by Dona Sarkar
Leah flopped onto her belly and started unraveling her bedspread. “I wasn’t feeling well. I told you.”
“I’m rescheduling the doctor’s appointment.”
Not this again.
“I just need rest.”
“Look. I know you’re worried about Shazan, but you can’t just stop going to school.” Victoria tried to reach for Leah’s hair, but Leah quickly pulled away. She was still losing wads of hair every day. She didn’t want a repeat freak-out like in O.C. “It’s the week of Thanksgiving. We’re not even doing anything in school.”
“You’re going tomorrow. Understand? Now come down for dinner.”
“Fine.” Leah knew arguing wouldn’t get her anywhere here.
Leah waited until her mother had closed the door behind her. She dialed the hospital again.
“Hello? I’m calling about the status of Shazan Ali. I’ll hold.”
Leah continued to pace and paused in front of her mirror. Her cheekbones were fat puffs. A double chin. All the fat Jay had forced her to have. How could she be in a magazine like this?
Fat. So much fat on her cheeks. She had to lose it. She had a week.
“Hello? You’re calling about Shazan Ali’s status?”
“Yes.” Leah’s heart pounded.
“I’m afraid because of privacy laws, we can’t give that information out over the phone.” The voice continued to speak and explain that she had to be a member of the family or come in during visiting hours to see Shazan.
She hung up the phone without saying goodbye or thank-you.
She had a very bad feeling about this.
“Leah! Dinner! Now!”
Everything was spiraling completely out of control. School, the game, her friendship with Jay, now Shazan’s health.
There was just one thing she had under control.
“Mama! Do we have any chicken broth?”
145 pounds
Leah obsessively searched the ANA Web site. There had to be more tips. The girls were becoming less and less shy and were starting to post pictures of themselves.
They were all so thin. No way was Leah going to post a picture. They would laugh at her for being so fat after so much dieting.
The chicken broth diet was working. She’d already lost four pounds that week. She’d convinced Victoria she had the flu and the only thing she could keep down was plain chicken broth and Sprite Zero. Her mother had allowed her a day of bed rest and school was out for the rest of the week.
The flu symptoms weren’t hard to fake because of her feverish face and harbored breathing. Leah didn’t know what was really wrong with her and she didn’t care. She was five pounds away from her goal.
She’d called the hospital six times that week and they wouldn’t tell her anything. No one answered the phone at Shazan’s house.
She’d never felt so alone.
Refresh. Refresh. She refreshed the Web site for the umpteenth time. Everyone was saying to be as dehydrated as possible to look thinner. God, she’d just finished an entire bottle of water post her five-mile run. She had to get rid of it.
She pinched her hips. So much fat. So much fat left to lose. It was the chicken broth. It probably had way more calories than she thought.
She had to throw up the chicken broth she’d drunk for dinner. And all the water.
She closed and locked the door of her bathroom and kneeled on the floor. Nothing.
She gagged.
“Try again. Try again,” she chanted. She stuck a finger down her throat and waited.
Nothing.
“Come on, come on. You can do this.” She forced her finger down her throat again. She spit up water.
She leaned her head against the toilet and cried.
thirteen
Best in Show
140 lbs
Leah couldn’t stop shivering in the dressing room. She was wearing a thin robe over her underwear and was literally trembling.
The modeling shoot was in full swing at the Chateau Marmont in L.A. The Jade crew had taken up an entire set of suites on the top floor and girls were running in and out of the rooms, half dressed and half made-up.
Victoria had deposited Leah into a room with a chair labeled Lynnette M and a stack of Cosmopolitan magazines. Leah hunched down in the chair and tried to warm her cold, dry hands.
Was no one else freezing? Some blond Hollywood starlet was sitting across from Leah looking bored and typing on her BlackJack while makeup artists worked on her face. She was wearing a sleeveless minidress and didn’t look even the slightest bit frostbitten.
