Like Me

by Hayley Phelan

  I put on a few filters, and cropped it so you couldn’t see my thighs. I typed out a caption: 3 a.m. pizza never a bad idea, especially when you bring your own champagne. Jason, my agent, had said I needed to think harder about what I was putting out there on social media. Who are you? he had asked. What’s your personality? Are you funny? Serious? Interested in social justice?

  Gemma’s lucky. She grew up between France and California alongside four boisterous brothers, one of whom is now paraplegic and gives talks to high schoolers about the dangers of drunk driving. Her father’s a professor of French literature, and her mother is a potter and florist who recently launched a modestly successful small-batch organic wine label. She grew up playing piano and doing ballet.

  I’m an only child, and my father is a crook. I deleted the caption and typed: Grateful for this human champagne bubble, my wife, @BlakeyBlake. I bit my lip, thinking.

  Gemma almost made it to the American Ballet Theater, but decided to go to college instead: NYU, as a poli-sci major. “I always felt very deeply the injustices of the world, and knew from a young age I wanted to make a difference,” she’d once said in an interview with Net-a-Porter, alongside images of her stretched out on the Italian Riviera somewhere, modeling the new Saint Laurent collection. She got discovered freshman year. Gemma never dreamt of modeling, but it helped pay off her student loans. Gemma says her whole life she’s been plagued by anxiety. It runs in her family. Her brother, after he became paralyzed, attempted suicide, and that was a real wake-up call for Gemma. Now, she posts all the time about mental health, and occasionally details her own struggle with depression. She wants to raise awareness, to show that depression can affect anyone, even her. Except it only wound up making me feel worse about myself because if Gemma was depressed, then I might as well just go and jump off a bridge. Still, I wished I had something to care about like Gemma had. Jason was always telling me that I needed to be realer. That’s what everyone loves so much about Gemma. She’s authentic. She’s just being herself. You can tell.

  I deleted the caption again and typed: When the whole country’s going up in flames, sometimes you just have to take the champagne to the pizza, y’know? I added an emoji of a crystal ball, and tagged all the brands we were wearing.

  * * *

  —

  Gemma’s body is perfectly arranged under the gentle slopes of her recently purchased Parachute duvet. She sleeps on her back, her face exposed and open to the world, like a child. One of her arms is flung lazily up behind her head, and a fan of wavy blond hair spills over it, creating a halo around her face. She begins to stir, a beam of golden sunlight slicing through her blinds at the appointed hour, the end of what she likes to call her “disco nap.” She stretches both arms overhead and shakes away one of her signature white-blond curls. Propping herself up on an elbow, she rubs one eye sleepily.

  “Mmm,” she says, clearly savoring the moment. Her eyes are open now, and light refracts off the pale-blue irises, giving the impression of unbounded depth, like the inside of a glass marble. She laughs sheepishly. “Naps, man,” she says, though it is unclear to whom she is speaking. “Still the best.”

  Possibly, she is speaking to no one.

  * * *

  —

  Later, on the roof of her West Village apartment building, Gemma fills a mason jar with rosé. It is her favorite time of day. The windows of the office building across the street reflect the sun, little squares of burning gold and ombré pink framed in steel. Snake Oil, an under-the-radar band that I have not heard of but that sounds a little like The Smiths, plays in the background.

  * * *

  —

  Gemma rests her head on Benoit’s shoulder. So it was to him that she was speaking, back in the bedroom. That should have been obvious. Both of their faces are bathed in soft pink. They look happy in the calm way that I have always longed for. Gemma is wearing a worn-in men’s button-down shirt and layers of fine gold necklaces, one of which is a locket that Benoit gave her four months ago. Their anniversary. It cost $1,200 and was handcrafted by a husband-and-wife design team in Istanbul. Benoit is wearing a denim jacket and dark sunglasses. He takes a swig of his beer, and looks out into the distance.

  But Gemma, Gemma looks right at me.

