Poseur #3: Petty in Pink: A Trend Set Novel Read Free

leaving anytime soon. Janie gazed down at the toilet seat (she was such a cliché, hiding in the
     stall) and stifled a sigh. How she
pined
for the bathroom stalls at her old public middle school, where endlessly entertaining graffiti (the Gandhi quotes! the R.I.P.
     Tupacs! all the people who were apparently sluts, lesbians, or whores!) cluttered every square inch of space; but Winston
     stalls were made from high-tech, vandalism-repellent Kryptonite, or whatever, so she had no choice but to stare in space and
     just… listen.
    “I was like, oohhh my God. You are soooo rude-uh!”
    Of course, Janie reasoned, her captivity
was
self-imposed; she could always step down from the porcelain god, unlatch the stall door, and leave. And yet… no. No way would
     she have the will-power to exit the restroom without looking at the mirror, and she absolutely
hated
looking in mirrors in front of other girls,
especially
girls like Lauren, because they almost always made it into this, like,
thing
.
    Was Janie the only person who found staring at herself while some other girl stared at her staring at herself seriously nerve-racking?
    Okay, probably.
    “It’s just, like, if he doesn’t have the common decency to—oh my God. Katy-Katy-Katy-Katy-I-have-to-go-he’s-on-the-other-line-I-know-no-I-know-I’ll-call-you-back-okay-bye.”
    A sudden whine of door hinges wrested Janie from her stall stupor, along with a fraction of Lauren’s chirpy, “Hey, baby!”
     The heavy door swung back, lopping the rest of her greeting with a merciful
whoosh. At last,
Janie smiled, stepping to the floor.
    She was alone.
    Stretching to her full five feet and ten inches, she tucked her silky brown bob behind one ear, and lifted a Tiffany & Co.
     shopping bag from the polished metal hook fixed to the door. She glanced inside: black leggings, vintage forest-green cardigan
     with faux leopard cuffs and collar, the oversize Pixies t-shirt she’d spent two hours fashioning into a rad halter dress,
     black-and-white-checked Vans. She glanced away, queasy with guilt.
They’re just clothes,
she lectured herself.
It’s not like they care whether you wear them or not.
Clattering the latch under her hand, she headed toward the wall-to-wall mirror above the automatic chrome sinks. As the maraschino
     Miu Miu patent pumps clacked brightly on the tile, her scorned old Vans gave a tumble, kicking the inside of the bag.
    Traitor.
    But it wasn’t her fault! Charlotte had all but forced the glossy red shoes into her arms, accosting her at the Showroom’s
     periphery just minutes before first bell. “You’re a nine, aren’t you?” she’d asked in lieu of hello. “These are eight-and-a-half’s
     but they run small. I mean large”—Charlotte huffed—“you know what I mean. And here.” She shook the Tiffany & Co. bag by its
     white satin rope handles. “Wear this.”
    “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Janie had ventured, daring to meet her mentor’s glittering gaze. Hadn’t she and Amelia
     Hernandez, her non-Winston-attending best friend, spent the last seven days coordinating her current ensemble? “The t-shirt
     halter dress is hot,” Amelia had insisted. “Plus it shows creativity.
Plus
it shows you’re different than those other label-dropping whores.”
    Since when did two pluses make a negative?
    “Nothing’s
wrong
,” the more popular girl assured her—but only after a painful moment’s hesitation. “It’s just… I thought for our first meeting
     you’d want to wear clothes they actually
sell
at Ted Pelligan.…” She trailed off, subjecting Janie’s outfit to swift evaluation. The safety pin at her hem, the tiny moth
     hole at her sleeve, the dangling button at her collar: no flaw escaped her flitting, pool-green eye.
But it’s vintage!
Janie wanted to cry out in protest.
As if that’s any excuse,
she imagined Charlotte’s reply. The popular brunette had a completely different idea of “vintage” than she did. She’d