The Look Page 8

He peers at her. “You look familiar. Have we met?”

  “Not exactly,” she says. “You were in your mum’s office when we came round.”

  “Oh.” He frowns. “Anyway, no. I’m an artist, really, but I dabble in photography. Not this sort of thing, though.” He waves a dismissive hand toward the studio.

  “What sort of thing, then?” Ava asks, looking hurt on my behalf.

  Nick considers. “Experimental. Documentary. Pictures with a purpose. I’m still working it out. Look, I use this website — a group of us do.” He pulls out a tiny notebook from his pocket, tears out a page, and scribbles on it. “If you want some ideas, look here.”

  He hands it to me. The paper is thick and creamy: sketchbook paper. It’s still warm from his body heat.

  Ava’s phone goes off in her bag as Cassandra’s voice wafts through the door.

  “Darling? I’m going. Are you ready?”

  He sighs, rolls his eyes, and walks out without another word.

  “Huh: ‘dabble,’” Ava says, making a face at me.

  I’m not really listening. I’m looking at the piece of paper. There’s a brilliant little pen-and-ink drawing of Mario the labradoodle on the back. Nick may be a nightmare, but he’s talented. The spattery painting in the background of the fashion photo was fab, too.

  Ava finds her phone. “Oh, hi, Dad. Which theater are we at, did you say? I suppose it has been a long time, hasn’t it? We decided to see three films after all. Are you sure you want to pick us up?”

  She gestures at me helplessly, but I just stare straight back at her. She got us into this mess, and she can get us out of it.

  You can fool a lot of people a lot of the time, but you can’t fool an academic historian forever — or even, as it turns out, for more than about six hours on a Saturday. Dad got back ages ago from his research trip to the library and he’s had a long time to pick holes in our movie story. When Ava can’t actually name any of the films currently showing at our local multiplex, he insists on coming to pick us up from wherever we are, and when he finds out exactly where that is, I seriously wonder how his cell phone is going to survive the power of his reaction.

  “WHAT? In a POST OFFICE BUILDING?”

  “Not exactly —” Ava says.

  “In NORTH LONDON? Who’s with you?”

  Ava doesn’t have the phone on speaker. She doesn’t need to. She tells him about Seb and Cassandra.

  “THOSE SCAMMERS? ARE YOU OK? Have they kept you hostage? Stay exactly where you are. I’m on my way.”

  It takes a very long time on the Underground to get from South London to Highbury & Islington. Long enough for Julia to help me take off most of my geisha makeup, and for Seb to get going on Mireille’s photographs on his laptop, choosing which to keep and using a clever program to adjust the lighting and bring out the incredible luster of her hair.

  “When your dad gets here I’ll, uh … go,” he says.

  Great. I shall be forever known as “the would-be model that kept the photographer hanging around while she waited for her dad.”

  The waiting is bad, but Dad actually arriving is worse.

  “Oh, thank God you’re safe,” he mutters, glaring at us. Then he thanks Seb, very formally, for staying behind to look after us — as if we’re about four years old — and tells us off loudly and repeatedly for twenty minutes, until we find a café where he can get some food into us.

  By now his panic has solidified into colder, more organized anger.

  “I don’t know who to be more ashamed of,” he says. “The one who’s supposed to be looking after herself, or the one who should know better.”

  “But they said to keep living normally, Dad!” Ava complains.

  “You call this normal?”

  “And they’re not scammers. I got it wrong. They’re a top model agency and they like Ted a lot.”

  “Well, they did,” I mutter, spitting crumbs from my large blueberry muffin, “until I —”

  “And you thought you’d just take her along to some ABANDONED BUILDING to meet a TOTAL STRANGER, without anyone knowing where you were?”

  Ava pouts. “Converted, not abandoned. And Louise knew,” she says quietly.

  “Louise?” Dad throws his hands up. Ava’s friend Louise, though brilliant at volleyball, is not affectionately known as Ditz for nothing. If anything had gone wrong, she might not even have noticed we were missing for days. And she’d probably have deleted the text saying where we were. He sighs. “Ted, love, I thought you had more sense.”

