Rules for Secret Keeping (4 page)

My mom pokes her head around the rack of combs. “Samantha! There you are!” She sounds perturbed. “Is it true you agreed to buy a
twenty-five dollar
eyebrow pencil? That's a bit ridiculous, don't you think?”

I sigh. So much for being cool.

“BEAUTIFUL, CANDACE,” JAVIER, THE PHOTOGRAPHER
, is saying, clicking his camera. “Gorgeous!” In front of the camera, Candace smiles and blows a kiss to Javier. Candace is the girl who won
You Girl's
Young Entrepreneur of the Year award last year, the one who made bracelets (they're called “peace bracelets,” she told me when I got here) and raised all that money for Darfur. She's trying to “bring attention to the genocide that has left more than 200,000 dead from violence and disease in this region of Africa and aid in the effort to stop this tragedy through knowledge, monetary aid, and international intervention.” I did
not
know she was going to be here. Apparently they're doing a “Where is she now?” segment on her.
And
she gets to come to the
You Girl
banquet and give a speech before she hands over
her title. Kind of like Miss America or something.

“Do you think we're going to have pose like that?” the girl sitting next to me on Javier's cream-colored couch asks. Her name's Nikki, and she's here because she runs some kind of website-building company. In front of the camera, Candace smiles and blows another kiss to Javier.

“I hope not,” I say.

I thought a photo shoot for a national magazine would be glamorous, but so far all I've been doing is sitting on this couch with Nikki while we watch Candace get her picture taken. Even though there are twenty-five finalists, it's just the three of us here. Nikki lives in New Jersey, and Candace lives in Manhattan, so it makes sense that we'd all get our pictures taken together at a central location.

Javier's studio is right in midtown, about three blocks from where the train from Stamford dropped me off at Grand Central. My sister, Taylor, met me at the train station in Stamford, because apparently my parents decided I'm not old enough to ride the train by myself. Taylor is seventeen. She is also not much of a chaperone, since she spent the whole forty-five-minute train ride talking on the phone with her friend Amanda about some homecoming princess scandal. Then, when we got off the train, she continued to talk on the phone for the whole walk to the studio. And finally, once we got here, she plopped herself down
on a chair in the lobby and motioned for me to go ahead. She didn't even take the time to enjoy the midtown crowds. I know you're supposed to hate the crowds in New York, but I love them. The smells, the sounds, the people, all the honking. There's an air of excitement that you definitely don't get in Connecticut.

“I definitely
cannot
pose like that,” Nikki says now, watching as Candace pouts at the camera seductively. Geez. For someone who's interested in Darfur, Candace is definitely being a little, uh, suggestive. She's also wearing boots that I'm pretty sure are Gucci. I'm also pretty sure that for the money she spent on those Gucci boots, she could have probably done a lot of good in Darfur.

“I'm sure it'll be okay,” I tell Nikki. “As long as you smile, you should be fine.”

“Thanks,” Nikki says, then frowns. “Um, your eyebrow is—”

But before she can finish her sentence, Javier's assistant, M (seriously, that's her name, just M—when I asked her what it stood for, she gave me a totally weird look, like,
Duh, it's just M
), comes running over, her stilettos clacking on the marble floor. She's all in a panic. “What is going on with your eyebrows?” she demands.

M already wants to kill me because I keep asking her for water. On account of the fact that it's so hot. And all
the makeup they've slapped on me is running off my face. I know this because I can feel it, and because M keeps saying, “Ewww, her makeup is running off her face!” in between bringing me plastic cups of warm water.

“Oh,” I say, pleased that she's noticed my new brows. “I just got them done.
Professionally.
” M could use a trip to the salon herself, if you ask me. Her eyebrows are very thin, like two strands of spaghetti.

“Well, they're dripping off of you,” she says, throwing her hands up in the air. Then she produces a mirror from her pocket and shows me my reflection. She's right. The sweat from being in the hot studio is making my eyebrows melt off. Well, not
literally
melt off. More like the eyebrow pencil is melting, leaving a black line down the side of my face. M pulls an eyebrow pencil out of the air and starts fleshing my eyebrows back in.

“Samantha!” Javier calls. “We're ready for you.”

“That was fun,” Candace says, slipping by me. She's practically skipping. She flops down on the cream-colored couch and slides her legs (and Gucci boots) out in front of her. “Your turn, Secret Agent.” Candace thinks it's super witty and fun to call me “Secret Agent” after I told her what my business was. She's not saying it in a nice way, either, but in more of a “I can't believe you pass secrets and I'm trying to save a country and we're somehow both in this room”
kind of way. I considered calling her “Darfur Girl” but that doesn't really work, now, does it?

“Good luck,” Nikki says. She gives my shoulder a squeeze.

I step over to the chair that's set up in front of a gray backdrop.

“Now, just be natural,” Javier instructs. He holds up the camera and takes a shot.

“Oh!” I say, surprised. “Sorry, I wasn't ready.” I sit down in the chair, relax my face and give him my most natural-looking smile.

“Over here, Samantha!” Javier instructs. “Look at the camera.” Oopsies. I try to look right at the camera, but every time the flash goes off, I blink. So then M comes over and moves my head over to the side, in a very uncomfortable position that I guess is supposed to look good on film, but feels like my head is going to pop off my neck. I try to smile, even though I feel like killing someone.

I try to lean over the way Candace did. I even throw a kiss to the camera. But Javier doesn't say “beautiful” or “fabulous” or anything even remotely resembling positive feedback. He doesn't really say anything except “Move to the right” and “Stop doing that” and “What are you doing with your lips?” when I try to blow the kiss.

“Okay, okay,” he says fifteen minutes later. He sighs and
runs his fingers through his dark hair. “Let's take a break, shall we?”

