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by Veronica Chambers

  Prageeta put down her chopsticks. We’d pretty much demolished the platter of sashimi from Nobu and had moved on to calamari salads.

  “This is the real,” she said. “From here to here, I feel gorgeous.” She indicated her face. Which was, for the record, stunning. “From the neck down, I feel fat.”

  That’s when Melody just lost it. “You know what, Prageeta? You’re not fat. You’re, what, five-eight? What do you weigh? A buck seventy?”

  Prageeta nodded.

  “Look at all of us: we wear off-the-rack designer clothes!” Melody said. “Do you want to know what fat is? Fat is my mom back in Pasadena. She’s five-foot nothing and she’s pushing three hundred pounds. She’s fat. She’s people staring in the grocery store fat and kids making faces behind her back fat. My mom is the eat in bed, stains on her sheet, her sweat smells bad kind of fat. She’s not even fifty years old and she’s got high blood pressure and hypertension and she’s borderline diabetic. I save half of every dime I make so that I can take care of her when her body gives out on her, which is going to be sooner rather than later. That is what fat is. It’s not being gorgeous and getting fussed over and making twenty-five thousand dollars a day.”

  We were all silent. I thought about how serene and perfect I always thought Melody was, how she carried her yoga mat with her everywhere and wasn’t obnoxious about it. It’s just that in modeling, there’s a lot of waiting around, and in those moments you could find Melody off in the corner, doing her yoga thing. I had no idea how much she was carrying around inside. Memo to self: Never say, “I feel fat,” again in front of Melody.

  We were all eating our calamari salads in silence when Elsie reached over and touched Melody’s hand. She said, “That’s really rough about your mom.”

  Melody said, “It’s okay.”

  Elsie said, “But I gotta ask you. Is your rate really twenty-five thousand dollars a day?”

  Everyone burst out laughing. And for the rest of the night we discussed the kind of numbers it seems that girls never do, not the number on the scale, but the numbers on our bank statements. We talked about day rates and agent commissions, mutual funds and retirement accounts. All of the girls had been modeling much longer than me, and because I’d been afraid to discuss how much I’d been making with anyone else, I’d just left it all in my savings account.

  “Making two percent interest?” Elsie said.

  “I just started six months ago!” I reminded her.

  And before I could even ask, she went to the desk in the living room, took out a pen and a notepad, and handed it to me.

  “Take notes, girlfriend.”

  Which is exactly what I did.

  After dinner, we all helped to wash up. There wasn’t a whole lot to do. The food had all come from Nobu. It was more that nobody wanted the evening to end.

  “It’s like we’re in a girl band or something,” Prageeta said. “Nobody knows exactly what it’s like to be us.”

  I asked if anybody else was headed uptown on the West Side, but nobody was.

  “Bummer,” I said. “I hate to take the subway by myself.”

  Melody said, “It’s eleven o’clock at night. Don’t take the subway by yourself. Ever.”

  “Cabs are expensive,” I said.

  “Right,” Elsie said. “And you make a lot of money. Not to mention cabs are a deductible expense.”

  So I hopped in the cab and listened to my messages. There was just one. It was from Chela. She said, “I just want you to know that I had dinner tonight at Asia de Cuba, at the bar, by myself. The lobster fried rice is really good. You should try it sometime.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten that I was supposed to meet her. When did I turn into the sort of girl who blows off her best friend? The cab stopped at a red light, and there was a bus stop ad of me, Melody, Prageeta, and Elsie. I know it was mean, but I couldn’t help but think maybe I’d outgrown my friendship with Chela. Maybe the Baby Phat girls were my new best friends.

  17

  Bee-twixt and Bee-tween

  The next day, I was walking down Fiftieth Street on my way to a go-see when this girl I knew from high school came running up to me.

  “You probably don’t remember me,” she said, as if high school had been ten years ago instead of just last year.

  “Of course I remember you,” I said.

