I turn around at Battery Park and give it my all, a full sprint, so I’ll have time to cool down for a few minutes before I go home. As I turn into Christopher Street I slow down to a jog, and suddenly my legs quiver and my knees buckle. I stumble and crumple to the sidewalk, my back against a store window. I’ll be okay in a minute, I tell myself. I just need to catch my breath. I sit with my forehead resting on my knees, my hoodie pulled up over my head, panting. I’m shaking. I never feel like this after a run. I wonder what’s going on? Maybe I’m coming down with something.
Just then there’s a loud banging noise above my head. I turn to look behind me, propping my head up with my hand. Through the shop window I see a fat old man waving angrily at me.
“Get lost, junkie!” I hear his muffled shout. “This isn’t a homeless shelter.”
Is he talking to me? I stagger to my feet, incredulous. I probably don’t look like the picture of health, collapsed on the sidewalk, but a junkie, really? I want to argue with him, but I barely have the energy to walk. Instead I push back my hood, salute the fat bastard with my fist and middle finger extended, and walk away. At home, I lock myself in the bathroom with my nail scissors. It takes twenty minutes for me to stop the bleeding from the inside of my thigh when I’m done.
14
Campbell
Even here, in the waiting room of Silverstar Studios, Sophia doesn’t betray a glimmer of anxiety. I’m biting my nails out of excitement, but Sophia is as composed as I’ve ever seen her. She’s far too charming to appear blasé, of course, that would just be obnoxious, but she looks like she knows she’s on the path she was born to be on. I wish that, for just a day, I could be that confident.
Turns out I’m wrong.
“Campbell, I’m really nervous,” Sophia whispers and grabs my hand. I squeeze her hand and she’s actually trembling. “I want this so much.”
“Don’t be. You’ve as good as got the part already. You just need to read a few lines, and you know them by heart.”
“What if they don’t like me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” That really is ridiculous. Everybody, and I mean absolutely everybody, loves Sophia.
“What if I can’t do the crying part? Remember how much trouble I had?”
“Yes, but you got it, finally. You were really good.”
“Only with your help.”
“Well, just remember what we did.”
“Will you go in with me? If I can look at you while I’m reading, I’ll be able to do it again.”
“If they’ll let me, sure.”
The casting director, Monica, appears.
“Sophia! Thank you for coming. We’re all so excited about this. Have you been able to learn the lines? Are you ready?” She shakes hands with Sophia, and then looks at me.
“This is my friend Campbell. Would it be okay if she came in with me?”
“Sure! Whatever you like.” Monica leads us into the room. Inside the taping room, we meet the others: a production assistant, the camera operator and Alan Dvorak, the director. I recognize him immediately. He’s shorter and his hair is thinner than I expected, but he has a huge presence: When he stands up to shake Sophia’s hand everyone gets out of his way and when he speaks everyone else is quiet.
“Sophia Thompson, what a pleasure,” he says. “Thank you for coming to meet us. I know how busy you are.” (Like she’s the one doing him a favor! How cool is that?)
“Mr. Dvorak,” Sophia purrs, “I am so pleased to meet you. I’m such a fan of your films.”
Monica gestures to an empty chair and I sit down. I don’t expect Alan to notice me, which is good, because he doesn’t.
“Sophia, would you like some water?” Monica asks. She signals to the production assistant who runs to bring her a glass, and while she gets comfortable in one of the chairs facing the camera, Alan gives Sophia some background about the character.
“Zoey is a free-spirit with an edge. She projects an attitude of not giving a shit, like none of the rules apply to her, but at the same time, she has to be really likable. People take all kinds of behavior from her because she’s charming and affectionate, you know? She makes you feel like you’re the most important person in the room even when you know she probably makes everyone feel that way but you don’t care, you know what I mean?”
Sophia nods. Does she know what he means? Because I do. I know exactly what kind of person he’s describing. This Zoey character sounds exactly like Sophia.
Monica begins reading the lines of the male lead, Griffin. Sophia replies with Zoey’s lines. Her voice is beautiful as always, even though she stammers just a tiny bit.
