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“Yeah, something like that,” I mumbled.

“Well, I haven’t seen the billboard, but I told my cousin, Bee doesn’t order takeout every night anymore. She’s got a life,” he said.

I paid for the order and gave him a twenty-dollar tip.

“You’re not ordering every day is bad for business but good for Bee,” Dewei said. “Maybe you order every once in a while. Like tonight. For old times’ sake.”

“Yep, old times’ sake,” I said as I locked the door behind Dewei.

I took the takeout container into the kitchen and put it in the blue and white Chinese bowl that Chela had bought for me as a gift from Pearl River market.

“If you’re going to eat takeout, then at least put it in a nice bowl,” she had said. “Food tastes better when it’s not eaten out of cardboard and plastic foam.”

And she was right. I crawled into bed and flipped on Turner Classic Movies. Believe it or not, they were playing Flashdance. I thought, Maybe my life hasn’t all gone to hell in a handbasket, like my aunt Zo always said. But despite the fact that Jennifer Beals was dancing like a “maniac, maniac on the floor,” I sensed that things weren’t going to go as well for me.

It was like when I was a kid and my father used to take me to this bowling alley in Philly that had really old video games. I loved to play Mrs. Pacman, and sometimes, I could make one quarter last for hours. But inevitably, there came a point when my luck ran out, and I always hated the moment when that bright blue message came on-screen: Game Over. Could I have really lost my modeling career and my best friend in one fell swoop just like that? Was it really game over?

23

Plan Bee

Except
for going to class and stopping by the student union for smoothies or falafel, I pretty much spent the next few days in my pajamas watching movies. To Catch a Thief came on, and I finally got what the Bond Number 9 director meant when she wanted me to portray a Hitchcock blonde. But every time I watched Grace Kelly drive around the Italian Riviera in that super-cute car, all I could think about was Brian and how he’d smashed up the car and finished off the job of ruining my life that Savannah Hughes had started.

I called the Chesterfield Agency to see if they had any bookings for me, but Leslie didn’t even get on the phone. Her managing director, Caroline, basically gave me a polite version of “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Which, as you can imagine, really sucked.

I was really, really tempted to ease the pain by sticking my face into a barrel of Häagan-Dazs. I got up and made myself a cup of green tea, which I ate with exactly two Fig Newtons. Brian was wrong. I was not fat. I had the potential to be fat, and if I skipped one more session with my trainer, Jenisa, then it would be a slippery slope. But I planned to pick up with her on Monday. Even if I didn’t get any more modeling gigs. I liked the girl I saw every time I took a taxi through Times Square (I have to admit, I always requested that route, no matter where I was going). I was a curvaceous babe, and I had every intention of staying that way.

That said, I really, really didn’t want to go out. But that Friday night, Prageeta and her fiancé, Hanif, were hosting an engagement party at the Mandarin Oriental hotel near Central Park. I called my aunt Zo to see if she wanted to go with me, but she had a show. I was tempted to call Chela, but I didn’t want her to think I was using her. So I decided to go by myself. I’d make a quick appearance, say hello to the Baby Phat girls, then be back at home, and in my pj’s, by the 11 p.m. movie, which I happened to know was going to be
Mystic Pizza
, which kinda rocks.

The party was a masked ball, so after my last class, I stopped at a costume shop on Broadway and got a kitty-eye mask and glued a hot pink bindi to the center of it. I was wearing a white tank top with a glittery design and a long hot pink skirt and glittery sandals. Prageeta is always saying, “Pink is the navy blue of India,” so I figured I’d fit in just fine.

I took a cab to the hotel lobby, where two men in tuxedos were holding clipboards. I gave them my name, and they ushered me in.

Another doorman led me to a private elevator and hit the button that said Penthouse. When the doors opened, we were in the penthouse itself. There were huge floor-to-ceiling windows, and there must have been two hundred people milling about. I spotted the Baby Phat girls immediately. It helps that models are tall when you’re scanning a super-crowded room. Elsie and Melody were in a corner near a giant piano. When I got closer, I saw that Diana Krall was playing it.

“It’s Diana Krall,” Elsie whispered.

