Текст книги "Being Audrey Hepburn"

Автор книги: Mitchell Kriegman

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

27

“Still up ?!”

I texted Jess and waited.

The wind was blowing down North Pine Street. I was trying not to get all weepy, wishing I had done something differently. Anything. Wishing Jake understood or I had told him to begin with. Now it was too late. I had no right to be jealous. I hoped it was the wind that was making my eyes tear up. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, seeing that cowgirl lingering behind him. The sad way she looked at me.

When I heard footsteps behind me, I panicked and picked up my pace. On the uneven sidewalk, I felt my ankle twist. Shit, Jess was right about the Louboutin heel not lasting. I kept walking anyway, not wanting to stop for a snapped heel. I turned on my phone light to make sure whoever was behind me knew I was ready.

The footsteps came closer and then faded. I glanced back. No one was there.

The wind whistled around me, giving me the creeps. Why hadn’t Jess texted me back already? I absolutely could not go home in this dress.

“Knock knock :)” I texted and waited.

I tried to think about what ZK and Tabitha were doing now. Not walking on a dead-end street in the dark, I bet. This fantasy project of mine felt pretty pathetic at one o’clock in the morning. The evening had been miraculous and all. But here I was, all alone with nowhere to go.

My phone buzzed.

“Of course I’m up! It’s only 1 AM 0.o” Jess texted.

“Ok if I crash ?! :)” I asked.

“Duh !! I’ve bn waitin ! Come to my house & tell all !! ☺”

I dialed Hometown Call-a-Cab, figuring there was enough money in my little peacock-feathered clutch to get to Jess’s house. Once inside the cab, I slipped off my shoes. The taxi cost exactly fifteen dollars. I hoped he wasn’t expecting a tip. I figured eighty-six cents wouldn’t be interpreted as a compliment.

I let myself in Jess’s back door. I’d had her key since the seventh grade in case of … well, emergencies. Climbing the creaky stairs to her room, I tried to make sure I didn’t wake her mom.

Jess was sitting cross-legged on her bed with the orange Cassini in pieces across the bedspread. I gasped.

“No worries. If I can take ’em apart, I can put ’em back together again,” she said, smiling. “I never stop being amazed at what goes on inside the clothes. Breaking down these dresses is better than all the courses at FIT. I just had to open one up completely to see how it was structured. They sure knew how to rock a cocktail.” She put down her seam ripper and looked up at me with expectation.

“So? Spill it! From the beginning!”

I propped myself up against some pillows and began replaying everything in detail, from the clipboard Nazi who loved my blog to meeting ZK, from the gorgeous clothes everywhere, the jewelry, and the rooftop pool to Tabitha’s crazy, erratic behavior and every single word that Isak Guerrere said about Jess’s dress. Telling it all to Jess, I realized how unreal and remarkable it was.

“Do you think Isak Guerrere actually liked the dress? You sure he isn’t just being nice?” she asked.

“He is nice, very nice. And yes, I think he really loves all the dresses. I’m pretty sure he used the word ‘genius,’” I said. “He’s even envious I don’t wear his designs.” Jess beamed with satisfaction, and she seemed totally excited about the possibilities. This was the first time I could ever remember Jess actually caring about what anybody else thought of her or what she’d done.

“They know you as Designer X from my blog.”

“Oh, I like that,” Jess said. “Lisbeth, you must be pretty incredible in action,” she said. Although she’d seen me at charity events before, it definitely seemed so much more remarkable that I had hung out with the whole famous gang at the Soho House.

“They’re actually buying you as one of their own. It’s so weird.”

“The scariest thing is this Dahlia Rothenberg chick. She’s really nasty about Tabitha and talks behind her back like she’s dirt. And she looks at me as though she’d like to rip me apart—if it wouldn’t damage her perfect nails. I don’t know if she’s on to me or she just hates me for some other reason.”

“Are you getting too many looks from ZK?”

“I guess,” I said, studying the edge of one of the pillows.

“So, what’s next?” she asked, neatly placing the dissembled dress in pieces on her desk by the window.

“Well, ZK invited me to this opening thing next week. By the way, what’s a Schnabel? Is it a drink like schnapps?”

“Julian Schnabel—he’s an artist,” she said.

“Oh cool, an art opening. And get this—Tabitha says she wants to go shopping. Can you imagine what that girl buys? Has to be some serious cash.”

“What?”

“Yeah, she wants me to go shopping on Fifth Avenue with her,” I said, uncertain why she’d responded so strangely.

“Do you hear yourself?” she asked. “What on earth are you talking about?” Jess seemed appalled.

