The Making of Mia

by Ilana Fox

  ‘I’m willing to bet you could rise up the ladder on a magazine with your talent alone – you have a slender body and an intelligent face, and I’m sure you have more feature ideas in your little finger than any model would have in their entire lifetime. If anything, not being supermodel-hot means you’d be taken more seriously.’

  Jo picked up her drink and stared into it. As much as she wanted to believe what Gable was saying, she knew that talent alone didn’t cut it in the magazine world, and even though she looked a hundred times better than she had done when she was at Gloss she wasn’t sure she was pretty enough. She wasn’t sure she was sparkly enough.

  ‘Besides,’ Gable said, gesturing for the bill. ‘Since when have freelancers had to worry about what they look like? I thought the whole point of working from home meant you didn’t have to brush your hair or even get out of your pyjamas if you didn’t want to.’

  Jo grinned. He was right. She ignored the tiny voice inside her head that said that she’d eventually want to work in an office again – running a magazine rather than going on coffee errands – and told herself plastic surgery was out of the question. After all, Madeline Turner hadn’t had cosmetic surgery to get where she was, had she? Jo felt a wave of anger rush through her. No, Madeline hadn’t needed surgery – she’d married the boss instead.

  March 2005

  Jo finished the last sentence of the email she was writing and yawned. A quick look at the clock on the laptop told her it was three in the morning and she rubbed her eyes. If it hadn’t been for the sound of the surf sliding up the beach or her tiny silver laptop placed on the smoked-glass dining-table, she could almost have imagined she was back in London, frantically thinking up pitches before going to work as Garnet’s slave the next morning. Jo quickly reread the email and felt a familiar buzz rush through her body – working for magazines gave her a high better than any drug could have done, and she hadn’t realised how much she missed that hit until she started writing again.

  For the last six months Jo had been busy establishing herself in the American magazine market, and Gable was busy in Hollywood, where he’d landed an agent and a massive part in a film almost as soon as his plane had hit the tarmac in California. As he waited to find out if he’d got the lead in another big blockbuster, he’d flown back to Miami to see Jo, and she had made sure she made the most of her new best friend being in Miami. He wasn’t Amelia, who she could confide anything to, or William, who she still yearned for late at night, but he was a great friend – easy, relaxed and happy in his skin.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Jo asked him, and Gable nodded. ‘You really want me to pitch this idea?’

  Jo looked at her email to Lucy at Gloss and reread it. During a heavy night at Oblivion for Gable’s homecoming, Jo had told him how much Cosmopolitan had liked the ‘Help! I just came on to a gay man!’ piece she’d written as soon as they’d made up. Gable had suggested she write about the culture of plastic surgery in Miami for a magazine back in England as an off-the-cuff remark, but something had clicked in Jo, and she realised there was a whole scene in the city that British magazines would lap up. When Jo said that she was still writing for Gloss – small pieces mainly, on fashion trends coming out of America – Gable had asked her if there was any reason that Lucy or Madeline Turner wouldn’t want an article highlighting the growing inclination for cosmetic surgery in America. Jo couldn’t think of one, and when she’d suggested it in an email, Lucy had, as usual, gushed over her idea. Jo supposed that Lucy was still feeling guilty about how she’d let Jo down, but she didn’t care. As much as she hated her, Lucy was still her main contact at Gloss, and this was business. One day she’d make sure Lucy apologised properly, but in the meantime Jo had a career to develop, and that meant using whatever contacts she had, regardless of what she thought of them personally.

  As a result of Jo’s idea, and the fact that ‘Olivia Windsor’ was now based out there, Gloss had decided to do a Miami special, with a large section on plastic surgery. Lucy had asked Jo if she knew of anyone out there who had undertaken surgery to make his or her life better, and after a few drinks Jo had asked Gable, telling him that if he’d like to share his story with Gloss readers it would be completely anonymous. Gable had nervously agreed, but now Jo was about to send her pitch over to Lucy he didn’t seem so sure.

  ‘What if they find out who I am? My career will be in tatters before my first film comes out. I’ll be a laughingstock!’ He walked around Jo’s living-room and Jo was struck by how camp he was in private. When they were in public nobody would have guessed that Gable preferred men, but in the privacy of their own homes he could be completely himself – and he was almost a sillier, younger, happier version of the serious, professional man that he became in the top bars in Hollywood.

