The Essence of Mutiny
“Twenty-sixth and Lexington, please,” I called to the cab driver who swerved to a mad stop outside Thoney in response to my frantic flagging. The last time I’d darted across town to talk fashion with Jade Moodswing, I’d been in a very different mental place—nervous about whether I could sway Jade to help with our field hockey uniforms, recovering from my face-off with Willa and Kennedy in the locker room, and pretty much consumed by whether or not I could swing this whole Virgil thing my way.
In just a few days, all of those issues had miraculously worked out for the best. Jade was going to be a total lifeline with the uniforms, and I’d won the ultimate battle against Willa. I still couldn’t believe I was going to be Virgil Host. I leaned back in my seat as the taxi whizzed downtown and wondered: If all these things were falling into place, why did I still feel so frazzled?
As the taxi passed the Empire State Building, I pulled out my phone to text Alex.
VIRGIL WIN, I wrote. STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT. LAST MINUTE COMMITMENT TO FIELD HOCKEY UNIFORM DESIGNER JUST CAME UP. WOULD YOU HATE ME IF I ASKED TO RESCHEDULE FOR WEDNESDAY?
Just before the cab stopped in front of The Armory Show, I got Alex’s response.
CONGRATULATIONS! HAD A FEELING YOU MIGHT WIN, AND I’LL BET YOU DIDN’T EVEN BREAK ANY RULES. NO WORRIES—WE’LL CELEBRATE ON WED.
The cab pulled to a stop in front of The Armory Show, which I’d forgotten looked terribly formal from the outside. It was hard to believe that this place could function as a military base from nine to five and then switch gears to become a totally prime spot for a fashion show. As I hauled all my field hockey and school stuff out of the cab, I realized that I had something in common with the Armory. Both of us were moonlighting—and I was ready to shed my student status and get made-over. I followed the poster board arrows up the double staircase in the entryway and soon I found myself inside an enormous drill hall.
Dozens of industry professionals scurried around, covering the giant, Gothic windows with gauzy drapes; laying white tape marks down on the floor; and taking fittings of models.
At the center of it all, I saw Jade Moodswing, sporting a soft green leather beanie, black pants, and a black turtleneck, and looking as calm as if she were hemming a pair of high-waisted jeans. She looked up, saw me, and blew a kiss in my direction.
“Bonsoir, chérie,” she called out, waving me over. “You’re late, but I forgive you.”
“Hi, Jade,” I said, looking around to find a spot to drop all my bulky bags. There was so much activity in this room, and I definitely didn’t want to be responsible for some model getting taken out by tripping over a field hockey stick.
“Flan, don’t put that there. Are you crazy?” I heard my sister yell as she removed my field hockey stick from my hands. “Give me that.” She turned to Jade. “Did you tell her that she’s late? Did you tell her that we need people who can take fashion seriously?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said. “I rushed out of school as soon as I got your text. It’s just, today was the Virgil election and—”
Feb’s face lit up and she grabbed my wrist. “Did you win?”
I nodded shyly, feeling a few other eyes watching as Feb pounced on me with her congratulations. “Forgiven,” my sister said. “Wait till Mom finds out. She’ll flip! Now get back there and help Jade go over the designs for your uniforms.”
A team of assistants pulled me to the back corner of the room, and Jade started to explain her concept for the show.
“You know, Flan, when you asked me to work with sports team uniform, I said to myself, ‘Jade, you don’t know sports. What is this uniform? Maybe is mistake to pull focus away from runway.’” I felt my throat constrict and prepared myself to hear Jade’s apology for having to back out. But she turned to me and nodded. “Then, last night,” she said, “I had a dream. A vision. What if uniform is catwalk? What if Project Runway is more than project? Experiment is reality. Do you see?”
“Um,” I stalled. “I thought you were doing an evening wear show?”
“Yes, I am. But I found myself, how do you say … inspired by you, Flan. Your freshness. Très à la mode, this girl-next-door element. Et voilà,” Jade said as she pulled back a screen.
