All That Glitters (From the Files of Madison Finn, 20) (8 page)

Madison quickly hit
SAVE
and closed her laptop. She placed it gently on the floor next to the bed. Then she climbed out and linked arms with her other two friends. Slowly, carefully, the three of them climbed atop Lindsay’s bed.

Lindsay’s mouth was wide open. She wasn’t snoring, but she was deep asleep. Her hair was spread out on the pillow like tentacles.

“When I count to three, hold on tight, and start jumping,” Aimee whispered.

Madison had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing out loud. Fiona almost lost her balance and fell off the bed. Thankfully she didn’t, or she would have dragged everyone with her.

“One…two…three!”

“WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”

“Happy Birthday!”

The three BFFs began to jump up and down on the bed. Everything shook. Lindsay rolled over, eyes half open. She pulled a pillow back over her head. But it was hard for her to pretend to sleep anymore. Her bed was in the midst of a devastating earthquake, and she was in danger of flying off onto the floor.

Fiona jumped harder. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” she said.

Madison kneeled down and pulled on the pillow. “No more sleeping, birthday girl!” she cried, almost losing her balance.

Lindsay groaned. “Uh…uh…uh…what time is it?”

“Well, it’s time for a very big breakfast and a very big day,” a voice said from the doorway.

It was, of course, Aunt Mimi standing there. Today she had her red hair pulled up in a giant black hair clip. She wore a shocking-pink top with pencil-thin jeans and leather boots—straight from the pages of the
Fashion Times
. Her lips shimmered pink, too. Up and down her arms she wore gold and silver bangle bracelets that jangled as she moved her arms. Madison loved jewelry like that, jewelry that made music. Her favorite teacher at school, Mrs. Wing, wore similar bracelets.

Lindsay finally popped out from underneath the pillow, nearly knocking everyone else off the bed. She bit her lip and pushed her hair in front of her eyes.

“Am I really thirteen?” Lindsay asked the room.

“Yes! Yes!” Aimee shouted. “Now get up, lazy!”

Madison and Fiona leaned in to tickle Lindsay’s side.

Lindsay laughed. “I am not lazy. I’m just…”

“Crazy!” Madison shouted.

Aimee, Madison, and Fiona bounced on top of Lindsay and then jumped down off the bed once and for all.

“Well, I’ll leave you four to your beauty routines. Meet me in the kitchen in ten, gals,” Aunt Mimi said. Her arms jangled again as she gave a little wave good-bye.

Everyone rushed to the kitchen. It wasn’t that the four were particularly hungry. But the sooner the group ate the sooner they got dressed and the sooner they got going.

“Am I considered a real teenager now?” Lindsay asked with a loud groan as she took a bite of granola and fresh yogurt.

“They don’t call it thir-
teen
for nothing,” Madison said.

“I guess that’s a yes,” Lindsay said.

“What does turning into a teenager really mean, anyway?” Fiona asked.

“It means now you can drive. You can date. You can vote,” Aimee said.

“Aim! I can’t do any of those things,” Lindsay said, smiling.

“Not
yet
,” Aimee said. “But soon. Well, sort of soon.”

Everyone laughed.

“Hey, you
can
go shopping!” Madison suggested. “And you can spend the day with your friends walking all over New York City.”

“And you can eat whatever you want and go wherever you want,” Fiona said.

“And you can get Frrrozen hot chocolate,” Aunt Mimi added from where she stood across the room.

“Frrrozen wha’?” Aimee asked.

“Oh, yum,” Lindsay said. “You guys haven’t lived until you’ve had one.”

“We’ll try some on for size at lunch,” Aunt Mimi said. “I’ve got big plans. Let’s hustle.”

The girls quickly gulped down the rest of their breakfast and raced back to their rooms to get dressed. Aimee and Fiona pulled on jeans with almost the same degree of fadedness, so Aimee decided to change into a ruffled skirt, cable-knit tights, and a very cute pair of Mary Janes. Fiona stayed with the jeans and a scoop-neck sweater. Madison wore a short plaid skirt, nubby stockings, and lace-up black boots. She pulled on her rose-colored sweater coat, along with a green scarf that Gramma Helen had knitted for her a few years back. It was a little stretched out, but she loved the way it matched her woolly hat.

“My goodness, aren’t you all the little fashion plates?” Aunt Mimi declared.

“Hardly,” Madison quipped. “This jacket is so old.”

“Ah, but
trés
fashionable,” Aunt Mimi said with a knowing grin. “Style is what you make it.”

