Etoile (The Mannequin Series)

by Olivia Besse

  Tempting as it was, Elodie held her ground. “No, but thank you,” she replied with a small smile. “My driver should be coming soon anyway.”

  Like a knight in shining armor, a dark sedan came to whisk her away before Tyler could come up with a snarky response. Elodie waved at him through the back window, and she watched his confused face get smaller and smaller as her driver made his way out of the alley. Crisis averted.

  Eighteen

  “Oh my God, it's her,” a scrawny American teenager blurted out as she jumped up from her recumbent state on the tiny sofa.

  As she entered the messy apartment, Elodie couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at the lingering aroma of stale cigarettes mixed with microwave popcorn that hit her. Clothes and towels were scattered everywhere, as were half-eaten bags of Speculoos biscuits and empty toiletry bottles. She grimaced as she noticed someone's retainers sitting out on the corner of the living room table.

  Looking in the direction of the commotion, she saw a familiar looking face, though she couldn't put her finger on where she had seen it before. The girl had long brown hair and thick eyebrows that likely made appearances in every makeup artist's dreams.

  “Who?” another girl asked as she popped her head into the living room.

  The American looked directly at Elodie with rounded eyes. “You're dating Tyler Peeters, aren't you?” And, with that, the owner of the floating head came zooming into the room, her light brown hair swishing behind her.

  They were the two young models that Tyler had been smoking with earlier, Elodie soon realized. While rapidly shaking her head, she reassured them, “No, no, we are just friends. He was just joking. He likes to make jokes that are not very funny. I am Elodie, by the way.”

  “I'm Lauren. That's Klara. Oh my God, what's it like to be friends with him?”

  “Ja, what it like?” the one named Klara asked desperately.

  Elodie was taken aback at the enthusiasm for Tyler. She knew that he was very in demand with many of the top designers and casting directors, but she hadn't realized just how popular he was with the teenaged crowd. “Um, it is okay?” she attempted as she shrugged her shoulders. “We are doing the Ero campaign together.”

  Lauren let out a deafening squeal that caused Elodie to reflexively close her eyes and hunch her shoulders. Klara seemed unaffected by the high-pitched noise. “You're friends with Tyler Peeters AND you booked an Ero campaign? Oh my God! Can we switch lives?”

  Two more girls came running out from one of the bedrooms. “What is happening?” a wide-eyed Russian girl asked. The other girl, presumably Eastern European as well, looked at Elodie quizzically. They, too, looked prepubescent, both with long blonde hair and striking blue eyes. She couldn't help but feel worn and aged around this energetic gaggle of pretty young things. She suddenly missed Heddi, Tatiana and Jelena terribly.

  As Lauren caught them up on what was apparently Elodie's greatest life accomplishment, as well as her Ero campaign, the four childlike giants stared at her in awe. She gave them a weak smile before asking, “So, where is there a free bed?”

  “You can totally have mine,” Lauren cried out. “There are four beds in each room, but the bed that I use has the comfiest mattress. You can totally use it if you want!”

  Elodie really wanted to pat this kid on the head and slip her a Ritalin. “Oh, I am fine with any free bed. Do not worry about me!” She attempted to brush off their eagerness with a small laugh, but they continued to gaze at her in wonderment.

  After clearing her throat nervously, Elodie made her way into one of the bedrooms. As expected, it was packed to the brim with the finest offerings from Ikea, with each bed proudly displaying 50-thread count sheets. Why was she paying 150 euro for two days of this? Shaking her head in annoyance, she dragged her luggage next to the bed and made her way back out into the living room.

  “I love your bag,” Lauren informed her wholeheartedly. “And your shoes. And your jeans.”

  “Me too,” one of the Russian girls clambered to agree. “Oh, and I am Lana and she is Mira,” she continued, pointing at her friend, who nodded fervently at her introduction.

  “Nice to meet you all,” she said as she gave them a bright smile. “So what do you all do for fun around here? Do you like Paris?” she asked as she took a seat on the floor where they had congregated.

  All of the girls nodded cheerfully as Lauren piped up. “We just drink, smoke, hang out with friends. We go to the same castings with the same designers who say the same shitty things all the time. We hang out with the male models a lot, but none of them are Tyler Peeters, you know?”

  Elodie tried her best not to roll her eyes at the excessive Tyler idolization. Was he really that great?

  “And we love to eat. Paris has great food. I love the snacks at Monoprix. So much better than Walmart. We're always starving,” Lauren continued as she offered Elodie the tray of Speculoos cookies and a bag of Lay's potato chips. When she declined, the rest of the girls dug in and munched happily as they continued to blabber on about the male models they despised. Elodie couldn't help but watch enviously as they made the most of their teenage metabolisms.

  “How old are all of you?” she asked curiously. Though America had a few loosely-enforced regulations on the ages of working models, she knew that markets in Europe had little to none.

  “I am 15,” Klara stated before motioning towards her friends. “Lauren and Mira also 15, and Lana just turn 14 in January. How old are you?”