  * * *

  —

  I was late to the casting that day. Not that it mattered. They always made you wait at least an hour before they called your name, and I wasn’t too excited about the gig anyway—it was for a no-name lookbook shoot, and would probably pay pennies. But Jason had urged me to go in for it because he said the designer, Julio Ronaldo, was about to be the next big thing, and because it was being shot by Billy Pierce, who was still a big deal even if he really did rape all those girls. “Well, it wasn’t real rape,” Jason had chided me. “Just statutory. And anyway, all the charges were dropped.”

  After following the direction of the meekly extended finger of the front desk receptionist, I found myself in a long, mirrored corridor, where the other girls were waiting, legs limply crossed or stuck out in front of them, on stackable plastic chairs. Their reflections—extenuated frames and dazed expressions—repeated ad infinitum on either side. I hung back, leaning against an empty sliver of wall, away from the mirrors and the other girls. I didn’t recognize any of them, though they were instantly familiar to me—the same horde I saw at all of the castings I went to: tall, perilously thin, and white, white, white, just like me. Some of the higher-end labels had started casting models of color in campaigns (usually surrounded by a halo of white girls), but the mall brands and beginning designers that I went up for apparently lacked the imagination, or the courage, though it shouldn’t have required either.

  I was wearing BDG High-Waisted Contrast Stitch Skate Jeans in Black, the Urban Outfitters Novah Ribbed Tank Top, also in Black, and Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Sneakers in Black.

  I had picked up a copy of the latest New York on my way over. Gemma had posted about it, and one of my resolutions that summer was to read more. Feeling smug, I unfurled it, and started with the table of contents. Then my phone dinged. Blake and Julia were discussing what Blake should eat that morning, whether she should go out for breakfast alone (Julia was still in bed with one of her suitors) or just order in, and if she ordered in, what should she order? After typing out my vote (order in), my fingers magically carried me to the web browser on my phone. I checked the New York Times home page. I read the news, switching to Instagram as the pages loaded. The photo I had posted had gotten 112 Likes so far. There was a bombing in the Ukraine that killed nine people, including a child. Kendall Jenner had dyed her hair blond. Donald Trump had mocked a female TV presenter. One of the Likers was Sam, a boy I had once kinda liked. I clicked on his profile. Brazil was struggling to identify a new disease, characterized by mild flu-like symptoms and an asymmetrical rash, which could be accompanied by seizures and temporary dissociation or amnesia and had so far sickened seventy-three people in São Paulo. My best middle school friend went to an amusement park with her boyfriend and he won her a bear (lame). A Brooklyn teen had fled the States to join ISIS. There was a meme circulating, a baby wearing Nikes and nothing else dancing to “Old Town Road.” Gemma had taken her little black poodle, Pancakes, for a walk along the West Side Highway. She was wearing denim shorts and a vintage t-shirt, neither of them tagged. I studied her legs, long, pale, and thin, slightly bowed, her thighs like elegant brackets, and the space between them: that yawning distance that seemed to represent the chasm between the two of us. She has the best thigh gap. Conclusion: I needed a pair of denim shorts. Blake had decided to go out after all, to Mogador, the Moroccan joint on St. Marks. Urban Outfitters was selling a pair of shredded Levi’s for $49.99. I couldn’t decide between the white color or the light blue. Blake had ordered the Mediterranean breakfast. My horoscope said that today’s new moon signaled a journey inward. A new beginning. Julia said I should get the light-blue wa
sh.

  I don’t know how long I waited, but when they called my name, it was like I heard it from some great distance, even though it was just coming from the end of the hallway, where a soft, stout woman stood, dressed in Eileen Fisher billowy sails and holding a clipboard. Legally, my name’s still Michaela Heffernan, but I started going by Mickey Jones—my mother’s maiden name—shortly after my dad got arrested, and it still rung a little unfamiliar in my ear. Reluctantly, I rolled my New York back up and stuck it in my purse. I hadn’t gotten any farther than the table of contents. I walked quickly through the corridor, past the girls repeating infinitely on both sides, and had the disconcerting impression that I was passing through a thicket of my own body.

