The Look

by Sophia Bennett

  Nirmala starts off by waxing the area above my nose, which is bad but quick. Then, to complete the look, she gets a long piece of cotton thread and starts pulling out each hair individually. This is called threading, apparently, as I learn between ouches. Forget the rose and lavender: If threading had existed during the Civil War, it would definitely have been used for torture.

  Just as she’s finishing, Ava and Jesse arrive to pick me up. Ava opens the treatment room door, with Jesse looking over her shoulder. She doesn’t seem to mind that for only the third time her gorgeous boyfriend has seen me in a year, I’m lying back with a bib around my neck, my face hot and prickly from its recent sufferings.

  “Hi again, Jesse,” I mutter.

  He smiles awkwardly. “Having fun?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “But check out the results, T,” Ava insists, as Nirmala kindly hands me a mirror.

  I examine my face. It’s still pink and flustered, but for the first time in my life, I have two normal eyebrows. Nirmala smiles as I grin at her gratefully. Suddenly, the pain doesn’t seem so bad. I will, frankly, go through it as many times as it takes.

  Jesse takes us to a nearby café to celebrate.

  “OK,” Ava says, peering at the bridge of my nose once Jesse is in line at the counter. “You definitely look like you’ve done something.” She considers for a moment. “We’ll tell Mum we got home early and I gave you a beauty session at home while she was still working. I could probably do that stuff to your eyebrows if I tried —”

  “You’re not coming near me again!”

  Ava sighs. “I don’t have to. It’s pretend, remember? We’ll just say I did it all with tweezers.”

  “Ow!”

  She’s right, though. Mum’s so busy with work and anticancer remedies that she’s not going to pay much attention to the relative hairlessness of my face.

  Jesse joins us, armed with a Coke and two coffees.

  “Congratulations, by the way,” he says. “On the new job. I didn’t get to say it to you directly before.”

  But he still has a strange awkwardness about him. I assume that it’s because he doesn’t really approve of modeling. However, when he sits down next to Ava, she turns away from him. Now that I look closely, something’s wrong with Ava, too — the Jesse sparkle has gone from her eyes. It was still there at breakfast, so something must have happened while I was at the hairdresser’s. Something not good. I look at them both, confused, and don’t know what to say.

  Ava breaks the silence with brittle brightness. “Jesse needs congratulations, too,” she says, fixing on a smile. “He did so well in that sailing competition that he’s been asked to crew a boat around the Mediterranean. All summer. And maybe the autumn, too. He’s just been telling me about it.”

  “Wow. Sounds great,” I mumble. But it’s not what I’m thinking, which is that this is tragic. No wonder the sparkle’s gone. How is Ava going to cope without him for so long?

  Jesse sighs and shakes his head. “I don’t have to go. I’m supposed to be teaching surfing this summer anyway. It’s just that the money’s much better on the boat and it would help pay for school. But —”

  “But nothing,” Ava says sharply. “It’s the Mediterranean! Just think of all the places you’ll go. Ibiza, Majorca, Sardinia … And on a yacht! A luxury sailing yacht! And they’re paying you. If someone asked me, I’d go. Anyway, I’m going to be so busy with my treatment I won’t have time to see you, and I’d be no fun if I did. It’s much better this way. It’s a really good idea.”

  She stares into her coffee.

  Jesse looks at me helplessly. “I’ve told her I’ll stay if she wants me to.”

  “Well, I don’t,” she says with the same grimness Mum generally uses when the argument is over.

  We spend another agonizing ten minutes hardly talking to each other, and then I leave to go home on my own, so they can ignore each other without me.

  I was all set to go with my “Ava gave me a makeover” story, but Mum doesn’t notice a thing.

  When Ava gets in — hours earlier than she was supposed to — she doesn’t want to talk. The second round of chemo is making her feel dizzy and weak, but I know that’s not the problem. Jesse is.

  “It’s a stupid idea. You’ll miss him,” I insist from the bottom of my side of the closet, where I’m trying to find a pair of sandals to wear next week that fit me and don’t make me look like a troll.

