Okay, that was a lie.
Because the sad fact was, I shouldn’t care, but I did. And it bothered me that I cared, because my mother constantly worried about what other people thought, and it really bugged me, so I tried not to be like that. But I couldn’t stand them thinking that I was boring. Dull. Who wanted to be called that? Nobody. “I’m fun,” I said, sounding weak, even to myself. “I just have a different idea of what fun is compared to you guys.”
“Yeah, glued to your books or computer,” Brynn said. “You’re a barrel of laughs.”
I pretended to read my notes, hiding my face behind my sheet of long hair so they couldn’t see how wet my eyes were getting, how red my nose must have been.
Brynn lit a cigarette, blew a smoke ring, and announced to no one in general, “Man, I was so sick at my booking this morning, I don’t know how I got through it. Too many Jell-O shots last night.”
“Be careful with them Jell-O shots,” said Summer. “They got sugar. Tell ya what, you gonna wake up the next day with a belly.”
Brynn said, “I just have a salad with balsamic vinegar. The balsamic’s a diuretic, so’s you pee it all out.”
I swear, they couldn’t have one conversation without it turning to diet or weight. Now Claudette was lighting one too, leaving me no choice but to crank open the jalousie windows before their smoke took over the room. Brynn and Claudette slipped each other a look. “Just trying to prevent cancer,” I said, sitting back on the futon, hating myself for saying it, hating myself for sounding exactly like the dull boring bore they thought I was.
Brynn rolled her eyes and opened my World Lit textbook to a picture of Shakespeare. “Who’s that drag queen?”
“The Bard,” Claudette answered, totally surprising me.
“The what?” Brynn asked.
“Wasn’t The Bard married to Janet Jackson?” asked Summer.
“Naw, that’s DeBarge,” said Brynn. “Saw it on VH1.”
“Whatever.”
“The Bard is William Shakespeare, you maroons,” said Claudette.
“What do you know about Shakespeare?” I asked her.
“I was an English major in college. Only lasted one semester, but I can help you with that paper if you want.”
Help me? Now that was funny. “Thanks, I got it covered. What school did you go to?”
“Georgetown.”
“In D.C.?”
“Mm-hmm, that’s where I’m from.”
I wanted to ask her why someone with her intelligence was wasting it here and was she planning on going back to college? Georgetown was a good school. The closest I came to asking what I wanted to ask was, “Why are you modeling?”
She looked at me funny, hesitating for a few seconds. “Sounds like something my father would ask me.” She stretched and gave me a big, Cheshire cat smile. “Because I can. And because modeling lets me express myself. I believe in showing my fabulosity at all times. Show your fabulosity, that’s my motto.”
The phone rang. Summer bolted out of the bathroom to answer it. “Hello? Hey, Dimitri.” She brightened up with a big smile, as if he was in the room. “Oh, good. Brynn, me, and you are on option for Monday and Tuesday for that catalog.”
“What’s the rate?” Brynn asked.
“Two. But we gotta keep it quiet ’cause other agencies are only gettin’ fifteen hundred for their girls.”
So if their options didn’t get dropped, they were going to get booked for two full days. That was four thousand dollars. Elmo-hair wanted them, but not me. Not one client had wanted me. My passport came in the mail today, another reminder I was supposed to be traveling, working, making big bucks.
Hello, depression. A wave of it washed over me, crashing down to my toes. I couldn’t wait for them to leave so I could swim in it.
It must have shown on my face, because Summer said into the phone, “So, Dimitri, anything for Allee?…You’re expecting lots of TV castings for her next week? Okay, I’ll tell her. Love ya.” She hung up and went back to the bathroom mirror, finger-combing waxy ringlets all over her head. “Allee, it looked like you and Uta Scholes were gettin’ on like peas and carrots. She might book you.” Just hearing Uta’s name made my insides flutter. I wanted that booking so badly it hurt my bones.
“Stop blowing sunshine up her ass, Summer,” Brynn said. “Uta’s looking for Alice in Wonderland. Allee’s not even blond. Uta’s gonna book you.”
