Braless in Wonderland (3 page)

“Everything okay, girls?” Mom called from the hall. There it was, her nightly check-in.

“Yeah,” we both answered. What did she think we were doing in here every night, sneaking in boys and playing strip poker while she and Dad lay in bed watching
Everybody Loves Raymond
reruns? Or did she just think we were still two-year-olds? Honestly, Mom and Dad were such helicopter parents, always hovering over us.

“Turn off your light,” The Fluff reminded me.

“Just one more chapter.”

“If I have dark circles tomorrow, I'll kill you.”

“You won't.”

After a few minutes, she said, “I'm sorry I told about your art project.”

“Why'd you do it?”

“I don't know. I was pissed about the whole Betty Crocker thing.” Her voice was wobbly, as if she was about to cry. “I hate it when you make fun of me.”

I thought about that. Teasing was what older sisters did. And she
was
ridiculous. But I didn't realize it bothered her
that
much. “I'm sorry. And I really didn't mean to spit soup in your face.”

She giggled. “Who knows, maybe it'll be good for my skin.”

The mall was a zoo. There hadn't been this much excitement around here since the county Swamp Cabbage Festival. Every school in the county must have gotten flyers because there were about two hundred kids I didn't recognize. Amazing. All this competition for a job where you exploited yourself and didn't even use your brain.

The long line was clumpy with random groups of people, including my sister and her frosh friends. The biggest clump was in front of the table where the model scouts were sitting. A banner that said
INTERNATIONAL SCOUTING ASSOCIATES
hung over it, with oversize posters of models propped up behind them.

Why was it that whenever I was at the mall I got this sucky anonymous sensation? Like I was a beige stripe in a rainbow. I usually had a who-the-hell-cares attitude about clothes, which was why I was wearing khaki shorts and a black tank top, but looking around at everyone in cool outfits (except for the troop leader/ soccer mom types in their plastic earrings, Christmas sweaters, and waistband-under-the-armpit mom jeans), I was wishing I had a style, any style. Like that goth girl I saw in Hot Topic wearing an Izod shirt with the alligator all cut up and decapitated with hand-painted drops of blood dripping down. I bet she never felt beige.

The Fluff was moving forward in line. She'd overdone it with the makeup; her face was a different color than her neck. And she was nervous, shifting around, adjusting the straps of her long, flowy dress, shuffling the photos she brought with her. She'd made the dress herself, copied it from one she saw on a celebrity in
CosmoGIRL!
My sister might have been the only student at Comet High who actually learned to sew in Domestic Home Skills (aka Desperate Housewife Skills). It was the highest grade she got last semester, a B+, and the only homework I didn't have to help her with. She would have gotten an A but she didn't follow the pattern on her final project. It was supposed to be a basic T-shirt, and she turned it into a wild halter top with a jeweled neckline.

“Allee!” a voice called from behind me. I turned around. It was John, from my humanities class. “You never called me back last night.”

“You called me?”

“Yeah. Sabrina was on the other line. She didn't tell you I called?”

“No. Did you need the list of topics for our papers? They're due Monday.”

“No. I, uh, I called because, I know it was last-minute, but uh…” His ears were turning red. “I just thought, you know, maybe you didn't have plans…. I meant to ask you earlier, but I figured it couldn't hurt to see if you were free….”

Oh. John called to ask me out. On a date
. I hadn't been on a date since last year, when I went out with Lance for a few months.

“…Anyway, I gotta work tonight. But, uh, maybe some other time?”

“Um, sure, that'd be great.” He was cute. Why hadn't I ever noticed the brown hair and green eyes combo? I would have totally gone out with him. We talked for a few minutes until he said something about having to get to his job at the Super Saver and took off toward the parking lot.

Wow. I never even knew he was interested.

Although I would have found out sooner if Sabrina had given me the message. But she hadn't. Because she forgot. Because she was too busy blabbing on the phone all night to her little buddies about what to wear for today. Because Sabrina only cared about Sabrina.

