The Luckiest Girls Read online

  “Tell you what. I’ll lend you the money for the comp card. No, shut up, you can pay me back when work picks up. After Fashion Week I’m going to introduce you to Theo Wolff. You know who he is, right? He photographed my French Elle cover and he shoots the Guess campaign.”

  My eyes widen. Theo is one of the most influential photographers in fashion. He can turn a model into a mega-star. He totally made Olivia Knightley, and he’s doing the same thing with Sophia.

  “Seriously? You’d do that?” Even Sarah can’t get me a meeting with Theo Wolff.

  “Sure. Theo and I are friends. He photographed three of my last covers and he has me booked for two weeks solid after the shows.”

  “Sophia, you’re an angel, you know that?” I say. “Seriously. You’re the best.”

  As the night goes on we fall back into talking about our old plans: we’re getting an apartment together, as soon as we’re old enough. We plan everything, from the decor (fairy lights and bohemian tapestries and a saltwater aquarium glass coffee table) to the parties we’re going to have (everyone in vintage cocktail attire with a chocolate fountain in the center of the room). We even plan to get a cat, preferably a genuine stray that we find lurking behind a dumpster, an orange beast like Holly Golightly’s tomcat in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I fall asleep with my head on her shoulder, breathing in her warm, sweet smell.

  6

  Maya

  This is the day I’ve been dreading since I arrived: Sophia is back. There’s been a huge paradigm shift in the house since the minute Sophia walked through the door, and I’m in total recalibrating mode because my whole sense of order has been thrown off its axis. Gigi has completely forgotten that the rest of us exist. The other girls are fawning around Sophia like a bunch of sycophantic groupies, and Campbell is bouncing around like it’s Christmas, stupid thing, like she isn’t already pathetic enough without Sophia raising the bar for success even higher. And what am I doing? I’m standing against the wall like a coat rack.

  I lock myself in the upstairs bathroom and clutch my arms. I try going through my win-list again: I’m smarter than any of the other girls, I’ve got the best…the best what? Book? Not anymore. Web page? Followers on social media? Not with Sophia around. It’s not working. My list is falling apart. I’m not the best anything anymore. And if I’m not the best, then what am I?

  My heart flutters frantically, so hard that it physically hurts, and I’m terrified that it’ll break like a clockwork toy wound too tightly. There is one thing that I know helps, though it’s been months since I resorted to this. I dig into my toiletries bag on the bathroom shelf and find my nail scissors. I hold them almost tenderly, rubbing the smooth, cold steel with my finger tips. I press the sharp points against the skin of my forearm. The pain starts out as a dull throb, and then, as my skin yields to the pressure like a tiny sinkhole, it becomes sharp and searing, spreading out from the point of the scissors, obscuring everything else I feel. I clench my teeth and press harder with the scissors. I want to see how hard I can go, and even though my eyes are damp with tears I am filled with calm because finally I have control over the panic. I’ve made it stop. All I feel now is the pain of the scissors, this silly little pair of nail scissors that I can control completely, that has no power over me. I press harder, and still harder, until the jarring moment when the pain reaches its apex and I give a little cry as I feel the fiery steel tips burst through my skin.

  I watch the small gush of bright red blood pooling from the wound, and soak it up carefully with a wad of toilet paper. I make a game of trying to dye the entire paper red with blood, and feel a twinge of satisfaction when every speck of white is gone. When the bleeding stops I patch myself up with a bandaid. I’m much calmer now.

  Sophia isn’t going away, so I only have one option. I need to make Sophia my friend. My best friend. We need to be a pair, a team, so when people think of her they’ll think of me. I don’t see why we wouldn’t be, we’re practically going to be roommates, our looks totally complement each other and we’re booked for most of the same shows.

  “Oh, hey, you’re fitting for Tom Ford tomorrow morning as well, aren’t you?” I say when we’re sprawled on the floor of the TV room, sharing the wine that only someone totally secure of her foothold in Gigi’s house would ever have the nerve to steal. “We can share a car in the morning. And do you have Yves Saint Laurent at one? Me too! Maybe we can grab some lunch in between. Do you like sushi?”