  The woman was smiling a chipped-tooth smile, which deepened the crow’s feet around her eyes. She told me her name was Joni and, with a moist palm against my shoulder, ferried me into the next room.

  Sunlight poured sideways through the large warehouse windows, creating a golden quadrangle on one side of the wall in which I saw a galaxy of dust swimming. No one else introduced themselves, but I could tell who Julio was right away: a small man with smooth brown skin, a black mop of curly hair, and a startlingly handsome face made all the more compelling by the two large moles that punctuated his right cheek. He had that air of ownership and frenetic energy I’d come to recognize in designers. He paced the room, while the others—a trim man with rangy tattooed arms and chunky black glasses, and a miniscule woman with a mullet and an aura of keen efficiency—sat at a large conference table. Joni took her seat beside the woman.

  Everyone looked at me. When I’m at a casting, I try to go completely empty. I am just a body, and what they say isn’t personal. It’s business. I can still feel my feet on the ground, and hear the words coming out of my mouth, but other than that I’ve gone; everything is happening on the outside, and I’m just watching, empty as a shell. (I’ve since come to understand, from the court-appointed therapist, that this is called dissociation.)

  Inevitably, though, snippets of conversation slip through. There was some discussion over whether or not my thighs were too fat. One of them was concerned I didn’t look upmarket enough. Generic, mall-brand catalogue…these are the words they used. Not at all, said another. In the clothes, that sort of blank Americanness will be exactly right. Perverse, almost…Then Julio was standing very close to me, his breath on my neck. Gently he turned my cheek, examining my face in the light.

  “Y’know, there’s something almost Gemma about her,” he said.

  The one who had called me generic scoffed. “Really? I’m…not sure I’m seeing that.”

  Julio continued looking at me thoughtfully. “With a few changes…” He tucked my hair behind my shoulders and smoothed it down on either side of my head. It was nice being looked at like that.

  “She only has eleven hundred Followers,” said one of the others. That was something they’d started doing, giving your social media stats alongside your height, weight, and shoe size.

  Julio sighed. “You’re probably right. But let’s at least see how she looks on film. Even just for my own personal amusement.” He winked at me and laughed, his fingertips still lingering on my throat and collarbone. He gave me one final examination. Then, with a perfunctory, quick gesture, he clasped my nipples between his thumb and forefinger and pinched—a trick, I knew, for making them hard in the photos. “There,” he said, finally stepping away satisfied. I was careful not to wince.

  Soon, I was dazzled by the flash.

  When I was dismissed a few minutes later, Joni caressed my cheek gently, called me darling as if she were my own mother, and called the next name.

  She’d told me they’d be in touch. But I knew they wouldn’t be.

  There was a time when I actually went to castings with some hope. I was seventeen and thought I’d be a star, even though I was then living in a one-bedroom model apartment with six other girls who all thought the same thing and were arguably more talented than me, whatever “talent” means in this industry. I had some luck early on; I was cast alongside five or six other models (guys and girls) in an Urban Outfitters campaign, in which we pretended to skateboard in an empty swimming pool and sat in plastic folding chairs, drinking from cans that looked like beer without the label (they were actually empty so that when we pressed them to our lips, we only took in air). I guess that gave me confidence. It was enough that Jason took me on as a client, promised me opportunities, consistency. I used to prep for the castings he sent me to, made an effort to be on time, well rested, with absolutely nothing in my stomach, and for a while, it worked; I booked a few more mid-level gigs, and some catalogue work that paid well. I thought I had a chance at finally recapturing what had been stripped away from me at my father’s trial. Wealth. Ease. The delusion I was somehow special. But soon even those mid-level jobs grew few and far between. I wish I could point to something dramatic that happened, like that I told a photographer to go fuck himself, or showed up to work wasted, but it wasn’t anything like that; it was more of a slow fade into nothingness, invisibility. The last casting I’d gone to with a shred of hope, I’d waited seven hours in a cramped hallway, and they didn’t even call my name; they packed up and left without even seeing me, and I didn’t realize it until a security guard who was closing up for the night had to tell me to leave.

