Being Audrey Hepburn Read online

  Working toward a career that made sense to everyone, Jess was supported by her family at every turn, while I was doomed to be a nurse-practitioner, which might be a perfectly good profession, just not for me.

  She stood up, crossed the room, and began digging in her monster bag—tossing out a pair of textured thigh highs, a professional sewing kit, an entire library of rumpled paperback books, pliers, balled-up dollar bills, and a complete Allen wrench set. She could have pulled out a live rabbit, and I wouldn’t have been surprised. She kept digging.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Shhh,” she said, furiously burrowing around the secret pockets of her massive bag. “Arrrggggg!!!!” She turned the whole thing upside down, and the remaining contents came pouring out all over the bed—coins rolled across the floor, and everything else went everywhere.

  “There it is,” she groaned, like she’d finally located a lost child. She snatched the Hershey’s Cookies ’n’ Creme bar off the bed, ripped the wrapping off, and maniacally bit into it. Not a pretty sight, especially when you consider that Jess spent a whole lot of will power trying not to feed her sugar jones. Inside Jess’s skinny, pixielike body, there was a portly, chubby-cheeked Italian girl just dying to get her hands on a meatball sub.

  She wiped her mouth. “God, I need a cannoli.”

  Jessica Giovanna Pagliazzi was Jess’s full christening name. In the old-world Italian tradition, Jess’s nonna lived with her—along with a revolving collection of assorted cousins and distant relatives who frequently visited from the old country.

  Her dad owned a takeout pizzeria and deli. The whole family worked there at one point or another. Every meal at home was a feast, and there was always room for one more at the table. Jess loved her nonna, but she was a massive food pusher of everything Neapolitan—chicken cacciatore, steak pizzaiola, manicotti, lasagna, and her seven-thousand-calorie macaroni and mayonnaise salad.

  “You look tired. Eat something!” she’d say. “Bella, you’re too skinny, mangia! You seem sad today. Mangia, mangia!” With all that delicious food and the constant pressure to eat, Jess developed a weight problem. It was practically unavoidable.

  If I’d lived with Jess’s family, I probably would have been chubby, too—all my mom ever had in the house was vodka, ramen noodles, and cigarettes, so I never had that concern. Jess went through years of idiotic elementary school ridicule, and despite four summers at fat camp (which Jess paid for herself out of babysitting money because her family all thought her weight was just fine), everyone still called her Chubby Cheeks.

  Nothing worked until the tenth grade, when Jess just decided to give her life a massive makeover. She changed everything by sheer force of will: exercised like a maniac and never touched pasta again. Then she came out to her entire family at a Sunday dinner, got her belly button pierced and her first tattoo.

  My stupid obsession had pushed her back over the edge.

  “Jess, we don’t have to do this.” I couldn’t believe I was saying those words. Could I do this by myself? No. Did I really mean what I was saying? Barely. But Jess was my best friend in the world, and there was no way I was going to pressure her to continue risking her real future for my fantasy life. “Really. If this is going to—”

  “Shhh,” she mumbled, her mouth full of chocolate. I sat back down on the bed and waited, wondering if she would stop stuffing her face long enough to breathe.

  “Oh God, that’s better,” she said, wiping her mouth off with her hoodie sleeve.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “I’ve been selfish.”

  An odd smile crossed Jess’s face.

  “Myers has never liked me. You know he didn’t hire me. The head intern did, and she’s gone. He’s been trying to find a reason to fire me ever since she left.”

  “Why?”

  Jess looked at me like the answer was obvious and I was totally naive. She swallowed and paused as if she were trying to figure out what she wanted to say.

  “Lizzy,” Jess began, “I’m really sorry…”

  I knew instantly that I didn’t want to hear the rest, but I was determined not to pout or weep, at least not until Jess went home.

  “I can’t do this anymore. I have to think about my future.”

  But what about my future? I thought.

  “I understand,” I said, despite myself. I did. Really. But I was crushed. I didn’t know why I’d thought it was going to work anyway. Nothing ever did.

