Falling: Creative Challenge

The Scratchpad №41.5

“That wasn’t flying. That was falling with style!”
— Woody, Toy Story

Falling For New York Fashion Week

We poke our heads around the wall, fast, one at a time. We’re like meerkats, or maybe cops tracking perps, cops who have no desire to get their heads blown off. So we peep and then withdraw before anyone in the audience might notice. It’s not like they’re paying attention anyway, all chatting while they stare at their phones as if multitasking is the new black when all they really are is rude.

I spot one guy who is watching everything. He’s cute and sitting in the second row, right behind the VIP spot reserved for Anna and Tom. Alongside, there is space for Kim, Katie, Karlie, Julianne, Naomi, and Cindy.

Am I ever out of my league.

The guy winks at me and waves. Giddy and bold, I wave back because today, today I’m walking in the Tom Ford Show. Turns out I’m not awkward or dorky at all. I am a “quirky one-off” and this is how I roll.

The music starts and my traitorous heart syncs with the beat, leaving me breathless. My abdomen is hollowed out; there’s literally nothing left in there. The inside of my skull feels the same since a stylist braided my hair so tight it’s like a non-surgical facelift.

Did I forget to say that worst of all is the shoes? No patent boyfriend loafers and mannish suit for me. No. These fuchsia pink stilettos would make Manolo Blahnik weep for my curled toes and the calf muscles bunched like rocks beneath this skin-tight navy bodysuit that would divulge a raisin at a hundred yards...had I dared to eat one.

Jecca and Ace go first, trotting down the runway like Lipizzaner stallions. Ciara and Abebe glide along behind, grace in motion. Someone pokes me in the back and like a wind-up toy I follow. Who will catch me if I fall, I wonder, as I make it halfway down then feel the heel of one stiletto and then the other begin to skid.

The room is tilting. Anna Wintour’s bob begins to slide off plane. In the lens of her Jackie O sunglasses, I catch my horrified expression as my knees buckle beneath me. I can do nothing but wait while the floor rushes to greet me and two hundred stylish strangers gasp.

So I focus on the man, the winking stranger in the second row, and pray that nothing breaks.