Lindsay held her head in her hands. She still hadn’t changed out of her pajama bottoms. She stared at her open suitcase with a blank look.

“I’d better stay here,” Lindsay said, sounding defeated.

“What are you talking about?” Aimee asked.

“I have nothing to wear,” Lindsay shot back.

“Why don’t you wear your long denim skirt, Lindsay?” Madison suggested. “The one with the leaves embroidered on the front?”

“And the little T-shirt that says, ‘Radioactive,’” Fiona added. “I love that T. You have to wear that T.”

“Maybe,” Lindsay said. But she continued to dawdle, and no one really knew why. After all, it was her birthday—why wasn’t she more excited than anyone to hit the sidewalks? Madison guessed that Lindsay had waked up thinking about that phone call from her dad—or rather, the non-phone call. She quietly took Lindsay’s hand in hers and squeezed.

“You want to borrow something of mine?” Madison asked. “Not that I have anything very exciting, but…”

“You mean it?” Lindsay said.

“My closet is your closet, too, Lindsay,” Aunt Mimi reminded her.

Lindsay broke into a wide smile and then disappeared into a side room with both her aunt and Madison. Fiona and Aimee waited in the living room with the big windows. About fifteen minutes later, Lindsay, Madison, and Aunt Mimi walked into the living room.

“Ta-da!” Lindsay said, cocking her hip to one side.

Aimee’s eyes bugged out. She could hardly speak (for a change), but Fiona tried.

“You—look—like—amazing—you—look—so—
different
,” Fiona stammered.

In the short time it took to vanish into Aunt Mimi’s walk-in closet (or walk-in room, depending on how you saw it), Lindsay had transformed herself. She went with the “Radioactive” T-shirt, as Fiona had suggested, and she also wore the long jean skirt. But on top, she wore Aunt Mimi’s incredibly cool tweed jacket with ribbon edging and chunky buttons. It made the outfit. Aunt Mimi also lent Lindsay a crocheted sweater that tied over the T with a large blue pom-pom. (Aunt Mimi clearly loved her pom-poms.)

“You have to wear my boots! They will match perfectly!” Fiona declared. “You’re a size seven, right?”

Lindsay nodded. “Yes.”

Fiona ran into the rooms where they’d slept and came out with a pair of red sheepskin boots with chunky heels. She handed them to Lindsay.

Lindsay pulled on the shoes and stood in front of one of Aunt Mimi’s many mirrors.

“I feel better,” Lindsay mumbled, turning around to see what she looked like from the back, “so much better.”

“You look better, too,” Madison said. She grabbed Lindsay’s hand again. “I mean, pajamas could be the next trend, but why risk it?”

“It’s almost eleven,” Aunt Mimi reminded everyone. “Tut-tut.”

The weather outside was chilly. Madison wrapped her scarf around her neck twice and braced herself against the wind. The sun was shining brightly and reflected off the glass buildings. And it was that sun that gave Aunt Mimi her first big idea of the day.

“Let’s go get some shades,” Aunt Mimi said.

So they raced across three city blocks toward an entrance to Central Park near Fifty-ninth Street where, just outside the park on the corner, two guys stood behind a table that was covered with sunglasses.

“Take your pick,” Aunt Mimi said to everyone, gesturing at the table.

“You’re joking,” Aimee said.

“We need to get our cool on,” Aunt Mimi said.

Fiona laughed out loud. She reached for a pair of reddish tortoiseshell frames with gray lenses. They looked perfect with her hair, which was braided and adorned with amber and red beads.

“I love those,” Madison said.

“Me, too,” Lindsay said. She scanned the table looking for a pair of her own.

“Try these, Lindsay,” Madison said, handing her a pair of sleek silver (or fake silver) frames. Then she grabbed thick orange frames for herself.

Lindsay balanced the glasses on the bridge of her nose and posed.

“Are they me?”

“Abso-tootly!” Aunt Mimi said. She held her hands up. “Where’s the camera?”

“I’m thinking pink,” Aimee announced as she showed off the pair she liked the best. Teeny rhinestones were embedded on the edges of the frame.

“Another hit!” Aunt Mimi declared as she paid the vendor for all four pairs of glasses.

They continued back down the street and boarded a bus to cross town. It was only a short while before they arrived in front of Bloomingdale’s department store. Aunt Mimi suggested that they use the Lexington Avenue entrance and travel through the store (past walls and walls of mirrors), to the exit on Third Avenue. It was a shortcut to the place where they’d be having lunch.