“You never know,” said Summer. “Although she did want commercial types who could cross over and be edgy and I’ll tell ya what, that’s me. I’m commercial and fashion, but Allee, you’re jest mostly commercial.” How did she know this? Was there some kind of index somewhere with our pictures on it and labels underneath that said “commercial” or “fashion”?
Summer walked over to the kitchen, opened the cabinet over the stove, the one full of hair accessories, and pulled out a blue headband. “Uta said she wants an Alice with a twist. Looky here, do I look like Alice?” She put it on and I realized, with a sinking heart, that she looked like the most beautiful Alice I’d ever seen, straight out of the storybook. I wanted to punch her stupid, Alice-y face.
Claudette jumped up off the floor and snatched the headband off, messing up some of Summer’s curls. “Hey!” Summer shouted.
Claudette crowned herself with the headband like it was a tiara. “If she wants Alice with a twist, then she shouldn’t go with the same old vanilla. Everybody prefers chocolate, you know.”
Summer tugged the headband off Claudette and put it back on herself. “Ludacris didn’t want no chocolate. I got booked for his video tomorrow.”
“Hey, Claudie, why didn’t you get that?” Brynn asked.
“I’m probably not black enough. That’s what BET told Momma when she sent my reel to them for that VJ gig. It doesn’t matter for print that I’m mixed, but for TV they always want you to fit into a type.”
Summer tossed the headband on the floor. It landed on a pile of shoes and magazines. “Don’t that suck about TV? I’m a killer actress. And I don’t get near enough acting auditions because I don’t fit into the type they’re lookin’ for. It ain’t fair.”
Claudette flounced onto the futon. “You’ll still be the token white girl at that video job tomorrow, you know.”
“I’ll still get to meet Ludacris and make five hundred. Call time’s at seven-thirty, so I’m jest goin’ out tonight for an hour.”
“Why go at all?” I asked.
“I found out photographers from all the local magazines’ll be at the club tonight—Ocean Drive, D’Luxe. Clients too.”
“How do you always know stuff like that?” Brynn asked. “I swear, Summer, you got more inside scoop than Luca, and he knows everyone on the beach.” Summer didn’t answer, just gave her a close-lipped smile. I could tell it irritated Brynn. “So tell us, Miss FBI, where are Vodka and Tonic these days?”
“I heard the DeWalt Hotel paid ’em fifty bucks just to sit at the bar in their new restaurant, you know, to dress up the place. The owner saw them two on the street and offered ’em cash.”
Nobody said anything for a few minutes. I guess we were all thinking how scary it must be to hit the lowest rung of modeling, if you’d even call that modeling. Summer poured water into the nearly empty hand soap container. She did cheap stuff like that, like brush her teeth with baking soda instead of toothpaste. Here was a girl who spent five hundred bucks on a pair of Manolo Ball-nicks or whatever-his-name-is, paid a ton for some big-deal personal trainer to the stars, and yet I was pretty sure she’d used the same paper cup since I’d gotten here. Weirdness.
The phone was ringing again. Summer raced across the room to pick it up. She had a thing about the phone, never gave anybody else a chance to get it. “Hello?…I shoulda known it was you, ma’am. It’s ten o’clock, right on time…. Yes, ma’am, she’s right here.”
Summer handed the phone to Brynn, who said, “Hi, Ma.” Tonight it was a short conversation. After Brynn yelled at her mothe
r for not keeping a doctor’s appointment and used language I couldn’t believe anyone would use with their mother, she hung up.
“You know what, Allee, you really should come out with us for once,” Summer said. She was back at the bathroom sink, brushing hair dye onto her eyebrows. “We’re going to Dali tonight. The music’s great and the bartenders are all, whatchamacallit, dwarfs. Don’t tell me they have that in Cape Rocket.”
“Comet. Did you say—”
“Little people,” said Claudette. “Dwarfs. Wearing lederhosen.”
That was so awful I didn’t even know what to say except “Why?”
“I don’t know, but they make a buttload in tips,” said Brynn, pulling on a pair of stretch skinny jeans. “So. You coming to see for yourself or what?”
Rather than ask why I would ever want to see anything so sick, I just got out of it with “I can’t. I don’t have a fake ID.” They all bounced glances off each other.
