Size Zero

by Victoire Dauxerre

  Now all I had to do was maintain this ideal weight: 48.5 kilos, according to my scales. In fact, I’d carry on down to 48, just to arrive at a round figure. A bit of roundness amid all this skinniness perhaps wouldn’t be a bad thing! The only way would be to go on eating as little as possible, despite Dad’s increasingly insistent and exasperated exhortations. When he bought the scales for me, he made me swear not to go lower than 52 kilos. I promised, but without knowing that I was already at 51. Since then, I was the only one who knew my exact weight, because it was the best way of keeping people off my back. I think Mum saw the reading on the scales at the aerodrome, but it was in pounds, not kilos. Around 110 or 108, or something like that: in those units, you feel like you weigh a ton! I wasn’t sure if she’d bothered to do the conversion, but, either way, she hadn’t mentioned it.

  I had reached the perfect weight and the perfect size, but my mind wasn’t at ease for all that. In fact, I was feeling ever more anxious. The closer we got to Los Angeles, the more my fear took over. Soon I would have to part with my family. Finding myself all alone in this big unknown world seemed ever more inconceivable as the moment approached. As I watched the surfers taking on the waves along the coast, it occurred to me that I, too, was going to have to remain standing on the crest of the wave, trying not to lose my balance and get dragged under. And on 7-inch heels, that was going to be no easy thing …

  The day we arrived, we went to dine in Beverly Hills in the pretty villa belonging to Peter and Hemiko, friends of my parents. They were so lovely! Hemiko is a former model and she is ravishing. They have two adorable young daughters who looked at me as if I were the most beautiful thing on earth. We spent a really cool evening together, eating delicious fresh fruit and vegetables. As we were about to leave, Peter put his hand on my shoulder and said to me very kindly, ‘You know, Victoire, if you don’t treat the whole thing as a game, it’s going to kill you. Keep your distance from that scene and don’t neglect your private life – that’s the most important thing. The agencies go out of their way to make you think that they’re your family, because it’s in their own interests. In actual fact, it’s one big circus in which everyone is playing a role. Don’t let them persuade you that your life hangs on the opinion of a single person! None of it is genuinely real or genuinely serious. Don’t ever forget that.’

  I immediately thought of Shakespeare, and the words of Jaques in As You Like It: ‘All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.’ I don’t know if that reassured or worried me. In any case, it did me good, because here was advice from somebody who knew what he was talking about.

  Then Hemiko took me in her arms: ‘Take care, and call us or come back if you need to. We are here for you.’ That made me want to cry.

  Stop Eating!

  When I woke up on 25 August, I found a voice message on my mobile: it was the Lycée Fénelon letting me know that I’d been admitted onto their course. It felt like this call had come directly from another planet, but it gave me a boost all the same; even if it was no longer important, it meant that I hadn’t failed at everything. I wondered if I would still be capable of knuckling down to studying. Thinking back to all the books I’d had to digest over the year to prepare for my exams, it scarcely seemed believable. Lately, I’d been having more and more trouble reading. I couldn’t even manage the newspaper any more, as if something were preventing me from focusing my attention for more than three minutes at a time.

  We spent the day cycling near Venice Beach. How wonderfully peaceful and beautiful it was! The people were cool and everybody seemed to be happy. The houses were stunning and looked directly onto the beach. The bodies were tanned, muscular and well-oiled. It was a gorgeous day, which I tried to savour as serenely as I could, while trying to forget the little voice that ever since the morning had been obstinately homing in on the anxiety of the moment: today, it was my parents’ wedding anniversary. And that evening we were going to have to celebrate in a restaurant. ‘How are you going to avoid eating? If you eat, you’re going to get fat. How are you going to avoid eating?’

  Oh shut up and move on!

