by Coco Simon
I climbed into the car.
“Your friend certainly is colorful,” Eddie said as we drove off.
“That’s Beth,” I said. “She’s starting a fashion club.”
“Well, that’s right up your alley,” Eddie said. “Sounds like fun.”
The more I thought about it, the more excited I got about all the amazing things the fashion club could do. Now I just had to tell the Cupcake Club about it. . . .
CHAPTER 3
A Not-So-Smooth Start
Katie and I take the bus to school together every morning. In fact, that’s how we met on the first day of middle school. We still sit in the same seats—six rows from the front—that we sat in the day we met.
We usually talk the whole way to school, and that’s normally when I would have told her about stuff like the fashion club. But I felt like I should break it to the Cupcake Club all at once, so I decided to wait.
“So guess what I’m doing this weekend?” Katie asked.
“Um . . . making cupcakes? Reading cupcake cookbooks? Watching cupcake shows on TV?” I teased. Of all of us in the Cupcake Club, Katie is the most cupcake obsessed.
Katie shook her head. “No. Well, maybe one of those things. But mostly Mom wants us to go to the movies with Jeff and Emily.”
I raised an eyebrow. Jeff is also known as Mr. Green, a math teacher at our school, and he’s dating Katie’s mom. It’s totally awkward for Katie, and then it got even more awkward when she found out he has a daughter.
“Are you cool with that?” I asked.
Katie shrugged. “I guess. Jeff is always fun to be around, and Emily’s really sweet and nice.”
“You’re lucky she’s only a little younger than us and not some little kid,” I said, making a face. “Dad says that Lynne and Ethan want to go to the Bronx Zoo this weekend.”
“I love the zoo!” Katie said.
“Me too, but Ethan can be such a pain,” I complained. “He always has these crying fits, and he’s, like, always . . . sticky. It’s gross.”
Katie laughed. “The other day you were saying how cute he was.”
I sighed. “I know. I can’t make up my mind.”
The bus pulled up to school, and another day of boring classes began. I always look forward to lunch, though, because I get to be with all my friends and we get to catch up. Unfortunately, yesterday I couldn’t have lunch with them because I was in the library studying for a Spanish test. So I was really happy to see them all at lunch today.
“Thanks again for texting me those pictures of the craft fair,” Emma said as she set down her tray of salad and chicken soup. “I wish I could have been there.”
Mom had packed me hummus and vegetables, so after I crunched down on a stick of celery, I said, “We missed you. How did the shoot go?”
“It was fun!” Emma said. “Another catalog. I wore, like, five different pairs of jeans.”
You would think because Emma models sometimes she would be a good candidate for the fashion club, but I knew better. She mostly does it to save up money. She has long, blond hair and is really pretty, so I feel like everyone would want to hire her. So far she’s done a lot of stuff, and it’s always fun when we see her in a catalog or an ad.
Since we were on the topic of modeling, I decided to just come out with the whole fashion club topic.
“So, Beth Suzuki is starting a fashion club,” I began.
“That’s a great idea,” Emma said. “You’re joining, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Only there’s a little problem. The first meeting is tomorrow, and I know we have a Cupcake meeting. I’m so sorry to have to miss it.”
“It’s okay,” Katie said. “I don’t think we’re planning anything important, right?”
Alexis gave Katie a look. “All of our business is important,” she remarked. Then she smiled. “But it’s probably okay if you’re not there. If we need you to brainstorm any decoration ideas, I’ll text you.”
I felt relieved. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll make sure I don’t miss any more Cupcake meetings. I just really want to check this out.”
“I wish I liked fashion more,” Katie said wistfully. “Beth is really nice. I bet you guys will have fun.”
It was good to know my friends were okay with my joining the fashion club, and I was kind of excited walking to Mrs. Carr’s room after school the next day.