Brynn used a voice you’d use with a four-year-old: “You don’t need a fake ID. You’re a model.”
“But—”
“There ain’t one velvet rope you have to wait at,” Summer said. “And most of ’em card at the bar, not the door. But you can use my fake ID if you want. They never look at the picture.”
“No, thanks. I won’t be able to relax anyway, not till I get this assignment done. I have to e-mail it to my teacher by Monday.”
“Fa Christ’s sake, you got the whole weekend,” Brynn said.
Claudette waved Mars at me. “Come on. Mars says it’s Friday night.”
I shook my head no. The big, fat, real reason I didn’t want to go out with them was that I didn’t have the right clothes. I’d seen what they wore to those clubs, and I didn’t have anything even close. And I wasn’t comfortable asking any of them if I could borrow something. Plus I wasn’t a drinker. I’d never be able to keep up with them. And I was here to save money, not blow it at clubs and restaurants. That was the best excuse I could give them. “I’m on a budget right now. I’m trying to save money.”
“Champagne in the VIP room is free,” said Summer. “And if you’re with us, you ain’t payin’ no cover charge.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think so.” To change the subject, I asked Claudette, “How was your Jose Cuervo booking?”
“Amazing,” she said. “The director was so nice. I really hope I get to work with him again.”
“Is Jose the director?” I ask.
“What?” She looked confused.
“Jose Cuervo. Is he the director?”
There was about three seconds of silence before the three of them were doubled over laughing. Brynn was rolling around on the floor, choking on her cigarette. Something told me Jose Cuervo was not a director.
“You d-don’t know wh-what Jose Cuervo is?” Claudette sputtered, trying to get her hysterics under control.
I shrugged, grinned hopefully. “A client?”
Claudette bopped over to her still-packed suitcase in the middle of the floor and pulled out a bottle with the words Jose Cuervo swirling all over it. I could feel my face falling. A prickly heat was spreading along my arms, up to my head. “Here you go, here’s the client, Allee.”
“Hey, Allee,” said Brynn. “Did I tell you tomorrow Lucky the Leprechaun is directing me in a Lucky Charms commercial?” Screams of laughter. “Yeah, I’d love to work with him again. He’s magically delicious.” More shrieks and clutching of stomachs. When it died down, Brynn pointed at me and added, “Not exactly a rocket scientist, is she?”
“My dad’s a rocket scientist,” I said.
Brynn bolted straight up. “Wait a friggin’ second. You mean to tell me you’re from Cape Comet and your dad is a rocket scientist?” I nodded.
Explosive, supernova of hilarity. All over again.
I guess it did sound kind of goofy. A rocket scientist from Cape Comet. Gee, I’d never thought about it before. A giggle burbled up and out of me, and then another one and another one. It was like that day at school in the hall with the toilet paper. I looked over at Summer. Her eyebrows looked like furry spaghettis with all that gooey dye on them. It cracked me up even more. We were all laughing together now. And it felt nice, like I’d made some kind of connection with all of them, even Brynn.
chapter 12
Finally, I was finished cleaning. Every night my routine was to straighten up the whole apartment after they left to go clubbing. The mess in here was like static on the radio or a kid crying at the movies: just plain annoying.
The nights were the hardest here. I was always alone after everyone went out, and I still wasn’t used to it. It made me feel as empty as this apartment. At home, I’d always had my sister to talk to at night, ever since we were little. Even if we weren’t exactly talking, like in the week before I left, I still saw her, or felt her next to me, in bed or in her closet, trying on clothes. I’d sent her a few e-mails, but she hadn’t written me back. She hadn’t called either.
I turned on the TV. David Letterman would get my mind off The Fluff. I got into my new cozy Yale pajamas, a birthday present from my parents, and stepped up onto Summer’s bed with her pink ruffly comforter covered in clothes and magazines, then hoisted myself up to my bed, stretched out, and pulled out Wuthering Heights from under my pillow.
Rat, tata tat tat. Tat tat. Who was knocking at the door at this hour? Letterman was starting. Rat, tata tat tat. Tat tat. I looked through the peephole. It was Miguel. His voice went right through the door. “Shello, care to go shopping?”