  But it was just as I’d been dreading: here was a menu four pages long and not a single steamed dish on it. There was some marinated mahi-mahi – a really tasty and non-fatty fish that I loved. But what was it marinated in? Apparently in lemon, ginger and spices, but they always forgot to mention that it would be swimming in oil too. Or else they’d add a ‘little sauce’ full of sugar. ‘Don’t worry about that – you can just take the marinade off,’ was Dad’s helpful suggestion. But I was worried, because even if I took it off some of it was obviously going to remain in the flesh – the whole point of a marinade was that it permeated the food and you took in the calories, even if you didn’t eat the sauce. I couldn’t make up my mind and really didn’t feel like having anything at all. And because I was hungry, it was even worse: the fundamental failure wasn’t eating, but feeling hungry. Given how long I’d been working on it, surely I should have been able to master that by now?

  ‘Well, Victoire, are you going to make up your mind?’ It was their wedding anniversary dinner, we were all dolled up for the occasion, Dad had chosen a great restaurant and now here was I pissing them all off with my little crisis, like some poor little anorexic, because I wasn’t even capable of making an effort to please them. Mum and Léo were staring at their (empty) plates and Alex was going pale.

  I realised I wasn’t going to get out of this one.

  The waiter arrived and I asked him if it would be possible just to have a plate of steamed vegetables. Dad rolled his eyes to the heavens, but said nothing, and the others ordered. When the vegetables came, it was immediately obvious they were swimming in oil. ‘They’re not “swimming in oil”, Victoire. They’ve just been dressed with a drop of very good olive oil. This is a gourmet restaurant and they feel obliged to do that.’ Maybe they did feel obliged, but there was no way I could eat that. In four days’ time, I’d be arriving in New York and I had to be able to get into the clothes. You’d have thought he didn’t understand, or refused to understand. He raised his voice. Alex was as white as a sheet, Mum had tears in her eyes and Léo looked completely lost. I started crying. Between sobs, I apologised and explained that I couldn’t help it, but that I’d eat a full plate of vegetables, promise, so long as there wasn’t any oil on them.

  Dad gave in and, because he was angry, he asked the waiter in a very curt tone to take away my plate and bring me another one without any oil or sauce. I stopped crying and we finished the meal in a deathly silence. I had brilliantly contrived to ruin their wedding anniversary.

  When I’d finished my huge plate of food, I went to the toilets to try to make myself vomit. I knew that it was really dangerous for my health, but this was an emergency situation and I had no other choice. But I couldn’t manage it and only the following day did I find the solution; I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it sooner. Mum always carried laxatives and various medicines in her toilet bag, ‘just in case’. If I took enough of them just before meals, the food I ingested wouldn’t have time to stay in my system and release the calories it contained, meaning that I would at least be able to get through the final days of the trip without having to go through the restaurant scene again. I would agree to eat a bit more to reassure them and I’d take laxatives on the sly to eliminate it all.

  I went and stocked up at the drugstore while they were tanning themselves on the beach. I had what I needed and nobody was any the wiser. But why hadn’t I thought of it sooner?

  I was also hoping that the laxatives would soothe my stomach aches, but you can’t have everything. Laxatives couldn’t do much about the anxiety that was gripping my guts, but if they at least enabled us to spend our last three days here as a family in relative tranquillity, that would improve things no end. I could see that Dad was happy to see me eating vegetables and chicken and I was very happy to see him happy. I adore Dad. It wasn’t his fault if he didn’t unde
rstand.

  And then I bought myself a suitcase! A supermodel’s suitcase: not too big or too small, all black and shiny, and adorned with flowery straps so that I could pick it out easily at airports. And Mum got me a pretty, bright pink Filofax in which I’d be able to note down all my appointments. So now I was operational.

  Alex loaded up my iPod with tracks by Coldplay, Lenny Kravitz, Robbie Williams, Curry and Coco, Pony Pony Run Run, Renaud Capuçon, Eric Clapton, Lilicub, Téléphone and Simon and Garfunkel so that I could be with them all the while I was away: I just had to put on my headphones to hear what my brother had playing in his ears and wanted me to have playing in mine.

  On the morning of 30 August I snapped my suitcase shut and Alexis took it down to the hotel lobby. I resprayed Yùki with Mum’s perfume and slipped him into my bag. I swallowed a quarter of the tranquilliser she had given me, and which had already helped a lot when I’d taken the plane on my own three weeks earlier.

  I went down to join them. The taxi arrived, and that’s when I began to cry. We all got into the cab and I said, ‘I don’t want to go. I’m not going to be able to manage it.’ Léo started to cry.

