Head Over Heels

  She looks like a human balloon: as if she’s slowly blowing herself up and preparing to pop.

  “Please, Tabs,” I plead as I awkwardly shove the buggy into a shiny elevator. “I don’t know what to do. Please tell me what I can do.”

  Babies don’t generally begin combining sounds into words until they’re at least ten months old: we could be in this lift for some time.

  “Did you know,” I say, attempting a jolly, manic tone as she continues to screech, “that you have sixty more bones than me right now? That’s interesting, don’t you think?”

  Apparently not: the yells kick up a notch.

  “And you still don’t have any kneecaps at all. You’re not going to develop them for a couple more years. What do you think of that?”

  Not much: the uvula at the back of her throat looks like it’s about to fall off, it’s vibrating so hard.

  A whole week.

  I spent a whole week preparing for today, and I’d have been better off investing that time in overfeeding and/or trying to lose Victor.

  Desperately, I grab my phone.

  Stupid cat took D. T devastated. Any ideas? H

  I don’t need to elaborate any further.

  Jasper bought Tabby Dunky the donkey as a Christmas gift last year, and her inability to sleep without it is well documented: if anyone knows how to find a similar one, it’s going to be him.

  A few seconds later, there’s a beep.

  Leave it with me. You’ve got this in the bag. J

  I breathe out a few times.

  Then I try to make the blue horse dance frantically with one hand while with the other I flick through Toby’s folder. According to page four, my first go-see is with the biggest fashion magazine in the world, which has forty-three international editions in over sixty countries, means ‘she’ in French and launched in 1945.

  How they feel about noises that are louder than ambulance sirens is about to be determined.

  The lift goes ping and the doors slide open.

  I brace myself for imminent humiliation – possibly an immediate arrest for noise pollution – and push the buggy out into reception.

  And there’s an abrupt silence.

  For a fraction of a second, I assume my eardrums have perforated or maybe I’ve just turned into an ant. (They don’t have ears.)

  Then I look down in surprise.

  Tabby’s eyes have gone very round, the flush in her cheeks is already fading and the horse’s tail has gone in her mouth. With a frown, I cautiously roll the buggy back into the lift again and she starts making an uh uh uh sound.

  I push her out and it stops.

  Oh my God. You have to be kidding. Tabitha’s a fashionista already? She’s only eight months old: she can’t even stand up yet.

  “This makes you feel better? You want to visit Elle magazine?”

  Tabby waves the blue horse at me: trauma momentarily forgotten.

  And I make my decision.

  “Right,” I say firmly, pulling the buggy hood back so she can see the room properly. “If it’s going to make you happy, I’ll show you everything. Just try and forget Dunky for a few hours. Deal?”

  Tabitha beams.

  I hope Annabel knows what she’s in for: she’s going to need another relaxing spa trip when she discovers her youngest daughter is a belligerent style icon already.

  Affectionately, I straighten my sister’s little green dinosaur top, wipe the tears off her little cherub cheeks and smarten up her fluffy red curls.

  I do the same for myself.

  And then the Manners sisters do what we’ve never, ever done before.

  We take on the fashion world together.

  t starts better than I could possibly have hoped it would.

  Despite being nearly an hour late, Tabby and I sail straight through Elle reception, into the glamorous open-plan magazine office and towards a very chic-looking fashion editor in camel-coloured trousers and a light blue shirt.

  Quickly, I run through my mental list.

  Am I being professional? TICK. Confident? TICK. Stylish? TICK. Is my health top-notch? AS GOOD AS CAN BE EXPECTED IN ONE WEEK.

  Have I done my research? OH YOU BETCHA.

  The word jeans comes from the cotton trousers worn by sailors from Genoa; the world’s first fashion magazine was published in 1586 and it takes more than 30,000 silkworms to produce twelve pounds of raw silk. I’ve even remembered extracts from the fifty copies of Elle Nat gave me, collected over the last half-decade.

