The Look (4 page)

O
n Saturday morning, we show up at a building in central London that Dad assures us is not far from the British Museum. Mum gives Dad a stiff look at this point. We don’t care if it’s on top of the British Museum or, frankly, in London Zoo. It’s a hospital. It’s where pediatric oncologists see their new patients. Pediatric oncologists are doctors who deal with childhood cancer. My vocabulary is growing by the minute.

Inside, it’s overwhelming, full of shiny floors and signs pointing to places where people get treated for lots of scarily named stuff that I didn’t even know you could get. In the corridors, smiling staff in colorful uniforms bustle past gray-faced families looking just like Mum and Ava did when they first got the news. Like we all do, in fact. Looking lost.

It takes us twenty minutes to find the corridor where Ava’s consultant, Dr. Christodoulou, is seeing his outpatients. Despite the fact that Dad is a highly trained academic, we can’t seem to follow simple directions.

We sit in the waiting room, avoiding the eyes of the other families. Automatically, Mum and Dad look around to find
something to read. You don’t get to be a French translator and an ex–history professor without reading pretty much everything you can get your hands on, all your life. Mum grabs the only newspaper. Dad goes for the magazine with the largest amount of writing, which turns out to be
Good Housekeeping
. He reads it anyway. Maybe he’ll pick up some laundry tips. Ava’s already got her nose buried in an old copy of
Marie Claire
. That only leaves
Hello!
for me. I soon know more about the beautiful homes and failed love lives of B-list celebrities than I ever wanted or needed to. Luckily, the consultant is running five minutes ahead of schedule. A nurse pops her head round the door of the waiting room to show us into his office.

The consultation goes by in a blur. Dr. Christodoulou is not as old as I was expecting — younger than Dad, in fact, with a smooth, unlined face and black, wavy hair. He must have done all his training very fast. I wonder if he can really be a “highly respected expert” already. But for Ava’s sake, he has to be.

He explains that her type of lymphoma is called Hodgkin’s disease. The lump in her neck is not a tumor — or not the way I imagined it, anyway — it’s a swelling of the lymph nodes. I didn’t know you had lymph nodes, but now I do, and Ava’s have got cancer. Once they’ve found out how far it’s spread, they’ll start treating it with chemotherapy, which is basically lots of powerful drugs that they’ll be flooding into her bloodstream over several weeks until they’ve got rid of it. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll try radiotherapy.

Great. Not remotely frightening, then.

“But you look fit, Ava,” he says to her with a smile. “That’s a good start.”

He’s not the first person to tell Ava she looks “fit.” Not by a long way. It’s just not usually in these circumstances. She still smiles coyly, though, as if she’s forgotten why we’re here. I think she’s struggling to concentrate. And he’s not bad himself, as pediatric oncologists go. I really should stop noticing stuff like this.

“My secretary will book you in for the other tests you need, OK? It’ll only take a few days. We like to move these things along.”

Mum blows into a tissue; she’s already gone through most of the box thoughtfully placed next to her. I think we’re all very slightly in love with Dr. Christodoulou. Even Dad looks a bit less gray than he did five minutes ago.

“And you can make her completely better?” he asks, with a cough.

The consultant hesitates slightly. “I can’t make any promises. But I can tell you that the treatment is very effective these days. Over ninety percent of our patients are completely cured.” Then he turns his attention back to Ava. “Now, while you’re here, I’d like our phlebotomist to take some samples.” He smiles at our blank faces. “Blood samples. It won’t take long.”

Next thing we know, we’re back in the corridor. Ava and Mum are being taken to wherever the phlebotomists hang out — in the basement, somewhere — and Dad and I are shown back into the waiting room.

I want to talk to Dad about the last bit of the conversation — about curing the disease. A ninety percent success rate is great, of course. It’s an A in pretty much any subject. But I have a math exam coming up and I’m fairly sure that if you take ninety percent away from a hundred percent, it still means that ten percent
of people don’t necessarily get cured. What happens to them? However, Dad has already got his head buried in
Good Housekeeping
again. He’s not avoiding me exactly, but I can tell he’s not ready to talk. The thought might have occurred to him, too.

