Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies (20 page)

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” I said, not quite able to picture it.

She caught my hesitation. “I’ll show you,” she said. “Have a seat.”

Kathleen removed sheets of pale pink and yellow tissue paper from one of the packages, then tore them into big pieces. She put a candle holder over two of her fingers, smeared the exterior with decoupage paste, wrapped it in tissue, and spread more paste over it.

“Voila,” she said. “The paste dries clear.”

“Oh, now I get it. That’s really cool. I can do that.”

“Great, because I’ve got seventy-five of them that we need to cover. Let’s get to work.” She handed me a sponge brush and a candle holder.

After scraping a couple of soggy, over-glued pieces of tissue off a candle holder, I got the hang of it. We sat on either side of the table, crafting, working in silence until we built a rhythm: smear, stick, smear. The finished holders were returned to the boxes for easy transportation to the reception site.

“So,” Kathleen asked after a few minutes, “what’s all this I hear about the Modeling Challenge? How’s that going?”

“I’m, uh, not doing that anymore,” I said, focusing on aligning pieces of pink and yellow tissue instead of Kathleen.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s too bad. I thought your mom said that it didn’t conflict with the wedding.”

“It doesn’t—didn’t. I’m just . . . It just didn’t work out,” I said. I placed my finished holder in a box and went on to the next one without meeting her eyes.

“Mmm.” Kathleen finished hers and began another.

“It wasn’t for me,” I said to fill the silence.

“Did you hate it?”

I put down my candle holder and considered her question. As much as I didn’t want to
be
Miss HuskyPeach, I
didn’t
hate the process. Parts of it, like meeting Christian, Violet, and Ashley and Gail, were actually fun. The interview was awful because I
made it
awful by not answering Erika’s questions. Nearly squashing her and getting Bra Bombed were accidents. In fact, I had been so intent on not wanting to win that I hadn’t let myself enjoy the parts of it I liked.

“No,” I said, surprised at my answer. “I didn’t hate it.” I didn’t know what to say next. Now that I realized the truth, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“When I did Miss Teen,” Kathleen said, “lots of people couldn’t understand why I liked it. Believe it or not, my
mom
didn’t understand why I wanted to do it.”

Surprised, I dropped my sponge brush into my lap. “Your mom entered me in the Challenge! I thought that’s what she did for you.”

“Stay still, I’ll get some water for that,” Kathleen said, retrieving the brush for me. From the kitchen, she said, “I know; it’s crazy. I wanted to do the pageant because I read an article about it in some teen magazine. It sounded glamorous.”

She returned with a damp dishcloth. “Mom freaked out about it—like she freaks out about everything—but I talked her into it. And the scholarship money they offered as prizes didn’t hurt either.”

I dabbed at my track pants, wiping the glue away. “That’s what she and my mom were so excited about.”

“But not you.”

I shook my head. “Not really. Besides, being Miss Teen is a lot more glamorous than being Miss HuskyPeach.”

Kathleen picked up her sponge brush and another candle holder. “I guess. It’s all about what you want to get out of it, though. For me, it was about wearing fun clothes, learning the makeup tricks, and meeting new people. I made friends doing it.”

I’ve gotten humiliated,
I thought.
Several times
.

Humiliation builds character,
Red Bathing Suit Woman chimed in.
You’ve
also
started wearing fun clothes, learned some makeup tricks—or tried to—and met new people.

I ignored her.

“But it was never about what I wanted,” I said. I ceased crafting. “That’s the problem. That’s why I was trying—” I cut myself off before I could say anything else.

“Trying to what?” Kathleen asked.

“Nothing.” I grabbed my candle holder and spread more glue on it than it needed.

“Trying to quit? To back out?”

I shook my head.

“To lose?”

Her words pinned me to my chair. I shook my head again, but not as quickly as before.

“You were trying to lose the contest,” Kathleen said, and laughed. “
That’s
what you were doing. Why didn’t you just tell your mom and dad that you didn’t want to do it?”

I slumped in my seat, half annoyed and half relieved that she figured it out. “I tried to tell Mom, but she was so excited. She really wanted me to go through with it. I know it’s silly. You and Kirsten said to just tell her and get it over with, and I couldn’t.” Tears burned my eyes, turning the tissue paper piles into a kaleidoscope of color.

