Model Misfit (31 page)

Nick flinches. “Harriet—”

“There you are, Chuckle-monkeys!” a voice cries behind us, and a hand in a twinkly pink suit lands on my arm. Wilbur beams over my shoulder. “The light’s running out, Pizza-bottom. We need you to get ready now.”

I glance briefly at Nick, but he’s staring at the lake: profile outlined against the sky, face totally unreadable.

Whatever he was going to say has gone.

It feels like it’s not the only thing.

Swallowing hard, I follow Wilbur quietly back across the car park. But not before I’ve folded the note in half.

And dropped it on the floor behind me.

am
so
ready to be transformed.

I want the full works. I want to be primped and prodded and coloured in and brushed. I want to be preened and polished and glossed and gleamed and sprayed and beautified and augmented until I look like a proper, real model. Like somebody completely different.

Which is why it’s a bit disconcerting when Shion pulls a curtain around me, ties me into a long, floaty white dress with two pockets and a bit of white ribbon round the middle, and then starts walking me back through the car park.

There’s no hairdresser here. No make-up artist. No assistants. Just Shion and me.

“Umm,” I say politely as she gently winds a couple of purple flowers into my hair. She nods in satisfaction then hands me a pair of rubber flip-flops. “Where’s my usual … garnish?”

As if I’m some kind of fashion hamburger.

Shion smiles. “No garnish today. Yuka wants you completely natural. I’m on strict orders not to touch you with a single product.” She grimaces slightly and leans closer to my face. “Although I am
so
tempted to quickly just touch up those two zits with a bit of concealer but” – she sighs – “we’ll just have to leave them for Photoshop.”

What?
They’re sending me out
like this
?
Exactly as I am?

This wasn’t part of the deal.

I don’t even let Nat take photos of me like this.

I’m desperately trying to pinch some colour into my cheeks and lips the way Scarlett O’Hara does in
Gone with the Wind
when a cold voice behind me says, “Can you swim?”

Yuka’s standing a metre behind me. I have literally no idea how long she’s been there. It’s like having a shower and only seeing the massive black spider in the corner right at the end. “Sorry?”

“Can you swim?”

Fifty-four per cent of the world’s population can’t, but Dad ensured I was in the minority during a particularly traumatic trip to Cornwall. “Yes.”

“Good.” Yuka nods. “This is the most important shoot. It is absolutely pivotal that everything goes to plan. Is that perfectly clear?”

I swallow. “Yes.”

“Now, I am going to do something I have never done before in my entire career.”

I look at the lake nervously. “Umm … what?”

“This.”

And in one smooth motion, Yuka turns and walks back to her car, then climbs in and it drives away.

he relief is immediate.

It’s as if the Narnian winter has abruptly thawed, and everyone in a twenty-metre radius can suddenly take off their metaphorical big furry coats. Within seconds, Shion’s humming under her breath; Naho taps out a tune on her notepad; Wilbur takes his sunglasses off and wipes them on his shoulder pads. Even Haru perches on a log and rubs his forehead.

Yuka has obviously realised that the best thing she can do for her own campaign is be nowhere near it.

I follow Shion towards the water and then realise that Naho, Haru and a couple of the assistants are pulling on thermals, huge, waterproof onesies, hats and thigh-high wellies.

I’m going in, aren’t I. I’m actually going into the freezing cold lake. In nothing but a summer dress. And flip-flops.

Of course I am.

I don’t want to point out the obvious, but I’m recently heartbroken. I’m wearing a long white nightie and flowers in my hair. And now I’m being sent into a large body of open water.

Has nobody read
Hamlet
?

One of the assistants shyly holds out an extra waterproof costume to Wilbur and is promptly greeted with hysterical laughter. “My little Peanut-butter-spoon,” he finally wheezes at the startled girl. “I’m not wearing that: I’d vomit in my own mouth. Plus, I can’t go in water, Pea-pod. I’m like sugar: I’d dissolve on the spot. I think I’ll just stay here and keep a lookout for danger like a cute little meerkat.”

