Mom answered calmly, as if my sister hadn’t just shrieked like a crazy mofo. “I know this isn’t what you expected, Sabrina, and I’m so sorry, sweetheart, really I am.”
“I’m sorry too, honey,” Dad said. “Sometimes things don’t work out the way we planned.” His eyes came back to mine. “The agent’s name is Momma, if you can believe that.”
Momma? I rewound Baldie’s last words: Let’s send these to Momma today.
Oh, for God’s sake.
They had to be kidding me.
My poor, naive parents actually thought those model scouts were legit. Me and modeling? They honestly thought someone in Miami wanted me to sign a modeling contract? HA! Psychotic breaks, anyone? They’d totally lost their grip on reality.
“Perdón,” Abuela said. “But why do they want to see Allee? I mean, Allee, mi vida, you’re a genius like your father, but no offense…” I braced myself. Abuela always said “no offense” right before she said something really offensive. “You’re no great beauty, not like I was at your age. Sabrina’s the one who should be a model, not you.”
“Mamá, por favor!” Mom shouted, throwing her hands up.
“Exactly!” said The Fluff. “Abuela is right. Allee is not model material. Look at her.” My whole family scanned me up and down with these puzzled expressions. It was not a good feeling.
“Well, the experts think she is,” said Mom, scratching her head. “They think she’s beautiful and a good type for commercials and catalogs.” I looked at myself in the mirror across from me, hanging above the couch, trying to see what it was those modeling people saw.
“Allee doesn’t know the first thing about the fashion industry!” my sister shouted. “I do. And which agency is this, anyway?”
“Finesse,” Dad said. “Ever heard of them?”
“Finesse? Finesse? Of course I’ve heard of them. There’s no way they want Allee. This is bull!”
“Calm down, Sabrina,” Mom said. “You’ll have another chance someday.”
But she was winding up. “How’d they get our number anyway? She didn’t even fill out an application at the mall.”
“No, but you did,” Dad said. “And you told them you were sisters.”
“It’s not fair!” She stood up and threw a couch pillow at my face, but I caught it. Perfectly. Which led her to this explosion: “Everything always has to be about you, doesn’t it, Allee? Miss Overachiever. You know what you’re number one at? Being the worst sister in the entire world! I’ll never forgive you for stealing this from me! I hate you!” She ran out and stomped up the stairs, then came back down and pointed at me like she was about to deliver a gypsy curse. “Just wait. You think you know everything, but you don’t know anything. You’ll see.” Then she was gone again.
What did I do? Tears stung my eyes.
Mom said the same thing to me that Jay had said at the mall. “Don’t worry, Allee, she’ll get over it.” Dad nodded, agreeing.
Abuela got up and started shuffling out, probably to try to calm my sister down. Or maybe it was just time for her favorite show, El Gordo y la Flaca. “Robby,” she said, “ven conmigo. Let’s go upstairs. I have gummi bears in my room.” They both went upstairs.
“So what do you think, Allee?” Dad asked. “Do you want to be a model?” He sounded like an infomercial. Do you want to be a real estate ace? A professional in the medical field? A hip-hop dancer? “Should we drive down to Miami tomorrow and see what this is all about, hear what they have to say?”
I shook my head. “Dad, I think these so-called scouts are playing you. They tell you what you want to hear to get your money. Don’t you watch 20/20? They’re always busting these fake modeling things.”
“This is legit,” said Dad. “I’ve checked this agency out. And there are, uh, certain aspects about this modeling offer you should know before you reject the idea.”
I smelled something rotten and it wasn’t Robby’s socks. “Like what?”
“Like you could make a thousand dollars a day,” my sister called from upstairs. There was no privacy in this house.
But did she say a thousand? Dollars?
“Actually,” Mom said, “we’re told the usual rate is fifteen hundred a day. I think she said that’s for catalog modeling. Right, Howard?” He nodded. “For magazines it’s less. Like a few hundred.”
Dad adjusted his glasses and said, “The financial aspect might take care of your tuition.”
The financial aspect might take care of my tuition. To Yale. I might still be able to go to Yale.
