Stacey and the Fashion Victim

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “We’re here talking to Ms. Stacey McGill, the most powerful young woman in fashion today.” I was standing in front of my full-length mirror, holding my hairbrush as if it were a microphone and speaking in a deep announcer’s voice. “Tell us, Ms. McGill, how did it all begin? You’re only eighteen, yet you command the entire New York fashion industry.”

  I put the hairbrush into my other hand, turned so that I was facing in the other direction, and pretended to answer the interviewer’s question, using a more grown-up, sophisticated version of my own voice. “Well, Bob, it all started back when I was thirteen and in eighth grade. I was living in the quaint little town of Stoneybrook, Connecticut, at the time. Have you heard of it?” I tossed my hair back and smiled. Of course Bob had heard of it. Now that I was so famous, everyone had heard of Stoneybrook.

  I switched the hairbrush again. “That’s where you spent your teen years, isn’t it?” I asked in Bob’s voice.

  “That’s right,” I answered, switching hairbrush and voice once more. “And I’ll never forget the wonderful friends I had —”

  “Stacey!” That was my mother’s voice, and she sounded cross. She was calling me from downstairs.

  Oops. Back to Reality Land. I put down the hairbrush and ran to the door. “What?” I yelled.

  “That’s the fourth time I’ve called you,” she yelled back. “We need to leave in fifteen minutes, and you haven’t even had breakfast yet. Let’s move it, okay?”

  “Be right down!” I said. It was time to hustle. The interview was over, and so was my fantasy. Instead of the most powerful woman in fashion, I was a thirteen-year-old middle school student. Oh, well. It had been fun to dream. And I knew my mom wouldn’t be too mad if she knew what I’d been up to. After all, that’s what today was all about: career dreams and how you really can make them come true.

  It was Take Our Daughters to Work Day, the day every April when parents all across the country bring their young daughters to work with them so the girls see that they can be anything they want to be. The day lets girls find out what certain jobs are really like, and try them on for size. All of my friends — the ones I had started to tell “Bob” about — would be taking part. I was psyched about going to work with my mom, who is a buyer at Stoneybrook’s biggest (actually, Stoneybrook’s only) department store: Bellair’s.

  I’ve loved fashion for as long as I can remember. When I was in kindergarten and the other kids were drawing houses and dogs, I was drawing dresses and shoes. In first grade, I passed over Highlights and looked at my mother’s Vogue magazines instead. By third grade, I was in charge of costumes for our school play.

  I grew up in Manhattan, and I always preferred Macy’s to the zoo, Bloomingdale’s to the circus. Early on, I became a knowledgeable and talented shopper. I could — and still can — sniff out a bargain anywhere. I have an eye for what’s trendy and what’s classic. (I love both looks. Classics are great for building a wardrobe, and trendy clothes are just plain fun.)

  Someday I’d like to be a designer, or maybe the editor of a fashion magazine, or even the owner of some major fashion-oriented business. (I have a head for figures. Math is my best subject.) But I hope I’ll always have a life, too. I mean, I like other things besides fashion. For example, I love kids, which is why I’m a member of the BSC, or Baby-sitters Club (more about that later). And I never want to be a workaholic like my dad. He just doesn’t know when to quit, which is a big part of the reason that he and my mom are divorced. (He still lives in Manhattan, and I visit him as often as I can.)

  Anyway, as you can imagine, I was looking forward to my day at Bellair’s. My mom and I have been very close, especially since the divorce. I’m an only child, so it’s just the two of us now. I actually like spending time with my mom, which I know is fairly unusual for a thirteen-year-old. (That’s not to say that she doesn’t embarrass me occasionally, or that we never fight.) And, while I have a pretty good idea of what my mom does at work, I’ve never spent a big block of time watching her in action. And today I was not only going to watch, but I’d be helping out. I had a feeling it was going to be an interesting day.

