Braless in Wonderland (4 page)

Jay held up the digital camera. He and Baldie stared at it, commenting.

“Amazing skin. Like caviar and pearls.” Wow, my skin was like caviar and pearls?

“Great teeth.”

“And hair. It's every color from chocolate to butter.”

“She's commercial, not fashion.”

“Oh, def. Very commercial.”

Jay looked up and snapped another picture of me. “I'm just going to take a couple more. We need a profile, front-on, and full-body.” He was waiting for me to do something. I felt silly, but I tossed my hair like I was in a shampoo commercial. “Good, hold it.”
Snap.
“Now smile. Chin out.”
Snap
. “Shake your hair again. How do you get such fabulous highlights? You must have a great stylist.”

Highlights? I got my hair cut once a year. Mom insisted that I do it every December for NASA's annual nondenominational holiday barbecue. I jogged on the beach a lot. That could explain it. “No stylist. It's sun.”

“Sun? I've never heard of it. Where can I buy some?” I grinned.
Snap.
“Great teeth, Allee.”

“Are your parents here?” Baldie asked.

“No.”

“What size shoe are you?”

“Ten.”

“Good. You'll be five ten in no time. How old are you?”

“Sixteen. I'll be seventeen next month. I skipped first grade, so I'm younger than—”

“Great smiling shots. Momma will love her. In fact, let's send these to Momma today.”

Momma? Who the hell was Momma? A pistol-packing, cowboy-hat-wearing tobacco-spitter came to mind. Actually, who cared who Momma was? None of this was legit. By this time next week I'd probably have a steaming pile of junk mail from cheesy modeling schools.

The Fluff was waiting for me on a bench by the entrance, looking extremely pissed off. When I started walking toward her, she shot me an angry look, got up, and stomped out the door, without looking back.

Right now my life was more drama-packed than a Telemundo soap. First there was the Abuela problem. Last weekend we were finishing our usual Sunday dinner of DiSalvo's pizza when Abuela came home from some funeral, sniffing and waving a lace hankie around. Maybe she really could have been an actress, because I happened to know she couldn't stand the lady who died. And she kept going on and on about how she's so much more golden than all the other golden girls who were there. “…Ana used to walk around like she was the last Coca-Cola in the desert, and look at her now, in a wheelchair, and she's younger than me. I could salsa all night long, I could do a hundred jumping jacks (
yumping yacks
), cook a ten-course gourmet meal, sing an aria…” and blah-blapity-blah-blah. For someone who sat around in a recliner glued to the TV all day, she was really wasting all her talents. Anyway, none of us were paying attention until she said, “I met a nice man at the wake. A
very
nice man.”

Dad snorted. “A man? At your age, Maria?”

“What, you think I'm a dinosaur?”

“Yeah, you're a pterodactyl! You're a pterodactyl!” Robby shouted. Did I mention he was a dino-holic? It was obsessive. He'd been wearing the same stinky dinosaur socks for four days.

Abuela ignored him and widened her mascara-encrusted eyes as if a horde of TV cameras were zooming in on her for a close-up. “Well, you'll never believe this.” She stopped for a theatrical pause, then said, “He's getting me a
yob.
” It took me a full five seconds to realize she was referring to employment, and I was still recovering from that info when she cried, “At Wal-Mart! Allee,
mi vida
, we'll be working together!” I didn't know what she said after that due to the inner shriek of hysteria echoing through my brain.

The man was Artie Kovic, a greeter who'd been there forever. So now, for the past week, Abuela had been “working,” which meant she was sitting next to Artie, watching him hand out carts and stickers. What sucked the most was that Wal-Mart kindly matched our shifts, so now I was stuck driving Miss Lazy.

The Fluff was loving it all. Whenever Abuela and I left the house in our matching blue vests, she went, “Gee, I didn't know polyester was in this season,” or “Are those from Wal-Mart's ready-to-wear collection?” And that was about all she'd said to me in a week. She hadn't even asked me to help her with any homework. I actually missed helping her too. She just couldn't get over the fact that I'd stolen her spotlight for once, even though I hadn't meant to.