  ‘Look, I’ve changed your name, and I’ve said you based your look on Thierry Henry rather than Freddie Ljungberg —’

  ‘Who?’ Gable interrupted Jo.

  ‘He’s French. Black. Sexy. He plays for Arsenal too, but—’

  ‘He plays for the same team?’ Gable looked at Jo in horror, and she sighed.

  ‘We could change it to Michael Owen if you like.’ When Gable looked none the wiser Jo smiled at him. ‘Or David Beckham?’

  Gable’s eyes lit up. ‘Ooh, yes, please,’ he said, and Jo bit back a laugh. Even though the piece was anonymous Gable was still incredibly vain about it. Jo made the changes and looked at him. Gable was now sitting on the red and black sofa, staring into the distance.

  ‘Once I send this, Lucy will cream herself over it. You do know that, don’t you? Once this is in her in-box you’ll have to do this interview with me.’

  Gable nodded. ‘If this helps you out I’m happy to do it,’ he said, and Jo looked at him.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Gable stared at Jo and then broke out into a wide grin. ‘Of course I am, darling,’ he said. ‘Send it and let’s send your career into orbit.’

  Jo pressed ‘send’, and she imagined Lucy sitting in the office, reading her email and squealing with pleasure. Jo had to admit that the pitch was incredible. She had suggested that she interview a previously unknown Hollywood actor who had landed a leading role in a blockbuster because of his good looks, which were achieved through cosmetic surgery and full-on sessions in the gym. The piece would not disclose who the actor was – Gable’s career would have been in shreds if anyone ever guessed he hadn’t been born looking like a heart-throb – and in return the actor would give an exclusive interview to Gloss about his physical insecurities. It was tantalising stuff. The tabloids would all want to syndicate the article, and the gossip websites such as Hecklerspray and Holy Moly would spend days trying to work out what Hollywood actor had spent $100,000 on surgery. So long as his surgeon never disclosed the work he had done on Gable – and he wouldn’t, as he had signed a NDA that would cost him millions if he talked – Jo would have the biggest splash of her career.

  ‘It’s gone,’ Jo said ominously, and she joined Gable on the sofa, mentally working out the time difference and realising that it was still only the morning in London. ‘So how is it all really going in LA? I’m really missing you, you know,’ she said, meaning it. Since Gable had gone back to the West Coast, Miami had lost some of its allure. Even though she had a wide circle of friends who hung out at the same clubs every night, without Gable by her side Jo felt a little bit out of place. She had started to think about returning to London, but Jo still didn’t know how she was going to get her revenge on Joshua Garnet. Until she knew what she was doing, she thought, she would have to stay in Miami. Jo grinned to herself. Not that it was such a horrible thing to have to do, now she was a UK size ten and the girl she had always wanted to be.

  Gable took another slug of his vodka and smiled. ‘LA is amazing,’ he said, putting his glass down on the floor and curling himself up on the sofa. ‘Everyone’s talking about me, about how I suddenly appeared and landed the part in the new Cameron Crowe film. Apparent
ly Keanu was devastated,’ Gable said. ‘He thought the part had been specially written for him.’

  Jo shook her head in amazement. She still couldn’t believe Gable was about to become a player, that he was name-dropping Keanu Reeves into conversation. ‘My agent has been fantastic since the moment I walked into his office. He’s got me screen test after screen test, has hooked me up with Violet Compton – you know, that girl who is going to be playing Jessica Alba’s little sister in Ang Lee’s new picture – and we’re quite the celebrity couple,’ he said, smugly. ‘The paparazzi love us,’ he said, and Jo burst out laughing.

  ‘I know!’ she said, and she grabbed a copy of US Weekly from her dining-table. ‘Check you out!’ Jo giggled, throwing the magazine to him.

  Gable stared at his image in the pulpy magazine and laughed quietly to himself. ‘It’s a dream come true, you know,’ he said. ‘All that pain, hard work and cost is starting to pay off. I’m a Hollywood actor,’ he said, looking at Jo intently. ‘And I’m going to Leonardo di Caprio’s wrap party next week. Because he asked me to.’

