Fashionistas (23 page)

S
oledad is trying to defend the word
urbania.

“It’s like
suburbia
but it applies to cities,” she says, her voice distant and echoey as she does three other things in addition to arguing with me. Soledad has one of those lives that doesn’t work without speakerphone. “It’s cute and fun. What objection can you possibly have?”

I wait a moment for the background noises to die down. Although she’s on the phone with me, Soledad is running a departmental meeting. Fashionistas are sitting around her desk pitching article ideas during the lulls. “
Urbania
is not a word. Webster’s doesn’t have it,” I say, bringing the dictionary into the conversation for the fourth time. Soledad and I have been talking in circles for the past ten minutes and it doesn’t help that she has her entire department there to back her up. This has just added to her sense of righteousness.

“But it sounds like what it is—the city,” Soledad insists. The fashion department concurs in a series of background murmurs.

I don’t agree. As far as I’m concerned,
urbania
sounds nothing like the city. Rather, it sounds like someplace in Eastern Europe where suave, polished people live. It’s a country populated by the urbane tribe.

“All right,” I say, conceding the field. I don’t want to go another round. I don’t want to listen to her dismiss that niggling little book called a dictionary for a fifth time.

When I called Soledad up to talk about the new headline, I didn’t expect an argument or the peanut gallery. I thought she would shrug her shoulders and move on with her life. But I misread the situation, which I’ve been doing a lot lately. Negotiating power struggles is now part of my job, but I’m no good at it. I never know when to step lightly around a fragile ego or when to stand my ground, and I can no longer rely on people like Dot to run interference for me.

“Can we just take my name off it completely?” I ask. I know this question is unwise, but I’m too tired of this conversation to consider my words carefully. And I hate being on speakerphone. I hate the one-second delay that makes it sound as though she’s somewhere far away in East Africa like Mozambique and not down the hall.

There’s a two-second pause—one for the speakerphone, one for Soledad’s petulance. My request reveals too much passion. It shows that I don’t just object to
urbania,
I find it repellent. “If that’s the way you want it,” she says in frosty tones as the spectators speak softly among themselves.

For a swift, brief moment, I contemplate backtracking to save my career. I consider telling her that that isn’t the way I really want it, but I hold myself back. The damage has already been done and I might as well stand by this thin conviction if none others. A headline like “Urbania’s Unlikely Undergrads” is not the sort of thing I ever thought I’d go to the mat for, but life is full of surprises. “Thank you.”

“Was there something else?” She is testy and abrupt, and
despite the crowd congregated in her office, has every intention of going straight to Lydia’s office to complain about me. With very little effort and in very little time, I’ve earned the description of
difficult.

“No, that was all.” I put down the phone, take a deep breath and tell myself again to surrender. Surrender to the cutesy headlines and the silly puns and the nonsensical captions filled with belabored wordplays. Although I can’t quite locate where my soul is in the agreement, I know there’s something Faustian here and I resist. The senior editor deal already has all the elements of a cautionary tale: Be careful what you wish for, kids, because it might come true.

There are things I like about being a senior editor. I like choosing what I want to write about and assigning the really boring stuff to someone else. I enjoy talking to writers and deciding what direction a piece should take. My editing style is still in the developing stage, but I have a good ear for an author’s voice and I try to preserve it despite the changes I make. I’m not like the other editors here. My instinct isn’t to make everything sound as if I just typed it up myself.

The celebrity undergrad package was my first significant assignment as a senior editor and I think I handled it well. The story had several parts—lush photo spreads of actresses’ dorm rooms, fashion layouts of the most stylish clothes to study in, comfort-food recipes from some of the best chefs in New York, a yoga routine to ward off the freshman fifteen, a superficial if well-intentioned examination of what it’s like to be the most recognizable face in Bio 101—which I was able to pull together into a cohesive whole. The section was good. At least it had been good before Soledad started tweaking and tinkering and making up words like
urbania.

Despite the inevitable frustrations, I’m happier in my storage-closet office than in the shantytown cubicle around the corner. There’s a freedom here and a sort of nose-to-the-grindstone glamour I hadn’t expected.
Fashionista
is just a
comic book. It’s just a Batman cartoon with “pow,” “bam” and “kaplooey” under the pictures, but it’s so much more satisfying to draw the lines instead of coloring them in.

T
he theme for Pieter van Kessel’s show is urban renewal.

“Urban renewal?” says Marguerite as she pulls her wrap tighter around her shoulders. It’s not that she’s cold—the room is hot with heaters and people—it’s that she doesn’t want to get dirty. “This feels more like urban decay.”

Van Kessel is holding his fall show on the construction site for a new Lower East Side library. The contractor has barely broken ground, but I’m still surprised that he let van Kessel pitch a tent and invite the press. This seems like the sort of thing that leads to disaster. “It’s not so bad,” I say, when we finally find our seats. It took us ages because we’re in the front row. I’m not used to being so close to the runway and naturally I had to work myself forward. During this process, Marguerite trailed behind me, examining the crowd.

She wipes a thin layer of dust off her seat with a handkerchief and sits down. “This is an impressive showing.”

The turnout is better than anyone could have expected. Word of mouth spread like wildfire, making van Kessel’s show the hottest ticket of Fashion Week. Marguerite recog
nizes buyers from Barney’s and Neiman Marcus and says hello. I’m excited. I’m excited because van Kessel deserves the attention, because my instincts were right, because there is a second article here.

Marguerite is not unknown in the fashion world and she holds court with an assortment of admirers who want to be seen in the front row, if only for a minute or two. While Marguerite talks about van Kessel’s classic Old World style (she’s been reading my notes) I sit quietly in my chair, staring at my hands folded in my lap. I don’t know anyone here. This is only my second fashion show and I’m not sure yet how to comport myself. Minding my own business seems the most safe, though least enterprising, way to behave.

