They ate lunch at Red Brick Pizza in the outdoor mall. A large Hawaiian special fed the five of them easily, though Justin surprised everyone by eating three pieces.

"Well, I sort of didn't have breakfast," he explained when Jenn commented.

Carmine picked the Canadian bacon off the twelfth slice, Justin took the pineapple and Shabeez ate a few of the cashews. "I get it," she said. "Macadamia nuts, the cashews are instead of macadamias which are too expensive."

Ell agreed. "You're probably right, everyone says macadamias taste like cashews. Why else put them on an Hawaiian pizza?"

Justin started on the cashews Shabeez had not eaten. "They are good," he said.

"Jeez, Juice, you tryna get fat?" asked Carmine.

"I've never seen you eat so much," said Jenn.

"Well, I'm hungry," said Justin, prying up a bit of cheese with the last cashew. He popped the now-cold morsel in his mouth and made an apologetic face.

"You can't be a model if you can't control your appetite," said Ell.

"I heard a lot of models 'control their appetite' the way Juice was doing this morning," said Carmine.

"Huh?" said Shabeez.

"By throwing up on purpose," explained Ell. "And that's not healthy."

"I didn't do it on purpose," Justin protested. "I've just been kinda sick the last few days."

Carmine nodded. "Yeah, but only in the morning," she said, smirking.

"Maybe she is pregnant," said Shabeez, staring at him.

Justin frowned but didn't eat the last piece of cheese he had snagged.

* * *

They traipsed the length and width of the Plaza, looking in shop windows and talking about school, television, boys, clothes, parents, movies, shopping, boys, fashion, food, friends and boys.

Ell felt that boys her own age had one great failing, they were all short and had no sense of fashion. Carmine thought that boys at school were dull and boring and that boys who weren't in school were stupid and boring. Also that Ell was math-impaired.

Jenn thought her dad might be planning to ask one of her teachers out on a date. Which would be terrible unless it helped her out in English. Shabeez wanted to buy something, almost anything, but nothing here. Did everyone have enough money to go to the beach, instead? No one admitted to having that much.

Juice thought that all the movies being offered in the theater had either already been seen by someone they knew and gotten bad word-of-mouth or did not look at all interesting. And did getting your ears pierced really hurt bad?

"What did you say?" asked Jenn.

"Nemmine," said Juice.

"Hey," said Ell. "Juice is the only one of us that doesn't have pierced ears!"

"It hurts like a bitch," said Carmine who had five holes in each ear. "Oh, yeah." She made a face and nodded.

"You're supposed to go like this," said Shabeez, wagging her head shoulder to shoulder.

"As if," said Carmine, apparently having forgotten about the earlier plan to wag their heads instead of nodding for yes.

"Oh, yeah!" said Shabeez, her enthusiasm for the idea returning.

"Shall we get Juice's ears pierced?" asked Ell.

"Oh, yeah!" said Shabeez, wagging her head again.

"Sure," said Carmine. "The Juicester's ears can't stay virgin now."

Jenn looked appalled. "Do you even think about what you're going to say before you open your mouth?" she asked Carmine.

"No. Why?" Carmine asked, pretending to be innocent.

"I can't get my ears pierced," said Juice, putting a hand on one of them.

"Why not?" asked Ell. "Even most of the boys at school have pierced ears."

"Pete does, and Vince has one pierced ear," said Carmine.

"Oh, yeah," said Shabeez, still wagging her head and now giggling. "This kinda makes me dizzy."

"Redundant," said Jenn looking at Shabeez.

"Don't you have to get your parents permission to get anything pierced?" said Juice.

"Not earlobes," said Ell.

"My dad got one ear pierced," said Jenn. "He wanted to be more sexy since he just turned thirty-nine. But he thought he might have gotten the wrong one done so he had the other one pierced, too."

Juice blinked. "Which one does he wear something in?"

Carmine said, "The wrong one, probably."

