Let loose in the retail jungle, three preteen girls work on the art and craft of shopping.
By KEISHA I. PATRICK
Published June 20, 2003
[Times photo: Stefanie Boyar]
Cousins Jessica “Jess” Siegel, left, and Shelby “Quinnie” Warren, both 12, try on feather boas at Westfield Shoppingtown Brandon.
Shelby "Quinnie" Warren, 12, and Jessica "Jess" Siegel, 12, prance around like 1950s movie stars at a dinner party in Manhattan. Wrapped in long feather boas, they pretend to be actors playing the role and ruling the world.
"Look at me, daaarling," Jess says to Quinnie, her cousin, as she plays with the black boa draped around her shoulders.
"Cleopatra coming at you," Quinnie responds, glancing at her cousin and adjusting the cherry red boa that sits around her neck.
Shelby Twining, 12, stands off to the side, watching her friends. She tilts her head slightly to the right and creases her lips to develop a face that seems to say, "What am I going to do with them?" She's less dramatic than they are.
This dressup scene takes place in what has become these girls' costume store, Afterthoughts in Westfield Shoppingtown Brandon.
On this Thursday afternoon, one week after school let out, Shelby, Quinnie and Jess are participants in what some call "Camp Mall." Many preteens, too old for traditional camp and too young for jobs, spend summer days hanging out with friends at malls.
Preparation for camp mall begins the night before, when Shelby calls Quinnie and invites her to the Brandon mall, the favorite mall of the best friends from Sarasota. Quinnie accepts the invitation on the condition that her cousin Jess can come, too. Jess and her family are visiting from Scottsdale, Ariz.
Shelby, Quinnie and Jess arrive at the mall around 11 a.m. Shelby, who stands about 5 feet 7, wears a turquoise blue tank top with spaghetti straps, denim capri pants and pink-laced sneakers with an open heel. She carries a beige tweed-looking purse, which contains the $70 she got for her birthday. Her blond hair falls slightly past her shoulders.
Quinnie wears a navy blue, laced jersey with an orange "5" on the front. A Star of David hangs from a silver chain around her neck. Her lightweight, camel-colored corduroy pants flare at the bottom and almost cover her open-toed black leather sandals, which she got at her mother's shoe store in front of her father's podiatry office. A Nokia cell phone with a sky blue cover spotted with yellow ducks sticks out from her left pants pocket. Her olive Fossil purse is the size of a man's wallet. She carries about $120 of shopping money, $75 of it on a Target gift card she got for her birthday. Her dark brown hair stops above her shoulders and frames her baby face, which is subtly enhanced with makeup.
Jess didn't fail to bring a camp mall outfit on her vacation: She wears a sleeveless white T-shirt with a red, white and blue emblem. Like Quinnie, she has on lightweight corduroys, but hers are navy blue. The pants are baggy and big in the waist, and she rolls the top of them for a tighter fit. She, too, wears black leather open-toed sandals from Quinnie's mom's shoe store. About $60 is in her gray cloth purse with black trim, which is strapped across her body. Her long, curly brown hair is in a loose ponytail on top of her head.
Shelby, Quinnie and Jess come to the mall with Shelby's mom, Dusty Twining, and 14-year-old brother, Noah. Though some parents drop their kids and friends off at a mall door, others, such as Shelby's mom, stay in the mall with them. These parents generally allow the friends to walk around on their own.
Some parents still send preteens to summer camp. Though now, camp takes them to the mall, too. Keisha Day, teen program coordinator for the city of Largo, says that the city's Back 4 More Teen Camp has taken its campers to a mall each of the three summers she has been working there.
On this Thursday, the 45 Largo seventh- through ninth-grade campers are spending their day at the Brandon mall. In the coming weeks, they'll visit the Prime Outlets mall in Ellenton, Day says.
"It's a safe field trip because they're not allowed to go outside of the mall," Day says. "We like the security aspect, and they have fun."
One thing Shelby, Jess and Quinnie lack on their "camping" trip is packed lunches. No one brings those to camp mall. So, after they arrive and separate from Shelby's mom, eating is the first thing they do.
