R. Hernández - An Innocent Fashion

“I’ll take it,” Jane said, reaching out. The surface of her fingers reminded me of wrinkled tomato skins.

I had never been in Jane’s office. Like a museum, the walls brimmed with pictures. Neighbors included a kabuki princess and Jacqueline Kennedy; a Botticellian saint and Isabella Blow; all coexisting, in clean simple frames, on a wall of global inspirations. As I was leaning over her desk, I thought to myself that this was the most alone I had ever been with Jane, and noticed behind her one of my favorite Impressionist paintings: a bonneted woman in a blue frock, peering up from a book while her daughter gazed through a gate into a cloud of smoke.

Absentmindedly, kind of to myself, I murmured, “I love Manet.”

“Hmm?” She cupped the mug with both hands through the handle and brought it to her lips.

“Oh, sorry — I just, I love that Manet painting,” I said.

She glanced over her shoulder to remind herself what was hanging there. “Oh, yes. Everybody thinks it’s Monet.”

“Really? They’re so completely different.”

“Most people don’t have a very good eye, I’m afraid,” she said. “They see blotches and they think, ‘Impressionism! Must be Monet!’ like every painter was the same.” She shrugged and took a sip.

“My favorite’s Manet,” I confided. “Of the Impressionists, at least.”

Her screen saver flickered to life, illuminating a face etched with soft lines, and I caught myself. “Actually, I’m sorry, I know you’re working. I don’t mean to distract you.”

She brushed one hand dismissively through the air. “Don’t be silly! You think I wouldn’t rather talk to you about Manet than stare at a screen that can’t talk back? I hate computers. I’m waiting for the day they all crash, so I can practice my cursive again.”

I laughed out loud — it was exactly the kind of thing that Madeline would say.

“How old are you? You’ve probably never even heard of cursive writing,” she sighed. “I take it you like art then? Manet’s one of my favorites too, by the way.”

She peered at me, and it was the first time I’d seen her eyes so close: blue, but unlike mine — my right eye, at least, which swirled like water, constantly searching — hers seemed calm, like air.

I laughed in spite of myself. “Like art? It’s why I’m at Régine at all.”

She took off her glasses and folded them like dragonfly wings in her hand. “Of course you like art! I remember you on your first day — in your bright, wonderful suit.” She smiled, and the wrinkles around her mouth spread like pond ripples.

“That was inappropriate.” I blushed, remembering my conversation with Clara. “I didn’t mean to offend anybody, I just — didn’t know.”

“You didn’t offend anybody,” she shook her head. “Not me, at least. I saw you and my heart jumped up. I thought to myself — at last! Some color! Somebody with life in them! I know what they told you — about rank, and rules, and to be fair — it’s true. But is it right? No. The world can’t make progress without risk.”

Across the room, a rocking bamboo fountain on the windowsill went kerplunk! The stone basin filled with water, as elsewhere in the room an invisible clock ticktocked closer and closer to nightfall.

“Ethan—” She toyed with the corner of a paper on her desk. “Would you be interested in helping me prep my next shoot? Brainstorm ideas, pull inspiration references — art, fashion — all of that?”

“I—” My heart leaped into my throat.

Kerplunk! went the fountain.

“Yes.” I swallowed, nodding vigorously. “Yes, that would be — that would be amazing.”

She smiled. “I’m glad. Go on then,” she said, motioning to her work. “We’ll talk soon.”

Kerplunk!

I rushed toward the door. “Thank you,” I whispered, hands prayerfully clasped against my chest. I closed her door behind me, and stumbled into the fluorescent glow of the hallway. Reentering the fashion closet I whispered, “Dorian!” but he was still in the bathroom.

Jane’s words cycled over and over in my head as I paced the room — could it be that the creative director of Régine had just invited me to work on her next project? I passed the shelves and the garment racks and the desks, unable to contain my excitement. This was it! Jane’s proposal represented the beginning of a new chapter at Régine .

I wanted to shout, “ I made it! I’m making it — it’s happening! ” I wanted to shout it to Dorian and Madeline. I wanted to shout it to George, and to Edmund; to Clara, who had choked up when she told me success was possible for an outsider, and to Sabrina, who had compared me to a piece of yarn, unsuitable to fit into the needle of my improbable dream. I wanted to shout it to Ms. Duncan, who had believed in me, and apologize for doubting her. I wanted to shout it to all the people in my life, everyone I had ever met. The crowd of faces multiplied in my mind’s eye — a ballroom full of teachers and friends, advocates and adversaries alike — when suddenly a spotlight shone over two faces. I wanted to shout it to my mom and dad.

I scrambled for the phone in my book bag, and dialed the same digits that, almost twenty years ago, I had practiced on a worksheet in kindergarten. There had been lines for practicing my address and phone number, with space for a drawing of my house.

“If anything ever happens,” Mrs. Sanchez had said, as she handed out the assignment, with her hair braid like a thick black rope against the back of her paisley dress, “it’s important to always be able to reach Mommy and Daddy.” And the next day my worksheet was all filled in, with a drawing of a gray rectangle labeled “mY HoUs,” and a couple of fruits in the front yard.

Now my father picked up, no doubt resembling more than ever the hairy coconut that I had labeled “dAdY.”

“ ¿Oigo? ” he grunted.

I heard the familiar sounds in the background — the same rush of water over my mother’s hands in the kitchen sink; the same anchorwoman on the news, whose coiffure I was sure had remained unaltered through decades of local tragedy, all the stolen purses and dramatic pet rescues and sound bites including some Spanish variation of “ I’ve never seen anything like it! ”

A smile broke out over my face. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. My father also didn’t speak, engrossed, surely, by some captivating screen graphic on the news. “. ahora les paso a Bárbara, en vivo en el parque, donde se informa de un árbol podrido que se ha caído a las ocho de esta mañana . ”

“Reynaldo,” my mother urged in the background, “who is it?”

My father remembered me and sputtered, “ ¿Quién habla? ”

Silence hung in the thousands of miles between us, between me and my library books and flypaper ribbon and black beans for dinner; “ ¡Oye, cabrón! ” and the click-clack of Lola’s nails on the laminate tile; wandering the sidewalks at dusk, dreaming of something more, something bigger. I had done it. I had escaped.

Dorian’s hand dug into my hair from behind. “Who are you talking to?” he asked, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. “Let’s go!”

I hesitated to find words for Reynaldo San Jamar, father of Elián San Jamar, who would become me, Ethan St. James, until—

“ Estoy tan contento, papá ,” I said at last, and hung up.

OUR FOOTSTEPS ECHOED AS DORIAN AND I CROSSED THE empty Hoffman-Lynch lobby.

“Let’s go to a party!” I shouted. My sudden burst reverberated through the vast hall—“ . arty. arty. arty ,” tumbling back toward us like a pitter-patter of invisible ping-pong balls strewn over the black marble.