Everything Is Perfect When You're a Liar (9 page)

We were only supposed to make one pass down the catwalk. I did two. All the more chance of being noticed.

“Eleven forty-nine, please leave the catwalk.”

Perfect! I'd graduated from Being Noticed 101.

Satisfied, I walked offstage, grabbed my backpack, pulled out a book, and waited for my number to be called. Occasionally I glanced over at the scouts. They all looked like really pretty teachers, only they were from New York, London, Berlin, Paris, and Milan. So, like, hotter, better-dressed teachers, with more intensity and worse teeth.

Finally, the first agent, the dark-haired one from New York, stood up and started calling numbers. I could hear girls squealing around me as they were called. “Woohoo!!” I cheered for the girls, hoping my support for them would pay off in furious cheers when 1149 was called. I stood up on my toes to catch a glimpse of the judges through the girls around me. GOD, did they have to be SO TALL?

The woman from New York called number after number after number. Then she sat down. She hadn't said 1149. Neither did the next agent, or the next.

The local agent, a boisterous man who looked like a sexier Chris Farley, announced that those whose numbers had been called should report to the twenty-third floor of the Manulife tower, across the street, in half an hour.

Wait? It was over?

And then everyone left. Even the rappers.

I was in complete shock. My number hadn't been called.

I looked at the number in my hand, hoping I'd read it wrong. Maybe I suffered from Tom Cruise's disease—dyslexia?

Nope. Eleven forty-nine. I had it right.

Nope. It had to be a mistake. The fashion world, Paris and New York, needed me.

And I was going to need a plan.

 

I walked over to the food court, past the psychiatric patients on day passes playing cards for prescription pills. Plunking myself down in front of a clock at the China Express, I pulled out the Oscar Wilde I'd been reading and inhaled a plate of lo mein.

Half an hour later, I ran across the street to the Manulife tower and into one of the elevators. It was full of tall girls and mothers whose arms were overflowing with modeling books. They all wore clothing my family couldn't afford. One of the moms was wearing an actual Chanel jacket. No one made eye contact.

“Guess it's just us!” I said, trying to break the ice. Make fast friends with my new model sisters, my future Parisienne roomies.

“I'm bilingual, so if any of you come to Paris with me for Fashion Week, I will be of major help to you. Nice jacket,” I said to the pretty, gray-haired Chanel mom. “Mine's fake,” I said proudly, as though I'd outsmarted her somehow. She made eye contact and smiled.

The elevators opened on the twenty-third floor. It was an entire floor with no walls—just one
huge
room, except for the washrooms in the corners. Around the periphery were desks and stations for all the different agencies. On the desks were Polaroid cameras, measuring tapes, and stacks of contracts. Behind the desks were the agents.

I headed for the Wilhelmina table, the only one with no long line of girls.

“Yes?” The agent was European and graceful as she moved, the way a spider might be if it were an old human woman.

“Hi,” I said, smiling.

“Can I help you?”

“I'm here to sign up.” I pointed at the sign-up sheet and wiggled my eyebrows up and down, flirting like Shirley Temple or a demented old man.

“Your number wasn't called,” she said.

“I think it was.”

“I chose only three girls out of four hundred. That is why there is no line here. And I know what they looked like, darling.” She gave me a perfectly phony smile, like a mom praising someone else's toddler for crapping in a toilet.

But I would not be moved. I took off my Sally Jesses, put my hands on her desk, and leaned forward. “Maybe you like me better now that you can see me close up?”

The woman put her hand on mine and whispered, “I'm sorry.”

I turned and walked away. Wilhelmina was a dumb name for an agency anyhow.

My next stop was the local agency that was feeding models to the Ford Modeling Agency in New York.

“Hi.”

The man didn't look up. “Number?”

“Eleven forty-nine.”

“Eleven forty-nine, eleven forty-nine, eleven forty-nine . . . No, I—” and then he looked up, his mouth still open, frozen in place, his tongue thrust forward a little.

“I'm sure you called my number.” I wagged my eyebrows again.

