“Is there any other way?” asked Allie. “Maybe if I trained extra hard before and after?”
“I hate to come down so hard,” said Coach McAdams. “You’re a very valuable player. But this is the third plastic surgery-related phone call I’ve gotten this summer. There are already two sophomores leaving the team completely.”
“Who else called?” Allie wondered.
“I’m not going to say,” said the coach. “I need to respect their privacy. But I’ll tell you this. It’s no one on the starting team. You’re the one I’m worried about losing.”
“It wasn’t even my idea. I’m on the waiting list for an earlier appointment, so there’s a chance I can still make it.”
“Well, let me know as soon as you figure that out,” said the coach. “Okay?”
“I’m really sorry.”
“So am I.”
As soon as Allie hung up the phone, it rang again. She reached for it, hoping it was Coach McAdams changing her mind.
“Hello?” she asked.
“This is Brian Hughes. I’m calling about my Hummer.”
“Oh, hi.” Allie felt her heart sink. “It’s my fault and I’m really, really sorry I wrecked it.”
It was an afternoon of apologies.
“You’re sorry?” He laughed a hostile laugh. “Let me ask you something, because I can’t figure this out. There wasn’t even another car parked on the entire street, so were you trying to hit my jeep?”
“No.” Allie closed her eyes. “I haven’t been driving for that long. It was an accident. Well, obviously. We’ll pay for whatever damage.” She felt her voice waver.
“Yeah, no shit.”
Well, he didn’t have to be so mean about it. Allie couldn’t deal. “Hold on,” she said. “Let me get my mother.”
She ran to the head of the stairs and called, “Mom? The guy with the Hummer is on the phone.”
“Hello, this is Julie Davenport,” said Allie’s mom, picking up immediately. “My daughter had a little accident, and we’re so sorry.”
“Julie Davenport?” asked Brian, his voice easing up. “As in, the Julie Davenport?”
“Yes, that’s me,” said Julie.
“Wow, I love your work.”
Her mother laughed. “Well, you must have a very good memory.”
“You’re unforgettable. I can’t believe we’re actually talking. I heard that you lived in this neighborhood, but I didn’t believe it.” Brian’s tone had changed completely. He sounded like he was talking to an old friend.
Allie hung up. Leave it to her mom to smooth things over. People just loved her. It was funny that her mom always talked about Mindy the model’s spectacular quality, that undefinable, vague but definitely real thing. Because as far as Allie was concerned, her mother had it too. At parties, people gravitated toward Julie. When she told a story, everyone leaned closer to listen. At fancy restaurants, even the snootiest of hostesses were super sweet to her.
Cameron had some of it, too. At school, guys’ eyes tracked Cameron’s movements as she strutted down the hall. Everyone who wasn’t Cameron’s friend wanted to be.
And it wasn’t just the students. Teachers, too, adored Cameron. She was bright and enthusiastic, an A student who was always the first to answer questions and do extra credit even when she didn’t need it. When Allie’s teachers recognized her last name, their eyes lit up. They were always so hopeful, expecting greatness until the first assignment was handed in.
Of course, all of this was unspoken. To acknowledge it would bring to the surface what she’d rather keep buried.
Allie headed back into Cameron’s room so she could look at herself again. Cupping her hand around her nose, she tried to imagine it being small and straight. She and Cameron had the same eyes. Would Dr. Glass give her the same cute nose? Would that make her look like Cameron, and would she therefore be more like Cameron? And about that vague quality … was it something she had to learn? Or something that would just magically happen once she was pretty?
CHAPTER FIVE
Cameron felt like a complete and total fraud. “I really don’t want to talk about it,” she said, covering her face with her hands but still feeling four pairs of eyes watching her.
There was no getting out of this one. So Cameron told her friends the whole story, from her unfortunate nickname to the daily taunting: the name-calling, the tripping, the bracutting incident, and more. She told them how practically the whole school was involved, but that the major players were all sharing the beach house next door.