“You didn’t want to disappoint her,” she said quietly.

“I didn’t want to be a fat model.” There. I said it out loud.

“But then you liked parts of the experience,” she said, beginning to catch on.

I nodded, miserable.

“And then . . . what? Something happened, right?” She leaned over the table. “Something that made you want to quit even though you were enjoying some of it.”

Another nod.

“What was it? Did someone find out who you didn’t want to know?”

I shook my head.

“Did one of the judges say something to you?”

I shook my head again.

“Celeste, let’s not play Twenty Questions. Out with it. What happened?”

“Fine.” I let out a big whoosh of breath, inhaled, and told her. I told her all about blowing the interview, cheesing up the photo shoot, falling on Erika, my loose dress, Violet’s quick fix, and the horror of the Top-Dropping Bra Bombing. She decoupaged the whole time I spoke, which made it easier, actually. I didn’t have to look in her eyes.

When I finished, she put down her sponge brush. “That was the last straw, huh?”

“A pretty big one,” I replied.

It was her turn to nod. “Celeste, you know that you won’t win, based on everything that’s happened, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, not sure what she meant.

“So why not go back for the last time and actually let yourself enjoy what you’ve liked about it?”

“But everyone saw me,” I said. “My
dress
fell down.”

“Everyone there was a mom, contestant, or stylist—all people who have what you have, have seen them before, or, in the case of the professionals there, don’t care because they see them all the time. And you
weren’t
facing the audience when it happened. So even if they saw what you have—big deal. Now go and show them what you’ve got.”

I picked up a candle holder and glued while I let her words sink in. I went through a lot not to win, but, like Kathleen hinted, I’d gotten a lot more out of the HuskyPeach contest than I expected. Ashley and Gail, for one (or two). After seeing how mean Faux-Best Friend Sandra could be, and becoming closer to Millie and Katy, I was ready for new friends who liked me for who I was.

Also, I
had
liked how I looked with Christian’s makeup magic, and I knew that the contest helped me stick to Operation Skinny Celeste. Even without Miss HuskyPeach, I still hadn’t eaten any junk. While I certainly wasn’t skinny, I did feel a heck of a lot better—and, according to more and more people, I
looked
better too. I’d never have Mom’s and Aunt Doreen’s metabolism, but that was old news. And with Lively leaving me alone, and Sandra out of the picture, New Celeste deserved her chance to make an entrance on her own terms.

Besides, any entrance you make has to be better than your last exit,
Red Bathing Suit Woman said.

I hated to admit it, but she had a point.

 

Kathleen didn’t ask me any more questions about the Modeling Challenge, and until we finished the candle holders, the rest of our conversation focused on the wedding. Her words about the HuskyPeach stuck with me the whole time, though.

As I gathered my stuff together to leave—she was dropping me off, then meeting Paul to go over seating arrangements—something occurred to me.

“Kathleen?”

“Mmmm?” she responded, searching her purse for the car keys.

“You said one of the reasons why you did Miss Teen was because you wanted to learn the makeup tricks, but you barely wear any.”

“That’s what I learned,” she said. We stepped into the hall and she locked the door.

“What do you mean?”

“When you wear all that stuff for the pageants, you realize something.”

“What’s that?”

She smiled. “A little lip gloss goes a long way.”

ALL WEEK I avoided talking with my mother about Miss HuskyPeach. Several times, Mom reminded me that she hadn’t called to withdraw my candidacy. “If you change your mind, just let me know,” she said. I’d never respond, just go on with whatever I was doing. Besides, as it got closer to Saturday, Mom became more and more preoccupied with helping Aunt Doreen with last-minute wedding stuff. She picked up the Monstrosity the Wednesday before the wedding, and it hung on the back of my door to await its debut.

Thursday morning, as I was getting ready to leave for school, she stopped me.

“Come straight home today, hon,” she said. “We need to go to the mall for a few things.”

What more could I need? I had the dress and the shoes. Even after six weeks of Operation Skinny Celeste, hitting the mall with mom still did not hold any appeal.

