The Home for Wayward Supermodels Read online

  He looked…forbidding, with his long dramatic backswept hair and his chic white shirt and black pants, with the cigarette dangling from his fingers and the focused, commanding look of an artist on his face. But he also looked intriguing. What characteristics of this famous foreign man had found their way into me? How much of my love of clothes, my visual sense, my differentness came from him?

  I felt a strong pang then for Duke, the man I’d known as my father forever, whom I’d always loved and still did. More than once I’d been on the brink of calling him, but part of what made this so hard was that our relationship had never been based on talking. Rather we’d just be together, sitting in a rowboat fishing, or canoeing down some fastflowing stream, or putting our feet up watching a Packers game. I felt if we could just do something like that together now, it would go a long way toward resolving all the distance between us.

  Surely some of Duke had gotten into me too: my taste for fishing, for instance, and my love of nature. But as dear as Duke was to me, the truth was that I’d always been baffled by how I could be such a chatterbox when he was so quiet, why I loved all kinds of design and art while he had (sorry, Duke) no taste at all, how I could be so intense while he was pale and round and mild.

  My mom had always explained this by saying I looked like her when she was young, a claim it was difficult to refute since her weight made it hard to tell what she really looked like. I did see a resemblance to the modeling pictures she’d saved from her early years. Especially around the nose.

  I thought back now to one photo in particular of Mom. I’d never thought to question it, but now when I considered it, I saw that it held a lot of clues that Mom had indeed been to New York before last month. Number one, it was from Glamour magazine, her one appearance in a big-time publication, and it was obvious to me now that it must have been shot in Manhattan not Milwaukee, as I had always assumed. I could see it in my mind’s eye: Mom in a velvet leggings and cowl-neck knit tunic and suede booties, chin lowered, eyes sparkling, smiling into the camera. It was a fall 1987 issue, which meant, I now knew, that it had been shot in the summer of 1987. Which happened to be about nine months before I was born.

  Moving as if in a dream, I approached the librarian and asked for the specific 1987 issue of Glamour Mom was in. Hands trembling, I carried the magazine to one of the long shiny tables and sat down, opening it slowly to page 221, the page number I’d long memorized as the one Mom’s picture was on. Then I sat there gazing down at my young mother’s smiling face and at the tiny photographer’s credit beside the picture: Jean-Pierre Renaud.

  It was like being present, in a way, at my own conception, or at least at the first twinkle in my father’s eye. My mother’s smile took on a new significance: It was directed at him. She looked so happy—happier than I’d ever seen her. She looked in love.

  But what about him? Was he in love with her too? Or was it just an affair? He was significantly older than she was, and he had been married, she said. Maybe I had brothers and sisters—French ones! He’d never known about me, but would he even remember her?

  If I hadn’t been having all these thoughts and feelings in such a calm and beautiful place, I might have lost it completely, but as it was I just sat there blinking hard and breathing deeply.

  And then someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I leaped off my seat as if I’d been given an electric shock and let out a little scream—though even a little scream in that temple of silence caused all the other patrons to turn around and glare at me.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry,” said the tapper, a young woman with elaborately waved hair who was dressed the way I’d expected the Vogue editors to be dressed—like a fashionista. But despite her high-style clothes and hair, she had a sweet face and seemed horrified that she’d scared me.

  “Sssssh,” someone hissed.

  “I’m sorry,” whispered the young woman, hunching down so she was closer to me. “It’s just that…didn’t I see you in Us Weekly?”

  I frowned, running through the jobs I’d been doing. There was Vogue, of course, something for Glamour, Men’s Fitness, InStyle, and ads for lipstick, bathing suits, and fruit punch. They all tended to run together, because the truth was, one shoot was pretty much like the next, none of them nearly as glamorous as they looked when you were on the other side of the photograph, reading the magazine. But I’d done nothing for Us Weekly, which as far as I knew was a celebrity gossip magazine and didn’t even hire models.

  “I don’t think so,” I whispered back.

  “You’re a designer, right?” the young woman said.

  I shook my head. “No. You’ve got the wrong person.”

  “I’m sure it was you,” she insisted. “I was just reading it. You’re also a model?”

  A not very educated guess. “Yes,” I admitted. “But I wasn’t…”

  “Amanda. Right?”

  This was getting a little creepy. “How did you know that?”

  “I told you—you’re in the new Us Weekly! Just a minute. I’ll get it.”

  She scurried over to where she’d been sitting and came back holding the magazine, thrusting it onto the table in front of me.

  There I was, all right, that first night I’d gone out with Tatiana. But Tati wasn’t in the picture, just me. “Hot new supermodel Amanda,” the caption read, “hits Bar 13, here wearing a dress of her own creation. Will this multitalented newcomer end up designing more of these beautiful clothes, modeling them—or both?”

  “Oh God,” I said, lurching to my feet. “I’ve got to call Desi.”

  “Who’s Desi?” said the young woman.

  “The real designer,” I said. “And my friend.” Though I was walking away so quickly the last part may have gotten lost.