  Her name was Marisa Bailey, and her dad was some crazy rich banker. She’d been a cheerleader, president of the French club, and prosecuting attorney in Mock Trial. She’d done a lot of things in high school, but the one thing she never did was speak to me.

  Now Marisa was in my face like we were the best of pals. She said, “I saw at seven a.m. that you were going to be on the Today show, and I figured you’d be on between eight and nine a.m. ’cause that’s when all the, you know, culturally relevant guests are on. So I took a shower and hopped on a train and got down here as fast as I could. I mean, I just had to meet you.”

  “Marisa, we went to high school together for four years,” I said.

  “I know, but we never got a chance to hang in high school, and I always regretted that,” she said. “Then I saw you in Seventeen a few months back and I’ve been, you know, looking out for you.”

  “Really? What for?” I didn’t mean to be a bitch, but pretending to be completely nonchalant about someone as popular as Marisa Bailey was a heck of a lot of fun.

  “Well, since you’re at Columbia and I’m at NYU, I was thinking that, you know, we could chair an intramural fund-raising event together. Maybe something involving fashion?”

  “That would be cool,” I said, trying to be polite.

  “Maybe we could do some sort of student fashion show. You know, I’ve always been interested in modeling myself.”

  “Listen, Marisa, I’m late for an appointment,” I said, looking at my watch. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Oh yeah, of course, I understand,” she said. “You have my number, right? Call me.”

  Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen.

  Truth be told, I hadn’t thought one iota about Marisa Bailey since I started at Columbia. But back in high school, I thought about her all the time. Especially when her dad chartered this boat and had a huge graduation party that my high school pal Sophie was invited to and I was ceremoniously not. Chloe said she asked Marisa if she could bring me along but Marisa had said the guest list was “limited.” A limited guest list on a ship the size of the freaking Titanic.

  I spent the night of Marisa’s graduation party seeing Space Station at our local IMAX theater with my dad. Cool flick, but not so cool that I wasn’t just a little bitter. I had hoped that one day Marisa Bailey would be sorry she had snubbed me, hoped that she’d be sorry that she’d had the chance to be my friend and had dissed me big time. I used to daydream about her seeing me on Oprah, not on one of those shows when the guests are just pitiful and you can tell that Oprah just wants to shake them for not having the sense that God gave them. No, I was going to be on Oprah discussing how I came up with a cure for breast cancer, and Oprah would be giving me that “You are so damn smart I can barely stand it” smile she reserves for people who truly impress her. The smile that says, “The next time I throw a big fabulous party at my house in Santa Barbara or on a yacht for Maya Angelou, you are soooo invited.”

  I used to watch Oprah every day after school, and it would always trip me out when she said, “God can dream bigger than you ever can.” But that just goes to prove that Oprah Winfrey never told a lie. Because in all of my revenge fantasies, I never once pictured Marisa Bailey kissing my butt as we stood next to a bus stop ad of me at Rockefeller Center. Whoever said that revenge is a dish best served cold never had the pleasure of becoming famous in six months flat.

  The next week, Kevin asked me to go with him to the MTV Awards. We’d been talking on the phone, but between his schedule and my schedule, we’d never actually gone out.

  “The MTV Awards are kind of a big deal for a first d
ate,” I said.

  “I hate this industry stuff,” Kevin said. “It’ll be good to be out with an old friend.”

  That’s where the confusion set in. When we talked on the phone, we flirted up a storm. But when Kevin said things like I was an “old friend,” I thought, Okay, I’ve got it wrong. I’ve totally misread him.

  To add to the drama, the MTV Awards were on a Tuesday and I was scheduled to take a makeup of Professor Trotter’s physics exam, which I’d missed because I was shooting my first Cover Girl commercial. I went to see Professor Trotter, but she wasn’t having it.

  “Excuse me, Professor,” I said, sticking my head into her office.

  “Are you not clear about what materials the final on Tuesday evening will cover?”

  “No, that’s not it,” I explained. “It’s just that I’ve got a work thing.”

