Being Audrey Hepburn

“Hey, I know you’ve moved on, and I just want you to know we’re cool, right? Are we? I mean, we were friends, right?”

“Friends?” He acted surprised to hear that word. Like he hated it or something, and I got worried he was going to be mad.

“That’s what you thought?” He shook his head side to side. “Lisbeth, you’ve got to understand…”

“Hey, lover boy! I have a restaurant to run,” Buela called from the front.

He looked over his shoulder. Crystal motioned him to hurry.

“We’re cool, Lizzy,” he said, frustrated. “See you around. Gotta go.”

“See you,” I said.

Way to keep digging that hole, I thought.

Maybe the Hamptons would be the best thing considering I had no job, Mom was in the hospital, and there was no Jake.

I dialed Tabitha to tell her. She started squealing so loudly I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

“The Hamptons are going to be so much fun!” she said and started squealing again.

50

“Are you sure?” Jess asked, holding her scissors and a hank of my hair.

“Just cut.”

She poised her scissors a few inches from the tips of my hair.

“Here?” she asked.

“Higher.”

“But your hair … there’s so many other ways you can wear it,” she pleaded.

In the cheapie full-length mirror she had propped up against the wall, she could see my expression.

“Even more?” she asked.

“Even more,” I said.

Jess sighed. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how. Jess and her mom could cut any hairstyle on anybody; it’s just that in South End not a lot of the big ladies came in asking for pixies or elfin cuts. And though she had been chopping up her own hair for ages and dying it pink or turquoise, she had always admired my long hair, which I had kept that way since grade school.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m very sure. All off.”

And it began, the first big chunks of my hair dropping to the floor.

Sitting in the middle of Jess’s Chinatown loft as her scissors snipped away, I admired what she had done with her apartment. Everything was furnished almost entirely with things she found on the street. It all had a purpose that served her aesthetic and the clothing designs she was working on. You could tell she had spent long nights into early mornings working there. Doodles, drawings and Post-it notes dotted the whitewashed walls. All the scribbles were about one thing and one thing only—her new line of dresses.

The dress designs were sometimes sketched directly on the walls, alongside fabric swatches taped or pi

Over the entrance to the apartment she had scrawled: She put on her thinking cap and stumbled through the door but only multiplication tables came to mind.

And over the bathroom mirror: When your heart breaks, the pieces shatter. They show up unexpectedly at the bottom of the pit you’re digging, or sewn into the stitches of your dress.

Sitting in the middle of Jess’s apartment was like being inside her brain.

“Chin down, please,” Jess said, interrupting my thoughts with a poke in the back. “So? I’m sure you’ve got some kind of new adventure to tell me.”

What was it was about getting a haircut that made you want to instantly confess your deepest darkest secrets? Sarrah the nosey-parker girlfriend was gone, just as Jess predicted, so I let it all pour out—the odd meeting at the St. Regis, the creepy image of Robert Francis in his bathrobe holding Morris in the light of the doorway, poker night with ZK and the taxi-cab kiss. I recounted it all. Jess responded with awe and cautious concern.

“My mom says your mom came home,” Jess added, snipping away.

“Yeah, they’ve given her three days to get stronger before they start the approval process for a new liver, if she can qualify at all. But she’s in the hospital rehab program and finally going to AA meetings twice a week. Incredible, really,” I said.

“And Nan?” she asked, as I watched the last big chunk of hair fall to the floor.

“She’s moved out of the manor and is staying in my room, if you can imagine. At least they’re talking,” I said. “Mom’s a tough customer, but so is Nan.”

Now that the big chunks were gone, Jess gathered my hair in front of my face and started another round of cutting. I puffed the hair away and she combed it right back—I think she purposefully didn’t want me to see what she was doing. It reminded me of the way the Italian barber in Roman Holiday cut Audrey’s hair. Every Audrey fan knows that the haircut in the barbershop at via della Stamperia next to the Trevi Fountain made Audrey famous forever.

Next to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Roman Holiday was my favorite Audrey fix. I had seen it almost as often. I would kill to go to Italy and ride around on a Vespa with a guy like Gregory Peck holding on to my waist. Of course, I would just kill to go to Italy. The movie was Audrey’s big break, but as in a lot of showbiz stories you read, the film wasn’t written for her. Elizabeth Taylor was slated to play the part, and instead of Gregory Peck, it was supposed to be Cary Grant.

At the time, Audrey was simply an aspiring actress, auditioning for a director she didn’t know. I had even seen her screen test for Roman Holiday on YouTube. It showed a subdued, dignified Audrey performing an audition scene until the director yelled cut. Luckily the cameraman left the camera rolling and captured Audrey’s real personality as she chatted away about the war and ballet dancing to benefit the Resistance during World War II. Film historians have said that the candid footage won her the role.

The most marvelous part of the movie, as far as I was concerned, was the haircut scene. In that scene, before your very eyes, she was transformed from the typically stuffy, boring Hollywood princess to a newly minted screen persona that redefined glamour. As each lock of hair fell to the floor, Audrey’s eyes grew round with delight, and her charm, i

I didn’t have such lofty goals for my haircut. I just felt it was time for me to shed my good-girl image and become something more.

Jess was circling back to shape and refine my hair, completely absorbed in the process. She didn’t do anything halfway. She moved around me, nipping with her scissors like a sculptor, forming my hair closely to the shape of my head. Each tiny cut created movement upward, off my neck, and forward, to frame my face.

Through my bangs I could see the open closet where the dresses were hung. There were still dresses of Nan’s I hadn’t worn. Modified Chanel, Lilli A

Alongside Nan’s dresses were Designer X’s masterpieces. The closet burst with dresses made of sheer materials, like one chiffon dress I could see with a lace underlay. There were lots of floral detailing, ruffles, even sequins. Embroidered full-length gowns were interwoven with delicate knee-length tulle frocks. The dresses were starkly accented here and there with a studded belt or a biker jacket.

I couldn’t believe how many dresses she had already finished. I wondered if she ever slept.

“Isak won’t stop bothering me about you,” I said through the falling hair. I wanted to draw her out on how she felt about her show. “I don’t see how I can keep him away. He’s even demanding it on my blog. I mean, I don’t see why you won’t meet him now.”

“I’m just not ready,” she said.

“And when will you be ready?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding exhausted. “Maybe when it’s perfect. Depends on how the show goes, I guess.”

“You’re crazy. He has to see your show.”