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by D. M. Paige

  SIXTEEN

  When Brie showed up the next morning, she and Madison greeted each other with air kisses.

  Mad introduced me as “the coolest girl ever.” I smiled automatically, surprised by Mad’s compliment. Brie looked me over like she was making a decision.

  “I got here just in time,” Brie said to Madison. “You poor thing, you’re actually making friends with the interns.”

  Mad cast an apologetic glance in my direction, then said to Brie, “You just bring happiness and light with you wherever you go.”

  Brie shrugged. “Can your new bestie get me a bottle of water?”

  “Get it yourself,” Mad insisted.

  “I don’t mind.” I got up, not wanting to wait on some diva but wanting out of the room for at least a second. I ran right into Matt.

  “Tough day?” he asked.

  “I have to go get Princess Brie some water.”

  “I’ll go with you. I’m thirsty too.”

  When I got back with a water bottle, Brie was gone. Brie didn’t like me and for no particular reason. At least nothing that I could pinpoint.

  “Ignore her. It’s not you. She hates everyone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she wants to be the next Naomi Campbell or something. Giselle’s the body, Kate’s the Face, Naomi Campbell’s the Walk, and Brie’s going to be the Wicked Witch of the Runway.”

  “And what are you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know—I guess I was hoping that I’d just be me.”

  “The Madison?”

  She laughed.

  “Maybe she doesn’t like you because you get to eat and she doesn’t,” Bonnie suggested on the phone later.

  “Not funny,” I laughed. But it caught somewhere in the back of my throat. It sounded a little too true.

  SEVENTEEN

  The next couple of weeks went by quickly. Lorelei held fittings and chose the rest of the girls. Meanwhile, I spent almost every other night either working on my trash-bin dress or hanging out with Matt, and every day either completing menial tasks for Jamie or making alterations on the dress Mad would wear in the show.

  The competition didn’t bring out the best in the models. Madison was less talkative than at the start of the summer, and I thought she was getting even thinner.

  When I got back from the break room from accidentally on purpose having lunch with Matt, the main office was empty.

  I could hear Jamie’s voice coming from inside Lorelei’s studio. She was threatening someone: “If you don’t come out, I’m calling security,”

  Brie’s voice slinked through the bathroom door. “Go ahead.”

  Brie had locked herself in, and she wasn’t coming out.

  “Couldn’t zip the dress,” Marnie whispered.

  “Can we let it out?” I asked, wondering what the big deal was. We still had ten days till the show.

  “We already did.”

  I’d noticed that Brie had gained a little weight. Everyone had noticed. But I didn’t think it was a big deal. Maybe Brie just wanted a little attention, like Mad said.

  “Maybe we should just give her some space,” Brandon proposed.

  “We need the dress,” Jamie said. “Lorelei will be back from lunch soon. We have fifteen minutes tops.” She picked up the phone—she was considering calling security.

  I wondered if Jamie called security when the printer ran out of ink.

  But she was right. If Lorelei came back and found Brie locked in the bathroom, she’d freak. “Let me try,” I offered, surprising myself. I walked up to the door and whispered loudly, “Are you okay?”

  “Is that you, intern girl?” Brie asked.

  She opened the door a crack and pulled me inside. She locked it behind me.

  Brie’s mascara was running down her face and threatening to smudge the dress she was wearing. My job was to get it off of her without leaving a mark. And she knew it.

  “Take your stupid dress,” Brie said. “I know that’s all you care about.”

  Brie slipped out of the dress and pulled on her red high heels. Then she grabbed her trench coat, threw it over herself, and stormed through the showroom. She didn’t even bother going back to her dressing room for her clothes.

  A piece of paper fluttered to the floor. I picked it up.

  It read, “Don’t feed the models.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Bon laughed as she answered her phone. “What’s up, Fashion Star? Dom says hi.”

  “Seriously?” I asked, forgetting for a sec about the locked studio incident.

  “We’re going out to see a movie,” Bon said. “I told him how lonely I was without my BFF, and he said we should do something. So he’s picking me up after work to see that new movie musical.”

  “OMG. That’s awesome.”

  “You’re sure you’re okay with it?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I said, smiling.

  My crush on Dom had faded the second I met Matt. I was happy for Bon.

  “You don’t sound sure. You sound sad.”

  “Oh no, it’s not you or you and Dom. It was the reaping and everything after.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I filled her in on Brie’s sudden, half-naked exit from the House of Lorelei Roy.

  “It was brutal, Bon. These girls—I felt so badly for them,” I said.

  “But no one’s forcing them to do it, right? It’s hard to feel bad for supermodels.”

  But for me, it wasn’t that hard anymore. The more I thought about Brie, the worse I felt.

  I couldn’t even concentrate on my work. My brain kept circling back to the image I had of Brie running out of the dressing room in her trench coat. The next time I saw Madison, it was hard to keep quiet.

  “It wasn’t fair,” I said.

  “What?”

  “What happened to Brie.”

  “You don’t even like Brie.”