  Admittedly, my self-belief wobbles slightly as the ridiculously beautiful blonde model in front of me puts a portfolio full of Prada campaigns back in her bag and looks in alarm at the slightly soggy toy tucked under my arm.

  But I quickly recalibrate.

  I’ve done Baylee. I’ve done Yuka Ito. I kind of half did Levaire. I have just as much chance as any of these girls.

  This is in the bag.

  “Hello,” I say to the editor, before she can comment on Tabby. “I’m Harriet Manners and there was a babysitting conundrum. I promise it’s not a sign of opprobrium towards fashion and I respect you very much.”

  “Don’t worry at all,” she smiles warmly, holding out a hand. “Childcare is a nightmare, I have one myself. So let’s see what we have here.”

  I give her my orange portfolio and somehow manage to swallow an intense impulse to tell her that the fruit orange actually came before the colour orange and was a reduction of nāranga, the Sanskrit word for “orange tree”.

  Be professional, Harriet.

  “Lovely,” the editor says, opening my book and flicking the first page over. “Beautiful.” She flicks again. “Gorgeous.” Flick. “Very pretty.” Flick flick. “Wonderful. What a lovely face you have.”

  Flick flick flick flick.

  Then she takes one of my comp cards out, puts it on a table full of other comp cards and hands the book back to me. “Thank you, Harriet. We’ll be in touch.”

  I blink in amazement.

  Oh my God, is that it? Did I just get my very first job of the day? All it takes to achieve meteoric success is a well-organised binder and a bit of belief in myself.

  I should have done this ages ago.

  “When exactly, do you think?” I don’t want to be pushy, but time is of the essence. “I’m free Monday lunchtime. Can you call between 1:30pm and 2pm?”

  “We’ll be in touch. Thank you, Harriet.”

  “It’s just that I have a double maths lesson at three so if I can’t pick up you can leave details on voicemail.”

  “Thank you for coming in, Harriet,” she says more firmly. “See you another time.”

  “Or email. I can give you that too. I can check my phone under my desk.”

  “Thank you, Harriet. I’ll bear that in mind.”

  Then the editor turns pointedly to the stunning, ebony-skinned girl lining up behind me, who is getting a shiny silver portfolio out of her bag.

  Hang on a minute.

  Is … Is this like what Nat was saying about dating? When they say they’ll be in touch but what they actually mean is they won’t be in touch at all?

  Have I just been fashion-dumped?

  “Umm, sorry to interrupt.” I lean abruptly in front of the other model’s photos. “Does this mean you won’t be in touch or you will be in touch? I need to check.”

  The girl starts laughing.

  “Ah.” The editor smiles briefly. “I see. In that case, we won’t be in touch. I’m afraid you don’t have the right look for us at present, Harriet. Maybe come back in a few years.”

  “A few years?” I say in dismay. “But you don’t understand. I don’t have a few years.”

  At least that makes the other model stop laughing: she now thinks I’m dying.

  “I’m sorry, Harriet,” the editor says smoothly. “Better luck elsewhere.”

  “But—”

  “Goodbye, Harriet. Have a very nice day.” Politely but deliberately, the editor spins fractionally in her
chair away from me.

  And it looks like my first casting is over.

  hich is absolutely fine.

  I mean, I knew I wasn’t going to get them all. I only need to secure two, maybe three, modelling jobs to make a real difference, and according to Toby’s schedule I’ve still got seven castings to go.

  That’s a forty per cent success rate target at maximum, or an E grade if modelling was a GCSE.

  Which I’m very happy it’s not.

  I tend to cry all night if I get anything less than an A-minus.

  Anyway, as I push Tabitha rapidly along the streets to my next appointment, I focus on staying positive and confident. I’ve got a great plan and this is in the bag: all I need to do is stick to it without getting creative or veering off course.

  The same cannot be said for the buggy.

  First it goes into a drain, then a pothole and a shop-window. I can’t get it up the kerb, then – while texting Team JINTH to let them know how it’s going – I drive it into a lamp-post.

