Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies (7 page)

“ ‘Spew’ is right,” I muttered. Oh yeah: And a model’s best friend did not ditch her to talk to Lively Carson. No matter what Lively said about Robbie Flan. I’d had enough of the mirror, so I tugged on my pajamas without glancing at my reflection or my body and sat on the bed.

How could Aunt Doreen do this to me? Just because Kathleen was in pageants, and Kirsten wouldn’t/couldn’t do it, why was I next in line? And what were these Peach-people thinking when they saw my pictures? They must not have gotten a lot of entries.

Between my New Career, New Nickname, and Best Friend’s New Friend, this was shaping up to be a winner of a day. The shred of hope that there was a Secret Plot to Destroy Lively was small, but I held on as tightly to that as my mother did to the idea that I could win the Modeling Challenge.

“STOP PULLING AT it,” Mom said. “You’ll stretch the fabric.”

I scowled. “It’s too tight.” I tugged at the front of the blue shirt she’d forced me to try on. We’d been at the mall for nearly two hours trying to find something for me to wear to Kathleen’s rehearsal dinner. So far, I’d been subjected to sausage-shaped dresses, bubble skirts, and a couple pair of shapeless pants. Nothing fit right, looked right, or was the right length for my stubby legs. It was hard to tell who was more exasperated, Mom or me.

“It looks
nice
on you,” she tried. “You can’t see it from my perspective. It shows your shape and is so much better than those awful sweatshirts. Go look in the mirror.”

“I don’t like it,” I said. “I’m not comfortable.” The pile of discarded clothes in the dressing room was large enough to lose a small child in.
I might’ve tried on everything in the store,
I thought. Nothing felt as good as my hoodie and track pants. Everything was Not-Celeste—trying too hard and doing too little with too much.

Mom threw her hands up. “Fine. We’re done here,” she said. “We’ve both been tortured enough for one day. Get dressed.” She must have seen the relief spread across my face, because she added, “
You
can tell your aunt that you have nothing to wear to your cousin’s rehearsal dinner.”

“The wedding isn’t for seven weeks,” I said, closing the dressing room door. I wriggled out of the blue shirt.

“Oh good. More shopping,” she said from the other side. Back in my typical uniform, I followed her out of the store, wondering which of us would cave in first next time.

 

“We won’t be much longer,” Mom said, navigating the flow of fellow shoppers. “I just want to find a treat for Ben—something to cheer him up while he gets over his concussion. And we need to get Coach Anapoli’s shoes.”

I groaned. After finding out about my Yurk Geyser trick, Mom wanted me to give Coach Anapoli a new pair of sneakers to apologize.

“We don’t even know her size,” I said, trying to distract her and hurrying to keep up with her pace. The only thing more embarrassing than throwing up on a teacher’s shoes, I was convinced, was bringing said teacher a new pair to replace the ones that had been, um, soiled.

My comment made her pause. “Good point,” she said, giving me a curt nod. “We’ll just get her a gift card so she can pick them out herself.”

I gave up.

We reached the Catch ’N’ Kick. Mom beelined for the baseball stuff and I leaned against a big bin of tennis balls to wait. To occupy myself, under my breath I sang along with the mall-music version of Theo Christmas’s “Last Night” being pumped through the store’s speakers. In my head, Theo was complimenting my version, asking me if I wanted to sing a duet with him.

“Hey Celeste.”

Startled, I spun to see the voice’s owner. Geoff, Sandra’s brother.

“Hey,” I said. I could feel my cheeks turning pink. Geoff and Kirsten went to high school together, and even though I’d known him as long as I’d known Sandra, it wasn’t like I was one of his friends or anything. He was nice—he’d say hi when I was hanging out with Sandra at the McGees’—but that was the extent of our interaction. However, his dark eyes and sandy hair, plus strong shoulders and friendly attitude, made him the object of desire of the entire sophomore class. And then some.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked.

“Getting something for my brother,” I said. He kept watching me, and I didn’t know what else to say. “What are you getting?”

“Paid,” he said, and laughed. My face burned. I hadn’t noticed his green polo shirt, whistle, and name tag. Behind him, at the store entrance, I spotted a collection of blond ponytails hovering around a display. Giggles floated in our direction.