“What do you mean?” I asked tentatively.

“Lisbeth, what are you going to do? You’re broke.”

“I don’t really need any money. I’m not going to buy anything. Hey, last night I went out and drank and ate and then there was the limo. I forgot to tell you about that…” But Jess was reacting oddly, and I didn’t want to go into all that stuff about seeing Jake with the swag cowgirl.

“School will be coming up in a month,” Jess said. “You haven’t talked about it once, let alone made any plans to get ready.”

“That’s because I’m not going to school.”

“What?!” The way Jess scowled at me—you would have thought I had confessed to robbing a bank or committing murder.

“It would be the end of all of my possibilities,” I said. “The end of my life.” It felt terrible to say it out loud like that. But there was relief in saying it.

“Does your mom know?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Jeez.” Jess turned away from me, peering out the window into the darkness. It was so dark you couldn’t even see the moon. I felt bad. Not just because I’d been lying all that time to her and everyone about college, but I knew that Jess would be disappointed in me. Despite her enthusiasm for reworking the dresses and the fun of sneaking into those events, she had been clear: she regarded it all as a prank. All along, I knew she thought my Audrey dream was shallow.

“Well then, what are you going to do?” She wouldn’t look at me, but we could see each other’s reflection in the window.

I shrugged. I didn’t know.

“Are you going to throw away a lifetime of responsibility, of actually being someone, to become one of them when you’re not really one of them anyway?” Jess asked. “You know, when they finish partying, they go home—to trust funds and Park Avenue apartments and vacations in Saint Bart’s and indulgent rich parents who let them do anything, even when they completely fuck up.”

“It’s different for you—you know who you are. I never have,” I said. “I want to be somebody, too. I just don’t know how.”

“Wow. I was afraid you’d get lost in this game and believe that it was real,” Jess said.

“It is real to me,” I said.

She shook her head slowly, astonished.

“I know,” I said sadly. “It’s not really like the Lisbeth everyone thinks they know around here.”

“I’ve got to get some sleep,” Jess said abruptly and began putting away her sewing tools. Then she stopped and sat next to me on the bed.

“Well, I have something I haven’t told you, too,” she began. “I found a tiny studio in Chinatown I can afford and I quit the Hole.” I was stunned.

“No way!”

“It literally just happened.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t even a plan, not right away anyway. But I checked out this ad on a whim, and when I saw this place, I knew I had to do it. I’m moving in next week.”

“Why does it have to be so sudden?”

“It just happened that way, believe me. I was going to ask you to help me move.”

“Sure,” I said too quickly. I wanted to sound positive, but I didn’t feel that way. I always seemed to be a step behind. Whenever I would get close to what I wanted, something would change, and my goals would seem impossibly far away once again. Jess looked at me like she was worried I might tear up. I was worried, too.

“I’ve done a bunch more of the dresses, just so you know,” she said. “I had a few ideas I wanted to try out. Here, look.” She walked to her closet and opened the accordion doors. Inside was a rainbow array of four more dresses already finished, modified, some radically, from Nan’s treasure trove. I flipped between the dresses.

“Jess, they’re so wonderful.” My Designer X was truly amazing. Looking at the dresses, you realized that she was just beginning to tap her talent.

“Yeah, this design ‘exercise’ has been good. I didn’t have the courage to develop my own line, at least not this fast. But I’ve gotten a lot of confidence working with these dresses, and I’m thinking about it now. I could do way more,” she said. “And you gave that to me, Lisbeth. You’ve been an inspiration.”

“Yeah, sure … really?”

“Yeah. Come on, we can talk in the morning. Let’s get some sleep.” She threw me one of her Sonic Youth T-shirts.

I headed into the bathroom to take down my hair and scrub my face. Jess kept a toothbrush for me in the medicine cabinet; I grabbed it and hunted around for the minty toothpaste I liked. The cinnamon kind that Jess’s family favored just burned my lips.

I stopped and examined my face in the mirror. I didn’t look like Audrey Hepburn at all, just plain, ordinary Lisbeth Anne Wachowicz.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Jess said from the other room. “Your mom called my mom last night trying to track you down, and my mom promised to send you back right after breakfast.”

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.

“You have to go home sometime,” Jess said.

28

Delaying the inevitable, I hung out at Jess’s house as long as I reasonably could.

Ever since Jess told me that my mom had phoned her mom, my brain imagined every dire scenario, trying hopelessly to anticipate what I was walking into. It’s one of the freaky things about being the kid of someone who throws plates and bottles around the house—you can’t help imagining the worst—because it happens and you’ve seen it.

