1636: The Barbie Consortium by Eric Flint

Author:Eric Flint [Flint, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Tyler's Restaurant

“I’m not going to listen to this,” Vicky yelled, while grabbing her jacket and purse. “I’ll do what I want and it’s none of your business. You can just count me out of this whole thing.” Helene suspected that even Vicky didn’t know if “whole thing” meant the consortium itself, her long-term friendship with the other girls, or just the intervention her friends had attempted.

After Vicky had slammed out of the room, the rest of the girls stared glumly at Judy. “Well, that didn’t work very well,” Gabrielle Ugolini muttered. Gabrielle clearly considered her overstuffed book bag the most important part of her wardrobe. She still wore her up-time clothing and probably would until it wore out or she outgrew it.

The girls had been trying to explain to Vicky the consequences of spending too much of your investment capital. It was supposed to be an intervention, like people did up-time for alcoholics or drug users. The idea was to try to save Vicky before she blew her share of the fortune they had made. They had picked the private room at Tyler’s, hoping that Vicky wouldn’t want to make a scene in a public place. The idea hadn’t worked very well.

“It might have gone better if you hadn’t called her an overdressed scarecrow, Millicent,” Judy responded. “You know she’s sensitive about being so tall.” Judy was dressed well, but it wasn’t a new outfit. She bought what she needed, but was selective about it. Helene was convinced that if Judy began wearing old grain sacks to school, every teenager in town would start wearing the same thing.

“Well, she is. Overdressed, I mean.” It was easy to see that there was a certain amount of jealousy in Millicent’s comment, true as it was.

Millicent’s mother, Anita Barnes, didn’t seem to have realized that Millicent was growing up. Compared to the departed Vicky, Millicent looked like a child, tiny and delicate, with a mane of dark curly hair that overpowered her face. Helene knew that Millicent’s tiny size was a source of great frustration to her. She often complained that “looking like a ten-year-old” was the reason she wasn’t allowed to spend any of her own money, and also why, to her extreme irritation, her mother still picked out her clothes. Vicky might hate being tall, but Millicent envied her height and her mature appearance.

Susan Logsden spoke up. “There’s no reason for her to buy a new outfit practically every week. She’s spending money like it was water. I hoped she would see sense, and listen to us. Not Vicky, though. She’s going to go right on doing the same thing until she’s broke.” Susan didn’t seem to mind that her clothing was more worn than that of the other girls. Susan was so focused on getting rich that Helene sometimes found her intensity a bit worrying.

“Life was a lot simpler before we had any money, wasn’t it?” Judy asked. “I didn’t realize how complicated this was going to be. There’s so much to learn.

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