“Oh.” “Last Night” ended, and a pop song I didn’t recognize took its place.

Geoff smiled, flashing dimples. “It’s okay. I just started last week.”

“All set,” Mom said, saving me from having to think of another response. She clutched a green Catch ’N’ Kick bag. “Ben’s got a new glove, and Coach Anapoli can have her pick of sneakers.”

Before Geoff could ask the question displayed on his face, Mom continued.

“Hi, Geoff,” she said. “You work here now?” He nodded. The blond group was still at the front of the store. The giggles got louder, and I stopped paying attention to Mom and Geoff’s conversation. One ponytail separated itself from the rest and bopped its way through the racks of sports gear, headed straight for us. As it moved from behind a display, I saw that the ponytail was attached to Carlee Morgenstern, Former Hair Experimenter.
Guess she learned her style lesson,
I thought. Her face glowed with terror or excitement, or maybe a mix of both. She saw me and paused, then took small, jerky steps in our direction again.
If Carlee’s here, Lively’s here.
My stomach tightened.

Mom and Geoff were peering into the bag at the glove.

“That’s a good one,” Geoff said, nodding. Carlee stepped closer.

“Um,” she said, in a voice so low I could barely hear her.

Geoff was explaining the virtues of glove stitching.

Carlee cleared her throat. “Um,” she tried again, a little louder.

This time Geoff glanced up. When he turned to her, Carlee froze.

“Can I help you?” he asked, when it became obvious that she wasn’t going to do anything but stand there. The blond ponytails at the front of the store went silent.

“Um,” she tried, and glanced back from where she came. “Um, someone over there needs help?” she said, raising the last word as though asking a question.

Geoff’s eyes darted in the direction of the blondes. When he saw the group, he rolled his eyes. “Be right there,” he mumbled to Carlee. She scampered back to the herd. Squeals ensued.

“Duty calls,” Mom said. “Thanks for the information about the glove. Ben will be thrilled.”

Geoff nodded. “He’ll like it. See ya,” he directed at me as he went to help his next customers.

Mom and I trailed behind, and by the time we reached the front of the store, Geoff stood in the center of a Ponytail Circle, describing different types of soccer cleats on a rack to the now-attentive group. I caught Lively’s glare—and her perfect lips mouthing the words
solar eclipse
in my direction. I stared at the ground. I didn’t need to see any more.

TWO DAYS LATER, the solution to my Peachy problem presented itself in, of all places, gym class. Coach Anapoli instructed us to sit in the shower area. Light brown stains splotched her sneakers. The apology gift card was still stuffed deep in my backpack; I hadn’t figured out what to say when I gave it to her.

“We are adding new curriculum this year,” she said, twirling her whistle. “Since you girls are getting older, and the science classes have to deal with getting you ready for standardized tests, we had to make some changes to what we usually do in gym.”

“Oh God,” murmured Sandra, sitting in front of me, “please, please,
please
don’t let it be sex ed.”

Next to me, Katy and Millie shuddered.

Coach cleared her throat to silence the whispers that echoed off the tiles. “We are going to begin a classroom-based unit on nutrition,” she stated. “For two weeks, alternating with soccer sessions, we will examine what we eat and how food affects our bodies.” A ripple of relief, almost as visible as a sporting arena wave, swept through the room. Then, as Coach Anapoli began explaining about our food logs and materials, it came to me:
I could go on a diet.

Right, I know—like this had never occurred to me before. Truthfully, until starting AlHo as a sixth grader, I’d never even thought about my weight. In elementary school, there was plenty of other stuff to worry about—what to bring for lunch, a do-it-yourself haircut gone wrong, accidentally calling the teacher “Mom”—just getting the hang of school was hard enough. And once I started AlHo, I stayed focused on what mattered—doing well and getting through the day. The Diet Drink of Horror had been my first—and most definitely my
last
—attempt at magic weight loss.

If I lose weight, I can’t be a HuskyPeach,
I reasoned. The irony was striking: I’d be too thin to be a model. I made sure to take a copy of each of the handouts Coach sent around the room, then tuned her voice out as I examined the USDA Food Guide Pyramid brochure.

