“No, I can’t back out of it, I already paid the three hundred to go, and I also paid for the hotel room. Besides, even if I don’t have a good time there, you and I will still have the memory of going to it.” Jenny halted and looked at her with widened eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Legend, I can’t go to this thing. The model search lasts for two days. The first day they teach you how to walk up on the runway, and the second day the agents will be there to see you walk and hopefully choose you as their client. This whole thing is a very special occasion: people can’t just walk in off the streets and attend it. If you read the brochure, you would have known that.”
They began walking again.
“But all I have to say is you’re a guest of mine. Jenny, you have to come with me, I need you to be there.” They approached Legend’s house and Jenny felt a burning question rising in her throat.
“Wait a second, did you take the three hundred dollars from your bank account?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“So what? Legend, that was the money you were going to use to buy that telescope, the telescope you’ve always wanted, the telescope that you would have loved to have.” She became upset at Legend because she knew she wasn’t going to get an agent, disappointed at Legend because she knew the three hundred dollars was supposed to go for something that she’s always wanted, to further her astronomy teachings. But now it was going for something that will prolong Legend’s pain when she doesn’t get chosen by any modeling agents.
They sat on Legend’s small, white porch and felt the wetness from the rain absorb into the back of their pants. They got up immediately as Jenny still kept silent, not knowing anymore what to say. It was as if she was hiding something from Legend. “Listen to me, I could always buy a telescope later on, but right now I needed the money for this event. Please don’t be upset with me,” begged Legend. They both entered her house and started walking up the stairs.
“I’m not mad at you, Legend, I just don’t want you to get hurt as all.”
“I’m not going to get hurt. Now, please say you’ll come with me,” Legend pleaded. They walked down her hallway while the aroma of liquor fermented in the air.
“Legend, like I said before, they won’t allow me to come with you. Besides, it costs fifty dollars to bring someone with you, and I don’t have that type of dough.”
They walked into Legend’s bedroom and sat on her bed before Legend pulled out a photo album and started pulling pictures out from it. Jenny stared at the star constellation poster up on the wall, when Legend tapped her on the shoulder.
“I’ll pay the fifty-dollar fee for you to come. I feel that it’s worth paying fifty dollars for a best friend to come with, instead of not having anyone there with me,” Legend explained. She pulled out four pictures from the album and put them on the bed.
“Are those the pictures you’re going to use for the model search?”
“Yeah, I can’t afford to go to a professional photographer, so I’m just going to use pictures that were taken of me before I got so-called ugly,” replied Legend. Jenny got up from the bed and walked over to the small window. “But anyway, I want you to come with me. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for you!”
“Legend, I already told you that I don’t want to come!” She bit her upper lip and realized she said the wrong thing.
“I thought you said you couldn’t go with me, right?” asked Legend. She noticed Jenny’s reflection in the window and how her eyes showed fear.
Jenny lingered her head over to face Legend. “That’s what I meant, I can’t go with!”
“No, but you said you didn’t want to. I think you’re hiding something. Come on, Jenny, we’re best friends, you can tell me anything!”
Jenny slowly turned back to the window and looked out at the grey sky; tears were beginning to develop in her eyes. She didn’t want to let down her mask in front of Legend, the mask that showed a tough girl who wasn’t afraid of anyone. Jenny stared through the window and came across her own reflection, the image of obesity and covered-up pain. Jenny tried to cover up her weak moment, but she noticed Legend staring at her reflection; she knew Legend saw her tears. Too late. Jenny turned from Legend’s reflection and came to her own again. “Listen, Legend, all the girls there are gonna be beautiful, and especially skinny. . . . I don’t think I would fit in there, and I mean both literally and socially. . . .” She saw Legend in the reflection of the window again, and noticed Legend staring at her. Jenny knew what was wrong. That’s when she immediately wiped her tears away with her school shirtsleeve, and then turned to face Legend.
“Are you crying?” asked Legend.
“Well, I am human, you know, I do get emotional sometimes.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just I’ve always thought of you as a tough girl. I mean, the way you always stand up for me, yourself, to Dina and her friends when they start talking about us. I guess that’s why.” The rain started falling harder outside, bouncing off the window in herds.
“Well, that’s the reason why I don’t want to go to this search. I am fat … and those girls are skinny…. Especially you, I mean, you think that you’re ugly, but you don’t realize how lucky you are to have a figure like that. You have a slim, perfect waist, perfect breasts, and overall a perfect posture. With me, my belly is beyond large, my breasts seem like they’re a part of my stomach, and my posture is like a fish hook, hunched and curved.” Legend immediately got up from her bed and gave her a hug. “I mean, that’s why I always stick up for you when Dina or the other bitches make fun of you. You’re special, you’re the only one who likes me for who I am . . . not the way I look. And, if I go to this search with you, all those girls are just going to be like Dina, nothing but bitches.” Jenny cried on Legend’s right shoulder and absorbed her tears with Legend’s shirt.
The bodyguard spoke. Silence and a brief echo of the rain hitting the window was all that was heard. The truth was spoken. Jenny, of all people, was actually crying. Legend was so fixated on herself that she completely forgot about Jenny’s feelings. But now she knew.