  I do have more sense. I absolutely have more sense. I’m tempted to say, “But she made me!” — except that’s what I’ve been saying since I was three, and I promised myself when I turned fifteen that I wouldn’t say it anymore.

  “Anyway, I’d better get you back,” Dad says. “Ava, have you taken your pills?”

  She bites her lip and looks guilty. Dad sighs again and, worse, closes his eyes and wipes a hand across them. Ava’s supposed to be taking a cocktail of pills this week: a combination of chemo, steroids, and other scary blue things that mop up some of the side effects of the other two. I don’t blame her for “forgetting.” Dad does, though.

  “We promised, love,” he says, not angry now but verging on upset. “I know it’s hard, but if you don’t take them …”

  He’s thinking about the ninety percent, and apparently she’s not going to be in it unless she’s positively rattling with pharmaceuticals.

  “Fine, whatever,” Ava says grumpily. She preferred it when she was lounging on a sofa, with me dancing in front of brick walls for a hairy bloke with a camera.

  “Your mother must never find out,” Dad grumbles. “I left her a note to say I’d taken you out for a walk by the river, OK? And if she asks, that’s what we were doing.”

  Ava smiles gratefully. It takes me a second longer to catch on, and even then, I still don’t get it. Normally Mum and Dad present a united front in the face of misbehavior. Mum is much scarier than Dad, so it’s great that he doesn’t want to tell on us, but why?

  On the way home we sit side by side on the Tube, all looking at bits of the newspaper that Dad has brought along and not talking. I can’t help remembering the way the light fell on the paint-peeling bricks, and how perfect Mireille looked in every single picture, and how that last one of me was … surprisingly less awful than it might have been. And how Seb somehow got us to do what he wanted, even though I’ve never known anyone less talkative. I’d love to tell Daisy about it, but she wouldn’t be interested. At least Ava and I can talk about it after lights-out, when we’re supposed to be asleep.

  When we get in, Mum’s back from work and still in her green polo shirt, reading Dad’s note.

  “Did you have a nice time?” she asks in a tired voice. “Were there lots of boats out?”

  “Hundreds,” Dad lies confidently. I can see where Ava gets it from.

  Mum smiles a sad little smile that reaches halfway up her face and stops dead. Her eyes are dull and wrinkled, and haven’t gleamed since Ava’s first diagnosis. Now I realize why Dad didn’t want to tell her what we were up to. She’s like a satellite, spinning out of orbit, and it’s as if any jolt might send her into outer space. I assumed Dad was out there, spinning beside her, but he’s not. He’s watching as helplessly as I am, just trying not to make things worse.

  Dad’s right to protect her. I promise myself I will never enter an abandoned building to meet a stranger with only my sick sister for company again. It wasn’t our most genius idea. I guess, looking back, something could have gone wrong — apart from my total inability to even sit on a chair backward without looking like a complete idiot.

  Then I realize Mum’s staring at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Oh, Ted,” she sighs. “Look at you. Those shoes are falling apart. We’re going to have to get you new ones. And why are you wearing those bizarre black leggings?”

  Seb spent ages working on those pictures of Mireille before Dad came to pick
us up. I wonder how long he’ll have to spend on the ones of me. Sunday’s supposed to be for studying, but I spend most of it picturing Seb working on his computer, then sending the results off to Model City for inspection. I wonder what they’ll all think.

  On Monday, Mum takes Ava to the hospital for a new dose of chemo through her Hickman line.

  “Tell me the minute you hear anything,” Ava says.

  All day, I illicitly check my phone for messages. Nothing. There’s no news on Tuesday or Wednesday. By Thursday it’s obvious that they’ve decided to spare me by not telling me directly. I’d love to get a copy of that last photo, but I don’t think I can face asking Frankie for it. Ava said just to call her and get it over with, but for once, I’m not doing what my big sister tells me. I shall just get on with my life and pretend this mad detour into modeling never happened. I find that usually works, eventually.

  On Friday after school, I’m shopping for shoes with Mum in one of the local thrift shops when my phone goes off in my backpack.

