Julie came out of the dressing room giggling in her black bra, body stocking, and a hot-pink miniskirt.
“That looks amazing!” I said.
“You think?” she said.
“Yes, definitely, but maybe you should have like a white button-down shirt or something on top. Like tied around the waist maybe? With a wide black belt?”
“Oh, totally. Good idea,” she said. She threw her T-shirt over her top and went downstairs to find some vintage white men’s dress shirts and belts. Girls wearing big men’s shirts was really in, especially if they were cotton-soft and really worn-looking.
I changed from the pink dress to the body stocking and put my Fiorucci jeans over them to see how that looked. I was right—it wasn’t really me. Julie came back up wearing a white shirt unbuttoned over her bodysuit and carrying a few belts and three more white shirts. There were only two dressing rooms up on the balcony, and we were the only ones up there.
“Ta-da!” she whispered as she pulled out a pair of black fishnets she had hidden between two shirts. “Size A, right?”
“Yeah, thanks!” I squealed.
“Shh! Put them in your bag,” Julie said, tying the bottom parts of the white shirt around her waist. She faced the mirror, and I noticed something rectangular sticking out from under her shirt at her shoulder.
I gasped quietly. “Uh-oh, Jule.”
“What?” she whispered.
“I guess you didn’t feel this, did you?” I said, reaching down her back and pulling up the white plastic sensor thing that was attached to the body stocking. It was like two pieces of whitish-grayish plastic hinged together like a clamp or rectangular jaws or something. It would set the alarm off at the front door.
She thought for a second but didn’t seem to bug out. I was thinking,
Oh well, we’ll just leave empty-handed, who really cares?
Then Julie said, “Come in here a sec.” So we both went into her dressing room and pulled the pink velvet curtain shut. Fishing through her bag, she pulled out her purple LeSportsac makeup bag and found a tiny nail scissors. We sat on the pink carpet and Julie stretched the back of the bodysuit around her waist so the plastic sensor was almost in her lap.
“Look, it’s on a seam,” she whispered. She cut a tiny hole and slipped it off. “Piece of cake.” Dropping the plastic sensor on the floor, she told me to turn around and she’d do mine.
“How’s it going up there, girls? Those shirts okay?” It was the salesgirl shouting up from downstairs. Julie gave me a look like,
You go,
and I said, “Fine,” leaning on the railing of the balcony.
“Fabulous!” the girl said. “You wanna try any other belts?”
I looked back toward Julie. “No, I think we’re good!” I shouted.
“All right!” she said.
I went back into Julie’s dressing room and took a deep breath. “We just could have been so dead! What if she had come up here?” I said.
“C’mon. Let me get your plastic thing,” Julie whispered, seeming unfazed.
“Nah, it’s okay,” I said, taking the body stocking off. “I don’t want it; it’s not really me.”
“Do you want a white shirt?”
“Well, yeah. . . .” I hesitated.
She started searching for the plastic tag on one of the white shirts. Down at the waist, again on a seam, there it was. Turning the shirt inside out a little, with two snips, off it came.
“See that?” Julie said. “Because it’s on a seam, it’ll be easy to fix that hole.”
“Or I could even leave the hole,” I said. “Then my mom will believe me if I say it cost me five dollars at the flea market.”
“Oh, you’re a genius. But your mom never asks where you get stuff,” Julie said.
“True,” I said. How could my mom be so oblivious? “So you’re gonna get the body stocking?”
“Yup and I think that pink dress you don’t want.”
“Oh my God, that dress is, like, seventy-eight dollars!” I started giggling.
“I know!” Julie giggled back.
What courage she has,
I thought. Then again, who was I to talk? I got a 250-dollar skirt last month.
She snipped the plastic sensor off the pink dress.
“I’ll meet you downstairs, Jule,” I said, carrying the remaining two white shirts. I figured we’d just leave the belts in the dressing room.
“’Kay,” she said.
The salesgirl greeted me on the ground floor. “How’d you make out?” she said.
“Fine,” I said. “I think I’m gonna put these back, though, and look around a little more.”
If only Mrs. Zeig could see this performance,
I thought, feeling pretty proud of myself.
