The Time-Traveling Fashionista (4 page)

By the time Louise realized that Todd Berkowitz was waiting for her outside of the classroom, it was too late. Did he have
her schedule memorized or something? Wasn’t that considered stalking in some states? When she stepped out into the crowded
hallway in a Miss Morris–induced stupor, he rushed over to her and accidentally knocked her books out of her hands.

Louise watched in seeming slow motion as the sketches she had just been working on fell out of her notebook and scattered
on the puke green linoleum tiled floor.

“Sorry, Louise,” Todd croaked, his face turning as crimson as his oversized red polo shirt. He knelt down to pick up the collateral
damage.

“Cool, these are really good,” he said, examining the drawings.

Louise scrambled to hide the images on the loose-leaf paper; she wasn’t ready to show them to anyone yet.

“Oh, thanks,” she mumbled. “They’re not finished.”

“So anyway,” he started, getting to his feet. “I was just thinking, maybe if you weren’t, you know, like, going with anyone
to the dance…” He trailed off, nervously spinning the wheel of his skateboard.

Was that a question?
Louise waited. She looked at him and didn’t want to be able to look him directly in the eye. She wanted him to be taller.

“You know, maybe we can carpool together or whatever. Save the environment.”

Carpool together or whatever? How am I supposed to respond to that? I don’t know what to do!

For some inexplicable reason, the only thing she could think of suddenly was to walk as fast as she could in the opposite
direction without uttering a single word. Halfway down the hall, she looked back over her shoulder and saw Todd shake his
head in confusion, get on his skateboard, and ride off in the other direction, almost taking down Miss Morris in the process.

Louise let out a long breath, and then sighed again.

“Louise? Louise, are you even listening to me?” Brooke asked in an annoyed tone.

Louise was standing in front of her closed locker, absentmindedly spinning the dial of her combination lock, completely lost
in her own thoughts, imagining she was blonde fifties movie icon Marilyn Monroe, wearing that iconic white halter dress at
a fabulous Hollywood party. Daydreams were the only way she could get through another day that seemed exactly like the previous
one at Fairview Junior High.

“Sorry, what did you say?” Louise snapped back to reality, Marilyn’s image instantly transformed into the pretty, familiar
face of her best friend.

“I said,” Brooke repeated, “Michael just asked me to the dance. But I don’t want to say yes, because what if Kip asks me?”

Louise rolled her eyes. This was a typical problem for
Brooke. She was naturally, genetically blessed model thin, with dirty-blonde hair that cascaded halfway down her back in perfect,
frizzless waves, wide, pale blue eyes, and a cherry red pout. Kind of like Marilyn Monroe, if Marilyn were into Juicy Couture
and seriously anorexic.

In other words, Brooke Patterson was very popular. She also happened to be Louise’s best friend, due mostly to the fact that
they had been friends since they were practically babies. Their fathers had been in the same fraternity in college and now
worked at the same law firm. Louise secretly hoped that she and Brooke would end up like that someday, best friends, with
their kids being best friends, too.

“I think you should just say you’ll think about it, and then if Kip asks you by tomorrow you can still go with him,” Louise
rationalized. Somehow giving advice to her friends was easy, but in her own life, she did ridiculous and embarrassing things
like running away from the one guy who was trying to ask her to the dance. She was too mortified to even talk about it with
Brooke yet. “Keep your options open a little longer.”

“Right, good idea,” Brooke replied and grinned. “So what are you going to wear?”

“I don’t know yet.” Louise pulled out the Fashionista Vintage Sale invite from her backpack and handed it to her best friend.
“Maybe I’ll find something here.”

Now it was Brooke’s turn to roll her eyes. “Louise, why don’t you come to the mall with me after school? We can get something
normal. I think Nordstrom just got a shipment of Marc Jacobs. I mean it’s like you’re permanently trapped in another era.
It
is
2011, you know.”

Louise had finally freed the combination lock and opened her locker.

“See? I rest my case.” Brooke sighed. Louise’s locker was decorated much like her bedroom at home. Black-and-white photographs
of a young Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty from the set of the chic gangster movie
Bonnie and Clyde
, and Twiggy, the Kate Moss of the 1960s, smiled back at her from the inside of the metal door. They were a little reminder
to her that there was more to life than junior high, and that a more glamorous world was waiting for her somewhere out there,
even if it was just in her imagination at this point.

Louise felt her cheeks get a little flushed. Maybe it was a bit pathetic. Maybe she should wake up and start living in the
twenty-first century.