“Oh, honey.” His hand was already coming out to touch mine, like he was consoling someone whose dog had mange. “I'm sorry, but we didn't.”

“Really? Weird!” I said, stalling for time. “I think you should take my picture with that camera,” I said, pointing to the Polaroid.

He seemed uncomfortable with my confident Kimmy Gibbler act. “Is your mother with you?”

“Yeah, right. I'm fourteen, totally unescorted. You know what that means? It means I can go to go-sees in Paris and New York. On my own. I'm very independent and would be fine living in a model's apartment.
Je parle français aussi. C'est tout parfait pour nous!
”

“Um. Well . . . we don't have you on this list, honey.” He pointed at the sheet, then looked over my shoulder at a tall blonde in a skintight dress.

I moved back into his line of sight and dug in. “Look, I think you'd
really
like me. I work hard. I have since I was a small child. I can dance, I can act, but I
can't sing
.” I left out the part about not being able to memorize lines. Technically, I could act. I was acting
right that minute
.

As I tried desperately to wedge my way into his good graces, a woman from the same agency, who had been standing nearby, came over to join my new friend the agent and me.

“Can you take off those glasses?” she asked me.

I took them off.

“Can you take off the jacket?”

I did.

“Right!” I said. “You know I'm actually very, very, very photogenic. And my mother is small and has a great body, so one day very soon I will too.”

Now that my glasses and Mom's jacket were off, they seemed to be staring at me differently. Not drooling, exactly. More like the way my dad stares at the BBQ while he's grilling.

The woman picked up the Polaroid and took my photo. The man looked annoyed.

“I need to see your profile,” she said, pulling the camera down from her face.

“I don't think I have one. Wait—maybe in my bag!” I put my backpack on the table and started rummaging through it. For what, I had no idea.

“No,” she said, making a turning motion. “Your profile. A photo of your face from the side.”

I thumped my bag down on the table and stood sideways.

“Stop smiling,” he said. Oh, Jesus was taking the wheel! Not the Baby Jesus, of course. You must NEVER let Baby Jesus take the wheel. But this guy—he wasn't trying to get rid of me! I made a serious face, like a soldier. “I'll do whatever it takes, you know. I don't even need to get braces. My teeth are perfect.”

“What's your name?” he asked.

“Kelly.”

“Well, Kelly, you are a little short. What are you, five-five?”

“Five-
six
. And I might still hit a growth spurt.”

“Do you have a book?”

I picked up my backpack. “I have
The Picture of Dorian Gray
!”

“No, a
book
book. A modeling portfolio.” He seemed annoyed. I couldn't let him be annoyed. I needed him to see I was serious about this.

“No. But I can get my mom to take a bunch of black-and-whites and blow them up for you at the drugstore if you need them.”

The woman stopped shaking the Polaroid, looked at it, and then showed it to the man. “She is photogenic. Look at her face.”

The man looked at the snapshot, then looked at my face.

I stopped smiling.
Soldier face.
He sighed.

“Here, fill this out.” He slid an information sheet across the table. My heart leaped as I threw my backpack over one shoulder. I had weaseled my way into their hearts like I knew I would.

“But,” he said, putting his hand on mine again—not in dog-mange condolence this time, but instead to let me know he was serious. “Promise me that you'll sign only this, and then you'll leave.”

“Done.”

I headed home—after signing a form with an agency. I didn't even read it. I did not care. This was it.

Two weeks later, I got a call.

“This is Jeneta, from the cattle call.” I could finally stop sleeping with the phone. “We're having a class for our up-and-coming models, every Saturday for the next six weeks. Nine
A.M.
to five
P.M.
Are you in?”

“Of course I'm in! I've never been more ready to become Cindy Crawford.”

“Oohhkaaaaay.”

“On Saturdays I usually just reenact Lionel Richie videos, but I'll put my ‘Ballerina Girl' extend-a-mix on hold. My moles are ready for stardom.”

Like me, my parents didn't really seem shocked that any of this was happening. My dad had always been convinced I was headed for stardom, and my mom's chief concern was making me feel supported. All I needed from them was a ride.

