“Going to JFK is a nightmare, Cookie.”
Gareth hires cars and drivers to pick up my grandma and his father from the airport. I imagine a grim man with a mortician’s face holding a sign that reads “Edna Phillips,” and leading Grandma to a creepy car that resembles a hearse.
Grandma and John Miller arrive at the penthouse within minutes of each other. Mr. Miller is what you’d expect. His skin has the leathery, saddlebag texture of a man who has spent most of his life in the Montana sunshine. He wears Wranglers and a threadbare plaid Pendleton button-up shirt he must have purchased sometime during the Carter administration.
Gareth makes drinks and Grandma mentions the “fancy” driver several times, which I suppose is her way of voicing her dissatisfaction at the impersonal pickup. Her answer to Mr. Miller’s cliché Western wear is an olive green polyester pantsuit that I’m sure she’d describe as her “traveling clothes.”
Gareth has two drinks, one in each hand, and he gives one to Grandma.
“And this is?” she asks.
“Eggnog,” Gareth answers. “With Rémy Martin Cognac.”
“I don’t indulge, sonny,” Grandma says with a deep frown.
Without missing a beat, he takes the foaming glass from her and replaces it with the one from his other hand. “Shirley Temple,” he says. He gives the spiked eggnog to his father.
Mr. Miller and Grandma treat each other with suspicion. Their attempts at making conversation are loaded with suggestions. That Gareth is a cradle robber intent on subverting my education. That I’m a teenage gold digger trying to leverage my sex appeal into a ten-figure fortune.
Round 1
Grandma: “Well, Gareth. Do you do a lot of entertaining up here? I expect that all the white surfaces make cleaning up after affairs a snap.”
Mr. Miller: “My son’s success has made him very popular, and I’m not just talking about with the ladies.”
Round 2
Mr. Miller: “Cookie, how’re you enjoyin’ New York? Is my boy showing you the finer aspects of the city?”
Grandma: “We sure are grateful for your son’s hospitality. I hope this little internship will be beneficial when she comes back home to finish her schooling.”
Round 3
Mr. Miller: “I understand that your mother is a fashion model? I guess you sort of hit the jackpot in the looks department, eh?”
Grandma: “Her father is a doctor. And Cookie was a straight-A student in school. I’d say she’s pretty lucky in the brains department, as well.”
They keep going but I get stuck.
My dad. I haven’t thought about him in ages. Every once in a while he goes into Kumasi or Sunyani, where they have internet access, and posts stuff on Facebook. He’s given up on emailing me except on my birthday or major holidays.
Mr. Miller’s voice breaks through my thoughts. He poses a direct question. “So, Cookie. What’s your ambition?”
“To make clothes that anyone can feel good wearing.” I blurt this out and as I do, I realize that it’s true. My personal manifesto. Real and from my heart.
This shuts both of them up for a minute. I guess the fact that I have an ambition or haven’t lost my ambition is enough to calm them down.
Then Grandma says, “These big ole buildings make me nervous. But I suppose we can hide under all this stainless steel if there’s a fire or somethin’.”
Mr. Miller laughs. This forms some kind of truce between them. It suggests that there’s some kind of a way for Gareth and me to merge our lives together.
I help Gareth finish making dinner and when we come back out, Grandma is “indulging” in fine brandy and swapping old ranch stories with John Miller.
“My daddy kept a few cows,” Grandma says with a small hiccup. “And good thing too. My girl, Leslie, almost died as a baby. Spit up every kind of milk and formula I tried to give her. She was so weak. It was just pitiful. My daddy said the girl needed milk from a Jersey cow. He brought it down from Buckeye in a little glass bottle.”
“Rich in butterfat. Good choice for a finicky baby,” Mr. Miller agrees.
“You keep Jersey cows?”
Mr. Miller shook his head. “I’ve got Simmental. Imported them in the ’70s. From Switzerland. I was one of the first American ranchers to do it.”
“From Switzerland?” Grandma repeated in an impressed tone.
Gareth and I exchange a look. I guess Swiss Miss cows provide a common link.
This chatter carries us through dinner. It’s sort of funny to watch Mr. Miller poke with skepticism at his butternut squash ravioli. “This is some fancy eating, son,” he says. “But when will you be serving the main course?”
“Funny, Dad. As per your cardiologist, this is the main course.” Gareth gives me an appealing wink.
“That quack. I keep telling him. I raise beef. I eat beef.”
During the next couple of weeks, Gareth pulls out all the stops. It’s fun to watch him have so much fun. I’m not sure whether he’s trying to impress his father or Grandma, but he succeeds on both counts. He buys killer seats to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular and The Nutcracker. He takes us on a tour of the city and somehow gets Big Top Toys to open early so Grandma and Mr. Miller can dance on the store’s famous, giant piano.
