Being Audrey Hepburn

I squinted down the street, but the next Jitney was nowhere in sight.

I sat on my roller with my garment bag in my lap and worried. I had to be realistic and think of what I could do other than just break down and sob because that’s the only thing I felt like doing. Undone by ZK, I had left everything unfinished. Because I was unhappy, I guaranteed that no one would be happy with me.

I wondered how Jess could forgive me. My Audrey project was coming to an unfavorable end, letting down my best friend, losing ZK, Tabitha, and Jake without a clue what I would do with the rest of my life.

“Hey Lisbeth!” a familiar voice called out. “Need a ride?”

I turned to see Chase in his white van. “I thought I’d drive by just in case. Just a wild hunch, figured I might find you here.”

“Tell me you’re not some weird stalker?” I asked. Chase laughed, getting out of his van, embarrassed in front of all the other people waiting for the Jitney.

“No. Okay. Yes. I told you I’ve had you on my radar for a while. Just saw your blog entry, and I figure you needed someone to shoot that fashion show of yours. Am I right?”

I was speechless.

“Well, I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, grabbing my suitcase and putting it in the back of his van. “Let’s hurry. I’ve got to do some tricky driving while I pull together a crew if we’re going to make this happen.”

63

There was a succession of texts as Chase madly wove his van through the expressway traffic taking access roads and conduits that I thought for sure would wind up at a dead end.

“It’s 6:30 and NOBODY’S HERE :/”

“You promised … :*(”

I decided not to respond. We were either a half hour away or going to be stuck in traffic forever. I would be there or not.

I had to do a quick inventory of what we needed. Like music. We hadn’t even considered that. I figured I might know one person who would be willing to show up at the last second and sent a text. While I was texting, my phone buzzed again.

“We are supposed to start in TEN MINUTES !!”

“Tell her to stall.” Chase insisted, looking over my shoulder as we zipped around the line of cars exiting the Midtown Tu

“Will be there soon :)” I texted back. I saw the three dots that meant she was responding when my phone died. I plugged it into Chase’s car charger and waited.

“Are we going to make it?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Do you want to change?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Designer X—don’t you have something of hers to wear?” He was eyeing my garment bag. At Tabitha’s I hadn’t been able to bring myself to put on Jess’s dress.

“I’m supposed to change here in front of you?”

“No!” he said, looking mortified. “Back there, behind the equipment crates.”

I crawled my way to the back of the van, out of Chase’s line of sight, as it bounced around, and stripped down to my underwear, pulling out Designer X’s exquisite signature creation. In the bumpy minivan I stared at it, afraid to put it on.

Slipping on the tight nude satin underskirt, I felt the familiar hug of it and pulled up the rest of the dress, the overskirt and the blouse. It made me feel exactly as it had when I tried it on the first time.

“This is your signature dress,” I remembered saying to Jess. “Isak will love it. Everyone will.”

It’s something every woman can tell you—there’s one pair of shoes or a sexy bra that makes you feel beautiful and strong in those gut-wrenching moments—like going to a wedding after breaking up with your boyfriend or to some terrible high school reunion.

I guess guys have their lucky underwear or shirts, like Jake and his fla

As I put on my heels, I peered out the tiny dirty window in the back of the van. I could make out two other vans that seemed as though it might be Chase’s crew already unpacking. I saw Sarrah and a man I assumed was the gallery owner on the street screaming at each other. That couldn’t be good. Squinting, I could see Jess on the sidewalk, totally stressed, surrounded by her models sitting on fire hydrants, leaning against streetlights, sitting on flattened cardboard boxes on the curb in her finest designs.

I tried to open the van door from the inside but it wouldn’t budge, so I pounded on the window. When the door opened I almost fell on my face.

“Sorry about that,” Chase said. “Gotta get that fixed.”

As soon as Jess saw me, she let out a scream and ran over. She was wearing one of her self-made tiered iridescent skirts and her vintage Sonic Youth T-shirt tied at the waist. Over her shoulder she carried the ever-present monster bag filled with all kinds of emergency makeup, hair spray, and sewing stuff.

We both screamed and hugged.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” I said.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, but what are we going to do?” she said.

“I don’t know. Why are all the models outside?”

“What?! You don’t know? I texted you.” My cell phone was still co

“Know what?”

“There’s no room!” she shouted.

I took in the whole scene for the first time and almost fell into shock. Serious apoplectic shock. There were literally hundreds of people everywhere. The tiny gallery was crammed with them. And really cool people, I might add. Hundreds of fashionable people had converged on the Below the Line Gallery, proof that the posting and e-mail blasts worked. These were at least some of the fashionistas who followed my blog. I wanted to stop and examine each and every one of them—how they were dressed, their ages, their style. But there was no time.

“I guarantee you, they were not here twenty minutes ago,” Jess said. “It just happened.”

Chase sauntered over. “You’re the promotional genius,” he said, giving me a smirk. “Where are we setting up?” People were clogging the street. Cars were honking, having trouble getting by.

“There’s not enough room,” I said, stu

“Gee, you just figured that out?” Chase asked. He eyed Jess. “This could take awhile.”

“Well, we’ll just have to go up there.” I pointed to the elevated highway above us. “Have you ever shot up there?” I asked. Chase acted like he was afraid of me, as though I might bite him.

“Do you mean—the High Line?”

The High Line is an official New York City park built on the rusty remains of a derelict elevated railway that used to wind down the West Side Highway. It is now filled with walkways, plantings, seating areas, and little amphitheaters. Jess and I would walk up there every time we went to the stores in the Meatpacking District. There were happenings and events staged up there every day. Jess and I had talked about it, but never in our wildest dreams did we think we’d have the chance to do a fashion show there.

“Yeah,” Chase said. “I’ve shot a bunch of times for Tommy Hilfinger after he waited about three months to get a thousand permits from the mayor’s office.”

“Can we do it on the fly? It’s a pop-up, right?”

Chase gri

“Okay, boss, it’s your show.” Chase whistled to his crew, and they sprinted ahead with all of their equipment and lights.

“Have all the models come with us. I’m sure everyone else will follow,” I said. Jess and I began marching straight down Ninth Avenue, just ahead of our entourage of provocative models in their dazzling dresses and a horde of gawking fashionistas gathered behind us. It felt like a movable party. It felt like we could take these people anywhere.

“There are no chairs and no stage,” Jess said to me as we walked. “Where will the important people be?”

“With everyone else,” I said. “Who knows who’s the most important person in this crowd anyway? They all could be.”