The Aqua Net Diaries by Jennifer Niven Read Free Book Online

I had to live in Richmond, but did I have to dress like everyone else, too? I wanted to fit in, but not completely, not in this way. I needed to express my individuality, and I was very into clothes. My father, who also had a passionfor clothing, understood. He never shopped in town. When it was time to buy my school wardrobe, he made sure we went to Cincinnati or Chicago or Indianapolis or New York or, at the very least, Dayton.
    We came back to school in January 1984 after winter break. It had been an especially wonderful Christmas and I was wearing my new favorite outfit—a yellow Esprit long-sleeved shirt with gray and white stripes that almost reached my knees. Over it, I wore a little black vest I’d found at a vintage store, and under it I wore a new Esprit skirt with tights and boots. The whole thing was quite groovy and cool and I felt like fashion icon Lisa Bonet or a glamorous person right off the streets of New York. I loved Esprit. I could have moved into the Esprit department at the Dayton Mall and been happy forever. It was true I was being imprisoned in this town—temporarily—but I was not of it, and I knew it and so would everyone else.
    My hair, no longer feathered like Jaclyn Smith’s, was large and curly (even curlier than its natural curl), thanks to the two hours I’d spent that morning blowing it dry and rolling it with hot rollers, then teasing it and spraying it with Aqua Net. I was wearing shiny blue-gray eye shadow and three different shades of lipstick (no one shade ever gave me the color I wanted), and over that a coating of Bonne Bell lip gloss. All I needed was a soundtrack—something sexy by Blondie or Sheila E—and I was like something out of a movie.
    I was walking down the main long hallway with Joey and Hether Rielly, fighting and shoving our way through the sea of people, and we were talking over one another and laughing. I was also keeping an eye out for any boys I liked so thatI could say hi to them or (hopefully) smile at them and have them say hi to me first. This was a very deliberate activity that I tried to make look easy and natural, like I wasn’t giving it any thought at all. I knew the class schedules and, therefore, hallway schedules of all the guys I had crushes on, so I knew when to watch out for them. Right now I was looking for my favorite, Dean Waldemar, who was with no exaggeration a golden god, and who should just be coming up from the swimming pool at any minute, his hair still wet.
    So I was walking and talking and laughing and saying hi, all the while looking out for Dean, when suddenly—at the other end of that long hallway, coming down the steps from the cafeteria area—I caught sight of something that looked strangely familiar. It was a yellow something with gray and white stripes.
    When I stopped talking, Joey and Hether looked at me. “What’s wrong?” Hether said.
    â€œI just saw something …”
    The yellow was gone. It had disappeared into the crowd. I was trying to find it again. Joey and Hether looked with me, but since they didn’t know what I was looking for, they gave up.
    â€œWhat are we looking at?” Joey said.
    â€œNothing,” I said. “I’m just seeing things.”
    We went on, heading for the central stairs. When we got there, my shirt was coming toward me—my new favorite Christmas Esprit shirt that I was wearing right that very moment. Yellow with gray and white stripes. It was walking right at me on Patty Boomershine, who was big and tough and who smoked cigarettes and hung around in the parking lot after school sometimes and shouted mean things at people just because she was bored. Underneath the shirt she waswearing ratty old jeans and sneakers. With Magic Marker, she had written “Fuck” on the knee of one leg and “off!” on the other.
    Joey said, “Holy shit.” Joey kept a clothing journal to help him keep track of what he wore.