The Look Read online

  Wait a minute.

  “Next week?”

  “Uh-huh. Problem?”

  “What about school?”

  Frankie’s voice is warm and reassuring. “Don’t worry. School comes first. We’ll work around it. But you’re allowed a few days off, you know.”

  “Really? I’ve got my general certificate exams this year. I don’t think I could —”

  “Be calm, angel. I’ll see what I can do. Eric gets here on Saturday, so I’ll ask if he can see you on Sunday. You’ll love him. He’s adorable. I’ve got a few people interested in seeing you after that, but I’m just working out with Cassandra who’s best for your profile. Leave it with me, OK?”

  Frankie somehow gets Eric Bloch to agree to see me on Sunday morning. Even better, Ava’s feeling well enough to be my chaperone today. We show up at a beautiful house in Bayswater. We are, of course, on time, and I’m “appropriately dressed,” with spare shoes in my bag, my book (updated with some of the warrior princess photos that Tina took), and my unibrow freshly threaded by a professional, having recovered from Mum’s emergency tweezer session.

  Eric greets us in cutoff jeans, bare feet, and a rumpled linen shirt. He is short, French, with a slight American accent to his English, intense, addicted to strong espressos, unaware of the invention of the hairbrush, and, as promised, adorable. I don’t sit in a damp, drafty waiting room this time: Today it’s just him, me, and Ava. We lounge around a big scrubbed-pine kitchen table and he makes coffee for Ava and tea for me. We talk about movies — À Bout du Souffle is his favorite. Also music — he’s a big fan of Blondie and is impressed I know all about New Wave (thanks to Daisy). After an hour of chatting, he sits me casually next to a tall window, with only natural daylight on my face, and takes a few pictures.

  He doesn’t give me much direction. “I just want to see what you can do.”

  I do some smiley faces, because he’s supercute and it’s easy to smile at him. However, I think I ought to show him the warrior princess, too, because that’s what Tina wanted and it looked extraordinary in the photos afterward. It was like seeing pictures of another girl — maybe not what you’d call a traditionally beautiful one, but somebody fascinating, with a powerful story to tell. So I summon up Xena again and stare down the lens. This is better. When I’m Xena I feel more in control. I know my eyes are doing the work and drawing attention away from my fat ankles. Not that I’m convinced they’re so fat anymore.

  “Yes!” Eric says. “More of that. Challenge me!”

  I glare at him. I imagine he’s Cally, rabbiting on to her posse about my “insane-asylum hair.” He grins. He loves it.

  “Tina was so right about you,” he says.

  Tina was right about a lot of things. She was the only person to explain that the camera is focusing on what’s inside my head. I love the sense of control I get — telling the story using just my eyes, the angle of my shoulders, and the power of my imagination. Even though we’re not talking much, it feels as though Eric and I are working as a team. He’s certainly taking a lot of photographs.

  Then, suddenly, he looks up and flashes me a smile.

  “Great! I think that’s it. Thank you, chérie.”

  And five minutes later, Ava and I are back on the street, heading for home.

  “Well,” she asks, “what do you think? It seemed like he liked you.”

  “I liked him,” I admit, “but who knows? This is what it’s like after go-sees. You’re never sure till your booker tells you.”

  Ava grins. “You sound like such a model.”

  “Do I?”

  “And you totally fancied him.”

  “I did not,” I say hotly. “We just had a lot in common.”

  “Look at you! Your face is burning. You just go for guys with rumpled hair who talk about light levels. Don’t fight it, Ted, it’s sweet.”

  Oh, God. I am see-through and predictable and, worst of all, “sweet.” And I did fancy Eric, just a little bit, although he’s about ten years too old for me and based in New York, so it’s not exactly relevant. And there are other people I’ve fancied more. Much more.

  I continue to deny it strongly, and Ava continues to tease me about it, for most of the journey home.

  What’s happening may not be normal, but it’s good. This time when I call Frankie, she says Eric liked my “killer look” and “instinctive approach.” I’ve been optioned! We shoot i-D in two weeks. She’s even organized castings for me with Miss Teen and Roxy in the meantime.