  When I got back to the apartment, Tatiana was still in bed, still not feeling well. Mr. Billings had sent his driver with a tub of chicken soup and a bottle of brandy, but Tati had touched neither. Nor had she, I was astonished to find, smoked all day. That made me feel worse for her—she must really be feeling awful—but definitely made things more pleasant in the apartment.

  I’d left my cell phone home because I knew I wouldn’t be able to use it in the library, so right after I checked on Tati, I dialed Desi’s number, nervous about how I was going to break the news to her.

  “I swear I didn’t do it,” I said, as soon as Desi came to the phone.

  She laughed. “Do what?”

  “I was in the library today looking for information about my father…”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Lots, Desi. There’s this one picture of my mom that I’ve seen all my life that it turns out he took. I have to show it to you. But that’s not why I’m calling.”

  “What could be more important than that? Did something happen with Alex?”

  “Not with Alex,” I said. “With you and me.”

  I drew in a deep breath and started talking, so nervous my words were tripping over each other. “There’s a picture of me in Us Weekly. It says that I’m wearing a dress that I designed, but I’m really wearing a dress that you designed, except I misunderstood the question the reporter asked me. When he said, ‘Whose dress are you wearing?’ I thought he meant who owned the dress, and since you made the dress for me, I said it was my dress, but he thought that meant I’d designed it, when of course, you’d designed it…”

  “Whoa whoa whoa whoa,” said Desi. “Are you saying a dress I designed is in freaking Us Weekly magazine?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh my God. That is so freaking fabulous. Millions of people are seeing my design!”

  I wasn’t sure whether her excitement was making this easier or more difficult.

  “Desi, I’m not sure you understand. The magazine doesn’t say the dress is your design. It says it’s my design.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Us Weekly says Amanda designed the dress?” she asked.

/>   “That’s right.”

  “And it says Desi…”

  “It doesn’t say anything about Desi.”

  A long silence. And then: “Oh.”

  I heard her blow a frustrated burst of air through her lips.

  “So my dress is famous,” she said, “but you’re getting credit for it.”

  “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

  “It’s just that you’ve got everything, Amanda. You’re beautiful, you’ve got this amazing career, you even have somebody to love. And all I have is my design talent. And now you’ve even got that.”

  “No, I don’t have that,” I said firmly. “I swear, Desi, I’m going to set this straight and make sure you get the credit you deserve. And the money.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  I had no idea. But I knew Desi was my best friend in New York, and I couldn’t afford to lose her.

  “Trust me,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I trusted myself. “I’ll figure out something.”

  eight

  Raquel called me in the middle of a shoot. The makeup artist answered my cell and said Raquel insisted that she interrupt me, which was breaking one of the agency’s own rules.

  My heart was already pounding as I reached for the phone. Had something happened to my mother? Or maybe Tatiana had suffered a relapse. At least she’d started getting out of bed in the morning and going to work. But she looked pale and thinner than ever. And she was so tired she was usually asleep by the time I got home at night, which somehow worried me more than when she was never there.

  But it wasn’t bad news Raquel couldn’t wait to deliver.

  “Jonathan Rush wants to meet you,” she said, her voice vibrating with excitement.

  “Who?”

  “Jonathan Rush,” she said impatiently. “You know, of the store Rush. It’s only the coolest store in the meatpacking district. And he’s one of the most influential impresarios in the fashion business.”

  “Oh,” I said. I’d heard the name, but I’d been a little vague about what Rush was exactly. A hair salon? A nightclub? A crack den?

  “This is huge, Amanda—the golden claw. If Jonathan Rush signs you, we’re talking megabucks from now until forever.”

  I knew that megabucks in the modeling world came from being the official face (or body) of a brand, like Daria was for Chanel. Was that, I asked Raquel, what Jonathan Rush wanted from me?

  “No no no no,” she said, as if I should have guessed what this was about. “He’s interested in your clothes! That little dress you designed that you were wearing in Us Weekly!”

  I felt my stomach, which had been somewhere up around my heart, thud to the floor. “Oh no,” I said. “I didn’t really design that dress. The magazine made a mistake.”

  “Whatever,” Raquel said. “He wants to meet with you. This is an amazing opportunity, Amanda.”

  “But I’m not a designer,” I said. “My friend Desi is the one who designed and made that dress.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’re not expecting you to actually design a line,” Raquel said. “Jonathan and his team just want to meet you, get a look at your style. They asked that you bring more of your clothes along, so they could get a feel for your gestalt.”

  “My what?”

  “Thursday at ten,” Raquel sang. “Ta-ta!”

  “You’ve got to go with me,” I told Desi.

  I was sitting cross-legged on her bed, pleading with her to accompany me to the meeting, as she shook out one item of clothing she’d designed after another, trying to decide whether to include it in the bag she was packing for me to take to Rush.

  She looked hard at a pink-and-black-printed silk shirt before giving it a shake and folding it carefully into the scarred blue duffel.

  “I told you, I’m not going,” she said finally.

  “But, Desi, you have to be there. These are your clothes, your designs. You’re the one who can talk about them. It’s you they’re really interested in, your gestalt.”

  “My what?” said Desi, finally looking at me.