Madison, Fiona, Aimee, and Lindsay could hardly catch their breath inside Bloomingdale’s; there was so much to see and so much to buy. Madison recalled what she had told Mom when she first got permission to come on the weekend trip. She’d promised not to spend a lot of money shopping. But this store made her want to change all of that. She wanted to shop, shop, shop—yes, until she dropped.

Aimee was infatuated with the mirrors that seemed to be everywhere on the walls of the store’s interior. She could hardly walk a few steps without turning to look at her reflection or without pausing to try a new dance step.

“Show-off,” Madison joked as they walked along.

Lindsay chuckled.

“Hold on!” Aunt Mimi held her hands out as though she were stopping traffic. “Brainstorm. I just got another idea.”

She dragged all four girls over to a long counter in the beauty department. A large, older woman wearing a white smock greeted Aunt Mimi with a kiss on both cheeks.

“We were just in the neighborhood, Hilde. And we’ve got a few gals here who need to look pretty as a picture today,” Aunt Mimi said, rubbing her gloved hands together. “Can you help?”

“Hello, girls!” the woman said. She coughed and eyeballed them. “Oh, these are all such pretty ones, Mimi.”

The woman’s accent sounded Russian, Madison thought, although she really didn’t know the difference between one foreign accent and the next. Aunt Mimi bragged that Hilde was the best makeup artist in all of New York City. Madison wasn’t sure that was true, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that today someone—anyone—was going to make Madison, Aimee, Fiona,
and
Lindsay up.

The four friends squealed with delight.

Aimee hopped up into the makeover chair first. Hilde pulled Aimee’s blond hair back using some hair clips and applied a light dusting of powder, some pale pink shadow, and lipstick. After Aimee was done, Fiona sat in the chair, and then Lindsay, and finally Madison. Hilde gave Madison extra-special treatment, pulling her hair into some kind of cool twist—a cross between a French braid and a slipknot.

Aunt Mimi waved her arms around like a proud peacock once Hilde had finished, cooing at the girls. After that, they all moved through the rest of Bloomingdale’s feeling like cover girls. Now the four were stopping to glance at their reflections on the walls; even Lindsay, who normally detested mirrors, looked.

“We look good, don’t we?” Madison asked.

“Yeah,” Aimee said. “Too bad Ivy isn’t here so we could show her and her dumb drones up.”

“This is the best day ever,” Fiona gushed. She moved her head back and forth, and the beads on her braids clinked.

“This is definitely the best birthday I ever had,” Lindsay said. “And I was going to stay home in my pajamas? Thanks for rescuing me.”

Madison took Lindsay’s arm and swung it in time with her own.

“Here we go!” Aunt Mimi cried as the row of glass doors appeared before them. They’d reached the opposite side of the store, on Third Avenue. Now it was only a few blocks more, Aunt Mimi said, until they had lunch.

Serendipity, the restaurant with the Frrrozen hot chocolate, had a line out the door into the street. People had their scarves and coats pulled around them tightly to protect them from the wind. The East River was only a block or so away, and the gusts of air off the water could get very cold at times.

Although the line seemed long at first, it really wasn’t—at least not with Aunt Mimi leading the way. She waltzed right up to the hostess, who promptly led the girls and Aunt Mimi to one of the best tables in the place. There, they were presented with the hugest menus Madison had ever seen.

They noshed on sandwiches, sweet-potato fries, and fruit salad before getting to the main course, or at least the main reason they were there. Aunt Mimi ordered.

“Decaf for me and two Frrrozen hot chocolates for the troops,” she told the waiter.

When the drinks arrived, in widemouthed glasses teeming with thick whipped cream and chocolate shavings, Madison thought she would pass out. They needed to pair up and share. Aimee and Fiona quickly scooped out a taste from one glass. Then Lindsay handed Madison a straw.

“Shall we?” Lindsay said smiling, armed with a long straw of her own.

Aunt Mimi pulled her small digital camera from her bag and asked the girls to pose.

“Smile, friends!” Aunt Mimi said.

Madison couldn’t believe that a single day could be so perfect. She’d nearly forgotten everything about her boring existence back in Far Hills.

Well, almost.

In the back of her mind, as she sat there with icy lips sharing the cold, delicious drink with Lindsay, Madison wondered what it would be like to sip one of Serendipity’s Frrrozen hot chocolates with a certain someone else—a certain someone named Hart Jones.