Brooke (Orphans 3)

"But none of the other girls wear makeup yet. They'll think I'm trying to look older and fit in with the older girls?' I complained.

"Let them think what they want. They don't have half the beauty I. . I me

an you do. Let's go?' she said. "Back downstairs to practice the runway walk now."

She paraded me back and forth in the hallway for nearly another hour, using music, showing me how to turn, to pause, to look out at the audience, to make myself look seductive or innocent.

"Every contestant, every model, is really an actress, Brooke. You have to assume a persona Think of yourself as someone special, and be that person for a while. Sometimes I imagined myself like Marilyn Monroe, and sometimes I was more subtle, an Ingrid Bergman or a Deborah Kerr. Nowadays, all the girls your age are trying to be like one of those dreadful Spice Girls, but you will be someone unique. You will be . . me," she declared, and laughed. "Just keep studying me all the time, and it will come."

Pamela's words scared me--she really did want to make me into her, and my talents and wants just didn't matter. I didn't understand--why couldn't Pamela like me for me? And, if she wouldn't even like me, how would she ever come to love me?

The next day, I began to feel a little better when I realized at least the kids at school liked me for the real me. On the bus that morning, everyone wanted to sit next to me and talk about the game. In homeroom, Mr. Rudley, who admitted he had yet to attend a school sports event, said he heard he had better show up at the next softball game. The school had a star. I knew I was blushing all over. When I looked at the others, I saw Heather staring at me. She looked so furious, it made my heart thump.

At lunch, I received all sorts of invitations. I was asked to girls' houses, told about upcoming parties and events, and invited to join clubs. Lisa Donald, who was one of the school's best tennis players, volunteered to give me instructions at her family's tennis court.

"You could come over next weekend," she said. "I'm having a few friends over, including some boys from Brandon Pierce." I knew that was an all-boys school nearby.

"Whom do you know at Brandon Pierce?" Heather challenged.

"My cousin Harrison, who's bringing a friend. We might play doubles," she told me.

All the girls looked envious. I had to admit that I had never played tennis before, ever.

"Never? How come?" Heather demanded. "Don't your parents have a court?" She made a tennis court sound as common as a bathroom,

"Yes," I said.

"So?"

"I just never played."

"Why wouldn't you play if you had a court?" she countered, stepping forward to put her face right up to mine.

"What's the difference?" Lisa demanded. "She'll learn now with a good teacher, me."

The girls laughed, but Heather just stared at me with those small, beady eyes. Helen Baldwin pushed in front of her to ask me something about our social studies homework, and then Helen started to talk about Lisa's cousin Harrison.

"He's a sex maniac," she declared. Everyone paid attention after she blurted that. "Right, Lisa?"

"It's on his mind more than it is on other boys' minds, I guess. When we were both seven and eight, he only wanted to play doctor whenever he came over."

"Did you play?" Eva asked.

"No, but once he chased me all around the property trying to get me to take off my panties?'

"I wouldn't mind him taking off mine," Rosemary said. The girls giggled.

"Yes, you would," Heather charged. "Stop trying to sound like a big shot."

"He's good-looking. You said so yourself, Heather. You said you wished he would look at you," Lisa told her.

"I did not. Liar."

"What did you say, then?" Lisa questioned.

Heather looked at the rest of us. "I said he was wasting his time with that Paula Dworkins, that's all," Heather insisted.

"I bet he'll like Brooke," Rosemary said. The girls turned to me.