“Okay, I’ll take them,” the girl said, taking the white shirts. She didn’t notice that we had started with four and now there were only two. She turned away from me just as Julie came down with her Chocolate Soup bag, which looked a little fuller.
“All set?” Julie said.
“Yup,” I said.
“Oh, girls!” the salesgirl suddenly called to us. “Did one of you leave this?” I looked up at her on the balcony and my heart did a somersault. She was holding Julie’s purple LeSportsac makeup bag. I felt the blood rush to my face. How did she get up there so fast?
“Oh, Jesus,” Julie said quietly, and then totally acting, said, “Yes! Thank you! Sometimes I’m such a spaz!” And she laughed at herself, meeting the salesgirl on the hot-pink-carpeted steps that went to the balcony.
“Not a problem,” she said. “I’m always leaving my stuff places. Like, how many times have you ever left your umbrella in a cab? Or your sunglasses?”
“I know!” Julie said.
C’mon Jule, I can’t take this. . . . We gotta go. We. Got. To. Go.
Julie took her makeup bag back, but she was careful not to put it in her bag in front of the salesgirl. Who knew what was in there close to the surface?
“Thanks again!” Julie said, and we were out the door. There was no sound but our feet hitting the pavement.
Outside, we crossed Columbus Avenue. I could feel the warmth return to my hands as my nervousness subsided. We headed toward Central Park, where we sat on a bench outside the planetarium.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” I said. “The Chocolate Soup bags”—I touched hers—“did you steal them?”
“Of course! Those are expensive!” I don’t know why, but I was kind of surprised.
“Why did you take two?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t know which one I liked better, and it was really easy there. Crowded store, nobody really paying attention, no security . . .”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“I don’t know, I’ve just been wondering.”
“Are you mad at me for giving you something I stole?” she said.
“Not at all!” I said. “I love this bag.” Suddenly I saw this side of her like I was important to her.
We gathered up our stuff off the bench and started walking toward Broadway. I noticed the leaves were really blowing around like crazy. Christmas was two weeks away; I loved this time of year.
“Hey,” I said, stopping for a second.
“What?”
“What did you do with the white plastic things?” I asked.
“I pulled up a piece of the carpet in the dressing room and stuck them under there,” she said, smiling.
“Oh my God,” I said. We started walking again and I thought to myself,
I just went from intermediate to advanced.
When Julie came over for dinner, she had on a new polka-dot top. I hadn’t seen her wear it yet, but I knew she probably
got
it from Canal Jeans. I wore my green baggy jeans that I
got
from Unique Antique Boutique one day after school with Julie. She was being extra polite, saying “Yes, please” and “Thank you” to my parents, and I started to think I was stupid to be so worried. Of course she knew how to act in front of them. It’s not like she was going to blurt out some klepto story of ours. Or describe for my family the graphic details of the last guy she made out with. And I was pretty psyched that she even liked the Peachy Chicken. She kept making yummy sounds and saying to my mom, “Mrs. Prodsky! This is so good!”
“I’m glad you like it,” Mom said. “And please, call me Helene.”
“So, Julie, has your family always lived on Ninety-Ninth Street?” Dad wanted to know.
“Since I was born,” she said.
“I hear your dad is in the music business?” Mom said.
“Yeah, he produces some jazz singers like Judy Coles Harner,” Julie said. “She sings at cabaret places.”
“Is that right—Judy Coles Harner!” Dad said. “We love her music. We have several of her records!”
“Oh. Cool,” Julie said politely.
Then my mom said that she was pretty sure Judy Coles Harner played at the Algonquin once, this really fancy dinner club-type place, but Bernie was too cheap to take her there.
“Helene,” Dad said, trying to stay calm. “Are you going to start?” This seemed to shut her up because she just glared at him over her forkful of chicken. Dad pretended not to see her expression, and I don’t think Julie noticed. Then Dad launched into a long, boring story about one of the students in his speech class at St. Andrew’s College. You wouldn’t believe the problems with the New Jersey state school system and blah blah blah. I mean, like, did he think we cared? Didn’t they realize my new best friend was sitting at their table eating with my great-grandmother’s good silver?
