The Luckiest Girls Read online

  Sophia arrives tomorrow night. Hurry, Sophia. I really need a friend right now.

  4

  Jane

  “We have one of the highest college acceptance rates in the city,” says the headmaster of Egleston, Mr. Singh, during my tour. “And you’ll be pleased to know that we have a very strong art department. Our kids have earned national awards in art, as well as in science, athletics, writing, and music.”

  See, this happens all the time. As soon as people know who my dad was, they think I must have a great interest in art. But the truth is I suck at drawing and painting. Mr. Singh points out a display of paintings by current students hanging on the wall, and Margo makes little impressed grunting noises. I’m wearing one of my new outfits: a ruffle-sleeved metallic sweater and flared black velvet pants, which Gigi took two seconds to tell me this morning looks “much more adequate.” The sweater makes me look like a flightless bird and itches the back of my neck and my pants are sliding off my non-existent hips but, hey, Gigi’s happy. As Margo shuffles along beside me dabbing her nose with her handkerchief, I cringe inwardly, and I feel guilty because it’s not her fault that I wish she was someone else. It’s not her fault she isn’t Gigi.

  A pair of girls about my age approach us and call out, “Hey, Mr. Singh!”

  “Hi girls, come meet our newest student. Jenna, Mikayla — this is Jane Archer.”

  The girls and I say hello, and Margo extends her hand.

  “Hello, Mrs. Archer,” Mikayla says.

  “She’s not my mother,” I blurt, too fast and too loud. Right away I’m sorry, but I can’t take it back. Mr. Singh clears his throat. “We’d better keep moving if we want to have time to visit the rooftop garden,” he says.

  For the rest of our tour Margo doesn’t make a sound, nor does she look my way. Only when we get home does she inform me that I have another appointment.

  “I promised Gigi we’d get your hair done today. Trim, color and highlights. You have an appointment at Bruno’s at two o’clock. He does all of Gigi’s girls.”

  Now it’s my hair? Is there anything about me that Gigi doesn’t want overhauled?

  “I’m sure you’d rather go by yourself,” Margo says with a haughty air. “It’s not far, just on Thirteenth Street. It’s already charged to Gigi but here’s fifty dollars for tips.”

  I think I must have misheard, she must have said fifteen dollars, but nope, she hands me fifty dollars in cash. I don’t know exactly where I’m going when I leave the house, I just know I want to go the opposite direction from Bruno’s salon. I imagine it’s chic and luxurious and expensive and everything I’m not, and if one more person tries to force me into a mold that I can’t possibly fit into, I’m going to crack. I find myself in SoHo, and I smile when I stop in front of exactly the place I need.

  The tiny salon is manned by a guy with a magenta mohawk and tattoos that cover the length of his arms, and in addition to hair services he also peddles body piercings and an assortment of punk-rock T-shirts and jewelry. I bet this joint is the exact opposite of whatever Bruno’s is. This whole place has a grimy feel to it; the vinyl chair feels sticky and the brushes on the counter look kind of gross, with hairballs from previous clients still stuck in the bristles which may be infested with lice for all I know. But after the stylist is done cutting, bleaching, coloring, washing, and drying, my hair has been through its own version of chemical warfare and I’m pretty sure there isn’t anything alive in there. It’s cut in a wedge and dyed Prussian blue and it looks as unlike one of Gigi’s girls as possible. I really, I mean really, can’t wait to see Gigi’s face when she sees this! I may not be as pretty, or as tall, or as graceful as Gigi’s girls, but what I will not be is invisible.

  When I return home, Margo calls to me as she comes downstairs.

  “Jane? Bruno called and said you never…” she sees me and gasps. “Mais non! Quel horreur! Are you insane?”

  “Fetching, isn’t it?” I give my hair a toss.

  “Gigi will be furious! WHAT am I going to tell her?”

  “Don’t tell her anything. She’ll see it herself.”

  When Gigi gets home Margo hauls me before her. Gigi’s eyes open very wide and she stares at me for a long while with her lips pressed together. I hold my breath. I’m almost hoping she’ll be angry.

  “Really, Jane?” she finally says. “You felt this was absolutely necessary?”