“Vicious, spiteful cat,” a woman whispers in my ear.

Clearly my pose is not as innocuous as I assume. I turn to her, my eyes wide and defensive. The woman is old and glamorous, with white chin-length hair in a wavy bob, vintage silk pajamas and diamonds. There’s something vaguely familiar about her, like she’s one of the bodies I sweep past every day on the subway. “Excuse me?” I ask, my voice almost shrill.

The woman is surprised by my attentions. Either she hadn’t been addressing me or she suffers from a Tourette’s-like syndrome that she’s unaware of. “I’m sorry, dear. I was just mumbling to myself. Please pay me no mind.”

“Excuse me,” I say again, my inflection dramatically altered.

“Don’t be silly, dear. You were perfectly within the bounds of proper behavior.” She laughs and runs a hand over her hair, smoothing it. “I should know better. I’ve certainly been to enough of these.”

“It’s all right,” I say, smiling awkwardly for a moment before turning my eyes back to the runway. The woman next to me is clearly a veteran of the fashion wars and I don’t want to intrude.

“I haven’t seen you before,” she says conversationally. “Is this your first time at one of these things?”

“Almost. The only other one I’ve been to was van Kessel’s first show in June.”

She raises a drawn-in eyebrow, impressed. Only opinion makers and me had been at that show. “I wish I’d gone but I’d never even heard of van Kessel until I read a review in the
Times.
I pride myself on staying current but it’s more work than it used to be.”

“Oh, I only went to the show because a friend of mine’s mother, who used to work with van Kessel’s assistant, had an extra ticket,” I say, feeling compelled to explain. I don’t want her to think I’m a fashion genius. I’m not a genius; it’s just that sometimes I get lucky. “It was a very exciting collection. It was so good that I dashed over to his shop and spent half a day with him and his team.”

“Clever girl,” she says approvingly.

I blush more from the approbation than from the compliment. It’s nice to have one’s instincts validated. “Thank you. I thought it would be interesting to follow the career of a hot new talent. I envisioned a series of articles charting van Kessel’s rise.”

She nods. This, too, is a good idea. “When will it run?”

“It probably won’t.”

Her expression is puzzled.

“I work for
Fashionista.
”

This is explanation enough. “Ah.”

“Yes,” I say sadly. “I tried pitching it, but it’s really not the sort of thing we run.”

She pats my hand kindly. “That’s a shame.”

I shrug. There have been many shameful things during my tenure and it wouldn’t do to linger over one of them now. “It’s all right. As you said before, I should know better.”

“I’m Ellis Masters, by the way,” she says, offering me her hand. “I don’t know where my manners have gone. I should have introduced myself long before.”

Ellis Masters is a legendary fashion maven, the sort who makes careers and breaks careers and doesn’t think of the fall
out. She is always spoken of with the type of reverence usually reserved for the dead and dying, but she is still vitally alive. She’s vibrant and friendly and muttering to herself in the front row of fashion shows.

“It’s an honor to meet you,” I say, resisting the urge to bow my head, which wouldn’t be appropriate. She’s fashion royalty, not the queen. “I’m Vig Morgan.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Vig.” She surveys the crowd and then glances at her jeweled watch. “I do wish they’d get started. I have three other shows to get to tonight.”

“I’m sure you’re too busy,” I say, at this reminder of how jam-packed her schedule is, “but if you have a moment free Thursday night,
Fashionista
is hosting a party for Gavin Marshall and I’d love for you to come. He’s a British artist who—”

“I know Gavin,” she says. “I was very surprised that
Fashionista
was involved at all. Controversial art is really not the sort of thing they run, I believe is how you’d term it.”

Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with the desire to confess everything, but I resist the urge. “We expect it to be high-profile.”

“Yes, I can see that. Well, I’ll keep it in mind,” she says, but she’s only being polite. Ellis Masters is too mannerly to refuse an invitation outright.

Marguerite’s admirers disperse and she notices for the first time whom I’m sitting next to. “Ellis darling,” she drawls, jumping out of her seat to hug the grand dame of fashion. “How lovely to see you again.”

Ellis doesn’t share the sentiment. It’s obvious in the way she suffers the embrace with impatience. She frees herself as quickly as possible. “Marge,” she says in a voice that’s no longer warm and welcoming.

Marguerite doesn’t notice the difference and chatters away about the old days and Paris and friends they’ve lost touch with. Ellis Masters looks trapped for a second, but before I can intervene with my look-isn’t-that-Damien-Hirst-wav
ing-to-you trick, she smoothly extricates herself from the conversation and starts talking to the man on the other side of her. He’s an easily recognizable actor, and although he has no idea whom he’s talking to, he recognizes a woman of importance.

“She’s such a darling and I haven’t seen her in ages,” Marguerite says, returning to her seat. “I’m sorry I didn’t introduce you, Vig. Sometimes she’s a temperamental old thing and there’s nothing you can say to it.”

“How do you know her?” I ask, wondering at her chilly reception.

“I worked at her magazine,
Parvenu.
It was a hundred years ago when I was starting out. God, I was just an associate editor. I made no money and had to wear designer suits with the tags still on. I’d return them afterward.”

Marguerite is about to reminisce more but she doesn’t get a chance. Music starts playing, and although she makes several attempts to shout over it, the drums are too loud. They’re deafening and they drown her out completely. I sit back in my seat and wait for the show to start, but my mind is elsewhere. It’s on Ellis Masters and Marge and the words
vicious, spiteful cat.