Leaving the green strapless Valentino from last night in Jess’s closet with the other dresses, I borrowed a tank top and clean underwear and grabbed my jeans from the day before.

Turning down the street toward my house, I figured: shower, eat something, try to stay calm, and prepare to talk to Mom when she comes home. It was two in the afternoon, and I assumed no one would be there until three thirty—only I was wrong. Mom’s car was in the driveway.

That was unusual. She never took time off from the hospital, and they never gave her any. I took a deep breath and opened the screen door.

“Well, look who’s here. Howdy, stranger,” she said from the kitchen, lighting a cigarette. There were a few bags of groceries on the kitchen table. I dropped my backpack and started helping her put them away.

“Is something wrong with your phone?” she asked, taking a drag of her cigarette.

“No, Mom, I’ve just been busy, you know, with Jess and at the diner.” I took the four packages of frozen corn, opened up the freezer, and found myself staring at the stacks of half-eaten ice cream containers and the hundred-year-old frozen hot dogs. “How come you’re home so early?” I asked.

“At the court-ordered therapist’s office for Ryan,” she said and handed me the milk to put away. I noticed that she was rubbing her arm.

“You know the whole family was supposed to be there. The school-board attorney made it a condition of your brother’s release. I didn’t expect your sister,” she said, taking another drag on her cig. “But I expected you.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t know,” I said, wondering why those words hurt so much and why I felt so bad that I had let her down.

“Well, how would you know if you don’t answer your fucking phone? I even texted you,” she said. I felt her pushing toward a buildup. “I called everywhere; Nan didn’t know where you were.” I wondered if Nan was worried. Crap.

She grabbed her usual coffee mug by the sink. The bottle of Gordon’s would be next. Then Ryan walked in. He stood in the kitchen doorway. I hadn’t seen Ryan for a while. He seemed taller and his hair was longer, especially in the back. Mom must have cut his mullet for the therapist meeting. The run of freckles across his nose had faded, but he had the same crooked grin.

“Hey, sis, did you hear?”

“Hear what, Ry?”

“I’m clinically depressed. Pretty cool, huh?” He had a smug expression on his face. Instead of being repentant for all the trouble he caused, he seemed to be thriving on the attention.

“Well you seem pretty happy about being depressed.”

“Funny, sis, I get it.” Mom sat down at the table, and, oddly, I smelled coffee. She hadn’t walked over to the liquor cabinet. She had poured herself coffee.

“Make me some Eggos, Mom,” Ryan demanded. How did he think he’d get away with that? But Mom was silent. Normally she’d have snapped at him by now. He seemed to have some edge on her, maybe the therapist told her to be nice to him.

“Do it yourself, Ry, I need to talk to your sister,” Mom said quietly.

“But I always burn them,” he said with a tiny wicked smirk.

“I’ll make them,” I volunteered and opened up the freezer. I figured it couldn’t hurt to drag this out as long as possible to avoid whatever it was that Mom wanted to talk to me about. Putting the waffles in the toaster oven, I noticed Mom’s hand shaking slightly as she held her cigarette. Something was going on with her, but I couldn’t tell what.

“So, who said you were depressed, Ry?” I asked.

“The head doctor. He said I need more stability at home,” Ryan said, smugly pleased now that he was the focus and everyone had to worry about him. I guessed that Mom had gotten reamed at the therapist’s office.

The timer rang on the toaster oven, and then I buttered the waffles and handed them over to Ryan. He sat down across from Mom at the table.

“Ryan, I told you I need to talk to your sister,” she said. Ryan seemed unfazed, like he wasn’t afraid of provoking her.

“But I want to hear,” he said. He was totally pushing it. Mom looked up from her coffee at Ryan. I thought she was going to leap across the table and choke him.

“Get the fuck out of here,” she said quietly and went back to her coffee.

Ryan hustled up, so I guessed there was a limit to how far Mom would accommodate him. He grabbed his waffles and nodded with that shit-eating grin of his as he left.

“You missed the school orientation,” she said. “Hand me my lighter, will you?”

“Really?” I passed the Bic and she lit another cigarette.

“They sent this letter.” She fished a piece of folded paper out of the pile of papers on the kitchen table and slid it over to me.

“Mom, it’s addressed to me—it’s my mail,” I said.

“It isn’t if you don’t pick it up.”

I took my time reading the letter. It wasn’t anything new, really. I had been to one of the orientations before. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what dorm I was going to live in or where the classes were. The school was only five miles away. But the fact that she was opening my mail meant that she had some kind of clue. That couldn’t be good.

“I don’t have to go to that orientation,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s optional. I went to the first one instead when we signed up.”

