Because I'm Worth it (10 page)
As they were taking off, Zeke Freedman walked out of school bouncing a neon blue basketball. Zeke was big and lumbering, but he was Riverside Prep’s star basketball player. He’d grown out his curly black hair so it hung down to his shoulders, and he was sporting a new slate gray snowboarding jacket. Zeke and Dan had been best friends since second grade, but they hadn’t really hung out in the last few months because Dan had been preoccupied with other things.
Namely, women and poetry.
Dan realized he didn’t even know where Zeke had applied to college. The distance between them was mostly his fault, and he felt bad about it. “Hey Zeke,” he called over.
Zeke stopped walking, his heavy body looking even more massive than usual inside his new parka. “Hey Dan,” he replied with a careful smile, bouncing the blue ball in place on the frozen sidewalk. “Hey Vanessa.”
“What do you think of Dan’s new haircut?” Vanessa asked with a wry smile. “It’s part of his new Mr. Published Poet image.”
“Oh yeah?” Zeke didn’t seem to know what Vanessa was talking about. He glanced down the street, giving the basketball a good hard bounce before holding up his hand. “See you guys.”
“See ya,” Dan called, watching his old friend dribble the ball down to the end of the street.
“So, what’s the big news?” Vanessa asked as they started to walk west on Seventy-eighth Street.
Cold air blasted the clouds across the pale gray sky. Down the block, through the leafless branches of the trees in Riverside Park, Dan caught a silvery glimpse of the Hudson. “Well,” he began suspensefully. “This morning this big-deal literary agent named Rusty Klein called my cell phone and left me this crazy message. She thinks I’m the next Keats and she said we have to keep the momentum going now that we have the public’s attention.”
“Wow. Even
I’ve
heard of her!” Vanessa responded, impressed. “What does that mean, though?”
Dan blew a puff of smoke into the air. “I guess it means she wants to represent me.”
Vanessa stopped walking. She wasn’t sure where they were going anyway. “But you only wrote one poem. What’s she going to do? I don’t mean to be a downer Dan, but you have to be careful of people like that, you know? She could be trying to take advantage of you.”
Dan stopped walking, too. He flipped up the collar of his black wool army-navy coat and then flipped it down again. Why was Vanessa being so negative? All of this was totally unexpected, but it was also extremely fucking cool. And it wasn’t like he was going to sell out and start writing clichéd
Gap ads just because he had an agent, if that was what she was worried about. “I don’t know. I think she can help me with my career. Maybe I can put a book together and she can try to get it published or something.”
Vanessa blew on her hands and then rubbed her cold, bare ears. “Can we go over to your house? I’m freezing my ass off. We’d better work on the film, too.”
Dan threw his cigarette on the ground. “Um, actually, I was thinking I might go back and read through all my note-books. You know, see if there’s a thematic link to some of the poems. Something I could work into a book.”
Vanessa had been about to offer her services as a reader, but it didn’t sound like Dan wanted any help. “Okay,” she said coolly. “Call me if you need anything or whatever.”
Dan flipped his collar up again and lit another cigarette, experimenting with his new look. “Oh, wait. I wanted to ask you something. Rusty Klein invited me to this thing called Better Than Naked. ‘The Better Than Naked show.’ That’s what she said. Do you know if that’s a band or something?”
Better Than Naked was the antifashion fashion label that Vanessa’s older sister, Ruby, blew all her gig money on. Most of their clothes looked like old thrift-store rags that had been run over by a fleet of street-cleaning machines, which was completely intentional. Very downtown “fuck the trends” fashion.
“It’s Fashion Week starting on Friday,” Vanessa explained. “It sounds like she’s inviting you to the Better Than Naked runway show, which I only know about because Ruby is totally crazy about their clothes and always watches the shows on the Metro Channel. I don’t know why Rusty Klein thinks
you
would want to go, though. What do you care about clothes? And it’ll be full of posers and wanna-bes—you know, that whole vapid fashion scene.”
Dan looked thoughtful as he puffed on his cigarette. “I think I’m gonna check it out.” He wouldn’t have cared if Rusty Klein had asked to meet him at a pro wrestling match. This was about building his writing career.
