Poseur #4: All That Glitters Is Not Gucci
Text copyright © 2010 by Rachel Maude
Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Rachel Maude
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission
of the publisher.
Poppy
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
Poppy is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company.
The Poppy name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
First eBook Edition: May 2010
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental
and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-0-316-07235-9
Contents
The Girl: Janie Farrish? Or her smokin’ hot older sister?
The Getup: Hot pink do-rag, spa manicure (in Chanel’s “Paparazzi”), stretch denim Rihanna Romper by Black Halo, smug smile
by Poseur
At Winston Prep, upperclassmen may get off-campus lunch privileges, but it’s the lowerclassmen who feel seriously privileged
when the high noon bell sounds its clear, Swiss Alps–worthy clang. With a confident flap of their Fendi flats (or are those
fins?), tadpolers of all colors and signature Missoni stripes spill into the Main Hall and dart madly toward their destination.
Because for forty-five magical minutes, give or take a few seconds, the Showroom—aka Winston’s super-exclusive outdoor parking
lot—was
theirs
.
Well, depending on who gets there first.
Upperclassmen popular enough to secure Showroom parking spots hop into their custom-painted Porsches and Priuses, their brightly
buffed Beamers and Bentleys, and head to lunch destinations as venerable and varied as their vehicles. No sooner have the
ruby taillights cleared their fine institution’s Spanish colonial-style peach stucco and wrought iron gates than alert freshman
from all corners of the lot swoop into the abandoned spaces. Plopping down on napkins or rarely cracked textbooks, the giddy
invaders arrange brown
bag lunches on the sun-baked pavement, breathing deep the lingering exhaust of their departed idols. Proximity to popularity
can be intoxicating.
Unless they’re just high on car fumes.
Either way, forward-thinking freshies love nothing more than popping squats in the vacant lot. Because while it’s not the
most
comfortable
place to eat, it
is
the most exclusive. Those who eat here today, tend to park here tomorrow… which is why only the
most
popular ninth-graders eat in the Showroom, banishing lesser-thans to either the sanded redwood picnic tables in the courtyard,
or the lush, immaculately maintained lawns surrounding the whimsical Winston Willows, whose feathery leaves not only offer
dappled shade but also protection from annoying, sandwich-seeking winged pests.
Lame.
And so it was, while mucho-worshipped sophomore Melissa Moon and devoted entourage chowed charishi chez Koi, Nikki Pellegrini,
Carly Thorne, and Juliet Jackson infested her unoccupied spot and broadcasted their newfound social prowess to the world.
At last, they put the
C
(as in
C me?
) in Nicarettes, which (as if you didn’t know) happened to be the name of their clique. The three eighth-graders concocted
the title one fateful day in seventh grade, combining different key syllables from each of their names. Of course, in the
wake of their recently acquired high
profile, haters started calling them the Dickarettes, the Moon-a-tics, and (most creative of all) “those self-absorbed idiots”—but
they were just jealous.
“You know what?” Carly mused, admiring the gel-slicked blond coil plastered to Nikki’s forehead. The rest of her flaxen hair
had been pulled into a bun and tucked into her latest rhinestone-encrusted hot pink do-rag. “I
like
your hair this way.”
“Why are you saying it like that?” gaped Juliet, majorly miffed by Carly’s intonation. “You’re making it sound like I
don’t
like her hair this way. And I, like, love it,” she insisted, spearing her boba tea with a straw. “Probably more than you
do.”
Oh, what a difference a month made. In one short semester, Nikki Pellegrini had swung from comparatively popular to deeply
detested, then back again. Her latest surge in popularity came from cozying up to her highness Melissa Moon, who, along with
fellow sophomores Charlotte Beverwil, Petra Greene, and Janie Farrish, had created her own designer fashion label, Poseur.
In the last few weeks, the student-governed special study had taken on a life of its own, breaking free from its relatively
humble high school origins and seizing the fashion world by storm. Or it would soon, anyway.
And of all the girls in Winston’s eighth-grade class, who had the special sparkle, the commitment, the talent, the all-
around je ne sais quoi, to be their honorable and estimable latte-bitch?
Which wasn’t to say fetching coffee was the internship’s only perk. In addition to getting first dibs on all Melissa Moon’s
ghetto-fabulous couture castoffs, Nikki was the only eighth-grader permitted to eat lunch in the Showroom,
and
she got to brag about it—not that she called it that. According to Melissa Moon, bragging was just another word for PR. “As
in Public Relations,
not
Princess RiRi,” the daunting diva quipped while Nikki had nodded, dutifully jotting the definition down. They were so bonded!
She sighed a little, now, savoring the memory.
“What?” Carly inquired, curiosity piqued by the secret smile on Nikki’s face. She was always doing that… and it was starting
to get on her not-so-secret nerves. “Why are you smiling?”
“I’m not,” she coyly replied, flipping through the latest issue of
Nylon
with a Paparazzi Pink–manicured forefinger. She paused to peruse a photo, crinkling her Bioré-blasted brow. “I really hope
they don’t do the Poseur shoot like this. I mean, sepia?” She clucked over a color-saturated shot of Gemma Ward. “It really
detracts from the high-fashion element, you know?”
Two and half weeks ago, hipster bible
Nylon
magazine had asked to feature Poseur’s premier couture handbag, the Trick-or-Treater, in its 20 Under 20 fashion issue,
and the photo shoot was just a few short days away. Nikki could think of nothing else.
“I guess I’ll just have to keep an eye on the lighting guy, y’all,” she announced with an insinuative arc of her eyebrow.
Juliet almost snarfed a boba ball.
