The Home for Wayward Supermodels (13 page)

1. No waiting in line at bars, restaurants, the GAP, or in the drugstore to buy Tampax.
   
2. Adoring letters and beautiful gifts arrive unsolicited in the mail every day.
   
3. Everyone from strangers on the street to other famous people tell you they love you.
   
4. No need to show ID when cashing checks.
   
5. Craving hard-to-find fashion items, such as a Birkin bag or new True Religion jeans? The store miraculously happens to find them, in exactly your color and size!
   

Worst Things About Being Famous

1. Your late-night emergency Tampax run is reported the next day in a gossip column.
   
2. Psycho letters and pleas for donations arrive unsolicited in the mail every day.
   
3. Everyone from close friends to business contacts begin to treat you strangely.
   
4. Everyone thinks they already know you, the real you.
   
5. The only place you’re really free is in your home—and even then somebody might hire one of those machines guys use to trim trees and try to take your picture through your own window.
   

Or at least that’s what happened to me. It was the night of the day of the launch of the Amanda line at Rush. The clothes were beautiful, and Jonathan Rush even let me walk hand in hand with Desi onto the runway at the end of the show, publicly acknowledging her contribution to the line. The show itself had been an enormous success, with all the important fashion writers there to cover the event. And the sidewalk outside Rush was thronged with people waiting to get in to be the first to buy the clothes.

Everyone crowded around me and Desi after the show, asking us questions and taking our pictures—okay, my picture. Suddenly my eyes met Desi’s and, without saying a word, we simultaneously started pushing our way out of the circle of press and fans, through all the people clamoring to get inside the store, breaking into a run and heading toward the river. A few photographers chased us for a minute, but they were too far back, and by the time we’d darted across the highway and reached the pathway along the docks, we were winded but alone.

“Oh my God,” Desi said, struggling to catch her breath as we slowed to a walk. “That was freaking fantastic.”

“It was,” I said. “They loved your clothes.”

“They loved
you.
Really, Amanda. I couldn’t have done it without you. And Jonathan Rush, of course.”

I grinned at her. It felt so great strolling along in the summer afternoon as if we were two ordinary girls out for a day of fun—the way we had been just a few months ago. I slung my arm around her shoulder.

“So are you feeling more confident now?” I asked.

“Confident? I have confidence out the wazoo,” said Desi. “Check it out: I bought my ma a house.”

“Desi!” I threw my arms around her and pulled her into a big hug. “There’s that much money?”

“I’m still buying my shoes at Payless, but yeah. For the first time in her life, she’s a landlord instead of a tenant.”

I hugged her again.

And then I heard it.

The clicking.

It was far away, but my ears had become sensitized to the sound.

Grabbing Desi’s arm, I yanked her down the path.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Come on, Amanda,” a man’s voice called. “Hug your girlfriend again for us.”

With that, I stopped short. I turned to face the photographer, who was closing in on us.

“This is Desi McKnight,” I said. “She’s the designer of the Amanda line. Did you write her name down?”

The man fumbled for his notebook and I spelled Desi’s name for him.

“Be sure you publish that,” I told him. “If you want to write about me, you’ve got to write about Desi.”

It was later, much later, that another photographer ascended to our apartment window in the bucket of a tree-trimming crane.

After our encounter near the river, Desi and I did a little shopping, until the stares and the interruptions got to be too much. Then we bought some sushi and some champagne and some popsicles and went back to the apartment, where Tatiana joined us after her own shoot of the day. We toasted the success of the Amanda line and ate dinner. The three of us had just settled together on the sofa, where we were about to watch the final episode of
America’s Next Top Model,
when Tati let out a scream and pointed at the window. I turned around to see a photographer—not the guy from the river but one I knew worked for the gossip pages of a city tabloid—lift his camera and take my picture.

Another night, I might have lowered the shades and turned off all the lights in the apartment and waited until he went away. But that night, I was fed up. I marched over to the window and, to the photographer’s astonishment, threw it open.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

His mouth was hanging open. He was used to people running. But he looked as if he’d never been confronted before.

“Do you want a picture?” I said. “Here, take this picture.”

And with that, I pulled up my T-shirt and bared my breasts. The photographer stared but didn’t shoot.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him. “Isn’t this enough for you? I could take off all my clothes.”

“It’s not that,” he managed to say. “I don’t want you alone. They sent me to get a shot of you and your girlfriend.”

I dropped my shirt and looked behind me, to where Tati and Desi were staring from the sofa.

“Tatiana?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “The short, fat one.”

