Plus Page 10

  “Okay, Bee,” Terry said. “That’s nice, you’re loosening up, but I need you to engage with the camera. Really show me you’ve got what it takes to be a supe.”

  I started posing, moving just my torso, turning my head ever so slightly, all the things that I’d been practicing in the Lotte Berke dance class that Leslie made me take on Saturday afternoons.

  Then I threw both hands up in the air, like a V for Victory sign, and out of nowhere Savannah started screaming, “That’s my signature move! She’s copied everything from me, and I’ve worked too hard to let her—”

  Before anyone could stop her, she was on the set and she’d wrestled me to the floor. Skinny or plus, she was one strong girl.

  I was trying to push her off me when I felt the snip. She was holding a pair of scissors, and she’d cut a huge chunk of my hair.

  She held it up and waved it around. “Now let’s see what the bald bitch can do.”

  Terry said, “Savannah, you’re dismissed from the set. Get her out of here.”

  Andy, Syreeta, and all the crew members were gathered around me. Terry asked me if I was all right. And I was all right. But I couldn’t stop crying.

  Syreeta said, “Girl, do you want to see a mirror?”

  I nodded. But when she brought it over, I just started to bawl even louder. I looked like a crazy person. She’d managed to snip six inches off the left side of my head.

  Terry said, “What do you think, Andy? How do we fix it?”

  I looked up at Andy, hopeful that he could give me some kind of miracle. Without my hair and having all this extra weight, I looked like a pumpkin.

  He knelt down next to me and ran his hands through my hair.

  “I could give her a weave,” he said, speaking not to me, but to Terry. “But actually, I think we should cut it, give her a razor-cut bob, shorter in the back, longer in the front, with bangs. And we should dye it red. It’ll be fierce.”

  Terry said, “Okay, let’s do it.”

  Four hours later, I had a whole new haircut. Andy had to put in a few tracks of weave on the left side, and I cried the whole time. But by the time he was done, I felt like a new person. My hair was fire-engine red, like the girl in Run, Lola, Run. It had all these jagged edges and it felt really light, not thick and wavy the way it had all my life.

  All of a sudden, when I went back to the set in the leopard baby doll, I didn’t feel like Bee who’d been rejected by her college sweetheart. Or premed Bee who was taking eighteen credits because she was such an overachiever. I felt like model Bee, who was a little bit bad and a whole lot of fun.

  “Perfect,” Terry said as he clicked away. “This is what I’ve been wanting to see from you all day. Give me a little more rock ’n’ roll. You’re onstage now and there’s a stadium full of people who are screaming out your name.”

  I kept mugging for the camera, and while before, I was doing little turns here and there, all of a sudden I wasn’t afraid to use my whole body.

  When we were all done, Terry said, “Honestly, Bee, I don’t think there was a single picture in this evening’s roll that wasn’t billboard worthy. Good job.”

  Back in the dressing room, Syreeta helped me take off my makeup and Andy smoothed out my hair with a flatiron so that the cut would last for a few more days.

  “Mark my words,” Andy said, “this is going to change your career as a model. You were cute before. But you are stunning now.”

  “And all because Savannah Hughes went crazy and attacked me with a pair of scissors!” I laughed. “Who would believe it?”

  “God works in mysterious ways,” Andy said. “You may have to send that bee-yatch flowers.”

  13

  Bee Joins the A-list

  To celebrate both the Baby Phat campaign and my making the dean’s list, Leslie called to invite me to lunch at Aquavit. I jumped into the shower and tried to decide what to wear. Leslie was more than the head of the modeling agency—she was like the cool girl you always wanted to be. I didn’t want to look overly made up, but I wanted, at least for tonight, to look like a model. So I threw on this lavender Versace top that a stylist had given me on a shoot with a pair of wide-legged khakis and a little khaki jacket.

  I went downstairs, where Leslie was waiting in her “car.” By car, she meant a Town Car, with a driver, which I discovered is how rich people get around New York. All those limos you see going back and forth? Out of towners and teenagers going to the prom.