Their favorite part winds up being the Holiday Train Show at the New York Botanical Garden, where they spend hours watching a model train roll over a miniature Brooklyn Bridge. “It looks so lifelike,” Grandma says over and over.
Christmas day is very Norman Rockwell meets IKEA. Gareth’s got all the traditional trappings of the holidays crammed into his sparse and trendy, white apartment. He hangs rich green holly all over, ties red bows on all the door handles and even sprinkles silver tinsel liberally around his living room.
Gareth’s appearance contrasts sharply with his father’s. He is clad in a thick and luxurious black turtleneck sweater and his usual worn designer jeans while his dad wears an old chambray shirt, Wranglers and a bolo tie.
I’m stunned by all the effort and thoughtfulness Gareth puts into personally shopping for and wrapping presents. He bought me almost everything I’ve even mentioned since I got to New York. I feel like I’m unwrapping for an eternity, ending with a huge collection of vintage fashion books, hard-to-find patterns, cool sketching pencils and pads and a million pairs of sunglasses.
I got him a few things. Mr. Miller has a rancher buddy in town who makes frequent trips to Cuba and hooked me up with expensive cigars and bottles of rum. I ordered a custom-made wallet from a shop in London, which they produced at the speed of sound the instant they found out it was for Gareth.
But still, the gifts are unbalanced in a way that makes me a bit uncomfortable. “You got me too much stuff,” I say.
“Never,” he says with a wide smile.
Grandma and Mr. Miller are in the kitchen, cooking an old-fashioned prime rib roast dinner. Gareth says, “I have something else for you. For later.”
I assume he means lingerie or something. But that night, after my grandma and his father are snoring in their beds and I’m snuggled under his massive white comforter, he hands me a glossy white envelope.
Inside, I find two pieces of paper. The first is a G Studios accounting statement of the preorders from our capsule collection. It’s all been presold and will launch as an exclusive in ten key stores across the country.
The second piece of paper is a tear sheet. A page from the February issue of Par Donna magazine. It’s a review. Gareth taps his finger on a prominent block quote.
“Gareth Miller’s capsule collection, a collaboration with fresh-faced, girl-power blogger Cookie Vonn, delivers big on its promise to offer wonderful whimsy and fabulous flair to the plus-size woman. Following the snoozer that was Fall/Winter, GM is back with game-changing looks that are gorgeous and, dare we say, even fun. Get in line now, for these pieces are sure to sell out fast.”
Celine Stanford. She just mentioned me in print.
“It worked?” I stare at Gareth.
He laughs. “You’re on the map, Cookie Vonn.”
I grin back at him.
He ruffles my hair and heads for the bathroom. The water runs as he brushes his teeth. “Oh. LaChapelle called. He needs that paperwork by next week. I had Reese fill most of it out. But you need to add your Social Security number. And sign it.”
“Okay.” I’m glad he’s in the bathroom and not sitting next to me as my insides become mushy with indecision. I turn off the lamp on my side of the bed.
Gareth returns a few minutes later and wraps his arm around me. “Merry Christmas, Cookie.”
“Merry Christmas,” I say.
Then, “Gareth, what’s the best thing about Parsons?”
He yawns. “The best thing? About Parsons? It is the best.”
That’s not much of an answer for someone whose career was launched by the school. A few minutes later, when he’s asleep, my mind won’t shut down. I’ve always had to do everything myself, but now things are happening with a momentum I didn’t create. My life has taken on a life of its own.
Piper and Grandma are here in the city. My temporary life intersecting with my permanent one.
I can’t sleep, and I curl up with my laptop in a white armchair near the window. It’s snowing again and occasionally I catch a glimpse of flakes falling past a lit window in the building across from Gareth’s.
In my blog email box, I find a familiar name. I open a message from Dr. Moreno.
Dear Cookie:
I’ve been emailing you at your university account and am concerned you haven’t received my messages. I notice you have not completed your spring registration and haven’t contacted me about finishing your work from last semester. As I’m sure you know, you will forfeit your Regents Scholarship if you don’t register for the spring semester.
There it is. The thing that Grandma warned me about. And let’s face it, the thing that has been nagging at me since Fred LaChapelle turned up at the door. In going to Parsons, I’d be giving up my ability to pay for my own education. I’d be at the mercy of Gareth or LaChapelle. I’d be right back in that airport, hoping for a seat on the plane.
I’ll be in NYC next week and would like to meet with you to discuss these topics. Can you get back to me with a day and time that works for you?
Dr. Lydia Moreno
Fashion & Costume Design Chair
Honors Faculty
Arizona State University
I’m going to Parsons. I’m living in the city of my dreams with the man of my dreams going to the school of my dreams.