  I could feel my face getting hot ’cause I’m not a very good liar. But I figured that walking the red carpet with Kevin was worth its weight in publicity gold. That made it a work thing, right?

  Professor Trotter crossed her eyes at me. “I may be getting up in years, but I’m not an idiot. The reason you are taking the final on Tuesday night is because you missed the exam on Friday morning for a ‘work thing.’ Do you really expect me to reschedule the exam again? That’s as far away as a puffin ever flew.”

  “Excuse me?” I had no idea what a puffin was or what it had to do with me and Kevin.

  “That’s a no, Miss Wilson. No. See you tomorrow night.”

  By the time I got home to my apartment, I was bawling like a baby. There was no way I could miss the MTV Awards. But if I skipped the physics final, I was not going to make the dean’s list. Moreover, I was going to fail physics and have to take it again. I knew that by going to the awards with Kevin, I’d be throwing away a whole semester of hard work. Still, I called everybody I knew in the hopes that someone would say I should blow off the exam.

  So I called Leslie and tried to work the publicity angle.

  “Do you know how much press I would get if I showed up on the red carpet with Kevin?”

  “A ton,” Leslie said. “But not enough to throw away a whole semester of hard work at an Ivy League school. Come on, Bee, you’re smart. Do the math.”

  I called Prageeta, Elsie, and Melody. None of them would back me up.

  Steeling myself for the truly tough call of the day, I hit Kevin on his cell.

  “Where you at?” I asked.

  “At the studio, laying down some tracks,” he said.

  “Can I come by?”

  “What’s up, Bee?” Kevin knew that I wouldn’t bother him in the studio unless it was serious.

  “I’ll tell you when I get there.”

  I hopped in the cab down to the Village to the Electric Lady Studios, where Kevin liked to record. The studio had been built in the sixties by Jimi Hendrix, and all these musical giants had recorded there—John Lennon, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Curtis Mayfield. It was a cool space—apparently Jimi Hendrix had asked for all “soft curves and no right angles.”

  Kevin’s crew—his band, engineers, agent, label exec, and all of their groupies—were hanging out in studio A, so we slipped into studio C, which was empty. It was a small room with purple velvet walls and gold sound panels. I couldn’t help but notice that squarely situated above his perfect jaw, Kevin also had a beautiful pair of full lips. They were plump as pillows, and I really wanted to kiss him. He took a seat at the piano, then gestured for me to sit next to him. He began to play a song that I didn’t recognize. I didn’t even know he could play piano.

  “That’s beautiful,” I said. “What is it?”

  “Louis Armstrong,” he said, then doing a mean Satchmo impersonation, he began to sing, “I see trees of green / red roses too / I see ’em bloom / for me and you / and I think to myself / what a wonderful world.”

  Memo to self: Heavenly moment. Gorgeous guy serenading me in world-famous recording studio. Never forget how good being in like can be. Especially if you have a feeling that what you’re going to say next will ruin everything.

  “Kev,” I said. “I can’t go with you tomorrow night.”

  “Why not?” he asked. He had stopped playing the piano.

  “I’ve got to take my physics final,” I explained. “I had a Cover Girl commercial last week and I missed it. This was the appointed makeup time, and now my prof won’t let me change.”

  He turned back to the piano and started to play “What a Wonderful World” again.

  “You gotta do what you gotta do,” he said nonchalantly.

  “Are you mad?”

  “No, I’m not mad,” he said. “I’m disappointed. I hate going to those things. I’m not even nominated; I’m just going to present an award to newcomer of the year. I wanted to have my thoroughest girl with me.”

  Then before I could stop the words from coming out of my mouth, I said, “You could go with my friend Chela.”

  Open mouth. Insert entire mentally challenged foot.

  “Who?” Kevin said.

  “My friend Chela. She’s really pretty,” I continued, trying to dig myself out of the self-esteem hole but only burying myself further.

  “Please,” Kevin said. “Pretty is a dime a dozen. You’re pretty and smart.”

  He gave me this devilish look. “You don’t have a crush on your teacher, do you?”