  “You look really nice,” Leslie said.

  “Thanks,” I said, grateful that I’d taken care with what I was wearing. I’d never been the über-fashionable girl, but I was beginning to pick up a few tips from my photo shoots. And more and more, designers and stylists sent me cool clothes as gifts.

  Once we settled into a primo booth at the restaurant, Leslie said, “So I have to tell you, there’s been some fallout from the shoot.”

  “Do you mean my hair?” I asked.

  “No, your hair is fantastic,” she said. “What a lucky accident. Clients are loving it, and we’re going to have to update your portfolio with a whole new shoot.”

  But I knew Leslie well enough to know that she didn’t dole out praise easily. Something bad had happened. I’d done something or said something to offend a client or a photographer. It was five minutes to midnight and I was Cinderella, about to be transformed back into rags.

  “As you know, Savannah Hughes was cut out of the Baby Phat campaign,” Leslie said. “The client felt she was too thin to portray the plus ideal.”

  Great, now I’d have to watch my back for psycho models wielding scissors wherever I went.

  “Savannah seemed to take an instant dislike to me,” I said.

  Leslie nodded. “You know, this kind of thing happens all the time, Bee. You’re the new girl on the block and the buzz on you is big. Savannah got cut out of the campaign, and instead of dealing with her own yo-yo dieting issues and the fact that her agent can’t get her bookings because no one knows what size she’ll be when she shows up, she’s focused on you as her enemy. Just watch your back.”

  Great. Like I needed one more thing to think about.

  Leslie said, “Okay, enough about her.”

  She gestured to the waiter and ordered two glasses of champagne. When he brought them over, a huge smile spread across Leslie’s face. She said, “Bee, you’ve really knocked it out of the park. Your grades are up. You’ve got a national ad campaign. We’re getting more and more calls about you every day.”

  She lifted a glass of champagne and said, “To you, Bee.”

  She pulled out the June issue of Glamour magazine and there I was, with all the other girls, in a two-page spread. We love our Baby Phat, the ad said.

  I took the magazine from her and just stared at it for a while. It was strange to see myself, parts of myself that no one ever saw—especially my stomach and my hips and my thighs—in a magazine. There was no doubt about it. I wasn’t like Savannah—I was one hundred percent plus. The question is, did I really love my baby fat? Would Brian love my baby fat? And why did those questions feel like one and the same to me?

  When I got home that night, Chela called me on my cell.

  “What are you doing, Bee?”

  “Just prepping for finals.”

  “Have you seen the Baby Phat ad?”

  “I saw Glamour today. Leslie took me to Aquavit to celebrate.”

  “That’s all you’ve seen?”

  “Yep. It’s kind of cool.”

  “Well, I’m taking you out to dinner,” Chela said. “Can you be ready in an hour?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I never turn down free food.”

  Chela picked me up at my place and we hopped on the number one downtown.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Virgil’s BBQ,” Chela said.

  I grimaced. Despite what people thought, being a plus-size model didn’t actually mean that I could eat anything I wanted. On the contrary, I had to be super-
fit. I worked out with this trainer Leslie had found for me at this super-snazzy private gym, three days a week. And I ate salads six days a week. Sundays were my cheat days, but this wasn’t a Sunday.

  Chela said, “Why the face?”

  “I can’t have barbecue. I’ve got a big shoot on Monday. I’ve got to be good and eat something bunny worthy.”

  “Okay, how about we go to Zen Palate?”

  Zen Palate was an Asian vegetarian restaurant. It was super-hard to pig out there.

  “Thanks, Chela.”

  “No problem, girlfriend. I’m all about supporting a sista in her quest to be healthy. I just need to stop at the Virgin megastore to pick up a DVD for my fella.”

  We hopped off the train at Times Square. I started walking toward the Virgin megastore, but when we got to Forty-third Street, Chela stopped and pointed up.