  “Yup.”

  “What in the world were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that this was more my own style.”

  “Are there any other surprises I can look forward to as you cultivate your own style? Will you be getting any tattoos? A couple of facial piercings, perhaps?”

  “Maybe later. I saw this cool scorpion tattoo on a girl’s neck…”

  “I told her you would find her hair in the worst possible taste,” Margo interjects.

  “Of course I do,” Gigi says. Head tilted, she touches my hair, lifting the strands and letting them fall. “But I don’t mind bad taste nearly as much as I mind no taste. At least it’s a look.” Damn, this woman is chill. There’s no question that Gigi hates it, but as much as she hates it, she actually hates it less than she hated my natural hair. I don’t know whether to be pleased or offended. With that, the subject of my hair is abandoned. Margo breathes a huge sigh of relief and collapses in a chair.

  I follow Gigi upstairs.

  “Thank you again for my new clothes. But it’s far too generous, they’re so much more expensive than my old things.”

  “Of course they are, dear. Your old clothes were hideous,” Gigi says. “If you need anything else, just let Carol know.”

  Carol is Gigi’s assistant. She’s the one who booked my airplane ticket, requested my school transcripts, ordered my medical records from my pediatrician, and bought my school supplies for Egleston. I haven’t met her yet, but I’ve had more to do with Carol in the past two weeks than I have with Gigi in my entire life.

  In my room, I take off the itchy metallic sweater which I have grown to hate intensely in the past few hours. I pull several new items out of the closest and toss them on the bed as I search from something else to put on. I decide on a white asymmetrical top with cut-out shoulders. It’s supposed to be a cropped top, but on my stubby body it hits right at the top of my hips. As I pull it on, the other girls poke their heads into my room, probably lured by the brilliance of my hair like moths to a flame. They regard me for the first time with something resembling interest.

  “You look amazing. Whatever made you do it?” asks Maya.

  “You sure are brave,” Campbell says.

  “You’re lucky,” Ling says. “I wish I could do something crazy with my hair. But my booker would be furious.”

  “Who gives a shit?” I ask. “It’s your hair.”

  “No it’s not. My hair doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the Towers Agency.”

  “Is this the stuff you bought with Abby?” Campbell asks, exploring the items on the bed. “Can I see? Oh, wow, you lucky dog.”

  “Hey, is that Stella McCartney?” Ling asks. “That is so cool!” She picks up a crepe-de-chine shirt with tropical birds all over it. I’m pretty sure I told Abby that I hate prints. Ling holds the shirt in front of herself. It looks stunning with her coloring, and right then I know that I’ll never wear it myself.

  “You can borrow it if you like,” I say.

  “Seriously? Thanks!”

  “By the way, where’s Isabel?” I ask.

  “Isabel left,” Maya answers. “She went to Madrid to try the editorial market, since she’s not booked for the Fashion Week shows.”

  “I didn’t know Isabel was leaving today,” I say. “I would have said goodbye.” It’s the first time I realize how easily people come and go around here.

  The doorbell rings, and Campbell drops the yellow leather jacket she’s holding.

  “It’s Sophia! Sophia’s here!” she yells, and goes hurtling down the stairs like a cannonball
, bumping into the walls on the landing.

  “Ugh, spaz,” Maya murmurs.

  The rest of us follow, me and my stupid hair completely forgotten, and I descend the stairs to find Campbell and Sophia clutching each other, bouncing around the foyer and squealing like a pair of ten-year-olds.

  “Sophia,” Gigi cries as she appears from the living room. “Darling!”

  Gigi wraps her arms around Sophia in a bear hug, rocking her back and forth so hard that I’m surprised they don’t lose their balance and fall on the floor. She gives Sophia a big smoochy kiss on each cheek. Gigi introduces Sophia to the other models, and then Gigi introduces me.

  “This is my granddaughter, Jane.” (She says it in the same tone with which one might introduce someone to their new potted fern.)

  When you’re accustomed to seeing someone on a 5,000 square-foot Guess Jeans billboard overlooking Times Square it is to be expected that they should seem smaller in real life, but still I’m surprised that Sophia is this slight, fairy-like girl. Her hair is tied back in a loose bun and she’s swimming in a large ivory cashmere sweater from which her skinny forearms poke out.

