Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomaniacal Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase (17 page)

I love this purse with a singular passion.

For five months.

Until Janine sails into my organizational communications class the first day of second semester sophomore year with a tiny Gucci binocular bag swinging from her shoulder.

My own new purse emboldens me. I’m good enough to talk to this girl. I’m fun and relatively smart. (Smart enough to at least do stuff like carry a calculator because I’m aware of my limitations.) More important, I’m in touch with my ability to work hard enough to turn dreams into reality. If I’m not her sister, that’s
her
loss. I speak right up. “Hi, Janine,” I say.

Her arched black brow practically disappears into her hairline. “Do I
know
you?”

“Yeah, you do. We met during informal rush last year and you live down the hall from my best friend Joanna. I’m Je—” I start to say.

“Jean Jacket!” she interrupts. “Of course!”

They seriously need to update those fucking rush brochures.

I’d placed my winter coat and the Liz on the empty chair next to me in the lecture hall when I got in a few minutes ago. I scramble to grab them as Janine claims the seat, but I’m not fast enough. She picks up my bag with two fingers and wrinkles her pert nose with a small moue of disapproval. “Yours? Ew.”

I nod and take it from her, stuffing it under my seat. I
want
to punch her in her surgically altered nose. I want to grasp a handful of her glossy hair . . . and then yank it so hard I leave a bald patch. But I’m too stunned to act because I never realized people like this existed outside of a
Revenge of the Nerds
movie.

Why did I want
her
as a sister? This bitch is exactly why sororities get a bum rap in the first place. She’s the kind of person who perpetuates the idea of
right
,
lesser
, and
best
houses.

I’d like to say I take her comments in stride, chalking up her attitude to too much peroxide and not enough calories. But my hubris has a first name . . . and it’s not J-e-a-n.

The attached note reads simply,
“Sending under protest—I predict this is going to end badly. Love, Mom.”

Nice try,
Mom
.

I wad up the piece of floral stationery and toss it in the trash. Then I tear open the envelope to reveal the Big Kahuna, the Holy Grail, the piece de résistance. There it is, my ticket out of here. Measuring in at only 3⅛ by 2⅛ inches, this tiny jewel of a card with the winking hologram of a dove may well change my life.

I return to my room and plop down on the bottom bunk, leaning against the gray-green cinder-block wall. My roommate Lisa and I are stuck in the worst dorm on campus. I spent all of last spring assuming I’d live in my sorority house, so I never bothered with housing registration. Once I was booted, I figured I’d move into the extra room in my friend Roni’s apartment across from my brother’s fraternity. How convenient would that be? If the guys did something like set another couch on fire in the street or throw coffee cups at cop cars, I could be there in a minute to witness it!
¹⁰²

Then, right before I returned to campus, my parents vetoed my proposed living arrangement and the only place left was the loser dorm. Lisa was assigned here because she’s from Florida and didn’t know any better when she filled out her form. She arrived with nothing but a trunk full of sweaters. She’d gotten the book about Indiana’s punishing winter, but never learned about its August heat and stifling humidity.

Lisa looks up from her homework and I tell her about Mom’s note. We laugh and roll our eyes.
Moms.
They don’t know
anything
.

My new credit card arrived at my parents’ house a while ago but my mother refused to send it to me until she couldn’t take my whining anymore. I’d applied solely because the company was giving out giant candy bars for filling out the application—Hershey’s with Almonds! It never even occurred to me that a penniless college student could
get
a card, let alone have the opportunity to
abuse
one. Sure, I like spending money, but I’m used to earning it. Purchasing something on credit is a totally foreign concept to me.

For the past month, Mom’s been in a lather about the potentially stupid things I might buy. For all her forbidding, she’s actually the one who inadvertently planted the seed for what I’m about to do. Lisa mimics, “I predict this is going to end badly!” as I make the decision to skip all my afternoon classes. Then I slip my new VISA into my Liz bag and head out on my mission.

A thrill courses through me.

This is the greatest day of my life.

This is almost better than winning the lottery, or getting a bid from every
right
house on campus.

I feel almost
illicit
as the woman in front of me opens the display case.

Oh, yes. I’m about to join the very best sorority, the most exclusive group of girls. Nope, I won’t be lording about in harps or anchors or skulls. Instead, my pledge pin will be covered in locking
G
s. That’s right, I’m about to become the proud owner of a Gucci purse.

The first bag I inspect is the little binocular-case-looking one Janine has. I’d be too obvious if I came in with her exact same bag, wouldn’t I?

Hey, how much did she spend on this thing anyway? I gasp when I look at the price tag and my whole body quivers. Whoa. I knew it would be a hundred—I just didn’t know it would be
that many
hundred.

