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I tried to grab the phone, but she shooed me away.

“Okay, I’ll be there in an hour. Should I wear anything special?”

Chela was quiet for a second.

“Okay. I’ll see you then.” She hung up the phone.

It was just like Chela to pretend to be me.

“What the duck?” I said, half mad and half relieved that she was taking charge.

Chela said that at her Catholic high school, all the girls said “What the duck?” instead of the word that rhymed with it. I thought it was so funny that I had started copying her.

“Come on, Bee,” Chela said, with a big grin on her face. “Stop tripping.”

“But you were pretending to be me.”

“And? She just met you. She doesn’t know your voice.”

I simmered down. She was, of course, right.

“So what did she say?” I asked.

“You’ve got an appointment in an hour. No makeup, no new clothes. Just come as you are.”

“An hour. That’s plenty of time for me to at least get some cute shoes.”

Chela looked more ready for a modeling shoot than

I did. She was wearing this cool rasta cap, and her jet-black curls tumbled out from underneath the cap just so. She had on a black ski jacket, skinny stovepipe jeans, and cool motorcycle boots. She looked at me and said, “I’m going to give you some advice and one day, when you’re a rich and famous doctor/model/whatever, you’re going to thank me. Do you. That’s the only way you’re going to get anywhere, be anybody, do anything. Don’t worry about everybody else, just do
you
.”

It was good advice. The only problem was, how could I “do me” if I didn’t even know who that was?

An hour later we walked into Leslie’s office, and it was like walking into one of those fun house mirrors you see at the county fair. Every girl in there looked like me—some were fatter, some were skinnier, some were taller, and some were shorter. But we were all variations on the theme: vaguely ethnic-looking, pleasantly plump white girls with long dark hair.

“Do me?” I whispered to Chela.

“Just do you.”

I walked over to the receptionist, who was this East Village punk girl looking like the entire scene just bored her to pieces.

“Um, I’m Bee Wilson.”

She nodded and wrote my name down. “Take a seat in the corner.”

So I did, and for an hour and a half, Chela and I just sat there as each girl was called into the back office, stayed for about ten minutes, and then walked back out.

I watched their expressions, and I began to feel like something terrible must be happening in that back room. One or two of the girls walked out with a big smile on their faces, but most of the girls looked devastated afterward, as if they were trying not to cry.

I almost dashed out a dozen times. If Chela hadn’t been there, I would’ve never stuck it out. But she kept me entertained with stories about her new guy, Alejandro.

“So did I tell you that he’s been painting my portrait?” she said.

“That is so friggin’ romantic I could scream,” I said.

She grinned. “I guess I’m a model too. Except when I pose for Alejandro, I have on a little less clothing than I do now.”

I raised an eyebrow; I’ve been practicing how to do it since I was twelve. But it wasn’t until I got to college that it started coming in handy.

“What does ‘a little less’ mean?” I asked.

“How about none?” Chela giggled.

“Get out!” I said it so loud that the snooty receptionist gave me a dirty look. Another girl exited the torture chamber, and then the receptionist called my name.

Chela squeezed my hand.
“Do you,”
she whispered. Inside a corner office, as big as a loft apartment, there were two desks. Leslie was seated at the main one. Sitting on a gray velvet chaise lounge was a pretty Asian woman, older than me, younger than Leslie. She stood up and extended her hand. I shook it.

“I’m Caroline Kim,” she said.

“Bee Wilson,” I said, trying not to mumble. When I was little, I used to have a hard time articulating certain words, especially the letter s. My aunt Zo made up this song—“I like to smile and I like to smoke.” For ages, I would sing, “I like to ’mile and I like to ’moke.” I think about it now because I feel like I’m about to revert back into a five-year-old who can’t say an
s
or anything else.

Leslie shook my hand. “I’m so glad you could come in. Sit down.”

Caroline said, “So, Leslie discovered you at the Dean and DeLuca. How very Lana Turner at Schwab’s.”

“Who?” I asked. The question jumped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

Caroline just laughed. “How old are you, Bee?”

“Seventeen.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a student at Columbia.”

Leslie smiled. “So you’re smart. Miuccia Prada likes smart. What are you studying at Columbia?”

“I’m premed,” I said. Not adding that I was going to be pre–Cinnabon employee of the month if I didn’t get my act together and pull up my grades.

Caroline said, “Very impressive. So why do you want to be a model?”

I thought then of all the girls I’d seen who had left the office, fighting back tears. This must be where it all falls apart. They ask you a question. You give them the wrong answer, and they send you on your way. Somehow, I sensed that “I don’t know. I never wanted to be a model” was the wrong answer. I thought about what Aunt Zo always said about her auditions—you’ve got to be hungry. You can’t have a backup plan. So I just started making stuff up.

“I never see girls in ads that look like me,” I said, which was true. “In my high school, they had to replace the plumbing in the girls’ bathroom because so many girls were throwing up, the acid was actually eating away at the pipes.”

This, as a matter of fact, was also true.

Leslie nodded. “So you’re comfortable with your shape?”

“Absolutely,” I said, semi-lying now.

“What if we needed you to lose a few pounds, just to tone up a little?” Caroline asked.

