Read Poseur #4: All That Glitters Is Not Gucci for Free Online

handed her selections to a striking salesgirl. “Okay.” She turned to Amelia,
     her delicate face awash with worry. “Troubadour. What are you going to wear?”
    Amelia grinned. Creatures of Habit, her super fierce neopunk band, had booked the legendary club for the first time last week.
     The Troubador was the stomping ground of everyone from Miles Davis to Metallica,
not to mention the last place Janis partied before she died
. Hello? Can we say major ghost points?
    “I think I’ll just wear the London Vampire Milkmaid Dress,” Amelia confessed, referring to the badass dress Janie designed.
     “That dress is pure magic, man. The more I wearit, the better it gets.
Like a fine wine
,” she mused, her hands pressed to her heart.
    “Ha,” Janie cracked, masking her pleasure. “Except you drink wine out of plastic cups.”
    “Yeah, well…” Amelia smiled distractedly. “Honestly, I can’t think about what I’m going to wear. I’m too worried Paul’s gonna
     to bail on the show to, like, bake gluten-free zucchini bread with his freak girlfriend.”
    “She’s not a
freak
,” Janie defended Petra, hiding a smile.
    “
Whatever
,” Amelia gaped. “Ever since she and Paul started dating? He’s turned into this total, like,
hemp
seed. I told you he took out all his piercings, right? I swear, if you look closely, you can see his
real
personality, like, trickling out of the holes.”
    “I don’t know….” Janie shrugged. “Maybe
this
is his real personality. You never know. Maybe who he was before was the fake version.”
    “Wow.” Amelia smirked, rolling her eyes. “Look who’s so evolved.
I wonder why
.”
    Janie smiled. She knew what Amelia was getting at: as recently as last week, she’d been brutally obsessed with Paul Elliot
     Miller, i.e., any details about his and Petra’s budding romance would have sent her into cardiac arrest.
But now?
Spying a silk tank in deep chlorine blue, she thought of Evan’s eyes, fingered the delicate fabric, and sighed.
    “Do you like?” She smoothed the silky blue-green fabricover her long, thin torso.
    “Meh.” Amelia shrugged. She pointed out the same tank in red and black, Janie’s favorite colors. “Check it out.”
    “Oh right.” She affected a pensive expression, only briefly acknowledging the other tank before returning to the one in blue.
     “I just like this one for some reason. Wait while I try it on?”
    “A’course,” Amelia assured her, plucking a pair of pink Ed Hardy tattoo-hearted sweats off the rack. She whip-turned toward
     a pouty salesgirl. “Do you have these in medium?” Janie giggled, heading toward the fitting room. Amelia never left a store
     without trying on the most hideous thing she could find. (She called it the
Que La Chinga
Challenge.)
    “… to
kiss
her?!” a girl’s voice almost yelled just as Janie entered her stall and clattered the lock. Janie stared at the partition,
     but the girl, no doubt sensing an intruder, lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper.
Puh-lease
, Janie rolled her eyes and shimmied out of her wife beater.
    Like she cared.
    “I’m sorry,” the disembodied voice continued. “It’s just… of all the girls in the world, why
her
? No, I
know
. It’s just… was she a good kisser?”
    Janie squared her shoulders and faced the mirror.
God
, she thought, fingering the safety pin in her bra strap. She could not
wait
to buy a new bra.
    “Liar,” the girl next door giggled, her voice gradually mounting in volume. “No, she did
not.
She did
not drool.
You are so full of… what?” She gasped, pealing with melodious laughter. “She kisses like a
dogfish
, what? What in the hell is a
dogfish
?”
    That laugh
, Janie realized, staring at the partition a second time,
sounded all too familiar
. But was it really her? If so, who was she interrogating?
    “Ja-nie-kins!” Amelia’s voice rose above the pulsing music, bubbling brightly into the room. “I’ll show you mine if you show
     me