He continued, “A few months of modeling in Miami could make you enough so that, when it’s added to what’s left of your college fund, it’ll be sufficient to cover the cost.”
This was it. My way to get there. My heart started to race with excitement.
But modeling? Me? It was so exploitative, so against everything I stood for.
“But if you don’t want to try it, that’s okay,” Dad said. “We know it’s not your thing. And you could get a free ride to a state school, I’m sure. You know, the University of Florida has a pretty good English program. It’s not Yale, but…” He stopped, seeing the expression on my face. UF wasn’t Yale. Nothing else was Yale, and he knew that.
Beautiful was the word they’d used. Beautiful. Wow. That was so utterly…cool. I looked in the mirror again, trying to see what it was they saw. Maybe it was there and I had some kind of partial blindness or something. “If you decide to do this, our only concern is you living in Miami,” Dad said.
Ex-squeeze me?
“Miami? Why would I be living in Miami?”
“There’s no modeling out here in Comet. You’d have to move to Miami.”
Move to Miami? Wait, what about my life here?
Yeah, what about your life here, Allee? What’s so great about it? A crappy job at Wal-Mart with your grandmother, a school full of buttheads, a full academic load, a family who’s crowding you, and a sister who now hates you.
Okay, I didn’t care if it was modeling or strawberry picking they were offering, any offer to get out of here was looking pretty good.
And any offer that could make me enough money to go to Yale in the fall was worth looking into.
“What do you know about this business?”
the King said to Alice.
“Nothing,” said Alice.
chapter 5
The lobby of Finesse Model and Talent Management had a red carpet, which was really perfect, because getting past the reception area was like trying to crash the Oscars. The receptionist was totally suspicious of my parents and me, to the point where I was thinking maybe we didn’t really have an appointment. She told us to wait, so now we were sitting on black leather couches facing a window, listening to her chirp, “Finesse, please hold,” about nine hundred times into her headset and say things like, “Guten Morgen, Fritz, I’ll get Dimitri. Dimitri, client on five.”
I’d brought a book to read, but I was really distracted. Outside, the pink sidewalk on Ocean Drive was full of South Beachers gliding by on Rollerblades, hanging out in cafés, and walking mini-dogs. Two men were strolling down the sidewalk holding hands and laughing, and a woman was zipping by on a scooter wearing nothing but a bikini and a backpack. If I shifted my gaze, I could see roof after roof of pastel-colored art deco hotels. They looked like they were made of candy. Hard to believe Cape Comet was only four hours away. An Alice in Wonderland feeling was coming over me, like this big window was the looking glass, and I was Alice about to step through it, into a different world on the other side.
Twenty minutes passed. Then thirty. It gave me time to check out the framed magazine covers lining the walls. L’Uomo Vogue, Marie Claire, Petra, Elle, Dietra. All I could think of was what my sister had said to me last night. That was harsh. And I did not think everything was about me. I completely agreed with her that she should be the one sitting here, not me. I wondered if my parents were thinking the same thing. Even my mother looked more like a model tha
n I did in her red sweater dress.
The receptionist hadn’t stopped fielding calls. What did she do if she had to go to the bathroom? After forty-five minutes, a Keira Knightley look-alike walked up to us and gave us each a quick handshake. “Hi, sorry about the wait. It gets crazy this time of year.” Her British accent could cut glass. Maybe it really was Keira. “You must be Allee.” She checked out the sunglasses on top of my head, which had tape on them thanks to Robby stepping on them this morning; my bitten-down nails; and my jeans, which had looked good on me last night in front of my full-length mirror but were, I was noticing now, a little too short. At least I had the dangling faux-pearl earrings The Fluff had given me for my birthday last year.
“Right, then, you’re to meet Monique first, then Momma after. Follow me, Allee. Mum, Dad, you too.”
“Who’s Monique?” my mother asked, getting up.
“Monique Fine,” she said in a tone that meant she totally expected us to know who that was. When none of us responded, she added, “The owner? She has to meet potential new faces.”
“Momma’s not the owner?” my mother asked.