Without thinking, I reached out of the window and shoved him, nearly knocking his camera four stories down to the sidewalk.

“Hey, don’t blame me!” he cried. He regained his footing and brushed off his T-shirt, muttering, “Dyke.”

“What?”

“Dyke,” he said loudly. “Lesbian. It’s all over the internet. And now you and your girlfriend there are going to be in the paper tomorrow.”

I slammed the window shut and yanked the cord that closed the blinds. Then I turned to face Desi and Tati.

“What’s he talking about?” I asked.

They both just stared, until finally a look of recognition crossed Desi’s face. “The guy by the river today,” she said. “The picture of us hugging. Somebody obviously drew some conclusions.”

“Shit,” I said. “That is so outrageous. I’ll sue them. I’m going to call Raquel right now. I don’t know what Tom will think if he ever reads something about this. Jesus, Desi, I’m sorry. I hope this doesn’t make things tough for you.”

“Everybody knows,” she said quietly.

“That’s true,” I said. “Everybody knows what the gossip columns are like…”

“No, Amanda,” Desi interrupted me. “Everybody knows that I’m gay.”

That took a minute to sink in. First Alex Pradels. And now Desi, my best friend. But she was so
feminine,
with her curves and her curls and her dresses. Weren’t all lesbians like Miss Koker from the printing plant, who wore tweed pants and enjoyed shooting skeet?

Now Tati spoke up. “Everybody know this about Desi, Amanda,” she said.

“But how?”

Tati shrugged. “Queer eye.”

But did that mean…

“Desi,” I said. “I have to tell you, I’m not…”

“I’m not interested in
you,
you freaking goofball!” Desi said. “That would be like dating my sister. I told you, I’m all about work right now. Though Jonathan’s sidekick, Adriana, is pretty cute.”

“So what do we say to the newspapers and websites?”

“We’ll tell them the truth,” Desi shrugged. “It was a congratulations hug.”

“The next week is going to be a nightmare.”

A nightmare that at least would end with a flight to paradise: Tati and I were booked to shoot resort wear on a Caribbean island, an island thousands of miles from here, an island with Alex Pradels.

T
he next week was
even worse than I’d imagined. Because I still didn’t have a laptop, I’d lost touch with how rabid the online fashion and gossip sites could be—not to mention how many of them were out there. While Desi and I rated only one shot on one day in the New York papers and in the big weeklies like
People
and
Star,
the sites like Gawker and Defamer did something on us every day, with multiple pictures and links to every other blog with a glancing interest in fashion, models, New York, or gayness—which meant just about every blog out there. The Go Fug Yourself girls, who’d always been my heroes, ran two items on us: one praising Desi’s outfit, and another trashing mine. Even the conservative
anti
gay people got into the act—and probably got off on the pictures more than anybody.

I wanted to spend the week hiding under the bed, crawling out only to shroud myself in a burka and travel to the airport, but I had to go out to shoots, and Desi and I had promotional appearances for the Rush line. Plus, to my astonishment, both Raquel Gross and Jonathan Rush were thrilled by the publicity, summoning more and more reporters and cameras to every event, which of course attracted even
more
reporters and cameras.

The news had undoubtedly reached Eagle River by now, and I only grew more concerned about what Tom might think when I called him and kept getting his voice mail. I’d explain as much as I could before the beep sounded and cut me off. In all the craziness, Tati unplugged the phone, so I don’t know whether he tried to call me back. I could only hope, when I saw him again, that he would understand and everything would be okay.
If
I saw him again.

It was such a relief to head to the airport for the
Vogue
trip to the Bahamas with Alex, Tati, Minty, and the rest of the crew. Even if it hadn’t meant escape from the hounds of gossip, I’d been excited about this trip: my first venture out of the United States, first time swimming in those clear turquoise waters, first stay at a resort, first flight in a chartered jet.

Soaring above the clouds, it seemed as if we had escaped the whole sordid mess, until Alex’s assistant Yuki said, “Wow, you were all over the newspapers last week.”

Alex snapped his fingers. “Not another word, Yuki. This never happened.”

Even I was startled. “It’s okay, Alex.”

“It’s not okay.
Je déteste
this homophobic slander.”

Alex’s strong reaction seemed to confirm my theory that Alex himself was gay. Everyone in our group went quiet after that, slipping on their satin sleep masks or burying their noses in Jane Austen or the kinds of supercool magazines that fashionistas gobbled up:
Self Service, NYLON, Vice.
It wasn’t until we had changed to the small plane chartered by
Vogue
and bound for our far-flung island that anyone spoke again. Then the conversation was exceedingly polite and positive, with everyone assuring me and Tati that we were going to love this place, that the food was great, the beach spectacular, the hotel total heaven.