  By the time Tabby and I arrive in Savile Row, we’ve lost all the time we made up at the last casting. Not to mention the fact that I can barely read the notes for this go-see because there are so many hearts drawn all over them. Nat’s pencilled Kiss the doorstep! in Toby’s margins, and I don’t have time to check if she means literally.

  I cautiously give the doorframe a quick peck, just in case.

  The door swings open with a sharp bang.

  “Model!” a very short man in a black polo-neck snaps. “Why are you sniffing our shop? What’s wrong with you? Come in quickly, you’re letting the warmth out.”

  Then he scuttles away, busy and ant-like: muttering about how he “doesn’t appreciate waiting around all day for tardy teenagers”.

  Obediently, I push the buggy past grey, tailored and very formal suits and dresses: into the kind of darkly lit back room I’m not sure I should be following a strange man into.

  Then I clear my throat anxiously. “This is very—”

  “Walk,” the man says, straightening his glasses.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Walk.” He makes little stepping movements with his fingers. “You put one foot in front of the other and move forward?”

  “Of course,” I say, quickly grabbing a pair of black heels out of the buggy, popping them on and thanking my lucky stars that Nat forced me to spend three hours practising walking in them this week.

  Then I start ambling across the room.

  “Faster,” the man says, clapping his hands, so I obediently scoot forward a bit faster. “Not that fast.” I slow down. “Shoulders back.” I obey. “Too far.” I pull them forward again. “More hip.” I roll my middle section. “Less hip.” I go rigid again. “Good lord, girl, who taught you to walk?”

  “My dad. When I was fourteen months old.”

  “Bad,” he snaps. “Bad bad bad. You should get a new one. You’re no use to me at all.” Then he starts ushering both Tabby and I out of the shop with flappy hands.

  My heart lurches in dismay. That’s it?

  Scientists have worked out that the perfect slice of toast should be cooked for exactly 216 seconds. You can’t make a decent breakfast in the time it’s taken for my shot at this position to be over.

  He hasn’t even looked at my portfolio.

  I haven’t told him that the first pair of Levis was sold for $6 of gold dust, and I feel like that definitely might have helped.

  “Umm.” Do something, Harriet. “Would you like my composite card for future reference?” I desperately thrust nine or ten at him from the doorstep. “I’ve hole-punched them for easy storage.”

  He hands my cards unceremoniously back.

  “Keep them, honey. Judging by that performance you’re going to need as many as you can get.”

  And the door gets slammed in my face.

  ight.

  My chances are plummeting faster than Galileo’s famous objects dropping from the top of the Tower of Pisa, but statistics are still totally on my side.

  I obviously just need to try harder.

  Lightly jogging, I wheel Tabby towards Covent Garden. She starts mewling, so I pause in a cafe to give her a bottle of milk and change her nappy. Five minutes further down the street, she starts grizzling again so I find another cafe and change her nappy again. Then again because I stuck it on the wrong way round.

  And again because I sat her in orange juice.

  By the time we reach a creative agency in Shoreditch, we’re an hour and a half late and the receptionist rolls her eyes, yells, “We’ve got a straggler, do you want to bother or not?” and goes back to painting her nails.

  A few minutes later, a silver-haired girl barely older than me wanders in with the expression of someone who has just woken up and isn’t particularly happy about it.

  “So where’s the model, then?” she asks the receptionist, yawning.

  Ouch. Excluding an infant and her own work colleague, I’m literally the only person in here.

  Confidence, Harriet. It’s in the bag.

  “Hello.” I hop up and hold out my hand. “It’s very nice to meet you. I’m Harriet Manners from Peak Models. Wilbur Evans sent me.”

  “Yeah.” She yawns again. “So, like, everyone’s at lunch so I’ve been sent to deal with you? Whoa,” she adds, blinking at the portfolio I’ve thrust hopefully at her. “Bright.”

  Then I quickly narrate while she flips lazily through: yawning widely the entire time. I’ve never seen all four of a stranger’s wisdom teeth before but I guess there’s a first time for everything.

