The Luckiest Girls Read online

  “You mean that’s lunch?” I ask.

  Maya counts a small handful of almonds out of the bag. The she closes the bag and fastens it with a tight knot, and shoves it into the bottom of her bag. “It’s plenty. I’ll have a banana or a yogurt at around four, and then dinner at home.”

  I’ve see how Maya eats at dinner. If this is all she’s eating, then she’s going to starve. I focus my camera on her nibbling on an almond, eating the tiny nut in three bites.

  On Saturday I have exciting news for Niko. Carol gave me a couple of extremely coveted press passes for the fashion shows. Niko doesn’t answer his phone, and when I look up his address in the school directory I find that he lives only a short walk away from Gigi’s house (I wonder if I’ll ever start to think of it as my house) on Gramercy Park.

  Niko’s building is a large and very elegant pre-war with high ceilings and painted murals in the lobby. A doorman sends me upstairs and as I get out on Niko’s floor a woman opens the door. She has the same dark hair and eyebrows as Niko but her mouth is thin and tight-lipped.

  “Yes?” she asks me. “Who are you?”

  “Mama, it’s okay, it’s my friend Jane,” says Niko, appearing behind her.

  “I didn’t know you were expecting company, Niko,” says his mother, staring hard at my hair.

  “I wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t know Jane was coming. Come in, Jane. This is my mother.”

  Niko’s mother stands aside and lets me pass. She gives me a stiff little nod that makes it clear how she feels about people with weird hair showing up at her house uninvited.

  “Hey, is this a bad time?” I ask as Niko leads me through the apartment.

  “No, no, it’s fine.” We enter his room which is pristine, I mean there’s not a wrinkle on the hunter green bedspread and there’s none of the clutter of a teenager’s room on the walls or the surfaces, the spines of the books are lined up razor-straight and the pencils in the pencil-holder on his desk are sharpened to lethal points.

  “I’d offer you something to drink, but I’m not allowed to have any food or drinks in my room.” Niko says.

  I start to sit on the bed, but Niko blurts, “Don’t sit there!”

  I take a seat on the leather armchair, cautiously moving the needlepoint pillow on the center of the chair.

  “Sorry, it’s one of Papa’s crazy rules. Once I make my bed in the morning I’m not allowed to sit on it or lie on it again until I go to sleep, unless I’m dying of a fever or something. Sometimes he comes in and checks the bedspread.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. He also opens my drawers and closets to make sure all my clothes are stacked neatly and facing the same direction.”

  “Your dad sounds a little psychotic.” I look around the room. There is a framed black-and-white photo of three men in English fox-hunting riding habits on horseback in front of a colonial-style estate.

  “Where is this?” I ask, pointing at the picture with the horses.

  “That’s Papa and his brothers in front of their family house in Argentina.”

  I want to ask him something else about his family in Argentina but I get distracted by Mrs. Aguilar who walks past the room and makes a big show of glaring at us as if she needs to make certain that we’re not doing anything scandalous.

  “So Carol, Gigi’s assistant, got us press passes for the fashion shows,” I say. “That means we can film from the press section! We can even go backstage. Isn’t that cool?”

  “Yeah, that’s great.”

  “You’re coming, right? Next week, Wednesday afternoon, at Spring Studios in Tribeca.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for anything, but don’t mention it in front of my parents, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just…they’ll think it’s weird that I’m interested in…you know, stuff like that.”

  “No, I don’t know. Tell me.”

  I can see his mother lurking outside his door again, and she gives a little cough.

  “You should probably leave. Come on, I’ll walk out with you and we’ll get a coffee on the corner.”

  Fine with me. Niko’s house gives me the creeps with his ghoul of a mother and their crazy rules.

  At the coffee shop on the corner we sit hunched at a table, our hands around our steaming beverages.

  “Sorry,” Niko says. “I just have to be so careful around them. Every minute of my life I’m afraid I’ll slip up and that they’ll guess the truth about me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not the kind of son they want. I’m not what they would call normal.”

  ‘Why? What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t like typical guy things.”