  “Er … hello?” I say, scrambling to get to it in time.

  “Is that Edwina?” The voice is smooth, posh, and confident. “It’s Cassandra Spoke. We got your test shots back yesterday and we’ve been having a good look. I try to call all our new girls myself. How do you feel?”

  “Who is it?” Mum asks, waving a pair of hideous purple sandals at me. How come she always manages to emerge from these places looking like Audrey Hepburn, but the only things we can ever find to fit me look like they were designed for Shrek and Princess Fiona?

  “Daisy. Homework problem. Excuse me?”

  This last bit is to Cassandra Spoke. How do I feel about what exactly? About how much of a laugh they’ve all been having at my photos? What?

  “We’re taking you on, darling! I always like to be the bearer of good news. We really only pick the girls we think can make it to the top. Are you thrilled? We’re so excited about you.”

  “Can you tell her to call back later?” Mum says in exasperation. “I don’t want to be long here — I still need to get those eggplants.”

  “Er, thrilled,” I whisper to keep Cassandra happy, although actually I’m just numb. I go over to a rack of lace-ups, far away from Mum, and pretend to be interested in men’s formal footwear.

  “I must say, you don’t sound it!” Cassandra laughs. “I know the news can be a bit of a shock but, really, the world is open to you now. Frankie will arrange some lovely castings and go-sees for you, so you can build up your book. And who knows? One day you could be doing a campaign!”

  “What? That?” Mum says.

  I nearly jump out of my skin. She must have sneaked up behind me. I look at my hands, which happen to be clutching a man’s oxford wingtip the size of a supertanker.

  “It looks a bit large, even for you. What about this?”

  She shows me something beige and cloglike, with a thick sole and a sensible leather strap around the back. Whatever. I sink onto a plastic chair and slip off my falling-apart sandals so I can try it on.

  “Edwina? Are you there?”

  “Yup, that sounds fine,” I say. “Great. I’m really sorry, but — shshshshshshshsh …” I try to make a sound like a dodgy signal, or like I’m on a train going into a tunnel, and press the button to end the call.

  That probably doesn’t happen to über-agents very often. I wonder if she’ll ever talk to me again.

  “Goodness, Ted, you’re pink,” Mum says. “It is hot in here, isn’t it? Did she get what she wanted?”

  “Who?”

  “Daisy.”

  “Oh, yes. It was something confusing about … French.”

  I’m quite proud of myself for making that up on the spur of the moment, especially under the circumstances. I think it’s because I didn’t understand about a quarter of what Cassandra was saying.

  That evening, when we’re alone together, Ava perches on the edge of her bed and asks me to describe exactly what happened during the call.

  “Well, actually,” I admit, “a lot of it was confusing. It’s like learning a new language.”

  “Tell me about it,” she sighs. “Hickman line. Phlebotomist. Prednisone.”

  “Ha! How about go-see? Book? Campaign? I think they mean an ad, but it sounds like a war.”

  “How about bloods? Meaning my blood. Lots of it, in little bottles.”

  I can’t help giggling.

  “Mario Testino.”

  “Kyrillos Christodoulou.”

  “Kyrillos?”

  “His first name,” she says. “It’s Greek.”

  “Linda Evangelista.”

  “See! You do know who she is.”

  “No, I don’t. Who is she?”

  “God, T! She’s a supermodel from the eighties. Canadian. She was superfamous.”

  “Oh. Then what happened to her?”

  “No idea. She might still be doing it.”

  I wonder — what does happen to models, usually? You hardly ever see pictures of old ones. Maybe they end up on yachts in the Bahamas, drinking tea with designers and going out with rock stars. What else would they do?

  “So?” Ava asks teasingly.

  “So?” I answer, pretending I don’t know what she means.

  “Why are you blushing? Why won’t you catch my eye? Why aren’t you stomping around the room, telling me how crazy they are? What are you thinking?”

  I’ve been thinking a lot since that call — partly about my shoes. Ava says models wear nice clothes, which means their footwear doesn’t come from the thrift shop. Also, I’m thinking about Dean Daniels and Cally Harvest. Cally, who’s wanted to be a model since she was ten. Imagine if I actually was one. She’d probably explode.