Filming Dan at the Better Than Naked show would have been perfect material for her film, but Vanessa didn’t want to butt in if Dan was meeting someone as important as Rusty Klein at the show. “Okay, Mr. Hot Shit Poet. Don’t forget your old friends when you’re driving around in a limo drinking champagne with naked models and whatnot.” She reached up and mussed his neat little haircut. “Congratulations.”
Dan grinned widely back at her. “It’s pretty amazing,” he agreed happily. Then, with one last sweet kiss, he turned and walked up Riverside Drive toward home, the iridescent silver Puma logos flashing on his heels as he went.
Vanessa smiled fondly at the spring in his step. “See you later, alligator.”
s
has just what they’ve been looking for
“I’m looking for one of those groovy new men’s golfing jackets in a funky Day-Glo color like bright green or yellow,” Serena told the salesgirl in the Les Best boutique on Tuesday after school. During French that day Serena had remembered admiring the new Les Best men’s golfing jacket in the latest issue of
W
magazine and decided it was the perfect gift for Aaron. She never got tired of giving Aaron gifts. Everything she bought just looked so cute on him. It was like dressing a doll, her own adorable life-sized, dreadlocked, guitar-playing, Harvard-bound doll.
The boutique was on West Fourteenth Street in the meat-packing district, where the streets actually smelled like carcasses and manure from all the old meat warehouses. Leave it to Les Best, creator of the most beautifully tailored leisure wear in the world, to think that the rawness of the neighborhood was so cool, he just had to open up shop there. The space was huge and decorated all in white muslin with only one or two brightly colored tennis dresses or polo jackets hanging from giant steel hooks sticking out of the walls. The idea was that unless you really knew enough about the clothes to ask to see more, you had no purpose shopping there.
“We’re all out of the golfing jackets, I’m afraid,” the bleached-blond salesgirl answered in an English accent. She was dressed all in white, too. Even her sneakers were made of white pony fur. “My manager nicked the last one for himself.”
Serena examined a gorgeous red-and-white-striped silk tennis dress hanging on a hook nearby. “Damn,” she said under her breath. “I keep seeing that jacket in magazines and I thought it would be the perfect thing.” Les Best was her favorite new designer, but maybe the clothes were a little too haute couture for Aaron anyway. He was more of a skater-boy kind of dresser. She hitched her deep gold leather Longchamp bag onto her shoulder. “Thanks for your help,” she called, hoping to make it over to XLarge—a skate store on Lafayette Street—before it closed.
“Wait!” someone called out.
Serena paused in the doorway and turned around. Were they talking to her?
A tanned guy with a bleached-blond crew cut wearing the exact bright green golfing jacket she’d been hoping to buy for Aaron was holding open a white door in the back of the store. He smiled as he walked toward her. “I hope you don’t mind my asking.” He cocked his head and gave Serena the once-over. “Les asked me to look for a ‘real girl’ for his show in Bryant Park on Friday. I only caught a glimpse of you as you were leaving, but I just
know
you’d be perfect. I’ve seen your picture in the society pages. You’re Serena, right?”
Serena nodded, unfazed. She was used to being recognized from photographs in gossip columns. She’d even had an unnamed body part photographed by the famous Remi brothers in October. The photo had been picked up by a New York Transit Authority arts project and had wound up being pasted all over the city.
“Are you interested?” the guy asked, raising his blond-tinted eyebrows hopefully. “You’re just what we’ve been looking for.”
Serena fiddled with the ties on her white cashmere earflap hat. This Friday she and Aaron had planned to spend the whole night together, drinking at Soap on the Lower East Side, watching late-night TV in her bedroom, and . . . hanging out.
Whatever
that
means.
Yes, I
am
interested,
Serena thought. She and Aaron could hang out any time. They had the rest of their lives to hang out together! Getting asked to be in Les Best’s show during New York Fashion Week was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It wasn’t like she wanted to make a career of modeling or anything, but this was her chance to show Les Best how much she truly appreciated his clothes. Plus, it would be
fun
. Aaron would understand that. In fact, he was such a wonderful boyfriend, he’d probably
encourage
her to do it.
“I’d love to,” Serena answered finally. She pursed her not-too-full, not-too-thin lips and then grinned at her own ballsiness. “But only if I can have your jacket. I was looking for that exact one for my boyfriend and a little bird told me you took the last one.”
