Текст книги "Being Audrey Hepburn"

Автор книги: Mitchell Kriegman

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

15

The instant I left Nan’s, I phoned Jess, begging and pleading with her to meet me at the Room-2-Spare Self-Storage.

“Why are we meeting at eleven o’clock at night at some danky storage unit by the Holland Tunnel?” Jess asked.

“I don’t want to spoil the surprise,” I answered.

A half hour later, we were walking down the main corridor past the lockup. It was so close to the tunnel entrance that you could hear the constant grind of cars and trucks downshifting.

“Okay, just tell me your mother finally murdered your little brother and we’re stashing the body in a container that you’re shipping to Brazil.”

“How did you know?” I laughed as we walked down the dimly lit aisle with the flickering fluorescent light, searching for the elevator.

“Seriously, Lisbeth, stop walking.” Jess grabbed my arm. “Why are we here?”

“Because you’re my friend and a fashion genius.”

“And?”

I dangled the key in the air in front of her face. “What would you say to haute couture gowns from the fifties and sixties?”

“Um … yes…?”

“I was at Nan’s and she told me she’s been saving her fancy debutante gowns all these years. And naturally, I thought my favorite fashionista just might want to take a peak.”

“No way.” Jess’s eyes lit up. “Well, what are we waiting for?” She was sprinting down the aisle. “C’mon, c’mon!”

I followed behind her, peering cautiously into each doorway we passed. These storage buildings were serial-killer creepy, just the kind of place where you might have a run-in with a couple of axe murderers.

“Here it is!” shouted Jess. She was holding the elevator door, dancing around like her feet were on fire. “Hurry, hurry.”

I followed her into the elevator and pushed the button for the fourth floor, and nothing happened. The elevator smelled like urine. Finally it jerked upward screeching, metal against metal.

The buzzer dinged as we hit the fourth floor and just sat there. It took another twenty seconds for the door to open. I hated when elevators did that; like, instead of opening, the car might dead drop, crashing through the elevator shaft into a bottomless pit where nobody would hear you scream.

The door creaked opened.

Jess sauntered confidently out into the hallway. Nan’s storage was only a few units down. Jamming the key into the lock, I couldn’t turn it either way. It was stuck.

“Come on,” said Jess. “Let me try.”

“I’m on it,” I said, jiggling the key up and down.

“I’m about to die of anticipation. I can’t wait.” Jess was hopping up and down. I pulled the key out, stuck it back in, and shimmied it back and forth until I felt the lock give way.

“Taa daa!” I threw open the door.

It was pitch-black.

“There’s got to be a light,” Jess said.

Even though it was creepy, I groped around in the dark for a few seconds. The switch stabbed me in the palm, and I flipped it on.

In the flickering fluorescent light, we saw a few antique chairs and a mahogany armoire wrapped in plastic. I recognized some of them from Nan and Grandpa’s old house before she moved into the manor. There was a floor-length gilded mirror, an antique gold-leaf vanity, and framed portraits of people I didn’t recognize leaning against the walls.

“That one looks like you!” Jess said, pointing to a portrait of a young girl.

“Dead relatives, I guess.”

“Or maybe Nan as a kid?” Jess asked. It was hard to tell.

“Look at this,” I said, digging deeper into the dimly lit room.

A crystal chandelier poked out from the corner of a large wooden crate in the corner, glittering faintly. A plush black chaise, which seemed like it should come accessorized with its own lounging movie star, was wrapped in plastic nearby.

“Why in the world does your Nan keep all this stuff in storage?”

“You’ve seen my Nan’s place at the manor. The weight of that chandelier alone would bring down the ceiling.”

“Then why doesn’t she just sell it all?” Jess asked.

“She’s sentimental, like me,” I said. “She probably doesn’t want to part with any of it.”

“Just don’t let your Nan turn out to be one of those old ladies who eat cat food and ramen noodles, and when they die you find out they have eight million dollars stuffed in a mattress.”