  Gable shook his head in disbelief and Jo gave him a massive hug. Tears began to fill his eyes and Jo couldn’t remember ever having felt so proud of anyone else before.

  ‘You’ve made it,’ she said, and she tried not to think about her own career. True, she had enough freelance work to keep her in expensive clothes and a luxury condo, but it still wasn’t enough for her. Jo wanted to be at the top of her game, and although she’d been in discussions with the Guardian about having her own column in one of their supplements, she didn’t want to do it as Olivia Windsor, but as Jo Hill. Unfortunately she had backed herself into a corner, and she knew that the Guardian would never believe her if she suddenly said she was Olivia Windsor, and that it was she and not her nom de plume that owned Platinum Consulting. Jo knew she had to find a way to break into the magazine world as herself, but she couldn’t think of how to do it. Jo knew it was hopeless while Joshua Garnet would still remember who she was.

  As Jo went into the kitchenette to fix them more drinks her email bleeped, and after she had poured them both healthy measures of vodka she walked over to her laptop, trying to ignore Gable’s eyes boring a hole in her back. She secretly hoped he was admiring her new black Chloé top, too.

  ‘Well?’ Gable yelped, both excitedly and nervously all at once. ‘Is it that Lucy girl? Does she want my interview?’

  Jo sat down and read Lucy’s email.

  ‘She says they’d love an interview with you,’ Jo read out happily, and she looked at her friend who had turned white under his tan.

  ‘But it will be anonymous, right? It’s gotta be anonymous or the deal is off.’

  Jo laughed. ‘Of course it will be,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you ten years younger, as straight as an arrow, a womaniser, a former soap star and a model all in one. Nobody will ever guess that Gable Blackwood, star of Fire Crossing and boyfriend of Violet Compton, is the king of cosmetic surgery.’ Jo grinned and turned back to her laptop, and Gable grunted.

  ‘I trust you with my life,’ he said, and Jo nodded distractedly. ‘What’s up?’ he said to her, walking over to the table and picking up his fresh drink. ‘Is there a problem?’

  Jo shook her head and turned to Gable, biting her lip. As much as she loved Gable she wished Amelia was here.

  ‘I suggested in my pitch that Gloss gets a real-life account of someone who has had a breast enlargement to show just how painful it is …’ Jo began, and when she saw Gable looking serious she averted her eyes and continued. ‘You know – to balance out all the “surgery is good” stuff. The thing is, though … Lucy has asked me if I want to do it. She says she doesn’t expect me to want to, but if I do then Gloss will pick up the tab. Joshua and Madeline have approved the budget already.’

  Jo’s eyes shone and for a moment Gable felt nervous at what he saw. The living-room was filled with a tense silence, and Jo took the opportunity to look down at her chest. Were her breasts really that bad? Did she really want to change them? For months Jo had been unhappy with how low her breasts hung. She wore Wonderbras pretty much every day to keep them high, but they seemed almost too soft, too deflated, to be what the media portrayed as ‘sexy’. Jo had recently taken to checking out other girls’ cleavages in bars, and without fail she always felt a cold chill rush down her spine when she realised that almost every other girl had a pert, full chest, and in comparison she was flat, invisible. Jo was used to being the ugliest girl in a crowd, but the little voice in her head was getting louder. Why shouldn’t she have natural-looking breasts rather than the ones she had ruined through her overeating and dramatic weight loss? Just because she wanted to improve an aspect of her physical appearance, she decided, it didn’t make her a superficial person. After all, she wasn’t thinking about doing it to make her name in the glamour industry or to look like a footballer’s wife. She was considering having it done to make her look like she was a normal twenty-two-year-old. And where was the harm in that?

  ‘I’m going to do it,’ she said decisively. ‘I’m going to get some brand-new breasts and they’re going to be my twenty-third birthday present from Joshua Garnet.’ She looked out at the moonlit ocean and raised her glass in the direction of England. The idea of changing her body felt powerful, dramatic, and even though she knew it would hurt, and that she was giving in to the idea of ‘perfection’ promoted by the very magazines that she wrote for, Jo wanted her slender body to be even better. A hint of an idea started to formulate in her brain, and she downed her drink in one, realising what she needed to do to have revenge on her former boss.

  ‘Joshua Garnet is going to rue the day he ever offered Olivia Windsor a breast job,’ she murmured, in a voice so filled with venom that Gable looked surprised.