  By the time I get to the Miss Teen casting, I’m starting to feel less like a freak, and more like a girl with a chance. They need someone to model their key looks for next season, to go in an in-store magazine and on enormous posters behind the registers. Only a few girls are invited to their headquarters to try for this job. They get me to pose in a couple of outfits to see if I can show them off properly, and the clothes are gorgeous. Soft leather boots, embroidered coats, wide belts, and high-necked shirts in earthy colors. There’s a sort of warrior theme to the collection, which must be why they were interested in my new test shots. Now they’ve got me interested in embroidered coats and belts. They would need my hair to be a little bit longer, but it will have grown to the perfect length by then. The whole casting experience is wonderful. Then I get optioned. AGAIN.

  I don’t get the job at Roxy, but Frankie tells me they wanted me to know that they liked my look and they’ll keep me on file. Ava was super-impressed when I told her about Roxy. They do the coolest surfing gear. I’d never have guessed that being “on file” could be so satisfying, but it is.

  The i-D shoot with Eric takes place over fall break, in late October, so I don’t have to miss any school to do it. Mum comes with me this time, and is treated like a queen by everyone who meets her, and assured how fabulous I am. It turns out they want me for the cover. The cover of i-D! Oh my God. Even Mum is impressed.

  I even feel like a cover girl. My hair has been recropped, tinted, and gelled to look like a supersmooth swim cap. I’m wearing a variety of voluminous skirts and capes by, funnily enough, Laslo Wiggins, and having seen the catwalk show, I understand how he intended them to be worn. Eric wants the warrior princess look every time. Having seen it, he’s obsessed with it. No problem. I spend the day imagining he’s Cally Harvest with a French accent. He admits that he’s already told his boss in New York how “extraordinary” I am, and that I might need to pack a suitcase soon. I pretend that Tina hasn’t already told me her master plan about the hush-hush fragrance campaign, and that I have no idea what he means. But I’m starting to believe there is nothing in the fashion world that this woman cannot do.

  A few days later, she calls from Moscow.

  “SEE? I TOLD you. They ADORE you. Of course they do. Aren’t I a megastar?”

  I agree that she is.

  “Eric’s shown your pictures to Rudolf. They were as good as I’d said they’d be. Expect a call any minute. So what are you going to do with all the MONEY, baby girl?”

  “What money?” I thought i-D didn’t pay much.

  “The Miss Teen money, my darling. Ten thousand British bucks. Not bad for a day’s work, wouldn’t you say? Hello? HELLO?”

  Frankie hadn’t mentioned the money. Not exactly. She’d said it would be “very good,” and I thought after the TV thing that meant maybe three hundred pounds. Possibly four hundred. Ten THOUSAND pounds is Linda Evangelista money. I still can’t talk. I’m gasping.

  “If you think THAT’S good, just wait till you hear what they’ll pay for this campaign.” Tina cackles down the line. “You haven’t even STARTED yet, sweetie. They suggested triple the Miss Teen figure, but Cassandra will get you more. I make my girls RICH.”

  “How much?” Ava asks.

  We’re on our way home from another visit to the pediatric oncology unit.

  “‘Thirty thousand pounds. Maybe forty. On top of what I’ll get from Miss Teen.”

  “Forty. Thousand. Pounds,” she repeats. “It’s
enough to pay for your whole university tuition.”

  “I know,” I say in a very small voice.

  “So that’s why you were so distracted just now.”

  Ava’s been asked to help organize a head-shaving ceremony for some new patients in our group at the beginning of December. The Director of Patient Services spent the past half hour going through various ideas with us and I was hoping she hadn’t spotted that I wasn’t completely concentrating, but Tina had just called.

  “Did it really show?”

  “You didn’t answer about three questions. Don’t worry, though. I answered for you. But hey — forty grand. What are you going to spend it on?”

  “If I get the job,” I remind her. “I don’t know.”

  “You must have some ideas.”

