2010 Kimmy Kimm & Lulu Chu Guide

Their project that July was the mall’s “Teen Talent Meltdown,” a karaoke contest held in the atrium between a Cinnabon and a Spencer’s Gifts. They weren’t singers, but they didn’t need to be. They had a two-part harmony on “Love Story” by Taylor Swift that they’d perfected in Lulu’s basement, singing into hairbrushes while the wall-mounted AC dripped onto a pile of Seventeen magazines.

In the hazy, glitter-glued summer of 2010, Kimmy Kimm and Lulu Chu ruled the narrow hallway of Westbrook High’s freshman wing. Not with cruelty, but with an unspoken, two-person empire built on shared ringtones and identical butterfly hair clips.

The problem was the costumes. Kimmy wanted matching sequin vests. Lulu wanted to go as “chaos fairies” with ripped tights and fake eyelashes. They argued for three days via BBM, the little “R” for Received taunting them both. 2010 kimmy kimm & lulu chu

But after the contest, sitting on the curb outside the mall with a shared soft pretzel, Lulu leaned her head on Kimmy’s shoulder. “We were the best, though.”

They didn’t know that in two years, Kimmy would move to a city with better prep schools, and Lulu would find a crew of art kids who painted murals on abandoned walls. They didn’t know that Facebook would become ancient history, or that their BBM chats would vanish into the digital ether. Their project that July was the mall’s “Teen

“The brand is us ,” Lulu typed back. “And we are not vests.”

They came in fourth place. The winner was a boy who played “Wonderwall” on an acoustic guitar and cried afterward. In the hazy, glitter-glued summer of 2010, Kimmy

Kimmy was the architect. She was tall, with a planner color-coded in six shades of gel pen, and she knew that the key to their future was visibility. Lulu was the heart. She was small, quick to laugh, and could make a friendship bracelet out of dental floss and sheer will.