twenty-six

HERE’S AN IDEA © CHARLIE DEAN DESIGNS:

Bored by your usual hair and makeup? Accessories getting you down? Open a book of fashion history and learn from your ancestors! In the nineteenth century people wore dead insects and birds in their hair for special occasions. You might balk at that, but a beetle hairpin might be just the ticket! If you don’t have a library of fashion history books, simply ask a five-year-old for advice. Children are awake to magic. You might end up with a Tonka toy on your belt and that would be for the best.

DATE: MAY 2

Days until Fashion Show: 2

I’ve been neglecting my fashion journal in the service of making actual fashion! For the past month I’ve given everything I have to constructing my gown. It has been a time of hard work and pure magic. Nothing eventful or dramatic happened (thank Dior!) but each day was filled with important achievements and crucial milestones from figuring out how to execute the tricky elements on the bodice, adjusting the skirt so the crinoline wouldn’t show through, and, most satisfying of all, making the dress fit Mischa like she was born into it.

It was good that Mischa was dating my father because she was almost always on hand for fittings. There were a lot of those. How incroyable to find myself grateful to have one of my father’s ladies around all the time!

Not only was the construction process immensely satisfying, Charlie Dean’s home life was like something out of a wholesome family drama on the W Network. Jacques and Mischa behaved in such a normal way. They were usually in bed and asleep by two thirty a.m. and up by eleven and even cooked some meals! With vegetables! Early in April my father mentioned that Mischa’s ex-boyfriend had left town to take a job in Alberta. Many deep sighs of reliefs at Chez Dean at this news. With luck, the terrible ex would stay away for several months. Perhaps even forever!

Jacques and Mischa were united in recovery and went to meetings almost every night. I worked every second when I wasn’t in classes. On breaks I visited some of my fellow contestants in the old art room. Not John, though. He never joined us again, even though I asked him almost every time I saw him in Careers class. I only saw Jo in the art room one more time, because she was off playing basketball. I wondered how she was going to finish her design with sports taking up so much of her time. She was playing a risky game being so balanced in her interests and activities!

The whole thing was so fantastique and joy filled that I almost forgot to be on guard for problems.

Now you must not misunderstand, there were difficulties. Of course there were!

I’d hoped to do as much hand sewing as possible. I wanted to show off my abilities with running stitches, slip basting, and fell stitches and everything in between. But as the time began to run short I had to machine stitch some of the simpler seams.

After the first fitting I carefully marked the corrections to the pattern. But not carefully enough, because I found small errors during the second fitting. There were puckers in the bodice, and the underarms gave me trouble.

It took longer than I’d hoped to hand hem the skirt. The appliqué seams I used on the bodice and the sequined mesh section meant to conjure the effect of broken windows was très, très complex! Très unforgiving! But worth every second of my time. All of that was simple compared to the boning I used to showcase the structural elements of the skirt and bodice. And don’t get me started on the most technical aspect: the sculpted, asymmetrical Valentino-inspired crumb-catcher neckline, made rigid with a combination of boning, sweat, and tears. I fretted forever to make sure Mischa’s bosom was properly covered, but the edge of the bodice neckline extended up and out at the right degree and angle.

All of this meant many nights I worked until one or two in the morning. Still, I tried not to miss school. I wasn’t even that tired because I was fueled by passion and excitement!

I took photos of every stage—the thread tracing on the garments, the various adjustments to the toile and patterns, the darts and easing, and close-ups of my stitches and intersecting seams and interfacing and backing. I documented everything and made sure my techniques were worth documenting! Two days before the fashion show the dress was ready for the final fitting. Formidable!

That Thursday, after an afternoon DJ-ing a coffee shop opening in a senior center for fifty dollars, my dad came to my room to see how things were going.

“Holy Hannah, Charlie girl,” he said, stopping to stare at the dress on the form. “That is absolutely stunning.”

I looked up from where I sat at my big table trying out possible hairstyles on my dummy head. The dress with its skirt draped to its full extravagant width over the pannier-and-cage corset was impressionnant. There is no point denying it.

Any serious student of fashion history loves crinolines and bustles, and I already had almost every style in my collection, including a mantua, which I made myself. The mantua is the most theatrical skirt shape in all of fashion, and panniers are essential not only for people who ride bikes, but also to create an extravagant hip profile. I don’t know about you, but I take great comfort in knowing that if I ever need a bustle, a bum roll, a French farthingale, or a massive hoop crinoline, I’m ready! Also, there’s something about keeping the world at a distance with the circumference of your skirts that has beaucoup appeal!