“Sweetie, you ready for hair?”
Leah jumped. Ken, some celebrity stylist, stood in front of her. He flicked his perfectly styled blond hair and held up a swatch of hair extensions. “We need to do something about that hair of yours.”
Leah touched her scalp. She’d managed to hide her hair loss with bandanas, but apparently the hairdresser wasn’t fooled.
“Come, come! Lots of work. Very little time!” Before she could blink, he tilted her head back into the sink and turned on the water.
“Have you seen Victoria anywhere?” Leah asked. Her mother had disappeared over half an hour ago and Leah was wondering if she was going through the same treatment.
“I did her hair a while ago. God, she’s stunning. Isn’t she stunning? That skin! I would sell my grandmother to the Middle East for that skin!”
Leah was sorry she asked.
A gentle scalp massage lulled Leah into a deep sleep. She dreamt she was floating on one of those huge rafts in a swimming pool. No one else was in sight. Just her. Alone.
She wished she could have stayed in the dream.
When she opened her eyes, Ken was gone. Instead she saw a stranger staring back at her in the mirror. The stranger looked like Beyoncé at the Oscars. She had long cascading light brown waves that tumbled over her shoulders. Her eyes were huge and almond shaped. Her cheekbones slim, her lips glossy and full.
Who was this?
Leah stood up on trembling legs and touched the mirror. How had this happened? Did she really look like this?
Gaunt fingers touched hers in the mirror.
“What do you think?” A soft voice startled Leah. She glanced in the mirror and saw Alfreddo settled into a swivel chair in the corner of the room, hands shoved into the pockets of his pin-striped pants.
How long had he been lurking there? And how had she not noticed him?
“Look at you.” He stood up and started to move toward her.
“Yeah.” Leah ran a hand through her hair. How much of it was hers, she couldn’t even tell. The extensions were silky coils that sprang perfectly back into place.
“You are the most stunning here. By far.”
Leah didn’t take her eyes off her reflection and noticed Alfreddo didn’t either.
The chill she’d been feeling earlier returned.
“Let’s get you into wardrobe so you can choose first.”
Leah hesitated. Where was Victoria? She’d thought her mother would be here with her, hovering, making sure everything was just right.
“Come on. I saw this green item that would be incredible on you. I want to see it on you before anyone else.”
Leah shivered again. His eyes hadn’t left the front of her robe. She pulled it tighter around her. “Let’s go, then.”
The wardrobe room looked like Mariah Carey’s closet on MTV’s Cribs. An entire floor of the hotel with racks and racks of dresses, hats, scarves, coats, everything. In the center of it all was a lady who was a dead ringer for Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.
“Who’s this?” The lady peered over her stylish half-rimmed plastic frames. Stepping closer, Leah realized they had no lenses, they were just a fashion statement.
“Leah, er, Lynnette Mandeville.”
“Size?”
“Four?” Leah said hopefully. Last week a four had fit her loosely. She’d never been so thin. Size-small jeans had never slid that effortl
essly over her hips before.
The wardrober looked her over. “I don’t think so.”
Leah’s heart sank. All that hard work for nothing. They would send her home. She would be humiliated. She glanced over at Alfreddo, who was frowning.
“You’re a zero or, max, a two. No way can you fit a four.”
A happiness Leah had never known fluttered through her body. A zero!
“Try this.”
The white dress was backless except for thin silver threads in a cobweblike pattern. The satin skirt flowed easily over her hips and thighs.
“It’s a little big. See? You might be a double zero. We don’t carry those because we don’t want models that thin.” The wardrober plucked at the spaghetti straps. “Let me pin you. Make sure you don’t turn sideways to the cameras.”
Too big. Something was too big on her.
“Please try to put on some weight, sweetheart. You don’t look very healthy.” The wardrober gave the gown a final tug. “I can barely keep these straps on you.”
Leah picked up the train and hurried into the hallway where Alfreddo had waited while she changed.