“No way!” she gagged. “You are not going to the
Nylon
shoot. Are you going to the
Nylon
shoot? Shut. Up. No, you’re not going. Are you seriously going?”
Nikki squinted her cornflower blue eyes at her possibly disabled friend. “Um, obvi. Our bag
is
being featured in the issue, y’all!” (In her tireless attempt to channel Melissa Moon, Nikki leaped at every opportunity
to jam the word “y’all” into conversation. Sometimes it made sense. Sometimes it didn’t.)
“Plus,” she grinned. “I didn’t tell you this before, but there’s a
chance
we’re not only going to be
inside Nylon
.”
“Meaning?” Juliet furrowed her bronzer-dusted brow.
“Meaning we might make the
outside
?” She cocked an eyebrow and grinned, endlessly pleased with herself. Juliet and Carly glanced at each other, unimpressed.
“What’s so great about making the outside of a magazine?” the latter scoffed, adding a roll of her bulging brown eyes for
good measure. “I mean, technically
I’m
making the outside of a magazine, like, right now.”
“Yeah,” Juliet snorted. “What a superstar.”
“You guys-uh!” Nikki slapped the pavement. “By
outside
, I mean we might make the
cover
,” she elucidated, bulging her blue eyes for emphasis.
At last, she’d achieved the reaction she wanted. Her friends looked amazed and appalled—as if Taylor Lautner had revealed
himself in all his bare-chested glory, only to burp in their faces.
“S’all true, y’all.” Nikki sniffed, tossing her head. Her pink do-rag scintillated in the sun. “The best of the twenty designers
gets to dress the cover model. And, between y’all and me? Melissa’s positive it’ll be Poseur.”
Carly balled her fists and quivered. As if cavorting around campus with four über-popular tenth-graders weren’t outlandish
enough, she now got to go to photo shoots? And not just
any
photo shoot, but a photo shoot for
Nylon
, aka the coolest maggie since Gyllenhaal? She took a tiny sip of sickly tea and moistened her bee-stung lips. Now was the
time. The time to tell Nikki her do-rag made her look like a sparkle penis.
Too bad Taryn Bell thwarted her plan.
“Heads up!” she screeched at the top of her lungs. As Wednesday’s designated lookout, Taryn had taken her lunch perched on
the Showroom’s highest stucco wall, guaranteeing her a long, bird’s-eye view of the winding drive that led from the Main Gate
all the way down to Coldwater Canyon.
At the sound of her warning call, the lunching underclassmen paused midchew to hold their breaths, alert and still as gazelles.
“Cream-colored, mint condition 1969 Jaguar!” she bellowed.
Without missing a beat, six balletic ninth-grade girls snatched the remains of their grapes and Brie, sprang to their Miu
Miu heels, and made a run for it. Barely had their frenzied frames ducked into the dim recesses of Locker Jungle than the
Jaguar in question purred through the main gates. The remaining middle-schoolers swallowed and solemnly watched it pass, basking
briefly in its bright, reflective light before focusing on the main event: the driver. She’d returned sporting her vintage
black-sequined Chanel scarf—previously worn looped about her slender neck—as a headband, braiding the delicate silk-chiffon
ends into her glossy ebony curls. On any other day, the innovation might have caused a frenzy, but as Charlotte Sidonie Beverwil
cruised into the Showroom that Wednesday, there was another, even more noteworthy accessory to set admirers atwitter. Reclined
into the leather passenger seat, and accentuating her style better than any belt, bangle, or bow, sat none other than Charlotte’s
ex-boyfriend.
Talk about retro.
“Is it true?” Juliet tilted toward Nikki and hoarsely
whispered. “Did she
really
dump Jules Maxwell-Langeais to get back together with
Jake Farrish
?”
Okay, granted: Jake had totally grown into himself over the summer. Thanks to a divinely inspired haircut and the power of
Accutane, the mangy ponytail and gag-worthy pimples were things of the past. But still! Was he really supposed to compete
with Jules, the half-French, half-English Orlando Bloom lookalike who, when he wasn’t volunteering at nursing homes, translating
Goethe from the original German, or knitting his own Henleys, zoomed around town in an acid green Ferrari? The guy wore a
freaking cape! And he pulled it off! Jake had been wearing the same gray hoodie with the banged-up Amnesiac pin for, like,
a
decade.
“Look.” Nikki cleared her throat. “Just ’cause she sent Euro boy packing
does not
mean she’s back together with Jake. They’re
so
just friends, okay? Charlotte really needs some time for herself right now.”
Of course, beneath her calm and collected exterior, Nikki was on throbbing red alert. She’d been in love with Jake Farrish
since, like, forever, and she wasn’t going to lie: the sight of him in Charlotte’s Jag put some major pain in the belly chain.
Could the rumors be true? Were they back on the rocky-yet-romantic road to Jakelotte?
Crazily enough, she was the reason the pretty pair parted ways in the first place. Way back in September, on the night of
Poseur’s infamous “Tag—You’re It” party, Nikki, who’d
never so much as
tried
alcohol before, downed two flutes of champagne and ended up lip-macking Jake in plain sight of everyone at the party… including
Charlotte Beverwil. Of course, it took Charlotte two and a half ticks to dump him, and find herself a new avowed love: making
Nikki Pellegrini’s life a living hell. Promptly dubbing her Icki Prostitutti, Charlotte turned the entire school (and maybe
the world) against her. It took prayer, pain, and a whole lotta luck, but eventually Nikki redeemed herself. Well, Melissa
Moon thought so, anyway. And if Melissa Moon thought something, so did most everybody else. Charlotte remained the one person
Nikki hadn’t won over, and until she did, she vowed to keep her distance from Jake. She wasn’t about to wreck her ever-fragile
social standing—even for her favorite future husband.