Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“How would you like to be my fashion buyer?” Simone asked.
“Fashion buyer?” I adjusted the sequin beret on one of the mannequin’s heads and fluffed up a magenta tulle skirt. I’d paired it with a Keith Haring T-shirt and a teal leather motorcycle jacket.
While some designers were embracing minimalism, Simone was firmly in the maximalist camp. The West Village boutique was a one-stop shop and meeting place for drag queens, Club Kids, celebrities, artists, and the avant-garde crowd.
I loved working at House of Simone, but I’d never planned on making a career of it.
I climbed off the platform and turned to face her. “But I don’t even have the qualifications.”
“I’ve been mentoring you for years,” she said, unlocking the door and motioning for me to follow. “Those are all the qualifications you need.”
I grabbed the cup of coffee that I’d left by the register, and my eye snagged on the date stamped on an invoice. I double-checked the desk calendar just to be sure.
No wonder everything felt so off today.
It was September 24th.
For 364 days of the year, I barely gave him a passing thought but whenever this day rolled around, it always felt like a dark cloud hung over my head. Which was so stupid. Why did I still care when I never should have cared at all?
The date means nothing to you. It’s just another Thursday.
I shook it off and followed Simone out to Eighth Street as a bike messenger flew past and a taxi swerved, honking the horn and shouting obscenities.
I watched a guy with a shaved head and a tattooed face leading a girl down the street by a leash connected to the dog collar around her neck.
She wore a black garbage bag fashioned into an asymmetrical dress and barked on command.
“I wonder if she rolls over, too,” I mused. “Or does she just sit up and beg?”
Simone cackled. “You’re naughty. That’s why I love you.” She waved at “Jackie Onassis” who was walking an actual dog. A French poodle with a bad attitude. “How’s it going today, Jackie?”
Jackie, whose name wasn’t really Jackie but only answered to that name, waved her hand in the air theatrically. She wore Jackie O sunglasses, a pillbox hat, and a black sheath dress with pearls around her neck. “Oh, Simone. I was up all night with my poor little love.”
Her “poor little love” growled and bared its teeth at me. I didn’t know why that dog hated me so much.
My friend Xavi told me it’s because I give off strong cat energy. “Let’s face it, Cleo. You’re a black cat.”
“Coco,” Jackie cooed. “Don’t growl at our lovely Cleo. Mommy will give you a treat when we get home. There’s a good girl…goodbye, darlings,” she called over her shoulder.
Yep. It was just another Thursday.
I stood in a patch of sunlight and drank my now-cold coffee while Simone tilted her head and studied my window display. Mustard yellow velvet curtains served as the backdrop, offsetting the mannequins’ neon pink wigs and a cornucopia of vintage jewelry.
“This role will be good experience for when you start your own label,” Simone said as we went back inside, having deemed that my window design passed inspection.
“My own label? I’m not a fashion designer. I’m an artist.” Technically, I was a salesgirl and window dresser with a side gig as an artist.
I loved making things—sketching, painting, collaging, weaving and sewing—but I’d never had any aspirations to become a fashion designer.
“And what do you think fashion is? It’s a form of self-expression.” She swept her hand down her own outfit—chartreuse hot pants and a purple kaleidoscope silk shirt that clashed with her cherry red hair, but she pulled it off. Simone always looked cool. “It’s wearable art.”
“No, I know but?—”
“The job comes with a raise. Lord knows you’re always broke.”
I could use the extra money, but I still wasn’t ready to commit.
Armed with Windex and paper towels, I cleaned the hot pink Lucite cubes displaying “wearable art”—sky-high stiletto canvas boots I’d hand-painted with a black and white checkerboard design.
“What’s holding you back?” Simone asked, sensing my hesitation.
“I don’t know.” I chewed on my lip, trying to figure out why I wasn’t jumping at the chance.
I dropped out of Columbia last year to pursue art but so far, all I had to show for it was student loans for an Ivy League degree I’d never earned and the collaged walls in my apartment.
I wasn’t exactly taking the art world by storm. Yet.
“I guess I’m worried that if I go down that road, I’ll end up abandoning my art.”
“That’s nonsense. It will only fuel your creativity. Besides, it’s not that much different than what you’re already doing. You have a good eye.” She put her hands on my shoulders and gave them a little squeeze. “I have complete faith that you’ll do a good job.”
Simone believed in me and had from the first day I walked into her boutique asking for a job at sixteen. Over the years, she’d always encouraged me to pursue my art.
