Vanessa's Fashion Face-Off

by Jo Whittemore

  “The Case of the Boring Autumn,” I said.

  “Hey!” A pixie-haired girl frowned at me as she walked by.

  “Oh, sorry, Autumn! Not you!” I called after her and then winced at my friends. “Whoops.”

  “She’ll get over it,” Heather assured me with a pat on the shoulder.

  “What are you going to your family’s party as?” I asked her.

  “I won’t tell you what it is specifically,” she said. “But I will say it’s inspired by my Model UN research.”

  I scrunched my face thoughtfully. Heather was representing Ireland in Model UN.

  “Leprechaun is too easy,” I said. “Potato?”

  Heather cracked up. “What?”

  I grinned and shrugged my shoulders. “Those are the only two things I know about Ireland!”

  “Well, I’m going as a person, not a plant,” she said with a smile, “which means no four-leaf clover costume, either. You’ll have to wait and be surprised.”

  “Back to my costume dilemma,” said Brooke, waving the photos in front of my nose. “A or B?”

  “Why do you want to go as a soccer player, anyway?” I asked, moving her arm aside. “You’re already a soccer player in real life.”

  “So?”

  “So Halloween is about stepping outside your comfort zone and being something no one would expect,” I said. “These?” I pointed to the two photos and shook my head.

  “Says the girl who lives outside her comfort zone,” said Heather with a smirk.

  Brooke pointed to her. “She’s right. Every day is Halloween for you.”

  “No,” I said. “Halloween for me will be—” I stopped when I realized my best friends were leaning forward expectantly. “A surprise.”

  “Mine will be too,” said Brooke.

  “Only because you don’t even know what you’re going to be,” I teased.

  A shadow loomed over the three of us, and we all craned our necks to look up at Tim.

  I don’t really go for sporty guys, but I had to admit, all the girls who crushed on him had good taste. He was tall with strong Greek features and a swagger that said he knew it.

  “What are you doing at school on time?” asked Brooke. Her eyes widened. “Or are we all really late?” She looked at her phone.

  “I’m assistant sports reporter, remember?” he said. “I had to interview one of the football players, and morning practice was the only time he could do it.”

  “Aw, nice!” said Heather. “So that—”

  She paused for a minute while Tim said hi to a girl strolling past. Brooke and I rolled our eyes. It had been this way since he started working for the advice column. Most girls thought he was funny and smart, which he was, but the way they worshiped him, you’d think he could also turn Payless into Prada.

  “Aaand I’m back!” he told Heather.

  Heather nodded. “So that position is working out?”

  “Eh.” Tim waggled his hand from side to side. “The column’s great. Rescuing my gym clothes from the bottom of the pool . . . not so much.”

  “What?!” Brooke, Heather, and I exclaimed at the same time.

  “Someone’s bullying you?” asked Brooke. “Who is it? I’ll . . .”

  “Talk to them so I get bullied even more?” Tim finished for her. “You sound just like Gabby.”

  Gabby was Tim’s twin sister, and let’s just say I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side. Last month, after a guy stood her up on a date, she tried to throw a bucket of grape goo over his head. Luckily, Heather and Brooke were able to stop her and set her back on track, but who’s to say what she’d do for family?

  “It’s really okay,” Tim assured us. “The guys just pick on me because of the attention I get from the girls.”

  “Well,” said Heather with an apologetic shrug, “you kind of encourage it.”

  “I know. I just wish the older guys respected me more as a sports reporter. I’m just as into it as they are.”

  If a sport had a season, Tim was playing it. From what I’d heard, he was pretty good at baseball. And if his clothes kept winding up at the bottom of the pool, soon he’d be an excellent swimmer too.

  “Enough about that. What were you talking about when I came over?” he asked.

  “The Halloween party at my house,” said Heather. “The prize for this year’s costume contest is free movie admission for a month at Cinema Town. They’re one of my dad’s clients,” she added.

  Heather’s father was an accountant, and since he couldn’t keep any gifts his clients offered, he passed them along.

