Life After Theft
Page 20

I was afraid of where Kimberlee might take me next, but relief washed over me as she lead me into a store called Blue Jeans Bar. This couldn’t be too bad.
And it wasn’t—until she made me buy a glittering silver belt.
“It matches the shirt,” she protested when I refused to even pick up the spangled accessory.
“So? The shirt sucks!”
“The shirt is awesome. Trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“Maybe that was the wrong phrase to use.” She paused, thinking. “Believe in my innate fashion sense that has never been wrong.”
My shoulders slumped. She was the one who had been to all the Harrison Hill parties before.
I picked up the belt.
“I knew you had good judgment,” she said, flouncing off toward a huge display of baggy, torn jeans.
I tried to argue about the faded and patched jeans that looked just like the ones I had at home, and even more strongly against the jean jacket she paired them with. But when it came to fashion among Santa Monica’s elite, I had nothing to go on, and though I’d never seen Kimberlee in anything but her uniform, I kind of assumed she must have been fashionable.
I refused to even look at the amount when the cashier rang me up. I could decide if it was worth it after the party.
“One more stop,” Kimberlee said, heading back up the street.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I insisted as quietly as possible. “I am not getting shoes,” I said, cutting her off.
“What?”
“I’m not getting shoes.” I pointed at the bags I was holding. “This is enough.”
“Who said anything about shoes?”
Well, that was comforting.
I followed her a few more steps into a store and stood there for several seconds before I realized I was surrounded by lingerie of every shape, size, and color I could have possibly imagined.
And several my imagination had never come up with.
The ten or so women in the store were all staring at me.
I froze for a few seconds before muttering, “Excuse me,” and fleeing the store. As soon as I was safely on the sidewalk I looked up at the sign. Lisa Normal Lingerie. Perfect. Kimberlee strikes again.
Kimberlee walked out of the store with that wide-eyed expression of innocence I was becoming sickeningly familiar with. “You won’t come in and just browse with me?” she asked. “I can’t exactly move the hangers myself.”
“You think this is about me being afraid to touch underwear?” I sputtered. Remembering that no one could see Kimberlee but me, I lowered my voice and slipped around the corner of the store. “This isn’t about the underwear. You keep doing this! Putting me in stupid or embarrassing situations and then acting like you have no idea how it happened. Well I am not going to go in and do you a favor after you pull that kind of crap on me. No!”
“Whatever. You just don’t want to be in a lingerie store.”
“I am not afraid of bras!” I said, knowing, even as the words escaped my mouth, that I sounded like a total moron.
Kimberlee sighed dramatically. “Fine. I’ll have to hope I get lucky with one of the other browsers.”
“And I’m not going to wait out here on the sidewalk for you.”
“Whatever,” she said, and strolled into the store without looking back. I just grabbed my bags and walked back toward my car. She could find her own way home.
Ten
AT NINE THIRTY THAT NIGHT I stood in front of the full-length mirror on my closet door in an outfit that no one in their right mind would ever refer to as either chic or elegant.
“I look ridiculous,” I whispered to Kimberlee who had, as I suspected, made her way back just in time to direct—as she called it—my transformation.
“Please,” Kimberlee lectured. “I led the fashion revolution around here. When I was alive, I didn’t just wear fashions, I made them. What you ‘look’ is fabulous. Stop complaining.”
I watched my eyebrow raise in the mirror.
“This outfit accentuates your form,” Kimberlee insisted, her hand doing this funky silhouette thing. I thought it just made me look skinny.
For starters, the pants were too big; the only thing keeping them from sliding down to my ankles was that appalling sparkly belt balanced on my hip bones. The shirt was covered with the jean jacket, which was too small. It only just reached my waistline and was too slim to zip up in the front.
“It’s not for warmth,” Kimberlee protested when I pointed that out. “It’s decor.”
At least she let me wear my old scuffed Doc Martens. “They’re practically vintage,” she said, using the same word that hadn’t been good enough for my jeans and tees this morning.
I didn’t care what she called them as long as she let me wear them.
“Okay,” Kimberlee said after scrutinizing me from head to toe. “Let’s go.” She paused. “Unless you want to do some guy-liner—just a little?”
My eyes widened. Oh hell no.
“I didn’t think so,” she said, heading toward the door. “Come on, then; I’ll show you the shortcut.”
This was the hard part. “Uh, Kimberlee?”
“Yeah,” she said distractedly.
“Can I go by myself?”
She paused and turned to look at me. “Yourself?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I’d just be more comfortable.”