Read Online Tales from the Back Row by Amy Odell - Free Book Online Page B

wearing a leather crop top? No fun, that’s what. You know what else is no fun? Looking like everyone else. No one understands this better than stage divas—that’s why they always wear different outfits from their backup dancers. So it is with trends: you can either blend into the background wearing what everyone is wearing, or you can take a risk, be your own woman, and be stared at. It’s like I always say: better to elicit a negative reaction than to elicit no reaction. Everyone wears jeans to restaurants, but not everyone wears sweatpants to restaurants. Being different like this is to live at the pinnacle of trendiness. And to exist at the pinnacle of trendiness, while a surefire way to get photographed a lot at Fashion Week, will perplex your friends and family who don’t work in fashion.
    As I’ve stated, style doesn’t come naturally to me. I had to learn it the way I did math. Enablers—like James—helped me spend money I “shouldn’t” have spent on things I “shouldn’t” have bought. Enablers can be thought of as instructors in advanced placement courses—there to teach you the calculus proofs of getting dressed—and they really helped me break out of my safe place of jeans and T-shirts.
    Once when I was “on a break” from a boyfriend, my friend Chris—another enabler—took me shopping. When I am upset, I buy things to cheer myself up. Probably 50 percent of the things I don’t need were acquired as a means of making myself feel better about my life. Impulse shopping somehow delivers the same emotional benefit as going out and grabbing a drink after a rough day—and research shows it has the same temporary effect of mood boosting—except it tends to cost more. (Exceptions run rife, of course: New York never met a $17 cocktail it didn’t like.) At this time, I was so upset about the guy, I was ready to spend any amount of money to make my feelings hurt less.
    Chris is a graphic designer who has a side business selling T-shirts and pillowcases emblazoned with Warhol-esque images of pop culture and fashion icons like Princess Diana and Britney Spears. He wears everything from tight all-black outfits to baggy Vivienne Westwood jeans tucked into those puffy blue-and-white sneakers that look like marshmallows. Accent jewelry is, remarkably, his friend. He lives in one of Brooklyn’s most hipster neighborhoods and brings a Missoni towel to the beach. Practicality is not high on his list of concerns. He is an impeccable shopping partner because he always suggests things for me that I wouldn’t consider for myself otherwise.
    As soon as we walked into American Apparel, I went to the section I always hit first: lamé. I am drawn to shiny things. This must be one of those traits that goes back to evolution—you know, cavelady survival strategies. How much easier would it be to get the hottest caveman’s attention in gold lamé leggings and a shiny purple leotard than some drab old buffalo skin? I believe this principle still holds. Pop stars wouldn’t be the attention magnets they are if they weren’t shiny.
    â€œ Ooooh , shinyyyy,” I cooed over the racks. “Should I get something shiny? I’m so depressed.”
    â€œUm, no.” Thankfully, Chris dismissed my lamé longings. “You should try this on.” He held up a short dark red T-shirt dress with zipper detailing on the sleeves.
    â€œI don’t know; that’s too short,” I said.
    â€œJust try it on! It’ll look really good on you.”
    I agreed, because no woman can resist the urging of a gay man who wants to see how she looks in something.
    When I came out, Chris looked me up and down.
    â€œYou have to get that,” he said.
    The dress was so short that I’d never be able to wear it without tights. But he was right: this dress made me look good. And nothing I ever picked out for myself