Halfway Perfect (3 page)

“Sure am,” I say. “Where do you want to go?”

“I've always loved NYU. My parents met there. Can you imagine taking out four years of student loans for NYU tuition and with no high-paying corporate job planned?”

Actually, I have calculated student loans for Columbia's steep tuition, and I only got to adding five years of interest and payments before nearly passing out. “You'd have to be really passionate about your studies.

She laughs really hard. “Exactly. Which is why I'm here. My dad says he'll get a loan or figure out something, but I don't want to put that burden on him. Not if I have a way to make my own money. What's a year in the long run anyway, right?”

Clearly we have very different families. Her dad wants to bend over backward for her, and my parents prefer to live on their daughter's modeling checks.

“Where's the perky blond girl?” Frankie shouts, turning slowly around the room.

“Finley,” Janessa says with her eyes still on the monitor.

Finley nods toward Janessa, flashing me another smile. “See why I like her?”

Finley walks over to set, again pausing by Alex. The two of them chat for a few seconds and he pulls out his phone again and punches in a number.
H
er number.

I let out a breath and then close my eyes, this time getting a full four minutes of calming solitude before being interrupted again.

“They're still talking about you and your paparazzi moves over there.” Alex laughs softly. “And I thought today would be boring as hell.”

Alex is the only person in the room to recognize me, and he doesn't seem to be in a rush to spread the gossip, so I decide it's safe to talk to him. “Glad I could entertain you with my humiliation.”

I smile to myself. It's just like Janessa said, find something good to use as a focal point and leave the destruction in the background. Guess I don't need to go too far to learn that lesson.

“What's so funny?” he asks me.

“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Today is royally fucked up. And after a certain level of fucked-upism, it becomes funny.”

“Fucked-upism,” Alex repeats. “Is that a real word?”

“Yeah, they teach it at Columbia. It's in the Ivy League dictionary.”

Alex laughs and our eyes meet for a second before we shift our gaze toward Elana, who is getting a new outfit for the next set of photos.

“You know, I bet Elana is pretty entertaining,” I say, just to test him. Maybe I'm flirting. I'm not sure, but it's kind of nice, whatever it is. He's nice and nice to look at too.

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, totally. I'm thinking about surprising her with One Direction tickets.”

“Very age appropriate,” I say, surprised by his sarcasm. “It has been quite a day for you, hasn't it? You've been the center of the gossip, got to aid in my humiliation, solved a crucial fashion industry mystery,
and
got digits from the hot blond model.”

He scratches the back of his head, confused for a second, before glancing toward set, then back at me. “You mean Finley? I didn't get her number to ask her out or anything.”

I have no idea why I even brought this up, but at least we're not talking about Eve Castle. “Why not? She's nice. She might be the only nice person here.”

Alex's eyebrows lift and he leans against the wall beside me, lowering his voice. “I know she's nice. I've worked with her before. Plus we run into each other at the gym all the time. But that girl's got a fortress around her. I guess because you're a chick you can't see it.”

I look over at Finley, as if expecting to see an actual barrier surrounding her. Does that mean I don't have a fortress? If Alex mentioned hers, then I must not have one. “A fortress, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says like it's common knowledge. He's talking about another girl but his eyes are glued to mine. It's the kind of stare that makes me blush. “My guess is she's either Mormon or she's one of those girls who's happily in love. Probably had the same boyfriend since seventh grade or something.”

“You've thought about this a lot?” I ask, teasing. Yes, teasing. Which is a type of flirting. My outgoing sophomore roommate, Stephanie, would be proud if she could see me right now. Actually, she'd probably be wedging herself between me and shirtless Alex. Can't say I'd blame her.

He shrugs, completely shameless. “It's always good to analyze people's potential motivations.”

“If I were you, I'd be analyzing the reason why everyone here seems to think you and the One Direction lunch-box carrier over there are an item.” I wave my hands out in front of him, tracing an imaginary box. “I'm seeing a fortress around you when it comes to Elana.”

Alex turns serious again and lowers his voice. “How did you know her age? I'm not even supposed to know.”

“Honestly, just a lucky guess. I started modeling at fourteen, and I remember how it was to play it down or up. But she looks fourteen when she doesn't think anyone is watching.”

Alex's gaze stays on mine. “Yeah, I think you're right.”

I'd rather be wrong. I'd rather Elana be eighteen or even sixteen, but honestly, I'm going to leave here in a couple of hours and, I hope, never see these people again.

Though, now that I know he's nice, I wouldn't object to an occasional billboard sighting of Alex in boxer briefs.

October 2, 11:20 a.m.

