A/N: Thank you Miyami-Chan, Artists & Guest for your reviews :)
iv
The Westchester
3:50 PM
21 August 2014
Freshman Year
"Is it that hard for them to stock enough xxs'?" Alicia spat angrily, tearing through the stack of delicate silk blouses. "Honestly! When's the last time you saw an extra-large in Aritzia?"
"That's what you get for shopping Mall brands," Massie said with disdain. The brunette alpha was perched on a chair in the dressing area, her purchase of destroyed J Brand jeans already made.
"Don't pretend half of your closet isn't Free People, Mass," Alicia bit back. Claire watched in wide-eyed surprise. What normally would have been free-spirited and fun joking around was taking a vindictive turn. Claire slouched in embarrassment when she noted the Aritzia sales assistants looking on with interest. The narrow Aritzia space was not a good set for a fight built on pent-up frustration and confusion.
"Watcha think?" came a question from the dressing room. Claire turned to see Dylan waltz out in a dark auburn long-sleeved fit-and-flare jersey dress. Massie looked at her gamma for a moment, rolled her eyes, and went back to her phone. The brunette's mood was growing worse by the moment.
Claire placed her finger on her chin pensively.
"Try the next size down, Dyl," she finally said. "It looks a little loose around the hips."
"No way, for real?" Dylan's green eyes lit up with excitement. "I might finally be an extra small!" With that, the red-head disappeared behind the curtain again. Claire smiled, glad to help, and went back to examining the many plaid blanket scarves before her. The accessories were marked down to less than $20, but almost every scarf had a pick in the silk or some other imperfection.
From across the store, Claire could still hear Alicia muttering about not finding anything to fit her slim frame. It didn't surprise her when the Latina growled, "Ugh. No way." It took Massie spinning around in her seat to capture Claire's attention. When the blonde finally turned, she saw what her friends had been alarmed about.
In three-point formation, Olivia, Cora and Kori sashayed into the store. Great.
The perfect petite blonde at the front noted the members of the Pretty Committee immediately. After a quick word to her cronies, she headed straight for them with a smirk on her face. Claire groaned inwardly. Of course this would happen in the narrowest store at the mall, where there was no escape.
"Why, hello there!" Olivia sing-sung her words to the rhythm of her Manolos on the wood floor. "Getting some retail therapy? You deserve it… I hear losers have a really hard time at school. Not that I would know."
"Olivia," Alicia warned, appearing behind the blonde. She purposely bumped into Coral and Kori as she moved to stand next to Massie. Claire kept her post by the scarves, ready to jump behind the counter if evasive maneuvering was needed.
"So…" Olivia pronounced the word as 'sew'; long and drawn out. "How was your day?"
Massie finally looked up from her iPhone, locking Olivia in her amber-colored gaze. Her perfectly-glossed lips didn't move.
"Cat got your tongue? You know-"
Olivia's words were cut off by Dylan's dramatic pull of the curtain. The redhead stepped out into the dressing area, clearly unaware of the showdown that was about to take place. Once she recognized Olivia & Crew's presence, she stopped mid-strut.
"Hmm…" Olivia said delicately, eying the red head before her. "Girls?" She turned dramatically. Kori and Coral nodded eagerly, ready for what their alpha had to say.
"I didn't know looking like a barn was en vogue this season!" Olivia said, looking rather pleased with herself. No one laughed. Olivia gave a meaningful kick to Kori's knee, and the blond -half- crumpled to the ground before getting the hint and giggling at the burn.
Massie and Alicia gave deep sighs in unison and turned back to their shopping as Dylan slunk back into her dressing room.
"Whatever!" Olivia spoke with finality. "You guys are at the bottom. Everyone at WCHL knows. The truly pretty leaders have risen at last!"
Once the blonde had finally left the store, Massie shook her head and re-crossed her legs.
"Pathetic," Alicia offered. The Spanish girl turned and began sorting through clothes again in search of her size. As an afterthought, she said, "And Dyl? You do nawt look like a barn! That was most ridiculous insult I've ever heard."
"I know," Dylan called. She emerged from the dressing room, clad in her original outfit. "I can't buy it now though, I wouldn't be able to wear it to school."
"This is such a joke," Massie spit out, finally letting her emotions show on her face. "Since when do idiots and mindless followers rise to the top of the social ladder? How can that be more popular than us?"
Kristen finally made her appearance. She had been crouched underneath the jeans display, trying to find a pair of Halston boyfriend jeans for Alicia.
"I don't think they're necessarily well-liked," Kristen pointed out as she handed the pair of jeans to her friend. "They just aren't hated as much as we are."
Twenty minutes later found the Pretty Committee in the Range Rover, all hopes for a fun stress-relieving shopping trip evaporated. The girls sat in uncomfortable silence as Massie brooded, Kristen speed-read The Odyssey, Dylan snacked on low-calorie chocolate graham crackers, and Claire intermittently dwelled on the humiliating events of the day and daydreamed about how she was going to design her Wurld Social home.
The first event that had gone wrong that day was receiving another "mark" (what the Westchester Conservatory for Higher Learning called referral slips) when she was literally one-half second late to American Literature. To be honest, it was more like a half minute, but Claire was used to the luxury of waltzing into every period fifteen minutes late, backed by the Blocks' contribution to OCD. WCHL was a whole new world.
