Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies (5 page)

“Mom, I really don’t know what this is about.” I gestured with the envelope.

She sighed, and the Impatient Crease folded between her eyebrows. “Fine, Celeste. If you want to open it privately, that’s fine. Just let me know what it says.” She turned, back stiff, and marched into the house.

What the heck is this?
My brain wouldn’t make the full picture—I recognized the return address on the envelope, but couldn’t figure out how they found me.

Maybe it’s a coupon,
I thought. But if it was a coupon, why was I still standing on my front lawn, staring at the envelope and afraid to open it? I took a deep breath and slid my index finger under the flap. “Oh!” I blurted. Paper cut. I kissed my finger, licking away the blood. The envelope fluttered to my feet when I removed the contents: pastel-colored stationery and a puff of perfume.

Congratulations, Ms. C. Harris!
said the typed page.

My lungs got confused and stopped working. I couldn’t breathe. I tilted my head to the sky and sucked in a big gulp of air.
It couldn’t have said “you’ve been selected.”
I reread the letter to make sure I read it wrong in the first place.

I hadn’t. There were forms to fill out, a calendar of events, and a brochure with the latest catalog design and a big YOUR FACE HERE where the model would be.

But instead of picturing MY FACE THERE, all I saw were Lively and her posse from school, ponytails bobbing, fingers pointing. And what I heard was more moos.

 

Mom poked her head out of the kitchen as soon as she heard me close the front door, her eyebrows raised in a question mark. I dropped my backpack on the floor.

“I’m a contestant,” I said. My voice sounded as flat as a pancake.

Mom let out a whoop, the kind when Ben hits a home run instead of his head. She swooped me into a squeeze.

“That’s wonderful,” she said. “Everyone will see how special you are.”

Exactly
.

When she finally let me go, she ushered me to the kitchen table, where we both sat and she read the letter herself. Her eyes welled up with tears. “I’m so proud of you, Celeste.”

My heart dropped. I didn’t want to disappoint her, but I couldn’t stand the humiliation of being a HuskyPeach.
How did this day get
worse?

“Mom, really, I didn’t do this. Honest. I didn’t
want
to be part of this. I still don’t.” Being a fat model would just be a new and different way to be tormented at school. But Mom didn’t seem to care. The way she was acting, it was like I was a
real
modeling contestant.

Mom’s eyes turned cloudy and she gave her head a tight shake. “Celeste, what do you mean?
Look
at this.” She gestured at the itinerary and plans. “A fashion show, a photo shoot, and a chance to walk the runway. This is so exciting!”

“I don’t want to do that stuff, Mom.” I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to be a fat model. This wasn’t my plan.” My eyes filled with tears for what felt like the millionth time that day.

“Honey, then why’d you enter?” she said, covering my hand with her own. “You’re a beautiful girl, no matter what your size. You know that’s what your father and I think. You should be proud of this. Not everyone gets this type of opportunity. You will shine.”

Yeah, well not everyone
wants
to be a chubby teen model,
I thought. I wiped my eyes and sniffled. “I didn’t enter. And I don’t feel pretty.”

“You need to think about this. You’ll see, once you get used to the idea you’ll be so excited.” Mom moved from the table. She wasn’t hearing me at all. “Dad will be thrilled for you. We’ll wait and tell him when he gets home.”

“Mom, I don’t know,” I said, imagining the horror of parading across a stage in front of strangers in a Chunky Chick Contest. The picture was terrible. “Mom, I don’t think—” I began, but the ringing phone cut me off. Ignoring my earlier Explosive Yurking, I escaped to the pantry to grab some cookies and force the unpleasant images from my head while Mom reached for the receiver.

“Doreen! You’ll never guess what exciting news Celeste received today.” She stopped me on my way back and nudged me into a chair.

I cringed and stared at the tabletop. Here goes. Mom told her about the envelope, and then there was a long pause. I split a cookie and nibbled at the sugary filling.

“Wha—you what?” I raised my eyes at the surprised tone in her voice. Mom’s eyes danced back and forth between the envelope and me: up, down. Up, down. A short laugh, like a bark, escaped her lips. I put my cookie down. Through the receiver, I could hear Aunt Doreen’s high-pitched voice staccatoing through the conversation.

