Little Black Dresses, Little White Lies

by Laura Stampler

  My stomach free-falls. No. Carter’s eyes. Carter’s lips. We have to go to Maverick.

  “Unsanitary?” Gigi pokes her spoon at the jiggling Jell-O but doesn’t take a bite. She grimaces. “Now you’re sounding exactly like an Abigail clone.”

  “This isn’t Abigail-standard gross.” Sunny shows us Instagrams that were recently posted at Maverick to offer proof. “It’s gross by any normal standard of decency. Look.”

  I hate to admit it, but Maverick, named after the main character in Top Gun, does look pretty icky. Not only is there a Tom Cruise shrine over the urinals in the men’s bathroom, but other Instagrams show hundreds of bras hang from the ceiling like a chandelier.

  “I sincerely hope those are brand-new bras they got shipped to them in bulk and girls didn’t take off their underwear in the bar!” a horrified Gigi stutters.

  “It reminds me of Sigma Chi’s basement,” Brie says, although it’s unclear whether she’s referencing the frat boy décor as a good thing or a bad thing.

  “As I said,” a triumphant Sunny continues, “as much as I’d love to get gonorrhea from sitting on a bar stool. Pass. Sorry, Harper.”

  “No!” I say a little too loudly, a little too invested. “I mean, it’s just, I already told him we would meet him there and I don’t want to be rude.”

  But it seems like they’ve already reached a decision, consensus be damned. They’re already working on finding an alternate option for the night, heads down and mass texting their “going-out friends.”

  “Stop freaking, Harp,” Gigi says, not looking up from speed texting. “He’ll like you even more if you’re hard to get. Think of this as a good thing.”

  My head spins with options. I don’t care if the bar is disgusting. I really want to see Carter. See what happens. But the thought of going alone sounds terrifying. Besides, I don’t want to rock the boat with the Shift Girls. Last week I would have killed to be out with them. To have Gigi call me “Harp.” I don’t want to go back to how it was before.

  I text Carter, “Bad news . . .”

  Carter:

  ?

  Harper:

  Hard to sell Maverick to friends. Bra decorations and everything.

  I see him type and stop. And type and stop. And finally type and send.

  Carter:

  Might mobilize troops soon anyway to go to house party in Crown Heights.

  I can’t tell if he’s asking me to go to the party with him or is just sharing information. I also can’t tell if I’m blowing it with him.

  “What if we go to Crown Heights instead?” I offer the group, not knowing where that is, let alone if we’re even invited.

  “Brooklyn? I am not in the mood for borough hopping tonight,” Sunny, our self-proclaimed New York nightlife expert says. “Besides, I found us a winner. A promoter took Cassie and some of the models from her agency to Mode in the Meatpacking District, and it’s cool to crash their VIP table.”

  Brie’s impeccably smoky-eyed eyes widen. “No way. Jenni Grace tweets about Mode all the time!”

  “Shit.” Gigi’s hands sweep over her outfit. “I dressed for ‘upscale dive bar,’ not ‘hottest club in the city’! And I’m not the only one.”

  Gigi gives me a look.

  “Me?” But I’m wearing a cute floral sundress!

  Gigi’s eyes flick down to my feet. “And your shoes.”

  “What’s wrong with them?” My feet have been killing me from weeks of wearing stilettos to work, so I’m wearing Aunt Vee’s Chanel ballet flats. She said that if I insisted on forgoing heels, then I’d better make up for it with the designer.

  “Unless you’re a six-foot-tall model, bouncers won’t let you in without heels,” Gigi says. “It’s, like, the first rule of going out in the Meatpacking District.”

  “And even the six-foot-tall models are wearing heels,” model expert Sunny adds.

  “If we’re dressed incorrectly, we could just stick with the original plan,” I offer.

  “No way.” Gigi’s eyes sparkle mischievously, like she’s a little kid who’s certain she’s about to get away with something. “I have an idea. And it’s brilliant.”

  19

  WE TELL THE BOSH MEDIA night doorman that we have to go upstairs because Brie left her work phone at her desk.

  “I’m such an airhead!” Brie says a little too convincingly, twirling a finger in her hair and leaning forward to provide a not-so-subtle peek of cleavage to further enhance her case.