  I have no idea why Model City picked me. I don’t understand it. But the fact is, they did, and it all feels different now. If I tried modeling over summer vacation, I need never be “the girl with the knickers” again. In fact, that would make up for a whole summer stuck in London, posing in front of brick walls and lying to my parents.

  Oh, yeah. Forgot about that bit. Ava’s still watching me, waiting for a reply.

  “I’m thinking about permission,” I sigh. “I’d need actual, real approval from Mum and Dad, not just you pretending over the phone.”

  “True,” Ava agrees. “So, you’ve changed your mind? You want to go ahead with it?”

  I nod. I’m so easy to persuade. I’d like to be more cool and decisive, but I’m more a “swim with the tide, see where it takes you” sort of person, and it’s taking me in an interesting direction. Or rather it would be, if Mum and Dad weren’t like a dam at the end, waiting to stop me.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Ava says confidently. “I have it all worked out. Trust me.”

  And yet again, despite everything, I do.

  The weak point in the dam, according to my sister, is Dad. On Saturday morning, as soon as Mum’s gone out to work, we set to work on him together. I go first.

  “Er, Dad,” I say, wandering into the kitchen where he’s washing dishes. “I may need your help.”

  He looks around and smiles. “What is it, love? If it’s math again, I don’t think there’s much I can do. Those statistics are way beyond me now.”

  “It’s not math, it’s modeling.”

  I explain about Cassandra’s call. He swears loudly, his fingers fumbling in his ridiculous yellow rubber gloves, and drops a plate. It breaks. We decide to continue the conversation at the dining table, out of range of fragile china. Ava joins us, looking pale and woozy this morning, but determined to back me all the way.

  “But listen, my loves, are you sure they’re real?” Dad asks suspiciously.

  Ava steps in. “Model City are the best, Dad. I know Ted’s not your … typical beauty queen, but she’s got what it takes for modeling. She’s just lucky that way.”

  He smiles and takes my hand. “We could do with some luck in this family. But your mum would never let you, of course. You know what she thinks about model
s.”

  “Yes,” I admit, “but she doesn’t actually know any. I met one last week, and she was lovely. She didn’t take a single drug the whole time we were there.”

  He laughs.

  “We were thinking … er, I was thinking … that I could try it out. Maybe do a few jobs — small ones. Earn some money. See for myself if it’s OK, then tell Mum.”

  I see him falter for a moment, and look at him pleadingly. It was when I mentioned earning some money that he wobbled. Dad hates the fact that Ava and I don’t have an allowance anymore, and he still tries to slip me a five occasionally. Simply breathing in a city like London seems to cost money. My original plan was to apply for a waitressing job over the summer, but they’re hard to get around here because everyone wants one and even if you get one, you have to work a whole day to earn enough for one meal out with your friends. Dad knows this.

  Ava gives him a winning smile. “It would keep Ted busy.”

  He nods, still faltering.

  “And it would be safe, I promise,” I tell him. “They sent me an e-mail about it this morning. I’ll show you. It says I have to have a chaperone at all times until I’m sixteen. Either you could do it, or they’ll provide one. And I’d always tell you exactly where I was going, and give you contact numbers and everything.”

  He sighs and doodles absentmindedly in the margin of the newspaper.

  “When I was your age, Ava,” he says, “I needed some vacation money. A friend’s dad had a farm. He offered me and some mates free board and lodging and a little money if we could help pick lettuce. We took a look around the farm: nice, rolling countryside, friendly farmer’s wife. The town was famous for its summer music festival. So we said yes.” He turns to us with haunted eyes. “And, girls, I have never worked so hard, for so little money, in my life. It’s backbreaking, pulling up lettuce, and it never ends. Hours and hours and hours of it. Those fields just went on and on …” He doodles some more and says grimly, “I hate lettuce. Don’t tell your mother, but I can’t abide the stuff … So, Ted, you’d just be wearing nice clothes, like a proper fashion model?”