“I’m pretty sure her primary food group is cheesecake. But next time I visit, I’ll check her mattress.” I was nervous with anticipation. “So where are the dresses?”

Jess dragged a plastic-covered inlaid sectional table out of the way and was digging around in the back.

“Oh … my … God!” she said. I scurried around the table and a few other crates to see. At the very back, stacked against the wall, were more than a dozen heirloom storage boxes, plus a couple of big plastic bins marked SHOES and HANDBAGS.

Jess pulled a box off the stack and tossed it to me. I carefully lifted the lid. Inside, wrapped up in a see-through plastic clothing bag, was a gorgeous sky-blue taffeta gown. Jess unzipped the bag and lifted the dress from the box. It appeared as vibrant and spotless as if it were new. I went to touch it, but she stopped me.

“Are your hands clean?” she demanded. Spoken like a true museum nerd.

“Yes, Mom,” I said, holding my hands up for her to see. I lifted the hem and we both examined the fabric as the magnificent dress fanned out before us.

“This is couture,” Jess said breathlessly. “Vintage couture. I’d say this dress is probably worth thousands.”

My heart was pounding as I dragged down another box. Inside was a silvery-gray tweed Chez Ninon suit with a pink collar.

“I’ve never heard of this one.” I handed it over to Jess, her eyes wild and excited.

“Wow. This is exactly the kind of suit Jackie Kennedy wore. You know, everybody thinks that Jackie was wearing a Chanel suit on the day that JFK was shot. It was actually a Chez Ninon line-by-line copy of a Chanel made with Coco Chanel’s approval, because Kennedy’s father didn’t want Jackie to appear to be wearing snooty French clothes. As if everyone didn’t think Chez Ninon was French. Of course, the jacket is a little shapeless and the skirt hits the knee. That’s the way they made them in those days.”

We tore through the boxes like kids on Christmas morning. There were suits from Lilli Ann, Chanel, Nina Ricci, and even Irene. There was a midnight-black beaded art deco evening bag, gowns made by every designer you’ve ever heard of and some only Jess knew. I held up a gorgeous black organza cocktail dress while Jess inspected a red chiffon gown.

“Oh my God,” she squealed. “This is a red Valentino. Red! Do you know what a big deal this is? And there’s a green one, too.”

“Whoa, look at that plunging neckline.” Good ole Nan. She was the real thing to pull off a dress like that one.

“Look at this boning.” Jess pointed it out on a gold brocade gown. “I mean, who needs to breathe?” The designer in Jess couldn’t be suppressed. With every dress she touched, she couldn’t help commenting on how fashion had changed over the years.

“That History of Twentieth-Century Fashion class at FIT is really coming in handy,” I joked. She hardly heard me.

“You know, I have a pile of Chanel buttons I found in the garbage on Fifth Ave. after work one day that would be perfect for this,” she said, holding up a dark red Chanel dress.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stripped down to my underwear and pulled on an emerald-green cocktail dress with a fitted bodice and a full skirt.

“What are you doing?” Jess asked. “Be careful!” She helped me slip into the green wonder, and her eyes lit up as she zipped me into the gown.

“You look fantastic. It’s weird, but your body is made for these kinds of dresses.” She inspected the dress from every angle, turning over the hem and the sleeves. “Your Nan is a couple of inches shorter than you are, but you’re on the short-waisted side, so all your tallness is in your legs.”

“Huh?”

“It just means that the dresses will be a little shorter on you than they were on her, but bodice and hip-wise, you’re pretty close to the same size. Of course, her boobs are bigger than yours.”

“Everybody’s are, but thanks for reminding me,” I said.

“That’s what I’m here for,” she cracked.

“Short’s good, right?”

“Yeah, more contemporary,” Jess said. I spun around in the gorgeous emerald-green cocktail dress before the floor-length mirror, and even though we were standing in a concrete closet, I might as well have been in the grand ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria. I felt like I’d traveled back in time to a world where all the rules were different, where I was no longer bound by my mom, my hometown, and my limited prospects.