Okay, so I got totally curious despite my noble declaration to Eve about not believing tabloid lies, and I gave myself sixty seconds to quickly scroll through the search results still open on my phone before I walked over to talk to her. The headlines alone provided a sea of information…

Teen
Model
Sensation
Disappears
the
Day
Before
Shooting
Huge
Gucci
Campaign

Design.com

Sixteen-year-old star model Eve Castle must have taken a hard hit to the head or swallowed a handful of crazy pills. After beating veterans and newcomers alike to win over top Gucci designers and execs for a career-launching campaign, she's vanished from New York, and the label is now scrambling to replace her and prep for their shoot tomorrow…

Diva
Model
Leaves
Designers
Empty-Handed

Vogueonline.com

Eve Castle is nowhere to be found, and
Vogue
was unable to get a statement from her agency, One Model Management…

Runaway
Teen
Model
Suspected
to
Have
Checked
Herself
Into
Drug
Rehab

Fashionreporter.com

Insiders are reporting that the young star who abandoned Gucci earlier this week is, in fact, suffering from addiction and is now residing in an unknown drug rehab facility…

One
Model
Management
Makes
Statement
on
Teen
Client's Behalf: Is There Such a Thing as Too Young in the World of
Fashion?

New York Times

Wes Danes, the agent who's responsible for launching teen model Eve Castle's career, says he was just as astonished by the sixteen-year-old's disappearance as we all were. “If she was having problems, I wish she would have come to me first,” Danes says. The agency's head, Josh Valentine, was not as kind as Danes. “Yes, I'll admit, there were early signs of a breakdown…she'd become unstable and an emotional train wreck but we saw no evidence of drug use or eating disorders…if we had, of course we would have contacted her parents and gotten her help,” Valentine says. “None of us want to see a young girl fall like that…the agency takes every precaution to protect these girls.”

A
One-On-One With Teen Model Sensation Eve Castle

Seventeen.com

She's only fifteen years old, but already she's managed to snag the attention of designers like Prada, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren…
Seventeen
editor Jillian Martin sat down to talk to the young star about how she got started and what she's experienced so far in the world of fashion…Jillian even talked her into sharing some of her photos from her summer in Europe, and
Seventeen
was so impressed we've included them in this issue along with Eve Castle's candid and enlightening responses…

The last headline I've actually seen before, and it's the reason Eve looked familiar to me today. A couple of months ago, I was at a cocktail party at
Seventeen
's office, and I didn't know anyone there except Wes, so when he walked away to talk to someone, I got bored and scanned the cover photos plastered all over the hallways, one of which featured a younger me. Some girl walked up beside me and pointed to the issue next to mine and started rambling on and on about a girl who bailed on Gucci and hasn't been seen since. But I couldn't remember the name of the girl. Plus, the picture I saw of Eve on that cover was a much younger version of the girl at the shoot today, which is why it didn't click instantly.

So, of course, I had to talk to her and see if I could fill in the missing gaps. Now I'm in the middle of a conversation with Eve Castle—correction—Eve Nowakowski. Who I now can label as the last female model Wes Danes ever represented. I bet he lost a bunch of contacts when she bailed, burned some bridges and couldn't make up for it on the girl front and had to switch to repping guys. Good for me, I guess. But they were talking earlier. That must have been tense.

“What exactly are you doing here?” I ask Eve, still deciding if I'm going to turn this conversation into flirting. She's given me tiny hints of it, but nothing obvious and over the top. But solving the mystery is throwing a cloak over any other objectives. “If you're trying to hide, this isn't exactly the best place.”

“No shit.” She closes her eyes and lets out a breath before opening them again. “It's just the way my life goes, I guess. The second I think I've got everything figured out, I'm at a photo shoot for
Seventeen
. Janessa is a former student of one of my professors, and he thought I might like to observe her for this artist profile paper I'm writing.”

“And you had no idea where that observation would take place,” I finish for her.

“If I had known, I would have made up a really good excuse.”

The conversation is halted when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Even though I don't usually do phone calls on a job, I glance at it quickly and see the name: Katie.

My little sister.

“Hey,” I say to Eve. “Can you cover for me for a minute? Just say I'm in the bathroom.” I figure she'll go along with it, considering what I know about her.

I dive behind the wall Eve and I had just been leaning against and answer my sister's phone call, though I don't know why she didn't just text me like she usually does. At least five times a day.

“Katie, what's up?”

“I need a favor,” she says, almost whispering.

I'm immediately suspicious. “Are you calling from school?”

“Yeah. I need you to get me out of advanced algebra,” she says, sounding a little louder and a little more desperate. “It's social suicide, and you know Mom won't listen to me. All you have to do is call my counselor and say you're Dad—”

“No.”

“Please, Alex…
please
…I'll write and mail all your birthday and Mother's Day cards for the next four years…
please.
”

I feel the tiniest bit of sympathy for her because she must really not want to be in that class, but I'm still not doing it. “Why don't you ask Brad? He's the expert on cheating and forgery.”

“Because he's not my favorite brother,” Katie says.
Manipulative
little
suck-up
. “Like Brad and Jared know anything about social suicide. They've never even been in the general vicinity of it.”

True. But I'm slightly offended that I don't get the same label. “I'm not even sure you deserve to be in advanced math. You obviously haven't thought this through. All the school phones have caller ID, and don't you think your counselor will be suspicious of your dad calling from a New York City area code? Plus, what are you going to tell Mom and Dad when it's report card time and your grade is for the wrong class?”

“You suck,” she says with a groan.

“Sorry.” I smile down at the floor, trying to keep it out of my voice. “Go back to your nerd math class. I promise you, in four years the threat of social suicide will be completely dissipated.”