  “What, like football? Sports cars?”

  “Like girls.”

  “Oh. You mean you’re gay.” I shrug. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “Not to my parents. They’d throw me out of the house if they knew. They really would.”

  “Oh, come on. They’re your parents. They love you.”

  Niko shakes his head.

  “A couple of years ago, shortly after we moved to New York from Buenos Aires, my father and I were walking down Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village and this guy in tight leather pants with a cropped tank top and bleached hair passed us in the opposite direction. The guy was looking at a shop window and didn’t see us and bumped into me, and he said, ‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ and he winked at me. And Papa just freaked, he grabbed the guy by the collar and shoved him against a wall, yelling, ‘Maricon,’ and he spit in his face. The look he gave the man was one of such disgust, such hatred, it scared me.”

  “Oh, man.”

  “Another time Mama, Papa and I were watching TV and a thing came on about homosexual teens. My hands started to sweat and I felt this ringing in my ears. I was sure they could tell, that they could hear the roaring in my head. Then Mama goes, ‘Those poor people,’ about the parents of a teenage boy who’d come out to his parents. ‘Can you imagine their suffering?’ Papa was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘If that was my child, I’d kill him’.”

  “Jesus, Niko, do you spend every day of your life in fear of your parents?”

  “I’m used to it. I just try to stay under the radar. Right now I’m just trying to make it from one week to the next. At least Fashion Week is something to look forward to. Here, let me show you something.” From his backpack, Niko pulls a sketchbook and flips it open. The pages are filled with fashion illustrations: flowing dresses and towering hairstyles; geometric jackets over long, laced-up boots; fabric designs with embroidered tendrils of ivy and flowers; sandals covered with beads, each one drawn in detail; fitted bodices atop billowing skirts, and all over the margins, Niko’s notes: Two-layered chiffon skirt, pink/orange. Hand-painted butterflies on silk. Evening gown hand-sewn feathers on skirt, halter top kidskin lt.green.

  “Are these all your own?”

  “Most of them.”

  “These are beautiful. No wonder you know so much about the fashion world. You’re talented, Niko. You could be a fashion designer.”

  “Hah! My parents would never allow that. They’d disown me first. I’m going to law school or med school. Those are the only options.”

  I browse through the pages of Niko’s sketchbook. On one spread of pages he’s drawn several versions of a face I know: Connor. Connor in profile staring out the window, Connor looking down with his hair falling in his eyes, Connor with his feet up on the desk, Connor’s eyes, Connor’s nose, Connor’s lips. Of course…Niko has a crush on Connor. Everyone has a crush on Connor. Even I have a crush on Connor. But in Niko’s sketches, Connor’s features are rendered with such tenderness that I can sense the hopeless intensity of Niko’s feelings.

  “Is it really up to them what you do with your life?”

  “You have no idea what they’re like. Everything I do, everything I wear, everywhere I go, has to meet their approval. If I so much as raise my voice then it’s total lockdo
wn. I don’t think I went anywhere between school and my room for most of freshman year.”

  “Niko, you can’t live like this. You’ll go crazy.”

  “I just have to get out of the house. I’ve got two years until I graduate.”

  “And then? Will you come out to them?”

  “If I tell them I’m gay they’ll cut me off without a dime, and then how will I pay for college? I mean, at least in college I’ll be out from under their roof.”

  “But that’s six more years. Six years of living a lie.”

  “I’ve been living a lie for sixteen years, Jane. I can keep it up a while longer.”

  A surge of fury at Niko’s parents rises in my chest. What a pair of cruel, inept assholes. I can’t help feeling a little angry at Niko, too. I mean, is his parents’ financial support really worth this kind of stress? But I realize it’s not just about their money. They are the only family he has, and I know a little bit about needing to be accepted by your family, whether or not you like each other.

  8

  Maya

  There is so much to think about when you’re walking on the runway: shoulders back, head up, chin down, arms still but not stiff, hips swaying but not swinging, stride long but not bouncing, feet in line without tripping, all while maintaining an expression of thinking of nothing at all. — From The Supermodel’s Handbook by Gigi Towers.