At school I shuffled through my two morning classes, then met up with Millie and Katy in the hall before gym.

“More soccer today,” said Millie, rolling her eyes. “Can’t wait.”

“Hey—maybe Celeste will get another chance to try and bust Lively’s bust,” Katy responded. As they laughed, my cheeks warmed. I felt bad about aiming for her chest. After it happened, I realized it was something that she would probably do to someone else. And I didn’t want to be anything like Lively Carson.

Too bad she actually caught it,
Red Bathing Suit Woman snickered, clearly not in agreement with me.

We wove our way through the locker room, and I left them at my row. As I dug through my backpack for my fresh gym clothes, my fingers skidded off slick plastic.
The gift card.
I pulled it out.

After riding around in the depths of my bag for weeks, the card was dusty and scratched. The green cardboard backing, emblazoned in white with “A Catch ’N’ Kick Gift For You,” was creased. The upper left corner was missing. I smoothed it out as best I could on the bench next to me, then wriggled into my sweats and AlHo T-shirt.

Coach’s whistle blew, calling everyone to the shower area. On autopilot, I tossed my backpack and school clothes into my locker, slamming the door when finished. The gift card still sat on the bench.

“Let’s go!” Coach’s voice echoed off the tile and bounced to my row. With neither pockets nor bag, my only options were to bring the card with me or open the locker to put it away, ensuring that I’d have to run laps for lateness. I grabbed the card and scooted into the shower area just as Coach started taking attendance. Since I was late, I ended up sitting near the front, not in my customary corner with Millie and Katy. They smiled at me from across the room.

“Sandra’s not here, so I’m going to switch Joanie from team A to team C and Lively from C to B. You’ll both play your same positions,” Coach said. I was so close, I could count the stains on her sneakers.
One . . . two . . . three . . .
Sweat slicked the gift card clutched in my hand.

I hadn’t even noticed Sandra’s absence. Lively started whispering to everyone near her, asking where Sandra was.

“Is there a problem with your reassignment, Ms. Carson?” Coach Anapoli asked . . .
thirteen . . . fourteen . . . fifteen
. . .

“Uh, no Coach,” Lively responded. “I was just wondering if Sandra is okay. Where is she?”

Coach shrugged. “Not my business or yours, is it?” As Lively scowled, she sent us down to the fields. I’d counted thirty-seven sneaker spots.

I stood to the side, letting the other girls pass as I waited for Katy and Millie.

“What’s that?” Millie asked, pointing at my clenched fist.

“Oh. Uh, nothing,” I said. I didn’t want to explain about the gift card, or why I hadn’t given it to Coach yet. I’d been explaining things to people an awful lot over the past few weeks. This was something I needed to do by myself.

I lagged behind them on the walk, creasing the cardboard backing around the card clenched in my fist, worrying about what I’d say to Coach. Would I have to remind her why I was giving it to her? It’d been so long, I wondered if she would remember.

She’ll remember,
Red Bathing Suit Woman said.
Even after all these weeks. I guarantee you.

When we reached the field, I went through warm-ups with my team. Coach told us to start and took her clipboard to the sidelines. Some of the girls kicked the ball around to look like they were playing, but no games would begin for real until Coach yelled at us. This was my chance.

I slipped out of the goal and trudged toward the sidelines. Every step felt as heavy as it had the day of Yurk Fest, and my heart pounded a staccato rhythm. My hands were so sweaty, I imagined the ink on the cardboard staining my palm green.
What if it runs so much she can’t read the card?
I thought. Too quickly, I was standing in front of Coach Anapoli. I took a deep breath.

“Uhhh, Coach,” I started, mouth as dry as Femur, the thighbone bathroom pass from science class. I cleared my throat. “Umm.”

She looked up with wide eyes and scooted down the bench, away from me. “Sick, Harris?”

“No,” I said, and shook my head hard. Coach relaxed, then resumed staring at her clipboard. I fiddled with the creased cardboard with both hands, keeping my eyes on the top of Coach’s head. I took a deep breath. “It’s just that . . . I . . .” The temperature of my cheeks rose. If she were watching me, Coach would be in danger of getting a sunburn.