I wish I’d said goodbye to Campbell, but she’s filming, and she won’t be home until tonight. Campbell hasn’t spoken much to anyone, least of all to me, since Sophia died. There are some things I wanted to tell Campbell but I never found the right time. I want to tell her that the friendship that I had with Sophia was never as real as what she and Sophia shared. I want to tell her that I was jealous of her, because Sophia truly loved her. I want to tell her I’m sorry — sorry that I wedged myself between them, and sorry that I wasn’t able to save Sophia.
Campbell may not know it yet, but she’s going to be alright. I’m certain of it. She may be the most gifted, the most talented, the luckiest of all of us. And the other girls? Brigitte is going to Paris in the beginning of May. Ling just landed a big campaign for L’Oreal, and she’s getting enough work now to afford her own place. By the summer, Gigi’s house will be full of a whole crop of new girls.
Jane helps me take my bags to the car.
“Call me and let me know how your college visits go, okay?” She says.
I’ve scheduled some college interviews over the coming weeks for January admission, and Jane has been really interested in the whole process. Probably because after next year she’ll be going through the same thing herself. I think I might want to study Psychology. According to Alexandra all the Psychology students are halfway crazy themselves, or at least that’s what the pre-med students think. Perfect, I told her. I’ll fit right in.
“I will, I promise. You take care of yourself. And take care of Gigi too, will you? She needs you more than you know,” I say as I hug Jane. “And hey, give my congrats to Niko and Jazz for your film being shown on CNN! That’s a pretty huge achievement for a bunch of scruffy high schoolers!”
As the taxi pulls away I take one last look at Gigi’s house, and at Jane waving on the front steps. I wave back, waiting for the pang of sorrow I expect to feel at leaving that world behind me, but it doesn’t come, and I turn around, settle in my seat and face the direction I’m going.
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THE END
About the Author
Nathalie van Walsum Fuson was born in Bucharest to Dutch diplomat parents, and grew up in Romania, Switzerland, Brazil, New York and Washington DC. She speaks Dutch, English, Portuguese and French. As a teenager and in her twenties she modeled with the Ford Models agency in New York, and for several months lived with various other young models in the house of legendary agent Eileen Ford, an experience upon which The Luckiest Girls is loosely based. She studied Fine Arts at New York University and received a MA from Columbia University in Cultural Anthropology. After modeling Nathalie worked in the field of international relief and development for several years before focusing on her fiction writing. Her short stories have appeared in Cicada and The MacGuffin. Currently Nathalie lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and two teenage daughters. The Luckiest Girls is her debut novel.
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You can follow Nathalie on Twitter at @NathalieFuson, or visit her website www.nathalievanwalsumfuson.com for news about The Luckiest Girls and information about upcoming works.
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