Where I Belong
D-I-S-C-L-A-I-M-E-D
My iPhone Loudly Sings a Little Ditty.
She got diamonds on the sole of her shoes.
The Barneys saleswoman, dressed in a hideous avocado green dress, gives me a sharp look of disgust. Maybe she doesn't like Jake Simon's music. Stupid, it's a classic, and I don't have to change my ringtone each time Lady Gaga makes a costume change. Have you ever been to a party were twelve people have the same ringtone? So pathetic, it's almost as bad as two girls having the same signature scent.
From a distance I am pretty shirt avocado lady is rolling her eyes: Maybe she is one of those people who don't believe in using cell phones in public? Please, isn't that why they were invented? To make us mobile? And look around Miss. Barney's employee; I'm the only customer on the floor three, the designer collection department. It appears the whole recession thingamajig scared all the customers away.
She keeps staring at me and I know it isn't my clothes: I am wearing an Alice & Olivia lace summer white dress and nude Jimmy Choo heels with my brown hair (newly blonde highlighted) hair slicked back in a pony tail. And she's the same shopgirl who hasn't brought me the pair of Seven jeans that I asked for more than twenty minutes ago. She is probably ignoring me because I am a teenager. I just hate age discrimination, but I still refuse to shop in Juniors. First of all, I am a size five in Juniors and only a size four in Women's. Second of all, all the clothes in Juniors is cheap. I might be only sixteen years old, but I own plastic. That must count for something. The saleslady keeps glaring at me likes it's a new pastime, so I finally silence my phone. It's my mother anyway and I don't want to talk to her.
I don't want to talk to anyone. I shop alone. Sure, I'll occasionally have lunch with my friends at Fred's, the restaurant at Barney's. And I'll be sociable and make a courtesy loop or two of a store of a store afterward, but I won't wardrobe (aka power shop) with them. They either move to slow or claim they spotted that yellow eyelet Milly yellow dress first. And right now I am shopping for my first year of boarding school. This is serious.
When "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" booms in again I silence it again…I mean, really, Mom? We just spent the first two weeks of August in Nantucket, and I have less than two weeks before I need to leave for Kent, my new boarding school. I haven't even finalized my bedding and drapery because Kent has yet to tell me if I will be rooming with Alicia and Dylan, my best friends. Having never shared a room before, I totally tried to finagle a private room by lying and saying that I have a serious snoring problem. But the dean of the students said all roommates have issues and we just need to find a solution. Since a private room isn't going to happen, bunking with Alicia and Dylan is a better option than some foreign exchange student who doesn't shower daily.
Moving over to accessories, I model shades in the tiny mirror. After trying to remember if I have the same tortoiseshell Ray-Bans at home or if I just have the white, black and neon pink, I decide to buy them just in case.
Bing! bounces from inside my neon blue Marc Jacobs's purse.
A text from "her". That's how I put my mom in my phone. Funny, right?
Her: Family Meeting 7pm. Get home.
It's six and I'm supposed to do seven thirty sushi with the girls at BYOB (bring your own bottle) restaurant in East Village.
I text her back.
Massie: Fine but the meeting better last nanoseconds. I got plans.
I bring my purchases – two pairs of Notify jeans, the tortoiseshell Ray Bans (why not?) and orange Tory Burch flats- to the counter where Miss Bitter Saleswoman sits perched.
"I'd like those Sevens I asked for," I try to gently remind her how to do her job.
The saleswoman huffs off to try to find my jeans. After she packages everything into two Barneys black and white logo bags, I decide I'm definitely cabbing it. Those bags look heavy and it is way too hot to go into the dirty smelly subway.
After catching a bad outside I text Alicia and tell her I might be late.
Alicia: Don't B 2 late, we might drink all the vino and it's never fun 2 B the sober kid.
I roll my eyes and look out the window.
Family meeting here I come.