Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot Page A

costume-restoration and vintage thing wasn’t working out. I have, in the past two weeks, been to every vintage clothing store in the five boroughs…none of which was hiring.
    Or so the managers claimed. Several saw my college degree on my résumé, and said I was overqualified. Only one of them was interested in looking at my portfolio of refurbished vintage clothes, and when he was through, he said, “This might impress people back in Minnesota, but around here our customers are a little more sophisticated. Suzy Perette just doesn’t cut it.”
    “Michigan,” I corrected him. “I’m from Michigan.”
    “Whatever,” the manager said, rolling his eyes.
    Seriously? I had no idea people could be so mean. Especially people in the vintage-clothing community. I mean, back home, thrifters are very supportive of and caring for one another, and it’s about quality and originality—not the label. Here, in the words of one of the store managers I met, “If it’s not Chanel, no one cares.”
    Wrong! So wrong!
    And, in the words of Mrs. Erickson, “What do you want to work in one of those filthy shops for, anyway? Believe me, I know. My friend Esther volunteers at a thrift shop for Sloan-Kettering. She says the catfights over a simple Pucci scarf are not to be believed. Go see Monsieur Henri. He’ll set you straight.”
    Luke suggested that taking career advice from a woman I met in a basement laundry room wasn’t the soundest thing he’d ever heard of.
    But Luke has no idea just how desperate things have gotten. Because I haven’t told him. I am trying to appear sophisticated andfull of savoir-faire where Luke is concerned. It’s true he was kind of shocked when all my boxes from home arrived, and we realized there was nowhere to put them. Fortunately, Luke’s mom’s apartment comes with its own lockable storage unit in the basement garage, where I’ve stashed all my bolts of material and most of my sewing supplies.
    The clothes, however, went straight to a portable hanging rack I bought at Bed Bath & Beyond and installed in the bedroom, under the Renoir girl’s disapproving gaze. Luke seemed kind of shocked when he saw it—“I had no idea anyone owned more clothes than my mother,” he said—but he recovered himself and even asked me to model some of the slinkier ensembles (as well as, for some reason, my Heidi outfit, which he seemed to get an enormous kick out of).
    But what Luke doesn’t know is that if something doesn’t give soon, that outfit, as well as the rest of the collection, are going up onto eBay. Because I am down to my last few hundred dollars.
    And though it will break my heart to have to sell the clothes I’ve been collecting for so many years, it would break my heart more to have to admit to Luke that I don’t have the money for next month’s rent.
    And while I know he’ll only laugh and say it’s all right and not to worry about it, I can’t help worrying about it. I don’t want to be his live-in mistress or whatever. I mean for one thing that is hardly an effective career path, as we know from Evita Perón. But also, I want to go shopping ! I want to add new things to my collection so badly!
    Only I can’t. Because I’m broke.
    So Monsieur Henri is my only hope. Because if he doesn’t work out, I’m totally selling off the Suzy Perettes for sure, and maybe even the Gigi Youngs.
    Either that, or I’m signing up for a temp agency. I will fax and file for the rest of my life, so long as SOMEONE will hire me.
    But as soon as Monsieur Henri (or whoever the guy is who buzzes me in when I press on the bell to Monsieur Henri’s shop)ushers me into the waiting area of his shop, all smiles and graciousness—until I tell him I’m not getting married (yet), I’m there to ask about employment opportunities—I have a pretty good idea it’s going to be the temp agency for me.
    Because the middle-aged, mustached man’s face falls, and he demands, in a suspicious, heavily