  I think even Mom might like Sophia.

  I couldn’t get Sophia to come to lunch with me because she made plans to have lunch with Campbell, and no matter how hard I hinted, those two didn’t ask me to join them. I’ve never seen a more unlikely friendship. I mean, Sophia is a genuine star, and Campbell is just one rejection away from being shipped back to whatever trailer park she came from. It’s sad, really. Like watching a lovesick mule trotting after a thoroughbred.

  On my way to my third fitting I get a message from Alexandra. I guess Mom told her the same thing she told me about getting in touch with each other.

  “Hey sis! I’m coming to NY with Doug tomorrow, spending a couple of days with friends in Brooklyn. Want to get together for lunch? Miss you! XOXO.”

  We agree to meet for lunch on Sunday in the East Village. When I arrive at the restaurant Alexandra is already there, sitting at the bar. She has her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wears a tight cream colored sweater and dark jeans. In my opinion she is by far the prettier one of us, the feminine, cute one with the curves. I have always been the tall gangly one, the one who towers a head above the boys.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I say.

  “You’re not; I was early,” she replies as she gives me a brief hug.

  “So what brings you and Doug to the city?” I ask, once we’ve placed our orders.

  “Doug has an interview at Goldman Sachs for a summer associate position. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? It’s very competitive, but I think he’s got a good chance.”

  “What will you do while Doug’s in New York all summer?”

  “Oh, I’ve applied for a summer research program at Sloane-Kettering. If Doug gets the job, then we’ll rent a studio apartment in the city together.”

  I love how she doesn’t even entertain the possibility that she won’t get the research position. Doug better not screw up his interview. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes if Al’s summer plans fall apart because of him.

  “Well,” I say. “Looks like you’ve got everything figured out.”

  “How about you, Maya? You used to have everything figured out too.”

  “My plans have changed.”

  “Mom and Dad are very worried about you, you know,” Alexandra says. “They think you’re throwing your life away.”

  “Al, I’m not an idiot. Why does everybody think I don’t know what I’m doing?”

  “Look, I get it, I really do.” Alexandra puts her hand on my arm. “I know how controlling they are. I understand the need to do your own thing.”

  “Oh please. You’ve never taken a single step out of line. You’re like a perfect doll, Al: wind it up and it goes to college. You’re every parent’s dream.”

  I expect Alexandra to get angry and the conversation to end in a fight, but she just sighs.

  “It’s not like I never thought about it,” she says. “I used to want to go to art school, remember? But can you imagine if I told them I wanted to study painting instead of Pre-Med? They’d have lost their minds.”

  I do remember. Alexandra was a really good artist in high school. She won several art awards, and one of her paintings was selected to be part of the school’s permanent art collection. It hangs in the library and will be there for generations to see. It’s strange, though… I don’t remember her ever painting anything else after she got accepted at Harvard.

  When the waiter takes our plates, he asks us if we want dessert.

  “Do you want to share something?” Alexandra asks, looking at the menu. “Ooh
, look, they have profiteroles!”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “You sure? You only had a spinach salad.”

  A spinach salad full of oil and feta cheese and bacon bits, and it’s more than enough for the rest of the day. The last thing I need is a stack of ice-cream filled pastry covered in chocolate sauce.

  “I had a big breakfast,” I say, which isn’t true. I had the same thing for breakfast as always — coffee and a banana —but that’s normal for me.

  “You sure? You look thin. I mean thinner than usual. You’re not going to develop an eating disorder or something, are you?”

  “Eating disorders are for stupid white girls,” I say.

  “That’s not true and you know it,” Alexandra admonishes. “You look frail. You’ve got those circles under your eyes that you had when you had the flu.”

  “I’m tired, that’s all. I’ve been really busy, and I don’t think I got a full night’s sleep all week.” I yawn and cover my mouth.