“Just relax,” Alan says. “Let’s start over. Take your time, Sophia.”
They continue, and Sophia repeats the lines flawlessly, but Alan stops them again.
“Good, but can you give it a little more feeling? Remember, she knows she’s setting Griffin up to have his heart broken.”
When she stumbles on a line she looks at me. I’ve run these lines with her so many times I know them by heart. I give her a prompt. She keeps going, but once again she gets stuck, and I feed her the line in a soft voice.
They reach the part where Zoey is supposed to start crying. It’s a scene where Zoey breaks down because she blames herself for her younger brother’s heroin overdose.
“Tim is the only person Zoey really cares about,” Alan says. “She’s not just crying from grief, she’s also feeling anger and guilt.”
Sophia nods. She reads her lines just as she did at Gigi’s house, and when she acts as though she’s crying her brows wrinkle and she buries her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs.
“Let us see your face,” Alan says.
Sophia drops her hands and tilts her head upwards, her eyebrows furrowed over sad, doe-like eyes.
“Don’t be afraid to be ugly, Sophia,” Alan urges. “Crying is ugly, it’s snotty and sticky and messy. Let yourself go.”
Sophia tries, but she’s struggling. She looks at me pleadingly. I know what she needs to do, and how to do it. I can feel it so plainly, but how can I convey it to Sophia?
I think of the scene and about Zoey’s suffering, her anger at herself and her yearning to undo the past. Sophia’s acting coach told her to dredge up her most painful memories, the ones that hurt like hell, the ones we bury because we can’t bear to carry them on the surface. And that’s the problem. Sophia has no painful memories. Sophia’s life is a fairy tale. I wish I could give her mine. I wish I could show her what it looks like to dredge up painful memories. So I try.
I close my eyes. In my memory the house is quiet because Mom is sleeping off a hangover and I’m at the stove making a grilled cheese sandwich. Jack is pacing around the kitchen, poking around the pantry. He is barefoot and he moves silently and catlike, grumbling that there’s never anything to eat in the house, and then he’s behind me, leaning on one arm against the edge of the stove, standing so close to me that his front touches my back.
“That looks good,” he says in his deep, rich voice as he looks over my shoulder. “Will you make me one?”
“You can have this one,” I say. “I’ll make another.”
“You’re such a sweet kid.”
I smile. I like it when Jack compliments me.
“You’re so much sweeter than your mom,” he jokes. “Can you imagine what she’d say if I asked her to make me a sandwich?” We both give a little laugh.
I switch off the stove and turn around to get a plate from the cabinet, but Jack doesn’t move. We stand face to face. I can’t walk around him because his arm is blocking me, and honestly, I don’t really try, because he’s just playing, right? He’s my stepfather, so what’s the big deal, right?
“Seriously,” he says. “You’re an angel, Campbell. You’re a very special girl.”
I look down, a little embarrassed but pleased as well. Jack brushes a strand of hair out of my face, then traces the side of my face with his finger and gen
tly lifts my chin.
“And you’re turning into a real beauty, did you know that?”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah.” He strokes my hair. “Makes me real proud.” He kissed me on the forehead. It’s a chaste kiss, totally normal for a stepfather, I think, even though he’s never done this before. Then he gently kisses me on the lips. I think this can’t be wrong, because it’s Jack, who’s been my stepfather for three years, who loves my mom and is proud of me. This is okay, I think, it has to be. Jack holds my face in his hands and kisses me again, longer, and I don’t move. I know I should, but a tiny part of me felt good, as though this is what is feels like to be loved back by someone special. Jack’s kiss feel so different from the sloppy, awkward kisses of the boys at school, with their tongues jamming between my teeth and their sweaty hands grappling with my bra straps.
We’re jolted apart by the sound of shattering glass above our heads, broken shards spraying off the backsplash of the stove. We turn to stare at Mom in her silk bathrobe, her make-up smudged eyes wild, the glass that she has flung scattered in pieces around our feet. With a feral scream Mom lunges at us, and Jack raises his hands to deflect her, but it is ME, not Jack, that she claws at, screaming.
