"Model story" Chapter 1

{I bet her mother is proud of her}

She had to be one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen. Long, shiny dark brunette hair, flawless caramel skin and light green eyes. Not a wrinkle in sight, not even the beginnings of one, even though I knew for a fact that she was thirty-five and most people her age had wrinkles by now.
She's a supermodel, one of the uber-famous ones that are known only by their first name, or whatever name they give themselves. Hers is Meg. Not exactly a glamorous name, but as she always said, she's not fake and neither is her name.
She was sitting in her private jet, the one Boyfriend #6 since Husband #2 got her-right before she met Husband #3 and dumped him. I was sitting near her a few leather-topped seats away. It was January, and we were both on the way to Hawaii, where there was some big contest going on-she and I were in so many I always forgot the names. But I wasn't going to be in this one-only Meg was. She always wanted me to come with to her pageants and competitions, and her countless modeling jobs, in the hopes that I might learn something about presentation and style and win my own contests for once. As far as I could tell, the only thing that happened as a result was that I was bored out of my mind. But you couldn't disobey Meg-nobody did, especially me. Under the model's perfect face and body was a heart that believed it was perfect, and expected everyone else to be, too. I figured she was so used to looking perfect and being surrounded by other perfect-looking people that she figured the inside had to be perfect too. No one had the guts to tell her that she could be cruel, knocking girls' self esteem before she even said hello to them. She did it to me all the time. But being who I was, there was no way to change that. So I tried to be the most perfect person possible.
We were about to land, and although I'd flown plenty of times before, something about the way we gracefully swooped down made me feel queasy. I felt the familiar sensation coming around, and closed my eyes even though I knew Meg didn't like me to. I started a mental countdown as I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter and took a deep breath: five, four, three, two-

"Open your eyes, Katie! You know your eyelids aren't at all attractive!"
Right on target. I opened my eyes and smiled. "I'm sorry, ma'am." Oops. The ma'am wasn't exactly a good idea. I mocked her in my head all the time with "yes, ma'am"s and occasionally it just came out. Luckily she didn't seem to care as much this time, and I quickly amended my blunder with a "Yes, Meg, I'm sorry," as the jet hit the ground. But I couldn’t help wondering—was it my eyelids themselves that weren’t attractive, or was it the fact that I wasn’t wearing any eyeshadow? Unlike Meg, who always wore flawless makeup, I had more important things to do than slather powders and creams across my face.
We sped down the runway in front of the airport where we'd reserved the landing area. Meg looked into the mirror engraved in the jet's wall, and apparently finding that her flawless makeup wasn't flawless enough, opened the compartment in the wall near her seat where her one of her countless makeup bags was stored. Boyfriend #6 had really thought of everything. If Meg hadn't left him for Husband #3 (whom she was no longer with), we would have a ton more nice things.
Not that we didn't have a ton of nice things already. And not to sound like a spoiled brat-everybody could benefit from a couple extra vacation houses, as long as those houses had enough rooms that you could safely hide from Meg and her Meg-ness. Honestly, being in the same room with her if you weren't used to her could make you sick-if she acted towards you like she did towards me. If you were stuck with her like I was, you better hope that you could find a good hiding place. I had one on every floor of our main house, making for a quick escape route whenever and wherever I needed one.

Unfortunately, in the jet, there was no such hiding place. I used to stake out in the tiny bathroom, reading or writing, but Meg jumped to some conclusion that I was making myself puke and I got a big lecture.

