Read Poseur #2: The Good, the Fab and the Ugly for Free Online

my dad, right? And he was saying all we have to do is bring him
one
vandalized tag and he’d take it to his guy in K-town to have the handwriting
professionally analyzed.
Apparently, the man can tell your
shoe
size from, like, the way you cross your
T
s!”
    At the goatish staccato of her friend’s laughter, Petra winced, rolling onto her back. “Melissa,” she yawned, blinking her bleary eyes at the ceiling. She’d have to choose her next words carefully. “What?”
    “What do you mean
what
?” Melissa sputtered in disbelief. “Do you
not
recall that ridiculous launch party we hosted?”
    “Of course, but . . .”
    “Remember the contest we held to name our new label, only to have some raggedy-ass riffraff rifle through our raffle?”
    Petra furrowed her pretty brow. “Okay, was that even English?”
    “We need to
revisit the scene of the crime,
” Melissa pressed on. “All we need to do is find
one
tag and then . . .
Emilio,
I swear to . . . In the
back
! In the back,
now
!”
    “Melissa” — Petra covered her aching eyes with one hand — “we left those tags in the gutter, remember?”
    “So?” her comrade in fashion bristled.
    “So . . . do you really think they’re going to be just, like,
sitting
there? Exactly where we left them?”
    “No,” Melissa chortled at the sheer absurdity of that statement. “I mean, they’re probably blowing down the street or something.”
    Petra’s perfect jaw dropped. “They’ve been blowing around for
over a week.
They’re probably halfway to
Borneo
by now.”
    “Okay,” Melissa announced. “I am outside your house.”
    “What?”
    “I know, right? Janie and Charlotte are
so
out of the way, but you’re right on my way to school.
Oooo . . . !
”
    Petra grimaced as her ear filled with what had to be a thudding hip-hop base, but through the cell sounded like a tortured black fly. “This song is so old-school!” Melissa sang.
    She grimaced again, holding the phone from her ear, and crawled across the futon, pushing aside her hand-painted Balinese wood-beaded curtain. She peered outside, scanning the quiet Beverly Hills residential street, where, through luscious green hedges and imposing wrought-iron gates, she could
just make out
an all-too-familiar platinum Lexus convertible, parked illegally at the curb. The female driver, unidentifiable at this distance, bopped about in the breezy front seat, one long, bronzed arm extended. Light refracted from her wrist as her hand flapped around: first up and down, then side to side. Petra frowned.
    Was she . . . spanking the wheel?
    “
. . .
an’ if I hit da switch, I can make the
aaaaass
drop!” her tinny voice crooned in perfect time to Mystery Driver’s enthusiastic wheel-spanks. Petra shook her tangled honey-blond head.
    It had to be her.
    “Okay,” Petra intruded into her friend’s buoyant rap rhapsody. She released the curtain so that the swinging strands of beads clattered. “I actually don’t think I feel up to . . .”
    Melissa yelled over the music.
“What?”
    Petra cleared her throat and raised her voice. “Um . . .
I’m kind of not at my house right now?
”
    “Halfway
home
and my pager still
blow-
in’
up.
” Melissa cackled with delight. “Oh no. Step back, y’all!
The man has a pager.
”
    “Melissa . . .” Petra pressed two fingers to her throbbing temple. “Did you hear what I said?”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard you,” she admitted, melting the volume on Ice Cube and cracking her gum. Petra breathed a low sigh of relief, cast one wistful glance at her organic Kapok pillow, and crawled toward it on her hands and knees. Closing her throbbing eyes, she collapsed like a parched desert wanderer.
    “Petra,” she heard Melissa whisper in her ear.
    “Mmrph . . .”
    “If you do not get your ass outta your house in two minutes, I will lean on this horn and blast you out of it.”
Petra’s wide-set tea-green eyes popped open. “And then I’ll make it my life’s mission to