R. Hernández - An Innocent Fashion

“It’s not even artfully disheveled,” Plum added.

“You try to walk into a club with us looking like that, and we’ll just leave you on the street, and throw martinis at you from the window — and anyway,” said Kaija, poking Dorian in the chest, “you want to talk work — guess who had to laugh for ten hours straight?”

“One of those fun photo shoots?” Dorian guessed.

“Mario was photographing, of course.” She rolled her eyes. “‘ Just have fun, girls! Have fun! ’ he says over and over. Puts you in the worst mood — you get bunions from trying to tap-dance for him.”

“Don’t blame Mario for your big feet,” said Plum.

“I don’t have ‘big’ feet,” Kaija snapped, pantomiming a quote-unquote with her parrotlike fingers. “I’m almost seven feet tall, for God’s sake, of course I have slightly bigger feet.”

“What are you, a ten?”

“An eleven,” Kaija waved dismissively. “Anyway these Bazaar people should know by now. They bring the tiniest shoes — they think we’re all Chinese or something.”

“You’re so stupid,” said Plum. “That was in ancient China.”

Kaija shrugged, raising her hand over the bar. “I don’t need a comeback when you’re wearing that hat.”

“For the last time, it’s a headwrap, and it’s custom-made,” she said, pointing to the red satin coil on her head. “It was four thousand dollars.”

“You should put a price sticker on it,” I suggested.

Plum considered this, teasing herself with the twirl of an olive-ornamented toothpick before her heavily lashed eyes. Evidently discovering an insight on the surface of the olive, she slid the toothpick into her mouth and closed her eyes with momentary relish. “You’re right,” she said with the shrug of a vaulted eyebrow. “Everything should have a price tag.” She tossed the toothpick into her martini and clinked it down against the bar. “It would make life much more honest.”

“I think you’ll be honest enough in two seconds when that martini hits you,” said Dorian. “Didn’t your therapist ask you to watch your partying habits?”

“Partying? Who’s partying?” With an upraised hand toward the bartender, she pushed herself in front of Kaija and clanked her diamond-braceleted wrist. “Champagne?” she asked us, before turning back to the bar: “Four glasses of Veuve Clicquot, please.”

We had been in possession of our champagne flutes for five seconds before Plum pressed Dorian, “Well, don’t just stand there while all the bubbles die out!”

“What’s the matter, Dorian?” Kaija asked. “Don’t you like champagne anymore?”

“Relax, both of you,” said Dorian. “What are you getting so excited about?”

Plum’s palm fell open, as though divulging to him a matter of common sense. “What is there to get excited about, if not champagne?”

“It’s the fourth state of matter,” said Kaija.

“After solids, liquids, and cocaine,” added Plum, who then remembered—“Oh!” She reached into her clutch — it looked like Valentino — and pulled out an amber bottle of prescription pills. “These aren’t bad either.” She jangled the contents in Kaija’s face and popped the top off with a polished, merlot-colored nail. “Here,” she said. Kaija stuck out her hand to catch a tiny orchid-pink droplet in her palm. Plum gave one to Dorian and held my wrist as she shook the bottle. “You can take two, since you’re new,” she smiled.

“What are these?” I asked.

She shrugged and said, “I don’t know,” before tossing one between her scarlet lips and chasing it with champagne.

“Don’t forget about work tomorrow,” Dorian warned.

“Shut up. Do you even know me?” I scoffed. “Or have you already forgotten what a couple of reckless youths we are?”

“Of course I know you — which is why I’m saying—”

Exulting in Dorian’s reservations — it felt amazing to be irresponsible! — I nudged the pills onto my tongue and swallowed them down with a stream of bubbles, not feeling a thing. “Cheers!” I held up an empty glass, and the girls clinked.

Over the next ten minutes our group did a magnificent — albeit effortless — job of attracting new members. First were two girls, definitely models; both blonde, and in the dark nearly identical in black leather jackets from the same Alexander Wang collection. One of them pushed Kaija trying to get the bartender’s attention, and when Kaija turned to make a fuss (“ Can’t you see I’m standing here? ”), it turned out they were all signed with IMG agency, and immediately became friends (“ Oh my God, if I have to shoot for Bazaar again I’ll kill myself. ”). After that, we were joined by a stylist I recognized from a cover story in WWD . At about five feet, he overcompensated with pink hair and a dozen forceful anecdotes about the celebrities he had worked with (regarding his cover shoot with Nicki Minaj for Elle that month: “She kept wanting her boobs to show, and I was like, ‘Bitch, cover yourself, this is Christian Dior!’”). The designer of an emerging label came up to thank Plum for wearing her dress to a CFDA event the week before, and finally a swarm of male models started trying to pair themselves off with the girls.

All along Dorian introduced me to passing faces as his best friend. I grasped at a lot of hands, and pecked a lot of cheeks, buoyed above the crowd by my continuous incredulity until one of the male models seemed to express an interest in Dorian. Possessing within the too-small circumference of his head the most extreme qualities of the male ideal, the model seemed to me an exaggerated package: inflamed lips and flowing chestnut-brown hair, thick brows and emerald eyes slanted exotically in a face as tan and square as a cardboard box.

“Who are you with?” he asked Dorian, referring either to his modeling agency, or whether he was single.

“Nobody,” Dorian said casually, then clarified, “I’m not a model.”

I was sure he hoped the model would express surprise that despite his own model-worthy looks, he had chosen some nobler path. But the cardboard box just said, “You could get signed — you have a good face,” which I guess was his idea of a come-on. Dorian changed the subject with some charming comment about the cityscape through the window (“It’s very Van Gogh, no?”) and as I watched the box struggle to form a response, I was reminded why I shouldn’t be so hard on Dorian. Beautiful people were never required by society to be smart, and for being one, Dorian was practically a genius.

I had started to lose track of their enlightened conversation when I got distracted by a queasy feeling and had to close my eyes. I felt my heart strike against my chest like a drumstick— kaboom, kaboom, kaboom —and I heard Plum count, “One — two — three — four,” and when I opened my eyes she was staring at her fingers, concentrating very hard. “Four,” she repeated. “This is her fourth divorce.” She blinked hard, then I blinked hard, then somehow we were no longer by the bar but passing into the next room, onto a dance floor full of lights and bobbing heads. Next to my ear, someone said, “I never accept a drink unless it’s spiked,” and somebody else said, “Tequila brings back memories of not having memories,” and then I think Kaija said to no one in particular, “If all of us liked each other, we would have nothing to talk about,” but I didn’t see her lips move so I wasn’t sure it was her, and after that I lost track of who was saying what and whether any of it was even being said to me, and all the voices became a blur.

“. have so much trouble typing with my fake nails. if it feels comfortable, then you shouldn’t wear it. why fat people think black will make them skinny?. everyone is texting me. I need to go to the bathroom, there’s the hottest guy over there. don’t you hate it when your roommate’s sweater doesn’t fit?. out of lobster at Indochine, I was forced to get the filet mignon. ”