Being Audrey Hepburn

I actually liked lugging stuff around with Jess for a while. It seemed so normal after the last few days of high drama. The situation at home with Ryan and Mom was intense. The Hole wasn’t the same without Jess, and it was awkward around Jake. I felt like he was avoiding me, not that I could blame him.

Hauling dress forms and sewing machines up five flights of stairs was good distraction therapy, and Jess’s apartment was awesome.

Okay, it didn’t look awesome; in fact, it looked downright crappy. The building, 507 East Broadway, was home to a former sweatshop, after all. Jess said that, only a few years ago, there used to be sixty-three people per floor in the buildings around here. From the window in the stairwell, you could spy a sweatshop that was still in operation, where women were bent over sewing machines making cheap polyester clothes on the sixth floor of the building across the street. Even in Jess’s converted space, you could see the lines on the floor where the walls that divided the room into tiny sections used to be.

But as grim as it was, the raw space was awesome because of what it represented—the city, a place of her own, freedom. Jess would make it ubercool. With lots of raw brick walls, no windows except one in the bathroom, and a big skylight—it was the perfect interior design challenge for Jess’s imagination. Jess said that it was fitting that her first apartment was a sweatshop; it suited her sense of industry.

The last thing we carried up the stairs was Jess’s futon mattress, which we threw against the back wall beneath the skylight.

“Graduating high school meant nothing, you going to college first meant nothing, your first girlfriend meant nothing, but the first apartment in the city all your own—that’s a big deal between friends,” I said as I flopped down on the mattress.

Jess dropped down beside me.

“Jessica Giova

“Yeah, pretty crazy, huh?” Jess said, leaning back against the wall.

“Someday I hope I’ll do it, too,” I said.

“So does your mom know yet?”

“That I’m dressing up in Nan’s Chanels and crashing galas at the Met?”

“No, that you’re not going to college.”

“Oh, that.” I took a deep breath. “She’s snooping around. She knows something is going on. I’ve got to get out of there before it blows up. Ryan is way too weird. He’s always baiting Mom, and she might have to homeschool him if they don’t take him off suspension. But why she hasn’t shut him down is even stranger.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to school after all? I mean, you could change your mind, right?”

“I guess. I don’t know. I can’t bear to live at home,” I said. “I wish I had more options.”

“Have you seen Jake?”

“I saw him at work. I can tell he’s moved on, and I don’t even know what to say to him. I’ve got to get out of there.”

“You know, you can actually get out any time,” Jess said.

“Yeah, sure.” I couldn’t help staring at her like she was nuts.

“You could get a place of your own if you really wanted to.”

“I couldn’t even afford a deposit, but it’s a nice thought,” I said.

“Well, you could stay here,” Jess offered. “I mean, you’ll have to pay rent after a while—when you get a job. Hell, there are plenty of restaurants and diners in Manhattan with lots better tips than the Hole.”

“Really? I wish I could…” I leaned back against the wall. “I don’t know. I just feel so adrift about everything.”

I was going ask Jess if she thought she’d come home much. But before I could say anything, she leaned toward me, and, honestly, why I didn’t see it coming is beyond me.

My eyes caught hers as she paused for a second a fraction away from my lips. It wasn’t indecision; I could tell she wanted to give me the chance to know what was about to happen. I felt her warm breath brush my cheek and then slowly our lips touched. Her breath took mine away. I closed my eyes as I felt her fingertips on my face, in my hair, pulling me nearer, and I thought about how many times we were close enough to do this but never did. It was something that had occurred to me dozens of times, but we never talked about.

When Jess came out in the tenth grade, I was the last one to know. She never confided in me, so when I found out from all of our friends, I walked right up to her in study hall and told her that it was totally cool with me that she was gay, but if she ever didn’t tell me something important like that, we were through.

“I was afraid,” Jess said at the time, “that if I told you, we wouldn’t be friends anymore.”

That’s what I was thinking while we kissed—not surprised that we were kissing but wondering why we had never kissed before. How long we kissed I couldn’t tell you, but when it was over, I just sat there for the longest time, breathless.

“Kissing is such a strange thing,” I felt compelled to say for some reason. “I don’t know about you, but I tend to avoid people’s spit, I mean…”

“It’s okay,” Jess said. “I just wanted to do that. We’re cool.”

“But I don’t…”

“You don’t have to. It’s all right,” Jess said.

“Was that something you thought about for a while or just did?”

“Thought about lots of times and don’t know why, just did, now.”

“Oh,” I said, and just sat there. “A lot of times?”

“Yeah,” she said, and we both laughed.

“Wow, so that’s what it’s like.”

“Kinda.” Jess stood up, breaking the moment. “Well, I guess, we better get your car.” She put her hand out to help me off the futon.

“Yeah, we should,” I said, feeling disoriented as she helped me up and somehow disappointed that we weren’t going to talk about it more.

“Right, and I better get to class,” Jess said. “Let’s get the Beast out of hock, and you can drop me off at FIT on your way home.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Jess opened the closet and grabbed a Chanel jacket that she had reworked to make the waist more shapely. Then she plucked out a pair of jeans on a hanger.

“I scored some True Religions that were on loan to the school for a photo shoot that I have to return first thing Monday. I’m pretty sure they’re your size. You’ll be quite the fashionable shoppette,” she said, smiling. “I threw in some shoes I’ve been working on, too.”

I grabbed our backpacks as Jess locked up, wishing we were still on her mattress sitting together, talking. We walked down the stairs, and she stopped like there was something she forgot.

“Hey listen,” Jess said. “I mean it. If you need a place in the city and want to keep your stuff here, like the dresses, I can still work on them. And if you do, you don’t have to…”

“No. Sure. I get it. I’m fine,” I said, not knowing what I really felt, wondering if I ever would.

“Good. And hey, you know, I’m getting my own line together, and I need your help. I’m going to do this thing, a show, my term project at FIT. It’s going to be pretty fierce, but I can’t do it without you.”

“Sure.”

“Maybe you can get some of your fancy friends to come?”

Yeah, I thought, me and my fancy friends.

31

I stared at the text on my phone for most of my morning shift at the Hole.

“Whr shd Mocha pick u up ?! :)”

Tabitha, the Princess of Pop, beckoned. I had never felt more like Cinderella than that day at the Hole—the bad side of being Cinderella—the part where she’s on her hands and knees in the fireplace, cleaning out the cinders and ashes that were her namesake. Buela was in a terrible mood. I had missed two shifts, and it felt like she was punishing me. I spent an hour and a half of the morning refilling all the caked-up ketchup and mustard bottles.

I spied Jake on the other side of the diner. He purposely turned the other way and wouldn’t meet my eye. I tried to talk to him twice in the freezer when I ran into him, but he only nodded. I couldn’t help remembering his unexpected kisses. Before, he would have helped me with the ketchup bottles, but not this time. We seemed worlds apart.