  * * *

  It’s Fashion Week, and if I thought living in a house full of drama queens was irritating before, it was nothing compared to the frenzy of the past few days. We’re all up and bickering for the bathroom at five AM and everyone chatters nonstop about who wore the best outfits for each show, and how amazing so-and-so’s designs are this season, and how much we hate or love our hair or makeup, and did you see who was sitting next to this actress or that musician, and WHAT was the deal with the outfit the mayor’s wife had on, did she think she was at a football game or something? I don’t know how Sophia stays so chill. She’s walking more shows than any of us, sometimes she literally has to run from one stage to another, and she still has the energy to go to the afterparties and look as perky as a chipmunk the next morning. Meanwhile, we’re only on day three of the shows and I’m exhausted.

  Early on Wednesday morning we’re all crowded in the kitchen eating a hurried breakfast. I take small bites of fat-free yogurt in between gulps of black coffee, while Jane stands beside me smearing peanut butter on a bagel.

  Brigitte glares at Jane’s bagel. “You’re so lucky that nobody cares what you look like,” she says to Jane.

  “Eat a cookie or something, will you?” Jane, unfazed, says to Brigitte. “It might make you a little sweeter.”

  Campbell, meanwhile, looks like she’s going to throw up.

  “Have you seen those heels I’m wearing? What if I trip? What if I miss my cue? Oh, God!” She is actually hyperventilating.

  “Campbell, you just have to walk. You’ve been walking your whole life,” I say.

  “Could you move?” Brigitte says, trying to reach around Jane for the fruit bowl. Jane slides out of the way and bumps into me, and I spill my coffee on Brigitte’s shoes.

  “Dammit,” Brigitte snaps, as Gigi drifts into the kitchen, adjusting one of her earrings.

  “Who’s going to Calvin Klein?” Gigi asks. “Sophia and Ling? Your car is here.” They scramble out the door.“Jane, I wish you would stay out of the way of the girls when they’re getting ready.”

  “I’m getting ready too,” Jane retorts. “I have class in twenty minutes.”

  “Just for this week, Jane, can’t you either get up earlier or come down later? This is a very busy time.”

  “Fine. I won’t be here at all. I’ll just get breakfast at the deli. Don’t worry about me,” Jane retorts sarcastically.

  “Thank you,” Gigi says. “That would be helpful.” Jane grabs her backpack and stomps out of the kitchen.

  The car for Campbell, Brigitte and me arrives twenty minutes later to take us to the Spring Studios building in Tribeca. There’s a huge throng of people on the sidewalk, scaffolds set up with strobe lights, and camera crews all over the place. We squeeze into the entry line, separated from the throng of hungry onlookers by a metal railing guarded by four burly members of the NYPD. Inside, through a maze of sky-high ceilings and white walls, we reach the showroom, which is as big as a circus tent.

  Backstage at the fashion shows reminds me of preparing to go on stage when I used to dance. The energy at the shows is equally exhilarating. It’s such a different feel from photography work, where you spend half the day waiting around the set, blind with boredom. The stylists bustle about madly, checking and re-checking each outfit and making last-minute changes to accessories. There are murmurs about which celebrities are in the audience, cries of panic when an accessory goes missing and exclamations of relief when it is found, and a makeup artist howls when a model sneezes and smears her freshly-applied mascara. Sophia arrives at the last minute, the Calvin Klein show already completed, rubbing her makeup off with a wet-wipe so she can have it reapplied all over again.

  The makeup artists make us look like ghosts, our faces bland masks and our hair slicked back which isn’t exactly flattering but that’s the point, our faces mustn’t detract attention from the clothes. It doesn’t make a difference what you do to Sophia, though. Even with her eyelashes, eyebrows and lips concealed under a sheen of ivory powder, those huge eyes of hers are still mesmerizing.