Then Wilbur puts his mirrored sunglasses back on and gives me a knowing, wry nod.

He really
is
like a guardian angel.

Albeit one with wings stitched into the back of his suit rather than a functional part of his outfit.

I’m just trying to work out how to get into the water without ruining yet another dress when a hand lands on my elbow. “Do you need help?” Nick’s now dressed entirely in yellow waterproofs, like the world’s most beautiful Paddington Bear. “Because unless you’re Jesus, Manners, you’re going to have to get a bit wet.”

Every cell in my body is now numb, apart from the area directly under Nick’s hand. That’s on fire.

“Actually,” I say, trying to extricate myself, “that’s not true. If I was a water strider with hydrophobic feet, such as a
Gigantometra gigas
, I would be able to walk on water by shedding vortex filaments into the water and simply propelling
myself forward.”

“What’s a
Gigantrometra gigas
?”

“It’s sort of like a big stick insect.”

“And are you sort of like a big stick insect?”

I look at my non-hydrophobic feet. “No.”

“Then you’re going to get wet.” Nick holds out his arm like a man in a black and white film. “Hold on to this.”

No. Yes. No no no no no
no
.

“Thank you,” I say with great dignity, taking a step forwards, “but I am perfectly capable of—”

The world suddenly tilts as I plunge down.

Nick grabs me before I hit the water and straightens me back up again. “Please, Harriet. That’s why I’m here. I’ve been paid to make sure you don’t knock yourself out and drown. Will you
please
let me do my job without fighting me the entire way?”

I open my mouth and then shut it again and nod.

It’s only as we get deeper that I start to notice just how beautiful this dress is. Out of water it’s deceptively simple, but there are actually dozens of layers, cut at slightly different angles so that they swirl out in huge billows as the water pulls them in different directions. Despite being white, there’s so much material it’s not transparent at all. It’s slightly mermaidy, slightly Lady of Shalott (yet another heartbroken lady who didn’t fare very well in lots of water).

I slip on another rock as we reach the team, and Nick swiftly moves so that his arm is around my shoulder.

“
Yoku yatta, Harriet. Kimiwa migotoda,
” Haru says in an almost unrecognisable, low, calm voice.
“Demo, sono kakkou ha samuku naika?
”

Naho smiles at me. “Haru says you’re doing brilliantly, Harriet. He also wants to know if you’re too cold?”

I shake my head. All I can feel is Nick. The rest of me may as well have vanished completely.

“
Mizu no nakani suwatte moraukedo, daijyoubu kana?
”

“Is it all right if you sit down in the water?”

I try not to notice Nick’s arm move and his hand rest gently on my waist. The world is starting to tilt again, even though this time I’m not actually slipping anywhere.

“
Jyaa, sorosoro hajimeyouka
?”

“Ready to start?”

Nick’s hand moves and seems to slip slightly under the cloth tied around my middle. It fumbles a bit just at the small of my back and I can feel myself blushing from the roots of my hair all the way down to my toes. Apparently the sun’s core is so hot that a piece of it the size of a pinhead would give off enough heat to kill a person 160 kilometres away.

The way I’m burning right now, I reckon I could obliterate everyone from here to South Korea.

But he’s not mine.

There’s a line between being supportive and being gropey, and he has just totally crossed it. “Nick,” I snap, “what on earth do you think you’re playing at? Get the hell off me.”

“I’m trying to find the button,” he says. “Sorry. I thought it would be easier than this.”

I stare at him. That is so unbelievably rude.

“
What?!
Is that some kind of horrible metaphor for—”

But I don’t finish, because Nick suddenly beams at me. My stomach promptly stands on its tiptoes then flips over backwards and everything inside me falls apart. “Got it,” he says, leaning forwards.

Before I can stop him, Nick kisses me gently on the cheek.

And my entire body is covered in light.

or a fraction of a second, I actually think that the light is coming from me. That my emotions are so strong, I’ve rendered them a literal, physical, visible fact. I’m a scientific phenomenon.