  He was playing with me. Everything was going to be okay.

  “My physics teacher is a she,” I started.

  “That’s hot,” he said.

  “No, it’s not,” I said, laughing. “Professor Trotman is a slightly cross-eyed Canadian with buckteeth and a beak of a nose.”

  “Okay, scratch that,” he said.

  “But if I do well on the exam, then I’ll have a 3.8 average and I’ll make the dean’s list,” I said.

  Kevin turned around and stood up. He was suddenly very close to me.

  “A 3.8,” he said, leaning closer. “Now that’s hot.”

  Was he going to kiss me? Oh my God. But he didn’t. He just winked and then showed me the way back out of the studio.

  I took the exam, and despite Professor Trotter humming what I could only imagine were Mountie campfire songs the whole time, I was pretty sure I aced it. I went to bed Tuesday night exhausted but happy.

  Wednesday morning was a whole other matter entirely.

  I got up and saw Kevin on MTV News.

  “Kevin Manning and Savannah Hughes,” the MTV News announcer said. “They were all over each other at the MTV Awards last night.”

  I turned off the TV and tried to fight back tears. I know Kevin and I aren’t dating, but he was one of my best pals. My cute, sexy, boy who’s not my boyfriend pal. He could date whomever he wanted, but not Savannah Hughes. Anybody but Savannah Hughes.

  I threw on a pair of sweats and went to the newsstand on the corner of Columbus and 110th. I picked up the Daily News and the New York Post and then went to H&H for a hot bagel with cream cheese. I wasn’t going to make it through the day without carbs.

  Back in my room, I turned immediately to the gossip pages. Kevin and Savannah were the lead item in both papers.

  My cell started to ring. It was Kevin. I let it go to voice mail.

  I turned on my computer and googled DJ Drop and Roll and Savannah Hughes and got a gazillion hits. It was everywhere: MTV, E!, VH1, the CW, even CNN had an item about it. C-freaking-N-N. They were supposed to carry real news, not dregs from the bottom of the gossip pool.

  My phone was ringing again. Kevin. I let it go to voice mail.

  I went into the bathroom and locked the door. I took off my sweats and took a hard long look in the mirror. Savannah Hughes was skinny again, and she looked amazing. I was crazy to think that I could compete with the likes of her. Kevin had probably been playing with me from the start. I’d made a small fortune proclaiming to the world that I loved my baby fat. But I didn’t. Not today. I got dressed and went back to my room.

&nbs
p; The phone was ringing. It was Kevin again. I figured I might as well get it over with.

  “Hello,” I said. “Fat Girl, Inc.”

  Open mouth. Insert all too familiar foot.

  “What did you say?” Kevin asked.

  “Fat Girl, Inc.,” I said, repeating the words that were almost too painful to say. But there was some part of me that felt like if I was mean to myself first, it would hurt less when he was mean.

  “Whatever,” Kevin said, ignoring me. “I need to talk to you about last night. Can you come meet me at the studio again?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve got a Lean Cuisine in the oven, and then I’ve got a photo shoot for Big Girl Panties that I absolutely can’t miss.”

  “What is up with you?” he said, sounding genuinely puzzled.

  I wanted to say, “You. You’re what’s up with me. I take my freaking physics exam and you go to the MTV Awards with a skinny model. And not just any skinny model, but a skinny model who for some reason known only to her and God hates my guts. You hurt me, Kevin, and I’m afraid to see you because I’m afraid you’ll just hurt me more.”

  So I said, “It was fun while it lasted, Kev. Gotta love the Baby Phat girls. More cushion for the pushing, right?”

  “You have lost it, Bee,” Kev said. “The pictures were my fault, but all this is on you. You can’t love someone more than she loves herself.”

  And with that, he hung up the phone.

  Was I right? Had he said that he loved me? Was that even what he meant? I looked at the pictures of Kevin and Savannah in the newspapers, and I knew that I had heard him wrong. He loved me like a friend, if that. He and Savannah were clearly more, much more, than friends.