Lucy broke the shocked silence with a laugh that made Cameron bristle. At least until she realized it wasn’t a mean laugh. “Oh, Cameron! They sound so horrible.”
“You have no idea,” Cameron mumbled.
“So what, you were going to change your name and pretend like those guys were strangers for the entire week?” asked Hadley.
“Oh my gosh. It’s just like this novel I’m reading,” said Ashlin. “Flavor of the Month. The main character is this plain-Jane actress who’s super talented but can only do obscure, off-Broadway theater because she’s not pretty enough. But then she comes into some money, and she decides to go to a plastic surgeon. She gets everything done: liposuction, tummy tuck, breast lift, nose job, chin and cheek implants—the works. It takes forever, but once she’s done, she’s gorgeous and she moves to LA and becomes a huge star.”
“How so totally cheddar,” Hadley said.
“Huh?” asked Ashlin.
“She means it’s cheesy,” Taylor explained.
“Well, I happen to like cheese,” Ashlin replied. “Especially cheddar.”
“I’m more of a manchego girl myself,” said Lucy.
“You’re blowing this way out of proportion,” said Cameron. “All I did was have a nose job. And all I wanted to do today was prove to them that I’m different. You guys have no idea what they put me through. They were such assholes.”
“Well, you did prove it,” said Taylor. “That Hunter guy was so into you, Cam. At least he was until his girlfriend showed up.”
“Were they all that mean?” asked Ashlin. “Even Devon?”
Cameron shrugged. Of course he was. She just didn’t want to say so because obviously Ashlin liked him.
“All guys in junior high school are jerks,” said Lucy. “It’s a maturity issue. Know what they called me in the sixth grade? Large Lucy.”
“Shut up,” said Taylor.
“I’m serious. There were three Lucys in my class: Little Lucy, Regular Lucy, and Large Lucy. I went to fat camp.”
“You did not,” said Hadley.
As Lucy nodded, her soft green eyes grew larger. “For two summers in a row. But those camps don’t really work, because you gain back all the weight, like two months after you’re home. That’s why my parents built an Olympic-size swimming pool at our house in LA. Know that charm bracelet hanging on my rearview mirror? My parents used to give me a charm for every pound I lost. They made me swim to lose weight, but I really loved it.”
Cameron looked at her friends and realized that they could neither confirm nor deny the story, since Lucy had been a transfer student in eighth grade.
“I used to wear glasses,” Ashlin blurted out. “Thick ones, too. But then I had LASIK surgery before I started high school.”
“Right, I remember when we started freshman year,” said Hadley. “I didn’t even recognize you.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“No, I mean it as a compliment,” said Hadley. “You stopped getting those perms, too, huh?”
“No, the frizz head is natural,” said Ashlin. “I actually started getting my hair straightened that summer.”
“Wow,” said Hadley. “Not that I should talk, since I had braces for three years.”
“I only had them for two years,” said Taylor. “It was still bad, though. And in eighth grade I tried to bleach my own hair, and it looked like I was wearing a stack of hay on my head.”
“That’s why
you got that supershort haircut?” asked Ashlin.
Taylor nodded. “I had to.”
“You guys don’t understand,” said Cameron. “I was the nerd, the one everyone avoided. Seriously. People averted their eyes when I walked down the hall.”
“But who cares?” said Lucy. “Look at you now. You’re so hot, those girls are jealous. And they should be.”
“Totally,” said Ashlin. “You should have seen their faces when they walked up and saw us talking to their guys.”
“Their guys.’” Lucy scoffed. “Like they own them.”
“Which they don’t,” said Hadley. “Hunter totally wanted you.”
“I know,” said Ashlin. “There was so much sexual tension. It was palpable.”
“So what was your nose like before?” asked Lucy.
“Horrible,” said Cameron. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“Did the surgery hurt?” Taylor asked.