  “I didn’t know you had a granddaughter,” Sophia says. “How long are you staying for, Jane?”

  “Jane is living with me now, Sophia.”

  “Oh, Gigi, how wonderful for you!”

  “Yes, well, Sophia, dear, you must be starving. No? You’re certain? Of course, the food in first class on Emirates is actually edible.”

  Margo comes out of the kitchen and she hugs Sophia to her chest.

  “Ma chére petite,” Margo says. “I have missed you, beautiful one.”

  Sophia pulls a gift for Margo out of her hand luggage, a box of macarons from the Ladurée pastry shop in Paris. It’s very sweet of Sophia, because I don’t think the other girls ever remember Margo exists, other than to ask her where the laundry detergent is or whether she remembered to buy their favorite rice crackers.

  The models and I follow Gigi and Sophia, their arms linked, into the living room, where Gigi sits and draws Sophia beside her on the sofa. As Sophia talks about her recent work in Paris everyone hangs on her words, especially Gigi. I get it because Sophia is, quite simply, breathtaking. I mean, all these girls are beautiful, but it’s hard to take your eyes off Sophia. People often think blondes are the ultimate standard in female beauty, but Sophia’s hair is light brown with strands of highlights around her face. Her eyebrows are a shade darker than her hair and perfectly tapered, and her eyes are this weird kaleidoscope of brown with flecks of greenish-blue in them, like they never made up their minds what color to be. She has the tiniest trace of an overbite and the corners of her mouth tilt up ever so slightly, so she has a serene little smile when her face is relaxed.

  I watch Gigi, who gazes at Sophia the way an art collector looks at a priceless painting. Sophia is expected to earn close to a million dollars this year, which is perfectly respectable but it’s not nearly as much as some of Gigi’s more established models. For example, Evangeline Potter, who models for Victoria’s Secret and is the face of Maybelline cosmetics, makes five million a year, and Olivia Knightley who has the Burberry campaign and just landed a part in a movie makes even more than that. And twenty percent of everything these girls earn goes to Gigi.

  But I see something special in the way Gigi stares at Sophia. She doesn’t look at her the way a businesswoman looks at a commodity. She doesn’t even look her in the appraising, satisfied way that she looks at her other girls. She looks at her with complete adoration. Absently, she strokes the back of Sophia’s hand. I wonder what it must be like to have a woman like Gigi, who surrounds herself with beautiful, perfect things, love you more than anything else she owns, and suddenly a hard lump forms in my throat, so hard that it hurts to swallow, and my eyes feel hot and prickly. Nobody notices as I slip into the kitchen to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.

  5

  Campbell

  I just wish everyone would back off and leave Sophia alone so she and I could disappear upstairs and catch up on the last few months, but nope, everyone wants to hover around her. Gigi has a bunch of shoptalk to go over with Sophia, so she waves the rest of us out of the room, and I signal to Sophia that I’ll see her upstairs when Gigi lets her go. Gigi keeps Sophia occupied for over an hour. I can hear them chattering and laughing downstairs. I don’t think Gigi’s ever been as interested in any of the other girls, not even Maya, and she’s crazy about Maya. I wonder if Maya is thinking the same thing, because she looks very serious and pensive.

  Finally Sophia enters the third floor TV room.

  “Look what I’ve got!” She holds a bottle of wine by the neck and five wineglasses, their stems laced between her fingers.

  “Where did you get that, you maniac?” I ask.

  “From Gigi’s wine cellar in the basement.”

  “We’re not supposed to go in the basement,” Ling says.

  “She’ll never miss it. Don’t worry, she’s gone to bed.”

  It’s one of my favorite things about Sophia, those balls of steel of hers. The rest of us walk on eggshells in Gigi’s house, but Sophia totally doesn’t give a damn.

  “Uh, I don’t know, Sophia,” says Maya.

  “What is this, Montrachet?” I ask, examining the label. “It looks expensive.”

