Fake Plastic Girl Read online

  Riley and Maddie and Abbie told me I couldn’t say this out loud, or people might think I’m racist. That’s the problem one can get into when trying to parse out who’s to blame in the #KanTay feud. If you blame Kanye, you’re racist. If you blame Taylor, you’re sexist. It’s actually pretty disrespectful to both of them, reducing their experiences down to race and gender like that. They’re both just people, after all. Both more famous than God, but still, just people.

  Anyway, when all is said and done, the joke’s on Kanye. If he hadn’t fucked up so badly this time around with the shadiest phone call of all time, we might not have been blessed with the gift that is Reputation. Look what you made her do, indeed.

  P.S. Kim, are you okay? Your husband writes a song about having sex with Taylor Swift and you respond by helping him take down her career?

  P.P.S. I’d start a #SaveKim hashtag if I didn’t suspect the three of them were coconspirators in this publicity stunt the whole time.

  P.P.P.S. Prove to me their managers didn’t hatch this entire plan way back on the eve of the 2009 VMAs.

  * * *

  Now, as his blasphemous song blasted across the canal, I heard, beneath the rapping and whooping, beneath the drum machine, the sound of toenails scratching against glass. I swung around to the rug and, of course, Her Royal Highness was gone again. I ran out into the living room, this time just as Princess Leia was wriggling out the front window. She jumped out and hit the ground running.

  “Dammit!” I clenched my fists, still only half dressed, and cursed myself for not closing the window after her first attempt. “Get back here!” I called out in vain. She ran up to the opening in our chain-link fence and easily darted through. I hurried my legs into the pajama bottoms, grabbed a sweater, and ran after her; there was nothing else I could do. She had at least fifteen feet on me as I chased her down the canal sidewalk, thinking what the hell was this dog running from and where the hell did she think she was going? She trotted across the footbridge, toward the party at Eva-Kate’s. I envied her dumb confidence. She didn’t know or care that we weren’t, as fate would have it, among the teen elite, and therefore had no place showing up here, uninvited. She didn’t know or care. But I knew and I cared, and so I tried one last time to catch up with her before it was too late. I failed, and then it was too late: I saw her curly white, lamblike coat disappear into the hedges of 18 Carroll Canal.

  Oh my God, I felt so completely, helplessly screwed. I mean, can you imagine? It’s almost eleven at night and I’m standing there—barefoot, mind you—in pajamas, everything completely dark except for the supernova of lights coming from Eva-Kate’s backyard, blending from blue into purple into pink into white. I had to go in. I didn’t want to go in, but I had to. It doesn’t matter if Eva-Kate Kelly thinks you look dumb and sadly juvenile in your pajamas, I had to tell myself. If you lose Princess Leia you’ll never forgive yourself.

  So I walked in through her ivy-covered archway and sighed deeply: There was Princess Leia sniffing a row of potted plants that lined the front door, which was slightly ajar. I stepped lightly across the dewy lawn, but I was too slow; before I could reach her, she ducked behind the door, disappearing into the house. This time I followed her in without thinking, my mind a slate made blank by panic.

  Then the turquoise hit. A wall of it, a room of it. Turquoise velvet couches and turquoise-tinted table glass, turquoise damask rug and turquoise fleur-de-lis curtains. So much turquoise that I almost didn’t notice the two girls, each in their own version of the Little Black Dress, one sitting cross-legged on the couch and the other facing her on the turquoise wood ottoman, deep in conversation, champagne flutes in hand. I recognized them from the website as London Miller and Olivia Law.

  “Excuse me?” I cleared my throat. “Did either of you see a dog run through here?” They turned their heads wearily upward to look at me.

  “Oh, was that your dog?” Olivia said. Her dark brown hair was piled on top of her head and held in place with a clip shaped like an eagle talon.

  “What a precious little angel,” said London, pointing into the next room. “She went that way.” Her hair was long and reddish, stick-straight, conditioned to the point of perfection.

  “I thought she went that way.” Olivia pointed up at a wrought iron spiral staircase.