  There I was, all by myself, in a black-and-white shot, wearing nothing but my undies, on a giant billboard hanging over Times Square.

  All of a sudden I blurted, “I can’t wait until Brian sees this!”

  Chela looked surprised. “Why do you care what that loser thinks?”

  “I don’t,” I said, covering. “I just want him to see the billboard so he can know JUST how big a loser he really is.”

  This, as you have probably realized, was a lie. I’d been trying to get some props for my modeling from Brian for a while now. I still didn’t have Brian back. I’d taken my portfolio to a Blue Key meeting one afternoon to show him what I was up to and he just totally blew me off.

  “Modeling?” he had said. “Do you honestly think that with all the problems there are in the world, I’m interested in something as superficial as modeling photos?”

  I didn’t point out that his bathroom had all those Sports Illustrated swimsuit photos. I just skulked away. But I couldn’t help but hang on to the thing that Chela said when we first met, about Brian being a boomerang. I wanted him to come back to me. He just needed to see the new me. I mean, really see.

  Ever since Leslie Chesterfield had offered me my first modeling gig, life had been like a fairy tale. Sure, I had some rough patches. Savannah Hughes had decided that she’s my evil stepsister and evil stepmother all wrapped up into one, and I had to work my ample-sized booty off to squeak out a B+ in advanced physics, but honestly, what more could a girl want? I was a model. I was premed at a top school. I had an awesome best friend. All I needed to complete the picture was a boyfriend, and the only boyfriend I wanted was Brian. I mean, he’d been building homes for Habitat for Humanity since he was in high school, and he’d helped to build thirty homes for poor families. He went to India after the tsunami. He read six newspapers a day, and he was probably going to be president of the United States one day. I mean, really. There was a seat on Air Force One with my name on it.

  14

  Like Bee to Honey

  Everyone was talking about the Baby Phat ads. They launched a website featuring us, the Baby Phat girls—and Leslie told me that my picture was getting a million hits a day. I tried to read all of the posts, but it was bizarre, like reading about a total stranger:

  Bee. It’s such a relief to turn on the TV and see a “real woman” like you instead of a stick figure. Thank you for all you do.

  A few weeks ago, I went out to dinner with some girls from my school and I just felt so full. I’d totally stuffed my face. So this one girl showed me how to make myself throw up, and I just felt much better. Like I wasn’t such a pig. I was going to try it again when I saw you in a magazine and I thought, I bet that girl never makes herself throw up. All of a sudden, it felt disgusting to me.

  I just wish the designers would get a clue. We don’t all look like Kate Moss. They need to cater to the larger women’s needs.

  I’m a sixteen-year-old high school junior, and after I read that Bee was not only a model, but a premed student at Columbia University, I decided that’s where I want to apply. I got the application today. Thank you, Bee.

  Letters like the last one were my favorite. But on the website, there were literally thousands of posts. I could read all day long and never get through them all. Leslie said that the agency was getting a sack full of letters every day and that she had one assistant whose entire job it was to stamp my autograph on pictures and send them out. If that’s not the definition of weirdness, then I don’t know what is.

  I was getting more and more calls for bookings, though I couldn’t work as much as Leslie wanted me to. I was determined not to let it affect my schoolwork, so I turned down a lot of bookings—even though my day rate had doubled since the billboard in Times Square. There just weren’t enough hours in a day to do everything!

  It was Friday night, and I was over at Leslie’s for taco night. Of course, at Leslie’s that meant ground turkey tacos on baked tortillas, but it was still pretty yum. She’d practically adopted me as her little sister. Well, her younger sister who was taller and heavier than she was. Dinner was over, and Leslie’s husband was off to meet his friends at some snazzy cigar bar. I’d just read The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish to Leslie’s son, Jackson. He was three and the definition of adorable. Reading him a bedtime story on Friday nights was easily the highlight of my week. Leslie’s daughter, Danielle, who was seven, was like a little glamour puss. She had this huge vanity mirror and despite the fact that it drove Leslie crazy, she loved to play “model.”