  I checked myself one more time in the mirror. I’d dressed extra carefully, in a white linen blouse, a navy skirt, and heels. I wanted to look mature and a little sophisticated, so I’d skipped the fun hair accessories I sometimes wear to school, and put my curly (permed) blonde hair up in a simple twist. A dab of pink lip gloss, a quick sweep of mascara (it brings out my blue eyes), and I was ready.

  I headed downstairs and found my mom sitting at the kitchen table. She looked up at me and smiled. “You look nice, sweetie,” she said. I guess she’d forgiven me for being such a slowpoke.

  “Thanks,” I answered. “You do, too.” I rummaged around in the cereal cabinet, looking for the Grape Nuts. Then I sat down with a bowl of cereal, a glass of orange juice, and a banana. Nice, balanced breakfast, right? You bet. Sometimes I’d just like to grab a doughnut, or even skip breakfast altogether, the way some of my friends do. But I can’t. I have diabetes, which means that my body doesn’t process sugars and carbohydrates correctly. If I don’t watch what I eat, I can become extremely sick.

  I also have to check my blood sugar regularly. I’d already done so that morning, up in my room. I have to prick my finger for a drop of blood, put it on a test strip, and check the reading my little electronic monitor gives me. The number I see there tells me how I’m doing and helps me determine how much insulin I need to take. Insulin is a hormone that my body doesn’t produce the way it should, so I have to give myself shots of it every day. Sounds gross, I know. I don’t like it, but I don’t have any choice in the matter, so I try to make the best of it.

  Just as I wolfed down the last bite of cereal, my mom glanced at her watch. “Whoa!” she said. “Time to go.” She threw back her last gulp of coffee while I put my bowl in the sink. Then she grabbed her pocketbook, and I grabbed my mini-backpack, and we flew out the door.

  We kept on flying all day. I never knew how busy my mom is at work, or how many responsibilities she has. It’s awesome! She has an office, but she barely has the chance to sit down in it. She spends her whole day running around the store — checking on what’s selling, making decisions about which items should be reduced in price in order to make room for newer things, and keeping up with the latest fashion news. Plus, she’s responsible for seeing representatives, or reps, from clothing companies. They’re the people who sell clothes to stores. They work two seasons ahead (which means Mom’s looking at fall things now), so she has to decide, on the spot, what will sell and what won’t — six months into the future!

  Needless to say, it’s a high-pressure job. And she loves it.

  Mom motored through the day, making huge decisions left and right and plowing through mountains of work as if they were nothing. My mother is one cool woman. If I’m anywhere nearly as successful in my future career, I’ll be happy.

  My favorite part of the day was when we met with some sportswear reps. They’d brought piles of clothing for fall — gorgeous sweaters, jackets, and pants in colors and fabrics
that made me look forward to September. Just seeing a brown tweed skirt can make me think of crisp fall days and new notebooks and the smell of burning leaves.

  “Do you like this jacket, Stacey?” my mom asked, holding out a blazer in a smoky blue knit.

  “It’s gorgeous,” I said softly, touching the fabric.

  “What about these?” she asked, pointing to the square white buttons marching down the front of the jacket. She looked doubtful.

  “They’re a little silly,” I mused. “They look like Chiclets. Something more elegant — maybe gold? — would look a lot better.”

  My mom turned to the sales rep, and within a few minutes she’d received a promise that the jacket could be delivered with gold buttons. “You made the call,” she said, giving me a little hug. “Because of you, everyone in Stoneybrook will be wearing gold buttons this fall.”

  “Cool!” I said.

  Just then, one of my mother’s coworkers stopped by. Her name was Mrs. Maslin. Mom had introduced us earlier that day. She’d only been working at Bellair’s for a couple of months, which is why I hadn’t met her before. She was a short, round woman with curly brown hair and a cheerful smile. She seemed like a real dynamo. Every time we’d run into her she had either been talking into a cellular phone as she walked around, writing on the clipboard she carried everywhere, or giving hurried instructions to her secretary, who was following her around with another clipboard. (A little girl trailed after her, too. I figured she must be her daughter.)

