Esther taking part in a fashion competition.
I didn’t want there to be any confusion about why I was giving my number to a kid. Be just my luck to get arrested as a creeper while I was trying to cheat my way into a private school.
Outside someone honked the horn.
A lean lady in exercise clothes bustled out of the Liquor Depot with two bags full of booze.
“Thanks,” said Esther. And she walked out the door in the new clothes that had failed her completely.
John Thomas-Smith’s Increasingly Pointless Argument against Fashion and Fashion People
“Crinoline fires” killed 3,000 women between the late 1850s and late 1860s in England. Women would lose sense of their circumference, step too close to a fire grate, then flames would be fanned by oxygen circulating under their skirts. . . .
—ANN KINGSTON, “DEADLY VICTORIAN FASHIONS”
fifteen
HERE’S AN IDEA © CHARLIE DEAN DESIGNS:
Sometimes you simply must wear a hat. And sometimes that hat is going to be very large. Embrace that moment when it comes! Think of Britain! Think of polo ponies! And whatever you do, don’t forget a feather in the brim.
DATE: MARCH 10
Days until fashion show: 55
Mischa didn’t show up the day after I went to see her or the day after that. I sent her three texts, and she didn’t respond.
On Sunday, after I got home from a four-hour shift at the makeup counter, during which I helped numerous people who desperately needed it—why don’t schools offer a mandatory course in understanding your skin tone?—I found my dad slumped in a chair in the kitchen.
At first I worried he was high, but my père does not linger in common areas when he’s using. He likes his privacy. Thank Dior!
“Hello?” I said. “Everything okay?”
He had no book or magazine in front of him. No food. Just him and the unfortunate kitchen table.
It should be said that my father and I spend a lot of time asking each other if we’re okay. It’s nice, but also a little unhealthy from a codependence perspective, which I learned about during extensive attendance at Alateen in years past.
“Yup. I’m fine, Charlie. Heading out to a meeting soon.”
“That’s good. Taking your two-month chip?”
He nodded but didn’t look excited. My father has taken quite a few chips. Perhaps the excitement has worn off. Maybe I should make him an eccentric and hilarious belt made entirely of sobriety chips. Or perhaps not.
He asked how work was, how school was going. Then he asked if I’d heard from Mischa.
“Not yet. But I’m sure she’s coming over soon.”
“That’s good,” he said. “I worry about her.”
I did, too, since I needed to take her measurements so I could begin her dress. It would not be a simple project.
“So are you two . . . ?”
“I hope so. When she gets things settled. She doesn’t want to get into a hassle with her ex.”
I didn’t know how I felt about that. Mischa was a definite improvement over most of my father’s romantic leads, post–my mom. For one thing, she didn’t look like a turnip left in a heavy metal band’s root cellar for three years. For another, she might be the person to bring my fashion and education dreams to fruition. But I couldn’t forget that my dad and relationships were not a good combination.
I went to my room and brought us out some nice crackers and a small piece of good cheese and shared them with my dad.
The food seemed to lift his spirits, and when he left for his meeting, his back was straight and his footfalls firm.
He’d been gone for about ten minutes when I heard a vehicle pull into the driveway. It says something about the state of the vehicle’s repair that I heard it over Edith Piaf singing “La Bohème” on my computer. Si romantique, not to mention a relatable story of housing instability!
I turned the music down and looked out the window to see whether it was Mr. Devlin. If it was him, I decided I wouldn’t answer the door. But it wasn’t Mr. Devlin, it was Mischa, getting out of an old GMC camper van, an appalling beige-y yellow with brown stripes. It was the sort of vehicle one associates with low-income seniors who have made a lot of poor life choices.
I don’t know what I thought she’d drive, but it wasn’t that.
I rushed out of my room and opened the front door before she could knock. My greeting stopped in my throat.
Mischa had a black eye.
And a fat lip.
We stared at each other.
Here is a sad fact: Charlie Dean has seen a beat-up face or two, usually her father’s. She even saw him getting beaten up once
by a gang member who had been ordered to give my father a lesson about managing his dettes. (But the gangster didn’t say it in French, because he was a member of the lower-echelon criminal underground and probably a high school dropout.)