The hotel was like one of those bungalow colonies that are perched along all the lakes in northern Wisconsin—a handful of identical cottages strung along the water with a larger central lodge—except superrich and on steroids. Each cottage had a soft white sofa and a big antique bed covered by a canopy of mosquito netting—or two beds, in the case of the cottage that Tati and I had elected to share. There was a white-tiled floor and a dark-beamed and-vaulted ceiling hung with a ceiling fan big as a jet propeller and, on the tiny front porch, two rocking chairs that looked out to sea.

We were the only guests at the place, the only ones on the entire island, except for the people who were there to wait on us. Alex quickly apprenticed one of the busboys—a young man named Winston, who was as compact and quick-moving as Yuki, to be his deputy assistant. At five o’clock the staff set out trays of piña coladas and bowls of chips and guacamole, and then we all sat down to an enormous lobster dinner. Alex had to teach me how to crack my lobster and dig the meat out. It was so delicious that all I could think about was how much Tom would love to try it.

After dinner, Tati drifted off to bed and Minty and the rest of the crew went dancing in the place’s do-it-yourself disco, hooking up their iPods to speakers and singing along as they danced, eyes closed, each in their own world. Alex and I went outside into the moonlit night, cooler than New York, the air sweet and fresh as the air on Big Secret Lake.

“Well,” Alex said. “Good night.”

I hadn’t realized we were going to bed, but just the idea of it inspired a huge yawn. “Good night,” I said.

He leaned in as if to kiss my cheek, and I swayed toward him, but at the last moment I turned to face him straight on, but he was moving more quickly than I’d judged, and his lips hit mine square on.

At first we both jerked back, shocked by what had happened, and then, as if by design, we moved together again and kissed—a soft, slow, lingering kiss on the lips. But what was happening in my body was anything but soft and slow. There were zings and there were twangs, there were meltings and there were sizzlings.

“Wow,” I said, when we finally broke for air.

“Amazing,” he said.

“I didn’t think…” I stopped because I was unsure how to put it.

“I know,” Alex said somberly. “You didn’t think you could like kissing a man.”

I reared back and looked into his big soulful dark eyes.

“What the heck are you talking about?”

“You and Desi,” he said, hanging his head and gesturing as if he were describing a funeral. “The things with the papers, what a nightmare, but of course I had already known about it for a long time.”

“What are you
talking
about?”

“That night we went to Per Se. It was clear from then that you and Desi were involved in a romantic relationship.”

“Me and…but that isn’t true, Alex.”

“What?”

“I’m not
gay.
But maybe since you are…”

“
What?
I certainly am not gay.”

“That same night, walking home, I wanted to kiss you, then…”

“And so did I. But I felt you were warning me off by inviting Desi along.”

“And I felt you were warning me off.”

We gazed at each other for a long moment and then moved into a kiss as if our lips had magnets in them. We stood there on the beach, kissing and kissing, to the sound of the breeze ruffling the palm trees, until the tide licked at our feet. When we heard the music die down and the laughing sound of our colleagues finally emerging from the disco, we leaped behind a tree and hid there, giggling, until they all disappeared into their cottages.

“Come on,” Alex said, taking my hand.

“Where are we going?”

“My cottage. I hope.”

I hesitated. Tom was on my mind. As long as we’d just been standing there kissing, I’d been able to push him away. But now that there was time to think before taking the next step, he had planted himself squarely in the middle of my brain.

“I’ve mentioned Tom to you,” I said.

“Oh yes, the hometown boyfriend,” said Alex, chuckling a little. “The beard.”

“The what?”

“I assumed he was just a cover for your romance with Desi.”

“No, not a cover,” I assured Alex. “Real.”

“But I’m here, and he’s not,” said Alex, reaching out and running his thumb along the edge of my lip.

“Oh, yes he is,” I said. I took Alex’s hand and brought it to my heart. “He’s right here.”

Thirteen Ways to Say No (When Your Body’s Screaming Yes Yes Yes)

1. Whenever he comes near you, pop something else—a piece of pineapple, a swizzle stick—in your mouth.
   
2. Swim, run on the beach, jump on your bed in the middle of the night—anything to burn off that excess energy.
   
3. Swing side by side in a hammock, sighing at the moon. (However, I do not recommend this, as it makes the yeses just keep getting louder.)
   