“We’re doing the final fitting tonight,” I said. “I’m so nervous. I can’t believe the show is in two days.”

“Come on, Charlie,” said my dad. “You’ve got this. I can’t even get my head around your talent. How many fittings so far?”

“Four,” I said. “This will be the fifth.”

I’d double-checked every seam, zipper, button, and stitch. Mischa had started to get giddy every time she got into the dress. One couldn’t blame her.

Tonight, during the final fitting, I would test makeup and hair and try out accessories. That way there would be no surprises on Saturday. I would spend Friday night getting everything ready, visualizing every aspect of the show. Visualizing winning.

In less than forty-eight hours Mischa and I would show the world, or at least Green Pastures, what Charlie Dean could do! We would shine!

“You want me to pick up some pizza for you girls?” asked my dad.

I felt my eyes bug out unattractively. The last thing I wanted was pizza in the same room with my gown! Mais non! I didn’t even want pizza in the same house! What if someone touched the gown with a greasy finger? What if a pizza smell clung to the exquisite fabrics so Mischa walked the runway trailing eau de Luigi’s Pizza Pies?

Non, non, non!

The dress fit Mischa like the peel on the banana, which is to say there was no room for her to develop a late-breaking pizza belly! Not that I would ever say that, of course; I don’t approve of fashion’s tendency to lead to eating disorders and unhealthily low body weights, even though it’s true that it’s easier to make clothes that look good on wand-thin bodies. That’s why I focus on custom clothing: it can be adjusted to showcase any body type.

“Not for me, thanks,” I said. “Too nervous.”

“Got it,” said my dad, who right then was as good as any dad who ever lived. “No pizza. How about a bag of apples?”

I laughed.

“Mischa can have a single apple,” I said. “We’ll share it.”

“I thought so,” he said. “Maybe I should move out until this thing is over tomorrow.”

“Can I have your DJ equipment, then?” asked Mischa, coming up beside him and slipping under his arm.

“Afraid not. It forms the basis of my entire worldly savings,” said Jacques. “Between that and my guitars, I am a one and one half thousandaire!”

“No wonder I’m with you,” said Mischa. She wore no makeup, and her hair was in a ponytail, slightly dirty, as I’d requested for ease of styling. She had on a simple button-down shirt and looked like she attended an all-women college.

My dad kissed her on the top of her head.

“Come in,” I said. “We’ve got to do the final adjustments on the dress, plus hair and makeup. We need to time how long to get you changed. And we’ll walk you with the music.”

Mischa gave a little squeal of happiness.

“Every time I come in this room I feel more like Cinderella.”

“Which is funny, since you’re sort of like ma belle mère?” I said, regretting the comment as soon as it left my mouth. I was relieved when she laughed, perhaps because she doesn’t know that belle mère means “stepmother.”

My dad retreated from my room, saying he was off to a meeting, and we got down to the serious business of back-combing, braiding, hair spraying, and putting makeup on and taking it off, and putting accessories on and adjusting them, and then, finally, Mischa stepped into the dress.

We were both quiet, assessing her reflection in the mirrors around the room.

Mischa was like a flare of incandescent elegance that someone had set off indoors. She was an astonishment. I felt a single tear of simple, perfect joy come to my eye.

Before I could say how I felt, the doorbell sounded, followed by a knock. I wondered if my dad had gone and ordered takeout for us. Perhaps a small tray of crudités, sans dip? He was being such a superfather lately, anything was possible. More likely it was the landlord, come to see if there was any creeping that needed doing around the house.

“Don’t move,” I said, and went to see who it was.

As I began to open the door it was shoved open roughly, and I was knocked backward.

Before I could comprendre what was happening, a tall, hard-angled man had barged into our house. He stood, swaying slightly and glaring at me.

I knew instantly that I was looking at Mischa’s ex and that he was high or drunk or some unlovely combination of both. His too-pretty face was red and rashy looking, the way people get from skyrocketing blood pressure and rage. He had cupid lips pulled tight across his teeth.

“Where is she?” he said.

My mind went blank.

“I told her not to make a spectacle of herself. Get all cozied up, playing like she’s the mom in some happy little family.”