No. I’m staying at ASU. I imagine the campus. Outside the art building, there are rows and rows of succulent plants. The smooth scallops of green and purple echeveria. The spiky stalks of agave. I love to sit back there on the concrete as it cools in the evening, dreaming of collars that jut up like the mountains behind campus, skirts that twist into cactus forms.
I haven’t seen anything like that in the city.
I haven’t seen Gareth design even one thing since we’ve been in New York.
I’m ignoring Dr. Moreno. No. I’m emailing her. It’s curiosity that gets the better of me. Makes me want to find out why my teacher would go to all the trouble of seeking me out while on vacation. I email her a date and time for the following week.
They say curiosity killed the cat.
They also say cats have nine lives.
I hope this last part is true. In fact, I’m counting on it.
Mr. Miller takes Grandma to JFK a few days later. Before she leaves, we’re alone in the building lobby for a couple of minutes.
“Your fella ain’t too bad,” she says, squeezing me into a hug. “But it don’t change things none. Finish your schoolin’. Invest your time in things that will last.”
Yet again I chicken out and don’t tell Grandma what’s going on.
“I’ll be expectin’ you back at home shortly,” she says.
I nod and smile and watch as she walks through the glass door.
Dr. Moreno and I meet on Wednesday. She picks the place, a dive in Spanish Harlem called Cuchifritos. Even before I get my butt off the Town Car seat, I can smell the sizzling pork. There’s a service counter that faces the street and it’s loaded with food deep-fried beyond recognition. They say you can eat anything on the NutriNation plan, but I suspect they’ve never seen the frituras at Cuchifritos.
I barely recognize my teacher. Every time I’ve ever seen her in class, her dark hair has been tied back in a neat bun and she’s been wearing some variation of a Diane von Fürstenberg wrap dress. Today, she’s got spiral curls that explode in every direction. She’s dressed in a pair of 1980s vintage Guess jeans and a worn-out Echo & the Bunnymen concert tee.
The conversation doesn’t go the way I expect it to.
I’m expecting some rah-rah ASU is the best school ever speech. Or possibly a request to meet Gareth Miller and get free samples.
Dr. Moreno’s taken a small table for two right up front, just a few feet from the register. The cash drawer slams closed. People call out their orders. I get a plate of something that I know I won’t take a bite of. The fried and refried thing is probably more addictive than meth and won’t fit in my food journal.
I have to lean way in to hear Dr. Moreno over the restaurant noise. I think I’ve misheard when she says, “Did he tell you about this place?”
My face must be blank because she shakes her curls and continues.
“Gary. He used to come down here all the time. In the early days. Back when Mr. High and Mighty wasn’t scared to leave Manhattan. He would even take the bus. He loved the alcapurria.” She points at something that looks like a cross between a corndog and a burrito on her plate.
“Gary?” I repeat. “Who’s Gary?”
For a minute, I’m worried she emailed the wrong person. That she has me confused with another student.
She almost chokes on a bite of breading as she barks out a laugh. “Miller. Gareth John Miller. GM. Today’s top name in fashion.”
“You know Gareth?” I ask. My insides spin in confusion.
The skin around her brown eyes crinkles as she laughs again. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s around the same age as Gareth. And I know she went to—
“Parsons.” She nods as if reading my thoughts. “He graduated a year faster than me, though. And...he didn’t mention me? Yeah, well, shacking up with some Puerto Rican broad living in Spanish Harlem probably doesn’t make his bio these days.”
The way she says all of this. It’s not bitter. It’s more wistful. Like she pities Gareth. Or remembers him from better, bygone days.
She drops her fork and watches me. “You’ve changed a lot since the first time we met. No longer that scared high school student, huh? And you look a lot like your mother.”
If I weren’t so flustered, I’d probably be enraged. But I kind of sputter. “Dr. Moreno...I...uh...I’m not...”
“I keep telling you, it’s Lydia. And I know. You’re not your mother. Believe me. I get it. For the past three years, I’ve been paying seventy-five bucks a week to some Freud wannabe in Scottsdale trying to avoid a future where I shrink six inches and spend my evenings cursing out all my relatives in Spanish.”
I frown at her. “Well, Lydia, I don’t understand—”
“What we’re doing here?” she interrupts with a wide grin. It fades into a Mona Lisa smile as she adds, “Sorry. I have this annoying habit of finishing people’s sentences. My grandmother was a bruja fortune teller.”
“Yeah...okay...” I’m back to stammering and staring.
Finished with her food, Dr. Moreno pushes her plate away. “I know Gary—sorry Gareth—is encouraging you to stay here in New York. I need you to understand that this would not be the right move.”
