Poser

by Alison Hughes

  I had to hand it to her: she knew her stuff.

  Red Plush was very comfortable, especially on winter afternoons. Most days, Red had a portable heater going full blast along with the central heating, so the place was very cozy, especially if you’d trudged there through three feet of snow in runners and a hoodie. Nobody in grade seven wears snow boots. Ever.

  Anyway, it was a great place. I hadn’t told Mom or Macy about it. Another secret, but can you blame me? It was a quiet place, a place to watch an ancient John Wayne western, eat popcorn and forget that, instead of saving the good townsfolk from vicious cattle-rustling thugs, you had to go model cheap clothes on the weekend.

  I wondered what the Duke (that’s what they used to call John Wayne) would have said about it.

  On second thought, I didn’t want to know.

  INTERRUPTION BY MACY #3

  “Now, Beauty Boy, just listen to this one. Just listen: ‘Warmer-Weave Undershirts needs teen models with spark and sass for its We Want U campaign.’” She looked up hopefully.

  I have to hand it to Macy. She just keeps on trying.

  Hmmm, let me think. A semi-naked modeling shoot... “Listen, Macy, absolutely not. ABSOLUTELY NEVER,” I said menacingly. It bounced right off her.

  She actually laughed.

  “You look so funny when you’re trying to be Mr. Tough Guy, BB! Absolutely never!” she mimicked in a stupid, exaggerated growl. “Well, we’ll see, BB. We shall see. But you know what they say? Never say never!” she said playfully, taking a sip of her coffee and swiveling back to the computer.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ANOTHER SUPER-EXCITING SHOOT WITH SUPER-JOCK CODY

  Toronto. I know nothing about the city, other than Pearson Airport (which is just like other airports, only bigger) and the insides of budget motels and photo studios. We drove past the CN Tower once, but that was about it for sightseeing. We come here, I model, we leave.

  Cody and I were standing by the water cooler, on a break from grinning and shrugging. The waistband of my pants was killing me, digging a red, itchy line across my stomach.

  “They told me you were a size twelve!” the assistant snapped when I mentioned how tight it was.

  “Well, sometimes I take a twelve, sometimes a fourteen,” I explained patiently. In my head, I was ranting: Listen, you hag, I can barely breathe in these things... you try wearing pants seventy sizes too small...see how you like it...

  “Well, suck in your gut, because that’s the outfit for the shoot. I’ve only got the one size.”

  What a charmer, hey? I also distinctly heard her muttering something about me “laying off the pizza” as she walked away. There’s nothing you can do with people like that. Either you burst a blood vessel or you let it go. I shrugged, a real, philosophical shrug. Not the fake kind we were doing in the shoot.

  Anyway, me and Cody were standing by the water cooler. Cody and I. Whatever. I was running a finger under my waistband, wondering how much longer we needed to be there. Cody was talking.

  “Pretty sweet shoot, hey, Lukester?” he asked. He really meant it. He was having fun at this lame-o shoot. The brilliant idea of the whole thing was that we were these cute kids who accidentally hit a baseball through a fake broken window. Oops! I never understand why companies think this kind of thing will sell clothes. Anyway, I tried to tell the photographer that it wasn’t very believable that I’d be holding a bat and wearing a ball glove as well. I mean, you either bat or field in baseball, right?

  “Well, we’re just trying to get across the idea of baseball, Luke. Just, you know, baseball. The ball in the window. Nobody’s thinking of the rules,” laughed the photographer.

  So there I stood, stupidly wearing a ball mitt while holding the bat, and trying to look like I didn’t mind.

  We had just finished a series of shots where we were supposed to “shrug endearingly” (about fakebreaking the window) while looking straight into the camera.

  Try it: put your hands deep in your pockets, kind of straighten your arms, hunch up your shoulders near your ears, furrow your brow and smile kind of ruefully.

  If you’re super corny, like Cody, you might turn in your toes, or even push out your bottom lip. Photographers love that kind of stuff. That’s why Cody will go far in this business. He understands it. He believes in it.

  I felt kind of sorry for him.

  “Yep, it’s a riot, Cody,” I said.