Mom’s eyes bounced back to me. She covered the receiver with a hand.
Her,
she mouthed.

Huh?
I mimicked Mom’s Questioning Eyebrows from earlier.

She did it,
with a gesture toward the receiver. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she said out loud.

Of course!
It hit me like Ben’s unlucky fly ball. Aunt Doreen was the one who submitted my picture. Aunt Doreen! Instead of responding I stuffed my mouth with a whole cookie.

In the next few minutes, Mom and Aunt Doreen worked out exactly what I should wear for each section of the contest, discussed what would happen when I won, and how it would change my life and theirs. Through the whole thing, I sat at the kitchen table, the Prisoner of the One-Sided Conversation, working my way through a row of Oreos. I stacked the discarded tops and then licked away the sugary filling. Tops and bottoms were eaten last. Each time I tried to flee, Mom’s hand clamped over the receiver and she’d hiss, “Just
wait
. This is so exciting!” When I tried to stand, she actually snagged my elbow and pulled me down again. The worst was when she thrust the phone at me.

“Hi, Aunt—” I never stood a chance of finishing.

“I can’t believe it, Celeste! I mean, of course I do, but it’s so
won
-der-ful. When we saw that ad I thought it would be perfect for Kirsten, but it’s just so great that they liked your look and it’s your shape that they want. There are so many opportunities for you. I just
had
to send in your school picture and that one from Christmas!” Her shrillness made my ears ring. I closed my eyes.

“Uh-huh, hmmm,” I said. I opened my eyes to plead with Mom for rescue. She was too busy looking at the HuskyPeach catalog spread to notice. I concentrated on sweeping the scattered pile of crumbs in front of me into a straight line.

“You must be so excited you don’t know where to begin. I remember when Kathleen did her pageants; it takes time to get used to the idea.”

She really liked them,
I reminded myself. She’s also a size four on a fat day. I haven’t worn a four since I
was
four. My stomach somersaulted.
People are going to be looking at my picture. At
me.
Onstage. Wearing clothes for chubby teens. And Lively will find out.
I nearly choked at the thought. Her current taunts and comments would sound as nice as Theo Christmas’s voice compared to what she’d come up with if I were a HuskyPeach model.

That couldn’t happen. “Okay, Auntie. I’m going to give you back to Mom so I can, uhh, enjoy this moment.” I slid the receiver across the table and left the two of them to finish planning my future.

Instead of enjoying anything, I went upstairs to figure out how I was going to end my modeling career before it began. Ben was sitting on the floor in the hall outside our bedrooms, cleaning gunk from his cleats. The doctor said he couldn’t play baseball for two weeks after his concussion, but when that time was up, he’d be ready to do more damage in the name of outfielding. I stepped over his legs, splayed on the hall rug, and around the stinky shoes. I grasped the bedroom doorknob and paused to catch my breath from the trip up the stairs.

“Most people say hi when they get home from school.” His eyes stayed focused on his cleats.

“Hi.” I waited a beat. “Okay?”

He shrugged. “What was in that envelope? Mom was acting like it was a million dollars or something. She wouldn’t open it, though. She was waiting for you.” He raised his eyes to me.

With all of Ben’s bumps, breaks, and bruises, you’d think he would look lumpy and weird, like that hunchback guy. Little kids must heal really well, because you couldn’t tell he’d broken anything. His dark blond hair hung in his eyes, his nose—busted twice—was still straight, and his green eyes matched the specks in Mom’s. In a kind of gross brother-way, he was a cute kid. Cutest, to tell the truth, when he was bandaged or in a cast. Maybe
he
should be the model.

“Nothing, really.” I twisted the doorknob. “Just some stupid modeling thing that Aunt Doreen signed me up for. I don’t even want to do it.”

He tilted his head like he was listening to something far away. “Modeling, like they take your picture and stuff?” He waited for me to nod. “Yeah, you probably don’t want to do it.” He went back to scraping the bottom of a shoe.