Instead, I pick up the abandoned
Marie Claire
from beside Ava’s old seat and flick through it. It contains well over a hundred pages of perfect, impossible bodies in bikinis and high-heeled shoes. Whoopee. But I need distractions. Any distractions. So I decide to read my way through it, page by page, until Mum and Ava get back, or until my brain melts — whichever comes first.

There are a remarkable number of lipstick ads in
Marie Claire
. More than you’d think possible. And foundation ads. And perfume ads. And handbag ads. I’m starting to wonder how I’ve got through fifteen years of my life without owning a proper lipstick (I wear gloss if I remember; usually I don’t), or foundation, or perfume (I borrow Mum’s or Ava’s, when I can get away with it), or a handbag. Yes, I really don’t own a bag. I have a small canvas backpack that works perfectly well. Or at least I thought it did. Maybe I should own
one
handbag. I’m starting to feel I’m letting the handbag industry down.

Mum and Ava still aren’t back. I plow on.

There’s an article on “how to get a beach body.” Another on whether bikinis or one-piece swimsuits are more flattering. And a very long piece on some aging blonde woman going through her walk-in closet of designer outfits, explaining which ones are special to her and why. I bet she owns a lot of handbags and not a single canvas backpack.

“What are you reading?” Dad asks me.

I look up. “Oh, this thing about some woman with a lot of clothes.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why does she have a lot of clothes?”

This is a fair question, especially from a man who lives in the same three shirts and two pairs of trousers. I’m not sure of the answer, though, so I go back to the beginning of the article and read the opening blurb more carefully: “My love affair with fashion — Cassandra Spoke, founder of Model City, gives us an intimate tour of an über-agent’s über-wardrobe.”

There’s a picture of Cassandra Spoke in her office. She has piercing blue eyes, tanned skin, and silky blonde hair, perfectly parted in the middle. She’s wearing a black silk dress and very high heels. Behind her is the logo that represents her über-agency. It’s a jagged black
M
inside a pale blue circle. The circle matches the color of her eyes, and is actually a
C
, for “City.”

Oh.

This logo, I’m sure, is the same as the one on the card that Simon the scammer gave me on Carnaby Street.

Except … maybe he wasn’t.

“Ted, are you OK?” Dad asks, frowning.

I nod dumbly and try to ignore the increasingly familiar sound of buzzing in my ears.

I think I got scouted by a legitimate model agency, owned by a fashion star. And my sister’s having blood tests to see why her neck’s got cancer. It feels as though the world has turned upside down. I’m not sure I’m ready for this.

T
he rest of the weekend goes by in a blur of phone calls, missed meals, forgotten homework, and sleepless nights. Back at school on Monday, Daisy helps me try to adjust to the news.

“Why don’t we go outside?” she says at first break. “It’s such a nice day. We could sit on the grassy knoll.”

The grassy knoll is part of the landscaping outside the school’s new cafeteria. I follow her out there to chat. Normally we sit by ourselves, but today we’re constantly interrupted by a stream of gorgeous male students, who suddenly all want to talk to me. Me! Mind you, I quickly come back to Earth when I realize why.

“Are you Ava’s sister?”

“I heard she got some bad news, right?”

“Is she in today? I haven’t seen her. I’m kind of freaked out, to be honest.”

“Tell her I said hi, OK? Here’s my number, in case she doesn’t have it.”

Daisy sits with her eyes on stalks, watching them all troop by.

“I can’t believe that Shane Matthews is trying to hit on Ava at a time like this,” she mutters, disgusted. “Doesn’t he know she has a boyfriend? What did the consultant say, by the way? She is coming back to school, isn’t she?”

I nod. “She’s just taking a few days out to get used to it and have some tests. He said to keep living as normally as possible.”

“Like you feel so normal right now,” Daisy says, oozing with sarcasm.

She’s right. I can’t even remember what normal’s supposed to feel like. All I feel now is empty, as we wait for the next piece of information, so we can figure out what to do.

