Poseur #4: All That Glitters Is Not Gucci (8 page)

The Getup: Brown and beige board shorts from ZJ Boarding House, white Stüssy t-shirt, green Havaianas flip-flops, white Turk’s
head bracelet

“I can’t do Baja Fresh again, dude,” Joaquin Whitman announced. “Like, can. Not. Do. Baja. Fresh.”

It was lunchtime, and as always, Joaquin and his glassy-eyed comrades were taking longer than anybody else to leave the Showroom,
having stopped for an impromptu game of hacky sack outside Joaquin’s purple and yellow VW bus.

Theo launched the green and gold crocheted orb high into the air, and Brendan Hearne caught it on the back of his neck. With
a fliplike motion of his tangled blond curls, he shot it back into the air, where it proceeded to hit Evan Beverwil square
in the head and plop to the ground.

Evan jumped, surprised, causing Brendan, Joaquin, and Theo to dissolve into peals of laughter. Theo was famous for his deep
intense laugh, which sounded like Old Man River guffawing into a megaphone. Joaquin giggled like a girl.

“Dude, you are the most out of it right now,” Brendan told Evan, between cackles.

“Yeah, what’d you do, wake-and-bake before school or something?” Theo inquired.

“No,” began Evan. “Or, uh, yeah.”

That, of course, cracked them up even more.

“You know you’re faded when you’re so faded you don’t remember getting faded,” Brendan sagely announced.

“Speaking of getting faded,” Theo began, pointing at the place on his wrist where someone who cared about time might wear
a watch. “Ticktock.”

“Okay, let’s bounce,” Joaquin declared. Theo popped the back door of the VW open and slid across the sky blue torn vinyl seat.

“Your turn to ride shotty,” Brendan told Evan, climbing into the backseat beside Theo.

“Naw, it’s all you,” Evan mumbled. “I’m gonna chill on campus today.”

“Dude, what?” Brendan wrinkled his brow. “You stayed on campus yesterday.”

“Yeah, what, you don’t smoke anymore?” Theo inquired.

“Or what, you don’t eat anymore?” Joaquin pressed.

“Yeah, dude, are you, like, anorexic?” offered Theo.

“Yeah, he’s, like, manorexic,” Joaquin agreed.

Evan pushed some air between his lips, waving them off. “Whatever you say, dudes.”

“Evan, calm down, man, it’s okay,” Theo assured him. “We still love you. Even though you’re manorexic.”

“See you in fifth period, dickheads,” Evan laughed, shaking his head so his sandy golden locks swayed in the noonday
sun. Then he made a break for it.

Evan still had five minutes till he was supposed to meet Janie in the projection room, so he dipped into the men’s room to
look in the mirror. He liked what he saw. His hair was doing that thing where it sort of crashed into a wave over his left
eye and looked all shiny, too. He’d washed it with this stuff he stole out of Charlotte’s bathroom. It came in tiny green
bottles, and it smelled really good. Like, too good maybe. Damn, did he smell like a chick? It was the first time Evan had
ever used conditioner and it made his mane all—well—glossy, which is what it had said on the bottle. “Glossing conditioner.”
Yeah, he’d read the bottle. Even the directions.

He wanted to do this right.

While he was sudsing the fragrant green goop into his ocean-stiff hair, Evan had thought about the thing he was thinking about
right now. Which just so happened to be the thing he was thinking about while he attempted to do his Chem homework the night
before. And while he skateboarded with Theo after dinner. And, well, every other minute of every day since the Pink Party,
and a lot of minutes of a lot of days before the Pink Party too. Her, man. Janie Farrish. He hadn’t liked a girl this much
since, well… ever.

Evan smiled at his reflection in the mirror. Aside from the shiny hair part, he looked like he didn’t give a shit,
which was exactly how he wanted to look. Just some old green flip-flops, some brown and beige board shorts, and a threadbare
white Stüssy shirt. The retro one, with the big sloppy logo. He was ready. Evan exited the bathroom and started for the projection
room, unconsciously quickening his flip-flopped step.

“Hi, Evan!” chirped whatsherface and her one friend with the hair as he whizzed by.

“Sup,” he replied, with a quick, upward jerk of his chin. He was on a mission. Nothing would derail him.

Evan got to the projection room before Janie, and saw the pile of
Godspell
programs they’d totally knocked over during their last brutally hot make-out session all splayed out on the floor. Clearly,
nobody had been in there since they had. Which was awesome, like their private little sanctuary remained untainted, like a
holy site. That was the bulletin board Evan had pressed her up against, the rickety table where she’d pressed up against him,
and the light switch he was going to switch off after Janie Farrish came walking through that projection room door in all
her smoking hot Janie Farrish splendor.

Any minute now…

Evan checked his cell. 12:27. He’d asked her to meet him at 12:20. Oh, well. Maybe she was, like, getting ready or something.
Evan cupped his hand over his mouth and nose and checked his breath
. Sick.
He pulled a stick of Big
Red out of his backpack and started to chew.

12:28. Evan wasn’t sure where to sit. Should he just be standing there when Janie walked in, or was that sort of weird? Should
he sit on the stool? Yeah, he’d sit on the stool. Or did that look even weirder? Like the way they made you pose when you
took those dreaded class pictures every year. Like, sort of perched. Yeah, the stool was weird. Evan stood up again. He could
be reading when Janie came in. That would look casual. But he only had textbooks in his backpack, and if he was standing there
perusing a textbook when Janie came in, that would probably be even weirder than if he was perched on the stool. This sucked.
He could be texting when Janie came in. That would look cool. Not to mention normal. He whipped out his cell. Again.

12:29??