When I got to the room, Beth wasn’t there yet. I knew Libby and Jasmine, two girls who Beth hangs out with a lot. Libby has Beth’s fashion sense—a little on the punk side, but she’s not afraid to mix in wild patterns or add feminine touches, like lace or sequins or pink. She has really straight blond hair that goes down to her shoulders, and there’s usually a colored streak in it. This week it was purple.
Jasmine is totally gorgeous—tall and thin with skin the color of caramel and long, braided black hair. She could be a model like Emma if she wanted to. Her style is more like mine—she follows the trends, but keeps it classic, as Mom likes to say, and she adds twists that show off her own personality. Today she had a simple layered look going, with a pale blue tank under a black T-shirt, and she wore these really cool bangle bracelets on both wrists.
There were two other girls there who I didn’t really know that well, so I introduced myself after I said hi to Libby and Jasmine.
“Hi, I’m Mia,” I said.
“You’re in our chorus class,” replied one of the girls, who had long, curly brown hair. “I’m Julia, and this is Chelsea.”
Chelsea was short, with really big blue eyes in her round face. A hat that looked like a frog’s head was perched on top of her choppy brown hair.
“Hey,” Chelsea said.
“Oh yeah, we have chorus together,” I remembered. “I’m in a fog half the time in there, you know? Mrs. Flores always makes us sing those sappy old songs.”
“Chelsea says it’s like she’s living in the past,” Julia said with a laugh, and Chelsea smirked next to her.
Libby impatiently tapped a pencil on the table. “So where is Beth, anyway?”
“Here,” Beth said, walking into the room, followed by a girl with green eyes and glossy chestnut hair.
I kept myself from groaning out loud. I should have known Olivia Allen would be in the fashion club!
Olivia didn’t looked thrilled to see me either.
“Oh, you’re in this club?” she asked, looking right at me.
I know better than to get into it with Olivia.
“Yes,” I replied flatly, and then I sat down at the table.
Olivia and I started out as friends, but she lost my friendship after she was mean to my friends and took advantage of me being a nice person. It’s kind of complicated, but it basically meant that we weren’t friends anymore. I would have preferred it if she weren’t in the club, but I knew she liked fashion as much as I did. That’s why we became friends in the first place, so I couldn’t really be mad she had joined.
If Beth noticed Olivia giving me a dirty look, she didn’t show it. She sat down at the table.
“So, um, thanks for coming, I guess,” she said. “So, I guess we’re the Fashion Club.”
Julia started clapping and whooping, and I couldn’t help laughing. She reminded me of Katie a little bit.
“So, anyway, I had some ideas about what we could do,” Beth went on. “Like, maybe we could do a special fashion section for the newspaper. Mia could help with that because she already writes the column.”
I nodded. “That’s a good idea. We could do a special section for each season, like big newspapers do.”
“Can we do a whole section on animal prints?” Julia asked, and that’s when I noticed she was wearing a lavender T-shirt with black-and-white zebra stripes across the front, as well as a zebra-striped wristband and zebra-striped socks with her flats.
“I was thinking of doing that for next week’s column,” I said. “Zebra is trending right now.”
“I also thought we could do a fas
hion show,” Beth continued. “You know, like where we get a store to lend us clothes, and we model them and style the other models and everything.”
“Oh, I would so love to do that,” Jasmine agreed.
“It sounds cool, but I just hope it doesn’t take up a lot of time,” Libby said, still tapping her pencil. “My mom just doubled up my violin lessons, and now I’m volunteering at the animal shelter on weekends.”
Olivia cleared her throat, making it clear she had something important to say.
“Shouldn’t we elect officers before we start throwing out ideas?” she asked.
“You mean like president and treasurer and stuff?” Beth asked. “I didn’t know if we wanted to do that.” Then she turned and looked at me. “Do you have officers in the Cupcake Club?”
“Not exactly,” I replied. “We all have different jobs that we do, though.”
“It doesn’t matter what the Cupcake Club does,” Olivia interjected, her tone clearly showing what she thought of the club. “This is our club, and we make the rules. And I think we should have officers, like we do in the BFC.”
