Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [41]
“It is Pineville,” I said, covering my embarrassment with sarcasm.
“It's perfect. Just look at these!” Jane quickly slipped on a pair of white spandex bike shorts. They were so tight that I could see her unborn children.
“Perfect,” I said, finally sort of meaning it.
I really started to cheer up when I unearthed peg-legged, acid-washed Sassoon jeans with bows at the ankles. The jeans were an ideal match for the screaming pink push-up bikini top, over which I wore a perforated half-shirt.
“What do you think?” I asked, modeling my outfit for Jane.
“Brett Michaels would definitely have sex with you,” she said appraisingly. “And he wouldn't even bother to learn your name.”
At this point we were enjoying ourselves so much that I'd almost forgotten about what had happened with Marcus back at the house.
Almost.
We raced home and barely had enough time to tease our hair, not an easy feat with my current coif. (DAMN MY HAIR.) We smothered our eyes with black eyeliner, and slapped on red, airbrushed press-on talons. We were skankified.
“Your friends better outdo themselves,” Jane warned.
“Oh, don't worry. They've both got a flair for the theatrical.” I went on to explain that Bridget is an aspiring actress, and that Pepe once dressed up in an authentic rhinestone jumpsuit for his talent show– winning performance as The Black Elvis.
I was right. They didn't disappoint. Bridget still managed to look gorgeous, even with roof-raising bangs, red-rinsed jean shorts, and an oversized shoulder-padded T-shirt. But Pepe outdid us all. He was shirtless under a pleather vest covered in decorative metal grommets, and he had squeezed into jeans so tight that one wine cooler too many and they would surely explode off his body with a force that would rival the onstage pyrotechnics. The final, perfect touch? A platinum, curly wig in the Dee Snider tradition.
“It's an honor to meet you both!” Jane whooped.
“Likewise,” Pepe said, admiring her outfit. “The Glam Slam Metal Jam is probably the only place on earth where white spandex bike shorts will be the norm.”
Pepe, like the rest of us, assumed that the majority of concertgoers would also show up in heavy metal drag.
Uh. Well. We were wrong.
As we drove around the parking lot looking for a parking space, it soon became clear that of eight thousand fans, only four were in costume. And they were us.
“We can't be the only people dressed like this!” Bridget said, horrified.
“We are! We are!” shouted Jane, thoroughly thrilled.
Most were dressed on the casually preppy side, like we would've looked had we not been wearing costumes. However, a minority were dressed in headbanger gear. But they, unlike us, clearly dressed like that all the time. Suddenly, an idea that started out as fun seemed anything but. We were scared to get out of the car, afraid that the authentic metalheads would be offended by our attire, interpreting our tongue-in-cheek tribute as a personal attack.
“Come on,” Jane said, opening up the cooler of beer that Pepe and Bridget had packed before we left. “We must get drunk!”
And this time, I took her imperative to heart. Which is why the rest of the night is fuzzy. Once emboldened by a few cups of Miller Genuine Draft, we left the safety of our car. And to our utter amazement, the fans—Mötley Crüe and J.Crew alike—loved us. They high-fived us. They whoooo-hooed us. They realized that we were out to have fun, not to poke fun. We were, in the words of the craptacular Poison song, out for “Nothin' but a Good Time.” We had risked embarrassment by throwing ourselves hair-first into the spirit of heavy-metal excess, and it had paid off. Fans laughed at us, and we laughed with them. I've been to better shows, but I've never had more fun at one. Ever.
I wish that Marcus had joined us. He could have seen the difference between merely pretending to be game, as I had at True, and actually being game, as I was tonight. It's a distinction I couldn't explain before the fact, as I wasn't even too sure of it myself until now.
And I also could have avoided this conversation on the