  “So, you’re, like, smaller in person than you look here?” she says finally, glancing up. “You’re, like, taller in photos? Upwards?”

  I’m not entirely sure what the question is.

  Also, my precise height is on my comp card in both metric and imperial.

  “We shrink one per cent throughout the day due to our spines compressing,” I offer helpfully. “If you’d like me to be taller maybe we could schedule a morning shoot?”

  “LOL,” she says flatly. “Oh, you’re, like, serious? Yeah, no. Maybe we’ll just get someone who’s, like, the right height all day? But thanks for coming in.”

  She stands up and stretches like a bored cat.

  “Cute baby, by the way,” she adds. “Your tummy is snapping back well fast. You can barely tell you’ve had one.”

  I open my mouth in shock.

  Then she wanders out, taking another one of my precious chances with her.

  Casting Number Four I miss completely.

  By the time we arrive the shoe company won’t even open the blinds, let alone the door. “Job’s gone,” they say through the slatted bits of metal.

  I make my eyes as wide and beseeching as is physically possible. “Please …”

  “Gone.” And the slats slam shut.

  Casting Number Five tell me I’m pretty for a ginger and then ask if I’d consider dying my hair jet black for a handbag campaign.

  “Not permanently,” they add when my eyes widen. “Just until it grows back out, so two or three years. And monthly eyebrow maintenance, obviously, or that would just look weird.”

  “We could shave them off completely,” somebody else offers. “That look is so hot right now.”

  “Oooh, that might work.”

  “Or it might look weird.”

  “Yeah, that too. I suppose we could give it a go?”

  “I mean, what do we have to lose?”

  They start inching towards me and I take a deep breath. For Wilbur for Wilbur for Wilbur … “Sure,” I say as bravely as I can. “You can dye my hair black and shave my eyebrows off. You can shave my head completely if you like.”

  They start laughing. “You’re funny.”

  “Funny can’t sell a handbag, though.”

  “Nope. Sorry, Carrot Top. Maybe next time.”

  Number Six tell me I have a “fat back” and – when they think I can’t hear – “nobody wants to
see that in a bikini”.

  Which may have traumatised me forever.

  Number Seven (a toothpaste commercial) disorientate me by being sweet, friendly and interested in the fact that snails have twenty-five teeth located on their tongue.

  “We’ll call you!” they say just as I’m leaving.

  So that’s a no too.

  Honestly, this is starting to feel like I’m on a series of the horrific speed dates I read about in those women’s magazines, and I’m just as bad at them as I would have expected myself to be.

  And having even less fun.

  By my last casting of the day, my chances have dropped to almost nothing and I’m trying not to look at Wilbur’s hopeful texts.

  Twinkle me when you’re done! F-G. xx

  I have been so incredibly naïve.

  All day, beautiful models have been scattered around me with portfolios as impressive or better than mine, without an add-on baby or the need for an additional instruction manual tucked in their satchel.

  I thought planning and trying would be enough.

  I assumed if I could break modelling into bite-size pieces – if I could analyse, strategise, bullet-point and demystify it – I’d somehow be able to conquer it.

  Because that’s how my world always works.

  But for once in my life, studying has got me nowhere.

  “No,” the last receptionist sighs. “You can’t take a baby in with you. This is a casting, not Mummy and Me group.”

  I look in exhaustion at Tabitha.

  She’s been perfect all day: apart from the juice incident, and nobody likes an orange bottom.

  Then I glance at the seven other models I’ve been quietly waiting with for an hour. Every single one has red hair. Every single one has pale skin and freckles. Every single one has green eyes and the look of somebody who avoids sunshine.

  And at the end of the row is my doppelganger.

  We’ve been studiously ignoring each other for the last hour: nothing says I am not a special snowflake quite like eight girls who look identical to you.

  I glance back in the buggy.

  Tabby’s fallen asleep with a thumb in her mouth: clearly worn out by a whole day of rejection.

  I’m utterly exhausted too. I just need to get this over with as fast as possible.