BFC stands for “Best Friends Club,” and it’s basically made up of the popular girls in our grade. I had no idea they had officers, but I guessed Callie Wilson must be the president, because she’s the most popular of all the members.
“Well, I guess . . .” Beth’s voice trailed off, and I could tell she didn’t really care.
“It’s the best way to do it,” Olivia pressed on, “so nobody is confused about who’s in charge.”
Chelsea spoke up for the first time. “Why does somebody have to be in charge?”
“Somebody has to be in charge of when and where we have the meetings, and if we do events, they have to give everybody jobs and stuff,” Olivia pointed out.
“If we’re going to vote, can we just do it?” Libby asked. “I’ve got a ton of homework tonight.”
“Fine, then let’s vote or whatever,” Beth said.
“I was president of the dance committee at my old school,” Olivia declared, and it was clear what she was hinting at—she wanted to be president of the Fashion Club, too.
It was kind of fun just sitting back and seeing how everything would work out. No way did I want to be in a club if Olivia was president. But I had a feeling I didn’t need to speak up.
And I didn’t. Libby spoke up right away.
“Beth should be president. This was her idea,” Libby said.
“Libby is right,” agreed Jasmine.
“Beth should definitely be president,” Julia added.
Chelsea shrugged. “Whatever.”
That’s when I stepped in.
“So, it’s settled, then,” I said. “Beth is president by a landslide. Congratulations, Beth!”
“But we’re supposed to . . . I mean . . .” Olivia was flustered, I could tell.
“I guess we need a vice president, then,” Beth said. “Libby, you should do it.”
Libby shook her head. “No way. Too busy.”
I decided to play nice. I definitely didn’t want the job, and Olivia really seemed motivated. “How about Olivia?” I suggested.
Everybody just kind of shrugged.
“Sure.”
“Yeah.”
“Whatever.”
Olivia brightened a little bit after that, and for a second I almost regretted bringing up her name. Olivia with a little power could be a dangerous thing. But it was just a fashion club, after all. I mean, what could she really do?
“Thanks,” Olivia said. “Now we need to elect other officers—secretary and treasurer.”
“Jasmine’s good at math. Jasmine, you should be treasurer,” Beth said.
“Sure,” Jasmine replied.
“So who wants to be secretary?” Olivia asked, looking at Libby.
I didn’t offer to do it. Like I said, the Cupcake Club keeps me pretty busy already. But Julia waved her hand. “I’ll do it!”
“Cool,” Beth said. “So, um, I guess we could, like, figure out what we want to do.”
So we talked for a few minutes about our future plans, and I brought up the idea of going into the city. Julia wrote down everything in a zebra-striped notebook with a zebra-striped pen.
“Can we go now?” Libby asked after a while. “I do not want to be up all night doing my social studies homework.”
“Yeah, sure,” Beth said.
And that was our first Fashion Club meeting. Not much talking, lots of zebra stripes, and a power play by Olivia. Definitely interesting!
CHAPTER 4
Mixed Feelings
I’m usually in a good mood on Fridays—not just because school is out for the weekend, but because every other Friday I go into the city to see my dad. Even though I like living in Maple Grove with my mom; Eddie; and my stepbrother, Dan, I miss my dad a lot during the week.
We have this tradition on most Fridays: After he picks me up from the train station, we go have sushi. Lately we’ve been going to Omen, my new favorite restaurant. It’s really beautiful and peaceful inside, and we always get a table in the back by the waterfall.
That night I ordered a spicy tuna roll and four pieces of salmon sashimi, which is basically thin slices of salmon on top of little mounds of rice. Part of the reason I love eating sushi is because of the ritual when you eat it. You pour soy sauce into a tiny ceramic bowl, add a little spicy green wasabi paste and mix it up, and then you pick up the sushi with chopsticks and dip it before you eat it.