I opened it and he darted in. He kissed me hello. “It’s so late,” I told him. “What are you doing here?”
“My fake-Gucci-sunglasses-wearing, trying-to-pass-for-Cuban-but-everybody-knows-he’s-really-Puerto Rican, hijo-de-puta date canceled on me. But I’m not bitter. Care to join me for some retail therapy?”
“Now?”
“Sí.”
“I’m in bed.” I laughed. “Are you crazy? It’s after eleven.”
“That’s the best time.”
“Are stores even open now?”
“Of course. New York isn’t the city that never sleeps, you know. It’s SoBe.”
“Miguel, I can’t go shopping now.”
“Yes, you can. Right after you walk on my back.”
This guy didn’t take no for an answer. “Miguel, can we go tomorrow? I know I need clothes for castings, but I’m just so tired.”
“Okay, get some rest, Sleeping Beauty. Or should I say Alice? I’ll light a candle for you so you get that editorial.” He kissed my cheek, started to walk out.
“Wait. Why don’t you watch Letterman with me and share my dinner? It’s just dry Cheerios, but they’re honey nut.” I suddenly really wanted him to stay. “Please, stay. You’re the only person who won’t make me feel crappy for eating carbs at night. And in a few minutes, it’ll officially be my birthday.”
“What? Why didn’t you say so?” he said, giving me a big hug and helping himself to a Cheerio. “We need to celebrate! But walk on my back first. You know you love hearing it crack.”
I had to admit, it did give me a sick thrill.
“Tell me about your family,” he said while I stood on his spine.
“My dad works for the space program. He’s really smart. Well, with everything except my college fund. That, he kinda messed up.”
“Ay, move up an inch. That’s good. What about your mom?”
Heavy sigh. “We’re not so alike. She’s more like my sister, Sabrina.”
“What’s Sabrina like?”
“Let’s just say, she’s not exactly headed for Yale. She reads magazines, not books. We’re very different. But close, kinda, just not right now. She’s not speaking to me.”
“Why? What happened?”
I sighed again. “Sabrina was supposed to be the model, not me. I stole her dream.”
“Then maybe that’s all it was,” Miguel said. “A dream. And maybe you’re the real thing, you ever think of that?”
“So what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, but she doesn’t get that I couldn’t care less if my nails are bitten or my ponytail is messy. It’s not that I don’t like having a good hair day, it’s just that I don’t think my world revolves around a good hair day, or the latest designer jeans, like they do. I have other priorities.”
“Like getting to Yale.”
“How’d you know?”
“It’s all over your pajamas. What do you want to major in?”
“English literature. Nineteenth-century women writers, mainly. You know, Emily Brontë, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley.”
Miguel fake-snored. I gave him a gentle kick with my heel. He pretended to wake up and said, “Which one of those writers is the one Nicole Kidman played in that movie, you know, where she had the big fake nose and she wrote stories and then killed herself?”
“None.” I laughed. “That was Virginia Woolf. Different time period.”
“Or how about the one with Gwyneth Paltrow? Same story. She writes, she cries a lot, she kills herself. Ooh, but her husband was really cute in that one.”
“That was Sylvia Plath.”
“What do you need to go to Yale for? You already know everything. Yo sé. I know. You’re trying to prove you’re more than a pretty face, verdad?”
I shrugged. “I want to be more than my sister or my mom are ever going to be, that’s for sure.” I gave him another little kick. “And besides, I already am more than a pretty face.”
“So am I. So are most people, when you get to know them. Ay, your feet are magic. Go down a little, Allee.” I moved a few inches down his back. “Right there, that’s good. So, what are you going to do after Yale?”
“Get a Ph.D. maybe. Become Dr. Allee Rosen, Yale professor. Write books, teach, be a big name in academia.”
“Where? You’re not going to get one of those horrible tweed jackets with patches on the elbows, are you? That’s why all those writers killed themselves, you know. If they’d had better clothes they wouldn’t have been thinking about death all the time.”
Braless in Wonderland Page 9