  Leslie and I were eating the tiniest bowls of blood orange gelato and listening to the new CD from Air in her “media” room. It probably goes without saying that Les’s media room was the size of my entire apartment. Everything in the media room responded to Leslie’s voice, so if she said, “Air. Talkie Walkie. Track six,” that’s what would come wafting through the speakers that were so high tech, you didn’t even see them: they were built into the walls and the bookcases and even the huge leather club chairs.

  “Even the girls who do plus-size suits have flat stomachs,” I whined to Leslie. “Why do they even want me?”

  “The Germans like big girls,” she said. “Think about it this way. It’s colder than a witch’s tit in New York. You’re getting an all-expense-paid weekend to Miami.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “They’ve booked Andy and Syreeta for hair and makeup.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “It’ll be great,” Leslie said reassuringly. Then, changing subjects, she said, “I wish I were Charlotte Gainsbourg.”

  My mouth nearly dropped on the floor. In all honesty, a little gelato drooled out of the side of my mouth. Leslie was blond, gorgeous, successful, happily married, and loaded. People like her don’t dream about being somebody else. Which is what I told her.

  “Oh, there’s a part of me that would love to be tall and French with chestnut brown hair and a sexy accent. Everybody dreams about being somebody else,” Leslie said. “It’s the way we’re built.”

  In Miami, I stayed at the Delano, which is the definition of hotness. From the moment the porters open the big glass doors, you feel like you’re walking into a movie. There are thin white curtains that blow in the wind, and there’s a long lobby that leads right out to the beach. All the furnishing are white: white couches, white lamps, and white candles, with dark wood floors. I saw Syreeta checking in, and we had dinner by the pool. I was really good and had a calamari salad and a virgin mojito. Truth be told, I never used to like salads. But the more I traveled for photo shoots, the more I realized that the wilting lettuce and tasteless tomatoes my mom used to serve with Thousand Island dressing could hardly be considered a salad. The calamari salad had all kinds of lettuces, hearts of palm, sweet bananas, and a sesame orange dressing. I was going to have a big fat chocolatey dessert, but Syreeta reminded me that it was my first swimsuit. I’d hate to add overnight sugar bloat to my list of insecurities, so we split a fruit plate instead.

  The next morning, it was a six a.m. call at the beach. I liked getting up so early. My room had an ocean view and I slept with my window
s open, even though Leslie told me that I’ve got to be more careful in hotels. I fell asleep to the sounds of the waves crashing and woke up at five a.m. the same way.

  I was worried that I would look like a sausage squeezed into all the tiny swimsuits. But they fit fine. I told Syreeta how surprised I was that I felt comfortable in the suits.

  “Aren’t you glad you skipped dessert last night?”

  What I said was, “Yes, you’re totally right.” But I hadn’t stopped thinking about the “chocolate bomb” on the menu and fully intended to have it tonight. I guess I must’ve been drooling or something ’cause Syreeta said, “You’re thinking about that cake, aren’t you?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, grinning devilishly. “I thought being a plus-size model meant that I could eat whatever I wanted.”

  Syreeta shook her head. “All things in moderation. Being a plus-size model means that you can eat. Those other girls don’t get to eat at all.”

  I thought about this for a second. “Split the chocolate cake with me tonight?”

  Syreeta smiled. “It’s a deal.”

  I felt a little exposed, posing on the beach all day as people walked back and forth. When we shot Baby Phat, it had been inside and there were all those other girls with me. But the photographer, Karin, let me play DJ, and I started to rock out to all the music on my iPod. Two tracks into my Shakira mix, I was dancing around and having a great time. And the funny thing was, the more I moved, the more people stopped—men and women—to cheer me on:

  “Wepa, mami!”

  “You are beautiful, girl!”

  “Te quiero, morena.”

  It was snowing in New York, and I was getting paid to shake my groove thing on a beach in Miami. Once and for all, it had been established: it does not suck to be me.