So Yesterday - By Scott Westerfeld Page 0,31
hoping the rest of the lifestyle would somehow follow.
Why did this tribe annoy me so much? It's not like I'm against social hierarchies - my job depends on them. Every cool constituency from hardtop basketballers to Detroit DJs organizes itself into aristocrats and hoi polloi, insiders and nonentities. But this crowd was different. Becoming an aristoi wasn't a matter of taste, innovation, or style, but of being born into one of a select hundred or so Manhattan families. Which is why aristocrats don't really have Innovators. For their new looks they rely on designers from Paris and Rome, hired help selected by Trendsetters like Hillary Hyphen. The top of the Hoi Aristoi cool pyramid - where the Innovators should be - is chopped off, sort of like the one on the back of the one-dollar bill. (Coincidence? Discuss.)
Suddenly my step faltered, my sour mood lifting. A few yards away two rent-a-models were stationed in front of a trio of bedazzled bison. And they were giving out gift bags.
Filthy rich or bomb-throwing anarchist, everyone loves gift bags.
I grabbed one, assuring myself that it was just to look for clues about the party's sponsors. Parties in New York are always multi-corporate orgies, a mix of advertising, guest lists, and giveaways. Gift bags are the final repository of all this cross-marketing, with everyone involved throwing in an abundance of free toiletries, magazines, movie tickets, CD singles, chocolates, and minuscule bottles of liquor. The main sponsors (I don't mind naming brands, because you can't buy them in stores, for reasons that will soon become clear) were Hoi Aristoi magazine itself, a spiced rum called Noble Savage, and a new shampoo that went by the peculiar name of Poo-Sham. The big prize in the bag was a free digital camera, no bigger than an old-fashioned cigarette lighter, with the Poo-Sham logo plastered all over it.
A free digital camera as a carrier for advertising. I gave this the Nod.
Man cannot live on gift bags alone, though. I consumed the chocolate and looked around for real food.
A tray went past carrying champagne and orange juice. I grabbed a glass of the juice and gulped, only to discover it was spiked with Noble Savage... a lot of Noble Savage. I managed not to sputter, drank it down for the sugar, and immediately regretted it. An empty-stomach buzz began to take hold of my brain.
The party's edges softened around me, and I started to see imperfections in my fellow penguins' bow ties. All that individuality being expressed, according to Emily Post. Or had I gone with Vanderbilt? I couldn't remember, which seemed like a bad sign.
Perhaps my anxiety didn't have to do with Mandy's disappearance, the potential dangers of the anti-client, the pretensions of the hoi aristoi, or even the mysteries of Jen's affections. It wasn't even low blood sugar. It was much simpler than that.
I was alone at a parry.
No one likes to feel left out. Like the small herd of stuffed impalas gazing sightlessly across the room toward me, I was a social animal. And here I was standing in a tuxedo, holding a gift bag and an empty glass of orange juice, feeling alone among a bunch of people I didn't know and instinctively didn't like.
Where was Jen? I thought of calling her but didn't really have anything to report yet. It just looked like any other launch party so far.
At this point I would have settled for a glimpse of the bald guy, even NASCAR Man or Future Woman. Hiding or fleeing would be better than standing around alone. Anything to give me a purpose.
Another tray went by, carrying something that looked like food, and I followed it.
The tray led me down a short hall toward the outer-space section of the museum. The planetarium rose up before me, a huge white globe on curved legs, as awe inspiring as an alien spaceship. Yet as so often happens in museums, I was thinking about food. I plowed after the tray, not catching the white-coated caterer until he was mobbed by a small and hungry crowd.
The tray was covered with sushi experiments gone awry, tiny towers of fish eggs and multicolored tentacles, something that nonmetaphorical penguins might eat. Not exactly what I'd been hunting for, but I grabbed a pair of what looked like plain rice balls and stuffed one into my mouth. Something inside it exploded into saltiness and fishiness, a sushi booby trap. I swallowed anyway, then inhaled the second.
My mouth was so full that