“That’s it. I’m going to buy that dress for you after this shoot. In a double zero of course.”
Leah smiled at him for the first time. A double zero. If only she could show Shazan this dress. Her friend would be so proud of her. She would post a picture of herself on the ANA site tonight.
Leah slipped her feet into silvery sandals and was ushered to a black velvet room by Alfreddo.
Victoria was already there, perched on a piano. Her mouth dropped open when she saw Leah.
“Leah, please take your mother’s spot on the piano. Victoria, we’re going to have you sit on the bench as the pianist.” Alfreddo moved next to the photographer and gave his orders.
The director, a balding man with a jaunty beret, nodded. “Oui. Excellent. Chop, chop!”
Leah felt herself glowing as the spotlight shone down on her. She noticed a tightening around Victoria’s lips as her mother poised her fingers on the piano keys and pretended to play.
“Fans!” the director called.
Leah tossed her hair back as a cool breeze blew over her face. So this was what it was like. No wonder her mother loved it so much.
“Look this way, darling. Alfreddo, she’s a bit too thin. We need to hide her chest bones as much as possible.”
Leah glanced down. With the low neckline, she could see the outline of her ribs. Wasn’t this what they wanted?
“Turn this way, Leah,” Alfreddo called.
Flashbulbs popped nonstop over the course of the next hour.
Leah changed into the jade-green minidress Alfreddo had mentioned. The hem stopped at midthigh and rode up farther as she leaned against the Grecian pillar.
The fiery, tomato dress with the plunging neckline was next.
The finale was a black one-shoulder goddess gown.
She was the star of every shot, with Victoria fading into the background.
Every command the director called out began with “Leah, give me sexy. Victoria, please smile more.”
It was over way too soon. As soon as the last picture was taken, Victoria left the room with a slam of the door.
I don’t care, Leah thought bitterly. Serves her right.
Leah stood in the dressing room, still in the one-shoulder gown, unpinning the shoulder strap and the hem. A size 0 was way too big for her. How had this happened? Her collarbones jutted out and she could see every vein in her neck.
Finally. She’d been waiting for this day for so long.
A knock tore her eyes away from her reflection. “Come in.”
“Need help?” Alfreddo closed the door behind him. “I can’t stop looking at you.”
Leah turned to tell him to get out. Instead, she turned around straight into his arms.
“Alfreddo, I—”
He kissed her, his tongue probing her mouth deep inside. “I’ll take you to the top.”
“Me?” Leah pulled away.
“You don’t need riffraff hanging around like that photographer in O.C. Stick with me. Your mother is washed out. Over. You’re the new Victoria.”
The new Victoria? She, Leah, was more beautiful and desirable than Victoria? How was this even possible?
He kissed her again, harder. This time his hands slid the strap of her dress off her shoulder. “This isn’t just business. We can be really good together.”
“Oh.” Leah’s eyes opened in time to see her mother, a shocked expression on her face, as she stood silently in the corner of the room.
fourteen
U-Turn
Victoria and the car were gone by the time Leah got into the parking lot. She dropped her arms to her sides. Great, now this was going to turn into another thing to argue about at home. How she was never allowed to speak to Alfreddo again. How her modeling days were over. She was anorexic. She had a disease.
Never mind that Victoria was the one who’d dragged her into this whole thing in the first place.
Plus, Leah was stranded in the rapidly emptying parking lot of the Chateau Marmont. There was only one person she could call, but she still wasn’t ready to talk to him. Jay. He hadn’t even attempted to make peace after their fight last week, which really hurt. He’d betrayed her and accused her of terrible things. How dare he be mad? If he didn’t answer her call tonight, she would spring for a very expensive cab ride home. And expense it. To Alfreddo. Who’d run away like a scared little girl out of the room before Victoria said a word.
“Don’t pick up. Don’t pick up,” Leah muttered as she dialed Jay’s cell phone.