And then there was Robby, getting out of his bed and crawling into mine every night. He was too afraid to go downstairs to Mom and Dad's bedroom so he came to me, all trembling and clutching his giant T. rex, freaked out from a bad dream. It wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't had that little bed-wetting problem.

On top of everything, something was up with my parents. They were really quiet lately. Sometimes Dad looked like one of those cigar-store Indians, arms crossed, lips pursed, Chief No Talk. I heard them talking sometimes, in the kitchen usually, but whenever I walked in, they'd stop. They had some big secret. Oh, God. I hoped Mom wasn't preggo again (
ew, disturbing visual, deny, deny, deny)
. Another kid. That was all this family needed. It was crowded enough around here.

I swear, between my parents' secret conversations, my sister giving me the cold shoulder, Robby in my bed, Abuela in my car and at my job, no clue where I was going to college, and graduation in front of me like a brick wall, I was suffocating. The words
Ican'tbreatheIcan'tbreatheIcan'tbreathe
chugged through my thoughts like a train sometimes. The other night I went running at ten o'clock just to get my ya-yas out.

I wished I could wake up and be someone else.

 

We'd all been called into the family room, even Robby and Abuela. Mom and Dad were sitting on the couch. “There's something Mom and I need to discuss with you all,” Dad said. My sister bit her lower lip and gave me this look. It was the same look she used to give me during a scary movie when she wanted me to hold her hand, or when a bad storm rattled our bedroom windows and she wanted me to hide in the closet with her. I got up from the ottoman, stepped over Robby rolling around on the floor with his T. rex, and sat next to her on the love seat. Her eyes thanked me. Maybe after this meeting we could finally talk.

Mom took a deep breath, blew it out slowly, and looked at me. “Remember that day you went to see those model scouts at the mall?”

The Fluff brightened. “Did they call?”

“Yes, they did. They've called a few times.”

My sister bounced forward. “What did they say? Did they change their minds about me? Do they want me?”

Mom bit her lip, not answering. She turned to Dad, who said, “They said you were very pretty but that you need to grow some more. You can try again in a few years, sweetheart.” Dad cleared his throat. “Actually, Allee, it's you they're interested in. The scouts showed this agency your pictures, and apparently they—this agency—would like to meet you.”

Huh?

My parents were waiting for me to say something, but what was I supposed to say? None of this modeling stuff was true. It couldn't be. I was afraid to look at my sister. She was the only one with a response:
“OOWWHAAAT?”

Mom answered calmly, as if my sister hadn't just shrieked like a crazy mofo. “I know this isn't what you expected, Sabrina, and I'm so sorry, sweetheart, really I am.”

“I'm sorry too, honey,” Dad said. “Sometimes things don't work out the way we planned.” His eyes came back to mine. “The agent's name is Momma, if you can believe that.”

Momma? I rewound Baldie's last words:
Let's send these to Momma today.

Oh, for God's sake.

They had to be kidding me.

My poor, naive parents actually thought those model scouts were legit. Me and modeling? They honestly thought someone in Miami wanted
me
to sign a modeling contract? HA! Psychotic breaks, anyone? They'd totally lost their grip on reality.

“Perdón,”
Abuela said. “But why do they want to see Allee? I mean, Allee,
mi vida
, you're a genius like your father, but no offense…” I braced myself. Abuela always said “no offense” right before she said something really offensive. “You're no great beauty, not like I was at your age. Sabrina's the one who should be a model, not you.”

“Mamá, por favor!”
Mom shouted, throwing her hands up.

“Exactly!” said The Fluff. “Abuela is right. Allee is
not
model material. Look at her.” My whole family scanned me up and down with these puzzled expressions. It was not a good feeling.

“Well, the experts think she is,” said Mom, scratching her head. “They think she's beautiful and a good type for commercials and catalogs.” I looked at myself in the mirror across from me, hanging above the couch, trying to see what it was those modeling people saw.