My jaw dropped as I took in the models before me. The first one was wearing a gold lamé polo-style shirt and what I guessed was supposed to be a variation on the field hockey skirt. I stepped forward to examine it more closely. It was nearly floor length and filled out underneath with layers and layers of gold taffeta. Yikes. Was this haute athletic wear or a plantation-era ball gown?
The Scarlett O’Hara model was flanked on one side by another model wearing a skin-tight leather miniskirt version of the uniform with a three-inch tartan print choker. On the other side stood another model whose skirt was almost a manageable length, but was held up by glittering suspenders with only a small green bandeau underneath.
“Um, wow, Jade.”
“It’s magnifique, n’est-ce pas?”
Oh, God. What had I done? Sure, the stitch work on all three of the uniforms was magnifique, and the gold-on-green pattern was regal, but I wasn’t exactly sure how functional any of these was going to be. I didn’t see how the models could walk down the catwalk without tripping, much less how any of us could try to wear this in a game. I couldn’t help but imagine how disappointed Ramsey would look if she were here right now, and I think it must have shown on my face.
“Zut alors,” Jade said. “Is it the fleur-de-lis on the back? Too much?”
“No, no,” I said, wondering how to phrase this to someone like Jade, who might never have seen a game of field hockey in her life. “It’s just … the length. And some of the cuts. And those suspenders. Everything looks amazing, but I’m worried about how well we’d actually play in them.”
Jade frowned and seemed to think this through. “But the long skirts, the suspenders, they are my trademark. Every journalist will be expecting them. Nigel made me swear that I would give him the first photograph.”
I looked around at all the models in varying stages of dress—some with the full skirts billowing out, some with straight pins holding the hem at the knees for measurement, and I got an idea.
“What if the line shows an evolution?” I said. “Maybe the show starts out with the more elegant, evening wear–like floor-length gown …”
“And the girls walk out with shorter and shorter skirts, more better for playing your sport?” Jade finished my thought.
“Exactly,” I said, nodding at Jade. “So that the last model is sporting the true uniform.”
“The essence,” Jade whispered.
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh. She was so brooding and serious, but also so brilliant. “The essence of field hockey.” I agreed.
“I like zis girl,” one of the models said in a heavy French accent.
“That’s good, chérie,” Jade told her. “Because Flan will be modeling with you on Thursday night.” She turned to me. “Flan, I think you should model the final piece. The essence. What do you say?”
“Um … I say oui,” I said, remembering my fall the week before at David Burke’s and thinking that it would probably be much safer for me not to sport the floor-length piece in heels on a catwalk.
“Parfait,” Jade said with a resolute nod. “Now all you have to do is learn your line.”
“My line?” I asked. I didn’t know the fashion show came with a script. I thought about the English quiz I had on Wednesday and just hoped that my line wasn’t in Shakespearean English.
As Jade moved away to check something in her Moleskine notebook, one of the models turned to me and rolled her eyes.
“Moodswing is a bit touched in zee head,” the model said. “She’s giving each of us one word to speak at the end of our walk. She wants zee show to tell some kind of story. It came to her in zee same dream as zee one with zee field hockey uniforms.”
“And you think it’s a bad idea?” I asked the girl, careful about my tone of voice. Suddenly I felt a little guilty that the same dream that brought Jade the idea to incorporate our uniforms in her show had also led to this.
The model clucked her tongue. “Some of zee other girls are threatening to walk out,” she muttered under her breath. “No one has ever asked us to speak before. We walk—we do not talk. It’s very nearly catwalk heresy.”
Another model with a black bob and a surly but beautiful face chimed in behind us. “Oui. My word is morphology,” she said, although with her French accent, it sounded like morp-oh-lo-gie. “I will look like crazy person if I have to say that on the runway.”
“Silence,” Jade said, holding up a finger at us. “I found the word for you, chérie,” she said to me. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this immediately. You will be: essence. What do you think?”
I looked at the models to my left and shrugged sympathetically. “Essence” was certainly better than “morphology.”
“Essence,” I repeated, nodding at Jade. “I think I can handle that.”
As Jade dismissed us for the night, I tried not to take the surly model too seriously when she raised her eyebrows at me and said, “Well, you may be zee only one who can.”