  The dancer in me bursts to come out when I’m on stage, and to put a little jump into my walk and sway down the runway. But that’s fatal for a runway model. You need a smooth, steady walk. I’m good at it, but when I saw Sophia walk for the first time I knew who really owns the runway. I don’t know what she’s doing that I’m not, but she moves like she’s floating. They should just have her walk down that runway by herself, because when she’s out there, nobody is going to be looking at anyone else.

  It’s time to get into my first outfit. It’s a stunning dress with a beaded top and almost completely translucent skirt, and the high-heeled clear lucite platform shoes are works of art. But as my dresser helps me into the dress, the head stylist hurries over with a change of outfit and takes mine from her.

  “Cela n’est pas pour elle, c'est un des notre mieux pieces,” he says. “Vite, le mets sur une autre fille, une blonde.”

  I took four years of French in High School and I got a perfect score on my French SAT Subject Test. So I understood every word of the stylist telling my dresser to put my outfit on a blonde girl instead of me because it’s one of their best pieces.

  “Tu sais, je te comprends,” I say. I add under my breath, “Connard raciste,” If the stylist objects to being called a racist shithead he doesn’t let on, and in another minute I’m dressed and ready to go. I look over my shoulder to see who they’ve given my outfit to. It’s Campbell. Are they kidding? My walk is damn near perfect, and Campbell clomps like a stormtrooper. That’s who they’ve put one of their best pieces on? I’m so mad I could scream but I force myself to clear my head and focus. Shake it off. Take the higher road. It’s time to go on. I’m ready.

  The lights dim and the murmuring of the audience quiets down. Suddenly the air is filled with ethereal, instrumental music, and tiny lights illuminate the runway like the dancing of fairies. The spotlight shines on the top of the runway and the first model steps out. I can see her from the wings. She glides like she’s on wheels, her arms barely moving at her sides as her long, full chiffon skirt billows around her. A few paces behind her comes the next girl. The third girl out is Sophia, and a whisper rises from the audience. Her skirt ripples around her ankles like water, and when she walks it looks like her feet aren’t even touching the runway. Applause fills the air.

  A couple of other girls go out, and then it’s my turn. I know I’m killing it — I get one of the loudest applauses, almost as loud as Sophia’s, and I don’t care about anything else, not even when I complete my turn at the bottom of the run
way and make my way back up and I see Campbell coming out in my favorite outfit. As I walk toward her I can see the anxiety in her eyes.

  Almost before it happens, I know what’s coming. Campbell’s eyes go wide in terror a split second before her shoes skid out from under her on the glass surface. Flailing her arms, Campbell comes crashing down like a felled tree. She grasps into the air for something to hold, and her fingers wrap around the skirt of the model in front of her, a girl named Genevieve from another agency. With an audible rip, Genevieve’s skirt tears loose from the bodice and the audience gasps as a twenty-thousand dollar dress is destroyed before their eyes. While Campbell attempts to stagger back to her feet, Genevieve pulls her skirt to her waist and, holding it in place, completes her walk with as much poise as it is possible to muster in a tattered dress with your underpants on display to the world, and she even gets a brief applause from the audience. Meanwhile, the models keep coming out and they strut past Campbell like she’s road kill. Finally Campbell is on her feet. By now I’m off the runway, but I can still see Campbell from the wings. She slips into the line, cutting off the model behind her, does her little turn thing at the bottom of the runway and then wobbles back toward the top. She is almost there, and then she stumbles, her arms flail and — really, Campbell? — down she goes again. The models walk around her without missing a step, and when she finally gets to her feet one of her shoes is dangling from her ankle by its straps as she hobbles off the stage.

  “Hurry, hurry, you have another outfit,” my dresser whispers frantically, and I rush to my clothes rack and shimmy into my next dress. I don’t have time to check on Campbell, and only just make it back into the procession in time. At the end of the show all of us come out for a finale, but I don’t see Campbell.

  The moment I’m back in my own clothes I try to find her. I squeeze my way past models in various stages of undress, makeup artists packing up their equipment, and dressers sorting the garments onto clothing racks. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere else. I find Campbell seated in a corner of the floor, her head in her hands.