“Jenny, listen to me, I know that people pick on you because of your weight, and I know they pick on me because of my looks. But, overall, if we allow them to stop us from doing what we want, just because of evil words they say about us, then that makes us everything that they call us. It makes you nothing but a fat slob, and makes me nothing but ugly. . . . That’s mainly why I’m going to this model search. This is our last year in high school, and I really don’t want to remember this year as doing nothing but crying because of name-calling to me . . . I want to remember it as actually going to this model search, and being happy because I went.”
“I want to remember this year as myself walking on a catwalk with Dina and all the other beautiful models, and realizing that we’re all equal. The only moment when we aren’t equal is when we all walk off the catwalk and the agents begin to choose which girls they want. But for that one moment when I’m equal to Dina and the other beauties, that one moment is worth a thousand tears from my eyes. . . . It’s worth more than the three hundred dollars I paid to go to this search, it’s priceless, and I want to live that moment, Jenny.” She kept on hugging Jenny, both balling and trying to catch their breaths.
Jenny released her arms from Legend and walked up to the window again. “Alright, I’ll go, but I’ll only go on the second day to see you walk on the catwalk. The first day you really don’t need me, all they’re going to do is teach you how to walk on the cat . . . but the second day I’ll be there.” Legend ran up to her and gave her a tight hug.
“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you so much, Jenny, and you won’t be disappointed either. I promise you that day will be a day you’ll never forget!” Her bedroom door opened and her mother walked in. Legend saw her in the window’s reflection with a bottle of vodka in her grasp, and a cigarette in the other.
“Legend, I have to talk to you immediately,” her mother slurred. Legend became embarrasse
d, knowing her mother was obviously drunk; she didn’t want Jenny to see her that way.
She ran over to her mother and whispered, “Mom, could we please talk about this after Jenny goes home, and after you’re sobered up?”
Her mother grabbed Legend by the hand and replied, “No, we’re going to talk about this right now!”
Her mother guided her out of her room as Legend said, “Jenny, I’ll be right back!” She closed her bedroom door and her mother kept on pulling her hand toward her. They walked in a fast rhythm down to the kitchen. “Mom, could we please wait till you’re sobered up? I hate it when you’re drunk. . . .”
“Well, little miss prissy doesn’t like it when I’m drunk. Well, tough.” Her mother then took a swig from the vodka bottle. “I went over to the bank to get money from my account, when I decided to check how much interest your own account made. Lo and behold, I discover that you, my own daughter, my own blood, had withdrawn three hundred from it, when you already know that money is tight around here now. What, did you use it to buy drugs?”
“No, Mom, I don’t do drugs, and furthermore, you had no right to check my account,” Legend defended. “I have five thousand dollars in there, and it’s all my own!”
“No right? I have every right to check it. That money is your father’s money, and therefore it belongs to me.”
“No, you and Dad got a divorce, so therefore it doesn’t belong to you. I am his daughter, and that is my own private account.” She sat down in a chair and her mother again commenced drinking out of the bottle.
“Listen to me, I want to know what you did with it. I saw you in the mall the other day, in a cosmetic store, with that fat ass Jenny, and I know you don’t wear make-up. So what were you doing in there?” Her mother was like a madwoman in heat. Legend got up from her chair with anger in her movement, attempting to show her mother that she was in fact upset toward her.
“Don’t you ever fuckin call Jenny that again,” yelled Legend. Silence of death took over the room suddenly. In the slowest of motions, her mother opened her eyes and mouth wide.
“Don’t you ever say that word again, you know how I hate that fuckin word,” her mother screamed in a craziness. She walked up to Legend and tried slapping her, but missed.
“You just said that word. How could you hate it, if you just said it?”
“How dare you say I said the F-word, I haven’t ever said F- in my life.” Her voice grew louder, madness on the edge of catastrophe, and every time she took a swig from the vodka bottle it only heightened its strength.
“You just said it again, you’re just too drunk to realize it,” Legend returned in a scream. Her mother tried slapping her in the face again, and actually did it right. The slap caused five of her pimples to break and bleed.
Legend felt her own face pulsating where her mother’s handprint stood. She pulled her hand away and saw blood on it, the blood from her mask, the blood that her mother caused. Legend sat back in the chair and calmed herself, breathing in and out slow and deep. “Listen, Mom, I know that you’re too drunk to realize what you’re doing, but I’m sick and tired of having to put up with you hitting me. Whenever you get drunk like this, you hit me, and I mean really hit me.” She felt her face again where her mother’s print was. “This time you just hit me once, so I guess you’re not that drunk.”
“You listen to me, L-E-G-E-N-D, which really spells out U-G-L-Y, I am your mother, and I could hit you whenever, and however I want to,” her mother jabbed. Legend’s eyes developed tears.
“Why do you always call me ugly when you’re drunk like this? You’re supposed be my mother, not my enemy.”
Her mother sat down in a chair opposite her. “What did you do with that money?” her mother asked as if she completely ignored Legend’s question.