With stomachs full of fried rice and sesame chicken, the girls are ready to take care of camp mall business: surveying the latest fashions, smelling new lip gloss flavors and having fun. It's noon, and Shelby's mom will meet them at 2:50 p.m. in front of Panera Bread Bakery-Cafe.
Sniffing the aromas of scents ranging from vanilla to apple, the girls go to the Body Shop. They start off looking at the new lip gloss flavors and move on to the eye masks.
Quinnie and Jess try on plastic eye masks with blue gel inside. They wear them like Mardi Gras masks. As always, Shelby watches her friends' silliness with a goofy smirk. She's ready to go; Foot Locker awaits.
Quinnie and Jess are sidetracked. They stop in the center of a mall aisle to rest on corduroy-covered beanbags at a booth shop.
But Shelby is on a mission. She needs a pair of sneakers because the pair she owns are old and fell in lake water not too long ago. A pair of white leather Converse, with a red star on the side, catches her eye.
She picks up a shoe and examines it carefully. She searches every inch of leather for quality, style and cuteness.
"My brother has a pair of these," Shelby says. "I don't know if I want to look just like my brother. If they're more than $70, I can't buy them anyway."
"They're on sale for $50," store clerk John Parry says. "What size do you need?"
And buying just shoes isn't enough. Parry rolls out a sheet of paper towels and catches the girls' attention.
"Let me show you something," he says, grabbing two spray cans and leaning over the paper towels. "This will help you keep your shoes clean."
He picks up one can and sprays a large letter "S" onto the towel. He flips the towel over, but when he flips it back, the "S" has disappeared.
"See that?" he asks the girls.
They nod.
"Now watch this," Parry says. He picks up a bottle and sprays water all over the paper towel. The "S" reappears. The girls' eyes widen.
"That's what happens if dirt gets on your shoes," he says. "The spray helps protect the shoes so that when dirt gets on them, it washes right off and the protective layer reappears.
"It's great for helping white shoes last long. I recommend it to all of my customers who buy shoes with white in them."
Shelby is intrigued, but the cleaner costs about $15. She counts her money again. She shakes her head. "That would take all of my money," she says. "I only had $70. I don't have enough for the shoes and this."
Parry doesn't give up. He walks behind the counter and grabs two pairs of socks.
"What about getting some socks to match your shoes?" he asks Shelby. Holding the socks for all three girls to see, he says, "You can get these Converse socks with red in them to perfectly match the Converse shoes, or you can get these white socks with the red line across the top."
"I don't know what else I'd do with Converse socks," Shelby says. "I'd have to wear them only with these shoes."
Upon Quinnie's advice, Shelby changes her mind and picks the socks. She walks to the counter and makes her purchase. The total is $55.63. Foot Looker was an almost 15-minute stop. This is the longest time the girls spend in one store during their trip. On average, it takes them three to five minutes to walk through a store, comment on the new arrivals, hold a blouse to their chest, try on trendy sunglasses and move to the next store to start the process over.
Surprisingly, boys are not among the hot topics of discussion.
"We don't go to the mall with boys. We come here to shop," Jess says. "We meet boys at the movies."
And, they agree, moms aren't all that bad.
"What's bad about shopping with your mom?" Jess says. "They buy everything for you."
"Well, my mom thinks everything cute is from her time," Shelby says. "But she does take me shopping."
Quinnie nods. "My mom is awesome. I just love her," she says. Quinnie's mom is so cool that "she bought a brand new Elantra just for driving to Tampa so we can shop."
When Quinnie's not with her mom, she can keep in touch with the cell phone her parents bought her. Jess has one, too. The phone is for emergencies, Quinnie says.
"An emergency for you is when the store is out of purses," Shelby says. She holds her hand to her ear like a telephone and imitates Quinnie, "Mom, call the factory. They're out of the purse I want."
Shelby's parents haven't bought her a mobile phone. They don't think she needs one.
"My parents said I can get a cell phone when I get a job," she says. The tone in her voice indicates that that could be a long time away. She's 12.
As the girls walk toward Panera Bread, where they are scheduled to meet Shelby's mom, they pass the beanbags they had seen earlier.
"Shopping is exhausting," Shelby says, plumping down on a corduroy beanbag.
"I love shopping," Jess says, as she, too, lies across a beanbag. "I could shop all day."