“You little whore! You filthy little slut!”
I try to protect my face and she pulls at my hair and slaps and punches at my head. Blood smears the floor from her bare feet, cut on the broken glass. Jack pulls her off of me and I run to my room. There’s the sound of a struggle followed by footsteps bounding up the stairs and then my door is flung open and Mom bursts into my room and she towers over me as I sit curled up on my bed, cowering.
“Get out. Pack your shit and get out of my house,” she says.
“Mom, please. I didn’t mean it.”
She slaps me again and I cover my head in my arms. It’s no good to try to say anything. She’s completely crazy.
“He told me what you did, you liar. I see how you look at him, how you jiggle your tits and wiggle your butt every time he’s around.” She opens my dresser drawers and starts flinging underwear, T-shirts, socks, any clothes she can get her hands on at me. “You think you can have everything, don’t you? You think you can take my whole life from me? I’ve had enough of you. Get out of here.”
Her face is contorted in rage. Over her shoulder I see Jack looking through the door, expressionless. He meets my gaze and turns away, the message clear. He’s chosen his side. I am totally and completely alone.
I open my eyes, and I am back in the studio. It’s the first time I’ve let myself think of Mom turning on me, really think about it, really remember that day, and it hurts, it hurts so bad, and my throat tightens with an unbearable pain and my eyes fill with tears.
I know my face probably looks grotesque but if Sophia can mimic it then maybe it’ll help her. I croak out the lines, and I probably am doing it all wrong because it’s hard to talk when you’re crying, but miraculously, it works. Sophia watches me, and when she does the scene her face scrunches up as if she’s crying, not some pantomime of a Disney princess in tears but genuinely crying, and she sobs her lines.
“Better,” says Alan. “Much better.”
Sophia gives me a grateful smile.
After taping a few more scenes they’re done. Alan and Monica congratulate Sophia on a terrific job, and Sophia beams with joy and relief.
In the cab on the ride home Sophia looks a bit more relaxed. She was marvelous, she’s got this in the bag, and I tell her so.
“Nothing’s definite yet,” she says. “This is a whole other world. It’s Hollywood, not the fashion world. Anything can happen.”
“I wouldn’t worry. Even Page Six of the New York Post wrote that you were getting the part. The final word lies with Alan, right? And he loves you.”
“I hope so,” Sophia sighs. “God, I really want this. I’ve never wanted anything so badly.”
Gossip in the entertainment industry travels at light speed, and by evening every entertainment news channel has a segment on Alan Dvorak’s choice of Sophia as his new protege. There is nobody who I would rather see great things happen to, but a secret feeling of dread lurks inside me, that every minute that Sophia ascends higher into the stratosphere, she drifts further away from me. Every day she is approached by new people who are a thousand times more interesting and exciting than I am, and I’m scared that I can’t keep up. Jason Cooper has been calling her again, and he’s coming to New York and wants to see her, and Sophia is playing it super cool, she said she won’t be seen with him if he’s still attached to his girlfriend and he said he’s going to break up with her before then and Sophia said she’s not promising him anything, and meanwhile I can’t even get Theo to call me back.
Damn Theo. I really let myself believe he was falling for me in the Hamptons. And then, today, I saw his picture with some other model draped over him at a New York nightclub. I know I shouldn’t let any man make me feel bad about myself, especially a weasel like Theo, but dammit!
15
Maya
Your body is your most prized possession, so don’t subject it to anything less than the finest quality. Do not eat, drink, read, watch, or wear garbage. — From Living a Model Life: Beauty and Style Tips from Gigi Towers by Gigi Towers.
* * *
It’s the day of my Vogue booking. If they like me, it could lead to an editorial feature in Vogue, and it doesn’t get bigger than that. This is the most important job I’ve ever had. If I screw it up, they’ll never book me again and I might as well quit altogether.
