Taffy Sinclair 008 - Taffy Sinclair and the Melanie Make-Over (9 page)

"H
urry up, girls. We have a lot to do today,
"
Laura said as she motioned us into the Special Events Room for our last modeling class on Saturday.
"
Next week is the fashion show!
"

Laura looked beautiful, as usual, but I couldn
'
t help smiling to myself. She was wearing jeans and a chambray shirt, the same as I had last week. Of course she also had on tons of silver and turquoise jewelry and high heels covered in denim to match her jeans, but maybe, just
maybe
, I hadn
'
t looked as grungy and ugly in mine as I had thought.

"
I
'
m getting nervous,
"
I whispered to Melanie as my friends and I found seats near the front of the
room.
"
What if I stub my toe and go sprawling into the audience or something?
"

Melanie giggled.
"
Just remember,
"
she said, deepening her voice to sound like Laura,
"
hold your head up, your shoulders low, your tummy in. . . .
"

Just then Laura started taking roll.
"
Mandy
McDermott, Moll
y Colby, Jana Morgan, Kim Dele
hanty
. . ."
She went on through the list, and it wasn
'
t until she got to Taffy
'
s name that I looked around and discovered that she wasn
'
t there. I didn
'
t have time to wonder where she was or if she was just planning to make a grand entrance again, because Laura was starting our lesson.

She had been right when she said we had a lot to do. First, we learned how to walk on the runway. We started with the model
'
s stance, which is standing with the heel of the right foot up against the instep of the left foot in sort of a T-formation. Then we learned to pivot, which means how to turn around on the runway to show off what we are wearing. We practiced that for ages, until everybody could do it pretty well, and still, Taffy Sinclair had not come to class. Finally came the best moment of all.

"
We
'
re going into Tanninger
'
s young miss department now,
"
Laura announced,
"
so that you may select the outfit you will wear.
"

Everyone tried to crowd through the doorway at once, and Laura had to remind us that we were learning to be young ladies. Finally, we got to the department where all the neat clothes were. I probably tried on two dozen outfits before I found the perfect one. It was a gorgeous dress made of shimmery peach satin, and it had tiny white flowers appliqu
é
d across the skirt.

When we had all found what we wanted to wear, we took them back to the Special Events Room so that Laura coul
d approve them. Some girls had c
hosen sporty clothes, some dressy things like mine, and Megan Hampson had even picked a cuddly nightgown with bears on the front and a matching robe.

We hung our outfits on a rack in the Special Events Room so that nobody could buy them before we got the chance to wear them in the show, and then Laura gave us our final instructions on what time to be there next Saturday and what to bring along with us.

"
Don
'
t forget to bring a slip, if your outfit needs one, and your own shoes,
"
she said.
"
Ones that match the outfit you
'
re going to wear. And bring two pairs of panty hose so that if you run one pair while you
'
re putting them on, you
'
ll have another pair.
"
When she finished with the instructions, she got a solemn look on her face and said,
"
Before I dismiss you, there is one more thing I want to announce.
Taffy Sinclair will not be in our fashion show next Saturday. She has decided to drop out of modeling class.
"

At school on Monday Taffy was telling everybody that the Runway t
o Beauty modeling class was too
juvenile for her and that she had decided to drop out and look for real modeling jobs.

Of course my friends and I knew better, and we didn
'
t care what she was saying. In fact, it was all I could do to keep from hugging her. By trying to steal one friend, she had caused us to make a super new one. Now Taffy was the one who was left out.

The fashion show on Saturday was terrific. Mona was sitting in the front row with Mom and her boyfriend Pink, cheering us on, and I didn
'
t stub my toe and fall into the audience the wav I had worried
that I would. In fact, I felt like a star.

Randy was there, too, standing by the back door where he could peek in without being seen. He ducked out as soon as I left the stage, but that was okay. He had been there. That was what counted.

As the final applause filled the room and we all came out to take our bows, I looked at the audience smiling up at us and I suddenly felt really good about myself. I wasn
'
t a beauty like Taffy Sinclair or Laura
MacLeod, but that was okay. I had everything I needed. My friends liked me, including my new friend Mona Vaughn. And so did Randy Kirwan. Now I understood just what Laura had meant about having an inner glow. I had one. I could feel it, and it was glowing brighter than ever before.