“Allee doesn't know the first thing about the fashion industry!” my sister shouted. “
I
do. And which agency is this, anyway?”

“Finesse,” Dad said. “Ever heard of them?”

“Finesse?
Finesse?
Of course I've heard of them. There's no way they want Allee. This is bull!”

“Calm down, Sabrina,” Mom said. “You'll have another chance someday.”

But she was winding up. “How'd they get our number anyway? She didn't even fill out an application at the mall.”

“No, but you did,” Dad said. “And you told them you were sisters.”

“It's not fair!” She stood up and threw a couch pillow at my face, but I caught it. Perfectly. Which led her to this explosion: “Everything always has to be about you, doesn't it, Allee? Miss Overachiever. You know what you're number one at? Being the worst sister in the entire world! I'll never forgive you for stealing this from me! I hate you!” She ran out and stomped up the stairs, then came back down and pointed at me like she was about to deliver a gypsy curse. “Just wait. You think you know everything, but you don't know anything. You'll see.” Then she was gone again.

What did
I
do? Tears stung my eyes.

Mom said the same thing to me that Jay had said at the mall. “Don't worry, Allee, she'll get over it.” Dad nodded, agreeing.

Abuela got up and started shuffling out, probably to try to calm my sister down. Or maybe it was just time for her favorite show,
El Gordo y la Flaca
. “Robby,” she said, “
ven conmigo
. Let's go upstairs. I have gummi bears in my room.” They both went upstairs.

“So what do you think, Allee?” Dad asked. “Do you want to be a model?” He sounded like an infomercial.
Do you want to be a real estate ace? A professional in the medical field? A hip-hop dancer?
“Should we drive down to Miami tomorrow and see what this is all about, hear what they have to say?”

I shook my head. “Dad, I think these so-called scouts are playing you. They tell you what you want to hear to get your money. Don't you watch
20/20
? They're always busting these fake modeling things.”

“This is legit,” said Dad. “I've checked this agency out. And there are, uh, certain aspects about this modeling offer you should know before you reject the idea.”

I smelled something rotten and it wasn't Robby's socks. “Like what?”

“Like you could make a thousand dollars a day,” my sister called from upstairs. There was no privacy in this house.

But did she say a thousand? Dollars?

“Actually,” Mom said, “we're told the usual rate is fifteen hundred a day. I think she said that's for catalog modeling. Right, Howard?” He nodded. “For magazines it's less. Like a few hundred.”

Dad adjusted his glasses and said, “The financial aspect might take care of your tuition.”

The financial aspect might take care of my tuition. To Yale. I might still be able to go to Yale.

He continued, “A few months of modeling in Miami could make you enough so that, when it's added to what's left of your college fund, it'll be sufficient to cover the cost.”

This was it. My way to get there. My heart started to race with excitement.

But modeling? Me? It was so exploitative, so against everything I stood for.

“But if you don't want to try it, that's okay,” Dad said. “We know it's not your thing. And you could get a free ride to a state school, I'm sure. You know, the University of Florida has a pretty good English program. It's not Yale, but…” He stopped, seeing the expression on my face. UF wasn't Yale. Nothing else was Yale, and he knew that.

Beautiful
was the word they'd used.
Beautiful
. Wow. That was so utterly…cool. I looked in the mirror again, trying to see what it was they saw. Maybe it was there and I had some kind of partial blindness or something. “If you decide to do this, our only concern is you living in Miami,” Dad said.

Ex-squeeze me?

“Miami? Why would I be living in Miami?”

“There's no modeling out here in Comet. You'd have to move to Miami.”

Move to Miami? Wait, what about my life here?

Yeah, what about your life here, Allee? What's so great about it? A crappy job at Wal-Mart with your grandmother, a school full of buttheads, a full academic load, a family who's crowding you, and a sister who now hates you.

Okay, I didn't care if it was modeling or strawberry picking they were offering, any offer to get out of here was looking pretty good.

And any offer that could make me enough money to go to Yale in the fall was worth looking into.