twenty-five

MARCH 29

Much as I hate to admit it and would never tell B and Booker, hanging around the other contestants, shallow oddballs that they are, gave me a lot of ideas.

When I sat down at my desk, I had the same flicker of anxiety I’d felt every time I tried to come up with something for the contest. I thought about the other contestants and how they talked. They took inspiration from everything around them. I was only with them in that dingy old art room for about thirty minutes before Booker and B busted me, but in that time the other contestants, Cricket, Jo, Jason, and Charlie Dean, talked about art and culture and nature. They did it in that dippy way fashion people do, but I could tell they were using everything from video games to car designs to flowers and music to feed their imaginations. Embarrassingly, I found them sort of inspiring.

The contrast between how they talked and what they talked about and how Booker and B talked was stark. All Booker and B did was make fun of them and crack in-jokes. I was in this space where I felt like I needed some distance from Booker and his neediness and the way he was always around and B with her sharp little remarks. Maybe I just felt guilty since I’d started lying to them. Whatever the reason, it was strange to think I felt freer sitting with the ridiculous fashion contestants in an abandoned art room than I did with the two people I was closest to.

Listening to Charlie Dean and the others reminded me, indirectly, to keep an open mind when I did my design. So I tried to do that, even though my mind is not the open kind. I sat alone in my room and imagined Esther in New York City or Paris. I thought of her going to museums like that little French girl from the picture books, Madeline, I think is her name. Esther would take the subway to the museum and skateboard back until her family’s limo picked her up. Her outfit had to be sporty and kind of classic and experimental all at the same time.

The dress I came up with landed somewhere between a basketball jersey and a tennis dress. Over the knee, but not too short, so Esther could run or ride and kick any asses that needed kicking. It had a white Peter Pan collar, because I think those look sharp.

I know the description of the dress probably makes it sound shitty and plain, but it wasn’t. With Esther’s skinny legs and radical hair, I thought it would look just right on her. I added white stripes above the elbows and a couple of inches above the hem.

She wasn’t going to look like any other kid around, especially not with the metal accessories I designed to be worn with the dress. The whole look—I apologize for using that word—would be offbeat and hilarious, just like her.

Man, coming up with the dress and the accessories felt good.

The problem now, obviously, was making the damned thing.

I asked Grams about her sewing machine.

“Oh, honey,” she said, “that thing is as old as me, nearly. I don’t even know if it works anymore. Just like me.” She laughed at her own joke, which is something she does. If you ever want to think you’re hilarious, hang out with my grams. She’ll laugh at anyone’s jokes, including her own.

“Can I try it?”

“Of course.”

She showed me where it was stashed in the basement, and I carted it upstairs and down the hallway. It was like packing a cannon. I stood there, arms killing, back aching, trying to figure out where I should do the sewing. My workshop wasn’t clean enough. So I heaved the old beast into my room and let it crash down on my desk.

“Careful, hon!” cried my Gran. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

I had a design. I had a sewing machine, or at least a historical antique shaped like a sewing machine. Now I needed some fabric.

I took all my money, which wasn’t a lot, and went to this little sewing store near our house. Stitcher-oo’s was full of bright materials stuffed into cubbyholes. Complicated blankets hung on every wall. I told the lady working in there what I was after. She informed me that Stitcher-oo’s is a quilting store, which apparently is different from a regular sewing store. Who knew? To save face and out of curiosity, I poked around for a while but didn’t see anything I could use, unless I wanted Esther to look like a Thanksgiving dinner table. I also noticed that all the sewing machines they had for sale were expensive. The cheapest one was over eight hundred bucks.

Even sewing was elitist!

The lady told me I should go to Fab Fabrics in the north end, a solid forty-five-minute bike ride away, and so off I went, cursing the day I’d decided to enter the competition, cursing the traffic, cursing the rain that was starting to spit down. Basically, just cursing.