4. Talk to him for hours about your childhoods, your schools, your homes, your friends, your favorite movies, what you want for your birthdays next year—anything and everything except how much you want to leap into bed together.
   
5. Talk to your roommate for hours about whether you should, why you shouldn’t, how much you want to, how bad you’ll feel if you do.
   
6. Suspect your roommate isn’t listening and get annoyed with her instead of dealing with the real issue.
   
7. Kiss your pillow, as passionately as possible.
   
8. Do a lot of slow dancing, even when there’s not any music.
   
9. Fantasize about Paris (or Philadelphia or Peoria) and what might happen if you go there.
   
10. Take numerous Polaroids of him that you keep under your pillow and gaze at in the middle of the night.
    
11. Call your friend in New York, and though she gives you good advice, question whether it applies to boys.
    
12. Call your boyfriend so often you’re reduced to talking about what kind of bait he used when he went bass fishing yesterday.
    
13. Work twice as much as you’re supposed to—which is only half as much as you want to.
    

Fortunately, or maybe not, this last one was easy because Tati did not fit in any of the clothes. Everything Minty had brought along for her to wear was too snug. We managed to do one shot on the beach together in these white flowing gowns, and she actually looked great in an overtight white tank—but that was for a beauty shot. For another shot that called for us to wear the same dress in different colors—me in magenta, Tati in turquoise—Minty’s assistant laced her closed in the back, like an overstuffed Thanksgiving turkey.

When Minty confronted Tati about why she wasn’t fitting into the clothes, Tati blithely replied that the designers must have sent the wrong size samples. Minty countered that Tati had been eating far too much since we’d been at the resort, and ordered her to consume nothing but water in preparation for the next day’s swimsuit shoot.

The morning of the shoot, as we were supposed to be changing into our designated swimsuits, I heard Tati in the bathroom of our cottage. At first I was afraid the sound that was coming from in there was Tati throwing up, trying to get rid of the evidence of some illicit non-water consumption. But then I realized that no, she was crying.

“Tati,” I said, knocking on the door. “Tati, what’s wrong?”

“I’m fat!” she wailed.

“Tati, open up!”

Finally, after much pounding and shouting through the wood, Tati opened the bathroom door. She was standing there, spilling out of the bikini she had been assigned to wear in the first shot.

Her legs, I saw now, were as long and slim as ever. Her arms were slender and firm. Even her butt and her hips were compact as a teenage boy’s, even thinner than they’d been when I first met her. Her breasts were full, spilling from the cups of the bikini top, but that wasn’t really the problem—or it wouldn’t be when the photograph was reduced to two dimensions.

No, it was clear now that I saw her virtually undressed that Tati’s problem wasn’t that she was fat. Her problem was that she was pregnant.

“How many months?” I whispered.

“Six.” She held up her fingers.

“What?!”

Hiding a pregnancy for three or four months—that was easy. My teachers, my mom’s friends routinely didn’t tell most people for that long and nobody guessed. But five months, six months—that was a different story. I thought of the few girls I’d known at Northland Pines who’d gotten knocked up and had managed to keep it a secret for as long as possible. But no one had managed to hide their rounded belly, as Tati had, for six whole months.

She shrugged. “For long time, I didn’t guess. Then, I was sick. Then, I dieted.”

“Tati, you shouldn’t have been dieting. It’s bad for the baby.”

That set her off again. “I’m bad for baby,” she said. “No work, no money, no daddy.”

“Is Mr. Billings the father?” I asked.

She nodded, but also bared her teeth. “That nogoodnik,” she said. “He don’t want no baby. He just want love sex love sex—no baby.”

“Is that what he said?”

“Didn’t have to say. Tati knows.”

“You should talk to him, Tati,” I said gently.

There was a pounding on the door of our cottage.

“Girls, we’re all jolly well ready for you out here,” called Minty.

“Just a minute,” I said. And waited until she went away.

“Tati,” I said, circling her narrow wrist with my fingers. “Have you been to a doctor?”

She shook her head no.

“Tati, you have to start taking care of yourself now. Of yourself and the baby. Do you understand?”

She crumpled to the floor and started moaning. “My life is over,” she said. “No more Mr. Billings. No more modeling.”

I sunk into a cross-legged position beside her, patting her shoulder. “Don’t be silly, Tatiana,” I said. “Lots of girls have babies these days and go back to work, better than ever. And I really think you should talk to Mr. Billings. He might surprise you. At the very least, he should give you some money.”