“I spent it on a model search that I’m going to attend in three days.” Legend got up from her seat and walked over to a drawer that was on the left side of her. She opened it up and pulled out a tape recorder. She pushed the record button and then walked back to her seat.
“You did what?” her mother asked. She was too drunk to notice the tape recorder on the counter.
“I spent it on a model search. Some of the top modeling agents in the world are going to be there, and they’re going to choose girls to represent.”
“And you think these agents are going to choose you? Look at yourself, your lips are small, your hair is stringy, and overall, your face looks like a pizza. You may as well have flushed the money down the toilet, because that’s exactly what you did.” Legend’s tears fell to her lap. She got up from her seat before her mother added, “Yeah, that’s right, I said your face looks like a pizza. You’re ugly, Legend, and this model search isn’t going to make you any prettier, or uglier.” She then took another swig. “You’re just going to stay the same, unattractive.” Another swig. “Does your father know about this?”
“No, I haven’t talked to my father in a year. If you wouldn’t destroy your brain cells so much, you would have known that,” Legend then walked up to the tape recorder.
“Don’t get smart with me, Legend. Just because your father lives in a gorgeous mansion in Oak Brook, and also is the cause of me drinking, doesn’t give you the right to crucify me for it,” her mother yelled. Legend pressed the stop button on the tape recorder.
“Yeah, well if you wouldn’t have had an affair with another man, we would still be living in that mansion. Just because you hardly received any money out of the divorce doesn’t give you the right to crucify me either.”
Legend pulled out the tape from the recorder and walked over to her mother. Before her mother could say what she was thinking, Legend handed the tape to her and said, “I’m going to go and stay at Jenny’s house tonight, and tomorrow, and even the next day. I’m not going to leave you her number, because I don’t want to see you anymore. After the model search, if I get chosen by agents or not, I will find another place to live. . . . Also, listen to this tape when you’re sober, maybe this way you’ll know why your daughter left you.” Her mother grabbed onto the tape, looking at Legend with tired eyes; the liquor was beginning to get to her. Legend walked out of the kitchen and watched her mother lay her head on the table and close her eyes. She was too drunk to realize her daughter was leaving for good, and too drunk to hold her eyelids open. “Goodbye, Mom.” She turned around and proceeded to walk toward the stairs. That’s when she saw Jenny sitting on the top stair with tears in her eyes also. Legend walked up the stairs and Jenny reached out her arms to hug her.
“I’m so sorry, Legend, I had no idea she was like that,” Jenny said. Legend sat on the stair also while hugging Jenny.
“Just promise me you’ll be at this modeling thing on the last day, watching me on the catwalk.” Jenny stroked her blond, stringy hair and shut her eyes, knowing that she had to be there now for Legend, almost mandatory.
“I promise you, I’ll be there till the end.” Her tears fell onto Legend’s back, while Legend’s tears fell onto hers.
“I just wish I was beautiful, so the whole world could see it and love it,” Legend pleaded. They started hugging each other tighter.
“Well, maybe your wish will come true. But overall, I’ll pray for you, Legend.” Their tears came to an end and so did their words. They just sat in silence, embracing each other and feeling one another’s energy bouncing back and forth.
Chapter Five
Legend appeared in front of the hotel with Jenny, overflowing with fears of knowing that she was ugly and the negative thought kept on showing itself. She hesitated from proceeding to walk into the luxurious hotel, faltered because she wasn’t a model in the first place − she didn’t know anymore why she came to be in this position. The sudden drive was there, simmering still from Dina’s fight, but it was beginning to unfortunately lower its flames. But it was strong enough to bring her this far. She watched beautiful, young girls entering the hotel, and nothing more than envious, innocent sadness stood in her glar
e. Legend just wanted, just begged for a moment in her existence where she could stand with the others, both beautiful and elite, and prove to them she was just as good. Yet Legend didn’t know she was too obsessed with proving it to others, not herself. “I can’t go in there, Jenny, I just can’t,” Legend pleaded. She turned around and walked opposite from the hotel. Legend walked faster and Jenny tried to keep up with her rhythm.
Jenny finally walked in front of Legend. “Listen to me, Legend, it’s only going to be today and tomorrow that this model search is going to last for. You can do it!”
“No I can’t, I’m too embarrassed by the way I look,” Legend cried out, noticing a taxi that stopped right next to her. The taxi door opened suddenly and Legend’s mouth dropped to the ground. Her nerves showed through her shaky hands, sweat formed through her oily pores, and anxiety raised faster than her heartbeat, seeing a figure stepping out from the cab. Like a dying rainbow, a lump in the throat, it was the silver spoon: Dina.
“Well, well, what are you doing here?” Dina asked, snotty as always, while two of her friends exited the taxi as well. Legend became speechless: she knew if she told the real reason why she was here, then Dina would surely make fun of her. But, if she didn’t say anything, then Dina would still call her names. “Hey, ugly, astronomy geek, I asked you a question!”
“She’s going to the model search,” a woman replied from behind Jenny. They all turned around to see where the voice came from and, lo and behold, it was Angelica. She went in front of Legend to face Dina and asked, “What are you doing here?”
Mask of A Legend Page 6