  I couldn’t just sit there, so I went over to the computer and clicked around. Jess knew I was heartbroken. She squeezed onto the desk chair with me, both of us feeling bad. A part of me wanted her to hurry up and leave so I could crawl back into my closet and cry.

  I tabbed through my usual random gossip sites and blogs, feeling completely numb.

  “I should probably get going,” she said after a few moments.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Holy shit. Look at that—TMZ posted a picture of you in the blue dress with Adam Levine. They must have gotten it from Us Weekly!” She pushed her fingers across the computer track pad.

  “I guess.”

  “That dress is actually pretty awesome, and you look incredible.” She double clicked the dress to magnify her handiwork and check out the details.

  My heart leapt and then plunged. There would be no more dresses. No more parties. No more Adam Levine. I glanced up. She was right about the dress, but it seemed way less awesome than it had ten minutes before, when it actually meant something.

  Jess clicked through to the next page, “Look, they have you tagged in another photo—you and that shitfaced ‘queen of pop.’” She clicked to enlarge, and there I was, arm in arm with Tabitha Eden, our heads thrown back in what appeared to be a raucous giggle.

  My heart stopped when I realized how clearly the picture showed the Breakfast at Tiffany’s Givenchy. Someone had gotten another angle on the pop princess and me that night, as we were sneaking toward the back door. I could tell Jess was fixated on it, too. After her fresh encounter with Mr. Myers, I guessed that her memories of that night weren’t quite as glorious as mine.

  “Whatcha looking at, losers?” Jess and I spun around at the same time.

  Courtney, my sister, stood behind us in knee-high white boots, distressed jeans, a crop top, hot pink accessories, and a nasty smirk on her face.

  I snapped my laptop shut.

  “Porn?” Courtney asked, laughing. She sat down on my bed and lit up a cigarette. Like this day wasn’t already shitty enough.

  21

  “What are you doing here, Court? I thought you and Mom agreed to stay away from each other for a while.”

  Courtney tossed her hair back and laughed. I knew her entire library of moves—the hair whip, the hip wiggle when she sat down, her exaggerated fish lips, all the stuff she did with her cigarettes—all calculated to get boys to look at her. They were so ingrained into her psyche that she couldn’t stop herself from doing them even when there were no boys around.

  “Yeah, Mom has been up my ass lately,” Courtney said.

  “Lately is an understatement,” I said. She examined her cigarette and spat out a piece of something. It was gross. Still, it was better to wait for Courtney to leave, like a storm passing, than to confront her.

  “Yeah, she’s such a cow.” I could tell Jess was dying to leave but was staying out of loyalty. She hated Courtney more than I did. But Courtney was my older sister. She could be mean, but I couldn’t totally hate her.

  “So what are you girls doing in here? Cyberstalking some of your high school buddies?”

  “We graduated, remember?” I said. “Aren’t you worried about hanging around? Mom should be back soon with Ryan.” I had no idea if that was true or not, but I’d say anything to get rid of her.

  “You should start checking out the hot nursing dudes over at Essex County for next year,” she said. “Of course, not you, Jess.”

  Lesbian joke. How original.

  I
couldn’t figure out why Courtney was lingering. From the way she was dressed, I could tell she was planning a big night out. I stopped talking, hoping Courtney would just leave if there was a long uncomfortable silence.

  “Listen, brat,” Courtney said after a few excruciating moments. “I need some cash.”

  So that was the deal. She’d probably already rifled through all of mom’s hiding places, turned the living room couch cushions upside down, and come up empty-handed. A couple of new packs of cigarettes, mom’s brand, stuck out of her bag. Probably all she could find. I’d buy her off in a second, but I didn’t have anything more than my PATH SmartLink card, a Metrocard, and maybe thirty-five cents.

  “Here’s twenty. It’s all we’ve got,” Jess said, rummaging through her things and pulling out a crumpled bill.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Just take it and stop bothering us,” Jess said, thrusting the twenty at her.

  Courtney was as surprised as I was, but she took the money. She stood up to leave. “Keep your trap shut to Mom that I was here, understand?” I hated that I nodded yes.