“That’s pretty cool,” I whispered back.

I asked where Prageeta was. Melody laughed and gestured to the corner, where Prageeta was talking to Bill Clinton.

“That is the former president of the United States,” I said, in a painful elaboration of the obvious.

“You think?” Elsie said, laughing.

“Go over and say hello; I know she’ll want to see you,” Mel said.

“No way,” I said. “I’m not going to interrupt Bill Clinton.”

“Well, I will,” Elsie said, grabbing my arm. Did I mention that Bill Clinton is also on Elsie’s list of top-ten favorite people? I was beginning to think that if we stayed at this party long enough, we’d hit all ten.

“I’m going to throw the bouquet right at my girls,” Prageeta said. She looked gorgeous in a purple sari halter top and a long skirt embroidered with purple and green peacocks.

“Me? I’m only seventeen!” I said.

“In India, girls get married even younger,” Prageeta said.

“At this point, I’d settle for a great boyfriend,” I explained.

“School first, career second, boyfriend third,” Elsie said. “Let’s go check out the sunset.”

“Yes, the terrace is magnificent,” Prageeta said.

I gave her another hug.

“I love my Baby Phat girls,” I said.

“And we love you right back,” she answered before Hanif whisked her away.

I was talking to Elsie about whether facials really help your skin. She swears by them, but Melody won’t let anyone near her face. Then Elsie saw number nine on her top-ten list of favorite people, Jon Stewart.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

“No problem,” I said.

They were serving canapés on the terrace, and a champagne fountain spouted the bubbly stuff as if it were water. But the main item on the menu was New York itself.

It’s so easy when you’re in the midst of things to think of New York as this gray, ugly mess—especially when it’s winter or raining and you’re stuck on the subway on the smelliest car ever and it seems like there’s trash everywhere and all the really nice places have tuxedoed doormen, like the ones downstairs, who you think will never, ever let you in. But when you do get in—to a fancy party or even just to the observation deck on the Empire State Building after you’ve been standing in line for hours—you can stand from someplace high up and see that the city is magic. Pure magic.

I watched the boats along the Hudson, the people skating, running, and walking through Central Park, and I wondered, Did I use up my share of the magic? Does everyone get a little box: a few nights of dancing salsa with a friend like Chela, listening to Kevin talk about Cantor’s theory of sets in Starbucks, then seeing his album debut at number one on the Billboard charts, getting my own moment of the spotlight as a Baby Phat Girl. Was I greedy to want more? To want it all?

I was thinking about it, taking it all in, when I noticed that Prageeta was standing next to me.

“Look at this view,” she said, leaning on the railing. “I’m going to miss New York.”

She and Hanif were moving to London, where he had this big-time career as a novelist.

“So you’re just going to give modeling up completely?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It was never my calling or anything. It was just something fun to do while I waited for my grown-up life to begin.”

“But doesn’t it make you feel grown up? The creativity of the designers, the amazing places we get to travel, seeing your picture in a magazine or on TV?” I asked. I know I sounded superficial, but the more I talked about it, the more I realized how much I’d fallen in love with modeling. I’d fallen out of love with Brian, but I was really in love with modeling.

Prageeta smiled. “My family and Hanif’s family have known each other for
generations
. I’ve had a crush on him since I was probably eight years old. The fact that I’m going to get to be his
wife
, that we will continue this link and someday our children will also be linked, that excites me. Besides, I haven’t told anybody except for Hanif, but I’ve been doing some writing myself.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Just some short stories about being a woman in India and New York and London,” Prageeta said. “I’m very excited about moving to London and having the time to work on them.”

“I have the perfect title for you,” I said.

“And what is that?” she said with a smirk. “Because Bride and Prejudice has already been taken.”

“Pink Is the Navy Blue of India,” I said.

Prageeta smiled. “That’s pretty good.” Then she kissed me on the cheek. “We must make our own decisions,” she said. “But remember that this is a tough business. Very few do it for the rest of their lives. Every model I know who is happy has a passion that has nothing to do with physical beauty. Melody has her yoga and photography. Elsie dreams of that seat on the New York Stock Exchange. I know you’re premed, Bee, but I don’t sense the dream is deeply rooted in your heart.”

