pretenders: duffy's journal by lisi harrison (excerpt)

8/12/2019 Pretenders: Duffy's Journal by Lisi Harrison (Excerpt)

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Little, Brown and CompanyNew York Boston

BY #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR



Monday

Feeling = Slick.

I had no choice.

My parents are in the red. Amelia lectured me on “the

character-building benefits of delayed gratification” and Bubbie

Libby has $20 Canadian. Mandy could get me an interview at

Abercrombie, but I needed the money right away.

me: Can Gardner help?

mandy: His parents are in the red too.

me: Then how is he rolling in green?

mandy: He works.

me: Where? Italian Vogue ?



Mandy looked impressed by my reference. I only knew

Vogue came in Italian because the magazine was on her desk

with a ton of junk from CVS.

mandy: Why don’t you play on the freshman team?

me : Why don’t you date Coops?

Mandy was on her bed. She knocked over a bottle of yellow

nail polish when I said that.

mandy: Seriously?

me : Seriously, what?

mandy: Leaving Varsity to play Freshman is like me

dumping Gardner for Coops ?

me : Worse.

mandy: Fine.

She picked up her cell with her palms and said, “Call

G-licious.”

siri: Cal-ling Gee-liss-i-us.

She put Gardner on speakerphone and told him I needed

money. Gardner made me swear on my basketball career that I

would never tell another living human what he was about to

tell me.

me : I swear.

He said he could get me the money if I skipped school on

Monday.

me : No prob.

gardner: Meet me at Regal Park. 8:00 AM. No hoodies

or taped-up shoes. You sleep in a home, not a refrigerator

box. Dress like it. Mandy, take me off speaker.



174

My sister poked the phone with her elbow and brought it to

her ear. Her hair got stuck in her wet nail polish.

mandy: Yeah . . . I can pull some stuff from Abercrom-

bie . . . he will . . . he won’t . . . yes you can trust him . . .

okay . . . thanks G-lish . . . L Y 2 . . .

Feeling = Mad at my parentsFeeling = Mad at my parents.

If they weren’t in the red I would have told Gardner I’d

rather look like I came from a box than an Abercrombie sale. I

wouldn’t have spent my Sunday at the mall with Mandy—

where I had to hide from Lily, Vanessa, and Blake so they

wouldn’t see me with shopping bags covered in naked dudes.

And I definitely would not have accepted this slick new job.

Correction. Slick new “lifestyle.”

That’s how Anton, my “style sensei,” suggests I “view” this

“shopportunity.”

Anton is the owner of Trendemic. Trendemic is “a market-

ing company that turns products into trends and designers into

millionaires.”

I spent five hours in his secret Mission: Impossible headquar-

ters. I was interviewed, measured, weighed, photographed,

spray tanned, manicured, and allergy tested. Then I was hired.

Correction. “Contracted.”

anton: As of today you are no longer Andrew Duffy.

You are an “It Guy.” A human billboard. A tastemaker.

A 3-D, HD, breathing advurt-es-mint.

me : Huh?



175

anton: Your job is to model clothes by avant-garde

designers. Enjoy revolutionary snack foods and savor

revolutionary drinks in public. Scent your body parts

with mists that conjure images of far-off places. Use our

sporting gear, hair products, accessories, and high-tech

footwear in the presence of your wealthy peers. Make it

look . . . sexy. Crucial for social success. A cinch to buy.

Because the more they spend, my accessibly handsome

It Guy, the more you make.

The lights dimmed. Video started to play on the LCD screen

behind his desk. Italian Vogue –type clothes, veggie chips in

metallic bags, fur-covered sunglasses . . . I started to sweat

through my Abercrombie Henley. (Why’s it called a Henley?)

My pits smelled like baby powder because I ran out of deodorant

in the summer so I’ve been using Mandy’s. Thinking about the

new things I was going to smell like made me sweat even more.

The freak show ended and the lights came back on.

me : I have to wear that stuff?

anton: Inspiring, isn’t it? Each week a box will arrive

at your house with the latest and greatest. Wear it, eat

it, drink it, spritz it and they will come.

me : Who will?

anton: The fourteen-to-twenty-five-year-old males.

me : For what?

anton: For what you have. They’ll compliment you.

You tell them you have a hookup. You can get them the

same thing at a discounted rate. Give them the coupon



176

code that arrives with the shipment and send them to

the specified website address. They buy it. You get

twenty percent. Girls too. Show them our female brands

and I’ll give you twenty percent of that too.

me: The thing is, Anton—

anton: Sensei.

me: Sensei, I need twenty-five hundred today.

anton: Sign this contract and I will give you an

advance. You’re sixteen, right?

me: Actually, I’m only—

anton: Of course you are.

He gave me a stack of papers and told me to take my time

reading them.

I couldn’t concentrate. All I could think about was showing

up at school in tight red jeans and a white belt. Cowhide blaz-

ers and shirts with different colored buttons. Logos! What

would Hud and Coops say? They’d know something was up.

What would I tell them? What could I tell them? I had to walk

away. I had to run.

How could I, though? The only thing I ever wanted was to

play Varsity. If I quit, Hud and Coops would know something

was up and it’s not like I could tell them about the bankrupt

thing. I promised my dad.

I told myself that this job is temporary. I could make the

money back in a few weeks and then It-quit. Anyway, Dennis

Rodman wore lipstick. He dyed his hair green. He dressed like

a bride. He pierced his face. And he was inducted into the

Basketball Hall of Fame, so.



177

I signed all twenty pages. Now I’m in the red too.

Anton gave me the check and I rushed it over to Coach

Bammer. He was afraid I wouldn’t show. He asked me why I

looked tanned. I told him I had a fever. Same thing I told Sher-

idan when I saw her. I wanted to tell her the truth. She seems

easy to talk to. But I can’t. I signed a contract. I have no clue

what it says but I’m sure keeping this quiet is in there.

Feeling = Hall of Fame here I come.



This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual

events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Lisi Harrison

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning,

uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of

the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes),

prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at

[email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Poppy

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our website at lb-teens.com

Poppy is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company.

The Poppy name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content)

that are not owned by the publisher.

First Paperback Edition: May 2014

First published in hardcover in October 2013 by Little, Brown and Company

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Harrison, Lisi.

Pretenders / by Lisi Harrison. — First edition.

pages cm.

Summary: “Five high school freshmen—the Phoenix Five—reveal theirfriendships, crushes, school and family dramas, and big secrets, as told in their

unique voices through journal entries”— Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-316-22244-0 (hc)—ISBN 978-0-316-22232-7 (pb)

[1. High schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Diaries—Fiction.

4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 6. Family life—

New Jersey—Fiction. 7. New Jersey—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.H2527Pqm 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012048434

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

RRD-C

Printed in the United States of America

pretenders: duffy's journal by lisi harrison (excerpt)

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