“I have no idea what to do!” Jennifer whined.
“Totally!” Julie said. “Do you guys know what you’re doing?”
“I think I’m gonna do opening this jewelry box I got for Christmas when I was eight,” Daisy said.
“Ooh, good one, Daze,” Gordon said. “Do you think I could do smoking a clove cigarette?” he asked, exhaling smoke rings, and we all cracked up.
Then Jennifer had us cracking up even more because she did an imitation of this guy in their class, Mark Wilder, who thought he was God’s Gift to Acting. She made this totally serious face with her eyebrows all knitted together and recited some Oscar Wilde piece he did in, like, a fake British accent. And she imitated Mr. Marat telling him how great he was; meanwhile everyone in the class was, like, rolling their eyes. Gordon laughed so hard, he spit a big mouthful of coffee down his front and onto the table. Then we all cracked up about that.
“So. Are we ever going to get to meet this famous Julie Braverman?” Mom asked me that afternoon as I was putting away the groceries. That was one of my jobs for my allowance. She was chopping parsley on the cutting board. It was almost dinnertime. I knew this would eventually come up.
“Um,” was all I could say at first.
“You’ve had a sleepover at Julie’s practically every Saturday night since school started,” Mom pointed out.
“Why don’t you invite her over sometime?” Dad called from the living room.
“I mean, we don’t even know what her parents do,” Mom said.
“Her mom’s a model and her dad’s in the music business,” I said kind of under my breath.
“What?” Mom said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I like going to her house.” I thought about our family eating dinner like we did every night. What if Julie found us ordinary and boring? Dinner at Julie’s meant we were free to make whatever we wanted or order pizza. Sometimes we ate with Mandy if she was around but hardly ever with Mimi. Mimi was at Harvey’s a lot. It was so great.
“Besides, you met her, Dad, when you picked me up at Caitlin’s Bat Mitzvah,” I said.
“Oh, Julie, I don’t remember. There were so many girls there,” he said.
“Let’s have her over for dinner next weekend,” Mom said. “I’ll make Peachy Chicken. . . .” she said temptingly. Chicken with peaches was my favorite dinner that Mom made, and when I was little I called it Peachy Chicken and the name stuck. Mom always made it for special occasions like my birthday. The sauce was made from Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup and canned peaches. It was the most delicious dish ever.
“I’ll think about it,” I told my mother.
I wasn’t sure why I didn’t want to invite Julie over. I mean, part of me did and part of me didn’t. Maybe it was ’cause she seemed so much more experienced and mature than me, and I thought my parents would think she was a bad influence or something. Or that they wouldn’t like that she just had a single mom who was a recovering alcoholic, and almost never home, not that they’d ever know those things. I was also scared my parents might get into one of their fights right in front of Julie, and I’d die of embarrassment. Then maybe Julie would think I come from a really screwed-up family and she would think I was really screwed-up.
Or maybe there was something about Julie and me that felt private, and I didn’t want to share it.
“I can’t believe you got that skirt,” Julie said later during our nightly phone conversation. “It’s amazing!”
“It’s probably the most expensive thing I will ever get,” I said quietly, getting comfy in my dad’s big easy chair in my parents’ bedroom. The other phone was in the kitchen, so their bedroom was the only place you could get any privacy at all. How I wished for an extension in my room. I closed the door and turned the clock radio on just in case anyone was listening, but my parents were busy watching TV, and Ellie was in her room.
“You could wear it to Kahti Fearon’s Christmas party,” Julie said.
Oh my God, yes! Kahti was a popular junior in the drama department who we barely knew, but we were totally psyched to get invited to her party. When she asked us in the hall on Monday after French, we said, “Of course we’ll come!” and then Julie dug her nails into my palm trying not to scream. She was especially excited because she had a crush on Rick DiBiassi—also a junior in drama and so Julie’s type. Dark hair, tall and skinny, leather jacket with lots of zippers. Total rocker look. Since he was in Kahti’s class, it seemed like a sure thing that he’d be at the party.