For the record, neither Andy nor Roni supports this little endeavor so they wouldn’t come with me. Roni says there will always be mean girls ready to make others feel bad about themselves. Showing Janine I can accessorize, too, proves nothing. Andy says I should suck it up, move on, and stop skipping class. Joanna doesn’t know what I’m planning, but I get the feeling she’d not be behind me, either.

If I could let my vendetta go, I would. I wish I didn’t feel like Janine had everything over me—she’s in
the best
sorority, she’s thinner than I could ever be, she answers more questions right in class, and she’s got the coloring of a purebred sled dog. I hate her and yet part of me still wants to garner her approval, if only to have the chance to be the one who does the rebuffing.
¹⁰³
A Gucci purse may well be the key.

So . . . why do I feel like I’m drowning here in the middle of the accessories department at L. S. Ayres? Why can’t I catch my breath?

I picture Andy and Roni’s sincere faces, imploring me to walk away. Then I imagine the surprise on Janine’s face when I arrive with a better bag than hers. I’m so torn.

My ego’s saying
go for it
, but my gut’s telling me
this is dumb
. The worst part is I wonder if my mother wasn’t on to something, because here I am, credit card an hour out of the envelope, and I’m about to spend what it would take me a whole summer of part-time minimum wage to earn. That’s an ocean of tuna juice.

I look at a few other styles. I want them all so much. However, I can’t bring myself to pull the trigger on this transaction. Yeah, my pride is injured but not two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth.

I thank the clerk and tell her I
like
everything, but I’m not
in love
. I’m about to back away from the counter when she says, “Wait! We just got a new one in. Let me grab it.” Moments later, she returns with a big white cloth bag with drawstrings and the Gucci logo in the center. “Here we go.”

“It’s cute,” I say, examining it from all sides. “Although a white bag isn’t that practical for me. I’d get it dirty pretty fast and I don’t like the handles—they’d dig into my shoulder.”

“Ma’am,” she replies patiently, “this is the dust cover.”

Okay, then.

She opens the drawstrings and pulls out a football-sized bag. Rectangular but still rounded, this is small enough to wear to a party, but big enough that I could stuff an address book and some sunglasses in it. And maybe some gin. I marvel at the buttery leather lining that’s inside
¹⁰⁴
and run my hands over the jaunty green and red cloth strip dividing the two zippy pockets on the outside. The strap is long and leather and adjustable with a shiny buckle.

I stammer, “I . . . I . . . I can’t.”

“Want to take it for a spin?” the clerk asks.

Tossing Liz on the floor, I step over to the full-length mirror. The moment I slip the Gucci bag over my head and tuck my arm through the strap, I am transformed. I am taller. Thinner. My skin is clearer. My eyes brighter. My hair less fuzzy.

I am
magnificent
.

My mother’s voice, which has been riding shotgun with me since the second I opened the mail today, suddenly disappears and all I can hear is
Do it, do it, do it
.

Seriously,
I reason,
how could I not buy a bag that loops adorably over my shoulder, attractively across my chest, and rests all coy and snug against my now suddenly very narrow hips?

And those darling little
G
s? They quietly identify me as being a Person of Merit . . . they’re so much better than some random Greek letters sewn on the back of my sweatpants, which would probably make my butt look big anyway.

I want this bag.

I quickly scan my wardrobe and mentally try it on with everything I own. Yep, it goes fabulously with all my favorite outfits: thick white souvenir T-shirts from fraternity dances, crisp cotton shorts in khaki and navy with knifelike pleats, and the pointy-toed Mia flats that make my legs look muscular and tan.

I want this bag.

But I can’t. It costs hundreds of dollars.
Four
hundreds to be exact.

I want it.

No. No, no. Someday I’ll be a grown-up and I can buy all the designer bags I want. Different bags. Better bags.
¹⁰⁵
Now is not the time. I haven’t worked to earn it and I don’t deserve it.

And yet . . . how great would it be to sashay into org com with this on my shoulder?

No.

What if I got a part-time job? I’m not that busy with class. I could work and still go to school. People do it all the time.

You’ve had two shitty semesters in a row—is taking on a job that will distract you more than parties and boys already do your best idea?

Well . . . I guess . . . not.

I remove the bag from its rightful place on my shoulder and put it on the counter as the clerk grins expectantly at me.

I tell her, “Thank you for your time.”

Somehow it comes out, “You take VISA?”

Funny thing about confidence—when it stems from
thing
s, like a new Gucci bag, rather than from a genuine place inside, it can easily turn to arrogance. Which can then turn to a sense of invincibility.

A sense of invincibility leads to bad decisions, like cutting class for weeks on end, concurrently dating three members of Phi Kappa Tau, and wearing hoop earrings the size of salad plates. The plot to avenge myself veers off course, crashing straight into hedonism.