  Dad said, ‘You’re worried now, because you don’t know what’s in store for you and these last few weeks have dragged on. But soon enough you’ll see, Sweetpea: in the heat of the action, you’ll be fine.’

  Mum added, ‘He’s right, Loutch. In less than three weeks, you’ll be home again. And you’ll see, between now and then it will all go by very quickly.’ But there was a catch in her voice and then she began to cry too. Alex, for his part, said nothing.

  We arrived at the airport and they all came with me to departures. I was still crying, Mum too, and even Léo, who was giving me little kisses on the hand. Dad’s eyes were dry, but strangely bright. Alexis came and hugged me very tightly in his arms and said, ‘Sis, you’re the most beautiful girl. And I love you.’ He had tears in his eyes – and he never has tears in his eyes. And he never says things like that.

  I embraced them all one last time and then off I went. Right then, I felt as if I no longer existed at all.

  New York

  I took another quarter of the pill in the plane and felt like I was in the process of dying of grief. And of anxiety. I thought of Mum constantly, wondering how I was going to keep going for seventeen days without her. Seventeen days, when I was missing her so much after just two hours! I went and had a cry in the toilets and tried to calm myself down by taking deep breaths. I splashed my red eyes with some water so that I wouldn’t look like a drowned rat when I arrived at JFK. Back in my seat, I hugged Yùki against me and tried to get some sleep. My mind was a swirl of images. Alex’s anger, Léo’s kisses, the Grand Canyon and Venice Beach, the scenes with Dad and his worried look, the way he called me Sweetpea and Mum called me Loutch, the walking exercises by the pool, Beverly Hills and Marilyn Monroe’s grave in Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, Granddaddy’s hands trembling and him saying, ‘my little Victorinette, you’re driving me up the wall,’ and Flo’s voice merging with that other nasty little voice, which was becoming more and more insistent. And then the adorable little affectionate messages that they’d slipped into my Filofax, unbeknown to me.

  Mum’s tears …

  Seb was waiting for me at the airport, just the same as ever: an enthusiastic and over-the-top windbag. I felt bizarrely pleased to see him and all the ‘my darling, we’re going to take them by storm’ stuff even comforted me a bit. We headed off towards the Chelsea neighbourhood of Manhattan in a big chauffeur-driven car. Seb took a large folder out of his bag. It contained a telephone with my New York number, the keys to 221 West 16th Street, apartment 3C, where I would be staying with Olympe and Madeleine for three weeks (‘They arrived last week, they can’t wait to see you again’), a map of New York on which he’d marked one cross showing the apartment and another showing the location of Silent (‘You’ll see, it’s just up the road, ten minutes on foot’) and the list of all the people at the agency I’d be dealing with, their phone numbers and also the contact details for the French embassy (‘Just to be on the safe side, but you won’t need them. After all, I’ll be with you almost all the time’). I very much hope not, Seb, because you’re already starting to wear me out!

  He dropped me off outside the building and said, ‘Get to bed early. Tomorrow I’ll come and pick you up at 8.30.’

  This really was New York, with its brownstones and the black steel fire escapes on the façades, just like in the films! I lugged my case up to the third floor and used my key to open the door after I’d rung and got no reply. The girls were lounging on the sofa in the living room, watching TV. They vaguely murmured hello. Yes, clearly delighted to see me again! I had no idea why, but it was obvious that they were in a sulk with me. In the end, they did rouse themselves to show me round the apartment: I had the bigger bedroom, dominated by an enormous bed that seemed to beckon me into its embrace. In the kitchen the cupboards were desperately bare: a packet of tea, a tin of coffee, a bit of fruit and some 0 per cent yoghurt in the fridge. ‘I suppose you haven’t brought any provisions? You can have one or two of my fruits tomorrow morning. We go to the market at the end of the day, and you can buy stuff for yourself there.’ Why, Madeleine, thank you for your kind offer. The bathroom was a mess and there was a second bedroom at the end of the corridor, which they were sharing. How lucky I was to have my own room! I thanked them and went straight into my bedroom to text Mum. She wouldn’t be able to answer, because they would still be on the plane, but she’d get it when she got to Roissy.