  “I’ll be fine,” she snaps. “Do you think I want him to see me all pasty and exhausted, with my hair falling out and God knows what, when he’s constantly surrounded by beach babes? It’s so much better this way. Anyway, it’s your first day at work soon. That’s much more important.”

  She sits on her bed for a moment, holding her head in her hands. I know she’s thinking about her hair. She’s terrified of losing it. I don’t know why, exactly, but it’s the thing she worries about the most. Every now and again she likes to reassure herself that it’s still there — thick and dark and lovely — her crowning glory. Then she steadies herself and starts rummaging around in her side of the closet, flicking hangers aside and then rummaging some more. Eventually she finds what she’s looking for.

  “Aha! I want you to have this. You’ll need it.”

  She’s holding out a little gathered white-and-blue striped skirt — about four inches shorter than anything I’d be seen dead in, but very cute.

  “Why?” I ask. This is, after all, the girl who has vowed never to let me borrow any of her stuff EVER.

  “Because you go out looking like a bag lady, and I’m embarrassed at the thought of you meeting all those fashion people in your usual getup.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You look terrible,” she sighs.

  “I mean — really about the skirt? You never lend me stuff.”

  “I’m not lending, I’m giving it to you,” she says crossly. “When Jesse’s not around all I can face wearing at the moment is sweatpants and old T-shirts. You might as well get some wear out of this.”

  She holds it out to me, and her face is bleak and resolute. My sister is so strong, so stubborn and determined, that I can feel a stray tear forming in the corner of my eye and I have to blink it away quickly. I know how annoyed she gets by Mum.

  “OK. Thanks.”

  I take the skirt. Ava holds my eyes for a grim moment, then smiles gratefully. Even though she’s the one doing the giving, I think she’s glad that I’m not still arguing with her about Jesse and her stupid decision to let him crew this yacht. She’s putting all her fight into battling lymphoma and she hasn’t got any left for me.

  In that moment, we form a sort of truce. We’ve always argued, because that’s what sisters are for, but I silently agree to let her make her own stupid decisions in her own stupid way for as long as this disease has got a hold of her. She’s all I’ve got, and I need her.

  In her gratitude her shoulders relax and the tension seeps out of her body.

  “Ya-ay,” she says weakly. “My si-ister is going to be a mo-odel!”

  Apparently.

  Five days later. Day one of my “waitressing job.”

  I’m sitting in a damp room in a warehouse in Bermondsey, East London. There are about thirty of us altogether, all waiting to be seen by a couple of designers who run a trendy style blog. Almost everyone in the room is tall, thin, young, female, nervous, and holding a plastic folder like mine. Most aren’t wearing much makeup, but quite a few are in skintight jeans, or almost identical miniskirts and tank tops. Thank goodness Ava convinced me to wear her skirt and not cargo pants, like I planned. Is this some sort of modeling uniform I didn’t know about? There really is so much I don’t know.

  In fact, I’ve decided to ask the girl sitting beside me to at least help sort out some of my vocabulary issues. Her name is Sabrina, she’s from Model City, too, and we’re sharing a chaperone because Sabrina’s family live in Newcastle and she’s staying in the model apartment that the agency
runs in West London. Sabrina isn’t up for this job — she’s hanging around for me and in a couple of hours I’ll be hanging around for her somewhere else.

  “This is a go-see, OK?” she says. “You go and see the people who need to hire a model for a particular job. That means it’s a casting.”

  “Wait — a casting or a go-see? That’s what I don’t understand.”

  She sighs. “Both. But sometimes, you go and see a designer or a photographer just to show them your face so they remember you. That’s a go-see but not a casting. See?”

  “Yes.”

  No. I totally get why there’s a magazine out there called Dazed & Confused, and why it’s so popular with models.

  Sabrina plows on. “But, if it is a casting and not just a go-see, and they like you, then they option you, which means they want you, and if you get first option and you’re available, then you do the job. It’s pretty straightforward.”