“No. Momma runs TV, film, and commercial print. I’m a booker in her division.”
Most of Monique’s office was occupied by a desk, crowded with papers, Post-its, photo slides, cards with models’ photos on them, and a computer. There was a petite Asian lady sitting behind it with a geometric haircut and short red nails. “Hello, hello, welcome,” she said, standing to shake our hands. “I’m Monique Fine. Sit down, sit down.” We sat on chairs in front of her desk. Now I could see that she wasn’t Asian at all. She was just a victim of Joan Rivers Syndrome. Honestly, plastic surgeons should have an addendum to their Hippocratic oath making them promise they’ll never pull a face-lift so tight it stretches people’s eyes or gives them Skeletor cheekbones. Talk about do no harm. Yikes.
She carried on about how nice it was to meet us and asked how old I was and what my plans were for the future. Her accent was pure New York. My parents did all the talking while I sat listening to them discuss me as if I wasn’t here. After a while she turned to me, winced her collagen-filled lips into something like a smile, and said, “Allee, you have such poe-tential. What we need to do is harness it and let it fly.” Wasn’t harnessing something the opposite of letting it fly? But I nodded, and she seemed to like that.
“I definitely see what Jay saw in you. Mom, Dad, look at these.” She handed my parents some laser prints, and I recognized them as the pictures Jay had taken at the mall. My parents focused on them with the same intensity as Robby searching a page of his Where’s Waldo? book. “Poe-tential, right? Right?”
These definitely didn’t look like my yearbook photos. Waves of hair fanned out around my face. My smile was…well, my smile was big. And bright. It was like looking at someone else.
But it was me. It really was me. And I didn’t look beige. I looked…pretty.
I handed the pictures back to Monique. Her arms were crossed and her eyes were flicking all over my face. “Yeah, the poe-tential is there, but I’m not sure you’re right for this business.”
“Why not?” Mom asked, her back going straight.
“Well, she’s a little stoic, isn’t she? Not too smiley.”
“But she’s smiling in the pictures,” Mom said.
“Yes, she photographs well, but I sense a general lack of energy. If her look were more editorial, more fashiony, I wouldn’t be concerned. It’s bizarre how some girls are as bland as white rice and yet somehow they come alive on film.” She leaned forward across her desk and looked me straight in the eye. “But, Allee, your look is commercial, and it’s a whole different ballgame. You have to have some personality for clients to book you. You haven’t said one word.”
“Sorry,” I said.
Mom cleared her throat and said, “I assure you she has personality.” Afterward, her eyeballs shot me hard laser beams carrying a clear message: Lighten up, Wednesday Addams.
“We’ll see,” said Monique. “But of course, it’s up to Momma. My bookers are the best in the business. Here, take a look at our agency book.” She took out a black and red yearbook-looking book titled Finesse Model and Talent Management. “Touch it, Allee. G’head, open it.”
I opened to a page that said “Aisha” at the top. Under her name, there was a close-up of Aisha, biting her lip, with smeared lipstick and streaked mascara running down her cheeks. On the opposite page, Aisha was in an ad for Candie’s shoes. It looked like she might be naked, but she was holding a big newspaper in front of her. Above that, there was another photo of her on all fours in a teddy and garter belt. On all fours! Disgusting. What if I had to exploit myself like that? Dad made a noise like “Mmphh.” I “Mmphh-ed” him right back so he knew there was no way I would let someone take a picture of me in my underwear.
Monique slammed the book shut, barely missing my hand. “I just wanted you to see the quality of girls we rep here, what an opportunity this is for you. But I don’t know. I don’t sense that you want all this. Do you? Want all this?”
Her question hung in the air. Of course I didn’t. That book was a meat catalog. It depicted unrealistic images of beauty, reduced women to objects. And my sister was right. I definitely didn’t know anything about fashion or posing. I could make a fool of myself trying this.
“Allee, do you want to model?” Monique asked again. It was code for a whole set of questions. Allee, do you want to escape your ant bite of a town? Stop suffocating? Do you want to stop working with Abuela at Wal-Mart? And most important, the Mac Daddy Numero Uno question: Do you want to have all the money you need to pay for Yale, more money than you ever thought possible?