I couldn’t wait to see the rest and reached for the bins containing shoes and jewelry, pulling out everything I could get my hands on. The shoes, I confess, were sort of a letdown. There were a couple of cute pairs of flats, but most of the heels were pretty boring and very dusty.

One smallish box left.

Inside—the jewelry, oh, the jewelry—a jaded Juliana rhinestone necklace, jeweled drop earrings, enameled bracelets, and sparkling flower brooches. I felt giddy when I spotted the last item at the bottom of the box—a velvet sack with a drawstring. I opened it and pulled out a tiny rhinestone tiara. So totally Audrey.

It was like finding buried treasure.

My mind raced, thinking what it would be like to be the kind of person who wore dresses like these; the people I’d know, the parties I’d attend, a life filled with glamorous possibilities.

I would give anything to have Nan’s social abilities, her sly intelligence and humor. My own upbringing was so hopeless. Being raised by wolves would have been better than Mom and Courtney. I’d give anything to live the way Nan had, with enough elegance and poise to float through New York society as “one of them.”

Jess placed the jade Juliana necklace around my neck, hooking it in the back, its breathtaking teardrop gemstones sparkling even in the dim light. That’s when it struck me.

“Do you think you could, you know, update these?” I asked.

“What? No way, they’re art!” Jess said, replacing the lid on the jewelry container. “They shouldn’t be altered; they should be preserved. Nan should donate these to a museum. Maybe the Met, maybe the Smithsonian. Most of them are pristine. It would be criminal to alter them.”

“But they’re fashion. They’re meant to be worn,” I said firmly. “Their destiny is to be worn. Preferably, some place fabulous. Like, say, a recording-industry party.”

Jess was silent; her jaw hardened and her eyes glowered.

“Dude, are you insane? We are lucky, LUCKY, that we got away with the whole Audrey thing without getting caught. You know what happens if somebody figures that out? I’m still waiting to see if Joe reviews the security camera footage. I’m hoping they record over them every night, or I get fired. Fired! And both of us get hauled off to jail. End of story.”

“Nan doesn’t think we’d actually do any jail time,” I offered.

“Oh. My. God!!!! Seriously? You told Nan? What part of ‘we can’t tell anybody about this, ever’ was unclear?”

“Calm down. The police were at my house—not for me—for Ryan, and I freaked. Nan asked, and you know I can’t lie to Nan. She won’t tell anyone. She thought it was funny.”

Jess shook her head and exhaled sharply with disappointment. “You’ve got to be effin’ kidding me. I can’t believe you’re planning to risk my job just to go to another cocktail round with the trust-fund crowd. To be Tabitha Eden’s groupie.”

“It’s not about Tabitha. And we’re not talking about the Audrey dress. It won’t have anything to do with the museum.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You don’t think that when this whole charade blows up in your face and they start asking questions, they won’t trace it right back to Page Six, the Met, and that gala?” I hadn’t thought about that.

“Don’t be mad at me,” I said. “You’re the one who’s always saying I should find something to be excited about.”

“I meant a career! Shit, even a hobby. Not risking public humiliation, unemployment, and jail to pull an Audrey Hepburn con job on a bunch of socialites and your sad little pop star.” Jess sat down on the chaise lounge, looking annoyed. “And what would you gain if you pulled this off?”

I paused.

“I don’t know.”

“Dude, I think it’s cool and everything, but where does it go? Do you want to become some kind of professional poser at parties for a career?”

She was right. I didn’t have a plan or goal—other than to get to that record party to see what it would be like to hang out with Tabitha Eden for one more night. I craved one more sip of starlight. But how much of a plan did Cinderella have when she went to the ball at the prince’s castle, anyway?

