The Daughters

by Joanna Philbin

  Lizzie opened her book, feeling let down and confused. She was used to people asking her for things, but this just depressed her. Didn’t Todd know how annoying it was to be used as a “connection” to her mom? Then again, he hadn’t made eye contact with her once during that entire interaction. Hopefully he felt like an idiot.

  After class she found Carina and Hudson waiting for her on the bench in the lobby.

  “So I got hit up by Ava Elting for her dumb charity ball,” she said, pushing open the main door and walking out to the sidewalk. The rain had turned to a soft drizzle. “Todd even did the intro for her. Yecch.”

  “Ugh,” Hudson sniffed, opening her see-through plastic umbrella. “She hit me up, too. For concert tickets. Or dinner with my mom. As if my mom would ever sit down with a stranger and have dinner. She barely has dinner with me.”

  “What a weenie,” Carina confirmed, pushing a wide blue headband through her blond hair. “She’s got him totally by the you-know-whats.”

  “He has to know she’s a tool,” Lizzie argued. “So how can he stand it?”

  “I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that,” Carina said dryly.

  They turned the corner onto Madison Avenue and walked into the deli. Carina and Lizzie got in line to order toasted bialys with butter, while Hudson went to the magazine stand. White flour had been banned in the Jones’s home a long time ago, and she’d lost her taste for it.

  “Oh my God,” they heard Hudson mutter. “Lizzie. Come over here.”

  “What?” Lizzie stepped out of the line and walked over to the magazine rack. “What is it?”

  Hudson stood in the middle of the aisle, with the latest issue of New York Style open in her hands. “You’re in here,” she said to Lizzie, as if she didn’t quite believe it herself.

  “What?” Lizzie stepped closer.

  Her mouth open in shock, Hudson turned the magazine to show her. The first thing Lizzie saw was the headline: THE NEW FACE OF BEAUTY.

  Underneath it was her picture. Her. Lizzie. Wearing the black fedora and the gold hoop earrings and the crazy pink scarf, leaning against the brick wall in Chinatown. The picture took up almost the entire page.

  Her eye fell to the caption:

  Seems like arresting looks run in the family. Lizzie Summers, the 14-year-old daughter of supermodel Katia Summers, is the latest discovery of photographer Andrea Sidwell. She calls her “the new face of beauty.” We couldn’t agree more.

  “Oh my God,” Lizzie said.

  “You look amazing!” Hudson screamed. “Carina? Come over here!”

  Carina walked over. “I’m just about to order.”

  “Did you see this?” Hudson shrieked, holding up the magazine.

  When Carina saw the picture, her mouth dropped open. “Holy shnit! That’s you! You look incredible! Look at you!”

  “You’re the New Face of Beauty!” Hudson yelled, jumping up and down. “Did you know they were gonna do this?” she asked.

  Lizzie could only shake her head. “Uh. No.”

  “You’re the new face of beauty! Oh my god!” Hudson’s excited green eyes searched Lizzie’s face. “Wait. What’s wrong?”

  “You’re screaming, that’s what’s wrong,” said Carina.

  “I sent in the forged release,” Lizzie replied, still in shock. “I never told my mom. Anything. She’s gonna flip out.”

  Just then she felt the ominous buzz of her iPhone in her bag. Someone had just texted her. She pulled it out. It was from home.

  COME HOME NOW.

  “Lizzie?” Hudson asked warily. “You look scared.”

  “I think I should be.” Lizzie showed them both the message.

  “Yikes,” Carina said.

  “Do you want us to come?” Hudson asked, her brow knitted with concern.

  Lizzie shook her head. She felt like she was standing at the edge of a high-dive board, and trying to get the courage to jump. “No, that’s okay. I should do this alone.” She started to go to the door.

  “But it’s lunch period,” Carina said.

  “I’ll come back,” she said.

  “Don’t worry, you’re gonna be fine,” Hudson said as she followed Lizzie onto the street. “They’re gonna love it. You’ll see.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said as she raised her hand to hail a cab.

  “Just remember,” Hudson said, twisting Lizzie around by the waist. “This is a huge, huge deal.” She stood on her tippytoes and threw her arms around Lizzie’s neck. “And you deserve it.”