When I rode into the parking lot at Fab’s, which was at least ten times bigger than the quilting store, I thought for sure they’d have good material. When I saw Barbra had texted me, I didn’t text back. I don’t know why. Too busy cursing, I guess.

None of the books I’d read had said much about how to pick and buy fabric and thread and all that other stuff, so I figured it had to be a pretty straightforward process.

Inside, I watched the other customers and what they did, but they all looked sort of lost. Nobody smiled. Watching people look for materials was even worse than watching people go blank faced in front of a Salad Stop menu.

There were about two people working in the whole place. One stood behind the counter, running the cash register, and the other was stationed behind a long table. People brought her fabric, and she wound lengths of it off a cardboard core and cut it.

I spent a long time looking around and finally decided on some material that was the right color and heaviness. It was a nice dark blue. Then I found some white material for the stripes and collar and was happy to see it was on sale. The dress was practically made. I stepped into the lineup.

Everyone in front of me had about ten different kinds of material, and it all looked awful, like pink shiny stuff and Easter egg–colored netting and so on.

“Membership?” asked the cutting lady when it was finally my turn.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“A Fab Fabrics membership. Do you have one?”

“No. Is this like Costco or something?”

The cutter, who was probably in her early twenties, sighed. She wore an expression that I recognized on myself after I worked a long shift at the Salad Stop. It said that she had had enough of people forever. Her brown hair was pulled back and tucked into a half-assed bun, and her outfit under the apron didn’t seem too stylish, considering where she worked. So far, buying fabric was significantly less fun than stealing used clothes. It was even worse than trying to draw clothes.

“You get a deal if you purchase a membership.” She pulled the two bolts of material I’d picked toward herself and inspected the labels.

“This one,” she said, pointing at the blue material, “will be forty percent off with a membership. And this one”—she gestured at the white—“will be sixty percent off.”

“Oh, so a membership is worth it,” I said.

“It’s Fancy Friday, so the discounts are bigger.”

“Okay, so how much is a membership?”

Another bored sigh. “A hundred dollars.”

“Holy,” I said. “I guess I’ll pay full price, then.”

“Well, if you plan to buy other stuff, it will probably be worth it.”

Was this going to be a one-time deal? What if I won and got into Green Pastures? Would I be allowed to drop out of the fashion program right away and go to one of the other programs? Metal arts? Carving? I thought about Tesla moving around the atelier. Talking about clothes. Fashion. Honey hair brushing her shoulders. Maybe I would make Tesla a dress next. Or Barbra. I loved B’s hair, too. But she probably wouldn’t wear anything I made.

Shut up, John, I told myself. Just shut up.

“Sir?” asked the cutting girl.

“I’ll just get this,” I said.

“How much?” she asked.

“Regular price. Since I’m not getting the membership discount.”

“I mean how much fabric would you like?”

“I’m making a dress,” I told her. “For a ten-year-old.”

She stared at me with a please-continue-saying-moronic-things-to-me-I-love-it look. Someone behind me in the line groaned.

“It’s like sort of a medium-type dress for a regular-size kid. Like not a huge one or anything.”

“Do you have a pattern?” asked the cutter, not enjoying customer servicing me at all.

“I’m going to make it. The pattern, I mean. And the dress.”

“Sure you are,” muttered some wiseacre behind me in the lineup.

“You’re making her dress out of upholstery?” asked the cutter.

“Is that bad?”

“Well, it’s weird,” said a lady behind me. “It’s going to be too heavy.”

“I want it to be strong,” I said. “So she can rage around in it.”

“Unless she’s a couch, she doesn’t need to rage around in a dress made of upholstery,” said another lady. “But it’s sweet of you to try. Is it going to be for your sister?”

“Do yourself a favor. Buy a pattern,” said a third lady.

The book full of drawings of the dress was in my backpack, but I didn’t want to show it to these ladies, who knew how to buy material and make stuff.

“Right,” I said. “Okay.” Nowhere on the application form had it said that we couldn’t use store-bought patterns.