“What’s that supposed to mean,” I asked. “Why wouldn’t I? I could be a model.” I stood straight and smoothed my sweatshirt over my tummy, annoyed that my eight-year-old brother felt so sure that I wouldn’t be interested. And that he was right.

Ben stopped scraping, setting the shoe beside him on the hall floor, and ticked the reasons off on his fingers. “You don’t like having your picture taken, you hate going shopping, and Aunt Doreen made you do it.”

Bull’s-eye. I slouched again. “If it’s so obvious to you, why doesn’t Mom realize it?” I jiggled the knob in frustration.

“Dunno.” He shrugged. “Maybe she’s hoping you’ll change your mind.”

She’d better have a lot of hope
. “Maybe.” I gave the doorknob a final twist and went into my room to take refuge in Theo.

 

During dinner Mom couldn’t stop talking about my new career to Dad and Ben (I finally stopped protesting that I was too young to hold a part-time job, never mind Begin A Career).

“I didn’t even enter the contest,” I said at one point. “Aunt Doreen did. Shouldn’t she be doing this instead of me?”

Mom scowled. “That is not a very nice thing to say, Celeste. You might not appreciate what she did for you now, but when you get older, you’ll realize how important this moment is.”

Doubt it,
I thought, but I knew better than to say any more.

“Besides,” Dad said, patting his belly, “it’s about time that people recognize that being something other than a stick figure is beautiful. No offense, dear,” he added to Mom.

I spent the rest of dinner trying to tune them out and wishing that I could talk to Sandra. She had an evening meeting for her traveling soccer team, and her parents wouldn’t let her use the phone or computer until her homework was done. So I went to my room in search of solace.

Just me and you tonight,
I said to Theo. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much to say about the HuskyPeach.

You’re great just being you,
he told me.

“Wish everyone else felt that way,” I muttered in response.

“MOOOVE IT, SPEW!” A book corner scraped my shoulder as I was shoved to the side of the hall. “No cows allowed!” The day after my Yurk Fest was proving to be a Celeste-Taunting Lively Bonanza. Her hair swung past before I could think of a response.

I slumped into a seat in Mrs. O’Brien’s Language Arts class. Beside me, Sandra doodled on her notebook. It was the first time I’d seen her all morning.

“Hey,” she said. “How’re you feeling?”

For a minute, I thought she was talking about the HuskyPeach. Then I remembered.

“Fine, but something else—” The tardy bell cut me off, and as it finished, Lively slid into the room. Language Arts was the one class where we didn’t have assigned seating, and the only unoccupied desk was behind me.
Great.

“Take a seat, Ms. Carson,” Mrs. O’Brien directed.

Lively strutted down our row and thumped into the chair behind me. Mrs. O’Brien started talking about the theme of power in
The Lord of the Flies
.

“Hey! Sandra!” Lively hissed. I hunched my shoulders at the sound.
What did she want Sandra for, anyway?
Sandra never talked during class, so I expected Lively to tire herself out whispering.

“Ms. Carson? You seem interested in talking today.”

I stared straight ahead, trying not to be seen. Lively didn’t respond.

“My answer?” Mrs. O’Brien said.

“Can you repeat the question?” Lively used a sweet voice. Mrs. O’Brien was about Language Arts, not sweetness. Behind her glasses, her eyes narrowed.

“You heard me. Or should have. Conch shell. Significance.” She made a “come on” gesture with one hand.

“Oh. Yeah.” I could tell Lively was stalling. “Urm, Celeste and I were just talking about that this morning, actually. Right, Celeste?”

I don’t know who was more surprised, Mrs. O’Brien, the rest of the class, or me. My classmates’ eyes slid in my direction, waiting to see how I’d respond.

“You were?” Mrs. O asked.

No!
I shouted in my head. What came out was, “Well, not exactly . . .”

Mrs. O’Brien stepped toward our seats. “Ms. Carson, I’m afraid Ms. Harris seems to have forgotten your conversation. Please enlighten her and the rest of us as to the conch shell’s significance.”

Embarrassment and anger were coming off Lively in waves.
Gotcha,
I thought, even though I knew I’d have to pay for this moment eventually.