  “No, no, she definitely went that way.” London pressed one finger against her lips. “Or maybe … you know, I don’t think I can say for sure which way she went.”

  “We weren’t paying close attention.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, sorry.” Neither of them seemed even slightly sorry as they turned to face each other and continued talking closely. I thanked them, though I don’t think they heard me, and chose to go with the first direction, which was through a second door into a room that was almost as pink as the first room was turquoise.

  This room was three or four times larger than the first, and seemed to be more of an attraction than a place to live. People gathered in the center, playing pool on a pink-felt pool table, or waited in line to ride a kiddy carousel—the kind you put quarters into outside of grocery stores—in the back corner, or stood around dancing loosely and without commitment to a pumped-up remix of “Still D.R.E.” by Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Dogg. Security cameras hung from each corner of the wall, roving back and forth. The room was crowded; if Princess Leia was in there, I would have had no way of knowing. I walked through slowly, with my eyes on the floor, trying to look for her, trying not to be seen, while also trying not to have my bare toes stepped on by a mob of Manolo Blahniks and Jeffrey Campbells and Doc Martens and tooth-white Adidas. In one corner I noticed a cookie jar stuffed with not cookies but Red Vines licorice. At another time I would have stopped to take one (or two), but I was on a mission.

  The room came to an end in a wall of glass that slid open into the backyard. That’s where the real party was. Mosaic tables in every corner supported rows and rows of mojitos for guests to swoop up and gulp down. When the tables emptied off, caterers filed in to replace and refill, so that the river of minty syrup and rum could remain in a lush state of perpetual motion. In the center of the backyard, in the middle of all the drunkish, ultra-pretty partygoers, was a pool surrounded by an oasis of palm trees, each fixed with lights that shifted from color to color, as I’d seen from the street. I walked into the ring of trees and was surprised to see people actually in the pool, some swimming, some sprawled out on the marble rim, wet underwear clinging to their skin.

  “Hey!” a guy, mostly submerged, called out from the pool. “Why are you wearing pajamas?” It took me a moment before I realized he was talking to me, that I had been seen, found out.

  “Oh, I, uh—I’m looking for my dog, actually. Have you seen her? She’s white, fluffy—”

  “She was here a minute ago,” the guy said, dazed, one hand resting on his wet head. “Eva-Kate just took her upstairs.”

  Was I relieved that Princess Leia was safe? Yes, sure. But I felt panicky nonetheless. I was in no position to see Eva-Kate Kelly right then, let alone speak to her; I was in my pajamas and my hair was surely disheveled from navigating through her sumptuous home. But what was I going to do, let her keep Princess Leia forever?

  “Could you tell me how to get upstairs?” I asked.

  “Try going up the stairs.” One girl, half-naked, smirked, and her friends giggled along.

  “Fine, great. Thanks.” I blushed, I’m sure I did, then retraced my steps back to the first room with the wrought iron spiral staircase, where London and Olivia were now snorting lines of white powder off the semi-reflective, turquoise-tinted coffee table.

  At the top of the staircase I followed a long hallway lined with closed doors to the one open door at the very end where more people were gathered. Just outside the door was a clear plastic corded phone, the kind from the early 2000s where you could see all the hot-pink and green inner gears and electronics. Next to it was a matching answering machine, which I’d never actually
seen before but recognized from descriptions in stories my parents told.

  The energy upstairs was nothing like the energy downstairs. The music was low, slow beats and strong bass beating like a heart buried deep in the walls. Nobody danced. Everybody lounged on Moroccan rugs and suede beanbag chairs, passing around what looked like a metal pen connected to cloth tubing connected to a glass vase. The air smelled like Red Vines.

  Peering over their heads, I saw Eva-Kate reclining on a canopy bed with Princess Leia tucked into the crook of her elbow. Since the last time I’d seen her, she’d chopped her hair to just under her chin and dyed it cotton-candy pink. She saw me standing in the doorway and sat up straight, crossed her legs, and smiled like she had been expecting me.

  “Justine, right?” she asked. I nodded. “Justine, look who found me!” She kissed the top of Princess Leia’s head.