  “Free for a month?” Tim repeated. “Consider that prize in the basket for yours truly.” He mimed a fadeaway jump shot.

  “What are you going as?” asked Heather.

  Brooke held up a hand. “Wait! I know this one. Tim is going as one of his fangirls, so he can remind us in third person how great he is.”

  Heather and I laughed.

  “No, I’ll be going as someone who none of you will recognize. Because he’s from a classic novel.”

  “Hey, we know the only one that matters: The Three Musketeers,” said Brooke, grinning at Heather and me. That had been our nickname since elementary school.

  “Oh!” Heather snapped her fingers. “Are you going as the fourth Musketeer? What’s his name . . . Darth Vader!”

  Tim snapped his fingers back at her. “It’s d’Artagnan! And no, but I like that you tried.” He pointed to me and Brooke. “You could learn a lot from her.”

  “Anyway,” said Brooke, turning to me. “How was Chicago? Did you get that part for your costume? What was it again?” She blinked innocently at me.

  “Nice try,” I said. “And yes, I did. Also, I learned that if you lick the window of a nice store, they will ask you to leave.”

  Tim gave me a strange look. “I’m . . . I’m pretty sure that’s true at any store.”

  “Why were you licking the window?” asked Heather.

  “Me?” I stared at her. “Really? I look like a window-licker?”

  “It’s always the people you least suspect,” she said with a solemn headshake, but I saw her elbow Brooke in the side.

  “The first step in getting over a window-licking problem is admitting you have a window-licking problem,” chimed in Brooke.

  I tried to match their serious expressions, but my cheeks started to ache from needing to smile.

  “Would you stop?” I finally said with a giggle. “It wasn’t me. It was my brother, and he’s six.”

  “Well, it sounds like you had an interesting day,” said Heather.

  “I did. And . . . an interesting evening.”

  “How so?” asked Tim.

  I’d been debating whether to tell them about Katie since I’d felt a little intimidated by her, but I wanted their opinions.

  “We have new neighbors across the street,” I said. “And they have a daughter our age.”

  “Dark hair, blue eyes, well-dressed?” asked Brooke.

  “Yeah,” I said, wide-eyed. “Did I tell you about her already?”

  “No,” Brooke said, pointing. “She’s right behind you.”

  I turned, and sure enough, Katie was strutting toward the building in the cutest blazer-and-jeans combo I had ever seen. She smiled and hurried when she saw me.

  “Hey, Vanny!” she called, and waved.

  “Vanny?” repeated Brooke.

  I shushed her.

  “A girl that cute can call Vanessa anything she likes,” said Tim out of the corner of his mouth.

  I kicked him and waved at Katie.

  “Hey, I didn’t know you were going here!” I greeted her.

  She leaned over and air-kissed me on both cheeks. “It’s the only middle school in the area, silly! Of course I’d go here.” Then she turned toward my friends. “I recognize all of you from Vanny’s pictures! Brooke, Heather, and Tim, right?” She pointed to each of them in turn. “I’m Katie.”

  My friends all said hello, Tim addi
ng a handshake to his.

  “So you just moved to the area?” asked Heather.

  Katie nodded. “From Los Angeles. My dad’s textile company just opened a new branch in Chicago, which they can’t manage without him, so he whisked us all away.” She faced me. “He’s actually how I got started in fashion.”

  “You’re into fashion too?” asked Brooke. “I’m surprised Vanessa didn’t ask you to live with her.”

  “Katie’s a really good designer,” I told them.

  “So are you!” said Katie.

  “Yes, she is,” agreed Heather. “She writes fashion advice for our school paper.”

  “And I’ll bet she’s awesome at it,” said Katie.

  “But not as awesome as Katie!” I blurted. “She’s been interviewed in magazines.”

  What was I doing? My friends were trying to talk me up, and I was passing the praise on to someone else.

  “Really?” asked Brooke. “Which magazines?”

  Katie waved it away with a dismissive hand. “Nothing big. Just some local stuff, and Vogue.”