  “I know, but …”

  “It’s the business,” Mad said. “If you choose to be a model, being thin is part of the job.”

  Before I could say something more, Madison had spotted the trash-bin dress sticking out of my bag.

  She pulled it out and spun it around. “Love it. Can I have it?”

  I told her the whole story about the dress and my “punishment.”

  “Well, the trash room’s loss is the fashion world’s gain,” Mad said.

  I shrugged. “I have a million miles to go before I’m Lorelei.”

  “Don’t be so sure. One piece of clothing could change your whole life.”

  I looked at Mad skeptically.

  “I owe my whole career to a pair of snake-print leggings,” she said. “One time, me and my friend Mercy were walking through the mall, like we did every weekend. There was absolutely nothing else to do on a Saturday in Camden, Wisconsin. And we were about to leave, but suddenly I decided I had to go back and try on these leggings I’d seen in the window of the Gap. Mercy didn’t want to walk all the way back, but I insisted.

  “So I was going through this pile of leggings, looking for my size, and this woman walked right up to me and asked if I’d ever thought about modeling. I thought she was kidding at first. But she had this business card that looked really official, so I did what she said. I took it home and gave it to my mom. And three months later, I walked my first runway in New York. That’s where Lorelei spotted me. She asked me to be the face of the new teen line. I’ve always loved her clothes, so here I am.

  “The truth is, I had never thought about modeling, but I had thought about getting out of Wisconsin. And I’d thought of traveling—but this life wasn’t my dream. I owe it all to a pair of leggings I didn’t even buy.”

  It was weird. Both Matt and Mad were living lives that had never been part of their dreams, while I’d been kind of obsessed with my dream since I was six.

  “I can’t imagine having someone walk up to me like that,” I said.

  Madison shrugged. “Isn’t that kind of like what happ
ened to you with Harmon Holt? He scouted you, just like that model scout scouted me.”

  Was she right? In a weird way, Madison and I weren’t that different. Only Mad had already made it, and I was just starting. And there was absolutely no guarantee I would ever be the success story that she was.

  “You’re in the room. You’re working at Lorelei Roy. Sure, luck and timing mean something. But all you can do is strut your stuff and see what happens. And by strut your stuff, I mean finish that dress.”

  NINETEEN

  Brie didn’t come back for her next fitting. A girl named Maggie replaced her. Maggie was half the girl Brie was—literally.

  And I wasn’t sure it was real or if I was imagining it, but things felt different after Brie left. Everyone was on edge. Especially Madison.

  “Are you okay?” I’d ask her.

  “I’m fine.”

  But Mad wasn’t. I just didn’t know how not fine she was.

  One day, when I got back from restocking the copy room, I found Madison crumpled on the floor of a fitting area in her underwear, her dress lying beside her. She wasn’t moving.

  I ran over and knelt beside her. She was breathing. I shook her. Her eyes opened.

  “I’m going to go get some help,” I said.

  “Don’t,” she whispered, sitting up. She was blinking rapidly as if trying to focus.

  “But … you need a doctor or something.”

  “Forgot to eat,” she said. “I’m fine. Really.”

  She got back up on her feet, but she still seemed a little unsteady. I grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to her.

  “See, I’m fine.” She took a sip and twirled around wobbly.

  “You just fainted. You’re not fine.”

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” Mad said, her eyes pleading with me. “This is my life. My career. Everything.”

  After Mad left the House of Lorelei Roy, I paced the fitting room. I wanted to call Bon. But she was probably out with Dom. I tried Gram next.

  Gram wasn’t like other grandmothers. She didn’t bake cookies or cook. But she was always there for me. She picked up on the first ring.

  “How’s the City of Angels treating my girl?”

  “It’s great, Gram.”

  “Really? That’s why you’re calling outside our designated calling time?”

  Even if Gram couldn’t see me, she still knew me so very well.

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine Gram. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Now I know there’s something wrong. You used the F-word.”

  Fine was a four-letter word in our house. Gram thought it was lazy. She wanted me to use my words like colors on canvas or pieces of fabric. She expected me to paint a picture.

  I launched into a description of Becca’s place to distract her: “The house is awesome, and you should see the studio …”

  But Gram wasn’t buying it. “The politics of the workplace aren’t always easy. You have to know when to put your head down and when to speak up.”

  Grandma sold her paintings to a little gallery downtown, but her art wasn’t enough to support us. She had also worked as a secretary for like a million years at a big insurance company before retiring a year ago.

  I couldn’t imagine her keeping her head down. Gram said exactly what she was thinking all the time.

  “It’s going okay,” I said. “It’s just different than I thought.”

  “I know it will be okay. Dreaming is the easy part, Little Bean. There’s a reason it’s called work.”

  “I know, Gram. And I’m actually okay with that part. I don’t mind it, at least.”

  She pressed me: “Then what?”

  “I made a friend. And now I think I’m losing her.”

  Gram didn’t preach. She listened. A few seconds before she hung up, she said only, “Being a friend isn’t just about being liked.”