“Good idea,” I say, relieved. Until I realize that probably the reason he wants to take a break is because I'm messing up. I step out from under the lights and fan myself with my hand. Why do they keep it so hot in here? They should totally have a fan or something, to blow air at us to cool us off. And give us that cute hair-in-the-wind look. I catch Nikki watching me from the couch near the wall, and I wave her over. Candace is still lounging on the couch, sipping a Red Bull Sugarfree and looking cool as a cucumber.

“Can you tell what I'm doing wrong?” I ask Nikki. “They don't seem to be too pleased with my progress.” I catch a glimpse of Javier over toward the side of the room. He and M are having a huddled discussion. Every so often one of them looks over at me. I think I catch one of them saying “hopeless,” but I can't be sure.

“Hmmm,” Nikki says, following my eyes to the little conference in the corner. “I'm not sure. Maybe you should try not to smile like that.”

“Like what?” I ask, my hands flying to my face.

“Like . . . stiff.”

Hmm. I practice trying to relax my face. Smile. Frown. Smile. Frown. Smile.

“Also, why do you keep touching your face?”

“I'm afraid my eyebrows are going to melt,” I confess.

“Don't worry,” Nikki says. “They're fine.” She pulls a lip liner out of her purse. “And maybe this will help with the smile.” She starts smearing it on my lips.

“I don't think anything's going to help,” I say sadly as she works. “I'm not trying to smile weird. I always have problems with getting my picture taken.” I look around nervously. M is not going to be pleased about the lip liner, especially since I already gave her a little bit of grief about the makeup. After she'd caked a bunch on me, I said, “I think I have enough makeup on now,” and she rolled her eyes and told me that when they finally did the shoot, it would look like I had nothing on at all. I guess it has to do with stage makeup, like how actors wear a ton, but when you're watching TV, you can't tell. Even so, my face feels like it's going to fall off.

“Hold still,” Nikki instructs. “I'm trying to make your lips go up a little bit at the ends, so that it looks like you're smiling normally.”

“Thankth,” I say around the lip liner. “But won't it make my lips too red?”

“What would you rather have the nation seeing?” Nikki says. “Red lips or a weird smile?”

“Red lips,” I say. But I'm not sure. I wish my mom was here, so that I could get a second opinion. Or even Taylor.
But my mom had to work the night shift (she's a nurse, and so she's always working crazy hours). And of course Taylor's in the lobby, probably texting about the homecoming crisis. Figures I'd be abandoned in my time of need.

“There,” Nikki says. She holds out the tissue. “Blot,” she instructs. I blot my lips on the tissue. “Now take a sip of this.” She holds out a bottle of water with a straw in it, and I take a few sips. The cold liquid feels sweet and good on my throat. I can feel little beads of sweat starting to pool around my forehead. I hope those won't show up on film.

“Are we ready?” Javier asks, clapping his hands and walking back over to where I'm sitting. He looks annoyed. Probably he wants to get home to his family. Nikki scurries back over to the side of the room.

“Is this the longest photo shoot you've ever done?” I ask him, trying to lighten the mood. I concentrate on trying to keep my head in the position M put me in. I smile and wiggle my eyebrows. Then I lean over and tilt my face toward the camera.

“No,” he says.
Click, click
. My eyes are watering from the flash, but I force myself to keep them open. “Some celebrities insist I shoot them over and over again until I get it right.”

“Wow,” I say. “You've shot celebrities?” Wait until I tell Emma I had a celebrity photographer! How fab! I stand
up and put my hands on my hips, looking right into the camera.

“What's all over your mouth?” M asks. She looks panicked, like she's just been called down to the principal's office or something. She grabs a tissue out of her pocket.

“It's lip liner,” I say, turning my head away so that she won't try to wipe it off my lips. I've definitely decided that I would much rather have red lips than have a weird-looking smile on my face.

“It's okay,” Javier says, snapping away. “It will look good on film and even out the smile. Whoever did that is a genius, love.”

I shoot a grateful smile to Nikki, and she gives me a thumbs-up. I twist and turn and smile and jut my hip and sit and stand and listen to everything Javier is telling me to do.

“That's a wrap on Samantha,” Javier says a little while later.

I'm exhausted. And I think I sprained my ankle trying to do one of the poses. “What?” I ask. “Already? Did we get a good one?”

“You did fine,” Javier says, motioning to Nikki to take her place in front of the camera. Hmm. That doesn't sound too promising. I don't want to do fine. I want to be fabulous, glamorous, and wonderful. But I guess that's hard to do when you're wearing pink Skechers and not Gucci boots.
Plus I suppose I'll have to settle for it, since M is ushering me out from in front of the camera and over toward the door.

“Good luck,” I say to Nikki as I breeze by her.

“Thanks,” she says, taking her place in front of the camera.

“Later, Secret Agent,” Candace says. She's texting someone on her phone. I don't think people in Darfur can afford cell phones. Shouldn't she be abstaining if she's so worried about them? And why is she hanging around? Isn't her photo shoot over?

“Oh, good,” Taylor says when I get to the lobby. She slaps her phone shut. “You're finished. What's all over your lips?”

“Lip liner.” I don't bother mentioning that the reason I'm wearing it is because I'm the most unphotogenic person, like, ever. And then I have a thought. “Hey, Taylor,” I say excitedly. “Do you think they're going to airbrush me? Like they do with all the top models?”

“I doubt they airbrush in the tween mags.” Taylor rolls her brown eyes, like tween mags are about as relevant as iPods without video screens.

She then proceeds to spend the whole train ride back to Stamford on the phone with her boyfriend. His name is Ryan, and he is very, very cute. Last year I kind of sort of
had this crush on him, because whenever he came over, he would watch the Disney Channel with me while he waited for Taylor to get ready for wherever they were going.