  An involuntary shudder passed through Elodie's seasoned 19-year old body as she quickly thought of a way to change the subject. Was she really hanging out in squalor with a 14-year old? And why was a 14-year old smoking cigarettes unsupervised in the middle of a foreign city? She was suddenly very thankful to Janet for having guided her during those vulnerable early years.

  As if on cue, her phone began to ring from deep within her cavernous purse. The four girls looked on in anticipation as she dug it out and looked at the screen. With a small sigh, she answered it on the fourth ring. “Yes?”

  “That's no way to greet your hero, Cinderella,” Tyler joked in response to her unenthusiastic tone. She winced at the reference to her drunken blubbering. “How's your prison cell?”

  “Brilliant,” Elodie replied shortly as she picked a stray piece of lint off of her pant leg. She could see that the girls were straining to hear whose voice was coming through on the other line. The air was still as they stopped their noisy chewing, watching her every move with halted breaths. Lauren raised her glorious eyebrows as she mouthed his name to Klara, who shrugged her shoulders and shook her head with a clueless expression on her face.

  “Let's grab dinner. I was going to go on a run in that direction anyway,” he suggested in a bored tone that rivaled her own.

  Elodie let out a snort. “I thought you said that this was all the way across town? You are planning on going on an hour-long run?”

  “It's called exercise. How else do you think I keep in shape?”

  “Well, I hope you enjoy your exercise, because I am not hungry,” she stated calmly, trying not to acknowledge the four sets of beady eyes that were fixated on her.

  She heard him laugh on the other line. “I knew it. You don't eat.”

  “I do too!” she replied back huffily, offended at his comment. Even if it bordered on the truth, it was still presumptuous.

  “Then eat with me. Call you when I get there! Don't bother trying to hide because I already got the address from Jen. Wear something cute too, because the street photographers here are obsessed with me.” And with that, the call ended.

  Elodie stared at the black screen of her phone in disbelief, though she felt a flutter in her stomach at the same time. She had roughly one hour to get herself presentable. For the street photographers, you know?

  “Oh my God, was that who I think it was?” Lauren squeaked out. The kid was visibly trembling.

  A slow smile spread across Elodie's face as she reveled in her genius.<
br />
  “How would you guys like to actually meet Tyler?”

  Nineteen

  “I really don't like you very much right now,” Tyler hissed at Elodie after the four girls had excused themselves to venture on a mass exodus to the bathroom.

  The six of them were on a very intimate date together at a quaint brasserie a few blocks from the model apartment, seated around two tiny outdoor tables in rickety metal chairs. The remnants of two giant bowls of chocolate mousse, which the four teens had demolished together, lay in their wake.

  “Why?” she asked innocently with widened eyes, trying her best not to break out in laughter as she inhaled lightly from the pastel pink cigarette clasped delicately in her fingers.

  “Nice way to cock-block,” he replied grumpily, stomping his own cigarette butt out on the floor.

  Elodie gave him an amused look. “I do not really think it is, how do you say, cock-blocking when I am the one blocking your... you.”

  “Well, I didn't sign up to babysit a bunch of kids,” he whined as he finished off his beer.

  “Well, I thought you said that you were going to go running,” Elodie teased, gesturing to his outfit.

  “I did go running,” he pouted, grabbing for her half-empty glass of Pinot Noir.

  She gave him a pointed stare. “Even I know that you did not come running to our apartment across the city in $1,000 Balmain sneakers and a cashmere sweater.”

  “I ran from the taxi,” he countered, downing the contents of the glass and shooting her a long glare for dramatic effect.

  Before she could come up with a sarcastic response, the server came out with the bill. Tyler put down his credit card before she could react and looked at Elodie with a tired expression. “It sure is hard raising a family, honey,” he lamented as the server came and whisked it away.

  It was difficult for her not to smile while sitting with him on the cozy corner patio on that perfect Parisian evening, basking in the dim glow of the streetlamps above. Tyler's face softened and he began to reach for her hand as she dropped her finished cigarette on the ground, but their little moment was cut short by the reemergence of the boisterous teenage girls.

  “Thank you for dinner, Tyler,” Klara cooed as she rushed to sit in the chair on the other side of him. A look of disappointment flashed across Mira's face as she slumped into the seat next to her.

  “Thank you for dinner,” the three others chirped in unison, fawning over him as he took his receipt from the server.

  Tyler flashed them a big grin, obviously enjoying his mini fan meeting. “It was my pleasure. Anything for friends of Elodie's.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lauren nodded excitedly as she shot Elodie a thankful smile. “She's like our big sister!”

  Elodie couldn't help but give an appreciative laugh as the rest of the girls bobbed their pretty heads in agreement. Though their eagerness was a bit overwhelming, they were very cute.

  “Yea, she must be a great big sister. I'm sure she could give you guys a lot of good advice since she's basically ancient with eons of experience. Old people are really wise, you know,” Tyler stated blankly as he shot Elodie a smirk. She glared back at him in annoyance. She wasn't that much older than them, she thought bitterly as she sulked in her chair.