  “I know what that feels like. We just had midterms and I pulled three all-nighters in five days.”

  “That’s insane, Al. How do you function?”

  “Everyone does it during exam period. We all run on lots of caffeine, as well as some other stuff.”

  “You mean drugs?”

  “Not drugs drugs. Legal drugs, like Adderall, just to give us a little push.”

  “Do you take it?”

  “I have, on occasion,” Alexandra shrugs. “It’s not a big deal if you’re careful.”

  “I know models who do coke,” I say. “Not me, but I know some.”

  “Don’t do coke, okay? That would be unbelievably stupid.”

  “No. I won’t. Duh. But I can see why some girls do. We have to be on, all the time, you know? Especially in front of the camera. If I’m sluggish during a shoot, or I don’t project enough energy, they won’t hire me again. And then I get anxious about actually being too tired, so then I can’t sleep, and it just makes me more tired.” I prop my elbow on the table and lean my head in my hand. Just talking about how tired I am is making my head hurt.

  “I’ve got a couple of Adderall left,” Alexandra says. “They might help. But only use them if it’s really important, and only take half a tablet, ok? Take it in the morning. It’ll take about thirty minutes to kick in and you’ll have energy for hours.” She removes three small blue pills from a pocket in her handbag. Hesitantly, she hands them to me.

  “Promise me, okay?” she says. “Only in an emergency.”

  “I promise. I’ll be careful,” I say, and I take them from her before she can change her mind.

  7

  Jane

  The company you keep will open or close doors for you in all aspects of life. Taste is contagious. At all cost, avoid associating with people of poor taste. — From Living a Model Life: Beauty and Style Tips from Gigi Towers by Gigi Towers.

  * * *

  I take the subway to the Egleston School every day. I love the New York subway. You see some crazy things. In my first week I saw a man sitting in the train reading a paperback with a butter-yellow python on his shoulders, and nobody glanced twice at him. I saw a guy come on the train dressed as a giant penis, I saw a foot-long rat running up and down the subway car, and I saw an Olsen twin. In Denver I rode the school bus for eight years and all I saw was the back of someone’s head.

  In Physics class I sit next to this kid Niko, and I’m pretty sure the reason there’s a seat available next to him is because no one else wants to partner with him. He’s a big kid, kind of soft all over, with dark hair and glasses and he always wears pleated khaki pants and stiffly ironed oxford shirts like he stumbled out of a Brooks Brothers catalog. He sits with his hands clasped on the desk in front of him, his chin jutting forward, a smug, heavy-lidded expression on his face, and when the teachers call on him he always has the right answer. He has this pompous tone and everything he says is preceded with “Actually.” For example — and this to a teacher — “Actually, to scan means to scrutinize something carefully, not to give it a quick glance. You said ‘scan the article really fast.’ You meant ‘skim.’ Actually, scan and skim are two of the most commonly confused words in the English language.” Or, “Actually, Newton’s First Law is incorrectly ascribed to Newton. It was actually Galileo who first observed the laws of inertia.” You just want to punch him sometimes.

  “Actually, you’re supposed to use the green marker for deceleration,” Niko says as I draw a sloping line on a position-time graph in red marker. “Red is for acceleration.”

  “Who cares as long as the colors are different?” I answer.

  “Because it needs to match the colors in the other graph.”

  “No it doesn’t. It’s a totally different graph.” Niko is just trying to be difficult.

  “I want it to be consistent.”

  “You do it, then,” I say, dropping the marker.

  “It’s ruined now. I’ll make another one.”

  “Fine,” I say. Niko begins drawing another graph, and since he seems to be doing fine without my help I flip through my binder, organizing my notes.

  Ashley, the girl seated on the other side of Niko, leans over and says “Jane, is it true you live at Gigi Towers’ house?”

  “Yes,” I say. “She’s my grandmother.”

  “Really? Gigi Towers is my idol! I read her biography, The Many Faces of Gigi, and I’ve got several of her beauty and style guidebooks.”