  Another thing I noticed each time we ran into her was the way she looked at me. She seemed to take me in from head to foot, with one quick glance. She did it again as she came into the room where Mom and I had just finished looking at sportswear.

  “Stacey,” she said, “let me ask you something. Have you ever considered modeling? If not, you should, because you have real potential. You carry yourself well, you have good bones, and you clearly have a sense of style.”

  Mrs. Maslin was a fast talker. I could barely fit a word in. When she stopped for breath, I told her a little about the time I entered a modeling contest at Bellair’s. I won, but it wasn’t a great experience. In fact, it was something I’d rather have forgotten about.

  “What a pity,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d like you to have a positive modeling experience. Have you heard about Fashion Week?”

  Before I could even nod or shake my head, she was off and running.

  “Fashion Week is an annual event here at Bellair’s, and I’m in charge of making this year’s the best ever. Not only will we be hosting small fashion shows every day next week — with a huge one at the end of the week — but Bellair’s will be the site of the photo shoot for this year’s national catalog. We’ve hired most of our professional models already, but headquarters has told me they also want some fresh new faces for the catalog, and I think you’d be perfect. The pay, by the way, is excellent.”

  “Well,” I began. I couldn’t help feeling excited about the idea, and I was flattered by Mrs. Maslin’s high opinion of my looks. Still, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of modeling again. And I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that my mother was shaking her head.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Stacey’s only thirteen —”

  “It’s just for a few days. She’ll have a wonderful time!” exclaimed Mrs. Maslin. “And don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her.”

  “What about school?” asked my mom.

  “All the events take place after school hours,” said Mrs. Maslin. “We don’t want to disrupt the academic schedules of any of our girls.”

  “I could put the money in my college fund,” I said to my mom. Suddenly, I wanted to take part in Fashion Week. It’d be fun to hang around with real models and to wear all the latest styles. I crossed my fingers and smiled hopefully at my mother.

  Mrs. Maslin knew enough to stay quiet for a moment and give my mom a chance to make up her mind.

  Finally, Mom smiled. “Well, I suppose it’s all right,” she said. “But only if Stacey can quit if she feels at all uncomfortable, or if her school-work suffers.”

  “Of course,” agreed Mrs. Maslin. She smiled at me. “Orientation is this Saturday.”

  “Yyyyesss!” I said. “Thanks, Mom,” I remembered to add.

  Stacey McGill, Supermodel. My career in fashion was starting even sooner than I’d dreamed.

  “I swear, I didn’t understand a word anyone said all day!” Claudia Kishi helped herself to a handful of Skittles. “Other than ‘lunchtime,’ that is.” She giggled. “I guess I’ll never be an investment manager. Big surprise, right?”

  We all cracked up. Imagining Claudia as an investment manager was nearly impossible. She’s my best friend, and I love her dearly, but saying that she doesn’t care much about numbers is the understatement of the year. She’d make such a mess of everyone’s investments that the world economy would probably explode or something.

  It was later that afternoon, and I was sitting in Claudia’s bedroom along with the rest of the members of the BSC. Between phone calls, we were talking about the experiences we’d had during Take Our Daughters to Work Day. The BSC meets in Claud’s room on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from five-thirty until six, and parents call us during those times to set up baby-sitting jobs. We’re more like a baby-sitting business than a club — a business that works very, very well. We’re super-organized. We maintain a club record book with up-to-date information on our clients, and a calendar with our schedules. We also keep a club notebook, in which we each write up every single one of our jobs. That way we all stay aware of what’s going on with the kids we sit for. The parents love that.

  We’re excellent sitters, if I do say so myself. Every BSC member is responsible, punctual, and caring. It’s easy when you love kids the way we do. We love hanging out with them, playing with them, doing things with them. We’re not the kind of sitters who plop the kids in front of the TV and spend the whole time raiding the fridge and talking on the phone. We’d rather unpack our Kid-Kits (boxes we’ve filled with fun stuff such as stickers and markers and hand-me-down toys and books) and have a good time with our charges. Our charges love us. Which is why the parents keep hiring us. Which is why the BSC is so successful.

