Nice and Mean (22 page)

I don't know. I guess I buy whatever's in the stores I like.


INTERVIEWER (SACHI)


How do you decide which stores to go to?


TESSA


Just . . . wherever my friends and I go . . . and I guess I just buy what looks good on me. And what my mom says I'm allowed to wear.


People laughed. I nudged Sachi and grinned. I remembered Mr. Phillips saying, “If they laugh in the first minute, you've got 'em.” Maybe we'd got 'em. Which was good, because after the part with Sachi's friends, there was a part that made me nervous:
my
friends.

It had taken me almost a week after we'd made up to ask if I could interview them. When Sachi had asked, I'd put her
off, saying, “I think we need to look at the title colors again.” Eventually, though, she'd told me, “I think we're running out of things to edit. Do you think you can talk to your friends?”

I hadn't even told them I was doing another video; I'd just let them think I had detention during lunch. When I had made up with Elizabeth, I'd promised that I would never do anything else like
Victim/Victorious
, and I didn't want her to think I wasn't taking it seriously.

But finally, one afternoon at my house, I had told my friends about the new video and asked if I could interview them. At first Rachel had said “No thanks” and stuffed a Milano in her mouth.

“Please?” I asked. “You're, like, the only one of us who dresses different.” I tried to ignore the bad luck of Milano the Cookie, who was being chomped to death between Rachel's jaws.

“I don't know,” Rachel said around her mouthful. “I just keep thinking about what happened last time.”

At the kitchen table, Elizabeth was gripping her Pepper bottle with both hands.

“Our video is nothing like last time,” I said, “so don't worry. It's just—if you don't do it, Sachi's friends will be the only ones talking about how they know what's hot, and, I don't know. I think we should be in it too.”

Rachel swallowed Mr. Milano. “Well, we don't want
those
girls to represent fashion.”

“Right.” I didn't exactly love her bad-mouthing Sachi's friends, but I wasn't going to mention that right now.

“Okay, fine.” Rachel reached for the cookie bag and sighed. “Just let me know when, so I can bring on the hotness.”

I knew I was going to laugh, so I grabbed my Pepper and gulped. Across the room Elizabeth was doing the same thing. Oh, thank God for Elizabeth. As long as one person knew that Rachel was a drama queen, I could sit through a thousand Milano stories.

Ooh—the part with my friends was coming up. I leaned in closer.

ADDIE


How do I know what looks good? Um, I like the things at Abercrombie.


MADISON


Abercrombie.


CHELSEA


Abercrombie.


ADDIE


Oh, and Hollister.


MADISON


Hollister.


CHELSEA


I like Hollister.


Everybody laughed at that one. I couldn't believe it. When Sachi had said it would be funny to show everybody agreeing with each other, I'd said, “Why is that funny? Everybody knows what's cool.” Hearing people laughing now, I realized it was weird that so many people thought the same thing. But wasn't that fashion? Wasn't that life?

Ooh . . . next up was the boys. This part was
definitely
funny.

INTERVIEWER (SACHI)


And how do you decide what to wear?


ALEX


If it's cold, I put on a sweater.
If it's hot, I put on a T-shirt. I don't, like, think about it.


Rachel whispered to Elizabeth, “That's your boyfriend!” Elizabeth sank low in her seat and Rachel grinned.

INTERVIEWER (MARINA)


How do you decide what to wear?


JULIAN


I like those guys selling sweatshirts on 125th Street.


BOY'S VOICE (offscreen)


You buy your clothes on the street?


JULIAN


Shut up, man! It's cool!


Once again, everyone cracked up. Julian pumped his fists in the air. Score! Conversation after the video, for sure. I didn't even need to worry about fighting off Rachel, since she now claimed to be in love with the guy playing the lead in the play.

NARRATOR (SACHI)


As you can see, a lot of people look at what's going on around them to tell them what's in style. But some people get inspiration from a different place: themselves.


PHOEBE


When I was in second grade, I decided to wear an apron to school. My mom and I had been cooking the night before, and I had worn this cute little orange apron with pink flowers. I liked it so much that I thought, This looks great. I'm going to wear this to school tomorrow over my jeans.


Then I got to school and my best friend was like, “Why are you wearing an apron?” And I was like,
“Um . . . I don't know!” It didn't seem like such a good idea anymore, so I put it in my locker.


That part always made me wonder: What was Phoebe's friend like now? Was she anything like me? Had she ever wanted to do what I had done to the person who was being interviewed next—Rachel?

RACHEL


People here just wear a tiny little bit of what looks good. There are a million different things to wear, and I think, why not wear them?


CUT TO: Rachel leaning against a locker, wearing a wrap dress and knee-high boots.


CUT TO: Rachel wearing pearl necklaces wound around her wrists.


I looked at the real Rachel, who was holding out her arm and grinning, showing off the necklace bracelet I'd given her as a “thank you for being in my video” present. I still thought those things were butt-ugly, but it hadn't killed me to spend five dollars on something I knew she'd like. Her clothes didn't give me Parmesan mouth so much these days, anyway.

I had to admit I was kind of sick of thinking about clothes all the time. Eventually I wanted to make a video
about something completely different. Would I write a script again? Stick with interviews? Who knew? Whatever it was, I knew I could make it hot, hot, hot.

SACHI'S
VIDEO NIGHTMARE
JUST PLAIN VIDEO #22.0


INTERIOR. THE VIDEO LAB—DAY


A fascinated audience sits in rows. Sachi and Marina stand by a wall, watching in excitement.


But Sachi's face clouds over.


They had liked it so far—a lot. Alex had pumped his fist during his little interview, and Tessa's friends had all patted her on the back when she'd said the thing about her apron. But now we were coming to the part that had been the hardest for me to edit.