Ellie barely said a word, but that was nothing new. We might as well have been watching Tom Brokaw during dinner, which we sometimes did. Why couldn’t they be like other people’s parents? When I went to Kristin’s house for dinner the first time, her dad wanted to know all about my interest in acting and stuff. Kristin nearly died of embarrassment, but I didn’t mind.
Finally, when Dad’s story ended, Julie asked Ellie what clubs she and her friends liked to go to.
“What?” Ellie said with a mouth full of salad.
“What clubs do you like?” Julie repeated, “Like, the Roxy or Xenon, you know. . . .”
“Um . . . I’m not. . . . I don’t. I don’t really go to clubs,” she said, looking down.
“Oh,” Julie said cheerfully. “Well what do you like to do?” And then there was this weird silence, and I tried to think of something to say. Julie gave me a shifty look like,
Sorry, did I say something wrong?
“She likes to go to museums,” I blurted out. “She doesn’t really do normal teenage stuff.”
“Shut up!” Ellie said, getting upset.
“What?” I said innocently. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
“You’re just too stupid to understand museums!” she hissed.
“I’m not too stupid, just too bored! Besides, I like to do things with people in my age group, not with, like, fifty-year olds!”
“Girls! Girls!” Mom raised her voice. “Come on now, we have a guest. Behave yourselves!” Then we were all quiet for a minute. “Bernie, pass the salad,” Mom said.
Then I felt Ellie give me a hard kick under the table.
“Ow! Hey!” I threw my fork at her face, but I missed.
“All right! Enough!” Dad yelled.
“You deserved it,” Ellie said. “Trying to act all high and mighty in front of your new friend! Who are you trying to impress? Please! Spare us, Miss Actress!” Then she threw her napkin in her chair, stormed off to her room, and slammed the door. I felt the tears welling up, but I swallowed hard. Julie, my parents, and I sat there in the weird silence again. Mom wiped her mouth with her napkin like nothing had happened.
“I’m sorry, Julie,” I said under my breath.
“No, no, it’s okay,” she said, and touched my hand for a second.
“Honestly,” my mom said, looking at Julie. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with them.” She shook her head like,
What a pity.
“Oh, my sisters and I fight all the time, too,” Julie said, but I knew she was just saying that.
“Ellie’s just jealous, ’cause she doesn’t have any friends,” I said.
“Julie, stop—” Mom said, but Dad interrupted her.
“How ’bout some dessert?” He stood up to clear his plate, taking Julie’s. I stood, too, taking my plate and Mom’s. “We’ve got some nice melon, cookies. . . . Julie? What do you like?” It was clear he was talking to the other Julie.
“Oh, I’m fine, Mr. Prodsky. I couldn’t eat another thing.”
“You sure?” he called from the kitchen.
“Yes. Dinner was delicious. I’m so full,” she said.
“Really? It’s no trouble,” Mom said. “Honey! Will you bring me an apple?” she said to my dad. Then, to Julie, “I’m trying to stay away from the cookies. But you girls go ahead.”
“An apple!” Dad sang from the kitchen.
“Would you like an apple?” Mom said to Julie.
“No, really, I’m fine.”
“We should get going if we’re gonna catch that movie. Is that all right, Mom? If we go now?” I said.
“Well, all right. Where are you going?”
“Loew’s Eighty-Third. We’re seeing
Arthur
.”
“Okay,” Mom said, seeming a little disappointed that dinner ended so abruptly. I went to the front hall closet to get our jackets.
“Thanks so much for dinner, Mrs. Prodsky,” Julie said.
“Helene,” Mom said, forcing a smile. She sucked on an ice cube from her empty glass of water.
“Oh . . . okay,” Julie said, sounding a little uncomfortable.
“Bye! Have fun, girls!” Dad said from the kitchen doorway.
“Back by eleven thirty, right?” Mom said.
“
Yes
, I
know
,” I said, not hiding my annoyance.
I locked the door behind us while Julie rang for the elevator.
“I am so sorry,” I said to Julie. “I didn’t think tonight would be such a nightmare.”
“What are you talking about?” she said. “It wasn’t that bad. Your parents are nice. They’re funny. And it only got sticky there at the end with Ellie. I’m sorry if I caused that.”
“No you didn’t. . . . She’s just . . . weird.” Then I just couldn’t hold my tears back anymore; they came sliding down my cheeks.