Jenn laughed. "He couldn't figure that out so he wears flesh-colored studs in both ears."

"You could do that," said Ell to Juice. "I mean, when you're not out with us."

"I had a flesh-colored stud once," said Shabeez.

"What color was the rest of him?" asked Carmine.

"No," said Shabeez. "I mean an ear stud, it was all pink or beige or something, like you guys. It looked cute on me but one of my white cousins borrowed it and I never saw it again."

Everyone else laughed, so Shabeez did too, looking a little puzzled.

"It's not your fault," said Carmine, "your mom was blonde, wasn't she?"

"I'm blonde, too, my dad says," said Shabeez. "It just doesn't show 'cause I've got black hair."

They all laughed at that one so hard they had to go sit in the chairs under the umbrellas in the middle of the Plaza.

"Us blondes got to stick together," said Ell, nodding to Juice and Shabeez on either side of her.

"Wanna be an honorary ginger?" Jenn offered to Carmine.

Carmine grinned, "In Spanish, it's all the same, redheads and blondes are both, las gueras. Basically, any color hair that isn't black or dark brown. Real blondes are las rubias."

"I like that better, it sounds like rubies," said Jenn. "Las Rubias. That's the name of our posse."

"No," said Carmine. "Rubies would be los rubis."

"Cool," said Shabeez. "Then we each wear something with a ruby and -- either way!" She wagged her head with enthusiasm.

"That's not right" said Carmine. "But what the heck. I always wanted to be a blonde goth."

* * *

Having exhausted the delights of Riverside Plaza for the moment the five friends boarded an RTA bus for the trip to the Galleria on the southwest edge of town. The bus wasn't crowded on a holiday and they could sit where they liked. Jenn made a point of sitting away from the sunny windows.

"It's hot and I can't take that much sun," she said.

"Hope you wore sunscreen," said Ell, "I got some in my bag if you didn't."

"I did but it wears off. I brought some to put on when we visit the bathroom."

This had been the original reason for buying the girlie hat for Justin earlier in the summer, so he could go to the restroom with the girls and no one would be the wiser. Justin remembered that they had bought him the hat at the July Fourth Carnival, the week before his first date with Zoe.

Shabeez squirmed in her seat. "I wish you hadn't said that, now I gotta go."

Carmine shook a finger at her. "Should of thought of that before we got on the bus, mija," she said in a deepened voice. "Now you'll just have to hold it and not think of fountains or rivers or lakes."

"Shut up," said Shabeez.

Ell shook her head at Carmine and Jenn changed the subject but as soon as the bus pulled up to the Galleria, the whole posse made straight for the restrooms. Ell snagged Juice before he forgot and headed for the wrong one.

After various business had been taken care of, including reapplication of sunscreen, Justin lingered in front of the mirror examining the fit of his hat and looking at his earlobes. Carmine came up to him brandishing a lipstick and said, "Hold still, mija, I want to try this on you."

He held still and followed directions as she applied the lip color and had him blot it on a paper towel. "What do you think?" she asked.

"Too dark," said Ell. "Here, I've got one she can use."

After removing the darker color, Justin let Ell apply the bright, frosted pink color. Everyone admired the effect.

"That's really cute on you," said Jenn.

Justin tried the middle school smile in the mirror and it was a very cute effect, everyone laughed.

"It's too bright for me," said Ell, "for daytime. You can have that one, Juice." She unzipped his belt pack and slipped the silvery tube inside.

"Wait," said Justin.

"Hey," called Shabeez from the door. "They've got free ear piercing at Claire's with purchase of a starter kit. That's like, simple studs and the solution to keep them clean, till it heals," she added for Justin's benefit.

"I dunno," he said.

"Oh, c'mon, don't be a baby," said Carmine.

"You wanna be in the posse, don't you?" asked Shabeez.

"I guarantee it won't hurt at all," said Ell.

Jenn rolled her eyes. "Peer pressure," she said and everyone laughed again.