“I hate you.”

I laugh. I can't help it. “I know. But can we talk about how much I suck later? I'm working right now. I thought someone died. That's the only reason I answered the phone.”

“You're working? Where? For who?”

“It's just a shoot for
Seventeen
.”

“Oh my God, that's awesome. What issue?” She's temporarily forgotten to hate me for not lying and cheating for her. Honestly, if I actually thought it would have worked, I'd have considered it. It's not like she's dropping out. And in our high school, smart math
is
kind of social suicide. At least for someone like Katie who's already on the cusp of dork status due to being a bit of a shrimp, plus glasses and braces.

“I'm not sure which issue. I'll let you know when I find out. Now go to class and learn something—like how to do my taxes.
That
would be useful.”

I hang up before she can call me an asshole. When I walk around the wall to the other side, Eve is still standing in the same spot.

She smiles at me. “Do I even want to know what that was about?”

“Just a distressed high school freshman trying to avoid the nerd label.” I don't know why I'm telling her this. Normally I'd make up something, but she probably heard enough anyway. “God, I'm glad I don't have to deal with that shit anymore.”

“What? High school?” she asks.

I nod.

“Yeah, me too.”

“But you're in college. Is it that different?” I honestly don't know if it's the same or not. Last April, when I turned eighteen, I'd already been going back and forth between Nebraska and New York since the middle of junior year and knew I wanted to model full time and drop out. My parents made me get my GED first, so I studied like crazy from January to April and aced it on the first try. It was probably more studying than I'd ever done in all of high school and middle school combined. I never even looked at colleges like a lot of my friends had been doing junior and senior year.

“College is completely different,” Eve says. “Especially if you compare Columbia to my high school, where we're lucky to have a handful of students actually leave the state of Indiana for college.”

“So basically everyone at Columbia suffered through the nerd math in high school.”

“Everyone,” she says with a nod.

“You know, the hiding-out plan might have worked better at Yale or Princeton or… Where else is Ivy League?”

“Harvard, Stanford,” she says with a laugh. “And you're totally right, but I saw the campus when I first came to New York, and I knew that's where I wanted to go. It's so worth it.”

We get interrupted by Janessa calling her over. When Eve walks off, I glance up for the first time in several minutes and notice a bunch of eyes suddenly diverting their attention from me to something else.

What the hell is going on with these people today?

The weirdness is enough to cause me to pull out my phone and send a text to Wes.

ME
:
Everyone seems to be under the impression that Elana and I are an
item?

WES
:
Just ignore it. Don't deny it
either.

ME
: Okay??

WES
:
Let's have a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss your schedule. 9 a.m.

ME
:
Sure

Something is up. I decide to walk closer to set and see how long until my next turn.

I hear Janessa say to Eve, “If you're really trying for the Mason scholarship—”

“I am,” Eve interrupts as if declaring her honorable duty to serve her country at war.

“All right,” Janessa says. “Then you'll need an assistantship with someone, and my name might be impressive on that letter of recommendation.”

“Oh my God,” Eve mumbles. “Seriously? That would be—”

“It's not a paying job, but it will be worth the slave labor if you win a scholarship for next year. And you get to spend the summer studying in Paris,” Janessa says with her I-don't-really-care-either-way attitude, such a contrast to Eve's elation.

“When can I start?”

Janessa laughs and shouts out some direction before answering Eve. “How about next Monday morning? I'm still working out some details with the clients I've booked next week, so I'll have someone email you the schedule. It's either a shoot for Calvin Klein or a week of editing lookbook photos.”

Eve's face temporarily fills with alarm, but she wipes it clean before Janessa even looks up. Maybe she can't start next week? Or it's the mention of Calvin Klein. And what's the deal with this scholarship, anyway?

Now I'm even more curious. Not so much about Eve Castle but more so about Eve Nowakowski. Though I do see why she went the fake name route. Nowakowski's quite a mouthful.

I get sent back to wardrobe a few minutes later, and then Elana and I spend a good forty-five minutes embracing and looking in love for all those teenyboppers reading
Seventeen
. After those shots are finished, I end up beside Eve again while she sits on the floor taking notes.

For a long time, I watch her pen move in a circular motion as she fills the bottom of a page with tiny slanted cursive. Instead of flipping to the next blank page, she closes her notebook and looks over at me. “So was that your sister on the phone earlier? Or another fourteen-year-old girlfriend?”

My forehead scrunches up, trying to process the questions inside questions. “I don't have a girlfriend.”

Shit. Wes told me not to deny it. Too late now. Although I kind of killed that lie when I made the One Direction concert comment.

“I know. I'm just messing with you. I don't have any siblings, so the whole brother/sister thing is pretty fascinating to me.” She's now begun the process of taking her camera apart.

“I also have two older brothers.”

“How much older?” Eve asks.

“Bradley is twenty, and Jared's twenty-two,” I say.

“What do they do?”

No one's ever this curious about my family. “What do you mean? Like are they models too?”

She rolls her eyes. “I mean are they in school? Married? Working? In prison?”