Punks Don't Wear Prada

Sunday.

2:30 pm.

Britany's suv.

"God. I can't believe I signed this," I said, sighing deeply.
We were on our way to the mall.

"Yeah, I know. I'm never going to invite Meggie to a party again!" Emma cried enthusiastically.

"Yeah, she's such a bitch," Angela said from the last row.

"No vile language!" I giggled.

"You know, punks drop the 'f' bomb every two or three words!" Was my reply.

"So? I'll just be a nice, beautiful, sensitive punk."

"Yeah, okay," She scoffed.

"You know what? I think I'm going to crawl back there and kick your ass!" Emma cried, playfully.

"So do it!"

We all burst into laughter. Then Britany turned up the radio and we pulled into the parking lot jamming out to 'Beautiful Soul' by (the sexy) Jesse Macartney.

One hour later.

We were weighted down after stopping by our favorite stores; we had almost forgotten that I still had a whole new wardrobe to buy.

"Um...Guys? How exactly do punks dress?"

"Uh... I don't know... let's ask the stor clerk at Hot Topic," Angela offered, and pointed at the dark store we were standing a few feet away from.

"Eww! You mean, Actually walk into that shop?" Emma demanded, and looking like she might barf. The others agreed.

"You should just go in and ask, we'll wait out here," Britany said, and faked a smile.
There was no way I could convince them to enter, so I just gave up and entered the store with a few encouraging looks.

It was very dark and over stuffed with black material. There was a fog machine putting off a horrible, green smoke and loud, angry music was pouring out of the speakers.
A short, dark girl with jet black hair was working at the counter. Her name tag read: Jane. Bite me.
Very friendly.

"Um... hello, I was wondering if you could help me become punk," I said in my cheeriest voice.

"Well, like, are you sure you really wanna umm... you know, do that?" She asked, mocking me in a falsely high pitched voice.
My smile melted.

"Look, I made this stupid bet that I'd-"

"touching story. But, quite frankly, I don't care." She inturpted me, and turned to walk into a room labeled: Employees only.

Urgh!
And you know what?The funny thing is, I'm supposed to be the snotty one!

"Um, are you in the right store?" A familiar voice asked from behind me.

"Just leave me alone!" I spun around and tried to look through the display glass for my friends, ignoring the dark figure a few feet to the right.
I couldn't see them anywhere.

"Sorry, Just trying to help," Jared said.
I turned to look at him.
He was wearing a name plate, also, only his didn't say 'bite me'.

I sighed and said, "It's okay. I'm sorry, too."

"Accepted. So what do you want here?"

"I'm here to become punk."
Jared's eyebrows disappeared under his long bangs.

"Uh... You can't just 'become' punk... It's not something you really intend to be," he said, and began laughing.

Refusing to give up, I said, "Well, I'm so-rry, mister-I-know-all-about-being-punk, but I don't remember asking you!"

"Well, would you like to?"

"Like to what?"

"Ask me to help you?"

"Not in particular."

"Fine, I wasn't going to help you anyways!" He turned to follow Jane.

Timidly I called after him, "I'll pay you..."

Slowly, he turned around.

He paused. "How much?"

"Fifty dollars -no questions asked about why or how come."

"Well, Asprin, looks like we've got a deal," He agreed, smirking and producing a clamy hand. I shook it lightly and then dropped his hand.

Then he ran behind the counter and cranked up the music before walking over to the hair dye section.

"So let's get started!" He yelled.