Catwalk (7 page)

“I expect everyone to come to my office and sign a waiver. If you don’t sign a waiver, you cannot be captured on tape—and I know everyone is dying for their close-up, right?” coaxes Ms. Fab. “Oh—the episodes will begin airing next spring. But please be advised, our faculty has absolutely no control over the footage the network uses, so please do
not
prance to my office putting in requests!”

Suddenly, I freeze. “What does that mean?” I say to Angora. She squinches her nose and smiles.

“We are counting on
every
student—whether you are a Catwalk House member or not—to remember that you are indeed a representative of Fashion International and are expected to carry yourself like a true fashionista,” Ms. Fab warns.

Now I tug Angora’s fluffy sweater sleeve. Her blue eyes are beaming so brightly they look like metallic Christmas balls dangling from a well-lit, overdecorated tree.

“I can’t do this,” I moan.

“What do you mean,
chérie
?” Angora asks.

It’s easy for Angora to get excited by the possibility of roaming cameras. I shudder thinking about a camera crew following me home to my dilapidated neighborhood. “Great. Maybe they can tape the drug dealers on
114th Street while they’re engaged in a transaction!” I gripe.

“So what?” Aphro says with a shrug. So what? At least Mrs. Maydell keeps their home spotless. “Don’t let ’em come to your house.”

“That’s right,
mija
,” seconds Felinez.

“Well, we have to get into a house first before we can worry about them following us home,” Angora advises. “Let’s just take one Baby Phat step at a time.”

“Right now, we’re taking one Baby Phat step into the Mambo Hut and buying you a Mambolatte!” Felinez says.

“Afterward, let’s hit the job board—and pray,” groans Aphro. “I’ve got to make some money.”

“I hear that,” I moan.

“Me
tambien
!” Felinez joins in.

Chandelier throws a glare in our direction. “Fasten your Gucci seat belt, girls, because we’re in for the roller-coaster ride of our style-driven lives,” I predict.

“That’s good for our Catwalk Credo,” Angora advises. I whip out my pad and scribble. Then I poke Aphro to watch Chandelier as she air-kisses Nole into oblivion.

“Oh, Gucci hoochie,
puhleez
!” Aphro chortles.

For once, we don’t poke Aphro into silence.

One week after the Catwalk nominations, it’s time to hit the campaign trail. The thirteen house leader candidates, as well as our “committee members” (aka our closest crew), have been allowed to exit last period earlier than the “civilian” students so we can set up our Catwalk election tables in the corridor on the main floor. Despite the twenty-minute grace period, time is not on our side. When the bell chimes at three p.m., it will be helter-skelter as the fashion locusts descend on our tables to get up close and personal with the candidates—and the freebies. Then at five o’clock sharp, the schmoozefest will be officially over so everyone can cast their ballots at the voting booth set up in the Fashion Annex.

Despite my sweaty underarms and pounding heartbeat, running my Catwalk election campaign is more fun and ghoulish than celebrating Halloween. Not only do we get to wear costumes for the occasion, but we’ve also had our share of tricks
and
treats.

Speaking of tricks, Shalimar Jackson and her jaded
cronies sneak up the back stairwell, flinging open the fire exit door so quickly that they alarm us with their cacophony of terror. I don’t mean to stare, but Shalimar’s stretchy Lycra dress is so short she looks like a peacock plucked of its plumes. Her equally hard stare makes me feel embarrassed about the back alley location of my election station. Okay, so it’s not really in a back alley, but my table is pushed so far into the corner of the dimly lit hallway that if I turned my back and accidentally lost my balance, I’d probably knock open the fire exit and go tumbling like Alice in Wonderland down the stairwell into a rabbit hole.

“Bling, bling, bling!!” heckle Shalimar and her best friend, Zirconia, running past us.

“
What
was that?” I ask, stunned by Shalimar’s latest shenanigans as her bubble butt bounces off to her election table, which is in a prime retail location at the end of the wide and brightly lit intersection.

“I didn’t want to mention it,
chérie
, but someone posted an entry on the new Catwalk competition blog, referring to us as the Bling Quartet. I guess we’re supposed to be, um, supa-show-offs,” Angora reports hesitantly.

“Did Rouge rip out your tongue? I mean,
now
you’re telling us this?” I ask nastily.

“What happened? I didn’t know the Catwalk blog was already up,” Felinez demands.

Neither did I. I’m so mad at Angora for not keeping our ear to the street. “You’re supposed to be the reporter, so start reporting!” I advise her sharply. I may have a few blind spots—like my hissy catlike temperament—but that doesn’t mean I like being blindsided by a Shimmy Choo–wearing chortler. “Who was it, do you know?” I ask, even though I don’t want to know.

“Take a Gucci guess,” Angora says.

I snatch the paper place marker with my name off the bare table in disgust so we can begin setting up.

“We might as well be positioned behind a scaffold. Then at least we could put up a sign, ‘Open During Construction,’ ” I gripe.

“I’m telling you I think somebody bribed
somebody
—that’s what’s up,” huffs Aphro.

Angora breaks into a skeptical smile.

“We’re not pulling your weave. It’s true!” Aphro continues. Angora is naive about the wicked ways of the Big Apple. “Trust, Kentucky Fried Chicken is not the only source of greasy fingers in this gritty city.”

“Oh, come on,
mijas
, it’s the last day,” Felinez says, rubbing my shoulders.

I throw the kitty tablecloth on our table with extra vigor. Angora runs her hand gingerly across the tablecloth, an adorable hot-pink faux fur fabric trimmed with winking cat’s-eye sparkling decals. Sometimes, Angora seems so fragile—her delicate touch, her soft
nature. Maybe that’s why I can’t help pushing her around. I don’t mean to, but I guess that’s
my
nature.