  Cody got serious all of a sudden.

  “Marnie’s leaving,” he said, looking like he was going to cry. Cody always assumed you knew who he was talking about. He’s the kind of guy who would get on a city bus, sit right behind the driver, blurt “Marnie’s leaving” and never once think, Oh, wait, this guy’s a total stranger who might not know Marnie or care about why she’s leaving.

  “Oh yeah?” I said. “That sucks. Who’s Marnie again?”

  “Marnie? Oh, Grams,” he said, surprised. “You know, Grams. My agent?”

  Aaaah, the old lady Cody always came with. She was about a hundred and fifty. Grams. Maybe that was why I thought she was his grandma. Actually, I thought she was his great-grandma. I guess she’s his agent—or was his agent.

  “Oh yeah, yeah, her,” I said quickly. “Where’s she going?”

  “Florida. Forever,” he said, sounding lost.

  “Hey, no snow shoveling there,” I said, trying to lighten things up. “Try and set up a visit every February, Cody. Work on the tan.”

  His big eyes brimmed with tears.

  I rattled on nervously.

  “Seriously, there are other agents, Cody. You’re really good. You won’t have any trouble finding another agent. They’ll be lining up...”

  I was talking quickly. We were on again in about five seconds. I could see the photographer and the props guy chucking their Styrofoam coffee cups in the garbage. Ever heard of the environment, you jerks?

  I turned back to Cody, hoping he wasn’t bawling now. And then a light went on in my brain.

  “Hey, Cody, you should talk to my Aunt Macy. She’s my agent, and she’s really good. She’s started a modeling agency, and I know she’s looking for some new clients.”

  He brightened immediately, like babies do when you shake some keys in front of them. Shiny! Noisy!

  “Thanks, Luke,” he said. “Macy even sounds like Marnie. I’m gonna do it! You’re a good friend. A really good friend.”

  Awkward man-hug alert! I stepped back just as Cody stepped toward me, so he kind of punched my shoulder instead, which was way, way better. I lightly punched him back, feeling guilty for all the times I got frustrated with Cody, said mean things about him in my mind and felt like he was a loser. He wasn’t a bad guy. Just kind of goofy and vacant. There I go again. He’s a good guy. Period.

  “BOYS?” bellowed the photographer.

  “Time to rock and roll, Lukester!” Cody whispered, his face lighting up.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  NORMAL-ISH BOY MODEL SEEKS HOCKEY TEAM

  I’m a big hockey fan. As big a fan as you can be when you can’t play on a team or watch almost any NHL games. But I always know who’s playing, I check the scores, and I cheer to myself.

  Chan and Frey play hockey in a league. As far as I can figure it out, this is how leagues work: the guys who’ve been in skates since they were sucking on a soother play in the A league, with the burly coaches who act as if their players are almost semiprofessional.

  The A-league guys all wait by the phone for the NHL to call them up. The parents are, shall we say, very, very involved. I once saw Ethan Malloy’s dad scream so hard that he horked a gob of spit onto the Plexiglas two rows down. I watched that spit trickle down into the boards the whole third period. Not pretty. My mom would say Mr. Malloy has issues.

  Chan and Frey play on the same team, in the D or F league, meaning they can stand up on skates and have parents that don’t mind driving them to early Saturday-morning practices.

  It’s my kind of league. Nobody scores much,
but they have fun. Chan’s actually really fast, in an out-of-control kind of way. It’s the stopping he has trouble with. He generally just skids into the boards and falls, crashing into a crumpled heap. Frey plays defense. BIG defense. He doesn’t move much, but he doesn’t have to. His skill is being almost impossible to get around.

  I really thought this would be the year I got to play, but you-know-what got in the way.

  “Hmmm. Hockey, hey?” Mom said, looking over the registration forms. I’d sneakily made sure Macy was out before I showed Mom the forms.

  “Yeah, I got it all figured out,” I said quickly. “I get Frey to lend me some secondhand equipment. The Frey guys all play hockey. There’s got to be some old gear lying around.”

  I thought I had her, I really did. Then she flipped through the pages of The Calendar That Rules Our Lives.

  Have I mentioned that I hate that calendar? I think I did.

