After the food arrives in an unheard-of delivery time of fifteen minutes, Gigi turns to me and says, “There’s a party tonight. I’ll text you details.”
13
THE ONLY PERSON MORE EXCITED than I am that Gigi invited me out is Aunt Vee.
As a recovering seventies (not to mention eighties and nineties) party girl, she can’t quite comprehend how it is that Princess has a more active social life than I do. And no, being a third wheel on the dog’s walks, which I’ve been doing regularly, doesn’t count as a social life.
A typical conversation goes:
Aunt Vee: “It’s only eight. Why are you home so early?”
Me: “Because it’s a Monday?”
Aunt Vee: “It’s New York! Mondays are the most delicious nights to go out in New York. If I had a seventeen-year-old’s ass like yours, I’d be shaking it in the Boom Boom Room right now.”
Me: “Do they even allow seventeen-year-old asses inside the Boom Boom Room?”
Aunt Vee gives me a pitying look (note: Get a fake ID to avoid social shaming at hands of “middle-aged” aunt) and proceeds to stay out until three in the morning at a charity gala for the Society to Save the Spotted Pygmy Owls. “Those ornithologists sure know how to party!”
But that’s all changing because Gigi actually makes good on her promise and invites me out with the Shift Girls to one of the awesome events she’s always Instagramming.
The Shift Friend Ship is definitely on the horizon, I text Kristina.
Kristina:
Love u but even I can’t condone that lame pun. Ur rly bad at this.
Harper:
I have to practice punning for work. Don’t hurricane on my social voyage.
Kristina:
Pls stop.
Aunt Vee’s reaction when I show her Gigi’s text invitation verges on ecstatic.
Gigi:
Art show opening in Brooklyn tonight. Philistine Gallery @10. Everyone’s going.
I’m part of the everyone. Going to an actual party with actual peers—unlike Aunt Vee’s friend’s Fourth of July gathering I went to, where I was the youngest person by at least three decades.
“And Brooklyn is so trendy now,” Aunt Vee gushes. “The New York Times style section was just raving about the homemade lingonberry jams at a vegan artisanal bakery in Williamsburg that I’ve been dying to try. Where’s the gallery you’re going to?”
When I tell her it’s in Bushwick, she offers to send me in a car. With pepper spray.
Psh. It can’t be that bad. I guess Aunt Vee must have missed the trend piece about the “Man Buns of Bushwick.” I reject the pepper spray but happily take the car.
* * *
The drive across the Williamsburg Bridge is so beautiful that I don’t even mind the bumper-to-bumper traffic. As the car slowly traverses the East River, putting us somewhere between Manhattan and Brooklyn, I take in the best view of the New York City skyline that I’ve seen since arriving. Skyscrapers pierce the starless night and the top of the Empire State Building is illuminated with purple and yellow light.
No matter what filter I choose, none of the photos I take captures what’s in front of me. Don’t get me wrong, I still add one to my Snapchat Story, but it hardly replicates what I’m actually seeing and experiencing.
The people from Castalia High respond anyway. The first snap back is, oddly enough, from Bobby McKittrick. It’s a selfie of himself holding up his shirt, exposing his chest. The text: “This view’s better.” Followed by an eggplant emoji.
Um, ew.
As if Kristina can read my mind that I’m about to text her how gross Bobby is, she Snapchats me a video from Bobby’s backyard. Of course he’s having a party tonight.
The panorama shot actually captures Bobby sending me his selfie, girls shouting “woo” and taking a shot, and some football player perched on top of a keg, growling at passersby as he drinks. “Bobby’s brother taught people how to do a gargoyle keg stand,” Kristina narrates. “So you aren’t missing anything here. You’d better be taking your summer-flings pledge seriously at the fancy New York art party you’re going to so that I can live vicariously through you.”
It hits me: the blog. McKayla’s orders.
Tonight has to be about more than just making friends.
14
I’M AT THE ADDRESS THAT Gigi texted, but there are no signs of human life apart from two men smoking cigarettes outside the corner store across the street—which Ben taught me is called a bodega, famous for greasy breakfast sandwiches.
