Poseur #4: All That Glitters Is Not Gucci by Rachel Maude Read Free Book Online Page B

gasped, crumpling her face like a milk carton. “No
except
!”
    “Baby, calm down.” Seedy laughed, the old warmth returning to his voice. “I think Lena living here is a great idea. But, you
     know… we’ve got to think of a good
reason
.”
    “So, um…” Melissa picked a dried splatter of mac from her smock. “Having to brush her teeth in the chem lab: not a good enough
     reason for you?”
    “Lena has too much dignity to accept charity,” he explained. “If we’re gonna do this, we have to make it look like it’s not
     some kind of handout.”
    “Oh,” Melissa nodded, finally comprehending. She and Seedy slumped into their respective seats, frowning withthought. The studio hummed. She was at a loss.
    Until, for the first time in days, her father cracked a blinding megawatt smile. She looked up, hopeful.
    “Pass the mac ’n’ cheese,” he commanded. “I’ve got an idea.”

The Girl: Charlotte Beverwil
    The Getup: Camel-colored scalloped Chloé shorts with matching jacket, beige buffalo leather Miu Miu wedges, crème and black
     patent Chanel shopper
    Jake and Charlotte had dinner plans Wednesday night:
platonic
dinner plans, she’d reminded him over a shared plate of shoestring fries at Kate Mantilini, earlier that day at lunch.
Whatever you say
, Jake thought, printing out a comprehensive list of froufrou French restaurants, restricting his choices to four-star Romance
     ratings. French ambience, plus French wine, plus French food… French kissing had to figure in somewhere, right? Besides, Jake
     knew what Charlotte liked. She
was
his ex-girlfriend, after all. He steered his ancient black Volvo 240 DL down the Beverwils’ sparkling gravel drive and parked,
     happily drumming the wheel.
    At the foot of the Beverwils’ 8,000-square-foot Spanish colonial estate, his pint-sized ex informed him she was “only eating
     at restaurants that dealt in francs.”
Right
, thought Jake, retreating to the car to scan the “payment options” tab on the list he’d printed out. Only after a mortifying
     phone call to JiRaffe did he discover
no
restaurant in the area accepted the currency. In fact, no restaurant in the world accepted that currency, not even in France,
     as it had been
completely obsolete for the last decade.
    Instead of going out to dinner, like they’d planned, Charlotte and Jake decided to just drive up the coast and park outside
     Moon Shadows, “to talk.” They then relocated to the musty backseat of the Volvo and got to work steaming up the windows. Which
     was A-OK with Jake. After all, what dude in his right mind preferred the taste of duck a l’orange to the taste of Charlotte
     a l’optimal hotness?
    She was wearing this weird thing that looked like a skirt but was actually shorts, and her legs were bare and smooth and very
     recently shaved, he hoped, for him. Gently, he squeezed Charlotte’s smooth calf and then ran his hand all the way up to her
     thigh, slipping beneath the silky hem of her shorts
. And she let him.
    Until she didn’t.
    “Stop!” she squeaked, loud and sudden like he’d stepped on her toe.
    “What?” Jake jumped back. As somebody with very (
very
) little experience in the make-out department, he was perpetually petrified of screwing up. And now, it seemed, he had. Jake
     ran though a series of options for what he could have done wrong. Maybe he was supposed to ask before he touched her under
     that skirty shorts thing? Or maybe he was not supposed to touch her under that skirty shorts thing at all? Ugh… he could really
     use a manual for this hook-up stuff. A
man-
ual. He smirked, briefly amused by his lame inner joke.
    “I can’t do this,” Charlotte announced, a bit dramatically, in his opinion. “I need air!” She scrambled away from him, and
     after a failed attempt to roll down the sticky car window, popped the door open and leaped from the car. Jake watched Charlotte
     stomp away and plant her tiny butt on the hood of his Volvo. He