  It’s always booked solid, the dates of modeling shoots in red. I looked over at it. There was a lot of red.

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry, but it looks like in the fall you’re booked every Saturday until Christmas,” she said. “I guess that’s the price you pay for being gorgeous! Maybe next year, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to smile back at her.

  Now, when I was younger I would have just shrugged this off as another thing in a long list of things I couldn’t do, like eating donuts, cutting my own hair and using non-whitening toothpaste.

  But I’m twelve now. And I’m getting angry. Slowburn Spin, that’s me. Man on the edge.

  Anyway, I go and watch Chan crash and Frey be immobile when I can. And we play after school sometimes with Frey’s brothers at the park near Frey’s house. It’s just a little field in the summer, with an old climber and two baby swings in one corner. But in the winter, Frey’s dad puts up some two-by-fours and floods the field every night for a week as soon as we get a cold snap.

  It’s like the Frey family’s personal rink. Their two nets stay on the ice, and the boys and their friends do all the shoveling. One of the only rules is, you want to play, you have to shovel. When you finish playing, you just dump all your goalie pads and sticks and helmets in a heap at one end of the rink, knowing that another group of kids will be out playing soon.

  More than once, I’ve strapped on goalie stuff that was frozen solid, like big blocks of ice. The equipment is not exactly state-of-the-art gear: helmets with flapping grills held on by a single, ancient screw, gloves with holes in the leather. No A-league guy would touch it, but hey, I’ll take it.

  Some of my best memories are from that park, playing out there with frozen hands until I couldn’t even see the puck. Then, when it was hopelessly dark, some Frey would shout, “ARE...YOU...READY... FOR...EXTREME HOCKEY?” which is just skating wildly and crashing into each other randomly in the dark. It’s awesome.

  Last year, Nick (Frey’s oldest brother) decided to ask his dad to put in floodlights.

  “Yeah, and a hot-chocolate machine,” chipped in Chan, blowing on his hands.

  “Benches!” said Frey, brushing snow off his enormous backside.

  “How about bleachers for all our fans?” I suggested, gesturing to two elderly ladies at a bus stop across the field.

  None of it happened. But we still have the old equipment, the goals and EXTREME HOCKEY.

  But listen up, sports fans: Big News!

  Now, for the first time in my life, I might have a chance to be on a real hockey team. My school is putting together a team for a citywide junior-high tournament.

  Chan told me about it at lunch.

  “So it’s a few weeks of practices and one tournament,” he said, pushing up his glasses. “And here’s the best thing, Spin. All the guys who really play hockey have provincials that weekend, so they’re not trying out. Mr. Schulz said to get the word out that we really need bodies!”

  They need bodies! Bodies! I’m a body! This was my kind of team.

  I peppered him with questions.

  “Any early-morning practices?” This would be a deal breaker for Mom and Macy.

  “There are two, but my dad says we can pick you up,” said Chan.

  I gnawed on my thumbnail. Where was a pencil when I needed one? I could already hear the crowd chanting, Go, Spin, go!

  “Chan, you know I’m not very good. You’ve seen me play. Not so good with the turning and the stopping. Or the puck handling or the shooting. Do you think I’d make it?” I asked.

  “Geez, Spin, have you been listening?” He spoke slowly. “We...need...bodies. To fill positions. So we can play. Get it? Just show up.”

  “Yeah, just shut up and show up, Spin,” said Frey through a mouthful of my celery sticks.

  So I did. I showed up.

  And I made the team. I made it!

  Sure, everyone who showed up made the team.

  Sure, my number 13 jersey is faded orange and reeks of years of other guys’ sweat.

  Sure, I still have to find some equipment so I don’t actually die out there.

  Sure, I still have to break it to Mom and Macy, which won’t be pretty.

  But I’m on a hockey team. Playing real hockey. Real shots, real skating.

  Ice, Stick and Puck: The Luke Spinelli Story.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

  In this chapter, Mr. Spinelli attempted, unsuccessfully, to describe a “gruesome” Valentine’s Day–themed modeling shoot with Clarissa, “Psycho-Freak Girl Model,” during which they were required to freeze a “pucker-pose.”

