Indicted (Bad Judgment #1) by Leigh James Page A

brave and go to Newbury Street and hope nobody thought I was a shoplifter.
    No more freaking Orange Bargain Basement Barbie on TV. That ship needed to sail. Without me on it.
    I’d even put in my contacts, which I usually only did for date nights with Mike. At least I used to wear them for date nights with Mike. Our date nights now routinely consisted of us going for dinner and then coming home and having missionary-position sex, which lasted approximately six minutes. Meanly, I’d started wearing my glasses out for those dinners, and then I took them off for the six-minute part, so that everything was blurry.
    I’d seen enough of Mike the Spike.
    When I got to Newbury Street, I couldn’t think about Mike or even Walker. All I could think about was Alexa — Alexa and her confident stride; Alexa and her annoying C-cups, Alexa and her snotty attitude. Revenge is never a good reason to be motivated. It is, however, a great motivator. If Alexa was going to say nasty things about me and how I looked, I was going to take the words out of her mouth because they would no longer apply. Then I’d have the best clothes and the best client.
    And Alexa wouldn’t like that. Not one bit.
    I stood outside of Jardine Soleil, looking at the sexy, ridiculously expensive dresses on the mannequins in the window. It was one of those trendy, expensive stores that I always looked at but was too intimidated to go into. Somehow, Jardine carried pencil skirts — the epitome of prim — that still managed to hug every curve. Like sex on a pencil. Or something. Alexa bought clothes here. Mimi bought clothes here. Mandy probably bought her clothes here now, as well. But Bargain Basement Barbie? Not me. Not yet. Not until now.
    I sighed and entered the store; there was some French pop music playing that did nothing to alleviate my discomfort. The women who were working there were dressed chicly in all black, with sky-high heels with red soles. I immediately felt out of place, like I was sticking out like a sore thumb in my pantsuit, and I started to sweat. I pulled out a dark purple dress, which was made of some sort of gorgeous fabric I’d never touched before, and looked at the price tag. Four hundred dollars. I dropped the dress like it was on fire, then bent over and hung it back up.
    I’d worked hard my whole life and I was being compensated for that hard work. Proctorpaid me well. But a dress for four hundred dollars? If I couldn’t afford that, who could?
    Alexa , I thought, and Mimi . Maybe Mandy . Because even though I was on their side of the fence now, even though I’d worked hard to get into the fancy law firm with my fancy law degree — I knew the truth about myself. A walk-up three bedroom for five people in Somerville. No air conditioning. No doorman. No stainless steel appliances.
    Even though my father wanted me to enjoy my success, he would have a coronary if I paid four hundred dollars for a dress.
    “Is there a sale section?” I asked the nearest sales associate, who was hovering discreetly nearby. I decided not to be embarrassed — they were the crazy ones, not me. Four hundred dollars! One dress!
    “In the back,” she said, and she sounded much nicer than I expected her to. She was exotic-looking, six feet tall, with long black hair and a size-zero waist. “We have some great dresses half-price. Let me show you!”
    An hour later, I had spent more money than I’d ever spent at once on clothes, but I had so many new and beautiful outfits it was worth it. I’d saved enough in the sale section that I didn’t feel gross or stressed about my purchases — not like when I’d used a credit card in law school to buy textbooks, or at the end of the semester, when my stipend had run out, and I’d used it for food. That used to make me sick, when I had to do that, standing in line at the grocery store checkout and calculating the interest in my head, wishing I didn’t have to eat.
    Today I paid cash, and I had a bunch of