I winced a little. Months ago, Kevin had made the same observation.

“You’re only seventeen; you’ll figure it out,” Prageeta said. “Why don’t you come inside so I can introduce you to some nice Indian guys? A couple of them are really good looking, and all of them can dance.”

“In a minute,” I said, and I turned to watch Prageeta go back to the party. I envied her for being so beautiful, for being so smart, for having it all sorted out.

Even though it had grown chilly, I stood outside for another half an hour. I was gob-smacked by the river. I kept thinking that the way it flowed, moving so quickly and powerfully through the city, was like my modeling career. That day in Dean and DeLuca, when Leslie handed me her card, it was like modeling was my river. I could jump in and see where it took me or I could sit and watch it pass me by. But it was my river.

24

Humble Bee

I
guess the thing is that I thought when I got chosen to be a Baby Phat girl, I was in there like swimwear. I mean, I had a billboard in Times Square. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned these past months as a baby supe, it’s that while shooting to the top can be really easy, it’s much harder to stay there.

When I first started modeling, all I could think about was Brian and how neat it would be if he could see me in a magazine, looking supa-dupa fly. Then he’d want me back in an instant. It never really occurred to me that maybe I didn’t really want him. It was more like the idea of him—a cute upper-class man with a mission to save the world.

The first time Chela and I went out dancing, she had quoted me that Spanish expression Un clavo saco otro clavo. One nail takes out another nail. Well, modeling took out the Brian nail. But I’m not sure what’s going to take out the modeling nail. I used to think that modeling was all about conceited girls, the pretty ones who were always so popular that now they got paid to stare into mirrors and pose in front of cameras all day long.

But now that I’ve been on the other side of the camera, I know that modeling is so much more. I mean, look at me. I was never the most gorgeous girl in the room. Then I got dumped and depressed and became a really, really good customer at Krispy Kreme and the top modeling agent in the world picked me out and signed me up. She said, “We need more girls like you, who represent real women.”

I thought my life was over when Brian dumped me, but it turns out, it was just starting. And the most exciting part of it all wasn’t the fancy trips or the Town Cars or the free clothes, it was the day that Savannah Hughes cut a big chunk of my hair and with a new haircut, I discovered the real Bee—the one that loves fluid mechanics as much as she loves a really cute pair of kitten heels.

For months, I’d been living like Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde: premed student by day and baby supe by night. (Okay, more like baby supe by afternoon and early evening.) But now it was time to get back to the basics.

I’d actually fallen so far behind in physics lab that I had to hire a tutor of my own. I also applied for a few summer internships: a Barbara Jordan Health Policy internship in D.C. and an apprenticeship with Doctors without Borders in Kenya so that I could actually use my Swahili. My mom even got her boss, who’s apparently some do-gooder superwoman, to write me a recommendation letter. “I’m really proud of you, Bee,” she said when I called to tell her about my plans for the summer.

I hadn’t heard from Leslie Chesterfield in a while. She never officially dropped me, which is just as well because I didn’t need a whole panel of judges and Leslie Chesterfield holding a picture that was NOT mine to realize that I was no longer in the running to be America’s Next Top Model.

The Baby Phat commercials were still going strong, and I continued to get residual checks every other week. Finally, I decided to call Elsie for some advice. I was kind of nervous. I saw Melody twice a week for yoga classes, but she was like total om girl. She never talked about work. Calling Elsie took more guts. She would know for sure that I’d been blacklisted and wasn’t getting any work.

Prageeta had quit the business, but Melody and Elsie were everywhere. Aerin Lauder had chosen Elsie to be the new face of the Estée Lauder fragrance line; it was the kind of juicy cosmetics contract that plus girls never get. I mean, the previous faces of Estée Lauder had been Elizabeth Hurley and Gwyneth Paltrow! And ever since some exec at Nike had heard that Melody was a Zenned-out human pretzel, she’d been doing an exclusive campaign with them alongside all these cool athletes like Michelle Wie and Serena Williams.