  Jess and I waited until we heard her junker start up and tear off.

  “You totally didn’t have to do that. I’ll pay you back,” I said. But Jess wasn’t even listening. She had opened up my laptop and was clicking through all the photos on TMZ.

  “I should kill that bitch.”

  “My sister’s not worth it…”

  “No, I mean Tabitha Eden.”

  “What?”

  “Check this out—she looks like she’s about to vomit on my pumps.” Jess laughed. I did, too. Jess clicked over to the Guest of a Guest blog and instantly found a picture of me in the Dior, arm in arm with Isak Guerrere. She began reading intently.

  “Wow, they called you ‘Isak Guerrere’s fashionable companion.’ You know, I should have done more with the Dior, I think. I could have pushed it further. I was intimidated.”

  If only we hadn’t gone back to the Met, she would have been fine with all this. The Met was a big mistake.

  Jess scrolled through the Web sites, trolling for pictures, and for some reason I flashed on a story I had read about Audrey when she was cast in Sabrina. The Queen of Wardrobe, Edith Head, dressed everybody who was anybody: Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Marilyn. She controlled the fashion and appearance of those Hollywood actresses even when they attended the Oscars. But for Sabrina, the director, Billy Wilder, wanted Audrey to wear something different, something French. So he went behind Edith Head’s back and asked the wife of the head of Paramount Pictures in Paris for help. She introduced Audrey to Hubert de Givenchy.

  Audrey asked for a strapless evening dress, modified to hide the hollows behind her collarbone. The lovely dress that Givenchy created for her—a strapless bodice with a voluminous embroidered skirt—made Sabrina the belle of the ball and established Audrey’s look for the rest of her career.

  Edith Head famously received an Oscar for Audrey’s dress in Sabrina without ever crediting Hubert de Givenchy, the designer of that crucial piece of wardrobe. Years later, when a biographer outed her, Edith snapped back, “I lied. So what? If I bought a sweater at Bullock’s Wilshire, do I have to give them credit, too?”

  But Givenchy was no mere department store designer, and Audrey remained loyal to him until she died. “In a certain way,” Audrey is famously quoted, “one can say that Hubert de Givenchy created me over the years.”

  “Oh. My. God. There you are, walking and talking,” Jess laughed. She clicked on a video, and there I was with Isak from the night before.

  Who was that? I mean, it was me—a beaming, graceful, Technicolor me. I appeared so at ease, as though standing in front of a camera arm in arm with a famous designer was something I did all the time.

  Jess was watching me as I watched. “You might want to close your mouth a little or bugs might fly down your throat,” Jess advised, lifting my jaw.

  “I’m in shock.”

  Bright lights, stunning dress, famous designer, winsome smile … for a second I felt warm all over again, just like I did in front of the camera.

  Jess clicked through the video to a party Web site.

  “Whoa! What’s this?” she said. There were photos of me on the party page. No name, just my picture and a question mark.

  “You’re just a mystery inside a riddle wrapped in a remade Dior,” Jess joked.

  “How many pictures is that?” I asked.

  “There are eight pictures of you, including Audrey’s Givenchy,” said Jess. “But I don’t think we should use that one on that blog of yours.”

  “You know about my blog? I was going to tell you,” I said, embarrassed.

  “It’s pretty hard to avoid a fashion blog that Isak Guerrere comments on from the first post. I think every young designer in the country has a Google Alert on that one.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t see?” Jess asked as she clicked over to Shades of Limelight. “He loves you.”

  There it was: Isak’s ringing endorsement of everything I said and already one-thousand-plus hits and followers.

  “I thought it was pretty good, too. I especially like the Designer X part. Hmm, wonder who she could be…?” she said, smiling.

  “Listen, the Met is off-limits,” Jess added. “I can’t afford to give Myers a chance to fire me. I want to keep my job, all my jobs, until I get my line going or at least finish school. I’ll hang in with you on this. If you’re going to become famous, someone’s got to dress you. And I don’t want to miss it.”