How hard was it to remember to give someone a message? I could have gone out with him last night if I'd known about his phone call. Dinner and a movie, probably. Maybe even a full-throttle make-out session. But no, I was holed up in our shoebox of a room, scrunching up toilet paper into flowers for my art project and researching Neolithic civilizations for my humanities paper.

When I could have been on a date. With John. If my sister had given me the damn message.

I could feel my face getting hot. A knot of anger was twisting my insides.

That selfish, stupid little brat. There she was, near the front of the line, joking around with some guys. One of them would probably ask her out. She got asked out all the time. Not like me.

The knot was spreading, coursing through me. How could she just have
forgotten
to tell me? It wasn't important enough, I guess.
I
wasn't important enough.

One of the guys whispered something in her ear. She pushed him away in a flirty way, smiling up at him.

I was going to kill her.

I didn't even realize I was walking toward her until I bumped into some girl dressed like a Brat doll, knocking her photos to the floor. She shouted “Hey!” as I pushed past her, but I didn't stop. I was fuming more and more with every step. All the people in line were a blur. I shouldered them out of my way, ignoring the whines of “Hey, she's cutting.” Finally, I got to her, right at the front of the line. My hands were balled into fists. “Did I get a phone call last night?” I shouted in her face.

She looked at me with horror. “What are you doing here?”

“A phone call. Did I get one?”

She answered through her trophy smile. “I don't know. Can we like, discuss this later?”

I knew we were being watched by the people behind the table, but I didn't care. “I can't believe you! Your dumb friends were so important you couldn't get off the phone for
one second
to tell me John called?”

“Allee—”

“He called to ask me out.
Me,
not
you
, for once. How could you not tell me?”

“Allee, not now,” she said, still in stiff-lipped ventriloquist mode.

“How many times have I given you your messages, Sabrina? How many times? I always,
always
give you your freaking messages!”

Her smile was gone. She whispered, “Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you, just don't do this now.” Unbelievable. She was still only thinking of herself. I hoped I'd blown this for her. I really did. It would serve her damn self-centered selfish self right.

I was about to storm off when I heard, “Holy handbag, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.” A man wearing blue eyeliner and blue-tinted aviator sunglasses perched on his completely bald head was sitting behind the table. He touched the arm of the man sitting next to him. “Jay, look what the wind blew in.”

“Hallelujah. It's about time,” Jay said. He was African-American, with a platinum blond coif. He smiled up at me. “What's your name, honey?”

Normally if a man had addressed me as “honey” I would have written him off as a sexist Neanderthal, but seeing as this Jay person was, in a sense, one of the girls, the rules didn't apply. Besides, his smile was open and friendly. He looked nice. “Allee,” I said.

“I'm Jay.”

“She's just my sister,” The Fluff said, shouldering me off to the side a little. “I'm Sabrina. Did you see the close-up picture of me?”

“Just a sec, honey.” He looked me up and down, then said to Baldie, “This one's got snap, crackle, pop, all right.”

“Fo sho,” agreed Baldie. “And at least she's not wearing one of those long dresses like all these other girls. Those were like, two years ago in Miami.” Did he momentarily forget about The Fluff standing in front of him wearing one? “I can't wait to get out of the boonies.”

Shame. Shame on my sister's face, painted in salmon-colored splotches all over her cheeks. And shame on me and my total freak-out explosion, stealing her moment. She really wanted to be chosen. She was too innocent to realize this was all bogus.

My rage was gone now, replaced by something else I could only describe as a blood-is-thicker-than-water, sistah-sistah protective instinct. I wanted to tell Baldie that he didn't know anything, that Sabrina Rosen, aka the fresh frosh, was a trendsetter at our school and an A-list hottie whose butt they should have been kissing. I opened my mouth to tell him all that when Baldie grabbed my arm. “Wait. Don't you have any snaps?”

“Snaps?” I asked.

“Snapshots, as in photos,” he answered with clipped precision, the way you speak to a child of the special needs variety. “Where are your pictures?”