NARRATOR (SACHI)


What makes you decide to dress differently from most people?


LAINEY


Halloween is my favorite holiday, so why shouldn't every day be Halloween? Wearing boring clothes all the time is just . . . boring.


CUT TO: picture of Lainey, sitting back in a chair, her pink
Converse high-tops resting on the seat in front of her, her legs covered in stripy socks.


CUT TO: picture of girls waiting on line for a movie, wearing Converse high-tops and stripy socks.


Next to me Flora muttered something to Lainey.

“No,” said Lainey, “I knew.”

I'd been surprised when Marina told me that Lainey's look wasn't as original as I'd thought. “Sorry,” she'd said. “But here, let me show you.” She image-searched “girls wearing Converse sneakers” and instantly came with a whole page of pictures.

“Oh no,” I said. “The whole point was that she was original. This just makes it look like she's copying people.”

“Most people are copying somebody,” Marina said. “Rachel definitely is.”

“I guess.” I stared at the screen full of girls who were dressed so much like Lainey, some of whom even had armfuls of bracelets. “Although—my sister and that koala bear key chain—no one has that.”

“True,” Marina agreed, closing the Google window. “She's on her own there.”

When I thought of it that way, the koala bear was kind of cool.

“We should put that in the video, actually,” Marina said, reopening the Internet. “People who think they're being original but really aren't.”

“Really?” I looked at her uneasily. “I don't want to seem like I'm putting Lainey down.”

“I'm not trying to slam her,” Marina said, “but we shouldn't
not
include it. I mean, this is about how people know what's popular, right?”

Part of me had wanted to keep it a secret from Lainey, or to not invite her to the screening. But then I'd decided, no. I was anti-sneaking. I would tell her.

Lainey hadn't been surprised. “I never said I was the only person who dressed like that,” she'd told me over the phone (I had gotten my phone privileges back!). “I'm just the only person at Jacobs who dresses that way, but all my friends from my old school have bicycle-chain necklaces.”

NARRATOR (SACHI)


A lot of people are afraid to dress differently because they think people will make fun of them. What would you tell them?


LAINEY


If you wear weird clothes, some people will make fun of you. But so what? You can't make everyone happy, so you might as well make yourself happy.


PHOEBE


You know, I kind of wish I'd told my friend, “I like my apron! I'm going to keep wearing my apron.”


That was my favorite part. It was the reason I'd used my birthday money to buy a navy turtleneck sweater I'd seen on sale. Wearing it with one of the mirrored scarves my cousin had given me, I felt cool and grown-up, like the women on the
direct this
poster. Okay, so maybe I was too excited about a piece of clothing, but everybody needed to wear something.

One or two people had given me odd looks the first time I'd worn the scarf, but Lainey had been right that if I decided not to care what people thought, I wouldn't mind as much. Priyanka had already known that. Speaking of . . . my heart started thudding as I realized what was coming next.

NARRATOR (MARINA)


One thing that's hard to understand is why some trends get started in the first place, and why they go away.


CUT TO: Priyanka.


PRIYANKA


There are lots of reasons things become popular. Sometimes someone's trying to make money by deciding everyone needs to have this new thing. Sometimes a movie or TV show makes something
cool, and sometimes . . . it's just a mystery. I mean, when I was little, I remember non-Indians wearing red bindi dots on their foreheads. Are they going to start selling saris at the Gap? Probably not, but you never know.


You just decide how much you're going to care, and (shrugs) I don't know. (She pauses.) Are we done now?


People laughed. “Sachi!” Priyanka whispered.

“It's funny,” I said. “Everybody likes it.”

“Hmph,” she said. But I could tell she was pleased.

CUT TO: the studio (Ms. Avery's homeroom), with Sachi and Marina sitting behind two desks.


MARINA


And now our show draws to a close.


SACHI


As you have seen, there are many ways to decide what is hot.


MARINA


You can follow trends.


SACHI


Shop with your friends!


MARINA


You can do your own thing.


SACHI


Don't worry about what people think!


MARINA


There's no one way to do it—


SACHI


—so do what you want to do and have fun.


CUT TO: Madison and Chelsea, showing off identical sweaters; Rachel's red cowboy boots; Lainey's pink sneakers; Priyanka's koala bear key chain.


ROLL CREDITS.


“Woo-hoo!”

“Encore!”

Then people started chanting, “Ma-ree-na! Ma-ree-na!” and “Sa-chi! Sa-chi!”

I whispered, “I'll get the lights.”

My friends rushed over to me. “That was so cool!” exclaimed Lainey. “I never realized that, the way stores try to make you buy things. Now I'm going to—well, I don't know what. I have to think about it.”

Priyanka and I exchanged smiles.

“Sachi,” said Flora admiringly, “nice job.”

“Eee!” Phoebe threw her arms around me. “You talked
about my apron! I love my apron!”

I laughed and felt myself blush. No one ever fussed over me like this, except in the Ahmedabad airport.

“Hey, Sachi,” said a scratchy voice.

I turned and saw—Alex! I had been so excited when I'd seen him in the crowd, but I wasn't sure if I'd have the nerve to talk to him.

“Hey,” he said, “that was good.”

“Thanks!” His green elastics were
so
cute. “You did a good job too. I mean, I liked your interview.”

He grinned. “Thanks. See you later.”

“Bye.”

He stepped away from me and my friends and called, “Bye, Elizabeth!”

“What? Oh, bye!” called Elizabeth from across the room.

I watched him leave—Alex with his cute, loping stride—and then realized Flora and Lainey were staring at me.