In class this morning our homeroom teacher, Mr. Willis, told everyone what had happened while I was taken to the guidance counselor for a chat about my feelings, which was a bit of a waste of time for us both, because emptiness is a difficult feeling to describe. However, it added a new one — which was guilt about feeling empty, instead of whatever feelings I’m supposed to have. I could have talked about that, but I didn’t, because by then it was time to go back to class, where everyone stared at me with their mouths literally hanging open. It wasn’t the best start to the day.

Meanwhile, more cute boys pass by the grassy knoll to pay their respects. Thank goodness I’m sitting here in Ava’s borrowed skirt and not my micro-mini. I feel like a walking condolence-book-cum-dating-site. I suppose I could try and describe that to the guidance counselor next time, but I don’t think it’s the kind of feeling she was looking for.

The bell rings. Daisy and I get up. We have a math exam any minute. Why they take the month of June, the most glorious in
the whole English calendar, and fill it with exams every year of your school life, I can’t begin to imagine.

“How’s Ava coping, by the way?” she asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. She’s pretty quiet. She seems so calm but she must be feeling so … It’s like she’s avoiding it. I heard her telling Jesse how much she’ll miss the beach this summer, but that’s all. Mum’s in tears every five minutes, though. And Dad accidentally broke his watch.”

“And you?”

I use the fact that we’ve arrived at our math room as an excuse not to answer. Because when we got back from the hospital on Saturday, I was distracted. Perhaps I just didn’t want to think about the bad news conversation, but I couldn’t help remembering that logo in
Marie Claire
, and Simon the not-a-scammer-after-all, and what he said to me on Carnaby Street.

I keep trying to make sense of the whole “have you thought about being a model” thing, and I still can’t do it. Mum caught me staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, and wondered if I was getting a zit. I said I was, because it was easier than explaining that I was trying to find any passing resemblance between me and Kate Moss. Or the girl on the cover of
Marie Claire
. Or indeed anyone in a magazine who’s not there as the “before” picture in a cosmetic surgery ad.

I know it’s selfish and irrelevant, but I just wish I knew what Simon meant, and why he picked me of all people to say it to.

At night, Ava can’t sleep. Neither can I. I hear her constantly changing position in bed on the other side of the room. Her skin itches and makes her uncomfortable. One of the symptoms we
didn’t pay enough attention to, like the fevers and night sweats. Her body has been trying to tell her something for a long time.

“Are you hot?” I whisper.

“A little.”

There’s silence for a while.

“Ava?”

Nothing.

“Are you OK?”

Long sigh. “What do you think?”

More silence, while I make a mental note not to ask my sister if she’s OK. Ever. Again. Idiot.

“Is there anything I can do?”

She shifts about to face the closet next to her bed. “Just don’t talk to me about it, OK? Talk to me about something else. Tree hugging? Daisy’s latest band obsession? I don’t know — anything.”

Oh, right. Fine. I wasn’t going to mention it, but since she asked …

“Er, actually, there was something. Ava, what if that Simon guy turned out to be for real?”

“Simon who?” she grunts crossly.

I lean up on one elbow and whisper more loudly.

“Simon from Carnaby Street. The scout. What if he actually meant it — that stuff about me? What if it wasn’t a scam?”

There’s a sudden rustle, then a click. The bedside light comes on. Ava’s sitting bolt upright in bed and staring straight at me.

“Are you sure?”

“No. I mean, he might have been having a joke or something. But his agency’s real — Model City. I checked out their website.
It’s got this famous girl called Isabelle Carruthers who’s on loads of magazines and … I dunno … not Lily Cole, but other people you’ve heard of.”

“What? Really? That never occurred to me.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Sorry. It’s just … Holly went on about those scammers last year. And I just assumed …”

“I know,” I sigh. I don’t blame her. Of course, if he’d picked on Ava, we’d both have assumed he was real.

“I guess every once in a while they must be genuine,” she goes on. “Or how would they find people? I used to dream about modeling, you know. A bit. Secretly. Before I met Jesse.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Her smile widens. “Me and Louise. Imagine the clothes … The makeup. Looking your best all the time. Getting your hair done. Meeting celebrities. Traveling on private jets. Practically living in Paris. The clothes …”

“You said the clothes.”

“I know. Practically living in Milan. Practically living in New York. The money. The clothes …”

It sounds exhausting. All that changing outfits, apart from anything else.