I was early, as usual, and it was cold, as usual. The agency had rented a loft space on the edge of downtown: a street of original city brick buildings that weren't really even a century old; I lived in the western part of North America and it's all kind of new over there.

I was standing at the door of the building when Jeneta arrived. As she unlocked the door to the agency, I gave my mom an actual air pump, which was our signal: “I'm good, you can leave
.
” Mom had been watching me from half a block away in our Aerostar. My parents and I cared just as much about abduction as we did about the art of looking cool and independent. Mom would never cramp my style. I watched her pull away from the curb. Independence at last.

Then, all of a sudden, I heard a noise. In the alleyway beside the agency, a trap door had flown open, crashing into the pavement. The door looked like it led to the sewers. And out of it emerged a parade of people in the most bizarre getups I'd ever seen off the TV screen.

“Where are those people coming from?!” I said, pointing as a girl with mirror pasties, blue hair, and blown-out pupils dragged herself across the sidewalk in front of us.

“Rave club.”

“Rave club?”

A man in his late forties came through the door into the sunlight and let out this feral, gaspy burp sound. He looked like my father, only wearing Hanes briefs and glitter.

“After-hours club. You know, nightclubs? Dancing? They're all over the place. How long were you waiting here by yourself?”

“I don't know,” I lied, pushing the story about me being ready for life as a model in New York or Paris even further. “Like, half an hour. There were some kids shooting heroin over there. I told them I didn't have a needle, but that I knew where they could get some clean ones.” She called bullshit on me with her eyes. Good—now I knew my bullshit limitations with Jeneta.

I was so befuddled by the thought of my father dancing somewhere in his underpants all night that I almost forgot to soak in the moment when I walked across the studio threshold and became an internationally famous and beloved model.

The room was amazing: art deco everywhere, with a catwalk, a waterfall, makeup stations, magazines, a wall of TVs playing Linda Evangelista runway videos, mirrors, and a sound system blasting Deee-Lite. I took my coat off and tossed it into the closet, like I owned the place.

“Oh God, Kelly. Is that what you wore? Do you have anything else? The stuff I asked you to bring?”

I looked down at my overalls and Betsey Johnson T-shirt. I was in my
Blossom
best. My Betsey Johnson shirt was the ONLY TRULY fancy thing I owned, besides the Benetton sweater.

Apparently I'd been daydreaming while I was on the phone with Jeneta. While I'd been imagining bunking in NYC with a new modeling protégée named Simone from St. Louis,
manger beaucoup des pretzels
, Jeneta had told me specifically to wear form-fitting clothing and to bring a pair of heels.

“Well,” I thought out loud, “I could cut the legs and the crotch off my overalls. Overall miniskirt?” I suggested, knowing full well that my mom would flip the shit out if I did any such thing.

“It's all right,” she said with a sigh. “We're doing makeovers today anyhow.”

This was it! The makeover scene was always my favorite scene. I was going to lose my glasses and become a woman—all to the strains of Deee-lite.

The rest of the new models made their way in and sat with me in a square of chairs facing a mirrored wall and one makeup station.

“Hey, I'm Kelly.” My hand eagerly shot out to my new roomie.

“Jessica.” She was at least three inches taller than me, and she wasn't wearing overalls. This girl was wearing a tube dress and spiky black heels she could walk in, and she had real boobs and perfectly lined shit-brown lips.

“Hey! I love your top,” she said. “Betsey J, right?”

I nodded coolly. “Betsey J.”

Then a guy named Andrew came in. He looked exactly like Matt Dillon in his football varsity jacket. It never occurred to me that BOYS would be here. I loved boys. I wanted to marry any boy who smiled at me. I was already envisioning the lovely future Andrew and I would have ahead of us. Little dark-haired kids playing with Andy in the pool while he lovingly looked over at my D-cup breasts snug in my gingham-print bikini. I ALWAYS envisioned my future self with D-cup breasts in a gingham-print bikini.

A few other models filed in—none of them very special, all of them looking at least ten years older than me.