  In another pose, they were “forced to hold hands and fake-skip together.”

  Due to the extreme distaste (to say nothing of the inappropriate language) our author showed for describing this shoot, it has been omitted.

  He requests that we remind you that he promised to be honest.

  He did not promise to tell you everything.

  Please respect his privacy in this deeply painful matter.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IN WHICH MY MONSTER LIE GROWS AND LURCHES OUT OF CONTROL

  I’m back. If you have any questions about that last chapter, keep them to yourselves.

  Remember: I’m a man on the edge. Things could blow up any chapter here. Like, for example, in this one.

  First thing this morning, Mrs. Walker came on the intercom, all serious and solemn.

  “Students and staff,” she began, “I would like to take this opportunity to announce that our junior-high community will be promoting a new initiative...”

  Do all principals talk like that? All “initiative” this and “strategy” that and blah, blah, blah? I was barely listening. I was busy with my ongoing project of using my Sharpie to turn my blue binder completely black.

  “...committed to social justice, and the support of our family here at Leonard Petrew Junior High...” She was still at it. Ms. McCoy was leaning on her desk, trying to be patient while Mrs. Walker droned on.

  Suddenly, I snapped to attention. What did she just say?

  “...and to support one of our brightest stars, a boy who is courageously fighting a private battle with a life-threatening disease, our school will be holding a major fundraiser for the children’s hospital. Or as I like to call it, a FUNdraiser!”

  I was stunned! That was my private lie she was announcing to the whole school.

  I sank down, my face burning, and scribbled madly with the Sharpie. Sometimes, even for a professional liar like me, it’s hard to make your face look like you don’t care. A whole FUNdraiser to support a liar like me?

  Now, I knew the Monopoliitis lie was a big one. Obviously. I don’t invent diseases every day of the week. I just didn’t know it would turn into such a monster.

  Wait: have I told you my theory about lying? Don’t worry, this isn’t a moral or a lesson or anything. It’s just what I’ve noticed, in a detached, scientific way, in my own life of lies.

  DR. SPIN’S THEORY OF LYING

  Lies come in th
ree main forms:

  The One-Off (level: amateur)

  This type of lie is small, quick and usually about something unimportant. Saying you brushed your teeth when you didn’t is a typical lie of this level. Or that you ate your vegetables at lunch when you really two-pointed them into the garbage. A one-off lie might be as small as a yes or no. These lies often work well, especially when the person being lied to is busy, tired, uninterested or otherwise preoccupied.

  The Multiplier (level: intermediate)

  This type of lie builds on a smaller one, maybe a one-off, but requires further and more elaborate lies. It involves thinking quickly and improvising. For example:

  Mom: “Did you do your homework?”

  You: “Yep.” First lie.

  Mom: “Well, where is it?”

  You: “I finished it at school before the bell rang.” Second lie, because it’s sitting in your backpack.

  Mom (rummaging in your backpack, which is PRIVATE, but not really the point in this example): “Well, what’s this in your backpack, then?”

  You: “Oh, that. Yeah, I still have to do that. But it’s not for tomorrow. Our teacher said it’s not due until Friday.” Third lie, and possibly fourth.

  The Monster (level: expert. Don’t try this at home. Or at least really think it through before you try it.)

  The monster is a lie not to be undertaken lightly. It is a huge lie, and it can have major, unexpected consequences. It can involve multipliers and can begin as a one-off, but it grows and grows out of the liar’s control.

  It is a dangerous kind of lying.

  The Monopoliitis lie was obviously a monster. I’d known that when I decided to use it, but I’d foolishly thought I could control it. Me, the expert liar.

  I’d been so busy warning Mrs. Walker not to talk to my mom about it that I’d forgotten to warn her not to talk to the entire school. She’d really caught me off guard on this one. Never for one moment did I think she would announce the news to the whole school or start a huge campaign about it. I thought she might discuss it generally at the next staff meeting or have a private word with my teachers. I never imagined how the whole situation could spiral out of control. How long would it be until everyone found out who the “sick” boy really was? Mrs. Walker-Talker was clearly not to be trusted.