“Is there something going on you want to tell me?” she asked, exhaling the smoke as she spoke. She rubbed her arm again as if it were sore and straightened her sleeve. Mom was on the hunt. That was her way when she suspected something.

“Don’t go off the rails on me, Lisbeth,” she said, looking me in the eye. “You’re the only dependable one left.”

“I know, Mom,” I said, not having the slightest clue how I’d ever be able to talk to her about what was really going on.

“I’m going to need you around more,” she said, sternly.

God, I hope not, I couldn’t help thinking.

She knew something was up, but she hadn’t put her finger on it—yet.

29

I arrived at Montclair Manor without calling, and when minutes passed and Nan hadn’t opened the door, I started to panic. What if she had fallen or had a heart attack?

Peering through the side windows, I couldn’t find a sign of her anywhere. She wasn’t in the back either. I knocked on every door and window. As I decided to head for Nurse Betty’s office, Nan’s door opened and there she was, dressed in a fluffy lavender bathrobe, her cheeks rosy, her silver hair pulled into a chic knot.

“Nan, you’re okay!” I said.

“Of course, dear, I was just taking a bubble bath.” She stretched her arms out to hug me. “Like liquid Prozac, isn’t it?”

We entered, and I wondered how on earth I had stayed away from Nan’s apartment for so long.

“It’s so lovely to see you,” she said from her bedroom as she changed into her clothes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your bath.”

“Oh, not a problem. I’m quite shriveled up and wrinkled as it is,” she said with a laugh. “Although the sea salts were soothing.”

I heard the distinctive snap of her Chanel compact, the one she still had from the sixties that she continuously refilled herself. Don’t ask why, but to me that little click had the definitive sound of luxury. It always summoned the smiling, elegant image of Nan.

She entered the room all bright and shiny, with a light blush highlighting her cheeks, an absolute minimum of makeup, totally put together in seconds. I marveled at how she did that.

“And to what do I owe this wonderful impromptu visit?”

“Missing your cheesecake?” I said sheepishly.

“Well, unfortunately there’s no cheesecake in the house,” she said with a sad look. “But today’s special is chocolate heaven cake. I hope that will do?” Her eyes twinkled.

“That sounds even better,” I replied. “And I could help with the whipped cream.”

“Splendid idea,” she said.

We both slipped into her miniscule kitchen that was hardly big enough for one. As I whisked the cream in a metal mixing bowl, I inhaled her perfume and immediately felt at ease.

“You know, Nan, there was an oil painting in your storage area of a little girl. Is that you?” I asked.

“I doubt it, dear, that was probably my mother.”

“Really? But she looks so much like you,” I said.

“Everyone said that, and I always thought it was funny because I knew my mother as a very stuffy old woman. She wasn’t really involved with us children and although she was a suffragist, she kept it very hush-hush. She was a snooty upper-crust society lady, given to secret cigarettes.”

“Well, you’re not stuffy.”

“I certainly hope not!” she said as she dolloped endless spoonfuls of whipped cream onto her homemade chocolate cake. “Come, let’s eat! I have something to show you!”

We squeezed through the kitchen and sat in the living room. There on the table was a new scrapbook I had never seen before.

“I’ve been working on a little project,” she said. She handed me the cake knife. “Would you please do the honors?” Sitting next to me, she opened the scrapbook to the first page. There I was, in the Audrey Givenchy on Page Six.

“What is this?” I asked as I put down the cake knife and began turning the pages. Page after page contained clippings and photographs, some from the Web, some from newspapers and magazines, including Us Weekly.

“You knew about these?” I gasped. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I assumed you’d tell me all about it at some point,” she said, smoothing a strand of hair behind my ear. “It seemed like such a grand adventure. I didn’t want to spoil your fun. But I couldn’t help collecting every bit of it.” She was beaming with pride.

It startled me that I was actually the girl in these pictures. My charade was a complete fiction, but laying them out like that, collectively, seemed so real. I was impressed at how perfectly she had prepared each photo. Museum-quality work, Jess would have said.

“I even bought a printer and started using the computer.” She pointed proudly to her ancient desktop, where there was a nice new printer and mouse pad.

“Oh Nan…” As I hugged her, I closed my eyes and felt tears welling up.

“At first, I didn’t know what to think. I recognized the dresses, though I was completely shocked at what you’d done to them,” she said.

“I know. Jess was worried about that. But aren’t they incredible?” I said, grabbing a tissue and wiping the tears from my cheeks.