“But that’s why I love you and all of your quirky charm.” Brooke gave Louise a quick hug. “See you on the bus,” she called
over her shoulder. “I’m late for earth science review.”

As she bounced down the hallway, Louise was left alone staring at her time capsule of a locker.

The rest of the school day dragged on, as Friday afternoon classes tended to do. Louise showed the vintage sale invitation
to a few of her friends in eighth-period English lit class. She was curious if anyone else had received an invite in the mail.
Strangely enough, she seemed to be the only one.

Louise and Brooke were both a bit mortified by the fact that they still had to take the bus in the seventh grade, but at least
they were on the same bus route.

“Do you ever wish you were someone else?” Louise asked, flipping through a dog-eared copy of
Us Weekly.
The bus was loud and crowded with hyperactive sixth graders, and a few unlucky kids from seventh and eighth. Brooke and Louise
always sat together in the same seat on the left, three back from the front, and everyone on the bus knew better than to sit
there. That little show of respect and seniority was the only redeeming feature of their otherwise torturous ride.

“No, not really,” Brooke replied honestly. “God, what is she wearing?” she asked, peering over Louise’s shoulder as she flipped
past a photo of Renée Zellweger in baggy sweatpants and Uggs waiting in line at the supermarket.

“There’s no magic anymore,” Louise said with a sigh. “Why
do they insist on showing everyone that ‘Stars Are Just Like Us’? I liked it better when you could imagine they weren’t. Like
they woke up looking fabulous.”

“And their morning breath smells like strawberries,” Brooke added sarcastically. “Get real, Louise. People are people.”

Brooke had an open compact in one hand and was trying to apply lip gloss with the other, in between potholes. At that moment,
the bus hit a particularly deep rut.

“Darn,” she said and looked over at Louise. A frosted pink streak connected her lip and chin. Louise laughed.

“Well, I wish I was someone who didn’t have to ride the bus,” Brooke said, wiping off the gloss with a tissue.

“I don’t mean someone else entirely,” Louise clarified, “but more like you, but in a different life.”

“Hey, Louise,” Billy Robertson called from across the aisle, before Brooke had a chance to respond. Billy’s mop of brown hair
covered his eyes like a limp curtain so that she had to wonder how he saw anything at all. They had been in the same class
since kindergarten, but for some reason this year he had singled Louise out and made it a point to be as annoying and embarrassing
to her as possible.

Leave me alone
, Louise silently begged. Whenever Billy said anything, especially to her, it was generally rude and obnoxious.

“Why do you always wear those old, ratty clothes? We all know you live in that big old giant house—you trying to pretend like
you’re poor or something?”

Louise looked down at her favorite cardigan. The tiny tear in the elbow now seemed like a gaping hole.
Why did she like vintage clothing so much?
Her life would probably be a lot easier if she at least looked like she fit in.

“Oh, shut up,” Brooke responded without missing a beat. “If you knew anything about fashion—which, looking at that horrendous
dirt brown sweater you wear all the time, you clearly don’t—then you’d know she only wears vintage. All of the celebrities
do these days,” she concluded, flashing him a picture of Blake Lively photographed wearing a funky oversized magenta sweater
and skinny black leggings while carrying a ginormous Starbucks coffee.

Billy looked down at the ugly, pilled pullover that he had also worn yesterday, and likely the day before, and his ears turned
a hot red. “Whatever,” he replied gruffly.

Brooke gave Louise’s hand a quick squeeze, and Louise smiled back gratefully at her friend. “Don’t worry about him. That’s
his caveman-like way of flirting,” Brooke whispered. “I’d like to go to that Fashionista Vintage Sale with you tomorrow,”
she announced to Louise, throwing Billy a pointed look.

“Great!” Louise exclaimed with a smile. “Maybe we can both find old, ratty dresses for the dance.”

She got off the bus at the next stop, promising to call Brooke tomorrow after lunch to make a plan to go to the mysterious
sale. Hopefully, the perfect new/old dress was awaiting her.

On Saturday, after an early morning swim practice and a quick chicken salad lunch, Louise rode her bike downtown to meet Brooke
at the sale. The day was overcast and windy. She wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her dark denim
jacket, and kept pedaling against the wind.

She never had to think about where to turn; her bike wheels would just turn. Fairview, Connecticut, was a typical, small suburban
town, and Louise had lived there her whole life. The closest mall was three towns over; the movie theater had two screening
rooms with screens the size of bedsheets and films that had basically already come out on DVD. To do anything that was even
remotely interesting or cultural you had to get on the Metro-North train and ride forty-five minutes through the trees and
fields into New York City.