“No.” Cameron shrugged. “I don’t think so, anyway. It was a while ago, so it’s hard to remember. It was kind of freaky being under anesthesia, though. I was hooked up to an IV, and there were all these doctors and nurses around, and someone asked me to count to ten and I remember starting, but I guess I never made it to the end. The next thing I know, I’m waking up talking to myself. I don’t remember what I said. I asked the anesthesiologist, but he pretended he didn’t know.”
“And that was it?” asked Lucy.
Cameron unconsciously scratched her nose. “No, I had packing in my nose for a while, so I had to breathe through my mouth, and my eyes were black and blue. Basically, I looked like I’d been beaten up. But they took out the packing a few days later, and the splint came off soon after that. It was still really red and swollen, but by the end of the summer I was completely normal-looking.”
“I so want a nose job,” said Hadley.
“Really?” Cameron considered her friend. Hadley was sitting on the couch, her tanned legs crossed. Her hair was naturally golden blond so she didn’t have to stress over dark roots like Cameron and Taylor did. Plus, Hadley wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she still looked beautiful. “Why?”
“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know,” said Hadley. She turned sideways so Cameron could see her profile, and pointed to the middle of her nose. “This bump is ridiculous.”
Everyone looked. The bump was so small, Cameron hadn’t noticed it once in the three years the two had been friends. And that said a lot, since Cameron was hyperaware of other people’s noses.
“They wouldn’t even have to break the bone. All they’d have to do is pull back my skin and shave it down, but my parents said no,” Hadley explained.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Lucy.
“Seriously,” said Taylor. “I never even think about it.”
“Easy for you to say. You have a perfect nose,” said Hadley.
Taylor beamed. “You think?”
Hadley nodded.
“Oh, but it doesn’t matter, because my chin is so weak. My parents would be fine with me getting an implant, but only if I pay for it myself. And I don’t have that kind of money.”
There she goes again, thought Cameron. Just because Hadley wanted plastic surgery, Taylor had to invent some reason to want it too. All of Taylor’s features were pretty great, so it must have been challenging to find something wrong with herself, but a weak chin? That was stretching it. Who got chin implants?
Not that Cameron could criticize, out loud, since she was the only one who’d actually had surgery. (LASIK was different. It didn’t really count.)
“Wait, your parents are okay with it?” asked Lucy.
Taylor laughed. “They both get Botox injections, and my mom had her eyes done last year. It would be hypocritical of them not to be okay with it.”
“How much does a chin implant cost?” asked Ashlin.
“Around five thousand dollars, total,” said Taylor. “That’s including the surgery, the hospital fees, and the anesthesiologist’s fee, and everything else.”
“Wait, you know this?” asked Cameron.
Taylor nodded. “I should have that much saved up by the end of the summer, but if I blow it all on an implant, I’ll be broke, and I really don’t want to have to get a job at school.”
“At least you can afford it if you really want it, though,” said Hadley. “A nose job would cost eight thousand dollars. I asked my parents if they’d split the cost with me, but they freaked.”
“Wait, how do you guys know?” asked Ashlin.
“We met with a surgeon a few months ago,” said Hadley.
“You did?” asked Cameron.
Hadley and Taylor nodded. “We went together,” Taylor explained.
“Why are you so surprised?” asked Lucy. “Didn’t you do the same thing?”
Cameron shook her head. “Are you kidding? I was too young. My parents took care of everything. When I came home crying in junior high school, they told me they’d get my nose fixed when I was old enough, and then, a few days after my fifteenth birthday, they took me to the surgeon.”
“You’re so lucky,” said Taylor.
“If I was really lucky, I’d have been born looking more like my mom,” said Cameron, embarrassed to admit this out loud because it was so very true.
Julie Davenport hadn’t worked in eighteen years, but people still recognized her and sometimes stopped her on the street. She was that striking. Cameron never understood why her mom had given it all up. She couldn’t imagine having that kind of power and wasting it.