“You need to leave,” I said, hoping he didn’t detect the slight waver in my voice.

From my bedroom there came a noise.

The man’s head, bullet shaped, close cropped, swiveled mechanically.

I tried to put out an arm to stop him from going any farther, but he pushed me out of the way.

He was at my room in an instant, as though he had been in our house a hundred times. I reached the doorway in time to hear Mischa whisper his name.

Damon.

Damon the Demon.

“Don’t you look fucking fancy,” he said. “A real cherry tart, hey, Misch?”

Heat crawled over me. This man needed to get out of my room. Away from my dress. Away from my model. Away from the small oasis I’d created out of nothing but hard work and good taste.

“You need to leave,” I said, entering the room. “Now.”

Damon either didn’t hear me or didn’t care what I said.

Mischa tried to back up, but there was nowhere for her to go in a dress with a skirt the size of a VW. It was not a gown made for moving quickly or for escaping on foot.

“Get out of here,” I said through gritted teeth. Instinctively, I grabbed the flat iron from the table it had been resting on. It was still plugged in. Heat from the metal plates rose up my hand and wrist.

Damon had Mischa in the corner, wedged between two rolling racks.

“So you want everyone to look at you? See what a hot slut you are?”

Mischa’s made-up face had gone translucent with fear under the chalky makeup, her eyes too big.

This was like a bad dream or maybe a bad TV movie starring second-rate actors. How often had my life felt like that? Too many times to count. No more unseemliness could be allowed.

Damon, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, was quick as a mean thought. He reached out, grabbed the bodice of the dress, and yanked. There was a tearing sound. She put her hand to her chest, and he grabbed her face by the chin. Hard. Matte white-gray sequins cascaded onto the floor in a small stream.

“Get off her!” I screamed, taking a step toward him. He backhanded me with a wild swing, and his knuckles caught me across the face. I fell, and the naked dress form, adjusted to be an exact replica of Mischa’s body, came down on top of me.

I got to my knees in time to hear Mischa say, “I can’t take this anymore.” I saw only a billow and flap of ivory and palest steel satins coming in like a soft thundercloud, and then Damon was bent over, clutching at his crotch with both hands.

He reached again for the dress and pulled the skirt from the bodice. My beautiful neckline! My handstitched seams!

I jabbed at him with the flat iron and was surprised when he screamed and jerked away.

“Jesus!” he cried. “Crazy bitch!”

I dropped the straightener and watched in disbelief as Mischa aimed a kick at his shoulder but caught him in the head. Lucky for him the blows were softened by her massive skirts. He and Mischa went down in a swishing flurry of luxurious fabrics and sequins. One beautifully dressed girl, one drunken asshole, and one paralyzed designer.

“I called the police!” I screamed, even though I hadn’t. The whole nightmare had unfolded too quickly. “They’re on their way.”

The next thing I knew he was up and running out the door. On his way he shoulder checked me, and I went down. Everything went black for a long second when my head bounced off the wood of my desk. When my vision cleared, he was gone and the two of us sat, stunned, in a heap of fabrics and toppled dressmaker’s dummies.

“The dress,” I said, as my senses started to assert themselves. “Let me see the dress.”

Mischa gave me a look that I didn’t care for. As though I was the crazy one.

“LET ME SEE THE DRESS.”

She got slowly to her feet.

“MY DRESS!” I wailed. “HE’S RUINED MY DRESS!”

The bodice of the pale, structurally sophisticated dress was ripped all down the front. The left side of the skirt had been torn from the waistline and there was a long scratch down Mischa’s face and blood trickled from one nostril.

Rectangular sequins from the bodice continued to slide onto the floor like small waterfalls when she moved. And there was blood!

“You’re bleeding!” I yelled. “You’re hurt. Don’t move. Don’t touch anything. This cannot be happening.”

Mischa stared at me as though I was speaking complex French and not simple English.

“Are you okay?” asked Mischa.

I realized I had my finger in my mouth. My hand had been burned in the fracas. I held my other hand to my face. I was definitely going to have a black eye.

Silence settled over my bedroom as the adrenaline turned sludgy in my veins.

A strange chill calm came over me.

“You know, Mischa, I don’t think I like him,” I said.

We began to laugh in a hysterical way until I realized I was crying more than I was laughing. I hate to cry. There is nothing to be gained from it but puffy eyes.

When I was sure I was calm enough to speak, I called the police.