There are no crowds, no lights, no music, no man with a clipboard checking people into the art show. I examine the door’s unmarked buzzers, debating which one in the long line of black buttons I should press that might lead me to Philistine Gallery. It doesn’t look like a gallery. It looks like an abandoned warehouse. Its walls are marked up with graffiti and flyers. One is for a “Missed Connection”:
You were wearing a blue dress and walking your cat. I was in overalls and riding a skateboard. . . .
A plastic grocery bag rolls past my feet like a tumbleweed, propelled forward by a gloomy breeze.
Gigi hasn’t answered my text, and panic sets in that maybe I’m in one of those stories you read about, maybe in Shift, where people are pranked to go to the middle of nowhere while everyone else is laughing.
Just when I’m about to text Gigi again, two girls in rompers pull up in a green cab. Without hesitation, one deftly presses the second-to-last doorbell and is quickly buzzed up. I slip through the door before it closes. These girls look like they know what they’re doing. (So does Aunt Vee—she insisted I wear a romper too. Her wardrobe ranges from sixty-something going to a gala to adolescent on the prowl. She’s very excited whenever one of her ensembles fits me perfectly. “I’m going to give my trainer an end-of-bikini-season bonus,” she said when I fit into a snug pair of her jeans, my other option for the evening.)
Music pulses louder and louder as we climb a concrete staircase, which opens to the expanse that is Philistine Gallery, a mecca for modern art.
The gigantic loft is cordoned off into sections, each one displaying a different artist’s work. Abstract sculptures are interspersed among colorful paintings and pencil drawings. Caterers uniformed in matching man buns offer appetizer trays of fried shitake mushroom risotto squares and dessert trays of miniature doughnuts with a hibiscus glaze to clusters of well-dressed art appreciators.
One of the well-dressed clusters is made up of some of the Shift Girls. Gigi, Brie, Sunny (frowning per usual), and Abigail are standing under a bright pink painting covered with disembodied Barbie doll parts. A head here. A torso there. Dozens of plastic doll shoes hanging from thin strings at the bottom left-hand corner. Its title: Anatomically Incorrect and Whatever.
I’ll head over right after a necessary pit stop at the bar, which has a punch bowl that is billowing smoke. I’m not much of a big drinker. I typically nurse one foamy red party cup of beer per party. But I realize that alcohol isn’t dubbed “liquid courage” and a “social lubricant” for nothing.
Praying that the bartender doesn’t card, I ignore the mysterious smoking concoction and meekly ask for a glass of champagne. He acquiesces without question, so I order a second to be safe. Just in case the policy changes.
The first glass goes down smoothly. I’m no connoisseur, my alcohol consumption is usually restricted to one—maybe two—red party cups of watery beer, but I can tell that the champagne is good. Much better than whatever Bobby McKittrick buys in bulk for his New Year’s Eve bashes.
I feel instantly lighter. Bubblier. I walk toward the Shift Girls with my second glass in hand.
When Gigi sees me approach, she waves me over and says what sounds like “bees bees” as she gives me an air-kiss on each cheek.
“It’s short for bisou, which means ‘kiss’ in French,” she explains.
“Cool,” I say, fumbling through the air-kiss. “Thanks so much for inviting me. This place is amazing.”
“Isn’t it?” Gigi says.
Brie nods her head enthusiastically, big hair bouncing in agreement. “Even though it’s totally sad to see all the decapitated Barbies. She was my icon!”
(None of us is surprised.)
“Well, the artist is a complete genius.” Gigi’s eyes scan the gallery. “I really want to find her and get an exclusive interview for the site. It would be perfect for Shift.”
A caterer in a flannel shirt and bow tie comes over with a long tray of mini waffle ice-cream cones filled with guacamole.
“Where’s Jamie?” I ask, grabbing one of the hors d’oeuvres. She’s the only intern who isn’t at the gallery.
“There are rumors that Kate Middleton might be pregnant again, so Jamie offered to stay home and write it up in case it’s true,” Abigail says. “It turns out that Jamie was right—she told me McKayla is considering her for the new viral reporter opening.”