  Help! She lost me at “option.” I get her to explain it again. She does, and it still sounds like “Blah blah blah blah option. Blah blah blah blah straightforward.” However, I get the vague impression that an option is a good thing and that’s what I want to get from this casting. Or go-see, or whatever it is. Trouble is, that’s what we all need to get, and there’s a roomful of us, and they only need two girls.

  Gradually, the room starts to empty. Girls troop regularly back past us on their way to other appointments. Most of them seem to be on their own, although some of the younger ones like me have their mothers with them. This part would be pretty lonely if I didn’t have people like Sabrina for company.

  The next name is called.

  “Ted Richmond. Hey, Ted Richmond, anyone?”

  The voice is already agitated. You have to be quick around here, or they just move on to the next person. Sabrina jabs me in the shoulder.

  “That’s you, remember?”

  Oh, yes. Frankie decided that “Ted Trout” wouldn’t look so great on my comp card (which is like a big business card for models with photos on it), so we had to come up with another surname, quick. Dad was pretty upset. He didn’t go through ten years of being called Fishface at school just to have the family name abandoned at the first opportunity. But Frankie and I overruled him. I thought for a bit while Dad suggested various other surnames. I couldn’t help thinking about our old house, for some reason. I still miss it so much. Eventually I settled on “Richmond,” and Frankie agreed.

  It was a really great idea, except I can never remember that’s what I’m supposed to be called. Thank goodness for Sabrina.

  I grab my folder out of my bag and rush through the studio doors.

  Ahead of me are a couple of desks, pushed together, with three people sitting behind them. It couldn’t look more like a nightmare vision of an oral exam if it tried. In fact, it also reminds me of one of Dad’s favorite paintings about the English Civil War, which shows a Cavalier boy being questioned by some scary-looking Cromwellian soldiers. It’s titled And When Did You Last See Your Father? That poor little boy looks a lot braver than I’m feeling right now.

  I feel my way across the floor toward them and hand them my book. They flip through it. With only three pictures to look at, it doesn’t take them long.

  “Ted Richmond?”

  “Yes.” I have mastered my own name. Hooray.

  “Model City?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmm. Can you turn round for us, please?”

  I turn. Quite an elegant pirouette, considering.

  “Back view. Just the back view, please.”

  So I face the door and try not to feel intimidated. I can feel my muscles tensing up. My shoulders are up around my ears. Should I try and relax, or would that look too slouchy? I’m not sure if I …

  “That’s fine. You can go now.”

  Oh, no. All I had to do was “just stand there” and I managed to mess even that up.

  “Miss Richmond? Miss Richmond?”

  Help. That’s me. I haven’t mastered my own name after all. I turn back.

  “Your book.”

  The man in the middle is holding my folder out to me. I half expect him to be wearing a leather jerkin and a big, Cromwellian hat circa 1645. It’s almost a surprise to see the black T-shirt and stubble.

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure you were fine,” Sabrina tells me when we’re back out on the street. “If they didn’t want you, it’s just because you haven’t got the right look. I hardly got any jobs in my first six months of New Faces.”

  “Useful,” I say. “Thanks.”

  This is not how it happened for Lily Cole.

  Day Two is the same as Day One — with the exception that I’m not concentrating when I get out of the Underground and I get lost on the way to the model apartment to meet Sabrina.

  By Day Three, there’s a definite pattern emerging. My alarm goes off under my pillow so I don’t wake Ava too badly. I change into the closest thing I’ve got to the model uniform, which is Ava’s skirt, if it’s clean, and a T-shirt of some description (not my Woodland Trust one, although when I get brave enough I might try and wear it as a dress). I go to a café near the model flat, where I’m supposed to meet up with the latest agency chaperone and whoever else she’s accompanying today, so we can travel together to our first destination. We go to castings and/or go-sees. There is some form of minor disaster — usually due to the fact that I’ve forgotten something or don’t understand what they want me to do. I check with Frankie later, to see if I’ve been optioned for a job. I haven’t. I travel home alone, trying not to take it personally.

  I take it personally.