  “Vogue?” asked Tim. “That’s impressive!”

  “The article was mainly about my dad,” she said, “and they happened to add a little piece about me when they learned I was in a different part of the business.”

  The school bell rang, and we all looked at one another.

  “Well, Brooke and I have to get to homeroom,” I said, waving to the others. “Katie, do you know where you’re going?”

  “I think so,” she said. “I’m in Mr. Feldman’s class.”

  “Mine’s right by his!” said Heather. “I’ll walk with you and show you around.”

  “Thanks,” said Katie with a grateful smile.

  “Any friend of Vanessa’s is a friend of mine.”

  “I’ll walk with you too,” said Tim. “I have . . . something to do near there.”

  Brooke and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes again.

  I held her arm so that we walked slower than the others, and when they’d entered the building, I stopped her.

  “What do you think of Katie?” I asked.

  Brooke shrugged. “She seems nice enough. Why? Is there something wrong with her? Is she someone’s evil twin?” She grabbed my arm. “Is that why her parents really had to move?”

  I laughed. “No, she’s just . . . very impressive.”

  “Yeah. You don’t think that’s cool?” asked Brooke.

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I thought. I guess it was more of how I felt: intimidated, inspired, excited, but mainly . . . worried, for some reason.

  “No, it’s cool,” I said. “Let’s go inside.”

  But we could barely make it through the door before bumping into a crowd.

  “What’s going on?” asked Brooke, hopping up and down to see over the other kids.

  I was a little taller and could already see the cause of the commotion.

  “Katie,” I said. “Everyone wants to meet the new girl.”

  “Well, we’ve already met her.” Brooke linked her arm through mine. “Let’s try to battle our way through this.”

  As we plunged into the crowd, I caught snippets of conversation. Some was typical New Kid Convo: “Where are you from?,” “I love California!,” and “What neighborhood are you in?”

  But there was also: “I love your outfit!,” “You design your own clothes? That’s cool!,” and “Want to go shopping with me sometime?”

  There it was again. That worried feeling in the pit of my stomach. I would’ve stuck around and tried to hear more, but Brooke was practically ripping my arm out of its socket, dragging me down the hall. I supposed I’d hear all the gossip at some point in the day, anyway.

  But I was wrong.

  I didn’t hear the gossip at some point in the day; I heard it all day. It started out as a trickle of information in homeroom.

  “So that new girl, Katie, is from Los Angeles. They moved here because of her dad’s job.”

  By midmorning, there was a steady flow of Katie facts.

  “She’s got her own website. Did you see it?”

  “Yeah, and apparently so has Macy’s! She actually talked them into looking at her clothes.”

  And by lunchtime, things had taken a bizarre turn.

  “I heard the president of the United States goes to Katie for fashion advice.”

  “What possible fashion advice could Katie give the president?” I asked my friends.

  “‘That tie makes you look fat’?” suggested Tim.

  “‘Red, white, and blue aren’t your colors’?” offered Heather.

  Brooke didn’t respond. She had a sandwich hanging out of her mouth while she texted on her phone.

  “Who are you talking to?” I asked, poking her arm.

  Brooke’s lips moved around the top and bottom of the bread. “Aboo.”

  “That is the epitome of talking with your mouth full,” said Tim. “What did you say?”

  “I think she said ‘Abel.’” Heather took the sandwich away from Brooke, minus the chunk trapped between her teeth. “You do know you’re going to see him after school?”

  Abel Hart was the seventh-grade track star Brooke was dating.

  “I know that,” she said. “But he thinks he’s right about something, and that grave error must be corrected now.”

  The rest of us exchanged amused looks. Heather says Brooke and Abel have a love-hate relationship. He loves to tease her, and she hates it.

  “What’s the argument now?” I asked.

  “Well, I decided to change my Halloween costume because someone had an issue with it.” She looked at me. “And I told him I was going as a hockey player instead. So he said, ‘Why don’t you go as something cute and girly?’” She lowered her phone. “Has he met me? I am not girly!”