“I’m sorry, Jess. I’m just miserable,” I said. “I feel like my life is hurtling down a mountain at a thousand miles an hour and the destination is all wrong. Last night at the Met in Audrey’s dress, something happened. I know I was a complete fraud, but there was a spark of something inside me that I just can’t let go of. It wasn’t just the dress that fit me perfectly; it was the whole feeling that there was this other person inside me. It’s different for you. You’ve always known what you were meant to be. But I’ve been clueless until now. Last night I could feel it. I could taste it. But if you don’t help me, I’ll never be able to touch it. I don’t know how, but I feel like it could change my life forever.”

A sad, puzzled expression crossed Jess’s eyes.

“You know it’s not like you can just put on a dress and waltz into some world you don’t belong in,” she said. “Don’t you think they’ll check up on you and wonder who you are? Where you came from? What you’re doing there? These are blue bloods. They hang with blue bloods.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was too painful to think about being stuck where I was. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to cry. When I opened my eyes, Jess had picked up the Dior and was holding it up to her body, looking in the mirror. She inspected a tattered piece of the hem.

“We probably found these dresses just in time,” she said.

“Yeah, nothing lasts forever,” I added wistfully, watching her turn the Dior inside out, running her fingers along the stitching.

“My profs would consider your suggestion blasphemy,” she said. “Taking a pair of scissors to a vintage Dior or reworking a Cassini is crazy.”

“Aw, come on, we don’t have to treat these dresses as history. It’s the perfect combo of everything you know and what you want to do,” I said. “Besides, the dresses are mine. Nan gave them to me.”

I hated that I sounded like a child saying that, but I could see her mind was working a million miles a minute.

“That’s breaking a lot of rules,” Jess said.

“Yeah, we don’t want to break any rules,” I said. Hidden in the corner of her mouth was a budding smile dying to come out, and I knew I had a chance.

“Well, I guess everyone gets to do some idiotic thing before going to college.”

“You’re the best friend ever,” I said, throwing my arms around her and squeezing her tightly, trying to ignore that she’d just said the word “college.”

“Don’t you forget it,” she said.

“It’ll be our little project,” I added. “We’ll call it Being Audrey Hepburn.”

She should have said no, but she didn’t.

16

I needed a secret identity.

“Lisbeth Dulac.” I figured that would work. It was Nan’s maiden name, so it seemed like less of a lie, better than picking a random name out of a phone book.

Sliding the closet door closed, I retreated to the privacy of my tiny childhood refuge. Tabitha’s record party was three days away, and I needed more than just luck and Nan’s old dresses.

Phase 1, Jess and I agreed, was to create a Facebook page. It was the quickest way to invent a present and a past, something that could be googled, proving that the new “me” existed. I wasn’t a tech wiz, but, like everybody, I grew up on Facebook and knew a thing or two.

I chose May 4, Audrey’s birthday, and a birth year three years before my actual one and then opened a new account with a bogus e-mail, but my fingers froze on the keyboard when it was time to start filling in the details. I didn’t have a clue how many languages Lisbeth Dulac spoke, what her favorite music was, or what high school she attended.

Sinking into the pillows, I tried to get my head around the situation. Every piece of information I entered could be the one that blew my cover and exposed me as a fakester. It made my brain ache trying to think about it. The soft hum of the minifridge lulled me, making it impossible to keep my eyes from closing.

The sound of Nan’s music box playing “Moon River” was swimming round and round in my head until I awoke, realizing the song was actually the muffled sound of my phone ringing buried beneath the pillows. Groggy, I answered and figured it was Jess calling. She’d help me figure this out.

“Hey, wuz up?”

“… Lisbeth?”

I froze. Whose voice was that? Crap.

“Lisbeth? Is that you?”

My God. Tabitha.

I powered off my phone and dropped it on the floor like it was red hot. I panicked. Shit.

Then I thought, My voice message.

Crap. If she called back and heard my normal, goofy, homegirl message, the whole plan was cooked. I had to move faster than Tabitha’s little manicured fingers on her jewel-encrusted phone.

Powering my phone back on, I went to the phone settings, voice mail greeting and selected default—then sunk back into the pillows, watching, waiting, heart beating. My thoughts raced. Maybe it wasn’t her after all.