  * * *

  —

  There is a large box, tied with a pale-green silk ribbon, waiting on a sun-flooded windowsill. Outside the window: quaint West Village brownstones. Gemma pulls at the ribbon, at first teasingly, and then with abandon.

  Inside the box: filmy white tissue paper, which she impatiently tosses aside, revealing a fluffy white robe from Parachute, a thank you note from the company for posting about them.

  * * *

  —

  Gemma slips on the robe. It looks big on her, but this only accentuates her charm, like she is a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s robe. Underneath she is naked. Surely, she is naked. She wraps her arms around herself, hugging the robe in tight and squealing with delight. Pancakes wags his tail excitedly. He trots over and licks her feet.

  * * *

  —

  Hands clasped together, on a leather car seat. Benoit’s tattoo is visible, just above his wrist. Her fingers, delicate and white, are cradled in his. Such a lazy hand-hold, as if holding each other’s hand were the most basic thing in the world.

  They are on their way to a lunchtime benefit, in honor of a black woman who died while in police custody. This is a cause dear to my heart. The words are written in a white font, positioned diagonally in the top right corner so that they do not obscure the primary object of the image: the hands holding each other, their love for one another, a delicate gold bracelet from the brand Lorelai.

  * * *

  —

  On the step and repeat, Gemma’s body is riddled with flashes. Her hair is wild. A curl, loosening itself from the white-blond mass, blows in the breeze across her face, and she tucks it behind an ear. She is wearing wide-legged, cream-colored trousers, and a matching silk blouse. Thank you Ganni for letting me steal this v v comfy v v cool fit from the shoot! reads the text, stationary and white over a black scribble in the corner. Hovering near her hip is another string of words: the names of brands, including Ganni, attached to @ signs, each one clickable. As the flashes crescendo her expression says: Who, me? Well isn’t this ridiculous.

  * * *

  —

  That night I dined on squash blossoms, burrata, and stewed plums, and split the branzino with Blake, with a side of green beans. I was wearing a Topshop Ruched Mini Dress in Lime Green that I’d shoplifted earlier that week, the Brandy Melville Gold Double Chain Crescent Charm Necklace, Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Sneakers in Black, and Forever 21 Oversize Hoops. There were eight of us there—Julia, Blake, and me, of course; three men, including Joe; and two other models, neit
her of whom spoke very much English. I remember being jealous of that; they chewed their food slowly, and smiled, and did not have to say anything much. I, on the other hand, ate and drank voraciously and kept up a steady patter. I told no one about the casting. If I had, Julia might have suggested that I try doing something else, like she’d done last time, and I’d have to pretend I didn’t hear her and go to the bathroom, my cheeks burning with shame, because how could I explain to her that I needed this job, that I didn’t have anything else—no education, no talent—when I myself had gone to great pains to mislead her about that? She and Blake assumed I had a regular father and a high school diploma just like everyone else.

  Though I did not think it at that very moment, I was angry. It was an anger that was loose and unspecific, a faint tint that had spread like dye in water. It encompassed all men.

  There was only one way I knew how to seek revenge. Make the men want me. I scanned the room, looking for prey. The man seated across from me was in the midst of a monologue, something about his home in Montauk. He was neither ugly nor handsome, probably in his mid-forties, balding a little bit on the top of his head, short, narrow-shouldered, but muscular and compact. Yes, he might do. A long aquiline nose, tanned olive skin that looked soft, shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal dark hairy arms. He was wearing an awful gold watch, terribly gaudy. A turnoff. Good. It’s better if you’re not attracted to them.