“Remember when I dated Leo from sophomore year and I went into his room and found an old pinup of your mom on his wall?” asked Hadley.
Everyone laughed except for Cameron, who shuddered. She was both creeped out and flattered by this. In a weird way, it also made her feel like a failure. No one would ever have a pinup of her on the wall. Cameron was pretty, but obviously she wasn’t pretty enough.
“Anyway, you do look like her,” said Lucy.
“Thanks,” said Cameron, not really believing her friend.
When her mom was Cameron’s age, she was living in a New York City loft with three other models, traveling between Milan and Tokyo like the two destinations were across town from each other. Julie always told her daughters that their lives were so much better, and that she had worked because she had to, because without the money or the grades for college, she’d had no other options. Modeling and acting, Julie said, were only glamorous from the outside. Photo shoots were boring and stretched on for hours. Living that life meant being judged constantly. Having strangers look at you as if to say, Are you pretty enough? and Are you something special? every single day. It was the kind of pressure that could really mess with your head. In the end, Julie didn’t want or need it.
Cameron believed her mom, and she preferred being on the other side of the camera anyway. Still, being the undiscovered daughter of someone who’d been discovered felt lousy. Deep down, Cameron felt like every day that she wasn’t discovered, she was being judged. Judged as not being worthy.
Getting this power, this acceptance, so suddenly in the tenth grade merely made her hungry for more.
In Cameron’s secret fantasy, she’s having lunch at an outdoor café when she’s approached by a famous director who begs, literally begs her to be in his next film. Sorry, she says, all blasé, as if this sort of thing happens to her all the time, but my studies are more important. Thanks for asking, though.
“I so wish I could have a new nose,” Hadley said with a sigh.
“And I wish I could have lipo on my arms,” Ashlin mused. “They’re so fat.”
“I’ll go on a diet with you,” Lucy offered. “I want to lose fifteen pounds before I get to school.”
“You don’t need to lose any weight,” said Ashlin.
“I know, but I want to counteract the freshman fifteen,” Lucy replied. “I’m like freaking out ‘cause it’ll be impossible to stay thin on dorm food.”
“I’m stressed about that too,” said Hadley, staring down at her legs, which were toothpick-skinny.
“I hate starch, and I hear it’s all starchy food.” Lucy turned on the TV. One of the best things about her house was that it had more than five hundred cable channels and a very comfy couch. Twenty minutes later, Cameron fell asleep to Pretty in Pink, which wasn’t a big deal since she’d seen it at least twenty times.
Cameron woke up a couple of hours later to Lucy shaking her.
“What are you doing?” Cameron asked, pulling away.
“Let go.”
“There’s a party at the beach,” said Lucy. “Get up.”
Cameron groaned. “I cannot deal with the La Jolla crowd right now.”
“It’s not just the La Jolla people,” said Lucy. “There are tons of guys out there.”
“Really?” Cameron glanced at her friend skeptically. She wouldn’t put it past Lucy to lie just to get her way. It was something they all did from time to time.
Yet Lucy seemed sincere. “There’s a bachelor party six houses down from here. They built a bonfire and they totally want to party with us. They were so psyched when I told them I had four friends back at the house. Especially after I assured them we were all eighteen.”
The story did sound plausible.
Cameron decided to believe her. “Geez, Lucy. You find guys the way other people find change on the sidewalk.”
“I know—it’s one of my best talents,” said Lucy, triumphant, as she stood up and ran for the stairs. “Siesta time is over!” she shouted before running up to share the good news.
An hour later, after another shower and makeup application and six wardrobe changes, Cameron walked to the bonfire with her friends, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Lucy hadn’t lied. There were a bunch of new guys at the beach. Cute, older guys too, but the La Jolla crowd was also there. Cameron’s friends ignored them out of loyalty, choosing instead to flirt with the bachelor-party crowd.
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