  “Love how you don’t deny the cute part,” said Tim, coughing into his hand and looking away. Brooke threw a baby carrot at him.

  “You’re still missing the point of Halloween,” I said. “You’re a tomboy. If you dress like any athlete, nobody’s going to be surprised or say ‘Great costume.’ But if you dress”—I took her carrots away—“cute and girly, people are going to notice.”

  “But what if he prefers the new cute-and-girly me?” asked Brooke. “I don’t think I could care so much about clothing.” She shrugged at me. “No offense.”

  “Then you’ll break up with him after the party,” said Heather. “But not during. Apparently, that happened last year, and some guy ended up wearing the punch bowl home on his head.”

  “And you don’t have to care about clothes,” I said. “I actually enjoy not hearing someone talk about that for once today. The way everyone’s talking, you’d think Katie was Donatella Versace.”

  My friends stared blankly at me.

  I tried again. “Coco Chanel.”

  “Ooh, I love that it’s cold enough for hot cocoa again!” said Heather.

  I turned to Tim. “Okay, now I get your frustration when you talk about old books.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Heather was still caught up in the joys of cold weather. “Also s’mores and hot apple pie and beef stew and baked potatoes . . .”

  For a tiny girl, Heather had a massive appetite. Her lunch that day had included a foot-long deli sandwich.

  The bell rang, and we headed for Journalism and our desks in the corner. We dropped our bags under our seats while Mrs. Higginbotham, our newspaper adviser, chatted at the front of the room with our student editor in chief, Mary Patrick Stephens.

  Mary Patrick is a trip. The very first time I ever saw her outfit, I could tell the kind of person she was. They say clothes make the man (or girl, in this case), and I wholeheartedly agree.

  Today, she was wearing khaki slacks with pleats ironed into them, and a crisp, pink, button-up shirt tucked neatly into her pants. Her argyle headband matched her belt and her watch strap. All she was missing was a “Miss Prim ’n’ Proper Award” sash.r />
  Mary Patrick glanced in our direction, as if she’d heard my thoughts, and I quickly looked down at my own watch. It definitely didn’t match the print scarf in my hair or the silver chain-link belt around the waist of my red jumpsuit.

  “Papers are heeeere!” sang Brooke, pointing to the front of the room.

  The Lincoln Log, our school newspaper that contained the “Lincoln’s Letters” advice column, came out every Monday (which meant staffers turned their work in the previous Friday).

  The first few issues had been delivered by the staffers, so people could get to know us, but now the issues just waited by the classroom doors, and the teachers distributed them. It’s probably for the best. I ended up with a bad haircut after the first delivery.

  Mrs. H still kept some extra copies for her staffers to look at, though, and for us to talk about ways to improve the paper. “Issues with the issue,” she called it. Last week, for example, the front page had an article that was all sorts of wrong, and our class got a lecture on fact-checking.

  Today’s paper was distributed around the room so that each section had a copy. Brooke, as our team leader, was handed ours, but she spread it open on her desk so we could all see.

  “Good advice to Beat Feet,” Heather told Brooke, tapping the page.

  All our advice requesters either use fake names or we assign them fake names to avoid the embarrassment of having everyone know, say, that someone’s afraid of getting eaten alive by snails.

  “Thanks,” said Brooke. “You’d be surprised how many people wear the wrong running shoe for their foot type. Having the right shoes makes a big difference.”

  “I’ve got you talking about shoes!” I pretended to sob into my hands. “I have nothing more to teach you.”

  Brooke, Heather, and Tim laughed.

  There was a buzzing sound from the front of the room, and we all looked up to see Mary Patrick with buzzer in hand, standing beside Mrs. H.

  “I wonder who’s on the chopping block this week,” Heather said in a soft voice.

  “Gil, maybe,” said Brooke.

  We all glanced to our right to look at our assistant photographer/horoscope guru. Tie-dyed T-shirt, cargo pants with patches of rock bands sewn on the knees, and shaggy brown hair in need of styling . . . Gil was a designer’s dream makeover project.