  “It’s pronounced Mon-tra-SHAY, and of course it’s expensive, it’s Gigi’s,” says Maya.

  “You won’t tell, will you?” Sophia looks at Jane and gives her one of those smiles that make people want to wrestle a tiger for her.

  “No, of course not,” Jane says.

  “Want some?” Sophia is handing out glasses. I’m the first one to reach for a glass, and then Maya, and then the others take one.

  Sophia sits on the floor with her legs together, her ankles curled under her.

  “So guess who I kissed at the Gaultier party in Paris?” She asks. “Jason Cooper!”

  Jason Cooper, in case you live at the bottom of a well, is the lead singer of the band ‘Viper.’ He was recently linked with a starlet named Veronica Parker who nobody ever heard of until she posed nude for Playboy, and now she’s famous for two things: her breasts, and the fact that she dates Jason Cooper.

  “And then he wanted me to go back to his suite at the Crillon with him but of course I said no,” Sophia continues.

  The girls are all hanging on every word and I feel a nauseating wave of jealousy. Not because I want to go to the Gaultier party and kiss Jason Cooper, but because I want Sophia and her stories for myself. I don’t want to be part of her audience. I’m her best friend, not one of her fans.

  “Where was whatshername…Veronica?” I ask.

  “No idea. Not at the Gaultier party, anyway. Hey, which shows are you guys walking for? Is anyone else doing Zac Posen? Or Tom Ford? Or Marchesa? Or Jason Wu?”

  The other girls chime in. Ling is walking in six shows, Maya in nine, and Sophia is walking in sixteen. I am walking in exactly one.

  After we finish the bottle of wine and the other girls go to bed Sophia and I stay up in her room until way after midnight, just catching up. I know Maya is dying to join us, because twice she makes up some stupid reason to stick her head in the room about something totally irrelevant.

  “Here, I brought you this,” Sophia says, and hands me a bundle wrapped in tissue. “For your birthday. It was last month, and I missed it.”

  I unwrap it and find a sapphire-blue leather Hermes clutch purse.

  “For me?” I gasp. “Are you nuts? How much did this cost?”

  “None of your beeswax. I bought it at a private sample sale.”

  “Still. This is way, way too nice.” I smother her in a big hug.

  “Hey…can you keep a secret?” she asks, her voice low.

  “You know I can.”

  “I did go back to the Crillon with Jason!”

  “Sophia! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wanted to tell you in person. It’s not the kind of thing
I’d say in a text.”

  “So did you…”

  “Yeah, we did.”

  “Oh my god. You little slut.” I hit her with a pillow. She laughs and hits me back, and we fall over on our sides on the bed.

  “Want to know something else?” she says. “He was my first.”

  “Whoa.”

  “It’s okay. It’s what I wanted. There’s only one first time, right? For the rest of my life, if I tell someone about my first time, it’ll be a good story.”

  She’s probably right. My first time isn’t a story worth telling. It involves a pimply sixteen-year-old, a six-pack of beer and the bed of a pick-up truck.

  “Are you going to keep seeing each other?”

  “We exchanged numbers and he texted me to say they’re playing Madison Square Garden in April and that he’d get me backstage passes. Want to go? Might be fun if we’re around.”

  “Of course.” Then I ask, “Are you in love with him?”

  “No. I don’t fall in love with guys who are busy being in love with other girls.”

  “I bet he’s in love with you. Just wait. Veronica is toast.”

  Sophia shrugs.

  “What about you? How have things been with you?” she asks as we lie facing each other. I sigh, my mood suddenly somber.

  “It’s been kind of a struggle actually. Gigi keeps telling me I need to lose weight. My last test pictures weren’t very good, I can’t even use them for my book. On top of that, Sarah says I need a new comp card and that it’ll cost $500, and I’m afraid to ask Gigi to advance it.”

  Sophia brushes a strand of hair out of my face. She strokes my head and it feels really nice. Sophia has a smell — a warm, musky, flowery smell, that’s a little intoxicating. “Well,” she says, “this is a tough time for print work, you know, because of the shows.”

  “Yeah, I know, but Maya and Ling and Brigitte are all on hold for jobs after the shows, and I’m not.”