  She’s right. I have a few. For a start, there’s a new phone. My old one is cracked and scuffed and doesn’t always work. Then, of course, there’s makeup, shoes, and handbags. Lots of them, to make up for all the years when I didn’t take them seriously enough. And I wouldn’t mind getting myself a decent camera and sponsoring a patch of woodland in the Cotswolds. Still, I think that would leave a lot left over.

  “What do you think?” I ask her.

  She pauses for a while and looks out of the bus window.

  “A car. For Dad. It would be nice to travel by car sometimes.”

  That’s true. How she drags her aching body on and off public transport on the bad days is a mystery to me. When she gets home, she’s so exhausted she has to sleep immediately. Money doesn’t make you happy, necessarily, but I bet it makes you a lot less tired.

  “OK, a car,” I agree. “What else? I know. Rose Cottage: We could move back to Richmond and get our old bedrooms back. And a vacation somewhere glamorous. Lots of vacations. What about Barbados?”

  But Ava’s still staring out the bus window. I can’t see her face properly. It’s not smiling, though — I can see that much.

  “I miss the beach,” she says eventually. Her voice sounds far away and sad.

  Oh. That beach. With that surfer boy on it. The one she should have been on all summer. Jesse’s back on it now, home from his Mediterranean yacht tour, but she won’t let him see her. He’s banished to Cornwall. It’s still a stupid idea. We still don’t talk about it.

  “You can go there next year,” I point out. “It’ll still be there.”

  For the first and only time, she turns to me and gives me the look I’ve been dreading. The look that says “the beach will, but will I?”

  So she does think about the other ten percent after all.

  Of course she does.

  Then she turns away again and all at once I realize how totally brave she is for dealing with this on her own and just focusing on the fun stuff with me. That’s my job, I think: Fun-Stuff Girl. So I spend the rest of the journey picturing all the other things we could do with forty thousand pounds — or fifty, if you include my Miss Teen money, and once you get going, there are a lot of them. I’m still in the middle of completely reimagining Mum’s thrift shop wardrobe, as designed by Frida at Gucci, when we get home.

  If I get the job.

  The thing is, with Tina on the case, things are different now. I’m in makeup for the Miss Teen shoot when she phones me again from LA. In fact, it’s my sixteenth birthday today, but that’s not why she’s calling.

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this, princess. Frankie’ll call you later. But I just wanted you to know, I’m a GENIUS. You’ve got the fragrance campaign. It’s yours.”

  I leap so far out of my seat that Gemma, my makeup artist, sighs with frustration. She’s going to have to completely redo my right eye. She gets on with it while Tina fills in the details. Then, as soon as the call’s over, Gemma wants to know them all.

  “They want me!” I explain. “Rudolf Reissen wants me! For this ad in New York.”

  “Oh my God. Really? The guy who just did that spread for Emmanuelle Alt?”

  She high-fives me and we have a celebratory pastry. One of the good things about professional shoots is the amount of food everywhere. I have no idea how models stay so thin in the long run.

  “So, when are you going?”

  “Soon.”

  “And who’s the campaign for?”

  “Can’t say.”

  I’ve been sworn to secrecy, but Tina told me it’s Constantine & Reed — the first fashion store I ever paid any real attention to, and whose stuff I now want nearly as badly as I want to move back to Richmond Park again. This job is just too perfect. Tina says they’re launching a new perfume called Viper, with a seriously impressive advertising budget. Massive. And some of that budget is going to be spent on me.

  “My God, though,” Gemma squeals, “if it’s Reissen, that means it will be everywhere. Buses, billboards, magazines … you’ve made it, Ted! Go you!”

  We both look at my reflection in the mirror. Today I’m a Mongolian huntress, with white hair and lips, and crystal-tipped eyelashes. I can’t believe it. First the cover of i-D, now this. I’ve made it. I’m actually quivering with shock.

  After that, the Miss Teen shoot goes really well. For the next six hours, I’m poured in and out of gorgeous clothes. They all fit perfectly and I feel I was made to jump and dance around in them, looking brave and heroic and being Xena for all I’m worth. Amanda Elat, the head of the brand, looks delighted.