His swollen shoulders had looked like small, round boulders under the lurid rose-and-skull pattern of his Ed Hardy shirt. Acne studded his neck and jawline as though the shirt was giving his skin a rash. My dad had been using hard for weeks, and the nightmarish visit seemed like the inevitable finale. When I saw the young gangster all I could think was that Ed Hardy was not a designer who would stand the test of time. I was right. Twelve years old, and I called it.
“Go to your room, Charlie,” my dad had said, as though he was concerned about providing me with a wholesome environment.
“She better not call the cops,” said the gang member.
“She won’t,” said my father.
Heart pounding, I went to my room, locked the door, and sat on my bed and tried to focus on the copy of Vogue my father had stolen from a laundromat for me.
The blows in the kitchen sounded like an Easter ham falling repeatedly off the counter.
It never crossed my mind to call the gendarmerie. Too much likelihood my dad would get arrested along with the gangster, and I’d end up in the care of the ministry again.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against gendarmes or law and order! When someone robs a Charlie Dean showroom in Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles, New York, or Paris, the authorities will be called posthaste.
After the front door slammed shut that terrible evening, I went to check on my father. He was bent over in his chair, holding his face in his hands.
“Get me a tea towel, would you?” he said without looking up.
He held the dark towel I’d given him to the lower half of his face and tilted his head up to slow the bleeding.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” he said, his voice muffled by the terry cloth. He sounded like a man elated after surviving a tough job interview.
Now here was Mischa with the same expression on her face. She had the same to-hell-with-it attitude. All her anxiety was gone. The worst had happened, and she’d survived it.
“Gorgeous, right?” she said. “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay by the time I do your fashion show.”
What to say? What to do? Intervention? Wise words? Coun-selors? Also: she was still willing to model for me?
“Ouch,” I said.
Mischa pointed a long index finger at her swollen lip as though at an exhibit.
“You mean this old thing?” she said. “I’ve had this forever. Since last night at least.” She gave a slightly crazed-sounding laugh.
I did the only thing I could think of. I brought her into my room. It’s the nicest space in our house, and I hoped it would be healing for her.
Mischa didn’t sit. Instead she turned in a slow circle, like someone who found herself in a strange but wonderful neighborhood.
“Would you like some tea?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said. “Wow, I had no idea it was so nice in here. If I could smell properly, I bet it smells good, too.”
Bad taste in men, good manners. One can’t help but think that it would have been better the other way around.
I gestured for her to sit down on the chair I’d re-covered using an old tapestry I’d found at a flea market. Someone’s dog had chewed off the fringe and one corner, but there had been enough left intact to cover the seat and back of my chair. I’d upholstered the arms with a soft wool tweed in oatmeal and greige. At the foot of the chair was a small ottoman re-covered with a remnant of an old Persian carpet. The chair and the ottoman were going to look fabulous in the converted barn I planned one day to own. I would take a page from Mrs. Vreeland’s book and place handwoven baskets full of hand-dyed yarn all around. It would be unutterably charmant.
I poured the hot water into the round glass pot. I put in a chrysanthemum bud and watched its pink blossom unfurl like a slow-motion explosion.
“Whoa,” said Mischa as she watched the tea bud transform.
I arranged our glass teacups without handles on the tray instead of looking at her. The small glass and wood container with the honey wand sat neatly on the plain wooden tray.
“My friends used to call him Demon,” she said.
Her black eye made her look a lot older and a lot younger. Like half her face was a shadow of who she would one day become.
“We were never very good together,” she said, holding up both ends of the conversation. “We brought out the worst in each other. But even though I have this”—she pointed vaguely at her battered face—“I think he heard me when I said we were done. That I’m moving on and he should too.”
My hand hovered over the tea set.
Listening to her made me glad I am probably not destined for romance at all due to being too busy for it and not being able to afford the distraction. Diana Vreeland was married to her husband, Reed, for most of her life. But he cheated on her for years. I would happily settle for being in love with fashion.