“How do you know—”
I haven’t spent much time with Lydia Moreno outside of class. She must have taken interpersonal communication classes with Piper’s boyfriend, Brian. Neither he nor Lydia can allow other people to speak in complete phrases.
“LaChapelle called,” Dr. Moreno says. “Asked about you. Sort of wanted a reference. I told him you were the brightest up-and-coming designer I’d ever seen. Told GM’s people the same thing when they called a couple months ago.”
This rings a bell. I remember that it was Dr. Moreno who sent Darcy pictures of my work.
I’m a jumbled mess of emotions. Upset that Dr. Moreno understands Gareth way better than I do. Angry at being caught off guard by this whole conversation. And afraid. That Gareth’s had a lot of other women. The kind of women who don’t struggle to come up with coherent sentences.
Dr. Moreno waves to someone behind the counter and a few seconds later a plate of food lands at her elbow. She cuts into yet another deep-fried dish, releasing the fragrance of banana and nutmeg.
I’ve never been more jealous of absolutely anyone in my life. Dr. Moreno is sitting there in a pair of thrift store jeans and a twenty-year-old T-shirt, chomping down on this thing that oozes oil and spice and probably has a zillion calories. I’m in a $2,000 GM floral print shift dress and suede ankle books, and there’s no comparison. Lydia Moreno is not only the kind of woman I want to be, she’s the kind of woman who makes me want to make clothes. Worry begins to gnaw at me, because I suspect that someone like Dr. Moreno would never find a happy ending with someone like Gareth.
She smiles. “Gary doesn’t know how to teach you what you need to learn. He needs you. Not the other way around.”
My anger starts winning the emotional battle. “He’s considered one of the best American fashion designers of all time. Parsons is the best school.”
“Oh, you and your Parsons.” There’s a pause. Dr. Moreno appears to be thinking carefully about what she says next. “When you think of great fashion, do you imagine the collection Gary put together last season? When you think of the life you want, do you picture yourself living in that residential version of the Apple Store my friend Gary calls an apartment?”
“All designers make a bad collection at some point,” I say coldly.
She sighs. “I know you want to be like Gareth Miller. So did I. But what you want, what I wanted, was to be him like he used to be. Back when he was just some kid from Montana who made clothes that were fun to wear. He isn’t that person anymore, Cookie. He’s changed. Gotten cynical. He can only teach you how to become what he is right now. And you don’t want to be that.”
“You don’t know what I want to be.”
Dr. Moreno smiles again. “All I’m saying is, think about it. You and Gareth are alike in many ways. He took the path you’re considering. See where it got him and ask yourself if that’s where you want to be.”
I open my mouth to protest. Tell her I’m a New York City kind of girl. That Gareth isn’t swimming in a river of complacency.
In other words, say a bunch of lies.
Dr. Moreno taps my arm, breaking me from my zoned-out trance. “The struggle makes us, Cookie. Getting off the bus with ten bucks in his pocket, eating his dinner in dives like this,” she says with a wave, “that’s what made Gary.”
My stomach drops even further because I don’t even know Gary.
She’s finished with her banana dessert and pushes herself up from the table. “I’m putting you on the spring schedule and adding a pre-semester meeting to your calendar. I hope you show up. I’m expecting you to show up.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask.
“I need you as much as he does, Cookie. Gareth is a designer in search of a muse. I’m a teacher who wants good students. You’re my best student by a long shot. Oh, and hey, don’t forget, at the end of the year, I get to send a student to work with Stella Jupiter for the summer. It should be you.”
Stella Jupiter. The queen of designer cashmere. Oh. Fuck. I had forgotten.
Dr. Moreno is almost to the door when she turns back. For an instant, a motherly expression crosses her face. “Listen. I know this kind of stuff is hard to hear, and the heart wants what it wants. All I ask is that you do some serious thinking about what’s right for you. Think about where you want to be in life and how you plan to get there.”
I want to pick something up and throw it at Dr. Moreno. But she blends into a crowd on the sidewalk before I can get my hands on anything. My body pulses with a desperate energy I can’t get rid of.
As I wait on the curb for Gareth’s driver, I try to hate Lydia Moreno. Except she hasn’t really done anything except be blunt about a bunch of stuff I ought to already know. She’s a personification of an unknown part of Gareth’s past. A part I’d brushed aside since the day his lawyer had me sign more paperwork than you do when you buy a car. She told me she wanted to help me. My heart screamed to forget all about this lunch from hell. My brain believed her.
On the way back to the apartment, I think about my blog. I’m supposed to be writing articles about how, thanks to NutriMin Water, all my dreams are finally coming true.
But I can barely figure out what my dreams even are.
Distracted, I almost miss the hulking figure milling around in front of Gareth’s apartment building until he calls my name.
The opposite of my dream.
My nightmare.
Chad. Fucking. Tate.