“What kind of tights should I wear with that skirt?” I asked Julie.
“Do you have any fishnets?”
“No.”
“Oh my God, have you ever been to Betsey Johnson?” she asked.
“No, what’s that?”
“It’s a store on Columbus Avenue. I have to take you there! They have the best stuff, and they have a really good selection of fishnets,” Julie said.
“Should I get a pair of fishnets?” I whispered. I was so paranoid that my parents or Ellie might be listening.
“Of course!”
“Okay! When should we go?”
“I don’t know, after school sometime? Or next Saturday?”
“Totally,” I said, and then we got into a conversation about Daisy and Jennifer Smalls and how at the beginning of the school year we didn’t really like them but now we did. When Daisy told us about her agent and the commercial she did, she wasn’t all conceited about it.
“Did your parents go to the parent-teacher conferences on Friday?” Julie asked.
“Of course,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Both of them did. They always go to my sister’s, too; they’ve never missed one. It’s so embarrassing.”
“No, it’s good, I think,” Julie said, her voice getting soft. “My mom forgot.”
“She didn’t go?”
“Nope.”
“What about your dad?”
“Are you kidding? He doesn’t even know what grade I’m in.”
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what to say. “Well, they’re just dumb meetings with the teachers. It’s not like anything important happens, really.” I didn’t know why I said that, ’cause I actually liked that my parents wanted to meet my teachers. They always came back making jokes like, “All your teachers say you’re not very bright, and you don’t work hard enough!” But then they would tell me they were proud of me. “Yeah.” Julie sounded kind of sad, and I couldn’t believe that there could be anything about my family that would seem cool to her.
“Listen,” I said, deciding to change the subject. “My parents think it’s weird that I’ve never invited you over, so . . . um . . . would you want to come over for dinner sometime?”
“Of course,” Julie said, brightening.
“Really?” I said. There. That wasn’t so hard. Hearing Julie sound into it surprised me, and I felt relieved.
“Sure,” she said. “Did you think I would say no or something?”
“I don’t know. We just always have so much fun at your place ’cause your mom’s not around. I didn’t think you’d really want to meet my parents, let alone spend an evening with them. And my sister.”
“Are you kidding? It’ll be fun. So when am I coming over?”
“How ’bout next Friday? Maybe we could go to a movie afterwards.”
“Okay,” Julie said.
Then Julie and I got absorbed in conversation again, and before we knew it we went through the entire junior class of guys in drama and could not find one who was cuter than Rick DiBiassi.
“What about Josh Heller?” I said. I always noticed Josh Heller in French. He had intense blue eyes and black hair.
“From French?” she said.
“Yeah, he’s always with that guy Tim Haas? I think he’s Josh’s best friend. Don’t you think he’s cute?” I said.
“Hmmm . . .” She thought for a second. “I suppose . . . but he’s short.”
Not for me. I was only four-foot-eleven.
From Intermediate to Advanced
It was totally blustery out the day Julie and I went to Betsey Johnson on Columbus Avenue. The style of the store was semi-punk. There were two floors, and the dressing rooms were up on the second level, on a balcony. It seemed like everything in the store came in only two colors: black and hot pink. In fact, the salesgirl who greeted us at the door wore hot-pink lipstick, a pink shirt tied at the waist, a black ruffly petticoat as a skirt, black fishnets, and combat boots.
There were black lacy body stockings—these one-piece leotards that you wore with a shirt and skirt or jeans over them. Probably too sexy for me to pull off, I thought, but Julie said, “C’mon, you gotta try one on.” There was also this hot-pink cotton dress with a low scoop neck and flowy skirt that I liked. I tried that on first but decided my stomach was too fat for it. Julie was always telling me I wasn’t fat, but I was self-conscious about my stomach anyway.
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?
Klepto Page 5