  “You’ll be my Givenchy!” I said.

  “That makes you Audrey,” she countered.

  Not quite, but I was on my way.

  22

  I had no idea what I was dreaming that night, but woven into the soundtrack of my dream was a version of “Moon River” that sounded like a mash-up with the theme from Hellraiser II. It creeped me out so much I snapped awake, sitting up with my eyes open.

  My cell phone was ringing. Who would call at … what time was it? The clock said 5:49 A.M. Shit. I thumbed ANSWER, put the phone to my ear, and fell back on my pillow.

  “You up?”

  “Jake!?” I croaked.

  “Hey Lizzy. Good morning at ya!”

  “Uh, good morning…?” I tried to reboot my brain.

  “Yeah, don’t you think?” He sounded a little slurry.

  “Think what? I kind of just woke up, Jake. I don’t start thinking until much, much later.” He laughed.

  “You’re a hoot, Lizzy. Look out your window. Awesome sunrise, right?” I glanced at the clock by my bed.

  “Jake, it’s five forty-nine. No, now it’s five fifty.”

  “Come on, Lizzy,” Jake said. “Just take a look out your window.”

  “Okay, fine … if you really want me to.” I dragged myself out of bed, stumbling my way to the window, and looked out. The sun was just rising, and the purple night was giving way to a pink and yellow sky over our sad, sleepy neighborhood.

  “Yep, the sun is coming up. I can confirm that, Jake.” I looked down, and there in the dawning light was Jake with his cell phone, jumping up and down and waving to me like some kind of nut. I’d never seen Jake that wacky before, and I couldn’t help laughing.

  “Hello, crazy person.” I made a little wave to him as he stood on my lawn.

  “I was going to throw stones at your window, but I’ve got a mean fastball, ya know. Did I tell you I was the pitcher on the high school team?”

  “I guess I missed that one in the Rocket Berns Wikipedia entry, but thanks for sharing.”

  “Well, I just didn’t want to break your window.”

  “Oh … kay. Well, thank you for not breaking my window.” It was pretty comical standing there, especially since we were still talking on our cell phones.

  “So want to come out and get a cuppa coffee?” Jake asked.

  “Are you kidding? It’s like five a.m.,” I looked back at my alarm clock. “Act
ually just turned five fifty-two, but who’s counting?”

  “Best time for coffee, really, when you think about it,” he countered. “Besides, Lizzy, I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been up all night thinkin’ about you.”

  I blinked a couple of times, unsure that I heard him correctly, and took a deep breath.

  “I’m sure you’ve got better things to think about than me … are you high?”

  “Come on, Lizzy, believe me. Look, I’m standing on my head!”

  “Yeah, right.”

  But sure enough, out there on the tiny front lawn of my house, none other than hot rocker Jake Berns was doing a pretty decent handstand, all the stuff in his pockets falling out. He fell down after a while and got back up again.

  I put down my cell phone and opened my window.

  “Okay. Stop that,” I whispered. “Somebody might see you. I’ll be down in a sec.”

  Yanking on a pair of jeans under my oversized sleep shirt, I hunted around the room for a bra and slipped on a clean white T from my dresser. But I startled myself when I looked in the mirror.

  Last night’s updo had turned my hair into a bird’s nest, and there were still traces of shimmer at the corners of my eyes from my eye shadow. I debated whether to wrestle my hair into a ponytail or go full-on Cosmo girl and just rock the bedhead. I opted for the latter. I wiped away as much shimmer as I could, swished my mouth with mouthwash, and snuck down the stairs, slipping through the front door and closing it quietly behind me.

  We pulled away in Jake’s slightly beat-up 1976 BMW 2000, which was no ordinary rock and roller’s ride. Jake was a car freak; he always had five cars parked in front of his house in various stages of repair. There was the band van—the whole thing painted like the American flag, of course; an old military jeep that was always on cinder blocks; a ’61 Impala with holes in the floor where your feet were supposed to be, like a Fred Flintstone car; and his brother’s Saturn, which was always breaking down.