Abigail continues that McKayla has taken Jamie off intern duties and is putting her “on trial” to get a full-time job. If she does well, she’ll be hired at the end of the summer. Every day is an audition.
“Good for Jamie!” I say.
“Good for us, too,” Abigail says. “Now that she’s a reporter-in-training and not an intern, she’s not in the running to get the magazine feature.”
Jamie is the only person so far who has been on the Leader Board. Now we all have a better chance of being the Shift Girl to Watch. I turn to see what Gigi makes of all this, but her attention is elsewhere. Her gaze is fixed on a very short woman whose hair is dyed in three horizontal chunks, brown to blond to pink, like Neapolitan ice cream.
“That’s her! That’s the artist!” Gigi says. “Be back. I have to get my exclusive!”
She pushes past the caterer and his tray.
Shift Girls are hungry, but not necessarily for food. They’re hungry for stories. They’re hungry to get noticed. Noticed by readers and, more importantly, by McKayla. Shift Girls want to make their mark.
So do I.
“Are you on the job tonight too?” Sunny asks. “Looking for a summer fling? I really liked your blog post. You’re good.”
“Wait, really?” I ask. Sunny, who always seems to be frowning in my direction, actually thinks that I’m good?
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Well”—I’m on champagne number three so am more loose-lipped than usual—“I always kind of thought you didn’t like me. Actually, you always kind of get this grimace whenever I talk—”
Sunny actually breaks into the first smile that I’ve ever seen cross her lips.
“Well, don’t take that personally,” she says. “That’s just because I have RBF.”
“Is that a disease or something?” Brie asks, cocking her head to the side with concern, like a confused puppy.
“Yes. Incurable.”
Now Brie looks like a puppy that just found out it’s going to get neutered.
“No, it is not.” Abigail corrects her with a huff. Always the Health intern. “Don’t scare her like that, Sunny.”
“Fine, it’s not technically a disease,” Sunny clarifies. “RBF means Resting Bitch Face. Basically, my neutral expression makes me look like I’m mildly annoyed on a good day and semimurderous on a bad one. So, no, I don’t hate you. It’s just my face.”
Right.
This actually makes me feel better. Maybe everyone disliking me was just in my head. Maybe I’m the judgmental one.
“Does Gigi have Resting Bitch Face too?” Brie asks.
“No.” Sunny shrugs. “I think she’s just a bitch.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing people have at UT.” Brie tilts her head to the other side.
“At the University of Texas?” Sunny rolls her eyes. “No. RBF is less sorority girl, more fashion. Everyone at fashion school has it.”
“Well, smiling gives you wrinkles, so I guess you’ll beat us all in the long run!” Brie offers her beauty trivia with a smile.
“That and it’s a chick magnet,” Sunny says. “Cassie says that my smoldering is what drew her to me.”
Hmm. My neutral tends to consist of nervous smiling followed by incoherent rambling, and that certainly hasn’t made me a guy magnet. Maybe I should have Aspiring Bitch Face. It does seem very New York.
“Anyway, Harper, if you are looking for a fling tonight, I think that you should let us help you pick,” Sunny says.
“Oh, please say yes!” Brie agrees. “My sisters choose guys for each other to go after at frat parties all the time.”
If I’m going to survive as Shift’s dating blogger, I know that I need to up my flirting game from asking cute guys what time it is and running away. Fear of rejection sends me into fight-or-flight mode, and I don’t know how to stop myself from always picking flight.
So maybe getting forced to flirt in front of my colleagues will actually be a good thing. Not only will the guy selection be out of my control, but I can’t wuss out because . . . they will all be watching me.
Oh God.
I’m gonna need another drink. Luckily the server with the champagne tray is always circulating nearby. It’s like he has a sixth sense regarding inebriation.
Brie smiles at the cute caterer while I take my drink. “There are tons of hot guys here.”
“I won’t let them pick any of the old creepers,” Abigail says. “I won’t be a part of the start of an unhealthy relationship. A wide age gap can cause tons of psychological trauma down the line.”