In Algebra, she had been called up to the board to complete a problem and had made a glaring mistake in simple multiplication. The teacher had even held back giggles.
To add to that, Claire had sat on a palate of clay during Nature Ceramics in a pair of William Rast skinnies that Massie had just passed down to her. She had been forced to change into Dylan's gigantic back-up Rag & Bone destroyed boyfriend jeans. Claire had been forced to fashion a belt out of braided twine, which took the fashion disaster to a whole new level. That event had led to Cam asking Josh if Claire was now a lesbian not-so under-his-breath in Human Health.
And finally, Massie had dragged them all to the mall where they had experienced a run in with Olivia and crew. Altogether, a great second day at school.
Once the Range Rover made it's final stop on Massie's driveway, the brunette swung herself out of the car and marched up towards her front door. Claire didn't pause to acknowledge the brunette's rudeness as she half-skipped her way up to her front door. She finally had something to look forward to, no matter how lame that sounded.
After stopping by the kitchen to procure a small snack (snap pea crisps, two leftover chocolate chip cookies, hazelnut toffee and a bowl of strawberries with nutella), Claire ascended the stairs and plunked down at her iMac.
"Okay, a little bit of everything first," Claire murmured. She had promised herself that she would get through a little homework before burying herself in the design of her Wurld Social home.
Three Algebra problems (graphing took a whole minute to do!), a half-assed Cell Analogy poster, one-half of a literary analysis and a quarter of a Spanish Workbook page later; Claire double clicked on google and typed in "wurld social."
The login page appeared and Claire readily typed in 'sexiblonde37' along with her password.
Immediately, a page popped up prompting her to pick her geolocation in the game. She would always start from this location, and her (first) house would be in the general vicinity. Claire readily chose Westchester county, but she made sure to put the exact marker a few miles from her house. She had listened in those asinine Internet Safety Lectures, after all.
Now, for the fun part. Claire walked her avatar (she would have to remember to get a car eventually) to the local real estate office and looked at the options available. Every listing was being sold by another player in the game. Townhomes, extravagant mansions spilling over with amenities or flat plots of land on which new homes could be built.
Claire came across the fifteen acre plot of land that, in real life, the Rivera mansion was situated on. Over two million e-coins. That would take a large chunk out of her 5,000 daily allowance in the form of an e-mortgage, and there wasn't even a house on it. She already had a small credit card debt to pay back, as she had blown through her $50,000 welcome-to-the-game check plus some the day before by shopping on Fifth avenue.
Sadly, she turned away from the Rivera plot. She tried searching on Thoroughbred Way for a property close to the Block estate, but all were occupied by players. Finally, she found success on Pine Crest Avenue, almost exactly where Dylan lived in real life. It was a half-acre of hilly land, with a small one-bedroom loft that would tide her over as she racked up e-money to pay off the loan and create the eventual mansion she wanted.
Claire signed the mortgage agreement for $791,000 e-money, sliding over $4,000 up front. 1313 Pine Crest Avenue was officially hers! Claire had her avatar sprint to her new home (an impressive feat for four inch stiletto heels). It was small, modern, and looked like a perfect starter home. Some of the furniture remained, but it was missing important things like a television, a blender and an automated vacuum robot. Claire quickly racked up another $1,000 buying the essentials. She then noted that the color scheme in the house did not flow at all and eventually dropped $500 on a premium Silver ABC Carpet + Home metal-infused paint color for all the walls in the home.
Claire sat back with a satisfied sigh and popped a Nutella-strawberry in her mouth. Her flat was off to a good start. She instructed her avatar to start putting up her clothes purchases in the virtual closet, and worked through another two Algebra graphing problems in the meantime. When the process was over, Claire changed her avatar's clothes to a Herve Leger draped silk sundress and an oversized tan Free People sweater. A Loeffler Randall structured envelope clutch and cobalt blue suede Manolos finished the look.
What should she do now? Claire pondered the idea. Perhaps it was time she looked for a job to start paying off her debt. Getting a head start would be nice. First though, she would reward herself with a coffee at the Westchester Starbucks.
Claire had her avatar start walking down town, automatically waving at other players as they went about their daily business. It was roughly 2 PM Wurld Social time, and many players were getting off work. The sun was shining overhead, and many people opted to walk in the sun rather than drive their various e-cars.
Claire's avatar quickly reached the closest Starbucks. Inside, she ordered a venti half-caf vanilla Frappuccino with two pumps of sugar-free raspberry and one hazelnut. Grabbing her drink, she found an unoccupied table near the window. Outside, she could observe other players going through the drive-thru and sitting outside. People seemed to have a lot of friends in this game. Maybe that could be her next project: becoming very popular in the Wurld Social realm. It couldn't be that hard.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, the chair beside her was pulled out with a soft screech.
Claire spun her avatar around to look at the intruder. He had a blonde buzz-cut, with khakis and a cute plaid button down and black puffy vest. A speech bubble appeared above his head.
Basketballstar63: Sorry :)
Claire immediately clicked on his black name. Basketballstar63...registered two months ago...14-18...e-Location: Westchester, NY. Something seemed awfully familiar about the avatar, but then again, every male avatar in the game had some variation of the buzz-cut.
Basketballstar63: So, hey?
Sexiblonde37: hey :)
To be honest, it was exciting to have a conversation with someone other than her same four friends. Claire was finally branching out. And it felt good.