Chapter 62: [2.35] In Which I Meet the Unfortunate Cousin of Big Bird
I followed Felix’s Range Rover through midday traffic with the growing suspicion that I’d made a catastrophic error in judgment. The kind that ranks somewhere between "letting Iris cook unsupervised" and "taking investment advice from a Fortune cookie."
My phone pinged with another message from Felix:
"Don’t worry! This is going to be AMAZING! You’re about to experience FASHION, my dude!"
Those capital letters contained multitudes of terror.
We pulled into a parking garage in SoHo where the hourly rate cost more than dinner. Felix bounced out of his vehicle like a labrador that had just spotted a tennis ball, practically vibrating with excitement.
"Isaiah! My man! My guy! Are you ready for your glow-up?" He slapped my shoulder hard enough to make me reconsider our friendship.
"This isn’t a glow-up. It’s just clothes shopping."
"Not just clothes shopping. We’re talking transformation. Metamorphosis. Rebirth!" Felix spread his arms toward the exit. "Out there, my friend, is the temple of style, and we have been granted unlimited access to its holy treasures!"
"It’s a credit card with someone else’s name on it."
"It’s a black card with no spending limit! Do you understand what that means?"
"That I’m about to watch you try to bankrupt a billionaire family?"
"That we are unfettered by the constraints of mere mortals!" Felix grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the elevator. "Come on, we’re burning daylight!"
I let myself be dragged into the elevator, then onto the street. SoHo on a Thursday afternoon was what I imagined a Paris runway might look like if everyone was pretending they weren’t on a runway. Beautiful people walked past storefronts that seemed to display exactly three items each, their faces all wearing the same expression – like they were perpetually smelling something unpleasant but were too polite to mention it.
"This," I said, "is where money comes to die."
Felix ignored me, pointing excitedly at storefronts. "Look at that! Balenciaga just dropped their new collection. And over there – that’s the new Comme des Garçons pop-up! Oh! And that’s—"
"Felix."
"What?"
"I need professional clothes. For business meetings. With adults. Not whatever that mannequin is wearing."
The mannequin in question was dressed in what appeared to be a toga made from aluminum foil, paired with platform shoes that would require an oxygen tank to safely navigate.
"You need to make an impression! These are fashion people! They’ll judge you if you look boring."
"They’ll judge me anyway. I’d rather be judged for looking normal than for looking like I’m auditioning for a sci-fi movie."
Felix sighed dramatically. "Fine. We’ll start with something more... conservative." He grabbed my arm again and pulled me toward a store with a single jacket displayed in the window. No price tag. Bad sign.
Inside, the boutique was aggressively minimal. White walls. Concrete floor. Five shirts hanging on a rack like they were afraid to touch each other. A salesperson with hair cut at angles that shouldn’t exist in Euclidean geometry looked up from their phone and assessed me in less than a second.
I could read the verdict in their eyes: Scholarship case. Probably touched the display items with dirty fingers. Will ask about sales.
Felix, meanwhile, was greeted like a returning hero.
"Felix! Darling!" The salesperson air-kissed somewhere near Felix’s face. "We haven’t seen you in ages!"
"Margot! Divine as always. I’m on a mission today. My friend here," he gestured at me like I was a stray he’d found, "needs a complete wardrobe overhaul."
Margot’s smile didn’t waver, but their eyes performed another scan, this time with slightly more interest. The black card I was holding probably upgraded me from "security threat" to "potential commission."
"Of course. What sort of look are we going for?"
Felix didn’t hesitate. "Avant-garde professional. Edgy but refined. He works for the Valentine family."
Margot’s eyebrows shot up so fast I thought they might achieve orbit. "Valentine? As in Camille Valentine?"
"The very same," Felix said, clearly enjoying their reaction.
"I’ll bring out our designer collection immediately."
As Margot disappeared into the back, I turned to Felix. "What exactly does ’avant-garde professional’ mean?"
"It means you’ll look rich, but in an interesting way."
"I don’t want to look interesting. I want to look competent."
"Same thing in fashion."
Margot returned with what could only be described as the physical manifestation of a bad decision. They held up a shirt – if you could call it that. It had what appeared to be three extra sleeves dangling from random locations, an asymmetrical hem, and was constructed from a material that looked suspiciously like an upscale trash bag.
"This just arrived yesterday," Margot said reverently. "One of only fifty made worldwide."
Felix gasped. "It’s perfect. The Valentines will love this."
I stared at the garment, wondering if this was some elaborate practical joke. "It looks like something a cult leader would wear before the Kool-Aid comes out."
Felix rolled his eyes. "That’s the point. It’s a statement."
"The statement is ’I have more money than sense.’"
Margot’s smile tightened. "Perhaps sir would prefer something more... conventional?"
The way they said "conventional" made it sound like "pedestrian" or possibly "tragically basic."
"Sir would prefer something that doesn’t require an instruction manual to put on," I replied.
The next hour was a blur of increasingly terrible options. Felix pulled me from store to store like we were on some kind of luxury scavenger hunt. Each location featured its own uniquely terrible items, all presented with the reverence normally reserved for religious relics.
In a high-end footwear boutique, Felix held up a pair of bright yellow loafers made from what I could only assume was the skin of Big Bird’s unfortunate cousin.
"Italian. Hand-stitched crocodile. Limited edition."
I peered at them. "They look like I skinned two cartoon characters and put them on my feet."
The saleswoman helping us coughed to cover a laugh.
At a designer knitwear shop, Felix presented me with a sweater that appeared to have lost a fight with a lawn mower.
"Vintage-inspired. It’s about deconstruction." He ran his hand over the fabric like he was showing me a Rembrandt. "Feel the quality."
"My sister has clothes in better condition that she uses for painting."
By the time we reached the denim store, my patience had reached its limit. Felix pulled out a pair of jeans that were pre-ripped in places that made no logical sense, covered in what looked like intentional coffee stains, and cost eight hundred dollars.
I stared at them, then at Felix, then back at the jeans. Without a word, I turned and walked straight out of the store.
Felix followed me onto the sidewalk. "Dude! What’s your problem? It’s not even your money! Just buy something!"
I stopped and turned to face him. "I can’t."
"What do you mean you can’t? You have the card!"
"I mean my hand physically will not let me give someone a credit card for a shirt that costs more than my monthly rent. It’s not about being difficult. It’s a psychological block. My brain refuses to process that this is real."
"But it’s not YOUR money!"
"That makes it worse! I’m supposed to be responsible with someone else’s money!"