“Hey,” the snide voice interrupted my planning. “Dreaming about your next meal? Class is over.” The blond ponytail bounced out of the showers.

“She shouldn’t be saying that,” said a soft voice to my left. Sandra stood, hugging her books, shaking her head at Lively. “She’s really not like that when—”

“When you’re spending hours on the phone together,” I finished. “Yeah, I’m sure she’s great.”

“
San
-dy!” Lively sang from around the corner. “Let’s go-oh.”

“Sandy?” I repeated. Sandra hated to be called Sandy.

Sandra gave me a small smile and shrugged. “She likes it. She also told me that Robbie might sit with her at lunch this week. Do you think he will?” “Sandy” hustled out of the locker room to catch up without waiting for my response.

I brought the now-familiar hurt to my locker, where I’d stashed my bag at the beginning of class. Katy and Millie perched on the bench between the rows, waiting for me.

“What’s up with her?” Millie asked, wrapping a lock of her thick, dark hair around her finger. She was wearing her “Fabulous & Filipino” pink hoodie as her Favorite Color Item of the Day. For some reason, people think she’s quieter than she is. Maybe because she’s short? In reality, she’s got this loud laugh and makes a lot of jokes. It surprises people. But there was no hint of a joke in her question about Lively.

“She always says stuff like that.” I shrugged and bent to twist my combination into the lock.

“Not Lively,” Katy explained. “Sandra. She’s been following Lively around like a puppy.” Logical and thoughtful, Katy uses her science brain for problems outside the classroom too. She observes how people act and treat one another, then makes predictions about how they’ll behave in the future—like when our seventh-grade English teacher’s eye started doing this funny twitch in class, Katy kept saying that teaching wasn’t for her and she was heading for a meltdown. One day, she left after second-period break and never came back. Unfortunately, I didn’t need much logic to predict my best friend’s behavior these days.

I tugged my bag out and straightened. “I don’t know,” I said, and slid the nutrition handouts into the front pocket, taking care not to rumple them. We started toward the door. “Ever since Lively went to tryouts for her soccer team, Sandra’s been saying how nice she is. And how close she is to Robbie Flan.”

“She’s never nice to
you,
” Millie pointed out, “and Robbie’s kind of a jerk.”

“Mm-hmm,” I said.
Tell me something I don’t know, okay?

“What does Sandra say about it?”

How could I tell Millie that Sandra didn’t
say
anything about it? That she barely called last week? That every time I called
her,
she rushed through our conversation and didn’t seem to notice that all we talked about was homework? Or Robbie Flan, and what Lively
thought
he
might
have said or done. That I hadn’t seen her out of school lately because Lively’s mom always picked them up after practice and took them for ice cream? That at night, the loneliness was getting so bad that I did extra-credit homework assignments so I wouldn’t have to think about Sandra? That I was pretty sure I was losing my best friend to my worst enemy?

“Look,” Katy said as we stopped in front of the main hall, saving me from answering, “we’ll talk about this more tomorrow. I’ve gotta study for my afternoon chem test on my way to the orthodontist. My mom’s outside.”

We wished her luck, and Millie promised to call that night to see how it went. Katy and Millie had been best friends forever. They went to the same nursery school and were in their elementary school Gifted and Talented program together. Sandra and I got to know them our first year at AlHo. The warning bell buzzed.

“See you,” Millie said, turning toward the math wing and ending our conversation. Relieved, I waved and went to algebra.

Concentration was hard to come by in the rest of my morning classes. I kept thinking of the food log and nutrition guide in my backpack.
That’s it,
I thought.
Just lose enough weight so that they won’t want me to be their model.
The plan seemed so easy. Carrot sticks. Pita bread. I thought of every diet food I’d ever seen advertised. I imagined the woman in the red bathing suit from the Diet Drink of Horror recipe, shaking her head, saying, “It’s no good. She’s too thin to be a HuskyPeach,” in front of a panel of judges.

I couldn’t wait to tell Sandra about my plan and the HuskyPeach at lunch, but when I met her at her locker she was excited about something else.

“Robbie Flan is going to sit at Lively’s table
today,
” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement. “She said I could sit with them too. Is that okay? ’Cause if you don’t want me to, I won’t.” She stopped bouncing and her head drooped when she said that last part.