“What’s the word?” Jay answered. He sounded…exactly the same. Like nothing had changed.
“I need to be picked up,” Leah said hurriedly. “You busy?”
“Where are you?”
“Chateau Marmont.”
“Twenty minutes.” And he hung up.
How he was planning to get from Hollywood Hills to Sunset Boulevard in less than an hour on a Saturday night was beyond her. But true to his word, Jay’s Mustang was in the driveway of the hotel just as Leah changed out of the black goddess gown and made it back into the lobby.
“Home, please.” Leah got into the passenger side without any explanation. She must’ve been a sight in jeans and a baby T-shirt with her evening makeup and hair still on.
“Was this that whole modeling thing?”
“Yeah.” Leah leaned forward and turned on the car stereo. She didn’t want to make idle conversation, nor recount the entire evening. She especially didn’t want to talk about her “eating habits” or how much more weight she’d lost.
“How did the photo shoot go?”
Leah drummed her fingers along with Akon. “Okay.”
“Where’s your mom?”
“I don’t know.” Leah turned the volume louder, hoping he would get the hint.
As they took the Hollywood Hills exit, Jay turned down the stereo. “Why are you mad at me?”
Leah ignored him and flipped the visor down to check her reflection. Her makeup was still fresh, her skin dewy. She wished she could look like this every day.
“You look great, you know. Like one of those MTV videos. Were any of the movie stars there at the same time as you?”
“Demi Moore’s daughter. She’s gorgeous, looks just like Demi.”
“And you look just like Victoria. You guys are like sisters.”
Leah was silent. She was better than Victoria. She was the New Victoria. She had a real career choice here. Being beautiful and wanted for a living. She could deal with this.
“Here we are.” Jay pulled into his driveway and turned off the ignition. “Look—”
Leah ignored Jay and got out of the car, a mix of relief and anger flowing through her. Victoria’s car was not in the driveway and the lights in the house were all off. She hadn’t known what Victoria’s reaction would be. She had prepared herself for yelling and screaming. Altogethe
r missing was not something Leah had anticipated.
“All set for the big game tomorrow?” Jay followed her up the front steps of her house.
“Yup,” Leah’s teeth chattered. Winter had set in early in L.A. and she had a major case of goose bumps on her arms. She thought of the Snow Ball gown that hung on the back of her closet door. She hadn’t asked anyone else. And Jay certainly hadn’t asked her.
“You going to the dance?” Leah asked him, unlocking the door. “With Jennifer?”
“Yeah. We’re going to get a limo with a few of the girls on the squad and their boyfriends.”
“Is that what you are now? A squad boyfriend?”
Jay laughed. “Nah.”
Leah glanced at him. Yeah, right. “Do you want to come in?”
“I better get home. I told my mom I had to return some library books. We’ve got this whole thing going on at home. A puja, religious thing.”
“Oh.” Leah felt the same familiar pang. They actually did stuff together as a family. They had rituals and traditions. Looked as though all Leah and Victoria had was a sleazy modeling agent in common.
A guy she didn’t even like. And she was pretty sure after tonight Victoria didn’t either.
The only person Leah could ever imagine herself with was standing just inches away from her. Alone on her porch, looking thoughtful with his deep brown eyes and wavy hair. He smelled like winter. Like caramel apples and cider. Still, after all this, he was the only one she wanted.
She had to go for it. This was her chance.
“What?” He gazed at her face.
She kissed him. It had been building for far too long. She couldn’t spend another evening flirting with him on her front stoop and spend all night wondering what it all meant.
She entwined her fingers in his thick hair and wrapped her arms around his neck. She felt his hands around her waist. Hesitant. But they were there. It was every bit as amazing as she’d been fantasizing about. He did want it. His tongue wouldn’t be tangling with hers the way it was unless he wanted it, too.
She broke away from the kiss first. “Come inside. Come upstairs.” She pulled him inside the house.