Nan nodded. “I was mostly surprised that you’d cut and changed them so dramatically. But the reworking was indeed impressive. Your friend Jess is quite brilliant. It made me realize that those dresses weren’t meant to stay in a storage box. They were meant to play a part of some romantic adventure. They were meant to be worn dancing.”

“That’s what I told Jess!” I said. “She didn’t want to alter them, but then the first one was such a hit that she’s created a whole look.”

We flipped back through the clippings in the scrapbook, and I gave Nan details on every dress, where I wore it and who I met. I spilled everything about Being Audrey. I worried at first that she’d be disappointed in me for pretending to be something I wasn’t, but her expression grew more interested and astonished as I shared every delicious detail.

“You are so absolutely stunning in these dresses,” she added.

“It’s all Jess. She did an incredible job on them, really,” I said.

“Stop, Lisbeth.” She held my chin up and gazed deeply into my eyes. “Look at me. You are beautiful. You always have been. I often wondered why you didn’t see that. And it’s important that you know now. You are smart, clever, original, and beautiful. It’s the most wonderful combination, and I am proud of you.”

We hugged that Nan heart-melding hug, and it was such a relief to be with her, to know that she loved me and understood.

“Of course, I worry that I’ve filled your head with too many stories about how wonderful the old days were.”

“But Nan, they are the most amazing stories,” I said, feeling a bit defensive.

“Well, it’s good to see you making your own memories and not only living off of mine. Now you’ll have your own to look back on and cherish. That’s why I wanted you to have this scrapbook.”

I was so moved, I didn’t know how to thank her. My eyes found hers, and she gave me such a warm look I almost broke down and started crying again, but I wanted to keep it together.

“I still have a hard time believing that the trust funders accepted me so readily,” I said, recovering. I cut each of us a slice of cake.

“I’m not,” said Nan, taking a forkful of chocolate. “You’re intelligent and vivacious, and that’s appealing to any social group. Besides, it’s all about money with these people, and if you appear to have money or they think you have money, then they are intrigued. Otherwise, how could you be with them if you didn’t have money?”

“You don’t think it’s lame that I’ve been just acting like Audrey?”

“You may have started that way, but at this point I think it’s something more,” she said. “Even Audrey Hepburn was pretending to be Audrey—until she was, that is. When Audrey started out, much like you, she was operating solely on her charm, wits, spirit, and personal style. She never quite felt like she belonged; she was never fully prepared for what she was about to do next. She just jumped right in and hoped for the best. Eventually, she became the kind of woman we all assumed she was from the very beginning.”

“But Audrey did something. She danced, she acted,” I said. “My friends, Jess, Jake, they know what they want to do with their lives. They know who they want to be. I’m playacting. Do you think there’s a way I can turn my passion into something?”

“Well, you’re going to college, sweetie, that will help, won’t it?”

My eyes dropped and I nodded, hoping she didn’t take too much note of my response.

Nan took my fingers in her smooth, cool hands. “Be true to yourself, Lisbeth. It doesn’t matter that you’ve used Audrey Hepburn as a starting point. The most important thing is where you end up, and that you use this experience to become the best Lisbeth you can be.”

“Oh Nan, it sounds so possible when you say it.” Throwing my arms around her neck, I hugged her again. I needed so many hugs.

Feeling better, I scooped a gob of whip cream frosting with my finger, popping it into my mouth.

“I want to give you something,” Nan said, rising from the couch thoughtfully and walking to the sideboard. She opened one of the lower drawers.

She was holding a bracelet I had never seen before—a simple platinum band. She hesitated a moment, looking at it in her hand, then returned to the couch.

“This is from my days back then. It’s a gift from one of the ‘boys,’ and I want you to have it.”

“Nan, it’s lovely,” I said.

“And remember,” Nan said, jutting her jaw forward and stroking her chin—her version of a movie mobster—“one day I may come to you for a favor.” Her voice was an octave lower and raspy, an almost perfect Don Corleone impression. I couldn’t stop laughing.

“What exactly is this?” I asked.

“It’s a talisman for protection, inscribed by an old boyfriend of mine,” she added. “It will go fabulously with those dresses, and maybe it will keep you safe.”

I turned the bracelet in my hands. It was elegant, just like Nan. Inside, there was an inscription in Latin: TUAM TUTAM TENEBO, SAMMY G. I marveled at how stylish and mysterious it was.

“Be careful, Lisbeth,” Nan added. “As Sammy used to say, ‘a liar’s mouth can be full of truth, but he’s still a liar.’ Be careful who you trust.”

As the platinum band slipped effortlessly around my wrist, I marveled at its soft beauty.

“By the way, dear, I think you should know—your mother has seen the photos, too.”