  Lizzie squeezed her back, and for the first time felt like jumping up and down, too. She was the new face of beauty? This was unreal.

  After hailing a cab, she got inside and gave the driver her address. Then she leaned against the backseat and watched the brown and gold leaves whiz past the windows as they crossed the park. Quickly, she tried to formulate an excuse. But she couldn’t come up with one. She’d lied to Andrea, forged her mom’s signature, and gotten her pictures in a national magazine without her parents’ permission. She’d probably be grounded for the rest of eternity.

  But she was also the new face of beauty. Her—the new face of beauty! she thought, gripping the metal bar on the cab door as she smiled to herself. How had that happened?

  When she got out of the cab she quickly bypassed the paparazzi and ran through the beginning rain into the lobby. In the entry hall to her family’s apartment she dropped her bag.

  “Hello?” she called out, and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

  Bernard, Katia, and Natasha sat in grim silence around the kitchen table, as if someone had just died. Katia was pursing her lips so tightly that her cheeks looked hollow, and her hair had been hastily pulled back into a severe, schoolteacherish bun. Natasha flicked the fringe of her bangs out of her eyes and gave Lizzie a scowl. Her dad glared at her from under his bushy eyebrows as he touched the magazine that lay in the center of the table.

  “Explain this,” he said, pushing the copy of New York Style toward her. “I’m assuming you can?”

  “It wasn’t supposed to come out,” she started. “They were just test shots—”

  “You’re a minor!” Bernard exploded, his eyes becoming dangerously buggy. “Didn’t Natasha explain to you why this wasn’t a good idea? Didn’t she?”

  “Clearly she didn’t want to take my advice,” Natasha said haughtily, drumming her eggplant-colored fingernails on the table. “Your daughter’s quite a strong-willed girl.”

  “It was just to have the editor look at my photos,” Lizzie said. “They weren’t supposed to print them. I swear.”

  The house phone trilled on the kitchen wall. Bernard leaped up out of his chair and grabbed it.

  “Yes, send her up, please,” he directed, then slammed the phone back down. “Your photographer’s here. And you can bet I have a few words to say to her,” he said.

  Of course they’d tracked down Andrea. Now she’d have to explain that she’d lied—not just to her family but to the coolest woman in the universe.

  Katia finally unpursed her lips. Her eyes had turned a deep shade of purple, which meant that the situation was dire. “I didn’t think you liked cameras,” she said.

  “Mom.” Lizzie searched for the right way to put it. “It started while you were in Paris—I just wanted to try it—and then when you came home I thought you’d be upset and think it was weird, and think I was trying to take advantage of the YouTube clip thing so I didn’t say anything—”

  Katia looked down at the cup of espresso in her hand, unmoved.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” Lizzie went on. “I never thought that it would end up somewhere, I never thought there was any chance, and I was going to tell you—”

  She heard someone come in through the open front door, and then Andrea walked into the kitchen, stepping carefully on the tile in her wet sneakers. Her blond ponytail was dark and bedraggled-looking from the rain. Her zip-up yoga jacket was soaked. She barely glanced
at Lizzie, but in the millisecond their eyes met Lizzie could feel all of her betrayal and disappointment.

  “I’m so sorry about all this,” she launched right in, speaking to Bernard and Katia. “I was out of town, my BlackBerry wasn’t working, the editor and I weren’t in touch—”

  “Do you know that she’s fourteen years old?” Bernard demanded.

  “Shhh, Bernard.” Katia placed her hand on Bernard’s arm.

  Andrea put her messenger bag on the counter. “I wanted the photo editor just to see Lizzie’s pictures. I never thought she’d print them. She did e-mail me to ask my permission but, as I said, my BlackBerry wasn’t working—”

  “What you did is illegal,” Bernard cut in.

  Natasha snickered.

  “I gave Lizzie a release before I sent in her photos,” Andrea said calmly. “When I got it faxed back to me I thought she’d spoken with you.” She shot Lizzie a reproachful look, her friendly blue eyes flat now. “I was wrong.”

  “So you forged your mother’s signature,” Bernard said, turning to Lizzie. “Wonderful.”