Clearly there was at least one problem with living a fantasy life—it made me paranoid as hell.

The phone lit up, playing “Moon River” in my hands. I let it ring through, and allowed myself to breathe.

For a split second, I actually considered forgetting the whole scheme. I wasn’t the kind of girl that lied, even on normal stuff. When I told a lie, I got this queasy, fluttering feeling in my stomach like there was a little trapped creature down there who couldn’t get out.

Even when the little beast calmed down, the second I thought about the lie again, the creature began bouncing around. So I just didn’t lie that much—except to Mom about college, I guess. That wasn’t so much a lie as an omission.

Checking the phone, I saw that Tabitha hadn’t bothered to leave a message. Was she losing interest?

I worried how long Page Six would keep my photo posted, so I dragged it from the Web page to the desktop. I cropped out ZK and Dahlia and created a perfectly good FB picture. But what about the other details?

For sure, everybody lied on Facebook. My sister, Courtney, had a friend, Stephanie, who claimed that a gossip Web site guy was paying her to go to his parties—free bottles of tequila, limo rides, three-course meals, swag bags, and nobody cared if she had an ID. All she had to do was tweet how hot the parties were. It turned out it was just her building an excuse for her flaky, alcohol-soaked behavior. Blatant embellishing was the norm for how good you were doing, how great the party was, and how drunk everyone got.

My phone buzzed, and I looked at the screen.

“Hey you ! ;)”

Shit. I’d have to say something. What would Audrey do, I wondered. What if Audrey had grown up in the age of digital distraction?

Audrey knew all her faults and figured out how to make them work for her. She had an inventory of things she disliked about herself—bumpy nose, eyes that were too wide apart, chest too flat—I could relate to that and more. But she developed her own sense of style and found her own look—the updo, gigantic sunglasses, a simple, elegant wardrobe of classics.

Audrey Hepburn created Audrey—like Cinderella without a fairy godmother. I wanted to be my own fairy godmother, too, given that I hadn’t seen anyone with a golden wand my entire life.

“CALL ME !! TEXT ME !!”

I imagined Audrey on Facebook. No, she’d never do that. But maybe a blog? A blog could be my magic wand, helping me create something out of nothing.

I envisioned flamboyant opining’s on fashion and life. I imagined blog entries while traveling with my beloved Nan. I could post from anywhere around the world without ever leaving home.

“Jst called… Was that u ??” Tabitha wasn’t giving up this time.

Like it or not, it was a moment of truth. Either move forward and renew contact or pack it in. Screwing up my courage, I texted back.

“I’ve been traveling. Jst boarding my flight now. I’ll be back in time 2 see you @ your party.”

“Can’t wait !! ;)” I added.

There was no turning back now. I had to remind myself to breathe.

Okay, I thought, just make some choices and get this done.

I discovered there were dozens of ways to blog anonymously, so I created a page where I posted the links to a few worthy causes that Audrey would have supported, a party calendar from Guest of a Guest, and a few of my favorite New York stores that I’d never be able to buy anything from. It still seemed pretty empty; I had so little to work with.

The Page Six Web lift was perfect for “about me,” but the blog needed a title and some kind of image. I thought back to the night Jess and I unlocked Nan’s storage area, remembering all the dresses we saw, the paintings and the jewelry. I dug in my bag, found Nan’s tiny rhinestone tiara, and marveled at it.

It said everything. I took a picture of the tiara with my phone and placed it at the top of my blog page.

Using Bodoni Seventy-Two font, the one they used for the titles in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I typed the name of my blog above the tiara. Shades of Limelight—it just came to me. It’s from one of my favorite Audrey quotes.

For the first time, I was putting myself out there, exposing myself to some of the limelight … just not too much, I hoped.

“Kk see u soon ;)” Tabitha texted.

I started to text back but figured in first class they were already serving me cocktails.

So I had a new identity and a blog—but did I have anything to say? Strong opinions were the key to Audrey Hepburn’s success.

Now if only I had some.