“Katie, we all know you need to lose weight,” Meg had paused to glance at my stomach, which was almost perfectly flat, “but an eating disorder isn’t the right way to do it.” What a fun hour of my life, listening to Meg talk about me being fat when I was only reading in the bathroom to get away from lectures exactly like the one I was listening to. So really, I couldn't do anything about Meg while we were traveling. I was stuck with her, and I got a little comfort in the fact that she was stuck with me as well.
That was something she complained about a lot-being stuck with me. Because the daughter of Meg-yep, she's my mom-should be more than I am. She should be beautiful, and talented, and not care so much about anything other than modeling and pageants. Not so surprisingly, I am the exact opposite of all those things. And if I couldn't figure that out myself, Meg was nice enough to remind me a few times every day.
The jet stopped and I gathered my purse and tote bag. We were only staying in Hawaii for one night because I had a photo shoot to do the day after tomorrow. I packed light, just a few pairs of clothes and bathroom stuff, without Meg knowing. Rest assured, when she found out she was not happy. How could she be, when she had four bags to carry and I just had one? That made her look like a complete and total pig! And how was I supposed to have everything I needed? There was no physical way to fit all the necessities in one bag! All I could do was apologize for something I shouldn't have to apologize for. Meg was like that-she always wanted an apology, no matter the crime. Drop a fork while eating spaghetti? Apologize. Ask a question she didn't want you to ask? Apologize. Ruin her life? Apologize. For the moment at least, she would pretend the apology was all she wanted. But a while after the incident, she'd call you away, want to talk to you alone. And that's where the punishment came in.
I guess most girls wouldn't mind the punishments Meg gave me-the girly girls wouldn't mind, anyway. Whenever I did something wrong, Meg would enter me in another competition or pageant, or sign me up for a new modeling job. She knew I hated it, but she wanted me to be just like her, a model from birth. As soon as I was old enough, she had me in diaper commercials. Then it was baby toys, car seats, outdoor play sets-whatever was popular for girls my age. When I was little, I was stupid enough to like it. Whenever I did toy commercials, I’d end up with whatever toy I was advertising. Not that I had time to play with them with all my modeling, but still, the idea of having lots of toys was nice. I was happy to do pageants, too, because I got to dress up. But by the time I was about seven years old, I'd had enough. I was too little to really do anything about it, so I endured the pageants and modeling for a couple more years. When I was nine, I smartened up-or so I thought. I had seen the contracts video agencies made my mom sign, with the small type and big words that didn't make much sense. I was a bookworm, even then, and so I'd read the contracts enough times to halfway understand them, imitate them even. That was my plan: to make Meg a contract saying exactly what she could make me do.
My deal was that I would do one thing or the other: pageants or modeling work. Both were just too much. None of my friends had to do both; they did one or the other and were still exhausted. I put this into the contract as well, in more official terms. I thought the real-world examples would make Meg understand that all the activities she was forcing me to do were overloading my life. I had no time to be a kid. I didn't even feel like I had a real mom because I had always called my mother Meg. It was a rule she had hammered into me from the start. I could count on one hand the number of times I've actually called her Mom.
I worked on that contract for nearly a month, editing it and rewriting it, making the deal sound better for her than it was for me, even though it was the other way around. But the second Meg saw that five and a half page contract, she refused to sign it. She wouldn't even read it. I begged her to give it a chance and tried to explain how I felt, but being nine years old, I burst into tears before I could get my point across.
Meg took me by the hand. “Katie.” Her eyes were a warm emerald, as if they wanted to help. I thought she was comforting me. She slowly slid the contract off the table and into her hand, holding it by its stapled corner. Still holding my hand, she led me to her office, where she put my contract through the shredder.
I was lost in the memory for a while and my eyes almost teared up as I remembered all the work I'd put into that contract, taking my free time between pageants and modeling and even giving up precious sleep to work on it. And after all that work, Meg didn't have the decency to even read it, or listen to her daughter talk about her feelings.
Isn't that what moms are supposed to be for? To listen to you and have little heart-to-heart conversations that make you feel like they understand and everything will be all right? Meg was nothing like that, and I had no other mother figure to go to. I was stuck with me, myself, and I. How wonderful.
"Oh, look at those girls." I snapped out of my self-pity to glance at them as Meg and I stepped out of the jet. "Yeah? What about them?"


Meg gave me a look, as if she was saying, isn't it obvious? "Katie. Can't you see? They're beautiful! I wonder if they're here for the teen competition. And their designs! I should have entered you in that contest. It would look good if we participated together. I wonder if it's too late to do a last minute sign-up ..."
"It's okay, Meg. I'll be busy getting ready for the shoot, and you'll be busy with your own competition." Please don't make me do it! I added silently.
Meg shook her head. "It's too late to sign you up. I doubt they would even do it for me." She used her Queen Meg voice, the one that made me want to call her ma’am.
"But, Katie, look at those girls!" I could only see the back of them now. "Especially that one. You can tell she's got what it takes." Meg pointed to a redhead in the middle of the group of models, and paused, looking pensive. "I bet her mother is proud of her."
She gave me a look, and I could hear what she was implying loud and clear.
I'm not proud of you.