  “No, this is my fault,” Andrea said quietly. “Lizzie said that she was going to tell you. I never thought that she wouldn’t. I never thought she’d lie to me.”

  It killed Lizzie to see Andrea take the responsibility for this. “Mom, Dad,” she broke in, “I shouldn’t have sent the release back in. I just wanted to see if I could do it without you.” She bowed her head so she wouldn’t have to look her mother in the eye. “I wanted it to be my own thing. If that makes any sense.”

  When she looked back up, Katia’s face was still pale, but her eyes were just blue enough to indicate that this might end okay. “You have to see why I feel a little surprised here,” Katia said to Andrea. “Especially because this is my world. I would hope that I’d be included in any decision Lizzie has to model. I had no idea she even wanted to try it.”

  “She didn’t want to,” Andrea confessed with a sigh. “In fact, she turned me down at first. But she’s good at it. And I think she has something. I think her face is a work of art.”

  Katia and Bernard glanced at each other, as if they weren’t sure they bought this.

  “I’d understand if you never want her to be in front of a camera again,” Andrea went on. “But I’m shooting a layout for Rayon in a couple of days. It’s that music and entertainment magazine for college kids and twentysomethings.” Andrea turned to Lizzie and finally eked out a proud smile. “They flipped over her picture in New York Style. And they’d love for her to be the model in the shoot.”

  “Absolutely not,” Bernard announced.

  “Bernard,” Katia said, touching his arm again. She stood up from the table, and pulled her cashmere wrap closer around her shoulders. “Lizzie, you should probably get back to school now. And starting tonight you’re grounded. For the next two weeks.”

  “Wait,” Lizzie said. “Rayon? Mom… Can I do it?”

  Katia glanced back at Bernard. Her dad threw up his hands, as if saying he was going to sit this one out.

  “Look, I know that I lied to you, and I’m so sorry, Mom, I really am. But can we at least think about this?”

  Katia pulled her wrap closer, but the stony look on her face was gone. “We’ll think about it,” she said. “Now, go back to school.”

  That was good enough for now, Lizzie thought. They would all need some time to recover from this. On her way to the front door, Lizzie brushed past Andrea. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Andrea patted her on the shoulder as if to say “Okay.”

  At the front door she heard her mother behind her. “Lizzie?”

  Her mother stepped out into the hall so that they were finally alone. Even in bare feet, she still towered over Lizzie.

  “Promise me that you’ll never do that again,” she said in a quavering voice. She seemed so hurt.

  “I promise,” Lizzie said. “I’m sorry, Mom. Really, I am.”

  Katia reached out her slender arms and Lizzie stepped into her hug. She smelled the tuberose and lilies and felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

  “But I’m proud of you,” Katia said into her ear. “Do you really want to do this shoot?”

  Lizzie nodded into her mom’s shoulder. “Yes. I really do.”

  Katia let her go. “It would be just this once, Lizzie. If we do it.”

  Lizzie nodded again.

  Katia smoothed Lizzie’s hair. “Okay, get back to school.”

  Lizzie walked out to the elevators, feeling dazed and stunned, like she’d just survived a plane crash. The worst thing had happened, and somehow, everything was okay. Everything was more than okay, actually.

  She checked her iPhone and there was a text from Hudson.

  How does it feel to be the new face of BEAUTY???

  Lizzie smiled.

  AMAZING, she wrote back.

  chapter 17

  Psssst! The Evian mist felt cool against her skin. When she opened her eyes, the makeup artist with the tangerine-colored hair and pierced nose was crouched down in front of her face, swatting at Lizzie’s damp cheeks with a makeup sponge. Her green T-shirt said EVERYBODY LOVES AN IRISH GIRL, and she smelled like patchouli. “This’ll give you dewiness,” she said, still swatting. “God, you barely need foundation. Who does your facials?”

  Lizzie sipped her green tea. She thought about the time she and Hudson had tried to use Holla’s weird microdermabrasion kit and gave up. “Nobody,” she said.

  “Really?” The makeup artist leaned back on her heels and studied her. “What’s your secret then?”

  Lizzie shrugged.

