The Home for Wayward Supermodels Read online

  Suspect your roommate isn’t listening and get annoyed with her instead of dealing with the real issue.

  Kiss your pillow, as passionately as possible.

  Do a lot of slow dancing, even when there’s not any music.

  Fantasize about Paris (or Philadelphia or Peoria) and what might happen if you go there.

  Take numerous Polaroids of him that you keep under your pillow and gaze at in the middle of the night.

  Call your friend in New York, and though she gives you good advice, question whether it applies to boys.

  Call your boyfriend so often you’re reduced to talking about what kind of bait he used when he went bass fishing yesterday.

  Work twice as much as you’re supposed to—which is only half as much as you want to.

  Fortunately, or maybe not, this last one was easy because Tati did not fit in any of the clothes. Everything Minty had brought along for her to wear was too snug. We managed to do one shot on the beach together in these white flowing gowns, and she actually looked great in an overtight white tank—but that was for a beauty shot. For another shot that called for us to wear the same dress in different colors—me in magenta, Tati in turquoise—Minty’s assistant laced her closed in the back, like an overstuffed Thanksgiving turkey.

  When Minty confronted Tati about why she wasn’t fitting into the clothes, Tati blithely replied that the designers must have sent the wrong size samples. Minty countered that Tati had been eating far too much since we’d been at the resort, and ordered her to consume nothing but water in preparation for the next day’s swimsuit shoot.

  The morning of the shoot, as we were supposed to be changing into our designated swimsuits, I heard Tati in the bathroom of our cottage. At first I was afraid the sound that was coming from in there was Tati throwing up, trying to get rid of the evidence of some illicit non-water consumption. But then I realized that no, she was crying.

  “Tati,” I said, knocking on the door. “Tati, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m fat!” she wailed.

  “Tati, open up!”

  Finally, after much pounding and shouting through the wood, Tati opened the bathroom door. She was standing there, spilling out of the bikini she had been assigned to wear in the first shot.

  Her legs, I saw now, were as long and slim as ever. Her arms were slender and firm. Even her butt and her hips were compact as a teenage boy’s, even thinner than they’d been when I first met her. Her breasts were full, spilling from the cups of the bikini top, but that wasn’t really the problem—or it wouldn’t be when the photograph was reduced to two dimensions.

  No, it was clear now that I saw her virtually undressed that Tati’s problem wasn’t that she was fat. Her problem was that she was pregnant.

  “How many months?” I whispered.

  “Six.” She held up her fingers.

  “What?!”

  Hiding a pregnancy for three or four months—that was easy. My teachers, my mom’s friends routinely didn’t tell most people for that long and nobody guessed. But five months, six months—that was a different story. I thought of the few girls I’d known at Northland Pines who’d gotten knocked up and had managed to keep it a secret for as long as possible. But no one had managed to hide their rounded belly, as Tati had, for six whole months.

  She shrugged. “For long time, I didn’t guess. Then, I was sick. Then, I dieted.”

  “Tati, you shouldn’t have been dieting. It’s bad for the baby.”

  That set her off again. “I’m bad for baby,” she said. “No work, no money, no daddy.”

  “Is Mr. Billings the father?” I asked.

  She nodded, but also bared her teeth. “That nogoodnik,” she said. “He don’t want no baby. He just want love sex love sex—no baby.”

  “Is that what he said?”

  “Didn’t have to say. Tati knows.”

  “You should talk to him, Tati,” I said gently.

  There was a pounding on the door of our cottage.

  “Girls, we’re all jolly well ready for you out here,” called Minty.

  “Just a minute,” I said. And waited until she went away.

  “Tati,” I said, circling her narrow wrist with my fingers. “Have you been to a doctor?”

  She shook her head no.

  “Tati, you have to start taking care of yourself now. Of yourself and the baby. Do you understand?”

  She crumpled to the floor and started moaning. “My life is over,” she said. “No more Mr. Billings. No more modeling.”