“Oh my God, totally.” The blond guy whipped off the bright green jacket and folded it expertly. Walking over to the register, he wrapped the jacket in black tissue paper and tucked it into a prized white Les Best shopping bag. “There you are, darling.” He offered the bag to Serena. “I’ve only worn it for like, an hour. And it’s on us, gratis. So, we’ll see you in Les’s tent in Bryant Park on Friday at 4
P.M.
sharp, okay? You’ll be on the list and you can invite four friends. Look for the girls holding clipboards and wearing headsets. They’ll tell you exactly where to go.”
Serena took the bag.
Score!
“Don’t I need to be fitted for anything, or practice walking on the runway, or whatever?” she asked, pulling her white cashmere cap down over her ears.
The guy rolled his eyes in a camp, don’t-be-silly way. “Honey, you’re a natural. Trust me, you’ll look good no matter
what
you do.” He handed her his card.
Guy Reed, Chief d’Affairs, Les Best Couture,
it read. “If you have any questions, just call.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Hey, what
is
that scent you’re wearing?”
Serena smiled. She was used to people asking about her scent, too. “I mix it myself,” she told him, fully aware that her answer was just as mysterious as the scent.
Guy closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “Mmm. Dee-
lish
.” He opened his eyes again. “I’m going to have to tell Les about that, too. He’s been searching for a signature scent.” He reached up and gave Serena’s hat strings a playful tug with his tanned fingers. “See you Friday, doll. Stay warm. And don’t forget, the after-party is even better than the show!”
Serena gave him a quick air kiss and then headed out into the cold. She couldn’t wait to give Aaron his present and tell him the news. He could wear the jacket to the show and then they could drop by the after-party together so she could show him off.
Outside, she no sooner lifted her cashmere-mittened hand than four cabs on West Fourteenth Street screeched to a halt and honked for her attention.
See how difficult it is to be so beautiful?
Ruby was on another Martha Stewart spree, and the tantalizing scent of freshly baked brownies wafted into Vanessa’s bedroom as she sorted through submissions for
Rancor
, the Constance Billard student-run arts magazine of which she was editor-in-chief. Heat blasted from the steaming radiators, and the sounds of ambulance sirens and car horns wailed through the two open windows. Vanessa’s bare wooden floor was scattered with the usual
Rancor
submissions: twenty black-and-white photographs of clouds, feet, eyes, or the family dog; three short stories about learning to drive and feeling the tug of independence despite the writer’s appreciation for her parents and all they’d done for her; and seven poems discussing the meaning of friendship.
Boring.
After the third short story, Vanessa retrieved Ruby’s sugaring kit from the bathroom. Sugaring was an extremely messy, all-natural, and “virtually painless” way of removing the hair on your legs. You covered your legs with sticky brown goo, applied a strip of white cloth, and then ripped the strip of cloth away from your leg, taking the hair with it.
Painless?
Yeah, right.
Vanessa kicked her black leggings onto the floor, laid a black bath towel over her black-and-gray patchwork bedspread, and sat down on top of it. She basted her pale, stocky calves with the sugary stuff, feeling like a giant glazed donut. Usually she was extremely low-maintenance, but if Dan was going to be hanging out with supermodels and agents and fashion designers, she thought she should at least try to make an effort and do something about the hair on her legs. Besides, spring was just around the corner. She might even go crazy and try sporting a miniskirt.
“Fuck!” she yelped, ripping off the first strip of gauze. Who’d come up with the idea that women were supposed to be all smooth and hairless like babies? What the hell was wrong with a little hair? Most men were covered with it.
She ripped off another strip. “Christ!” Okay, this was officially insane. Her skin was so raw and red she wouldn’t have been surprised to see blood gushing from the hair follicles.
Her phone rang and she snatched it up and growled into it, “If this is you, Dan, I want you to know that I’m frigging ripping the hair off my body with my bare hands right now, and I’m doing it all for you, which is pretty fucking poetic if you ask me!”
“Hello? Vanessa Abrams? This is Ken Mogul, filmmaker. You sent me your New York film essay a few weeks ago. We met in the park on New Year’s Eve?”