  “She snuck out,” I said, almost out of breath by this point. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to chase her down.”

  “What a bad girl!” Eva-Kate cupped Leia’s cheeks in her palms, delighted. “I mean the dog, not you, obviously,” she said, turning to me, winking. “Although they say dogs take after their masters, so ya never know.” The word master in her mouth had a devious weight to it.

  “I’ll get her out of your way now.” I walked over and scooped Princess Leia off the bed. “Sorry to interrupt your party. You have an awesome home. But you already know that.” My face was heating up, I hoped not visibly. “Anyway, have a great night, I’ll see you around. The neighborhood.”

  “No, no, you just got here! Stay.”

  “What?” I know I must have sounded rude, my blunt, stunned question dropping to the floor like lead. But Eva-Kate didn’t flinch.

  “Sit down, sit down. Can I get you a drink?”

  “I’m … in my pajamas.”

  “So? You look totally adorbs, trust me. This look is so DGAF.”

  “DGAF?”

  “Don’t Give A Fuck? As in, I don’t give a fuck, I’ll wear pajamas to a party at Eva-Kate Kelly’s house if I want.”

  “Oh.” I felt stupefied in her presence.

  “Sit down, sit down,” she said again, patting a spot for me on the bed. I did as she said, hesitantly, setting Princess Leia on my lap and gripping her tight for comfort. “Oh my God.” She rested her hand lightly on my knee then. “Look at your poor feet. What happened?” I didn’t know what she meant. I looked down at my poor feet and saw: They were scraped and bleeding, dirty with the patterns of various soles.

  “Jesus.” I felt very detached from my feet then; I couldn’t feel their pain. “I had to run over here barefoot because Princess Leia—that’s the dog—jumped out the window and I didn’t have time to put on shoes. Then I was looking for her downstairs and I guess people stepped on my toes.” I laughed. “Which is so weird because I didn’t even notice. I was too focused on finding Princess Leia and getting the hell out of here.”

  “Why would you want to get the hell out of here?” She looked hurt, and I felt an immediate horror at myself for causing her even the slightest sliver of pain.

  “No, no, I mean because I wasn’t invited. And I didn’t want you to think I was crashing your party, I mean, I didn’t mean to crash your party, I was just—”

  “But you were invited.”

  “I was?”

  “I put an invitation in your mailbox. Two invitations, actually, one for tonight and one for last night.”

  I hadn’t checked the mail in over a week. I told you already about how I feel about mail: Nothing good ever comes from checking it. Until now, I guess, had I checked it.

  “I haven’t been opening my mail,” I said with my head low, as if this were something to be ashamed of. When I think about it now, I realize that in those days I could feel shame about almost anything.

  “That’s a relief. I was almost starting to think you were snubbing me. Josie!” she called over her shoulder. “Do we have shoes?”

  Josie, a tall and almost awkwardly thin girl with careless honey-blond hair, wearing a purple sundress and leather jacket, looked up from her cross-legged seat on the floor. Despite her dress and flower-child-flowing hair, there was something boyish about her. It was in the way she sat, hunched gracelessly as if trying to make room for her long arms.

  “Do we have shoes?” she asked, her voice husky, impressively raising one eyebrow away from the other. Her face was striking in an androgynous way; with short hair and a different outfit, she could have been a beautiful boy.

  “Extra shoes,” she said to Josie, then turned back to me. “What size do you wear?”

  “Me? Oh, like a seven?”

  “Josie, could you just check to see if we have any size seven shoes in the second closet?”

  “You got it, babe.” Josie dusted her hands off and walked into what I presumed was the second closet in the back of the room.

  “Josie is my personal assistant,” Eva-Kate said to me. “But also my actual best friend; I’d literally die without her.”

  Ah, yes, I can’t live without my personal assistant either, I wanted to say. I pressed my lips together and nodded.

  “Companies send me shoes and clothes and bags all the time but normally it’s just stuff I would never wear so I throw it all in the second closet. We’ll find you something.”

  “That’s incredibly sweet and unnecessary of you.”