  I sunk into a cross-legged position beside her, patting her shoulder. “Don’t be silly, Tatiana,” I said. “Lots of girls have babies these days and go back to work, better than ever. And I really think you should talk to Mr. Billings. He might surprise you. At the very least, he should give you some money.”

  Tati put her head in her hands and moaned more loudly.

  Again, a knock.

  “Amanda?” Alex said tentatively. “Are you all right in there?”

  “Just a minute,” I called.

  And then, to Tati, “You can’t keep this secret anymore, you know.”

  She just shook her head without looking up.

  “You’re going to need some help, Tati. We’ve got to talk to Alex and Minty, because of the shoot. But I also think I should call Raquel.”

  “No!” Tati said, looking fiercely at me.

  “Tati, I know she can be awful, but she really helped me when I was trying to figure out the Desi thing.”

  Alex knocked again. “Amanda?” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m going to tell Alex,” I told Tati. “I’m letting him in right now.”

  I pulled Alex inside and shut the door quickly behind him. He saw Tati hunched on the floor and rushed to her side, kneeling beside her. “What is it, sweetheart?” he said, rubbing her back. “What is wrong, beautiful girl?”

  “I’m pregnant,” Tati mumbled.

  Alex looked with alarm at me. I nodded.

  “Six months,” I told him. “I think I need to call Raquel.”

  “Ohhh,” Tati groaned, clutching her side.

  “Tati, what is it?” I asked, moving to put my arm around her.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just little thing.”

  But I could tell from the twisted look on her face that it was not a little thing.

  “You’ve felt this before?”

  She nodded, her face still reflecting the pain. Then suddenly she relaxed. “Better now,” she said.

  “Tati, I’ve got to call Raquel. She controls our medical insurance, our contracts—I don’t even know what the provisions are for maternity leave. You’ve got to safeguard your health and your baby, and you’ve also got to do whatever is necessary to protect your career.”

  I was already moving to get my cell phone and dial Raquel’s number. Leaving Alex to comfort Tatiana, I went outside the cottage and strode down the beach where I knew the reception was better and that nobody else could hear me.

  “Raquel,” I said, when she finally came to the phone after leaving me on hold for ten minutes. “We have a problem down here. Tatiana’s pregnant.”

  “So what?” Raquel snapped. “On the rag, pregnant, you still show up for work.”

  “No, Raquel, she’s six months pregnant. She’s not fitting into any of the clothes. You have to send down a different girl to finish the shoot, get Tatiana out of here and to a doctor…”

  “Shit,” Raquel said. “She can’t have a baby, especially with Billings off the scene. I’ll have to find somebody to get rid of it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “An abortion, stupid!”

  “Raquel, I just told you, she’s six months pregnant. That’s too late for an abortion, even if she wanted one, which I think she doesn’t.”

  “Well then, she’s got to go back to the Ukraine,” said Raquel. “Get her on a plane back to New York and I’ll meet her at the airport with the ticket.”

  “R
aquel, are you nuts?” I said, horrified. “Tati doesn’t want to go back to Ukraine. She just wants to have her baby and stay in New York and keep working.”

  “Did you call me nuts?” Raquel said. “Nuts? I will not be talked to like that, do you hear me? Not by a know-nothing little farm girl who I picked up out of the street…”

  She was still ranting when I hung up on her. Then I just stood there for a minute, listening to the sounds of the wind in the palms and the birds and the surf. I turned around and saw Minty and the rest of them, clustered around the cameras and lights set up in the sand. I walked over to where they were waiting.

  “We can’t shoot today,” I said.

  “Why ever not?” asked Minty.

  “Because Tati’s sick.”

  Then I started walking through the sand toward my cottage.

  “What’s bloody wrong with you?” Minty called after me.

  “I’m busy,” I said. And kept walking.

  I already knew at that point what I was going to do, but first I had to settle down Tati and then I had to confer with Alex and then I had to walk by myself to the farthest reaches of cell phone service on the island. There was nobody around there—I could hear them in the distance getting drunk, at Alex’s urging, though it was still the middle of the morning—and I sat in my bathing suit in the sand, gazing at the waves, imagining Wisconsin somewhere beyond the horizon.

