Poser

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Poser Page 2

by Alison Hughes


  Mom, me and Macy rent the left side of a duplex in a group of duplexes called Mayfair Estates, which makes it sound fancy schmancy. It’s not. An old guy named Dan cuts the grass, and his wife plants a few scrappy flowers, but other than that, it’s just duplexes.

  Mom and I passed the Mayfair Estates notice board on our way home after the shoot. The same notice—the only notice—has been on there since we moved here five years ago: Tenants MUST place garbage IN the dumpsters, not along-side, which is stricktly forbidden. Welcome home.

  Aunt Macy was on the computer when we got in. She’s always on the computer. Searching for my big break: the Sears catalog, the Bay Days flyers, a Walmart ad campaign.

  She swiveled around and called, “Well? How’d it go? You have fun?”

  Actually, it’s hard to show in writing how Macy speaks. She doesn’t actually “call” like I said just now. That makes it sound like the way normal humans speak.

  With Macy, it’s more like yelling or shouting, with shades of bellowing. The woman is loud. Just imagine that EVERYTHING SHE SAYS IN HER DEEP, LOUD SMOKER’S VOICE IS ALL IN CAPITALS!!! VERY, VERY LOUD CAPITALS!!! Mrs. Fitzpatrick, the old, partially deaf lady who lives beside us, calls her Megaphone Macy behind her back.

  And it’s not just her voice. Everything about Macy is big. Freakishly big. She’s over six feet tall and sort of big all around. Just like her brother. Actually, if you took that picture of my dad that’s over the couch, put lots of makeup on him and a long, black, frizzy wig, you’d get Macy. That’s kind of a creepy image, but you get the picture.

  “I’m starving,” I said, taking off my coat and heading to the kitchen. Mom followed me, smoothing her wispy brown hair out of her eyes.

  “Me too,” she said. “Hmm, what do we have?” She slipped her arm around me as we stared into the fridge. I am almost as tall as she is.

  Nothing. We had nothing.

  “Don’t you hate it when you’re starving and you look into the fridge and there’s nothing?” I asked her. “I mean, maybe there’s some ketchup and margarine, and eggs and milk and celery. But really, nothing.”

  I demonstrated my food-hunting strategy.

  “Fridge first. If there’s nothing there, I go to the cereal cupboard in search of sugary goodness.” I opened it. Bran cereal and oatmeal. Nothing. I lunged across the kitchen.

  “Then, in desperation, I open the spice cupboard and hunt for stray chocolate chips,” I said.

  Mom laughed, leaning back against the counter and crossing her arms. “Please tell me you find them every once in a while,” she said.

  “Not often, but sometimes. Found a hardish marshmallow once too.”

  “Okay, this is getting pathetic,” she said. “Point taken. I’ll get groceries tomorrow on my way home from work, I promise. Maybe I’ll even sprinkle a few chocolate chips here and there...”

  The doorbell rang. We looked at each other.

  “PIZZA!” shouted Macy, giving us a wink as she stomped to the door.

  We watched in amazement as she paid the pizza guy and brought in a huge, steaming box.

  Now, I’m guessing that for most normal families, having pizza is probably a normal thing to do occasionally. Not for us. Our house has a strict no-fun-food policy. I’m already big for my age, and everybody knows the camera adds pounds. And while Mom and Macy never use the word “diet,” they take healthy eating very seriously. At least, Mom does. I’m sure Macy secretly gorges on burgers and fries.

  Mom makes very healthy, very serious food. We have lots of vegetables and grilled fish. We have bread and pasta occasionally, and fruit for snacking. We almost never have pizza. Or chips. Or soda.

  “This is fun, Macy!” Mom said. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Oh, just thought it would be a nice change. And I’ve got something to tell you guys after.”

  I dug in.

  Suggestion: those of you normal folks out there who get pizza every other day, give it up for a few months. Then when you come back to it, you will truly appreciate it for the cheesy miracle it is. I closed my eyes and just experienced the pizza.

  I left it to Mom to tell Macy about the shoot. I hate talking about shoots after they’re over. What’s the point? It’s like those kids at school who come out of a test, start flipping through their notes and go, “Whatcha get for number four?” At that point, I’m trying to forget number four. After a test, the last thing I want to think about is the test. The point, people, is that it’s over.

