Rachel Glaser - Paulina & Fran

While nagging a hot dog vendor for a pretzel, Paulina smelled familiar perfume. The smell recalled the old, easy life of frolicking and looking at amateur drawings. Paulina turned and saw long black hair trailing away. “Sadie!” she exclaimed.

Sadie recoiled at the voice and walked faster. Midtown was crowded with businesspeople and mascots. A children’s field trip filled the space between Paulina and Sadie. Construction workers were building the new MoMA. Sadie cut a corner. It was the worst time to be spotted. My whole career depends on this interview , she thought. She knocked an old woman off her feet as she passed, then gasped and knelt to help her up. Paulina watched. “Hey,” Sadie said, flustered.

“At last! I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.” Seeing Sadie revived Paulina’s sunken spirits. Sadie was like a misplaced doll, triumphantly found.

“Really? I’m actually late for a job thing,” said Sadie. She would not let herself say, But I’ll call you this week or But let’s meet up for coffee . She turned to go.

“Let’s have a drink tonight,” said Paulina.

“Tonight’s not good,” Sadie said. She slowly walked away and Paulina followed behind. Sadie glanced back. Paulina’s curls were still so healthy and shiny! But other parts of her looked desperate and rundown. Her skin was dry in patches, her eyebrows unruly. Sadie was already mentally relaying the scene to her therapist.

“Is this about the boots? I’ll give them back,” Paulina said. Sadie kept walking. “Is it about Eileen still?” Paulina crossed herself. “I could have been more sensitive. Everyone does their own thing with death.”

They wove around strangers on the sidewalk. Huge buildings shut them off from the sky. “What job thing?” Paulina asked. “How’s that boy you’re seeing?”

“Eric’s good. We have a place together.” Sadie had married Eric just the week before. She had designed her dress — long, blue, with peacock feathers. Only the best people Sadie and Eric knew were invited. Sadie saw no reason to curate the rest of her life any differently. She held her portfolio case with both hands. “This is where I have my appointment,” she told Paulina in front of a black, mirrored tower.

“What kind of job?” Paulina asked. “I’m still looking too, if you can believe it. I’ve been hosting for a restaurant,” she said self-consciously. “But I want something more regular.”

“It’s a fashion thing,” Sadie said dismissively and walked into the lobby. Paulina followed her.

“I like fashion,” Paulina said, adjusting her dress. Her voice echoed into the vaulted ceiling. Sadie checked in at the reception desk and was agitated when Paulina did the same.

They rode up the elevator together. “You need an appointment,” Sadie said. “Plus you don’t have a portfolio.”

Paulina laughed. “I don’t need a portfolio.”

They sat on opposite ends of the waiting room. “What kind of company is this?” Paulina asked the boy next to her.

“Teenage girl stuff. Like Forever 21. There’s this team of new investors in there looking to reinvent the company. A lot of money is sitting at that table!”

Paulina smiled at him and then Sadie, but Sadie wouldn’t return her gaze. A few minutes with Paulina had completely dismantled Sadie’s well-being. Don’t waste yourself on the past, her therapist had stressed after a series of Paulina dreams. Paulina cutting Sadie’s houseplants with scissors. Paulina sitting silently in Sadie’s closet.

The therapist was one of the new things, along with the expensive black portfolio and referring to Eric as her husband. Sadie began a text to Allison that read: Queen Pauline in Midtown, could not shake her, send help, but she needed to focus on the interview; she watched the cursor delete her words. She looked to her phone for a picture of her and Eric that might repair her. The one from the rehearsal dinner. He looked handsome in that picture. There was a good future in his jawline. She had noticed this on the train, years before. The receptionist looked over her marble desk. To Sadie’s dismay, Paulina’s name was called.

Paulina gazed empty-handed at the formal, well-groomed people seated around the conference table. They looked at her expectantly. This was the kind of moment she had been preparing for. Her spontaneous ideas were better than most people’s labored thinking, she told herself. She remembered the way the Venus Flytrap had sauntered over to Eileen’s fish tank and grabbed Eileen’s favorite fish.

Paulina ran her hand over her curls and was flooded with confidence. “Your clientele are easily convinced that wrapping a vintage tablecloth around them will win them true love. The operative word is vintage. Today’s America is grimy and organized. There is none of the romantic languor of gourmet European farm towns. Teens want to look lazy and mysterious. Their clothes shouldn’t tell you if they are rich or poor — it is tedious to be either. The clothes should hint at an adventure just taken place or about to unravel.”

Paulina couldn’t read the executives’ faces. She continued.

“Give them vintage clothes without the stink of someone else’s troubles. This is their golden time. Their boys are virgins. Their surroundings don’t match their exuberance. They need the clothes and music to transform their habitat. They are trying out their personalities, some of them for the first time.”

Paulina looked at a dry erase board where someone’s careful drawing of a sports bra glowed from the projector. The executives stared at her. “What about for the men’s line?” a man asked. His bald head and bushy eyebrows made him look distinguished. He wore a suit like the others and a flashy red shirt. “We might want to go in that direction,” the man said. The others at the table shot him a look. Paulina paused to think. Her mind was as empty as an oven. Stray thoughts passed like birds.

“Is that a Halston?” the man asked. Paulina just stared at him. “Your dress,” he said. “Who is it?”

Paulina clutched the ruffled SUPERTHRIFT dress, which she’d sold to Beacon’s Closet and then stolen back.

“Oh, yes. Halston.” The word sounded good in her mouth. She’d heard of that, of him, from The Andy Warhol Diaries. All her dresses were suddenly Halstons. The man smiled at her, while the others scrutinized her dress.

“If that’s a Halston. .” a woman started to say.

Paulina stepped forward. “Similar for the men,” she said. “Relaxed and brawny. Like they’re coming back from the duck hunt to meet your parents at a restaurant. Like they’re on a solo graffiti mission while everyone else is taking their SATs. Graphic silkscreens, distressed denim, but add some lining, trim, piping. Let the girls and boys continually one-up each other.” The projector moved of its own accord, the sports bra was replaced by a fitted tank top.

“What is your design experience?” a woman asked.

“It’s limited. I don’t see myself designing as much as curating. I have a fantastic sense of predicting and creating trends.”

“May I ask what products you use on your hair?” asked the man in the red shirt.

“It’s something I’ve invented. I’d tell you the ingredients, but my business manager wants me to resist until I get a patent.” Business manager! Paulina reveled at her quick thinking.

“I think we’re done here, Harvey,” one of them said. Someone sighed. The group’s focus broke, and all at once they turned to one another, talking and checking their phones, drinking from the bottles of water that lined the table, opening and closing their laptops. If Paulina had surprised them, now they surpassed her. They had already forgotten her, though she still stood there, unable to leave.