Being Audrey Hepburn

“They’re actually buying you as one of their own. It’s so weird.”

“The scariest thing is this Dahlia Rothenberg chick. She’s really nasty about Tabitha and talks behind her back like she’s dirt. And she looks at me as though she’d like to rip me apart—if it wouldn’t damage her perfect nails. I don’t know if she’s on to me or she just hates me for some other reason.”

“Are you getting too many looks from ZK?”

“I guess,” I said, studying the edge of one of the pillows.

“So, what’s next?” she asked, neatly placing the dissembled dress in pieces on her desk by the window.

“Well, ZK invited me to this opening thing next week. By the way, what’s a Schnabel? Is it a drink like schnapps?”

“Julian Schnabel—he’s an artist,” she said.

“Oh cool, an art opening. And get this—Tabitha says she wants to go shopping. Can you imagine what that girl buys? Has to be some serious cash.”

“What?”

“Yeah, she wants me to go shopping on Fifth Avenue with her,” I said, uncertain why she’d responded so strangely.

“Do you hear yourself?” she asked. “What on earth are you talking about?” Jess seemed appalled.

“What do you mean?” I asked tentatively.

“Lisbeth, what are you going to do? You’re broke.”

“I don’t really need any money. I’m not going to buy anything. Hey, last night I went out and drank and ate and then there was the limo. I forgot to tell you about that…” But Jess was reacting oddly, and I didn’t want to go into all that stuff about seeing Jake with the swag cowgirl.

“School will be coming up in a month,” Jess said. “You haven’t talked about it once, let alone made any plans to get ready.”

“That’s because I’m not going to school.”

“What?!” The way Jess scowled at me—you would have thought I had confessed to robbing a bank or committing murder.

“It would be the end of all of my possibilities,” I said. “The end of my life.” It felt terrible to say it out loud like that. But there was relief in saying it.

“Does your mom know?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Jeez.” Jess turned away from me, peering out the window into the darkness. It was so dark you couldn’t even see the moon. I felt bad. Not just because I’d been lying all that time to her and everyone about college, but I knew that Jess would be disappointed in me. Despite her enthusiasm for reworking the dresses and the fun of sneaking into those events, she had been clear: she regarded it all as a prank. All along, I knew she thought my Audrey dream was shallow.

“Well then, what are you going to do?” She wouldn’t look at me, but we could see each other’s reflection in the window.

I shrugged. I didn’t know.

“Are you going to throw away a lifetime of responsibility, of actually being someone, to become one of them when you’re not really one of them anyway?” Jess asked. “You know, when they finish partying, they go home—to trust funds and Park Avenue apartments and vacations in Saint Bart’s and indulgent rich parents who let them do anything, even when they completely fuck up.”

“It’s different for you—you know who you are. I never have,” I said. “I want to be somebody, too. I just don’t know how.”

“Wow. I was afraid you’d get lost in this game and believe that it was real,” Jess said.

“It is real to me,” I said.

She shook her head slowly, astonished.

“I know,” I said sadly. “It’s not really like the Lisbeth everyone thinks they know around here.”

“I’ve got to get some sleep,” Jess said abruptly and began putting away her sewing tools. Then she stopped and sat next to me on the bed.

“Well, I have something I haven’t told you, too,” she began. “I found a tiny studio in Chinatown I can afford and I quit the Hole.” I was stu

“No way!”

“It literally just happened.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t even a plan, not right away anyway. But I checked out this ad on a whim, and when I saw this place, I knew I had to do it. I’m moving in next week.”

“Why does it have to be so sudden?”

“It just happened that way, believe me. I was going to ask you to help me move.”

“Sure,” I said too quickly. I wanted to sound positive, but I didn’t feel that way. I always seemed to be a step behind. Whenever I would get close to what I wanted, something would change, and my goals would seem impossibly far away once again. Jess looked at me like she was worried I might tear up. I was worried, too.

“I’ve done a bunch more of the dresses, just so you know,” she said. “I had a few ideas I wanted to try out. Here, look.” She walked to her closet and opened the accordion doors. Inside was a rainbow array of four more dresses already finished, modified, some radically, from Nan’s treasure trove. I flipped between the dresses.

“Jess, they’re so wonderful.” My Designer X was truly amazing. Looking at the dresses, you realized that she was just begi

“Yeah, this design ‘exercise’ has been good. I didn’t have the courage to develop my own line, at least not this fast. But I’ve gotten a lot of confidence working with these dresses, and I’m thinking about it now. I could do way more,” she said. “And you gave that to me, Lisbeth. You’ve been an inspiration.”

“Yeah, sure … really?”

“Yeah. Come on, we can talk in the morning. Let’s get some sleep.” She threw me one of her Sonic Youth T-shirts.

I headed into the bathroom to take down my hair and scrub my face. Jess kept a toothbrush for me in the medicine cabinet; I grabbed it and hunted around for the minty toothpaste I liked. The ci

I stopped and examined my face in the mirror. I didn’t look like Audrey Hepburn at all, just plain, ordinary Lisbeth A

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Jess said from the other room. “Your mom called my mom last night trying to track you down, and my mom promised to send you back right after breakfast.”

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.

“You have to go home sometime,” Jess said.

28

Delaying the inevitable, I hung out at Jess’s house as long as I reasonably could.

Ever since Jess told me that my mom had phoned her mom, my brain imagined every dire scenario, trying hopelessly to anticipate what I was walking into. It’s one of the freaky things about being the kid of someone who throws plates and bottles around the house—you can’t help imagining the worst—because it happens and you’ve seen it.

Leaving the green strapless Valentino from last night in Jess’s closet with the other dresses, I borrowed a tank top and clean underwear and grabbed my jeans from the day before.

Turning down the street toward my house, I figured: shower, eat something, try to stay calm, and prepare to talk to Mom when she comes home. It was two in the afternoon, and I assumed no one would be there until three thirty—only I was wrong. Mom’s car was in the driveway.

That was unusual. She never took time off from the hospital, and they never gave her any. I took a deep breath and opened the screen door.

“Well, look who’s here. Howdy, stranger,” she said from the kitchen, lighting a cigarette. There were a few bags of groceries on the kitchen table. I dropped my backpack and started helping her put them away.

“Is something wrong with your phone?” she asked, taking a drag of her cigarette.

“No, Mom, I’ve just been busy, you know, with Jess and at the diner.” I took the four packages of frozen corn, opened up the freezer, and found myself staring at the stacks of half-eaten ice cream containers and the hundred-year-old frozen hot dogs. “How come you’re home so early?” I asked.

“At the court-ordered therapist’s office for Ryan,” she said and handed me the milk to put away. I noticed that she was rubbing her arm.