“This stuff is itch-free, thank God. It’s even going to be in like three magazines, but they’re trying to get a spread of it in Glamour. This might be the shoot that sets the course for my future.”
I watched as Nancie voiced her dreams and ambitions over a plate of greasy food. It was something we’d done since late high school when we were in social studies class together, and the whole class said we should be models. I hadn’t taken them seriously, not until Nancie made a fake photo shoot with her parents and a few of our friends, and shown me just how much fun it was. We both had been blessed with skinny and tall frames, Nancie a pale skinned beauty in the sun with a dust of freckles across her nose, and me a tanned brunette with green eyes that demanded attention everywhere I went. Nancie had always aspired to be a model, and it wasn’t until our friendship that I realized my life ambition was to either to act or to model as well.
Nancie and Maddie, always together, modeling together, making our careers together. We had made the decision to get separate agents, and I was beginning to wonder if that had been a mistake.
“You should go,” she said.
“Where?” I asked.
“To the photo shoot; they always need a stand-in just in case, and you would look amazing in the bikinis,” she said. “Your squats are really paying off.”
“I wish,” I said honestly. “But I already made dinner plans with my parents, and you know how they get.”
“It’s your career, though,” she said. “Wouldn’t they understand?”
“They don’t see it as a career.” I started cleaning up our kitchen. “They think it’s just a hobby, and they’re so serious about family time that if I canceled they would probably take me out of their wills.”
“Fine,” Nancie sighed. “It just would have been fun to have you there. We haven’t done a shoot together in forever.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Next time for sure,” I offered. Our shoots together had been one of my favorite things to do. Nancie was fun to work with and always made sure everyone in the room had a smile on their face. She was alluring, and I always strived to be like her on my own shoots.
“Well, now that I just ate 10,000 calories, do you want to go to the gym?” she asked. I knew that I needed to call Martin at some point, but I decided to save it until later and agreed. We dressed into our workout clothes, and I drove us to the gym, where we shut everyone else out for the hour before going for a light jog.
Once upon a time, I hated working out. Nancie convinced me to give it a try after I complained about gaining three pounds after a holiday, and we had started with running. The first time we went for a jog I lasted barely two minutes before having to take a break and sit on the ground. It wasn’t until we found something else I enjoyed that I actually wanted to go to the gym.
We took our time getting ready for the day in our bathroom. I gave Nancie the majority of the time and didn’t rush her. We watched a few episodes of our favorite modeling reality show while eating salads for lunch, arguing over the host’s decisions and which girls were cut out for the modeling gig and which weren’t.
“You have to have a thick skin,” Nancie said
. “Like us. She cries every time someone even looks at her.”
“It’ll just be harder for her than the rest,” I argued. “She gets the best pictures though; she deserves to be final two at least.”
Our miniature marathon ended, and we went our separate ways after a quick goodbye, Nancie toward her future, and me toward my parents’ house on the outskirts of the suburbs.
My childhood home wasn’t anything special; in fact, it was much smaller than the average family home and almost always full of trash that my parents never wanted to get rid of. It was on the other side of town from the nicer homes, and just close enough to school that taking a bus was useless. I walked to school every day, with a beat-up backpack drooping from my shoulders and a younger brother retying the laces of his worn shoes.
I didn’t hate my childhood home, but I certainly didn’t have any pleasant memories associated with it. I parked in their tiny driveway, behind a car that was a few years older than my early two-thousands Corolla, opened the outer screen door, and knocked on the door.
“Maddie!” my dad answered the door as if my visit was entirely unexpected. His hair black with soft gray tips around the scalp, and brown eyes that my younger brother had gotten. He was tall and lean, exactly where I had gotten my height from.
“We’re so glad you’re here, sweetheart,” Mom said and gestured at the dinner table. “I was just finishing up setting dinner.” Her hair was long and brown, like mine, and we both shared the same startlingly bright green eyes. Mom had gotten the freckles though, and I always wondered if maybe I would have been as popular as Nancie had I gotten freckles as well.
“We have dinner once a week, guys,” I said and dropped my purse into a chair. I pulled out my phone and saw that I had a missed call from Martin. “Is it okay if I call my agent?”
Mom gave me a disappointed look, and I returned my phone to my purse. “Fine, I can take a hint. No phones.”
“Only for emergencies,” Dad said as he hugged me. “How has your week been?”
I never knew how to answer that. They didn’t understand the importance of keeping up a social media presence in the modeling world, so I definitely couldn’t say that I spent the weekend partying in popular clubs and posting pictures to attract more followers.
“Long,” I said. I glanced at the simple house, with its simple decorations that hadn’t changed in more than 20 years. The TV was old and dusty, with the cords of a cable box, DVD player and Blu-Ray player tangled behind a wooden entertainment center that was older than me. “You do realize you can get one simple box that does all of that?” I pointed at all of the boxes beneath the TV.
“We don’t need anything fancy,” Mom said. “Plus, there’s no point in spending money we don’t have.”
I groaned. Dad had been an electrician for 10 years after serving a term in the army, and for a while, he had made decent money until mom decided to quit her job in the lucrative field of selling makeup door to door. I had begged her not to quit, and to save up until they could afford a more lavish lifestyle, but they both refused. Instead, wanting to spend more quality time with another they decided that dad would work from home for a call center, barely making enough to pay the bills, much less their debt.
“Maybe one day we’ll get a new TV,” dad suggested. “We have some DVDs that would look good in HD.” His arm rested around mom’s shoulders comfortably as they shared an inappropriate joke.