  At least I’m starting to make friends. I keep bumping into the same girls as we compete for the same jobs. If Dean Daniels could see us all — a roomful of tall, skinny freaks all lining up together — he’d go into shock. The thought always makes me smile.

  Sabrina is my favorite. Whenever we meet up, she makes sure to continue my fashion education. She’s still horrified by how little I knew when I started.

  “So, what’s Rule One?” she quizzes me while we wait in the line for a job for a newspaper feature.

  “Don’t go out with a model.” I grin, remembering Frankie that first time she took my Polaroids.

  Sabrina laughs. “Where did you get that from? That’s, like, the last rule! What’s the real one?”

  “Be professional,” I recite dutifully.

  “Which means …?”

  I run through the list of things Frankie told me before I started. Being professional means being on time, with clean hair and nails, wearing appropriate clothes and shoes, including underwear (appropriate underwear, not any underwear — of course you’d be wearing underwear), remaining polite, not taking your top off (ew), not complaining, and doing whatever you are asked, however painful, tiring, or downright peculiar (except taking your top off — see above). There is nothing about Paris, Milan, or any of the stuff that Ava first mentioned, but maybe that comes later.

  Then I add the things I’m learning for myself. Being professional means carrying an enormous bag around with you everywhere (borrowed, after much pleading, from your sister), which contains a load of stuff I never knew you could possibly need: your A-Z map of London, to find wherever it is you’re supposed to go; your book; your spare, recently purchased, thrift shop high heels, in case they want to see how you walk in them; gel insoles for when they rub; a change of clothes; and something to read while you’re waiting around. It means concentrating during all fashion-related conversations, so you don’t look completely clueless when somebody mentions prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear clothes) or Karl Lagerfeld (design guru for Chanel) or boho chic (dressing like a trendy gypsy), and you can seem suitably awed if anyone talks about Anna Wintour (editor-in-chief of Vogue). It includes sometimes being able to tell your sister fashion-related stuff she didn’t already know. Ava enjoys those bits nearly as much as I do.

  It doesn’t include getting an actual job, though. Or not yet
, anyway.

  July turns into August and Daisy heads off to Germany, leaving her phone behind, so I couldn’t stay in touch even if I wanted to — which I’m not sure I would, because Daisy’s sympathy for my disasters is pretty much zero, as expected.

  Ava gets her first set of results after two months of treatment and they’re not as great as we’d hoped. Of course, we wanted the scans to say that the chemo was doing a great job and the cancer was disappearing. But it’s not as simple as that. Dr. Christodoulou thinks she’ll need radiation treatment after the chemotherapy, to make sure. That means the full treatment won’t be over until nearly Christmas, and it will involve Ava being zapped with X-rays on top of the toxic chemicals. Somehow, it feels like she just failed a final exam and has to take it all over again. But this time, it’s a life-or-death final. We make a silent pact not to talk about it.

  Meanwhile, my dreams of becoming an instant supermodel still aren’t going to plan, either, which is a shame, because if they were, it would really cheer my sister up.

  I am utterly not Kate Moss. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if it’s too late to find a summer job that pays actual, reliable money and doesn’t involve being rejected on a daily basis by people who want someone taller or shorter or curvier or darker or blonder or just overall prettier or without — as one stylist for a shoe feature put it — “the fattest ankles I’ve seen all day.”

  “You haven’t got fat ankles,” Ava assures me when I get back from that particularly stressful go-see. “You haven’t got fat anything. She must have had wonky glasses.”

  “They were very thick lenses,” I agree, to reassure myself, but make a mental note never to try and get any work for Manolo Blahnik or Jimmy Choo (big-deal shoe designers). “And Frankie says not to worry. She’s booked me for three more test shoots to build up my book. She says that’ll help.”

  “What?” Ava asks. “Not more brick walls, I hope?”

  “The wall was the best bit,” I remind her. “But no. There’s a beach shoot — that sounds good. And some artist Frankie knows who needs someone with a long neck and a lot of patience. Not sure what that’s about. And a new designer who needs some pictures for his lookbook.”