  But it’s all a lie.

  We’re at Shift to retrieve something far more exciting than a work iPhone from two upgrades ago.

  “Just so you know, if I’m going down for this, I’m taking all of you bitches down with me,” Sunny warns. She then leads us to the back right corner of the Shift office and types the top-secret six-digit code into the wall. And so opens the door to one of the most envy-inducing places in the entire city: the coveted Shift fashion closet.

  Even Sunny isn’t supposed to know the combination, which changes every month with the close of each magazine issue. It was entrusted to her after a model’s Jimmy Choo shoe broke during a fashion shoot that was running late. The editor didn’t have time to get a new one herself and, hey, what’s the worst that could happen? The code was going to change in a few days anyway.

  Little did the editor suspect that a group of ballsy interns would be downtown and in desperate need of a wardrobe change.

  “You will tell no one about this.” Sunny leads us inside. “You will die never having told.”

  In Aunt Vee’s closet, loud colors and patterns yell over one another for attention. But things that are quiet have the power to draw you in and force you to devote all your attention to listening. The Shift fashion closet whispers intensely.

  To the untrained eye, the clothing appears overwhelming in its simplicity. There aren’t even colors. In fact, every single thing in the closet is black. Racks and racks of black. But it’s only monotonous to the untrained eye. Upon closer inspection, the variety is immediately apparent. Sleek leather pants contrast with dreamy tulle skirts. Some pieces are spare while others are decorated with intricate stitchwork and shining embellishments.

  “I’ve died and gone to heaven.” Gigi clutches at her heart.

  “Well then, I’m glad we’re somewhere that has so many mourning-appropriate outfits for us to wear to your funeral,” I say.

  “No jokes. We’re on sacred ground!” Gigi is magnetically pulled to the nearest set of hangers and lovingly strokes the arm of a cashmere, drop-neck sweater.

  “Is the fashion closet always this monochrome?” I ask Sunny.

  “Well, I’ve been sworn to secrecy, but it’s for the September issue,” she says, standing in the middle of the contraband closet. “Usually Shift is all about young, fun colors. But this year McKayla has decided that all fashion spreads are going to be black. Like, every single one.”

  “That’s why I perfected the smoky eye!” Brie releases the tidbit of information in a spurt, like it’s been building up inside and has been dying to be let out. “Although makeup is allowed to have some pops of color so no one looks too goth.”

  “So black is the new black?” I ask, not wanting to show my hesitation about whether all black is the right choice for what’s supposed to be a fun, empowering teen magazine.

  “Exactly!” Sunny gushes. “It’s going to be so dramatic. The fashion blogosphere is going to blow up.”

  “This!” Gigi, totally oblivious to the September issue conversation, has moved on from the cashmere to a gorgeous black dress. “I’m wearing this to Mode.”

  The minidress is made primarily out of opaque black silk. But its short sleeves, side cutouts, and entire back are constructed from sheer floral lace, making the wearer seem both modest and naked simultaneously.

  “Mine!” Brie has already started stripping out of her yellow sundress in favor of a shimmering, beaded Alice & Olivia, complete with sequins for extra sparkle.

  �
�I don’t know if 1920s flapper works with your, um . . .” Sunny motions to her boobs.

  Brie gives a defeated “oh” and then tosses it in my direction. “Do you want it, then, Harper? No offense?”

  “Hey!” I used to wear padded bras from Victoria’s Secret, but Kristina warned me that boys would be able to tell that it was cushioned when I got to second base. (“Don’t you mean ‘if’ I get to second base?” “I mean ‘when.’ Stop being so fatalistic!”)

  “I happen to be just fine with what I’ve got!” I declare, and carefully hand the dress to Sunny so that she can hang it up in its proper place.

  Sunny doesn’t need to change. She came club-ready in a black razorback.

  Wait.

  “Is it going to be weird if we all roll in wearing matching little black dresses even though it’s the middle of summer? Like we’re trying too hard? Like we’re in a uniform?”

  “Of course we’re in a uniform,” Gigi says, totally unconcerned. “An LBD is a crucial staple. It’s New York. It’s chic.”

