R. Hernández - An Innocent Fashion

“It’s for Alvin,” she replied. “He died, remember? They’re playing his favorite songs.”

After that I could barely stand up straight. Moments like that, they sting you like a slap in the face.

Now I was teetering there in the bathroom, thinking about Alvin, when he appeared to me. Except for his picture in the Yale Daily News , I had never known what he looked like, but in that moment I saw his face. He wore glasses and a plaid shirt, and he was rolling his eyes, shaking his curly-haired head at me. “ Fuck you ,” Alvin Baker said. “ You put those pills back and cut the bullshit .”

I poured the pills back in the bottle and wiped my hands against my shirt. The pills had gotten soggy in my sweaty palm and left a white residue.

The bathroom heat seemed more excruciating than it had been all summer. I took off all my clothes and sat on the lid of the toilet. My pores filled up with sweat. I thought of Edmund, and grew a little faint.

“I’M LEAVING,” GEORGE ANNOUNCED TO ME THE NEXT MORNING, without glancing up from his computer screen.

I yawned, and unbuttoned my suit jacket to take a seat. “Okay. Leaving where?”

“Leaving Régine ,” he said. “Today is my last day.”

My chair let out an astonished squeak beneath me. “You’re kidding me,” I gaped. I was roused to full attention. “That’s. huge.”

“I knew you would be devastated,” he said, as he tidied up a stack of papers with his fat fingers. “Just keep the tears to a minimum.”

I laughed at him as a wave of unexpected delight rose inside me.

“Here,” he said, holding out a densely stuffed manila folder with both hands. “Sabrina doesn’t want to be bothered with hiring interns again, so this weekend I got started finding a replacement. These are some résumés we had on file, plus some I got after I placed an ad on the Hoffman-Lynch website last week.”

“This is— amazing ,” I said, flabbergasted. “You’re not joking, are you?”

“Have I ever ‘joked’ with you? Take it,” he said, and shoved the folder into my hands.

“This is so sudden! What happened? I mean — is everything okay?”

“Okay? Of course it’s okay.” He gave me a strange look, which transmuted into a knowing laugh. “Oh. You didn’t hear? I’m being promoted.”

The folder almost fell out of my hands like a brick. “Wait — what?”

“They’re hiring me at British Régine .”

All the glee that had sparkled like a burst of confetti the moment prior now sunk with a whoosh to the carpet. Of course he had been promoted.

“It’s in London,” George added. “They needed a new assistant there.”

“I know where British Regíne is,” I snapped. A lump formed in my throat as I dropped the folder onto the desk. “You got. a real job then?” I asked meekly.

“In two months, I’ll be on the masthead there.” His chin was resting in his pudgy palm, as he began double-clicking on his files, deleting them one by one to prepare his computer for the next person.

Sabrina was elsewhere in the office, and the fashion closet was dead silent. I stared at my desk for some sign of what I should be feeling, but the only thing there was a diamond-studded Louis Vuitton wristwatch.

Did this mean. What did this mean?

George turned and began to say something, but I couldn’t hear him over my own thoughts.

How had George gotten a job? If George was as bad as I thought — unoriginal and rude, with brownnosing as his only distinguishing skill, then how— how? — had he gotten a job? Before me! At British Régine , of all places! That was almost better than working at American Régine —he’d get a dream job and a whole new life in London, while I. well, what about me?

I was wearing Dior, for the love of God! Not to mention that I had gone to Yale, and I had even changed my name, my entire identity, to escape the looming threat of failure — yet how could it be that I might still fail, that no matter what I’d done, or what I did, I could live the rest of my life never becoming the person I so desperately wanted to be?

Did this mean that to make it in the world I had to be — like George ?

“Did you hear me, Ethan?”

I could only stare at my hands on my lap.

“I’m trying to tell you that you should schedule interviews for new candidates by Wednesday. Jane and Edmund will both be shooting stories next week, so you should train the new intern while the office is quiet.”

“I don’t understand,” I blurted, almost choking on the words. “Why? Why would anybody choose you?”

“Oh, calm down,” he said. “You should just be happy you won’t see me anymore.”

A tear burned in the corner of my eye. George wasn’t even rich, or beautiful. At least those reasons I vaguely comprehended, even if they were unfair.

He glimpsed my wounded face, as I tried to swallow the emotion that was welling up in me. “God, you’re pathetic,” he said.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” I said, shaking my head. “Between the two of us, it’s me whose been paying my dues, slaving away while you. ”

He rolled his eyes. “You think that because you’ve been interning for a few months, you’ve paid your dues? Some people work for years for the job they want.”

“Like you?” I scoffed, my misery crystallizing into scorn.

“I know how lucky I am,” he said. “But maybe if you weren’t such a self-pitying brat, you could learn something from me.”

My voice escalated: “Learn what? You’re horrible .”

“Lower your voice, if you know what’s good for you.” He slid a stick of peppermint gum onto his tongue and tossed the foil wrapper into the wastepaper basket. “Remember, I’m the one that’s leaving. You’ll still have to make it work here, day in and day out, until you’ve proven you’re more than a pitiful slave.”

I cemented my teeth together and looked away.

“Now listen to me, Ethan St. James,” he chewed. His gum made a sickening smack as he moved it contemptuously from one side of his mouth to the other. He leaned in toward my face while I glared at the Régine logo on my screen. The veins in my throat bulged. The smell of artificial mint filled my nostrils. The hair on the side of my head tingled as his mouth hovered by my ear. He opened his lips, and I heard the slow unsticking of saliva as they parted over my earlobe.

“Grow the fuck up. You think I’m so different from you? That I’m here on a free ride, like Sabrina, and everybody else? We’re both playing the same game. Except for you—” he leaned back in his chair “—you’re just a child. You show up on the first day with all your colors like this is kindergarten, wanting everybody to think you’re so special—”

“That’s not true,” I interjected. My voice was hoarse. “You don’t even know me.”

“There you go, thinking you’re so unique all the time, when really what you want is the exact same thing I want — the same thing everybody wants. You don’t realize, you’re just a clone of everybody here — a less competent clone.”

I gritted my teeth and repeated, “You — don’t— know —me.”

He leaned back a little and laughed. “ Is that so? I can tell you everything about you in two seconds.” He rolled his chair next to mine— tap! — and grabbed me by the wrist. I winced as he stretched out my palm and pretended to read it like a fortune-teller. “You want to be the center of attention,” he said, as he poked his finger into my flesh. I remained still as he prodded one spot after another on my unflinching hand. “You want to get ahead. You want to be loved. You want to be noticed.” Then he traced his finger slowly in a full circle around my palm. “You want to be a beautiful person. and be surrounded by beautiful things. and have a beeeaaauuuutiful life,” and to hear him say that word, “beautiful,” which in fact had ruled my entire life — it suddenly seemed like a terrible, sinister thing, and my fingers curled like the petals of a dying flower. “Don’t pretend you’re above all that,” he said. “Don’t pretend, because at the end of the day, you’re a person just like the rest of us.”