My graffiti covered the dressing rooms and two of my collages hung on the walls.
A few years ago, I’d even designed a collection of T-shirts. Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed, Discrimination, and Ignorance Does.
We donated all the profits to AIDS, and it had felt good to do my part, if only a small one.
But I always thought this job would be temporary. A means to an end until I exhibited my own work in galleries. I didn’t want to get too comfortable.
On my lunch break, I stopped at an ATM for some cash. Insufficient funds . I slammed my palm against the display screen but shockingly, the machine didn’t cough up any cash.
I couldn’t even get twenty bucks out of the damn cash machine.
I sat on a bench in Washington Square and counted the money in my wallet. One crinkled dollar bill and twenty-seven cents. I pulled my bucket bag into my lap and dug around in the bottom, searching for some loose change.
I found a wintergreen lifesaver covered in lint, two bobby pins, a can of pepper spray, and a condom in a foil wrapper. Better safe than sorry, but it wouldn’t pay for a turkey sandwich at the deli.
On my way back to work, I stopped at a newsstand and bought a Snickers bar for lunch. After I handed over my money, I turned and stared right at my father’s face splashed across the glossy cover of Avant-Garde .
It was the seventh anniversary of his death. It was also his birthday. He would have been forty-one today.
According to the headlines, the world still mourned the loss of the legendary British rocker and enigmatic front man of the Rogue Prophets who died at 34.
In the photo, Nick Ashby wore faded denim, scuffed boots, and a wifebeater under a fur coat.
His dusty blond hair kissing the collar.
A cigarette clamped between his lips. He was leaning against a yellow brick wall in a cobblestoned London alley with his head tipped back, looking down his lashes at the camera.
Growing up, I’d always wanted to look more like my mom. An English rose with Elizabeth Taylor eyes. But I looked just like him. I’d inherited his grass-green eyes, his tawny coloring, and his bone structure.
I called him Nicky. He called me Baby Blue, like the song he wrote for me. I couldn’t even listen to that song. Or any of his music, really.
But I was a glutton for punishment, so I grabbed the magazine off the rack and flipped to “A n Exclusive Interview with Former Rogue Prophets Bassist: Ian Rees-Jones opens up about his dear departed bandmate and self-ordained prophet. ”
“We were just a bunch of lads having a laugh but then the band name stuck. We called Nicky our prophet. He always had a vision. He had a special gift for seeing things in a way no one else did. I remember one time we were supposed to take the stage at Glastonbury and Nicky was nowhere to be found. Everyone was searching for him high and low. We finally found him sitting in the middle of a muddy field just staring into space. He said, and I’ll never forget this…
‘How do you do it, Ian? How do you go on when the world is just too much?’ You could tell he was struggling. I just wish I’d been a better friend…”
In every interview he ever gave, Nicky told the journalists that he wouldn’t be around for long. I guess that’s what made him such a prophet.
I jammed the magazine back into the rack and walked away, trying to shake off the heaviness that always settled on my chest whenever I was reminded of him.
He’d been gone for seven years, but my father still haunted me.
Later that night, I climbed the stairs to my apartment. We lived on the fifth floor, or as my mom always used to say, the “penthouse.”
But if you were lucky enough to snag a rent-stabilized apartment in the East Village, you didn’t complain about minor inconveniences like leaky pipes, temperamental radiators, or the clawfoot tub in the middle of the kitchen.
You embraced the wood floors that groaned when you walked on them, the sagging original molding, and the cracks in the plaster.
When I reached the fourth-floor landing, the scent of Nag Champa incense wafted down the stairs. A telltale sign that Gabriel was in our apartment.
Great. Just what I needed right now.
In the past month, I’d tried to avoid him whenever possible, but Annika was always forcing us to spend time together.
Two weeks ago, Gabriel and I showed up at Yaffa Café, thinking we were meeting Annika one-on-one. But no, I was the third wheel again.
While Annika fed her boyfriend baba ghanoush, I got hit on by an Elvis impersonator. Not young Elvis. Tinted sunglasses, sideburns, middle-aged rhinestone Elvis who tried to woo me with an off-key rendition of “Burning Love.” It had the same effect on me as that failed comedy act.
Gabriel found it “funny as hell.”
Last Sunday, Annika and I made plans to go to The Cloisters, and she brought Gabriel along, so I’d wandered off on my own and communed with the medieval gardens.
And every Monday night, I dutifully accompanied Annika to Monks to watch her boyfriend perform.
At this point, I might as well get used to it. Gabriel was here to stay.