“
Chérie
, I’m merely a kitty in the city just like you—clawing my way to the top. Why don’t we work together?” Angora says, her eyes blinking rapidly because she’s upset.

My nerves are on edge because Chintzy Colon has just plopped some homestyle Boricua hors d’oeuvres on her table, which is adjacent to ours, and the aroma is overwhelming.

“We
would
have to be set up next to her chorizo factory!” moans Felinez.

Anna Rex’s black lace–swathed table is to the left of Chintzy’s, and she doesn’t seem too happy with the pungent odors, either. The sight of Chintzy’s edible wares must be causing her sensory overload. I can tell by the deliberate way Anna keeps folding her promo pamphlets, as if she has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Anna turns up her nose, whispering furtively to her disciples, who are as skinny as she is and also dressed in black. She’s probably nervous about her whole campaign going up in smoke, even though in Anna’s case that wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Meanwhile, Moet Major, whose table is to the left of Anna Rex’s, prances up and down the hall, showing off her new black satin baseball jacket with
HOUSE OF MOET
embroidered on the back in golden letters.

“A little presumptuous, no?” I hiss.

Felinez shakes her head in agreement. She’s freaking out, too: she worked so hard over the past week supplying us with our treats—namely, matching babydoll T-shirts with our slogan emblazoned on the front in fuchsia letters:
STYLE SHOULD MAKE YOU PURR
. Felinez also made Angora a blue catsuit so stretchy it yawns and a purple one for Aphro, as well as matching catty masks with tinted plucky whiskers. Now Angora is opening up her powder blue travel bag on wheels, chirping away anxiously—another one of her nervous habits.

“You dragged that on the bus?” Aphro asks, impressed.

Angora hates the subway and the scurrilous furry friends who hang out on the train tracks like crew. As a matter of facto, she won’t set foot down under unless she’s with us; otherwise, she travels everywhere on the bus. Considering the route Angora takes to school—straight down Broadway—it’s not a bad idea. She lives with her father on Eighty-ninth Street off Riverside Drive, an area that has the added green benefit of Riverside Park right by her tootsies. Even after two years, Angora is still getting used to the city and all its noise.

The mention of a bus has obviously jarred her memory about her morning jaunt. “Have you ever been
on one of these new, super-long buses? I mean, I don’t know about all that snaking around,” Angora starts in. “Those buses are sooo long, they scare me. I actually don’t think the front of the bus knows what the back is doing all the time.” Angora sways from side to side to make her point as she pulls a huge bag of furry items out of her bag. We watch in amazement. She really should be a reporter. I could even see her doing the weather:
It’s raining Dolce and Gabbana booties today
, mes chéries!

“What have you whipped up like a soufflé today?” Felinez asks, imitating Angora.

“Okay, I thought this would be
très
adorable—they’re fur balls for the wrist or the hair. They go with our feline fatale message,” Angora says, her eyes widening, which means she wants our approval. I pick up one of the fluffy pink pom-poms on an elastic band with a paper tag attached to it that says in tiny letters:
EARN YOUR PURR POINTS TODAY
.

“Fur balls, get it? Rouge tried to eat one this morning. Like the ones she spits up aren’t big enough!” Angora’s cat, Rouge, has a finicky system: she is constantly coughing up something or sniffling from allergies, and only bottled water touches that finicky tongue.

Felinez spurts out what I’m thinking: “
Mija
, this must have cost a lot, no?”

Suddenly I feel guilty. Angora is down for our cause, so how could I snap at her even if her father does have
funny money to funnel for furry excesses. I guess I would be jealous if Angora didn’t despise her psychotically perfect control freak of a mother so much.

“They kept me up all night,” Angora says proudly.

“
Tan
coolio,” coos Felinez, arranging the fur balls on the table so we can get on with our flow.

Suddenly, the cackling from the corner table reaches a high pitch. I glance down the hallway and stare involuntarily at Shalimar as she shimmers away in her metallic gray turtleneck minidress. Her friend Zirconia is wearing a matching sweater dress in vanilla, all the better for showing off her matching bubble butt.

“Leave it to the knit wits to put the emphasis on ‘sachet’ instead of ‘sashay,’ which carries more clout in my prop portfolio, okay,” I observe, watching carefully as the bubblemint twins pile ivory sachets on their table.

“Hold this end,” Aphro says, nudging me back to our duties. I grab the end of the hot-pink banner with our election campaign slogan in spotted pink letters—
STYLE SHOULD MAKE YOU PURR
—and step onto the chair so we can tape it above our table.

“Purrfecto!” Felinez says, nodding approvingly.

Stepping down from the chair, I put the basket of pink satin meowch pouches on the table just in time to catch another back stairwell entry.

“How you doin’?” asks this guy, his face settling into what looks like a permanent smirk.

“Feline groovy,” I respond, handing him a meowch pouch, which causes him to snicker sweetly.

I have never seen this goofy cute guy before, but apparently Felinez has, because she greets him by his name. “Hi, Ice Tray!”

Before he can even respond, she shoves a pamphlet into his hand and starts our spiel: “You can earn your purr points today by voting for Pashmina Purrstein!”

“I can do that,” he says, breaking into a grin that reveals his giganto rabbit front teeth. Running my eyes up and down his downtrodden decor like a human scanner, I take in his graffiti-tainted hoodie and Hefty Bag–gy jeans that are falling so far down his butt you could make a deposit in his coin slot.