I get up before the sun to go for a short run before my booking. I have a quick shower, and then join Brigitte and Campbell downstairs for breakfast, bouncing with every step. Campbell’s expression, however, is almost enough to bring me down.
“Theo got you this job, but he hasn’t booked me for anything. And I was the one who…I mean he and I…” her voice trails off.
“You know, it’s not always up to him,” I say. “Just because your look isn’t right for a client doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you.”
“He hasn’t even spoken to me since the Hamptons. He won’t even acknowledge my texts.”
“I’m sorry, Campbell.”
I think she got a rotten deal out of Theo. I mean I don’t know if he promised her anything but if he had any class at all he would have booked her for something. It’s just the right thing to do. To me, her story is just further proof that you don’t show your soft underbelly to the wolves or you’ll get eviscerated. You have to keep a shield up all the time, and never make yourself vulnerable. If that makes me Maya the Ice-Queen, then fine. I know Campbell has been called worse. Not by me, though. I’ve always hated people who slam women because of their sexuality, especially when those people are women as well. You have to be either a real prude or a real bitch to put someone down because of her own personal sex life, which is why I shut down Brigitte’s smug expression with a narrow-eyed glare, turning my back to her as I sip my coffee.
“Good morning girls,” Gigi says as she enters the kitchen, fully dressed and made up. (I swear, that woman keeps a tiny stylist hidden in her room who dresses and accessorizes her every day before she shows her face.)
“Maya, come upstairs please. I want you to step on the scale for me.”
I almost spit out my coffee. Brigitte and Campbell stare. Whenever Gigi orders someone to step on the scale it means she thinks they’ve gained weight and she wants to know exactly how much. It doesn’t matter if there are other people around, Gigi will call you out on your weight in front of the whole house if she feels like it.
“Did I hear her right?” I whisper to Campbell. Campbell nods, wide-eyed.
“She must have meant Campbell,” Brigitte says.
“Oh, shut up,” Campbell replies.
I head up the stairs. She can’t be serious. I’ve been so careful. I haven’t gained an ounce, I’m sure of it.
In the second-floor bathroom stands a beam scale, the kind you
see in a doctor’s office with a height measuring rod attached. Gigi beckons me to get on the scale, and I pull my boots off and step on.
“One hundred and thirteen pounds,” she says when she finishes sliding the weights along the beam. “Do you remember what you weighed when you arrived in January?”
“Um, one hundred and twenty?”
“That sounds about right. I’m glad you’re watching your weight, but be careful, Maya. There’s such a thing as being too thin. Don’t lose any more weight, do you hear?”
“Okay.”
“Are you still running?”
“Yes.”
“Good for you. I wish all my girls were as active as you are. But I want you to make sure you compensate for all the calories you burn off. What are you having for breakfast?”
“Coffee, and a banana, and some yogurt.” Okay, the yogurt isn’t true, but I’ll have some yogurt if it gets Gigi off my back.
“I want you to have a bowl of cereal as well before you leave the house this morning,” Gigi says. She pats me on the shoulder and goes to her room.
“What did she say?” Campbell asks when I return to the kitchen.
“She says she doesn’t want me to lose any more weight.”
“Lucky,” Campbell sighs.
I take the smallest bowl I can find from the cabinet and pour about a quarter cup of fat-free cereal into it, then add a splash of skim milk. I take tiny bites, but every bite feels like an enormous mouthful of soggy dough. But when Gigi enters the kitchen she smiles at me with approval. It’s alright, I tell myself. I can run it off later. And I can skip lunch.
Gigi doesn’t know what she’s talking about, I think as I leave the house. Sophia is just as skinny as I am and she eats the exact same things I do. Okay, I’m a little taller, but we wear the same size and that’s what really matters. At the entrance of the subway I reconsider; my booking is about fifteen blocks away, less than a mile. I’ve got twenty minutes to get there. If I walk a little fast I can make it on foot easily. As I march down the street I imagine my breakfast cereal burning away with every step, and I still take an extra three-block detour to help make the lump of food in my stomach disappear.
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