  Sunny nods. She’s always in a Little Black Dress, and she always looks fantastic.

  “It’s like what my fashion sensei Karl Lagerfeld says,” Sunny recites by heart, “ ‘One is never overdressed or underdressed with a Little Black Dress.’ ”

  I’m going to write this in my notebook as soon as I go to the bathroom, where I sometimes go to jot down notes.

  “My favorite Karl Lagerfeld quote’s, ‘Trendy is the last stage before tacky,’ ” Brie pipes in.

  “Thank you for your input, Brie,” Gigi says, taking off her cutoff shorts, “but really not relevant at the moment.”

  “Whoops!” Brie tries on dress number three.

  “Quiet!”

  “I said whoops!”

  “No, quiet because I think I hear someone! I think someone’s coming!” Gigi might not be wearing bottoms, but she is wearing a look of pure terror.

  “Hide!” Sunny grabs me and Brie, each in different stages of undress, and pulls us behind the cherry blossom decorative changing screen. Gigi dives behind a stack of shoe boxes wearing only a bra and underwear.

  It’s one thing to come upstairs after-hours to supposedly pick up Brie’s work phone. But getting caught trying on designer dresses in the fashion closet would be a serious problem.

  “Oh my God, we’re all going to get arrested,” I whisper.

  “In our underwear,” Brie responds.

  “Or worse,” Sunny says. “We’re all going to get fired!”

  “Shh!” The stack of shoe boxes across the room angrily hushes.

  The door opens and no one breathes. No one even thinks of breathing. We just concentrate on not moving and praying that the flashlight doesn’t illuminate our discarded clothes on the floor.

  It might last for only fifteen seconds, but it feels like a lifetime. It feels like I lost at least a year of my life.

  Even after the door closes, we stay still for a few minutes. It must have just been a routine midnight security check. We’re in the clear.

  My phone breaks the silence.

  Kristina.

  “Turn that thing off!” Gigi snatches my phone and silences it.

  “Oh my lord, that was scary,” Brie whispers.

  “Should we leave?” I ask.

  “No way,” Gigi says. “We’ve come this far. We’re not leaving until we’ve got our wardrobe change!”

  20

  WE ARRIVE IN A ROW of little black dresses.

  (And with a shopping bag crammed full of our discarded outfits to leave at coat check.)

  The line to get into Mode wraps around the block, and the number of people trying to cut the line is debatably larger than the crowd politely queuing up.

  “I swear my friends are inside,” a guy tells a bouncer with a clipboard.

  “Yeah, you and everyone else,” the bouncer replies, arms crossed over pecs so large that I think his tight black T-shirt is at risk of bursting open. “If your name’s not on the list, you wait like the rest of ’em.”

  I go over the information again as I finger the ballerina-chic tulle skirt of my dress: Sharon Smith. 111 Main Street. Born November 21, the very last day of Scorpio, thanks for asking!

  “Come on, Harper.” Gigi snaps her finger at me as I walk toward the back of the queue.

  “It’s Sharon,” I hiss.

  She rolls her eyes and says, “Whatever.”

  The Shift Girls ignore the crowd completely and confidently strut directly to the bouncer. I teeter behind.

  Sharon Smith. Blue eyes. Five feet two inches.

  Sunny stops just shy of the velvet rope and starts talking to a baby-faced man who must be in his thirties. (Abigail would not approve.) His hair is slicked back into a ponytail, and a gold chain necklace is tucked inside his red silk shirt, which is just one button too unbuttoned.

  “Marco?” she asks.

  “And you must be the other half of ‘Hashtag Sussie’ that I’ve heard so much about,” Marco says, using air quotes. He gives Sunny a kiss on her cheek, and then turns to inspect our group. Marco looks at us head to toe, nods approvingly, and motions for us to come forward.

  “Who’s that?” I ask Gigi.

  “A promoter. Quick, look cool and give him your ID.”

  I actively calm every facial muscle and try to look bored. Like I’ve done this a million times. Like I go to the club every weekend and on Mondays, which Aunt Vee has prescribed as the best going-out night of the week.

  Sharon Smith. Zip code 84101.

