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

yours!”
    “One sec!” Janie yanked the silky green tank over her head, quickly smoothed her hair, and exited the fitting room. Amelia
     turned from a triple-angle outside mirror, where she’d been admiring her butt cleavage in its hideous Ed Hardy–exposed splendor,
     and narrowed her liquid eyelinered eyes. “Well?” her best friend inquired. “What’s the verdict?”
    “I don’t know,” Amelia admitted. Which wasn’t to say she didn’t think Janie looked hot. She did. But she also looked rich.
     And, like,
mean
. Like the popular girl in an eighties movie with better hair. “Maybe it’s just a little generic,” she exhaled.
    “Generic?” An incredulous salesgirl looked up from a “rejects” clothes rack and abruptly ceased sifting. Her huge, star-lashed
     amber eyes perfectly matched her blondBalayaged afro. “Sweetie,” she sighed, and emphatically impaled her hair with a purple pick. “That tank is
not
generic, it’s
versatile.
For day, you dress it down with some cute little high-waisted shorts and fun wedges. For night, you throw on a statement
     necklace, a shrunken blazer, and
walla
! Instant glamour.”
    “Totally,” agreed Janie, ignoring Amelia’s contorted
ew
face in favor of making mental inventory of the things she’d now need to purchase along with her “versatile” tank:
cute little high-waisted shorts, fun wedges, statement necklace, shrunken blazer….
    “I have it in every color,” gushed the salesgirl, “but that blue-green’s definitely my favorite.”
    “I know, mine, too.” Janie almost blushed, briefly fantasizing an imaginary friendship with this way older, way hipper woman.
     They’d share silky tank tops, paint each other’s nails black, sashay down Melrose in bug-eyed sunglasses and, scowling at
     those less awesome than they….
    “As soon as I get my paycheck,” she addressed her soon-to-be BFF, “I’m so coming back and buying it.”
    “You don’t have a platinum Pellicard?” The salesgirl wrinkled her gleaming brow in concern.
    “Oh.” Janie’s face fell, loath to disappoint her new muse so soon.
    “Don’t worry,” she beamed, fluttering her light, cool fingers to Janie’s bare shoulder, “I can hook you up rightnow. Seriously, it’s super easy to sign up,
and
you get a free gift with every thousand dollars you spend.”
    “Cool.”
    “Excuse me?” Amelia, freshly freed from her Ed Hardy grossness, clatteringly burst out of the fitting room. “Janie, you cannot
     be serious. A
credit
card?”
    “
Pellicard
,” the salesgirl corrected, ushering a hypnotized Janie out of the fitting room. Amelia watched them sail away with gaping
     disbelief.
    Then she came to her senses.
    “No, your mom will seriously kill you,” she warned, catching up with them at the register. “She’s probably, like, beached
     out on your couch, watching a
20/20
special on the dangers of credit
as we speak
.”
    “You guys are too cute. I love how you take care of each other,” the salesgirl murmured, inputting Janie’s info into the computer.
     Then she glanced up and smiled, amber eyes aglow. “Name?” she chirped.
    “Jane, um, Farrish,” Janie stammered, glancing at the gaping Amelia. “It’ll be
fine
,” she half assured her, half assured herself. “Relax, okay?”
    But before Amelia could respond, a whirling storm of spray tan, sun-in, and in-your-face sass migrated from a Balenciaga bikini
     display, gathered force behind a rack of See by Chloé short-shorts, and exploded on the scene. “Zanie?” Charlotte Beverwil’s
     next-door neighbor and aspiring Oscarpresenter gasped aloud. “You disgusting, fat whore, is dat
ju
?”
    Janie beamed, internalizing her somewhat rattled nerves as Don John propelled Mort, his wheelchair-bound and possibly unconscious
     charge (not to mention his impromptu shopping cart) toward the register. In exchange for assisting the retired and ailing
     Hollywood producer, Don John got to live in his pool house for