“I’m sorry,” I said, because I was. “Did you call the police?”
She ignored me.
“Is the tea ready?”
“People who hurt other people are dangerous,” I said, realizing that was a less-than-incisive observation.
“I don’t want to get him in trouble. I just want him to go away. I’m in recovery now. He’s not.”
I poured out the tea and put the container of honey on the side table next to her.
“This is by far the fanciest tea I’ve ever had,” she said, and I could tell she was done talking about what had happened.
All I could offer Mischa was someone to talk to, an excellent cup of tea, and an extraordinary outfit. Maybe that would be enough.
I brought over the drawings for her to look at. “Here’s the dress I want to make for you,” I said.
Mischa stared down at the page.
“This is incredible,” she said. “I don’t even know how to describe what I’m seeing here. It’s not exactly the kind of thing you find at the local mall.”
“Funny you should say that. The inspiration is failed malls,” I said.
She glanced up. “Come again?”
I showed her my copy of Black Friday and my mood board with printouts of photos of malls that had gone bankrupt and been abandoned. “Oh,” she said, flipping back to the drawings of the dress. “I think I see it.”
“Malls in particular are so interesting. You can really see their structure when there’s nothing left inside. Big skylights and glass ceilings.”
“Is that why the dress is all shades of white and gray and has those . . . ribs on the sides?”
“Exactly. I want to show how the dress is held up. The underlying architecture. On the overskirt I’m going to paint geometric shapes, like discarded furniture. Like this,” I said, and pointed to an image showing overturned plastic chairs in a food court. I showed her the sample paintings I’d made. “I’m also going to do a pleated panel to suggest an escalator.”
Take that, intellectually rigorous John Thomas-Smith! I was pushing some serious boundaries here. Risky could be Charlie Dean’s middle name!
“And you know how to sew something like this? Like on a machine?”
“I’ll do some on the machine to save time, but I will do a lot of it by hand.”
She stared at me, and her bloodshot eye made me wince.
“Are you saying that I remind you of a bankrupt mall?”
Explaining my designs has never been easy for me, and I wasn’t about to get into the personal associations with the worst moment of my life, but I tried.
“The design is about expectations. Everybody wants something from beautiful people. From beautiful women, especially. But I think they’re most stunning when they refuse to gi
ve anyone anything.”
“Huh,” said Mischa. “I need to think about that.”
She smelled like cigarette smoke. Her perfume had too much citrus.
Her gaze slid up to mine. “You are a thinker, Charlie Dean,” she said. Then she looked away, long lashes fringing her cheek. Her beauty showed more wear than Bronwyn’s, more fragility. She was failure and, I hoped, new beginnings. From a certain angle she looked like my mother.
“You and this gown will be magic,” I said.
Mischa smiled crookedly at me to protect her swollen lip.
“I could use a little magic.”
PART FOUR
Lifesavers and Other Garments
sixteen
HERE’S AN IDEA © CHARLIE DEAN DESIGNS:
Take the time you need to be well dressed and properly groomed. Do not rush in matters affecting your look. Even a careless style takes focus! With this in mind, go to bed one hour earlier than usual, get up one hour earlier, and see your personal style bloom!
DATE: MARCH 11
Days until fashion show: 54
Now that I had my model and my design and was fully immersed in the competition, every other commitment in my life—and Charlie Dean has a lot of commitments!—felt like a burden. I asked my manager at Shoppers if I could get time off, and he very kindly granted it. I am, after all, the top part-time makeup salesperson at any Shoppers Drug Mart in the mid-Island region. Many are the women who no longer show facial exhaustion thanks to my skill with foundation.
R. S. Jackson Senior High was not about to grant me leave, however. And I needed to pass my courses or I wouldn’t be permitted into Green Pastures with or without a scholarship. There was also college to think about. Most colleges want even the most brilliant incoming students to have a high school diploma.
All that to say that I brought my paints and drawing pads and other art supplies to school with me. At lunch, instead of going to the counseling office, I went to the old art room, now used for adult education in the evenings, so I would have enough room to spread out and work.