  “I think it means your style,” I said. “Whatever. The point is that it’s you they’re really interested in, not me.”

  “I doubt that,” Desi said.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, anxious to push that idea away. “This isn’t some stupid nightclub or silly magazine. This is a fashion retailer that knows the difference between a model and the clothes she wears. They’re going to be so impressed by you.”

  Desi hesitated, in the way that customers sometimes did in the pie shop when they were torn between sour cherry and lemon meringue. You had to say just the right thing, Mom taught me, or they might walk out of the store with nothing at all. One of her favorite comebacks: Maybe you should buy both of them! But what was the equivalent here?

  “I know,” I said. “Maybe I should stay out of the way, and you should go to the meeting on your own!”

  Desi’s face slammed shut. “I can’t do it,” she said. “I’m too scared.”

  One pie sale, lost.

  “You don’t have to go alone,” I tried to backtrack. “I’ll be right there with you.”

  “No, you do it for me,” said Desi, zipping the bag closed. “I trust you.”

  Twelve Reasons You Can Trust Your Best Friend

  When you told her that juicy bit of gossip with the warning not to tell anyone, she didn’t, not even her mother.

  When you spend time with her, you usually leave feeling a little bit better, not a little bit worse.

  She gives you good advice, even if you don’t always want to hear it.

  She has several other friendships that have lasted for years and years.

  She never lies to you, not even when you ask her whether those pants make you look fat…and they do.

  No excuses. When she doesn’t feel like going out, she just says so.

  If you’ve been friends for less than six months, she’s never gotten mad at you.

  If you’ve been friends for longer than six months, she has.

  That time your boyfriend spent the entire day with her shopping for your birthday present, you didn’t worry for even one second.

  In any problem you talk to her about—you versus your boss, you versus your man—she’s always on your side, even if that means telling you you’re wrong.

  She found you exactly the thing you wanted, the thing you didn’t even know you wanted, for Christmas.

  She never ever says, “Trust me.”

  Standing in the sleek reception area of the corporate headquarters upstairs from the store Rush, I sucked the air deep into the trembling pit of my stomach, trying to psych myself to live up to Desi’s trust in me. Modeling was easy: All I had to do was stand there and think about kissing Tom, or about gazing down on the city that night at Per Se with Alex and Desi. But presenting Desi’s clothes, selling them, even merely talking to these important people—that felt so hard my knees threatened to buckle beneath me.

  “Amanda!”

  I’d gone back to the library to Google “Jonathan Rush,” and now here he was before me, with his tawny skin and his bionic cheekbones, his long dreadlocked hair and his steel glasses. The son of a famous soul singer and a soft drink heir, he’d turned his own modeling career and a family fortune into a fashion empire.

  Now he was coming toward me with his arms spread, as if I were his long-lost sister.

  “How wonderful to finally see you,” he said, embracing me and kissing me on both cheeks.

  He introduced me to his colleagues, Adriana, a knife-thin young woman wearing torn jeans and a wifebeater so thin her nipples nearly poked through, and Garth, pasty skinned and bleached haired, with cold hands and a sneering mouth.

  “Come, come!” said Jonathan. “We can’t wait to see what you have to show us.”

  The three fashion titans led me into their inner showroom, all gleaming white in contrast to the blackness of the reception area. They all sat lined up in a row on one side of the l
ong white Plexiglas table. I hefted Desi’s duffel bag onto a chair and began to unzip it.

  “So,” said Jonathan. “We love your clothes.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thanks. But that dress in the magazine—I didn’t really design it. That was a misunderstanding.”

  Jonathan traded glances with his two sidekicks.

  “We know,” he said. “The media is just so unreliable.”

  I felt my shoulders relax as I was finally able to take in a deep breath. They already knew. That was one major hurdle already cleared.

  “It was my friend Desi who designed that dress,” I explained. “We’re both so excited that you liked it. I brought several other of her pieces along.”

  I had started to unpack the pink and black shirt that was right on top when Rush stopped me.

  “What’s that you’re wearing?” he asked.

  I’d put on Tom’s old fishing vest over Tati’s skimpy denim shirt and a pair of white jeans. My intention was to make it clear to this crowd that I was no designer.

  “These are just old things,” I said. “My boyfriend’s vest, jeans from GAP…”

  “I love all those little feathery things on the vest,” Jonathan said, turning to Adriana. “We could manufacture something like that for the line, couldn’t we?”

  Adriana nodded. “It would have to be done in the Far East.”

  Jonathan smiled at me. “Technicalities,” he said. “Not the kind of thing that the style inspiration for the line has to concern herself with.”

  I was momentarily speechless, but then I remembered that I was here to stand up for Desi.

  “The style inspiration is really my friend Desi,” I said. “She designed all these wonderful pieces.”

  Moving quickly, before their attention could wander again, I started unpacking the clothes, laying them out on the pristine table.

  “Charming,” said Rush. “I love the modern shapes with the vintage fabrics. This would be the foundation of the Amanda line.”

  I stared at him. “But it’s not the Amanda line,” I said. “It’s Desi’s line. You’ve got to meet Desi. Desi McKnight. She’s the designer and the one whose name should be on these clothes.”