I slunk away from the lineup and spent an hour looking at pattern books, but all the designs seemed sort of busted. There was nothing close to what I’d envisioned. Then came the announcement that the store would be closing in fifteen minutes. I had no pattern. No material. No clue.

I walked outside and stood back far enough so I could get a picture of the neon sign for Fab’s and texted it to Tesla.

Underneath the picture I wrote:

So screwed.

Less than a minute later she replied.

What are you doing there?

Looking for material.

Mission Impossible. You’d better come over.

Then she sent me the address.

I slid the headlight onto my bike and turned on the back blinker so no one would run me over.

x x x

TESLA’S HOUSE WAS ON LONG LAKE. THERE WAS AN IRON gate and a winding driveway, the whole nine yards. Actually, the driveway seemed quite a bit more than nine yards. It was dark out, but I could see everything pretty well, since the fence and the cobbled driveway and the giant house were a chalky beige color that reflected all available light. Probably listed on swatches as Suburban Ghost.

The iron gate was open, so I walked my bike through. Solar lights made the driveway into a landing strip.

My phone lit up in my hand and buzzed.

Down in a second

I stood in front of the four-car garage wondering WTF I was doing here.

Tesla appeared around the corner of the massive house.

“Hi,” she said, nearly whispering. “Bring your bike around here.”

Massive beige pots with small, spindly trees in them crowded the walkway. Maybe these people were allergic to color.

“You can just leave it here,” said Tesla, indicating a tall wooden fence.

“Unlocked? This seems like sort of a sketchy neighborhood.”

Tesla stared at me, super poised. Not laughing. Because why would she.

“Okay,” I muttered, and left the bike leaning against the wooden fence.

Heat waves rose from a pool set in a poured concrete deck that extended into a green lawn that rolled down to meet the narrow finger of lake. A pool and a lake. Some people have all the water features. Maybe there was a river around the other side of the house.

I wondered if Tesla’s family left the pool filled and heated all year round. Maybe they fed five-dollar bills into an underground heater to keep it at optimal temperature.

The door Tesla led me through was extra tall, like it had been built for a family of giants.

“Come on,” she said, ushering me into a foyer the size of the one at my school, only cleaner. If I had to describe the design in one word, it would be “new.” When Tesla spoke, there was an echo.

“My parents are away.”

I stood on a bold black-and-white area rug.

“Just you and your parents live here?”

She nodded. “Our housekeeper used to live in, but she got married. Now she’s only here during the day.”

Tesla wore a gray sweatshirt-y top, hanging off one bare shoulder, and a pair of leggings. Ballet slippers. Her hair was gathered in a loose bun off to the side.

And once again, I couldn’t help but notice how golden she was. How perfect. How unlike this house, which wanted to be effortlessly classy, like her, but wasn’t.

“Let’s go upstairs. To my workshop,” she clarified.

I bent to take off my shoes, and she told me to leave them on.

I followed her through a living room with groupings of cream and brown leather furniture, art that matched the furniture, and a stone fireplace that would have looked good in a Gothic castle, and we headed up a set of stairs.

“I’m up here,” she said.

We went up past a landing that probably led to an assortment of bedrooms and maybe a complete spa facility, to the third floor.

Tesla’s habitat was immediately identifiable. Long worktables, mannequins, lamps, rolling racks, an ironing board, a steamer, and sewing machines.

“This is my workroom,” she said.

Life-size, framed photos of female sports figures and dancers hung on the walls. Voices came from invisible speakers. Tesla reached for a remote control. “Listening to the StartUp,” she said. “It’s a podcast about entrepreneurs. I like to listen to stories while I work. Makes me feel like I have a social life.” She fiddled with a button, and an eerie wail of Radiohead replaced the voices. Then the lights dimmed.

The room was long and functional.

“Are you an athlete?” I said.

“Not really. I dance a bit. But I want to specialize in technical clothes. Yoga, ballet, running gear. And maybe board sports.”

