Free Poseur #3: Petty in Pink: A Trend Set Novel by Rachel Maude Page A

gleaming floor. “The results are inconclusive,” he informed her gently but firmly, gripping the backs of her
     arms.
    Melissa blinked.
Results?
What was he talking about? Moments later, her mind reoriented like a Magic 8 Ball after a firm shake, and the answer floated
     to the surface.
Oh
…
    He was talking about
the tag.
    Back in September, as part of their now notorious launch party, she, Petra, Charlotte, and Janie had hosted a Name Our Label
     contest. They’d collected over a hundred suggestions from an equal number of guests, all of them written on two-by-one-inch
     white clothing tags. The tags had been locked into a custom-made clear globe safe—but “safe” they most definitely were not.
     Someone had broken into the globe. Someone had
tagged
the
tags
, defacing each one with a single word.
    Poseur.
    As a personal message to the vandal, they named their label in honor of the insult. Seedy called this “appropriating the language
     of the oppressor,” but his daughter wasn’t going to stop. “My business has been
violated
,” she’d protested, startling him awake from a nap. “And it’s gonna take a lot more than the I’m-Rubber-You’re-Glue defense
     for me to get over that. Until I know
who
the vandal is—until I
bring
that fool to
justice
—I will not, nay, I
cannot
move on.”
    Her father, who’d been hiding behind his Relax the Back Swedish neck cushion, agreed to see what he could do.
    Unfortunately, lack of evidence worked against them; it wasn’t until eighth-grader Nikki Pellegrini miraculously discovered
     one of the vandalized tags in a garbage-art installation that Melissa could finally kick off two major orders of business.
     First, immediately appoint Nikki Poseur’s new intern (she’d need to keep that eagle eye close). Second, give the treasured
     tag to her father, who would in turn give it to
the Man in K-Town
. Melissa didn’t know much about
the Man in K-Town
, except, a) he was number 9 on her dad’s speed-dial, and b) he took care of business, all
kinds
of business. “No man better than
my
Man at graffiti interpretation,” her father assured her. “One week with that tag a yours? Culprit’s good as
cuffed.
”
    All of which brings us back to the Moons’ ultramodern kitchen, where tasteful ambient lighting illuminated the cool stainless
     steel appliances, the dark slate floors, the spotless glass cabinets, the light gray marble countertops… and Melissa’s beautiful
     yet dismayed face.
    “Inconclusive?”
she squawked, braiding her body-buttered arms across her voluptuous chest. “What does that mean, ‘the results are
inconclusive
’?”
    Seedy threw up his hands, equally incredulous. “It means he couldn’t figure it out!”
    “But the Man in K-Town has a
zero percent fail rate
,” Melissa reminded him, stomping her stiletto. “You
said.
”
    “I know!” Seedy admitted, shaking his head, clearly perplexed.
    “Okay.” Melissa steepled her hands under her chin, fluttering her Dior Iconic-coated lashes shut. “Just tell me what he said.
     Like,
exactly
what he said.”
    Seedy stuttered a zebra-upholstered bar stool under his Adidas tracksuited butt and sat. “He said he couldn’t tell much from
     the handwriting. The perpetrator purposely wrote in block letters, the pen was a generic Sharpie… nothing distinctive. No
     finger-prints. He sent the tag to a lab for chemical analysis. Nothing there either…” He trailed off, losing himself in thought.
     “Except… ”
    “Except
what
?” Melissa gripped the gray marble countertop. “Daddy!”
    Squeezing the back of his neck, Seedy gazed at the floor, still shaking his head. His deep brown eyes flicked upward.
    “He said he found traces of
sea kelp
.”
    “
Sea
kelp,” Melissa repeated after a beat of baffled silence. She crumpled her brow. “You mean, like… seaweed?”
    “Man, I’m starting to wonder…” Her father cringed, squeezing the back of neck. “Maybe K-Town’s losing