  As I dialed I pictured it: Mom in the pie shop getting ready for the lunchtime crowd. She was setting out single-serving pies for the workmen and shop clerks who came in for something sweet after their midday meal, plus full-size pies for the tourists and housewives doing their dinner shopping before spending one of the last warm afternoons of the season on the lake. School would be starting next week; this was the end of high season for Mom, for all the store owners in Eagle River. She’d be looking forward to shutting down a few days a week, to baking only a third as many pies as she did in the summer, to putting her feet up in the middle of the afternoon. But at the same time, she’d be sorry to see all the excitement end for another year, to be facing another very long winter ahead. A long winter without me.

  The phone was ringing and I sat up straighter, butterflies in my chest.

  And then there was her voice, wheezing and out of breath from (I could see it) setting down the pies she had been balancing in each hand and then rushing to the phone before the person on the other end (someone with an order for tonight, she undoubtedly figured, or Duke) hung up.

  “Mom,” I said, wishing in that instant that I could leap into her arms.

  Instead of answering me, my mother just started sobbing. Crying into the phone.

  “Oh, Mom,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it took me so long.”

  “I’m sorry too,” she said. “It was wrong of me to hide so much from you for so many years.”

  “I’ve missed you,” I told her. “More than you could know.”

  “I’ve missed you too, sweetheart. But I understand. I really do. You have to make your life now.”

  “But I don’t want a life without you in it.”

  My mom was silent for a moment, and then she said, “You had to come to that yourself, Amanda. You know how much I love you. I don’t think you ever doubted that.”

  “No.”

  “So tell me,” said Mom, her voice warming. “How is it? Are you having a ball?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “Alex, the French photographer you met—he’s turned out to be really nice.”

  I felt the heat gather in my face as I said this, and took a deep breath. I didn’t want to go there with Mom right now. “And I’ve made some other good friends, and I’ve learned a lot. But there are some problems too.”

  Mom lowered her voice. “I read something,” she said. “On the internet. About you and Desi.”

  “Oh God,” I moaned. “How did you see that?”

  “Google alerts,” she said. “I have one set to your name.”

  Without my computer, I’d missed so much—though in this case, that was a good thing.

  “Has Tom seen it?”

  “Well, I don’t know, sweetheart. Has he said anything to you?”

  No, he hadn’t, and even with Tom’s accepting nature, I didn’t think my reported lesbianism was something he’d let slip by.

  “If you don’t know this already, Mom,” I said, “it’s not true.”

  “Oh, I figured that,” Mom said.

  “Really.”

  “I know, dear. You’re a big star now! Goodness knows all the things they’ll say about you.”

  I took a deep breath. “I need your help, Mom.”

  “What is it, dear?” she said, alarm creeping into her voice. “Just a minute.”

  I heard the phone thunk onto the shop’s counter, and then heard Mom’s heavy steps cross the creaky wooden floor of the shop, heard the squeak of the door opening, and then listened as she told a customer that no, she wasn’t open yet. Then she returned to me.

  “What do you need?” she said.

  “It’s not me who’s in trouble, Mom. It’s my friend, Tati, Tatiana. She’s another model.”

  “Oh, I know who Tatiana is,” Mom said. “The Ukrainian girl.”

  Mom had always read the fashion magazines as avidly as I did, and followed the top models the way Duke followed the Packers.

  “That’s right. She’s been my roommate since I got to New York. Well, anyway, Mom—she’s pregnant.”

  Mom took an audible breath. “And she’s unhappy about this?”

  “She’s confused. She’s been keeping it a secret. The father doesn’t know—they broke up a while ago—and she just told me mainly because she couldn’t hide it anymore. She’s six months along.”

  “Her family…” Mom said.

  “Back in Ukraine, and out of contact as far as I can tell. Raquel wants to send her back there, but I’m afraid Tati will do something crazy first—run away somewhere, or even hurt herself.”