“So what happened?”

“Well, first of all, I discovered surfing. After you’ve had that rush, nothing else compares.”

She pauses, clearly thinking back to last summer and remembering the rush.

“And?”

“Oh, and Jesse said he’d never date a model in a million years.”

“Why?”

She ponders for a minute. “He never said. I didn’t ask him. He just seemed pretty certain about it. Besides, he said that although I’m perfect in every way — for him — I’d be too short for anything top-modelish. You have to be at least five foot nine or something, and I’m five seven.”

This is odd. Jesse is a surf dude who lives in Cornwall. “How does he even know?”

She shrugs again. “No idea. He knows lots of weird stuff.”

Her goofy smile returns. Now she’s thinking about the surfing rush
and
the Jesse rush. Then her expression changes again and she looks at me, head cocked, thoughtfully.

“Anyway, we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. Come to think of it, it all adds up. I watched a program about models once, and they said the girls they pick aren’t necessarily the ones you’d think of. They need people who are … unusual. They have to have a special look. And they did mention the minimum height thing. You must be five eleven by now.”

“So Simon picked me because I’m freakishly tall.”

“And freakishly thin. And didn’t he say he thought you looked gorgeous?”

“No. He said ‘amazing.’”

“Whatever. Get over yourself, T!”

“You were just saying I could be a model!”

There’s silence again. Ava’s plotting something while she examines one of her perfect fingernails.

“Yeah, actually,” she says eventually, with rising excitement in her voice. “If that guy
was
for real, you could! It would be SO COOL. You could get lots of free stuff and give me some of it.
You could tell me about the celebrities, what they’re like behind the scenes, the tricks of the trade —”

“And take drugs and get anorexia,” I remind her, thinking of Mum.

She snorts. “They can’t
all
do it. Besides, Mum would never let you get anorexia. She practically force-feeds us as it is. Anyway, you eat like a horse. If you had to go more than twenty minutes without a cookie, you’d keel over.”

This is true. However, Ava has put her finger on the other flaw in her plan, apart from the fact that I am neither beautiful nor clinically insane: Mum. She’d totally forbid me to even try. I point this out.

“I’m sure I could persuade her,” Ava says, worrying at her fingernail. “Think of the money, Ted. Linda Evangelista didn’t get out of bed for less than ten thousand dollars a day.”

“Who’s Linda Evangelista?”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Anyway, imagine what Mum could do with ten thousand dollars.”

I can’t. I can imagine what
I
could do with ten thousand dollars, though — converted to pounds, obviously. I’d get our old cottage in Richmond back. The garden. My own space … I didn’t appreciate it enough while we were there, not nearly. Oh, and I’d buy a couple of school skirts. Long ones. And lots of new underwear.

“But there is another option,” Ava suggests. I’m not sure she really believes Mum would be won over by the money argument.

“Oh. What?”

“Not tell her. Not to start with, anyway. Not until you were super-successful. Nobody minds when you’re super-successful.”

“Brilliant. Genius,” I say. I’m not often sarcastic with my sister, but honestly. Of all the rubbish ideas I’ve ever heard …

“Listen.” She sits up again, with her arms clasped around her knees and her head resting against them. She looks exhausted. Those dark circles under her eyes were another clue. It seems impossible that someone you live with every day can have cancer and you don’t even see it. And here we are talking about modeling: We must both be crazy. “I’m going to be … busy this summer. Lots of hospital appointments and … you remember Nan. Chemo is tough. You need something fun to think about. We both do. You can’t rely on me to provide your entertainment.”

This is true. I know I rely on her too much, but she’s always been there — thinking up mad stuff to do — and I guess I’m just used to it. Sure it’s annoying sometimes, but I don’t want anything to be different. Certainly not like this. If the guidance counselor were to ask me how I was feeling right now, I’d say I was upset: upset and frightened.

Finally, Ava turns out the light and I lie there in the darkness, wondering. About Ava, about me, about Simon. About having your whole summer taken away because your dad noticed a lump in your neck. About earning ten thousand dollars a day. Is that honestly possible? And who
is
Linda Evangelista, anyway?