R. Hernández - An Innocent Fashion

It was the only act of rebellion I knew — to be worthy of such an insult as “butterfly.”

YALE WAS EVERYTHING I’D EVER WANTED, BUT COLLEGE doesn’t last forever. After four years spent in exultation of a realized dream, I knew of only one other destination with the same promise of beauty and success, a name that echoed in my head, the sound of my life’s calling: Régine . When the e-mail came, it was as though all the tectonic plates of my life met right beneath my feet. The subject line was RÉGINE , in all caps, with the accent and everything.

Dear Ethan St. James,

We have received your résumé and believe you could be qualified to work as an intern in the office of Edmund Benneton. Please respond promptly if you are available for an interview tomorrow at 2 p.m.

Sabrina Walker

Fashion Assistant

RÉGINE

I fired an e-mail back to Sabrina Walker so quickly that I charred my fingertips. To see Edmund Benneton’s name in my inbox, together with the implication that he might want me , that it was me who could soon be at his side — well, I won’t get too carried away, but let’s just say it meant the whole wide world was all right, spinning around as it should, and that if I dreamed of anything hard enough, it would happen.

Edmund Benneton was the fashion director of Régine , and after Ava Burgess, Régine ’s editor-in-chief, he was the single most important person in the world of fashion. With his work appearing every month on newsstands and front porches and little side tables in salons, Edmund reached an audience of millions, therefore possessing the power to affect the whole world — or at least, the look of the whole world. His was the life I envisioned for myself — basking in endless beauty, cavorting with artists and models and designers—

“Ethan. ”

My Elysian dream was interrupted by a faraway voice. “Oh!” I exclaimed, accidentally uncorking the bottle of enthusiasm I had planned to reserve until the right moment. I turned and rose to my feet, stretching out my hand, bursting, “You must be Ms. Walker!”

I’d correctly guessed only one thing about Ms. Walker: She was, by virtue of a stilettoed boot, extraordinarily tall. Other than that, well, she was clearly my age, around twenty-one, and hardly a “Ms. Walker” at all. She had the fresh, collegiate face of someone I could have been friends with at Yale — blushing cheeks, blue eyes incandescent with ambition. But the rest of Sabrina Walker distinguished her sharply from any friend I’d known.

Her white-gold hair was pulled up into a high ponytail; baby hairs shellacked into seamless oblivion, a long, infallible tress swishing uniformly over her nape like a silk tassel. She wore black from head to toe; a crepe secretary blouse, bow-tied with military stiffness around her throat, and a gabardine skirt, its razor-sharp pleats encircling her waist in a synchronized regimental march. Her glossy thigh-high boots were made of reptilian skin, with heels like bayonet blades. Her footsteps on the marble floor sounded click, click, click , like the clacking platinum balls in a Newton’s cradle — a perfect balance of ease and exactitude.

My heart spiked instinctively as her hand glided into mine. With frosted delicacy, she permitted the briefest physical contact — a gesture which escaped the crudeness of an undignified joggle and the intimacy of a presumptuous clench — then, like eager Orpheus, I felt a Hadean chill claim her back, her fingers slipping away.

Sabrina smiled, her teeth glacier-white. “Burgundy suit — how bold.” Her voice was surprisingly husky. It was easy to imagine her, a few years earlier, in a plaid version of her short pleated skirt, smoking smuggled Parliament Lights out of a dormitory window at some mist-wreathed New England boarding school. She sat down, while in a daze of cryogenic uncertainty my outstretched hand remained suspended behind her. “Résumé?”

I hastily conducted an inventory of my disobedient limbs. The folder containing my résumé appeared miraculously in her hands, and my body in the parlor chair before her.

“You’re the Yale boy, right?” She opened the folder and barely skimmed the page. She was chewing gum, and smiling again — a conspiratorial smile, as if we were part of the same club — and said, “I have friends that went to Yale.”

Against her amicable tone, I perceived the loud, self-destructive irrationality of my own nerves. Why was I so uncomfortable? Not only was Sabrina smiling, but she was going out of her way to be friendly. Don’t ruin this! I took a deep breath, prepared to redeem myself with a masterful round of the name-game (“Oh, of course I know so-and-so!” followed by anecdotal evidence of her friend’s and my closeness—“We were classmates! Neighbors! Practically best friends!”) — anything to calm my terror and seal the deal with Sabrina Walker.

“Do you know Cecilie Harris?” she asked, as I unconvincingly attempted to place my hands in a casual arrangement on my lap.

I felt my pent-up shoulders relax. Cecilie Harris was actually a good friend, and the invocation of her name was like a trickle of relief through my petrified veins.

Sabrina caught the flash of recognition on my face. “An expensive mess, isn’t she?” she said. Her eyebrow rose with cruel relish. “Our fathers both work at Sotheby’s, so we’ve summered together. She acts like some kind of hippie, when her parents own a château in Saint-Rémy.” Leaning forward, her voice thrilling with scorn, “She wore a caftan to a Commodore’s Ball at the Nantucket Yacht Club.”

I laughed nervously as my shoulders tensed up even more than before.

“God, I wish I’d gone to Yale,” she moaned. “Went to Dartmouth. Have you been there?” She reclined into the damask chair, its cream flourishes forming an elegant backdrop for her mockery. “If you haven’t, don’t bother, unless you’re a fan of sweatshirts and cheap beer. The experience was distressing.” She laughed to herself unexpectedly before waving away her transgression. “Anyway, where are you from again? Originally?”

It took me a second to remember. “Corpus Christi,” I managed.

She cocked her head.

“It’s in Texas,” I clarified.

“Oh.” Her expression, which a second ago had been so convivial, was suddenly obscured by a dense fog. “I had assumed. from your last name. St. James, you know, like Georgina St. James. I thought you were her brother or something. ”

Unsure of what to say, I searched for a clue on her disobliging face, then admitted, “No, I. I’ve never heard of her.”

The fog was penetrated by a ray of complete bewilderment. “Never heard of Georgina St. James?” Her voice spiked. “Not to be rude, but how do you not know her? She’s a major ‘It Girl’ right now. She attends everything .”

I tried desperately to conjure up some appropriate response — but what? The tie that had bound us — Sabrina’s mistaken impression that I was a member of a certain club, well-bred, with a sibling on the society circuit and derisory regard for the philistines with whom I was forced to “summer”—was suddenly severed.

Sabrina’s eyes steeled upon my résumé as one, two seconds passed, then she pressed the folder shut. She crossed her legs, laid my folder against the top of her leather-sheathed knee, and began to lightly rock her high-heeled boot toward the glass doors. She clasped her hands, and a charm — a pair of interlocking C’s, unmistakably Chanel — rattled on her silver bracelet. “So then — tell me about yourself,” she said, her enthusiasm replaced by the curtness of someone abandoned by her friends at a cocktail party and therefore obligated to make small talk with an unattractive stranger.