  Anyway, Macy is my agent, so I guess it’s technically part of her job to ask a million questions after a shoot if she’s not there herself. She likes to keep on top of things.

  She’s got an incredible memory, I’ll give her that. She remembers the names of every kid I’ve ever had a shoot with, all the photographers, even the assistants. She remembers the clothes. She’ll be trying to get me to remember a shoot from years ago, and she’ll say, “C’mon, Beauty Boy, it was with Dylan and Remy. Remember? The acid-wash jean pantsuit with the striped red T-shirt shoot? Remember?” Actually, Macy, I’ve spent years trying to erase the acid-wash jean pantsuit from my mind.

  Macy and Mom finally finished talking about the shoot.

  “So, what did you want to tell us?” I asked through a mouth full of pizza. I’d been wondering. I was getting suspicious. Macy generally did things for a reason.

  “Okay,” said Macy, smiling and pushing her plate away. “Here goes: I’m cranking the agent thing up a whole nother notch! I’m starting a company, an official modeling agency—it’s called Models by Macy.” She spread her huge hands wide, like she was showing how the name would look up in lights.

  “Serious agent stuff. Website, online profiles of models, big-name clients, the works! And don’t think I’m going to forget you, Beauty Boy! You’re my biggest star!”

  As far as I knew, I was Macy’s only client. Her only star.

  “Now,” she said, getting businesslike, “it’s time to crank your career up a whole nother notch too, BB. You’re thirteen in June, so we gotta be shifting into teen stuff. With your talent and looks, you deserve a national campaign! Maybe commercials! International stuff! Who knows? Maybe even TV, movies, DISNEY! I got Big Plans, BB! Whaddaya think?”

  She looked at me expectantly.

  What did I think? What did I think?

  I was frozen. Horror has a way of doing that to a guy. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than Macy’s taking things up a whole nother notch. I could barely control Macy on the previous notch. But now that notch felt safe. I felt my feet and hands go cold, and my head start to pound. I swallowed carefully.

  Just pass out, I thought to myself. Just pass out right now, and you won’t have to deal with this.

  I didn’t pass out. Not even a wobble. Have you ever noticed how your body sometimes ignores simple instructions that your brain sends out, like “Pass out right now”?

  I looked wildly over at Mom, but she was smiling at Macy. Mom loves Macy. She says she’s got a good heart. They’ve been friends forever. Macy has helped us through some tough times. But the point right now was this disaster, this crisis, this plan that would ruin my whole life.

  “Macy!” Mom said. “Models by Macy sounds wonderful! Have you got any leads on new clients?”

  They chatted away as I slowly died inside. Well, I felt very, very cold, anyway. My mind was racing. Commercials? I hated commercials. They got in the way of watching a good hockey game.

  I imagined having to look straight into a camera and say stupid catchphrases like “Chewy, gooey goodness!” or “Betalax: for real relief you can trust” or “Bursting with berry, berry good taste!”

  I could not bear it.

  As I stumbled away on shaky legs, Macy grabbed my arm. She’s got a grip like a linebacker.

  “Hey, not so fast, buster!” she laughed. “You gotta look at my new promo stuff! C’mon.”

  She dragged me over to the computer and pulled up her website. A creamy background displayed
swirly purple lettering: Models by Macy. There was a glamorous picture of someone in the top corner.

  I squinted at it. Was that supposed to be Macy? She was wearing a ton of makeup and looked about fifty pounds thinner. I guess it really was Macy, because underneath the photo, it said Macy Spinelli, M.A., Professional Modeling Agent and Promoter. “M.A.?” I asked. As far as I knew, Macy had barely finished high school.

  “Modeling Agent,” Macy said over her shoulder. “You gotta have letters, otherwise people don’t think you’re legit. Wait a sec.” She clicked some more, pulling down the Clients menu.

  “Now, it’s not final yet. I’m just kind of drafting it up, but HEEEERE he is! Here’s BEAUTY BOY!” she shouted.