  ‘Gable Blackwood, how would you feel about having a little sister who shares your amazing good looks?’

  Gable buried his head in his hands.

  Chapter Fourteen

  April 2005

  Jo stared at a photograph of Kate Moss in a copy of English Vogue. She was in a Dior advert and was naked on a chair with her legs pulled up to her chest. On her bare legs were chocolate-brown leather boots that laced up, Victorian style, from the bottom to the top, with sheepskin buckles that gave the boots an aggressive edge. They looked warm, comfortable and were undeniably sexy. Jo looked at them for a moment and wondered how much they cost before returning her gaze to Kate’s face. She was stunning. But as well as being the most beautiful woman in the UK, there was something else to her. Yes, she looked like she was in the middle of having an orgasm even when she was doing something as innocuous as pushing her hair back from her face, you could see her hip personality through her doll-like 1960s-style features. Anyone could tell that Kate was edgy, cool and rock and roll – and you knew that from how she looked, how she presented herself. Because Jo had been reading magazines and looking at images of Kate Moss for years she felt like she knew her. The truth was Jo couldn’t remember ever reading an interview with her or even hearing her speak. Kate Moss was silent, but through her face you knew exactly who she was. Jo looked in the mirror and wondered what her own face told people.

  Even though her hair was no longer mousy-brown, and was cut into a sleek, bouncy style, Jo wondered what she would look like if she was blonde. Thanks to Bobby at the salon her hair was still impeccable, and she loved her subtle streaks of gold, caramel, butter and mahogany. Her hair looked classy, and her eyebrows – a nondescript shade of light brown – were arched perfectly. Jo remembered how they had been before she had learnt to pluck them and she shuddered with embarrassment. She wondered if the girls at school had ever called her Liam Gallagher behind her back, and she realised they probably had. She raised her eyebrows and looked at her reflection in the mirror. When they were half a centimetre higher on her face she looked prettier, she thought.

  Jo turned her attention to her lips, which were pale, thin and cracked from drinking the night before with a group of
girls in the Ammo Rooms. She quickly glanced at Kate Moss’s pouting lips – which were soft, plump and juicy – and looked at hers again, feeling miserable. Kate’s lips weren’t blow-job lips – Kate wasn’t so obvious to have lips like that, and besides, they would have distracted people from her amazing, sex-glazed eyes – but they were lickable. Chewable. Jo pushed her lips out as far as she could without looking like she was pulling a face and marvelled at what a difference slightly bigger lips made to her expression. If she had cheekbones, slightly plumper lips and maybe her eyebrows positioned higher up so she didn’t look like she was frowning all the time, she could be pretty, she thought. And if her nose was slightly more button-shaped, like Kate’s, then she could even be beautiful. At the moment her nose looked like it belonged to Paris Hilton. Which was fine for Paris – who was all long lines and haughty angles – but not for Jo Hill.

  Jo stared at herself in the mirror and felt depressed. Her insecurities were rearing their ugly head again, and this time all the make-up in the world could do nothing to change how Jo felt about her face. It was only the thought of Gable, and how he had transformed himself from being boring and dull Simon into the stunningly attractive man he was today, that gave her some hope. She phoned him.

  ‘You know when you decided to get your face done so you looked less like Simon Lynott and more like Freddie Ljungberg?’ she began nervously. ‘Well, in percentages, how sure were you that you wanted to get it done?’

  ‘One hundred per cent,’ he said firmly, before pausing for a second. He was on set in the Grand Canyon, and although he’d been shooting for a couple of days and was dressed as a cowboy, Gable couldn’t get Jo – and her plans – out of his mind. He was worried sick, and felt responsible for telling her about his own surgery and possibly encouraging her into doing the same thing.

  ‘Well, maybe not one hundred per cent, but I couldn’t see any other way of being the man I wanted to be … Look, do you really believe that you’ll never be happy looking the way you do?’ he asked her, and Jo didn’t know what to say. She’d always thought that when she had reached the elusive size ten she’d wake up one morning and be happy, but it hadn’t happened. Every day she felt as though she was still the frumpy Joanne Hill who nobody liked or took seriously. She wanted to wipe her childhood away from her memory so she could start her life again, but she couldn’t.