Again, another trick question. Was I supposed to stick to my guns, in a “fat is a feminist issue” kind of way? Or should I be flexible?

“I think exercise is good for everyone,” I said. Then kicked myself. What must I have sounded like? A robotic candidate for Miss America?

Leslie stood up. “Let’s Polaroid you, Bee.” She took a camera off her desk, stood me against the wall.

I did a big old Kool-Aid smile.

Leslie said, “A little less teeth, Bee.”

I turned it down a notch. She snapped my picture.

“Now closed mouth. Thoughtful.”

I thought about Brian.

“Thoughtful happy, not thoughtful sad, Bee.”

I thought about salsa dancing with Chela’s friends at the Copa.

“Very pretty,” Leslie said, and snapped my picture again.

Caroline said, “Now, let’s see you walk.”

I walked across the room.

I did it badly. I knew it right away from the look on Caroline and Leslie’s faces.

“Can you try the walk again, Bee?” Caroline said. “This time, pretend that your favorite music is on.”

“Don’t be shy, Bee,” Leslie said. “Pretend we’re not even here. You’re out with your friends on a Saturday night.”

“Do
you
,” Chela had said. But I knew at that moment, what I needed to do was Chela, strutting onto the dance floor at the Copa. I summoned all the South Bronx and South Philly I had ever seen and I shook my hips as I walked across the room.

Leslie and Caroline were both smiling, but I couldn’t tell if it was a real smile or a fake smile.

“That was really fun, Bee,” Leslie said. “Thank you.”

Then she looked down at her desk and started writing. I wasn’t sure whether I should wait or leave.

“Should I go?” I said.

“We’ll call you if we’re interested,” Caroline said. She was texting on her BlackBerry, and she didn’t look up either.

I walked out of the office, knowing now why some girls looked like they wanted to cry. The whole “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” thing was pretty brutal.

Chela gave me a thumbs-up, then a thumbs-down. I just shrugged. We walked to the elevator in silence.

“You got the job?” she asked me once we were out on the street.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Did they give you any hints?” she said.

“Not a one. They said they’d call me if they were interested.”

“Well, that sucks.” She looked indignant.

I thought, She doesn’t know the half of it. No modeling career, no Brian. Then I remembered how Brian had just about flipped when he found out that Shakira was a goodwill ambassador to the UN. Maybe if this whole modeling thing didn’t work out, I could look into that. I mean, it wouldn’t be just to get Brian back. I really believe in the issues, and as the Good Humor ice-cream man in my old neighborhood in Philadelphia can attest, I’m a girl who’s just full of good humor, which is kind of like goodwill, right?

8

Bee-lieve It or Not

You
know, it’s a good thing, a really good thing, that I wasn’t born a gypsy and that I don’t have to make my living telling fortunes like the girls you see with their crystal balls in little shops on Sixth Avenue. Because the truth is, I couldn’t predict the future if my life depended on it. I thought Brian loved me and wanted to be with me forever. NOT. I thought I’d totally blown my modeling audition and I’d never see or hear from Leslie Chesterfield again. NOT.

Leslie Chesterfield called me that
very same night
and asked me to come in the next day for another audition. I called Aunt Zo, and she said that this is what is known in show business as a “callback.” Did I ever, in my whole entire life, or at least since I started gaining weight like a polar bear getting ready for hibernation, ever think for a nanosecond that I’d be getting callbacks to be a model? NOT. NOT. And oh yeah, DOUBLE NOT.

I went back to the Chesterfield Agency the next day, and there were only three of us in the waiting room. The stick-up-her-butt receptionist was slightly less disdainful. When I was called into Leslie’s office, three other people were there—one woman, two men—sitting on chairs. Leslie and Caroline shook my hands but didn’t introduce me to the new folks. I said hello to them, but they just kind of nodded. Caroline asked me to tell my name, age, and what I did for a living. Then they asked me to walk again. I did my best Chela.

“Maybe a little less bounce,” Leslie said, not smiling. She seemed friendlier the day before. Now she sounded exactly like the kind of icy society blonde that she looked like.

So I did it again.

Then Caroline said, “Thank you, Bee.”

And it was over. So I said the only thing I could think of, which was, “Ciao.”

Aunt Zo always said even when it’s clear they’re not going to hire you, always leave the audition with a smile on your face. Sometimes that’s the only thing a conductor remembers, but it may be enough to get her to hire you for the next gig. So I smiled, said my “ciao,” then went back to Dean and DeLuca for a jumbo chocolate chip muffin.

I was sitting in the window when this cute guy stopped right in front of me. Then he made a brushing motion, and I thought, Great, some weirdo. He did it again, and I realized he was telling me I had chocolate on my face. I wiped it off with a napkin. He winked at me and kept walking. Memo to self: Next time I sit in the window seat at Dean and DeLuca be in full makeup and sipping a cup of green tea. My cell phone started to ring, and I knew who it was, Chela calling for an update. Of course, I had to dig through my giant bag to find it. I thought I was so cool, rocking a fake Louis Vuitton bag to class instead of a knapsack, but this bag is like a pond—everything sinks to the bottom and gets all scummy. Memo to self: Stop being so cheap and get one of those cute Japanese cell phone holders that clip on the shoulder strap of the bag.