  There I was. A huge, fake-smiling portfolio picture introduced a long, glowing write-up of all my accomplishments. Everything. Even my winning the Eastside Mall Kutest Kid Kompetition when I was five. There were endless scroll-down pictures from what appeared to be every shoot I had ever done. Fake-laughing, fake-running, fake-pointing, I just kept on coming.

  I closed my eyes long before we scrolled to the end and slid weakly to my knees beside the computer desk. Nobody noticed; Macy and Mom were busy pointing and reminiscing.

  “Oh, remember that one? With that little train engineer’s cap and the overalls? Sooo cute!”

  “Here’s BB looking all smarty-pants in glasses and a tie! The Serious Students campaign for Know-It-All magazine.”

  And on and on and on.

  I sat crumpled on the floor.

  There I was. One Google search, and anyone could see me. Anyone. Like, for example, my entire grade-seven class at Leonard Petrew Junior High School. My friends, the kids in my class, my teachers, the class jerk. Anyone.

  This was a full-scale disaster. I felt like sirens should be wailing and a SWAT team should be hammering on the door, bellowing through megaphones and swarming down the sides of the duplex.

  They weren’t.

  It was quiet on Dead End Street.

  Deathly, deathly quiet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I TRY TO GET YOU ON MY SIDE EVEN THOUGH I SOUND KIND OF WHINY

  I’m calmer now. I’ve thrown out my Top Ten Things To Do To Stop Macy list, which included running away and living in the school Dumpster, blowing up our computer (if baking soda and vinegar do the trick for science-project volcanoes, why wouldn’t they work on a hard drive?) and catching a highly contagious, preferably disfiguring disease.

  Nothing will work.

  Nothing stops Macy. I should know.

  So, Spin, you say, trying to be nice even though you’re confused and annoyed with me, what’s the big deal? Just tell them you don’t want to model anymore. Get out of it. And shut up already.

  Well, I reply, trying to speak slowly and keep my slightly hysterical voice down, thanks for your understanding and concern, but it’s just not that simple.

  Looking at it from your point of view, it must look weird. That’s because it is weird. Only I didn’t realize how weird it was until a few years ago.

  It all started when I was six months old. Don’t worry: I’m not going to give you a month-by-month summary of my life. Something important happened then.

  Now, I know I said “nobody dies” right there in the first chapter of this book. I did not lie about that. But I meant all the people in the story who are currently alive. Living people. The thing is, when I was a baby my dad died in a car accident. It wasn’t his fault. It was one of those accidents you read about in the newspapers. Those things actually happen to real, actual people, not just newspaper-headline people. It happened to him. It happened to us.

  So maybe what I should have said was, nobody else dies. Guaranteed.

  Now don’t go thinking I’m getting all sad and serious on you here. I’m just explaining. I never knew my dad, although I’ve heard a lot about him from Mom and Macy. Judging from the stories, Barry Bryce Spinelli (BB for short, same as old Beauty Boy here) was quite a guy.

  “Big BB was so happy! So much fun...” my mom says, her face lighting up.

  “A walking teddy bear, God bless him,” Macy says. Weird to think that he was her little brother. I look quite a lot like my dad, apparently (although, as I’ve mentioned already, so does Macy, which is confusing and alarming).

  The week after the accident, two things happened: Macy moved in with us to help Mom out, and my baby picture was picked from a ton of other cute-baby pictures sent in by parents (14,213, to be exact) to be on the first cover of Baby Show magazine. My dad took the picture. The story goes that he was lying on the floor playing with me, and he snapped a picture of me looking up, amazed, at a bird outside, a perfect drop of drool just falling from my smiling, toothless mouth. He couldn’t have known what would happen because of that one picture.

  Baby Show started everything.

  As a national US magazine, it was huge “exposure” for me, as we say in the business. The Dribbleez Diaper people saw it and contacted my mom about their new diaper campaign. I was the first Dribbleez Cute Patoot! Your parents might even remember me. Anyway, I was a happy, photogenic baby and the campaign was a big success.

  Everything snowballed from there. It’s amazing how many companies use babies in their ads. They’re like cute, cuddly puppies and kittens, only human. My really fat face was everywhere. And I didn’t only appear in ads for baby equipment and baby food. If a car company needed a cute baby for their minivan ad, I was the baby smiling in the car seat. If a flooring company needed a baby to crawl happily across discount carpet, I was that baby. I sold everything. Macy quit her job selling cars and became my full-time agent, selling me.