“She didn't bring any,” The Fluff said, pushing her way in front of me. “It's mine you want to see, remember?” She tapped on the table where her pictures were scattered. “I know the flyer said to bring two, but I thought you'd have a better perspective of how I photograph with more angles.”

“Mm-hmm,” Jay said to her in the same manner my mother “Mm-hmm”s us when she's pretending she just heard what we said but is really listening to
Oprah
. “Allee, how tall are you?”

“Five eight.”

“No, you're not,” Baldie said, turning to Jay. “She's a bit more. I'll measure her.” He bolted out from behind the table with a measuring tape and got behind me. “Take off your flip-flops. Stand up straight.”

I turned around and stared at him. He stared back. These people were rip-off artists. I mean, hello, he was just capitalizing on insecure young women who were looking for validation through their physical appearance. I should have told him that. Although, from what I could see, this guy had such an attitude, I doubted anyone could tell him anything. I'd have probably had better luck explaining feminism to Hugh Pervner and the staff at
Playboy
.

He waved the measuring tape at me and raised his eyebrows. Oh, what the hell, why not let him measure me? I was here. And honestly, I was kinda curious. Although if Baldie thought I was like one of these suckers in line, he had another think coming.

He measured me from top to bottom. “What about Sabrina?” I asked him.

“Yeah, what about me?” she asked with a nervous laugh. “Hello, hi, I'm the one auditioning.” They totally ignored her.

“About five eight and three-quarters,” Baldie said.

“She's five nine,” Jay said. “What about the rest?”

He wrapped the tape around my hips, waist, and chest. There was a sudden hush from the line, which, of course, happened while he was measuring my chestal area. A growth spurt last summer had surpassed my mammary expectations when I spurted from an A to a C. I noticed Hillary from the corner of my eye, chewing on her lip. No worries, Hills. I was no threat to her bodacious territory.

“Thirty-five, twenty-four, thirty-five,” he said. Flashes went off in my face. Jay was taking pictures with a digital camera. A tingly warmth came over me. These people actually thought I was the prettier one. It was like
Freaky Friday
, only I'd switched places with my sister instead of my mom.

This was so not for real. “Am I being punked?” I asked, glancing around. “Seriously. This is one of those shows, right?”

The Fluff started glancing around. “Yeah, are those sunglasses a hidden camera?”

Jay looked up at her, leaned forward, and quietly told her, “Honey, you're a pretty girl. You might want to try the beauty pageant circuit.”

Uh-oh, knife to the heart. My sister thought beauty pageants were the corniest, most degrading things ever. It was one of the few things we agreed upon. I reached for her hand, but she shook it away. “But look how I photograph. Look at my pictures. You'll see—”

“You're not right for our clients. I'm sorry.”

“But what if I—”

“You're too short,” interrupted Baldie.

“I could do petite modeling.”

“You still need to be five seven for petite modeling.”

“I'm five seven.”

“No, you're not,” Baldie said. “You're a little under five six, probably five five and a half.” How did he know that? She was exactly five five and a half. She'd made me measure her last night. “And the only thing five five is good for is furniture ads or a magician's assistant.”

Jay said, “Forget modeling, Serena. It's not for you. What you should be is an actress/spokesperson. We have a big convention coming up in Las Vegas. Over a hundred talent agents will be there, and the attendance fee is only three hundred dollars. Take a brochure at the end of the table.”

Baldie added, “Bit of advice, though, Precious? Lose all that makeup. Keep it fresh. You're not Christina Aguilera. You're trying too hard, so take it down a notch, more like your sister here, know what I'm saying?”

Her lip was quivering. She wouldn't look at me. She scooped up her pictures and took off.

Baldie gave her a little wave. “Best of luck.”

I made hard eye contact with Baldie. “I can't believe you didn't give her a chance. She's the prettiest girl here.”

“Being pretty and being a model are two different things.”

“Yeah, but she wants to be one really badly.”

“Precious, nobody chooses modeling. It chooses you.”

“Is there someone else who can see us?” some girl whined from down the line.