  “She’s only fourteen, Marisa,” quipped the bald, stubbly-faced hairdresser standing behind her. “That’s her secret.” He twisted a piece of her hair around the barrel of a curling iron. “Is this your real color?” he asked.

  “Yep.” Lizzie nodded.

  He whistled to himself. “Gor-geous,” he muttered.

  Only two days had passed since the New York Style meltdown with her parents and Andrea, but now everything was different. People were telling her that parts of her were gorgeous. She’d been allowed to skip school—just this once—to actually be paid to model. And while her friends were suffering through geometry, she was sitting in a makeup chair in a sun-drenched studio at Chelsea Piers, bopping her leg to Kanye West and getting her eyelashes curled. It was almost too much to wrap her head around, Lizzie thought, but she knew that she couldn’t exactly get used to this. Bernard had allowed her to do this shoot for Rayon on two conditions: that this be a one-time thing, and that Katia be there to supervise it. Even though her mother still hadn’t shown up.

  “How’re we doing, Lizzie? We good?” Andrea strode over, more keyed-up than usual, her blue eyes dancing and her wavy blond hair down around her face. She wore faded boot-cut jeans, a hoodie, and boots instead of sneakers. “Don’t do too much to her, okay?” she said to Marisa. “Just a little powder and eyeliner. That’s it. And Serge, not too corkscrewy, all right?” she said to the hairdresser, looking at Lizzie in the mirror. “She looks best when she looks like herself.”

  And that’s something I’ve never heard before, Lizzie thought, getting out of the chair.

  The Rayon fashion editor helped her get dressed in her first “look”: a sheer floral-printed sundress layered over a C&C long-sleeved cotton tee, with red paisley tights and oxfords. A little busy, Lizzie thought, but then again, Rayon was an edgy kind of fashion mag.

  “Perfect. Just perfect,” pronounced the editor, shaking her head as she stroked her long silver chain necklaces. “Let’s get you some accessories.” She pulled out a box of different pieces of jewelry, each of them wrapped in plastic, and picked out a necklace made up of big chunky pieces of glass that looked like candy. When she fastened it around Lizzie’s neck she grinned. “There. Now you’re perfect.”

  Lizzie looked at the portable full-length mirror on wheels. She would never have worn this outfit in real life, but, like her mish-mas
h of accessories from Chinatown, it all kind of worked.

  Lizzie walked over to Andrea, who was standing near a gigantic computer monitor, flanked by two of her assistants. “What do you think?” she asked her.

  Andrea looked her up and down. “I love it. And I think we’re ready to go here. But should we wait for your mom?”

  “I don’t know. She had a meeting with her designers in the garment district. It might be a while.”

  “I’m here!” trilled a familiar voice.

  The heavy door of the studio slammed shut, and Katia glided into the studio brandishing a BlackBerry in one hand and her daily Venti green tea chai from Starbucks in the other. “I’m so sorry I’m late, the traffic was terrible,” she said. Her hair dangled over her shoulder in a long, thick braid, and she was dressed in an attention-getting black metallic tunic, corset-style jeweled belt, and a pair of tight, sleek black leather leggings that made her legs look twice as long. With a sinking feeling, Lizzie realized that Katia was going to do anything but fade into the background here.

  “That’s what you’re wearing?” she asked Lizzie, stopping short when she saw her and scanning her with turquoise eyes.

  “The story’s called ‘Crazy for Layers,’ ” Lizzie explained, slightly irritated. “They like to do edgier stuff.”

  “Uh-huh.” She peered at Lizzie’s face. “Are you wearing any makeup?”

  Before Lizzie could say anything, Andrea rushed over to her. “I thought I’d keep it minimal,” she said, walking over. “I want her to look like her, after all.”

  Katia’s eyes narrowed just the slightest bit. Lizzie could tell she didn’t approve.

  “Okay honey, when you’re up there, remember the Pose,” Katia instructed. “Shoulders back, chin down, neck long—”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Lizzie interrupted. “Andrea and I kind of have our own style. But thanks.”

  Katia stared at her as if she didn’t quite understand what she’d said.

  “Oh, and can you kind of stand in the back? If that’s okay?” she asked.

  Her mom nodded. “Fine. Have fun. Because we’re only doing this once, remember. It’s just a trial run—”