  “But surely she has plenty of money to take care of herself.”

  “That’s the thing—Raquel controls all the money. She can withhold Tati’s earnings long enough to make things very uncomfortable. And she’s also in charge of Tati’s working papers.”

  “Oh my,” Mom said. “I really feel for that poor girl.”

  “I knew you would,” I said in a rush. “That’s why I was thinking—Mom, could I bring her to Eagle River?”

  “You want to bring Tatiana here?”

  “It makes sense. She can’t work right now anyway, and if we go back to New York, I’m afraid Raquel will force her to go back to Ukraine. I was hoping you could take care of her, get her to a doctor, help her stay healthy till the baby comes. And I just want to come home.”

  “Of course, Amanda. Of course I’ll take care of Tatiana. I know just how she must be feeling. But you…you don’t have to come here with her if you don’t want to. I’ll understand.”

  “No, Mom, I want to. I want to see you, and Duke, and Tom. I need to step back from this whole crazy world and decide what I’m going to do next.”

  “We’re all here waiting,” said my mom, “with open arms.”

  Alex orchestrated the rest of the day like a genius. After I talked to Tati about my plan, to which she eagerly agreed, Alex instructed her to stay in the cottage, theoretically sick in bed, but actually packing up everything for both of us. Then he told the already sloshed Minty that, given Tati’s illness, they would spend the afternoon shooting cover tries—magazine lingo for photos that might end up on the cover—with me. A good cover shot, Alex reasoned, would placate both the magazine and the agency after Tati and I disappeared.

  Minty had downed too many piña coladas to notice when Alex’s assistant/busboy, Winston, slipped away to arrange things with the charter pilot—who also happened to be his cousin and a groundskeeper at the hotel—to fly us off the island that evening. While the entire crew assembled for a festive evening, arranged by Alex, of fresh-caugh
t fish and frostier-than-ever drinks, Tati and I followed Winston through the palms to where the plane waited around the curve of the beach.

  To my surprise, Alex was there waiting for us. I was worried that he wasn’t keeping the crew from becoming suspicious, especially since I had disappeared along with Tati, but he only grinned.

  “Winston managed to procure some additives for this evening’s piña coladas,” he said. “Believe me, they won’t think about where you are until morning.”

  “Thank you, Winston,” I said. “For everything.”

  “You’ll be seeing Winston in New York,” Alex said, putting his arm around Winston’s shoulder. “He’s agreed to work for me permanently. Or maybe I won’t see you again until Paris?”

  Paris. In the crisis of figuring out what to do about Tati, that quandary had blessedly flown from my head. And now that it was back, the answer seemed no more clear.

  “I don’t know,” I told Alex. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  But then, as the plane’s propellers started spinning, as Winston lifted our suitcases into the hatch and then helped Tati onto the plane, Alex leaned in close to me.

  “Come,” he whispered.

  Then we kissed. Winston was watching. Tati, inside the plane, was watching. Everyone—even my mother, even Tom—could have been watching, for all I cared. I had to kiss him, as long and as sweetly as I could. Because it seemed entirely possible that this would be the very last time.

  twelve

  The minute we stepped off the plane in Wisconsin, Tati breathed in deeply and sighed, “It is like Ukraine. Even smells like Ukraine.”

  I pointed out that we were still on the tarmac of the Rhinelander airport, which in the late summer sun fairly reeked of fuel and exhaust and melting blacktop. “It’ll smell a lot better when we get to Eagle River, with all the woods and the lakes,” I said. “I promise.”

  Tati looked at me as if I were crazy. “Better than this?” she asked, amazed.

  Right inside the door of the terminal, Mom and Tom were waiting, with Duke hanging shyly in the background. Mom rushed forward to enfold me in her arms. Fat might not be chic, but it definitely made for the best hugs. It felt so great that at first I felt like I never wanted Mom to let me go, though then I grew afraid that she never would let me go.