She didn’t seem concerned at all with breathing, while that was all I could think about. Now there were just eight girls between the runway and us.
Still she kept going. “Some things I wish I didn’t have to think about. Like last week someone told me those lemon wedges they put on your water glass are deadly. Covered in germs, even poop—that’s what the girl said, on account of the waiters not washing their hands. Literally, that lemon wedge in my water is the closest I have gotten to a slice of cake in three years. Now what am I supposed to do? I wish I could unhear that thing about the lemons and Woody Allen.”
A lemon, I thought. All I had seen any of these girls have for dessert was a cigarette. They were all exactly the same—birds of a feather, we’d call ’em back home. They all walked the same, in a light, airy kind of way. I was sure they would flutter across the runway, while I imagined I would resemble a schoolgirl wearing mud kickers. And they all spoke the same language. They added words to their sentences that made no sense to me at all. Like seriously and literally and honestly. Honestly this and honestly that. It made you wonder if everything else that came out of their mouths was a lie. Also, many of their stories began with “Don’t judge me.” As if it were a get-out-of-jail-free card. “Don’t judge me, I slept with your boyfriend,” or “Don’t judge me, I ate an entire pecan pie last night.” Honestly, the second one would literally never happen. Seriously, it’s literally catching.
Six girls in front of me. I don’t even know how I got here. Well, that’s not really true. I got here on a Greyhound bus. When you’re born with a face like mine and legs that keep going and going like mine, you stop considering any other way out. I used to do well in school, but there was almost no point. When my barely younger sister Carly and I would bring home our report cards, my mother would study hers and barely look at mine. My sister is short, like my mother’s side of the family. An early bloomer, she was the tallest one in elementary school and the shortest by high school. She is okay smart, not a genius or anything. I’m just as smart as she is. But my mama barely looked at my report cards. “With legs like that,” she’d say, “you just need to find a rich man to wrap them around. Carly has to learn to fend for herself.” It was somewhere around then that I stopped trying.
It wasn’t just my legs. I had the face, the skin, the hair, the whole package. That kind of beautiful that makes people stop and stare as if they’re looking at a painting. A very tall painting. I was flawless. On the outside, that is. On the inside I was jealous of Carly. She would speak, and people would like her or not. Not me—I just needed to walk into a room and the boys all liked me. Never heard a word I said. It was so lonely that I finally left and came to New York, where I could stand in a line of perfect specimens like me and be ordinary. That part had felt wonderful—until now. Just four girls ahead of me, all with the face, the skin, and the legs…Wait, three. I pressed my hands against my sides to stop them from shaking.
Her nasal voice briefly broke my nervous trance. “It’s not just lemons, you know. Those mints in the bowls at the register—those have been tested too, and…”
I hoped this wasn’t the dress. It seemed so simple. I would think the dress would be something spectacular and loud, like the girl who was talking my ear off. The dress I was wearing was quiet. Not that I know diddly-squat about fashion. I know nothing more than what I’ve seen in the fashion magazines, and I only ever looked at those the few times that my mom drove Carly and me into Batesville to get mani-pedis. That’s in fact how I ended up coming to New York. There was an article in one of the magazines—“Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Runway Model?” I went down the list: Height, 5'9 to 5'11. Check. Bust 31–34". Check. Waist 22–24". Check. Hips 31–35". Check. They measured me right there at the salon. In the time it took for two coats of Cherry on Top nail polish to dry, my fate was sealed. There was enough money saved for only one of us to go to college anyway, and “Carly had the brains.”
“Go!” With a push I was gone. It was like skydiving. Not that I know diddly-squat about skydiving either. As I stepped out onto the runway, bulbs flashed like mad, just like the girl had said they would. I near ’bout fainted right there. Honestly, literally, and seriously.
CHAPTER 1
Seventh Avenue
By Morris Siegel, Garment Center Pattern-Maker
Age: Nearly 90