  “Who’s Gigi Towers?” asks Connor, a boy with shoulder-length dark hair who’s always playing air drums on the edge of the table, which would be irritating if he weren’t so darn attractive.

  “She’s the owner of the Towers Modeling Agency,” Ashley says. “They have girls like Sophia Thompson, and Olivia Knightley, and Christy Bennett, right?” Ashley looks at me for confirmation.

  “You know those girls?” Connor asks, noticing me for the first time since I started school. I noticed him on day one. He has really nice hazel eyes, although I have my suspicions that he’s a moron.

  “Some of them. Sophia Thompson lives at our house,” I reply.

  “Wow! You’re, like, roommates!” Ashley gushes. “She’s my favorite. I follow all her social media accounts. Is it true that Victoria’s Secret wants to book her, but Gigi won’t let them have her until she turns eighteen?”

  “Um…yeah,” I say, but good grief, how the hell would I know? Why do people even know these things?

  “What is she, on the cover of Vogue or something?” Connor asks. It’s the first time he’s looked at me since I started school, although I noticed him on day one. He has really nice hazel eyes.

  “No,” I answer, “Sophia is still relatively new and Vogue only ever uses A-list celebrities for their covers.”

  “Actually,” Niko begins, “the use of celebrities on the covers of Vogue was popularized by Anna Wintour, beginning with her using Madonna as a cover model in 1989. The last cover featuring a girl famous only for being a model was a retrospective of Kate Moss, fourteen months ago.”

  Now, see what I mean about Niko being a pedantic ass-hat? Why would he know that unless he collects irrelevant factoids just to bore the crap out of everybody?

  “Less talking, over there,” our physics teacher Mrs. Lowry grumbles in our direction.

  “You know some weird stuff, man,” whispers Connor to Niko.

  I wanted to take theater as an elective at Egleston, but the theater classes are all full. There’s no way I’m taking art, and journalism would set me back with a class of freshmen, so I sign up for a documentary film class. We have to work in small groups of two to four people to make a documentary film of our own, and the best films get to compete for a chance at admission to the New York Film School summer program. By the time I arrive everyone has already formed their groups.

  “Let’s see…” says Mr. Vogels, looking over his notes. “Maybe there’s still room for you in one of the smaller groups. Jasmine and Niko, can you accommodate ano
ther member?”

  Ugh…Niko, again? Niko gives the slightest of nods, and I can tell he’s as excited about partnering with me as I am. I don’t know Jasmine, a girl with pierced eyebrows and black lipstick who wears a hoodie that hides most of her face. I take my backpack to the empty chair next to Jasmine —or Jazz as she’s called -- and sit down.

  “So do you guys have a subject yet for a film?” I ask them.

  “No,” Jazz says, as though it’s an idiotic question. “We don’t need to submit our final decision until next week.”

  “Any ideas yet that you’re considering?”

  “A couple,” Jazz says. “Look, if you don’t mind, we were in the middle of a conversation.” She turns to Niko and they continue talking quietly, ignoring me completely, except to glance at me as Jazz stifles a laugh. Man, what a pair of jerks.

  When I get home from school I discover that Brigitte is back from Miami, and now she’s rooming with Ling. She removed all her things from my room, but not before taking every one of my clothes and dumping them on the floor, just to make it clear how she feels about being displaced from the single room. While I’m hanging my clothes back up my cell phone rings.

  “Hi Jane. This is Niko.”

  “Oh, hey. What’s up?”

  “Actually, I have an idea about our documentary film project that I wanted to run by you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re Gigi Towers’ granddaughter, right? Well, you actually have a unique perspective in the modeling industry. Jazz and I were thinking, you know, we could do a documentary that looks at the inner world of modeling. Kind of a behind-the-scenes story about the lives of these girls.”

  “I don’t know, Niko…”

  “You could ask the girls you know if they would let us interview them, and maybe accompany them on a shoot, or something. Sort of follow their progress up the professional ladder.”