  “I didn’t understand much about what my mom was doing, either,” said Kristy Thomas, who’s president of the BSC. “But I reorganized her desk so she’ll be able to work much more efficiently.”

  Everybody cracked up again. It wasn’t hard to picture Kristy taking charge of her mother’s office. Kristy’s just a take-charge person. And she’s always coming up with excellent ideas. For example, all the things I just told you about the BSC — the club itself, how it works, the club record book, the Kid-Kits — were Kristy’s ideas. That’s why she’s president.

  Kristy is on the short side and has brown hair and eyes. She’s about as interested in fashion as Claudia is in investments. In fact, I’ve rarely seen her wearing anything but her “uniform,” which consists of jeans, running shoes, and a turtleneck — or a T-shirt, if it’s summer.

  Make that a “Krushers” T-shirt. As if her life weren’t busy enough, Kristy coaches a softball team (called Kristy’s Krushers) she formed for little kids. That’s the kind of person Kristy is.

  I think she inherited a lot of her determination and strength from her mom, who brought up four kids (Kristy and her three brothers — Charlie and Sam, who are older, and David Michael, who is younger) on her own after Mr. Thomas walked out on the family, years ago. Kristy’s mom definitely deserved a break, and she got one when she met Watson Brewer, a truly nice guy, a millionaire, and now Kristy’s step-father. Watson has two kids of his own from his first marriage — a boy named Andrew and a girl named Karen. When he and Kristy’s mom married, they decided to adopt one more child together, and that’s how Emily Michelle, the world’s cutest toddler, came to live with Kristy’s family. Now Kristy’s grandmother Nannie lives with them, too, and so does an assortment of pets.
Fortunately, Watson’s mansion is huge. And well organized, thanks to Kristy.

  “Anybody want some more Skittles?” Claudia asked, passing the bag around. She’s vice-president of the BSC. We meet in her room because she’s the only one of us who has her own phone, which means we don’t have to worry about tying up anyone’s family line. As VP, Claudia doesn’t have any official duties, but she’s made it her unofficial duty to supply munchies for our meetings.

  Supplying food is no hardship for Claudia. Junk food is one of her great loves, and seeing her friends chewing away on Ring-Dings and pretzels makes her happy. Her parents aren’t crazy about Claudia’s junk food habit, and they don’t like her reading habits, either. (Claudia’s a Nancy Drew fanatic, and her mom, a librarian, doesn’t approve.) That’s why a careful search of Claudia’s room will always reveal secret stashes of candy bars and mysteries.

  Claudia’s older sister, Janine, is a certified genius. She and Claudia are like night and day, especially when it comes to school. In fact, Claudia has had so much trouble in school that she is now repeating seventh grade. And she’s doing well there. She’s not dumb; it’s just that she isn’t interested in the things Janine loves, such as math and science. On the other hand, I doubt Janine knows the difference between acrylics and oil paints, and she probably couldn’t sculpt with papier-mâché if her life depended on it. Claudia, however, is the most talented artist I know. Recently, she won first prize in an art show, and she was by far the youngest person to enter it. We were so, so proud of her.

  Claudia’s artistic nature doesn’t stop at putting colors on paper, though. She sees everything as a blank canvas: her room, her body, her face. She has the funkiest, wildest style. No outfit is too over-the-top, no hairstyle too extreme. We’re great shopping buddies, she and I.

  Claudia passed the Skittles to Mary Anne Spier, who was happy to take some. “Well, I had fun today,” she said as she shook a few out of the bag. “But I don’t know if I’d ever want to be a lawyer. They have to be so mean sometimes. Think of all those courtroom movies with a lawyer making the witness cry. Forget it. I could never do that.”