  Mom and Macy threw themselves into my baby-modeling career. It was a whirlwind of bookings and shoots and travel. It became the biggest thing in our lives.

  “You saved our lives, BB,” Macy once said when I was about ten and we were driving home from a shoot in Red Deer. “Your Mom and me were a total mess after Big BB died. It was so sudden, so senseless.” She shook her head, her eyes swimming with tears. “But there you were: beautiful, happy, full of life. Everyone loved you. A little gift from heaven, that’s what you were.” She reached back and shook my shoulder affectionately. Until it hurt.

  The craziness continued into toddlerhood. People love a chubby kid with a dimple and lots of curly dark hair. Especially if you put fake glasses on him! Then he’s kind of adorably dorky too!

  When I lost my two front teeth, I was solid gold, marketing-wise. Companies love a kid with missing front teeth for some reason. Is it cute or funny or what? I never figured that one out. All I know is that I was working so much I don’t even remember kindergarten or grade one.

  When I was little, modeling felt normal and (I’m trying to be honest here) even fun. It was exciting to be in modeling shoots and mall fashion shows. I got to go on planes. Everyone told me how cute I was. They smiled and applauded. I felt special and important. It was like playing dress-up every day.

  Hey, I was four, okay? Then five and six...Then it didn’t seem so fun. Macy and Mom were so busy and caught up in it that they assumed I was still enjoying it. But I kept noticing more and more that I was different from other kids. I was missing out on things. Other kids went to the movies and played hockey and soccer and went camping and rode their bikes all summer long.

  Not me.

  Modeling became a grind.

  Think of it this way: if every Saturday for your whole life you have broccoli at dinner, you don’t even think about it. It’s just there, every Saturday, whether you want it or not and whether you like it or not. Pretty soon, broccoli comes to be a part of Saturdays, so you think it’s normal. You think everyone has broccoli on Saturdays.

  Then one day, maybe when you’re twelve or so, you go over to a friend’s house for dinner on Saturday, and they have pizza. And you realize, in a blinding flash, that not everyone has broccoli on Saturdays. It’s just your family’s version of normal.

  (Not a bad little example, hey? For
those of you who are wondering what the heck broccoli has to do with anything, broccoli = modeling, and pizza Saturdays = a normal life.)

  How have I become almost professional at something I hate doing? It’s very complicated, but modeling is really all I know how to do, and I’ve never had much of a say in it. Macy books the shoots, and I go and pose. End of story. Like I said, it’s been happening my whole life. My modeling is also our main source of income. Mom works at a greeting-card store, but other than that, my modeling pays the bills. I don’t see much of the money, but I hear I have a killer education fund.

  So it’s very, very hard to quit. Because it’s not just about me. It’s about Mom and Macy too. We’re all in it. Modeling is still exciting and glamorous to them. They think I’m just one shoot away from a huge contract. They’re proud of me.

  I used to enjoy all the attention that modeling gets you. But I’ve never enjoyed the actual modeling. Well, once I had a shoot with eight puppies when I was about six years old, and I loved that, but that was the puppies, not the modeling. Some of the kids I model with, even the normalish ones, really, really like it. It matters to them. They talk seriously about their contracts and careers. They want their faces on the covers of magazines. They post songs on YouTube, just hoping to be discovered. They dream of big-time runway modeling in places like New York and Paris and Tokyo.

  Me? Every shoot, I just want to get out of there. I can barely cope with how things are now, let alone doing more modeling, big-time modeling. Contracts? Career? I’m just happy to get some pizza. I’m not looking very far into the future.

  But it’s getting harder and harder to hide my modeling from everyone else. I lie my head off at school about the days I have to miss for modeling. Sure, Mom calls me in absent, but you have to say something when teachers or your friends ask you why.

  I wrote the book on excuses. I’ve had every cold and flu that’s gone around, and even a few tropical diseases. I’ve been hospitalized several times. I’ve been to more funerals than is normal for a kid my age. I’ve had a ton of dental work done, had sick pets and ailing relatives, you name it. Excuses R Us.

 

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