  I emptied my suitcase, filled the room with my things so that I would feel at home and put my scales at the foot of my king-size bed. My first New York weigh-in read: 47.1. Well done, the laxatives. I was really proud of myself: I’m going to get into the clothes, Flo, I’m telling you! I sent another text to Mum to share the good news, put on my night T-shirt, swallowed a sleeping pill to make sure I would be on form tomorrow and nestled up to Yùki, who smelled almost as nice as darling Mum. It was 32°C outside, but I was feeling pretty cold as usual. So much the better – I’d never have got to sleep otherwise in such humidity.

  Mum’s call woke me: she was at the airport, they’d just arrived and were waiting for their luggage. It was good to hear her voice. I described the apartment to her and told her about my schedule for the day: this morning, Seb was picking us up to take us to Silent and this afternoon it would be the first castings. Dad had been right: the prospect of working was making things easier and, above all, I was feeling less anxious. I was just in a hurry to get going!

  I was about to hang up when Mum said in a worried voice, ‘I got your second text, Loutch: 47 kilos is really too little for your height. Promise me that you’ll never, ever go any lower than that.’

  ‘I promise, Mum. I won’t go any lower.’ Except if they asked me to, naturally. I would see what Silent had to say in a little while.

  Seb kept us waiting for at least forty-five minutes. Apparently, it was like that every day. It really got on my nerves – I can’t stand waiting. That greatly amused Olympe and Madeleine: ‘Poor thing, it’s not looking good for you, then. Being a model is all about spending your life waiting! But we’ll let you find that out for yourself.’ They were sniggering at me and looking at me in a funny way. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it, but it was making me feel uncomfortable. And it made me sad too, just like it had at secondary school before I left, when I found myself alone and the other girls ignored me disdainfully. I didn’t give a damn, I didn’t give a damn, I didn’t give a damn. I wasn’t there for them, I was there to become the top model of fashion week and I couldn’t wait for it to start at last.

  When Seb eventually turned up without offering a word of apology, the four of us hit the streets of New York to make our way to the agency. The heat was overwhelming, but I was rapt with wonder. We crossed through the massive Chelsea Market, where you can find absolutely everything you could wish to eat and where
I would be able to stock up on fruit and fresh vegetables. To my eyes, everything was new and beautiful and wonderful. For the first time in weeks, I was genuinely happy!

  On the way, Seb explained once again the principles of the castings: every morning, we would stop in at the agency to get the daily schedule they had planned for me. They were up to speed on all the castings of the day and would choose the ones I should attend, depending on the status of the designer and his specific requirements, if any – for example, some only accepted blondes (I’m a brunette) or girls over 6 foot or very thin girls – and also depending on whether they had managed to speak to the designers directly about me or not.

  ‘And so I’ll have appointments at set times?’

  Olympe and Madeleine sniggered at me again.

  ‘Yes, when you’re Claudia Schiffer, honey. Then you won’t even need to go to the castings, or you’ll jump the queue ahead of everybody else, because you don’t make Claudia Schiffer wait. But until that happens, you queue up with the others. If you’re lucky, you’ll get called quickly. If not, you’ll wait for ages – and nice and patiently, without complaining.’

  I could sense that my days were going to be long.

  Silent’s offices were located on a very chic Chelsea avenue lined with upmarket boutiques. But to go inside, you had to locate a tiny door hidden away in the corner of a cul-de-sac. This opened onto a small corridor that had been freshly painted white, as had the narrow staircase that led up to a landing, where there was a row of letterboxes opposite a large lift. The place smelled of paint, as if they had still been decorating up until the day before. The agency was on the second floor. Behind an unremarkable door, there was a huge loft space that was also painted completely white and which seemed to dwarf the team’s office area. It was very attractive, but also very empty and extremely quiet. We were a long way from Elite’s Parisian beehive. Breathing in the vapours of fresh paint, I wondered how long Louis and Émile had been based here. They projected the image of top professionals, but could it be that they were every bit as inexperienced as I was and just as full of big talk as Seb? Everybody knew Elite, but Silent?