  Lauren didn't catch the jab, her face lighting up as she replied breathlessly, “I really hope so.”

  Tyler rose up first, after which the girls shot up from their seats. “What should we do now?” he asked nonchalantly as her four flatmates shook in anticipation like little Chihuahuas. Elodie trailed slowly behind as they followed him like shadows out onto the sidewalk.

  “We could all go grab some drinks together,” Lauren suggested nervously, never once tearing her eyes away from him. “We can go to La Perle or Le Connétable. Everyone goes to those. They're, like, right here,” she continued, observing his face for any reaction. Tyler seemed oblivious to the girls' enamored stares as he checked emails on his phone.

  Elodie piped up from behind the huddled group. “It is actually quite late, so I think I will just go home. We have an early call time tomorrow, but you guys should go and have fun,” she said with an encouraging smile, smoothing out the wrinkles in her simple black Maje dress. The four teens were dressed similarly, all having put on various styles of black dresses after observing Elodie's outfit choice.

  Tyler's face glanced up from his glowing screen. “Yea, you girls go and have fun. I'll walk the old lady home,” he said with a suggestive smile in Elodie's direction.

  The girls cried out in protests as Lana tugged at Elodie's thin arm. “Come on!” she pleaded with doe-like eyes. “Just one drink!”

  With a defeated sigh, Elodie nodded her head. One drink couldn't hurt, after all. The girls would surely keep him away from her at a safe distance, too.

  Elodie walked alongside Lauren as the teenagers flanked Tyler on either side, jabbering his ears off with hundreds of inane questions, from what moisturizer he used to what it was like walking for Comme des Garçons. She was pleasantly surprised at how genuinely he answered them, not showing even the slightest hint of annoyance.

  And Tyler hadn't been exaggerating like the arrogant male model that he was—the street photographers, tourists and everyday citizens there really were infatuated with him. They were stopped a number of times while making their way down the narrow street of Rue Saint-Gilles, as giddy women and gay men asked him to pose with them for the occasional camera phone picture, which Lauren happily volunteered to snap. And once they reached the busy corner at which the bar was located, clicks and the sound effects of camera shutters could be heard constantly.

  The bar was bustling with hip young patrons, with the fashionable crowd spilling out onto the street. Inside, the air was muggy and thick, as the place was packed to the brim with beautiful and artsy people. It was so loud, filled with the words of a hundred concurrent conversations, that it was difficult for Elodie to hear herself think as Tyler passed her a glass of champagne, his fingertips lightly grazing her own until she pulled her hand away.

  When she looked up, she saw that he was staring at her intently with a small smile. It took every ounce of willpower in her body to break away from his gaze as the rambunctious noise surrounding them faded in her ears. Though she couldn't tell if it was due to the radiating heat coming off of the bodies pushed up against her, she suddenly felt very flustered and claustrophobic.

  After what seemed like an hour-long struggle, she finally made her way outside onto the sidewalk and took a gulp of her drink, breathing a sigh of relief as the cool night air hit her cheeks. The three glasses of wine that she had at dinner hit her like a ton of bricks, and she realized that she was actually quite drunk. While mentally scolding herself for not eating nearly enough to pad her stomach, she felt a warm arm drape across her bare shoulders.

  “Finally,” Tyler huffed out as she stiffened in surprise. “Some peace and quiet. Those kids can really talk, you know that?” Elodie could feel his stare on her as she looked straight ahead at the row of windows on the building across the street, trying to gather her thoughts as her heart and brain pounded rhythmically. To their right, a group of three obviously American girls yelled over each other noisily, much to the annoyance of the chic French couple enjoying their cigarettes to their left.

  “They might be your biggest fans,” she told him with a laugh, watching two drunken Parisian men argue about electronic music a few yards away, trying her best to avoid his eyes. Meanwhile, she could hear one of the drunken girls utter Tyler's name in what she must have believed to be hushed tones. The other couple tossed their cigarettes onto the curb and walked back inside, muttering about the “fucking Americans” in annoyed French.

  His arm lifted off of her shoulders as he let out a big sigh. Once again, he did that irritating thing where he grasped the top of her head with his hand, turning her agitated face towards his own. “Now I know what it feels like,” he playfully joked as he batted his lashes at her. Why the hell are his eye
lashes so long, Elodie couldn't help but wonder to herself.

  “Excuse me,” one of the American girls loudly interrupted, poking Tyler on the shoulder with an impeccably manicured finger. One of her friends giggled uproariously at the audacity of their inebriated friend as they inched closer, their expensive heels clicking against the pavement. “I don't know if you remember me,” she began drunkenly. “But I interned at Edun last semester and I styled you for the show in February. Do you?”

  Despite the six-inch Prada heels on which she was dangerously teetering, she was barely taller than Elodie, who was wearing her trusty Lanvin flats. Tyler let go of Elodie's head as he turned to the generic-looking blonde curiously. “Oh, yea,” he lied lazily. “What was your name again?”