I turned in a circle. Four full-size chrome mannequins stood around the room. They wore boldly colored leotards and tights.

“Speed skating,” she said. “And bobsled. I’ve been doing experiments with tech fabrics.”

They looked like experiments with hallucinogenic color palettes, except for the one that looked like it had been dipped in mercury.

“It’s cool.”

Tesla smiled. I smiled back. The mutual smile-a-thon went on for too long and made my face feel tired and embarrassed.

“So you went to Fab’s,” she said, at last.

“I’m going to have to say it wasn’t that fab,” I said.

“You should have known better than to go there on Fancy Friday. Seriously. What kind of a masochist are you?”

A good question.

“So what about you? Where do you get your . . . um, materials?”

“I go with my parents to Vancouver pretty often. Sometimes we go to Toronto. Once a year we all go to New York. We’ve been to Paris. And I order fabric online if I have to.”

“Oh,” I said. “I went to Victoria last year.” Again with the dickish comments.

Tesla ran a finger lightly across her temple like she was feeling for the beginnings of a headache.

“So show me what you’ve got.”

Was I really going to show this girl whose house was as big as my whole dump of a school, a girl who went to Paris and New York on an annual basis, my drawings, which may or may not be total shit and confirmation that I have no taste and less talent?

Screw it. I was.

I reached into my backpack and started to talk.

“It’s for this ten-year-old girl I met. She’s kind of haywire. Cute but not an easy life so far. She’s had to be a bit of a warrior just to, you know, survive.”

Tesla’s perfectly shaped eyebrows rose in expectation.

I pulled out my book like I was giving her my own beating, bloody heart.

I opened it to the page with the drawing I liked best. It showed a girl who looked like Esther, kung fu fighting, all by herself in the dress. I’d abandoned the fashion figures. Gone with my own style.

Tesla took the book from me and stared. And stared. Her eyebrows went up. Then down.

She flipped a page and looked at the accessories for a long time.

I stared at the floor, at the door. Tried to ignore the swishing noise in my ears.

I wished I was riding my bike back down that long, beige driveway, turning onto the dark street, heading away from this princess in her suburban mega attic. I needed—

“Wow,” she said. “I absolutely and completely love this.”

Everything stopped. My breath. The blood in my veins.

“It’s like sporty ninja golfer.”

Her words were the water I’d been dying for.

“It’s so charming and slightly fantastical without being too too. You have a great eye, John. Seriously.”

“Really?” I said.

“Really,” she said. “Carmichael is going to love this. He’s all about Juniors. And you’ve done something new. It’s this amazing mix of street and classic. And these accessories. They are can’t even.”

The grin on my face was too big. Embarrassingly huge. Showing too many teeth.

“But you are never going to get the right material for this at Fab’s. You need something special. The fabric for this has got to have some future tense to it.”

I had no idea what that meant.

She slid herself onto a slim orange couch, kicked off her silver ballet slippers, and patted the seat beside her.

I sat next to her and started telling her about the design. She nodded, cheekbones bronzed in shadows. When I was done talking, she put up a hand as though to stop me from moving, took my sketchbook from her lap, closed it, and placed it carefully on the coffee table.

Then we were kissing. My hands were moving up under the soft fabric of her shirt over her smooth skin, and she ran her hands up my sides. My head got stuck when she pulled off my T-shirt, and we laughed.

“Look,” I said, when I was free. “You don’t— ”

But she was kissing me again, her hands small and strong, and she smelled like fresh grass and I was pretty sure nothing was ever going to be the same.

A Halfhearted Quote against Fashion

School officials are investigating why a fashion and sewing teacher used a class lesson that made fun of girls with fat in certain places.

In teaching material titled, “How not to look fat,” one page says “busty” and “booty” are “good,” while anyone with back fat wearing a tight shirt looks like a “stuffed sausage.” A drawing shows the words “Uh-oh” and “sad” next to a sobbing girl with back rolls.

—ELLEN YAN, NEWSDAY