And so I said, “Yeah. I want it more than anything else in the world.”
Every wall in the booking room was hung with Lucite racks full of those model picture cards I’d seen in Monique’s office. One wall was women, another was men, and another was children. About a dozen people, mostly women wearing jeans, were sitting around interconnected desks wearing headsets, talking and typing into their computers. It looked like a very casual version of NASA Mission Control. Mom was totally gaping at a pregnant lady in a tube top showing off a stretched-out butterfly tattoo across her belly. Everyone here looked like they were born with the supercool gene. Once again, I was aware of my short, farty jeans. I should have snuck a trendy skirt from The Fluff’s closet.
We met with Momma in the conference room. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Her sixty-something face was a cross between Ozzy Osbourne and a basset hound, jowly but sweet. I couldn’t help but relax a little. “Oh, Allee,” she said in a manly cigarette voice, “you’re just as adorable as Jay said.”
Somehow I had to fake that energy Monique was talking about. It was hitting me that this was for real. This model madness could really pay for my dream college. I had to convince Momma I had what it takes. I had to fake it. No more Wednesday Addams for me. Think, Allee. Personality plus, mojo, cutesy-wootsy, think…The Fluff! “Thank you, I’m like, so happy to finally meet you,” I said, my voice bursting with fruit flavor. “We’ve heard so much about you and I’m like, so excited to be here. Is Momma your real name?” Dad was looking at me like I’d sprouted facial hair. Mom was a different story. Her eyes were glistening with pukey joy.
“No, sweetie, it’s Gabriella Diamond, but some actors started calling me Momma Gabby years ago, and then the name just stuck.” Momma sat at the head of the table and I sat on one side, my parents on the other. There was a computer, TV, electronic equipment, some cameras and a tripod in the corner. The wall behind me was glass, looking out into the booking room. There were a lot of glass doors and cutouts here, like this place was designed by a voyeur. Model cards and actors’ head shots were hanging everywhere.
“You have actors here too, not just models?” I asked.
“Oh, sure,” Momma said. “This isn’t strictly a model agency, it’s a model and talent agency, which is one
of the reasons we’re so sought after. Our TV department is the best in town. We rep all kinds of talent—athletes, actors, you name it. Did you know South Florida is one of the top locations for commercials nationally?”
“Yes,” I said. I’d researched the Miami modeling industry on the Internet last night and it said that.
“Now, Allee, let’s talk about you,” Momma said. “I’ve seen your pictures. Did you bring any more with you today?”
“I have some,” my mother said, whipping out a stack from her purse. I recognized them from the NASA beach picnic.
Momma shuffled through them quickly and went, “Well, you certainly look great in a bathing suit. And the camera loves you. I think you have a look we can use right now. You’re dark, but you’re not too edgy.”
“What’s edgy?” I asked.
“An edgy look is one that’s editorial, more hard-core. Not like you. Your look is girl next door, and that’s very bookable these days. We could use you for the Latin market as well as the Anglo. The important thing is that you have the Latina look, but it’s not too Latina, which is good. Do you speak Spanish?”
“No.”
“I do,” Mom said. What, did Mom think they were going to sign her? Her inner Abuela was showing.
“Oh, here’s our Greek god,” Momma said. “Dimitri books fashion. Dimitri, meet Allee. Isn’t she cute?”
Dimitri gave me the up and down eye sweep and said, “Hi, Gorge.” He was the one who was gorge. His brown shoulder-length hair had that tousled, just-got-out-of-bed look, but it looked carefully styled that way. My guess was he worked on his five o’clock shadow too. It was too perfect. “Allee, Jay said you’re sixteen, yes?”
“Yeah, I skipped first grade, so—”
“You’re not right for the high-fashion jobs, but I can still use you on my board. I think you will book the fresher teen editorial jobs, maybe some catalog, some junior work. You could book young adult too, like early twenties. I can already think of some clients I can send your comp to.”
Braless in Wonderland Page 4