  When I hung up, I felt warm and comforted. It had nothing to with the California sun bearing down on me. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but for a moment at least, I felt better.

  TWENTY

  I wasn’t a snitch. But keeping Madison’s secret felt like watching a time bomb that was bound to go off.

  “What’s wrong, Little Bean?” Matt said with a throaty laugh as we sat on our spot in view of the Hollywood sign.

  I threw my sandwich at him, and he caught it effortlessly.

  Matt had been calling me that since he overheard Gram on the phone the last time he and I were together. I pretended to hate it, but I didn’t.

  “What if you knew something about someone, but you could cost them their job if you told someone else?”

  “If it’s Jamie, then tell Lorelei.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call her now if you want.”

  I’d told Matt about the time Jamie threatened to call security on me. If he hadn’t liked Jamie before, he liked her even less now. He was definitely Team Thea. I didn’t know what else we were, though. Friends? More than friends?

  I shook my head. “It’s not Jamie.”

  “Is this hypothetical person in any danger?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then I think you have your answer.”

  He didn’t sound preachy. He sounded right. Madison was going to hate me. But at least she’d be alive to do so.

  “So I went through my closet, and I found a few things that are perfect for you. Can you use these? Work your magic.” Madison towered over me, holding two shopping bags filled to the brim with clothing.

  I opened one of the bags. They didn’t need my magic. The tags were still on some of the items. Was she trying to buy my silence?

  “I can’t take these.”

  “Of course you can,” Mad said. “No one says no to Gucci. That’s like a fashion crime or something.”

  “Are you doing this so I won’t say anything?”

  “Say anything about what?” She blinked innocently. Then her face darkened. “I’m doing this because I thought we’re friends.”

  “And that’s why I’m—look, Mad. I really think you should talk to somebody. If you don’t, I will.”

  “You’ll do what, exactly? Tell Lorelei? Do you think she’ll even care? Thea, you can’t. Did you see what happened to Brie? That’s not going to happen to me.”

  “Something worse could happen to you. I looked online—what you’re doing to your body—it could damage your heart. You could die.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “At least see somebody,” I said. “A doctor or a nutritionist or a psychiatrist.”

  “Psychiatrist? So you’re saying I’m crazy? Some friend,” she said and stormed out.

  The thing about giving an ultimatum was that I had to be prepared if Mad called my bluff.

  I headed for Lorelei’s office. Jamie stopped me, without looking up from her desk. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I need a minute with Lorelei.”

  “No one gets a minute with Lorelei unless Lorelei requests it.”

  “But there’s something she needs to know. It’s about Mad.”

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “It’s Madison’s job to be thin. Do you really think that Lorelei doesn’t know? Let it go, intern. Find something to copy.”

  I walked away feeling worse than ever. I had tried. But had I tried hard enough?

  TWENTY-ONE

  The next morning, Lorelei found me in the sewing room. I had her permission to work on my design before and after work.

  “I’d use a box stitch,” she said from the doorway.

  I opened my mouth to tell her about Madison. But her stern expression made me keep my mouth shut.

  “You understand that I like to keep my work life separate from my personal life.”

  Had someone told her I’d been spending time with Matt?

  “Either you’re part of the personal or you’re part of the professional—it’s your choice.” Lorelei used the same voice she used when she wanted me to do something small, like
get her cappuccino with extra foam. But this was definitely a threat.

  “Don’t bother coming in tomorrow,” she said as she examined the hem of my dress.

  The white floor seemed to drop out beneath me. Was my internship really over because I spent a little time with her son? I wasn’t even sure what Matt and I were yet.

  “I want you to spend the day at the store instead. Tell Jamie to make arrangements.”

  It wasn’t too harsh a punishment. I liked the store and its manager. She was pretty and polished and bore a remarkable resemblance to Lorelei. I organized shelves, inventoried clothes, and rung up a couple of customers. But I missed having a coffee break with Matt. I missed working on my dress. I even missed Mad, although I was pretty sure she had told Lorelei about me and Matt.

  When I walked outside to walk to the bus stop, I was surprised to see Matt’s car outside.

  “Hop in,” he commanded.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Paying you back.”

  “How did you know where I was?”

  “Madison told me.”

  I smiled and pushed aside the nagging feeling that this might be the last time I hung out with Matt.

  Might as well enjoy it, I thought.

  “I never do the touristy stuff. You give me a good excuse to be a little lame,” Matt said as I put my hands into the handprints of Kristen Stewart.

  We were at the TCL Chinese Theatre. There were foot and handprints from tons of famous people on the ground, from an old movie star like Joan Crawford to Will Smith. Matt knew a lot about the movies. Even the really old ones.

  “Are you calling me lame?” I asked.

  “You’re not from here. It’s cool for you to do all the Disney stuff. But as a native, it’s so not cool.”

  “So you’re just using me so you can be a tourist again.”

  Matt laughed and offered his arm. Which could have been a lame move, but when he did it, my heart sped up.

  “You seem to know a lot about this movie stuff,” I said. “Have you ever thought … ?”