That’s how I do it, anyway. My dad usually gets a big plate of sashimi, with all different kinds of raw fish. He likes to put a little wasabi on top of the fish and then dip it into the soy sauce. Tonight I noticed that he was piling the green paste on top of a piece of hamachi.
“Dad, I know you like things spicy, but are you really going to eat that?” I asked him.
Dad looked up like I had interrupted his thoughts. “What?” He looked down at his plate. “Oh wow, that would not taste good.” Then he scraped off the wasabi mound.
I didn’t think too much about it. My dad is an architect, and he’s always busy with some new project, so I figured he was thinking about business. He looks businesslike all the time too. He’s got black hair that is never out of place because he uses just the right amount of hair gel. He wears tailored suits, and then there are his black glasses, which totally add to the professional look.
My phone chimed, and I took it out of my bag to check it. “I wonder who’s texting me,” I said.
“Mija, you know how I feel about the phone at dinner,” Dad scolded. (Mija is kind of like his nickname for me. It means “my daughter” in Spanish, and it sounds a lot like my name.)
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s Ava. She wants to know if we can do something tomorrow, but I’ve got to tell her we’re going to the zoo.”
Dad put down his chopsticks. “About that,” he said, and he looked uncomfortable. “I need to tell you something.”
“What is it?” I asked, feeling a little worried.
He let out a big breath. “It’s Lynne and I,” he said. “We . . . we broke up.”
It took a moment for this to sink in. “So you’re not going to see each other anymore?”
Dad shook his head. “No, honey. I’m sorry. It just didn’t work out between us.”
I thought about this for a minute. Lynne was nice and everything, and I guess I would miss her a little bit. Then there was Ethan. I had already started to think about what it would be like to have him as my brother—and now I would never see him again. It was a little sad, and a lot weird.
“Are you okay?” I asked Dad.
“Don’t worry about me, honey,” Dad said. “Are you okay? I know you liked Lynne.”
I shrugged. “Whatever. I’m fine,” I said. I mean, I liked her, but I didn’t really want her to be my stepmother or anything. I liked Eddie right away, but Lynne, well . . . she was fine, but we really didn’t have a lot in common. And every time we were together she was
running after Ethan, so we never got a chance to talk too much.
I picked up a piece of spicy tuna roll with my chopsticks and popped it into my mouth. The next few minutes were kind of silent and awkward, and then I realized something.
“So can I see Ava tomorrow?” I asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Dad replied with a little sigh. “What do you want to do?”
The idea came to me immediately. “Well, I just joined this fashion club in school, and we’ve been talking about coming into the city on some kind of fashion field trip,” I told him. “So maybe Ava and I could go see the Costume Institute’s exhibit at the Met. I haven’t been there in a while.”
Ava is my best friend from the city, and she likes fashion as much as I do. I knew the Costume Institute’s exhibit would be the perfect place for a field trip. It’s in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, right in the center of Manhattan. There are, like, thousands of costumes and accessories in the collection, and at least once a year they put together an exhibit based around a theme.
“There’s a new photography exhibit I’ve been wanting to see,” Dad said, smiling a little for the first time since he’d picked me up. “I’ll go with you guys, and we can split up.”
“Can I text Ava now?” I asked anxiously.
“Okay,” Dad said reluctantly. “Just keep it short.”
As I guessed, Ava was more than happy to go. After Dad and I got back to the apartment, I spent the night looking at the museum’s website to figure out what I wanted to focus on tomorrow. The exhibit theme this time around was punk fashion from the seventies and how it influenced today’s fashion. I realized this would also be the perfect topic for a fashion column, which was great. I could finish the article Sunday night and get it to Donovan early.
So I was feeling pretty good as I got ready for bed, until I opened my bag to unpack and the little stuffed purple monster I’d bought at the craft fair fell out. As soon as I saw it, my eyes started to tear up a little. It was supposed to be for Ethan, but now I would never see him again.
It’s silly to cry, I told myself. He was annoying, anyway. But I still couldn’t help feeling sad.