  We pass our fakes to Marco and he fans them out like a deck of cards. He waves them abstractly in the bouncer’s direction and says, “Four girls, Ernie. They’re with me.”

  I brace myself to get quizzed as Sharon.

  But as quickly as the gigantic bouncer turned the other guy away, Ernie unhooks the rope and lets us in. He doesn’t even look at our licenses. He doesn’t even care. The inside of my right wrist is stamped with the word “Mode,” and Sharon Smith is tucked back safely into my clutch in less than a minute.

  I guess Ernie will never know that I’m an organ donor.

  “I can’t believe it was that easy!” I whisper to Gigi with a squeal, and erupt into a wide, toothy smile.

  “Marco’s job is to get cute girls into clubs,” she responds coolly. “Not check our IDs. That way rich guys will come and buy us drinks. Lots of drinks. It’s a win-win for everyone; you just have to know the right people.”

  I don’t even care how sleazy that sounds. This so beats the parties back home. This is a completely foreign beast.

  Electronic dance music pulses as Marco leads us down a staircase into the underground bunker that is Mode. The dance floor is thick with people. Overhead, women in sparkling bustiers contort their bodies and wrap around streamers of long silk fabric hanging from the ceiling like at Cirque du Soleil.

  Brie grabs Sunny’s hand, I grab Brie’s hand, and Gigi grabs mine and gives it a little squeeze. We lift our arms high in the air and snake through the dance floor in an unbreakable chain. Brie bobs her head and shakes her butt to the music as we slide toward our intended destination. The VIP section.

  Sunny’s the first to break free, and she runs toward a table full of models. And I don’t mean that in an “oh, you could totally be a model” way, but in a “congratulations on booking that three-page spread in Icon magazine, you literal model, you” way.

  We all watch as Cassie, instantly recognizable from #Sussie pictures, stands up in all of her five-eleven glory and wraps the tiny-by-comparison Sunny up in a hug. Any remnants of RBF are erased from Sunny’s face. She looks totally happy, and it’s infectious.

  “Aww,” Brie coos to me, before taking a picture of the surprisingly not annoying #Sussie PDA. “I know you’re all about the hooking up, but I want that.”

  My throat gets a little tight. I don’t know if I actually want a series of summer flings. I want what Sunny has too. But it’s better to focus on the small accomplishments—a
kiss, maybe a date—rather than a relationship, which seems totally out of my reach.

  I automatically look at Carter’s most recent Instagram activity. He posted a picture one hour ago at Maverick, surrounded by a group of friends, laughing and cheers-ing with cans of PBR, the hipster’s choice of beer. The caption reads: “ ‘Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?’—Friedrich Nietzsche.”

  He quotes Nietzsche? I think that the pros of intellectualism definitely outweigh the cons of Maverick. I think I made a mistake.

  “Dance,” I announce abruptly, somewhat shocking myself. “Now. Let’s dance!”

  Let’s dance and deflect.

  Not even allowing Brie and Gigi to get a drink from the table’s bottomless supply of vodka and cranberry juice, I pull them with me toward the DJ booth. The bass booms, we put our arms in the air, and just totally let loose. Even Gigi. She starts out modestly but intensely moving her hips but soon incorporates the rest of her body, flipping her thick hair to emphasize a song’s beat.

  At home I keep to the sidelines. I take calls or, if there’s a discreet place to do it, take notes. But not now. A space opens up on a platform and we hop up, visible to the whole crowd.

  Even though it’s packed, we manage to carve out room for ourselves to execute big, high-energy dance moves. We incorporate each other into our swivels and turns, and whenever a guy approaches we just shake our heads (among other things) and one of us shouts, “Girls’ night!”

  “Our bigs gave my entire pledge class matching shirts that say ‘Forget Guys, I Just Wanna Dance,’ ” Brie says, moving her body like she’s in a music video. “I should have brought mine with me to New York.”

  We keep dancing through the early hours of morning.

  21

  I WAKE UP THE NEXT day to the shrill beep of a text message.

  When I manage to lift my pounding, heavy head from the pillow, I see that last night’s eye makeup has left an abstract work of art in the form of disjointed black streaks on the expensive cream-colored fabric.