  “You captured the spirit of the collection perfectly. You just glowed.”

  I know. I could feel it.

  Today, Dad was my chaperone again. On the way home, we talk about the money.

  “We’ll have to start a trust,” he whispers wonderingly. “Make sure you’re earning interest. Oh, and the taxes. We’ll need someone to help with that.” He trails off. I bet he never thought one day he’d be helping his teenage daughter manage her thousands. Then he shakes himself out of it. “Now listen, love. Are you sure you want to do this? Because you don’t have to.”

  I put on my serious face and assure Dad that yes, I am perfectly comfortable about, oh, going to New York to model for a top photographer and earning enough money to last me till I’m thirty.

  Seriously, I can handle it.

  At school, I haven’t mentioned what’s been happening recently. Daisy and I talk about it at home — when we’re not on the subject of Ava — but it all seems too weird to bring up in class. And I haven’t forgotten Daisy’s first reaction when I told her about modeling. It wasn’t a good one. Anyway … since I found my inner Xena, I just don’t feel the same need to impress everyone. Actually, I quite like having a secret double life. Nobody saw my TV disaster, luckily, and none of the pictures I’ve done have been published yet, so I thought I’d wait until they did before I said anything. That way, I also avoid Cally’s “oh yeah?” look, which is good.

  However, a few days after Tina gives me the news about the perfume campaign, a pair of long legs falls into step beside mine after school, as I’m walking to the bus stop. I look across. It’s Dean Daniels. Who “just happens” — for the first time in history — to be going the same way as me.

  “Hi, Ted. You off home, then?”

  Two things: First, what happened to “Friday”? And second, of course I’m off home. Where else would I be going? And why does he seem so tongue-tied?

  He coughs. “Er … someone said … that you were …” — cough — “… a model now. Is that true … or something?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just that Nathan King’s cousin’s temping at this model agency. And they’re really excited about this new girl. And she sounds like you. And she’s …” — cough — “… er, going to be, you know, like, famous.”

  “Oh, right. That’s interesting.”

  We reach the bus stop. I check for the bus, which doesn’t seem to be coming any time soon. Dean lingers.

  “So?” he says.

  “Sorry?”

  “Is it you?”

  “Why do you
want to know?”

  Dean looks down and scuffs the ground with his foot. “You know … models …”

  No, actually, I don’t. What does he mean, “models”? Which models? His face is scrunched up with embarrassment and he won’t meet my eye.

  “What?”

  “Well, you know.” His face scrunches up further. He looks almost as awkward as I did in choir last term. Then he catches my eye for a brief second and gives a dirty laugh. “You know … models. Sick.”

  “Sick?”

  “In a good way. You know …”

  He does the dirty laugh again, but apart from that, Dean is actually lost for words — for the first time since I’ve known him. Apart from “sick,” obviously, which doesn’t count. This is bizarre. And embarrassing, for both of us.

  “Well, I’d better be going,” I tell him, getting my bus pass ready.

  Still no bus. Please don’t let him notice I’m staring down an empty street.

  “Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Cool. See you tomorrow.” He trudges off, backpack bouncing on his shoulders.

  I realize I never did answer his question, but it’ll be around the whole school soon. If anyone thinks to check the Model City website, it’ll be impossible to deny. Then I will officially be “Ted Richmond, model.”

  Just as I was getting used to being “Xena, Secret Warrior Princess.” I was enjoying that. I wish I could hold that moment, but judging by the totally weird look on Dean’s face just now, it’s gone.

  Sure enough, a couple of days later, thanks to Nathan King’s cousin, the news about my trip to New York is all around our class. Cally looks so jealous it’s like a physical pain, and lots of the girls aren’t talking to me. This isn’t the reaction I originally wanted at all. They seem to divide into the ones who are being bitchy about me behind my back, and the ones who are too stunned to say anything.

  The boys are worse. “Models. Sick.” I wish it would wear off. I imagined them being impressed for two seconds, then going back to normal. I didn’t want them to ask for my autograph in math.