“All right.” I take my hundredth sip of champagne. “Fine.”
Brie claps her hands and Sunny, going for a record, smiles again.
We scan the room for possible targets.
“What about that guy?” Brie asks, pointing to a man in skinny jeans standing alone in front of a canvas that’s completely blank except for a glued-on plastic spork.
“He looks like he could be thirty!” Abigail says.
“So?” Brie asks.
“Ancient. Pass.”
Good call, Abigail.
“Him?” Sunny nods her head in the direction of a hipster with a mustache that dramatically curls up at both ends like the bad guy who ties women up on train tracks in old Western movies.
“He has part of a risotto square stuck to the left tip of his mustache,” Abigail overrules. “Unsanitary. Pass.”
“Fine,” Sunny says. “If you’re just going to reject everyone, then you pick the ‘healthy’ choice!”
“Fine!” Abigail retorts. She takes a minute to assess her options. “Okay, him. He was a couple of years above me at school. His name’s Carter. Kind of full of himself but relatively age appropriate and clean.”
“And gorgeous!” Brie says.
I turn and it’s him.
In all his green-eyed, Nietzsche-reading glory. The guy who was leaning against the Bosh Media Building the first day of my internship.
Leaning slightly to the right. Expression slightly smug.
I can feel an energy pulsing between the two of us. Like he knows I’m watching him. Like he knows that I know that he knows that I’m watching him. Wasn’t that one of the pieces of advice in my blog? Let yourself get caught checking him out. Maybe I actually do know what I’m talking about. This time I don’t turn away.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m in.”
“Also . . .” Abigail keeps talking, but I tune her out.
The champagne fizzes in my veins and the bubbles propel me forward, toward the exhibit that he’s observing.
But how do I sell him on me?
Harper Anderson, Dating Blogger, would know these things. I need to figure them out. Right now.
The small section of the gallery where he’s standing has art that’s very different from the rest of what’s on display. Rather than big paintings with bright splashes of color, everything in here is small and subtle. Black-and-white pencil sketches that are on pieces of paper no bigger than the pages of my notebook.
The series is called The Ladies Who Give Zero Fucks, and I’m immediately entranced by the intricately drawn tableau on each panel.
The first one shows a man and woman sitting across from one another on a date. The guy is wearing a jacket that says “Members Only.” The woman is playing a dating app under the table on her phone.
The next sketch shows a barefoot woman in a party dress, holding her high heels in her hand. Too tired to walk, she’s getting pushed around in a shopping cart by another fabulous friend. Lying back like a queen, swigging champagne straight out of the bottle.
I take one step to the right to get a closer look at the drawing. One step closer. The energy between us buzzes a little louder.
I am a Shift Girl.
I am unapologetic.
“So.” I turn to face him head-on. I don’t smile but instead try to smolder. “What do you think of ladies who give no fucks?”
There’s an almost indecipherable shift in his body. Surprise, maybe? I don’t think he expected me to say something first. I didn’t expect me to say something first. I can sense I’ve thrown him off a little. And that he doesn’t like to be thrown.
“The sketches.” I take a slow sip of champagne. “That’s the title of the sketch series.”
He turns to meet my gaze. In heels, I’m almost exactly his height. His green eyes have small flecks of gold in them.
“I think the art is . . . okay.” He’s trying to stare me down. But my eyes don’t falter. “But the concept is a lie.”
“How so?”
“Every girl I’ve ever met has given a fuck.”
I take a step closer. I’m playing a part, and this is what my character would do.
“Then you’ve been meeting the wrong girls.”
And then I’m leaning forward.
And then our eyelashes are almost touching.
And then I’m kissing him.
And then he’s kissing me back.
In an instant, I’m no longer watching from the sidelines. I am present. And this is real. We don’t know each other at all, but as soon as our lips touch, a switch is flipped on. There’s a jolt of electricity. I wouldn’t be surprised if when I pull away, and I have to be the one who pulls away first, our hair is standing on end.
Little Black Dresses, Little White Lies Page 9