  “Totally necessary. I can’t let my best neighbor go around with cold, beat-up feet. I’m not a monster.”

  Josie came back holding a white shoe box that read PATRICIA GREEN, and opened it up to reveal a pair of petal-pink slippers with the Eiffel Tower embroidered on the fronts.

  “This is all you have in a seven,” she said to Eva-Kate while she handed me the open box.

  “Perfect.” Eva-Kate sat back, seemingly pleased with herself. “Those go with your loungewear vibes.” I thanked them both and slipped my feet into the pink velour.

  “You know what? I’m bored.” Eva-Kate used her long fingernails to grip on to a Red Vine and slide it out of its packaging. “This party’s getting dull. Let’s go to the roof.” She bit into the Red Vine and chewed it delicately.

  “Okay … yeah, sure,” I said, scooping Princess Leia up off the bed.

  Eva-Kate linked her arm through mine and led me to the other end of the hall, where there was a fire escape that matched the wrought iron spiral staircase I had climbed up. It wasn’t much of an escape, though, as it only connected the upstairs hallway window to the roof.

  “There are so many morons at this party and you’re the only one I actually want to talk to,” she said, pushing open the window, with the hand that wasn’t holding on to that singular Red Vine. “My roof is a great place to get to know someone. You’ll see.”

  “Why me? I mean, what do you want to talk to me about?”

  “First of all, there’s the fact that we live right across from each other; don’t you think that means the universe wanted us to be friends?” She climbed the staircase and I followed, not sure if the heartbeat racing against my chest was mine or Princess Leia’s.

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Though of course, I had.

  “Second of all, you’re just like this quiet, down-to-earth mystery girl who doesn’t open her mail. I feel like I want to figure you out, find out what other things you’re weird about.”

  Me? Mystery girl? Yeah, right. And yeah, maybe I’m “down to earth,” but that’s only when my meds are working.

  “And third of all, I know you’ve been watching me.”

  My heart sank. We were almost at the top of the staircase, but in that moment I thought seriously about backing down, leaving Princess Leia, moving to Canada, changing my name. Instead, I held on to the iron railing.

  “How?” I asked. “How do you know that?”

  “Because,” she said, reaching for my hand to pull me up onto the roof, “I’ve been watching you too.”

  CHAPTER 9

  SILVER
LIPS

  Standing on Eva-Kate Kelly’s rooftop then, we had a perfect view across the canal into my own bedroom window. I couldn’t believe it: From up there she could see the most private part of my life. From up there she could watch me more closely and more intimately even than I had watched her.

  “I don’t…” I wanted to say, I don’t understand, I wanted to say, Why would you bother? But the words felt heavy, weighted down to my tongue. Maybe I should have felt violated, but all I felt was flattered, and then excitement too big for my body.

  “It’s not like I was trying to spy on you.” She stood up straight with her shoulders back, her small breasts pushed up and out. I’d never seen anyone with such impeccable posture. She must have been a dancer, I thought, earlier on in life. There’s no way Rob Donovan left her, I thought, why would he? Just look at her … “It’s just, I come up here a lot to do my crystals and one day I looked over and there you were with your little face in the window, and you were looking for me, I could tell. You were scanning my house, wanting to see me. You didn’t know I was up on the roof, you didn’t think to look up here.” She giggled. “I don’t know if you could even see up here from down there, you’ll have to check and tell me once you get home.”

  “This is the most embarrassed I’ve ever been in my whole life,” I scrambled to explain. “I can’t believe you saw—I mean, you know, I wasn’t trying to spy on you either. I’ve lived here my whole life and this house has been empty for years and I was super curious to see who had finally moved in.” I spoke fast, there was no way I could explain myself fast enough. I would have done anything then to convince her I wasn’t a total psycho. The fact that she had been guilty of the exact same thing had slid greasily away from me like water off a duck’s back. Under the moonlight her kimono looked silvery and liquid.

  “Oh, relax,” she said. “As if I care. You have no reason to be embarrassed. What’s a little curiosity between neighbors?”