Evan quickly tired of fake texting and emerged from the dark room on the off chance Janie had thought she was supposed to
meet him in the theater itself, and not the projection room. Negative. The theater was empty, save for some wiry dude with
a fro, standing on stage performing a monologue to an audience of zero.

12:31.

Maybe their text messages got, like, crossed?

“What are we doing today?” asked Juliet, popping a ranch-flavored Soy Crisp into her Lipglass-slathered kisser. Crumbs of
green-flecked seasoned salt stuck to the gloss while she chewed. Then a gentle wind wandered through the breezeway, adding
a strand of her hair to the mess.

“We’re going shopping at the Grove,” Carly announced, puncturing her Vita Coco box with a short pink straw, and regarding
her friend’s mouth with disgust.

“Oooh, yay!” trilled Juliet. “I heart the Grove! Where are we meeting?”

“Nikki’s house,” answered Carly, folding her black harem pants–clad legs Indian style.

“I can’t today,” replied Nikki, lifting her Red Bull suggestively. “I’m on the clock.”

“What?” demanded Carly.

“Poseur stuff,” clarified Nikki.

“But it’s Fri-day!” whined Juliet. “And you’ve already worked, like, eleventybillion hours this week!”

“Fashion never sleeps, bitches,” shrugged Nikki. “Emergency recon.”

“
En ingles
?” Carly rejoined.

“Well, I really shouldn’t be getting into this, but Melissa assigned me this top secret research project. I have to find out
everything—like,
everything—
about the designers of this t-shirt brand called Schizo Montana. My job isn’t done till I have their birth certificates.
And Melissa does
not accept photocopies.”

“Wow, intense much?” marveled Juliet. “Why does she need all that?”

“I’d rather not say,” Nikki answered.

“Translation: ‘I have no clue why she needs all that,’” mocked Carly.

“Of course I know!” Nikki bristled. “Melissa shares everything with me. It’s just not for y’all’s ears.”

“Nikki,” Carly began, crinkling her concealer-caked forehead and staring straight into her traitorous bestie’s cornflower
blue eyes, “I know you’re lying right now. You totally have a tell.”

“I do?” squeaked Nikki, in awe of the casual way Carly tossed around poker lingo. “What is it?”

Carly waited patiently.

“Okay, fine,” Nikki began. “I don’t know why Melissa wants me to find out about Schizo Montana, but I
do
know that she would never put me on such a hard-core mish unless it were super important.”

“Thank you. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Carly inquired. “Oh, and b-t-dubbs, you don’t have a tell.”

Bitch!

“I’m just having a Scorpio moment,” Carly shrugged. (Carly had recently discovered she was born on the Libra-Scorpio cusp,
instead of squarely in Libra territory like she’d always thought, an astrological distinction she believed
justified virtually any social injustice.)

“Nikki, darling,” Carly continued, “Juliet and I are beginning to have some—well—
curiosities
about your internship. We have been listening to your accounts of the various duties you perform, and we have been paying
particular attention to your alleged ‘friendships’ with your employers, and—”

“We don’t believe you!” blurted Juliet.

Carly smiled a slow evil smile: “Precisely.”

“You are always like, bla-di-bla, Melissa complimented my belly chain, and la-di-la, Petra smoked me out, but we’ve never
even seen any of them talk to you!”

“That seems peculiar to me too, Juliet,” agreed Carly. “Does it seem peculiar to you, Nikki?”

Nikki’s eyes felt sore and a familiar lump was beginning to form in the back of her throat. She always felt exactly the same
thing when she was about to burst out into tears.
No, dammit! Do not let evil Scorpio lady win this round! Do. Not. Cry.
But there was that same old gummy taste in her mouth, that telltale pressure behind the eyes…

And then something miraculous happened.

“Hey,” interrupted a decidedly postpubescent male voice.

Nikki, Carly, and Juliet turned in tandem to see the surf god of Winston Prep leaning against the cracked theater door. He
had on this white t-shirt that brought out the
bronze color of his skin. Yeah, bronze. He looked like he was actually
carved
out of bronze. Or wait—did you carve bronze or, like, pour it into a mold? Whatever. This guy, this god among men, looked
like he was
made
out of bronze, however you made it. And the sun was right behind him, framing his impossibly chiseled face like some kind
of astral halo, and his hair… his hair was actually glistening!

Nikki dropped her California roll; Juliet wet herself, but just a little; Carly’s nips were totally on fire. It was Evan Beverwil—
Evan Beverwil!
—and he was talking to
them
.

God, look at these fetuses
, he thought, eyeing the blond one. She kinda stood out in those shiny pants and that jewel necklace thing around her stomach,
and he was pretty sure she was the chick he’d seen floating around with the Poseur girls, bringing them coffee and shit.

“Was Janie, uhm, Farrish… was she here?” he asked. Carly and Juliet shook their heads, too stunned to speak.

“I’m pretty sure I saw Janie’s car leave the lot,” Nikki answered in her most enunciated voice. “Of course, she and Jake share
the Volvo.”

“Yeah!” chirped Juliet.

“Yeah, they do!” confirmed Carly.

“So, you’re saying maybe you saw
Jake
leaving campus in the Volvo?” Evan confirmed.

“Maybe,” Carly concurred.

“That’s a totally good point,” Juliet agreed.

“Except,” Nikki recalled, “Jake was in Charlotte’s car at lunch. They went to Kate Mantilini. So it must have been Janie that
left campus in the Volvo.”

Evan frowned. “Oh,” he grunted, letting the theater door swing closed behind him. “Okay.”

“Do you want me to tell Janie you’re looking for her?”

Evan paused and then shook his head. “Nah. It’s not, like, important.” And with that, he loped off toward the Showroom.