A girl in the first row raised her hand and got called on. “How does the competition -work?” she asked.
“At the end of the show, each of you will be given a list of the agents and other talent professionals who've requested meetings with you,” Karen explained. “Those meetings will take place in ten-minute time slots after the show and the lunch that follows. The model with the most requests will also win a one- thousand- dollar shopping spree, a two- page fashion spread in GlamGirl magazine, with a readership of over one point one million girls, and a tryout for Who Wants to Be a Supermodel?”
This was met with a hush and then a lot more chatter. Polly too was amazed. Just like that you could turn from a regular kid into a real, professional model with your pictures in a magazine and a tryout for a TV show.
Polly was sent off to Studio B with about twenty- five other girls. Studio B turned out to be between Studio A and Studio C in another giant meeting room divided by plastic folding partitions. It was lined by long tables covered with clothes and accessories. Each girl -was supposed to have a brief turn -with a professional stylist. They use the word professional a lot around here, Polly mused absently.
She sifted through clothes alongside the other girls as she waited for her turn.
“How tall are you?” a tall girl asked to her right.
“Five four,” Polly answered. “I'm still growing, though.”
The girl nodded. She was at least six inches taller than Polly, as was the girl to Polly's left.
“This might work for you,” the girl said, holding up a short blue skirt, “since you're short.”
Polly nodded, trying not to look short.
“What's your look?” the girl asked.
“My look?”
“Yeah. What kind of image are you going for?”
Polly tried to keep her teeth -well inside her mouth. “I'm not sure,” she said. She just wanted to look like a model. She didn't know what her look -was supposed to be beyond that. Maybe they'd taught the part about your look on all the shopping trips to the mall she'd missed at camp.
“You should probably lose the bracelet,” the girl advised.
Polly looked down at her arm. “Lose it?” she said in disbelief.
“You don't have to lose it, but, you know, take it off.”
Polly could think of no response. If she had any look at all, it was her bracelet. Dia had gotten it for her. It was from the 1920s and it was the best thing she had.
“I'm Mandy, by the way.”
“I'm Polly,” Polly said, wanting to shield her bracelet from view. What if the professional stylist also wanted her to lose her most precious possession?
“I think it's your turn,” Mandy said, pointing to a woman in black tapping her clipboard.
“What size are you, hon?” the stylist, Jackie, asked after she'd taken down Polly's name and group number.
“I don't know. I—I lost … a lot of myself.”
“What?”
“No. I mean.” Polly was still spooked about her bracelet. She needed to get her bearings. “I mean, I -went on a diet. So I'm not sure what size I am.”
“Okay.” Jackie had no doubt seen her share of skinny girls and weird weight- loss ideas. She studied Polly up and down. “You're a little thing, aren't you? Curvy, though.”
“I'm trying to fix that,” Polly said.
“What do you mean fix it? Curves are nice.”
“Not for a model.”
“Not everyone has to be built like a model.”
“Models do.”
Jackie looked at Polly like she thought she was trying to be funny, but she wasn't.
“Do you think I couldn't be a model?” Polly asked seriously.
Jackie let out her breath. “Hon, I'm just here to help you find something to wear.”
On the last night, Ama carefully brushed and braided Maureen's hair in front of the campfire. She'd used the last of the Kiehl's to demonstrate to Maureen its magic.
“Okay, let me see.” When she had finished, Ama turned Maureen around to admire her -work.
“How does it look?” Maureen asked eagerly.
Ama tried to remember how she'd seen Maureen on the first day, but she couldn't. She couldn't conjure any other look than this very nice one in front of her.
Carly -was watching the makeover -with interest. “Wow. Very cool, M. Wait till you see it.”
“Really?” Maureen looked genuinely excited as she touched it carefully with her fingertips. “Did you do it like yours?” she said to Ama.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Later in the evening Ama took a walk -with Noah. On the way out of the campsite she wondered whether he would hold her hand and on the way back he did. She was jubilant about it at first, but soon her hand began to sweat and she worried that it felt fishy and repellent in his. Even though the moon -was full and the stars were in the billions, she couldn't think of anything besides her hand. She had to laugh at herself.
She was relieved when they got back to camp and he dropped her hand before anyone could see. Later, -when she was done brushing her teeth, he snuck out from behind some bushes. He kissed her on her minty lips. Just a quick one, before they got caught. He pushed a little scrap of paper into her hand.
She went back to her tent and lay there, -wishing she could read the piece of paper. Finally she rummaged in her pack and found her flashlight.
On the front he'd written his phone number and his e-mail address. On the back he'd drawn a little picture of a tree and he'd written their names as though they were carved into the trunk connected by a plus sign. He'd made a little heart around them.
“Do you think I should wear a wig?”
“No, Polly. Your hair-will be fine.”
Polly tried on a red wig. “This is kind of nice.”
“Polly, it's really not… you.”
That didn't seem a problem to Polly. “I don't mind,” she said. She felt prettier -when she looked less like herself, but she didn't say that out loud. “I wish I hadn't cut those bangs in the first place.”
“Yeah, -well. They are a bitch and a half to grow out, aren't they? But we can't worry about that right now.”
Genevieve, the makeup and hair professional, was very nice but was getting a little stressed out, Polly decided. The runway show was starting in less than an hour, and she had four more girls to get ready.
Polly tried on a blue wig. She tried on a pink spiky one.
“Polly! You can't rub your eyes when you've got eye makeup on. Okay?”
“Sorry,” Polly said. She kept forgetting. She didn't wear eye makeup at home.
“If you want you can go on to the next girl,” she said.
“You've still got seven minutes,” Genevieve said. “I can do more with your mouth, fix your eyes, redo your—”
“That's okay,” Polly said, scooting over to the accessories table. The girls behind her -were practically having nervous breakdowns for fear they wouldn't get made up in time.
Polly tried on long strands of fake pearls and chandelier earrings but decided she should probably not wear them together.
“All right, everybody!” cried Karen, the former model -with the leather pants, clapping to get their attention. “Ten minutes! We need to start assembling. If you're in the first group and you're ready, please come to the front of the room.”
Polly pinned a brooch to the fabric of her dress just over her clavicle. She wasn't till the third group, so she had time. She checked it in the mirror. Was that how you were supposed to wear these things?
Darn, she'd smeared her lipstick again. She tried to fix it, teetering toward the mirror on her high heels. She knew she had the look of a little kid who'd gotten loose in her mother's dressing room. Not her mother's dressing room, because her mother didn't have stuff like that, but Jo's mother's, for example.
She heard a moan from behind her. From behind the table she saw an arm and an elbow and then a head that belonged to Mandy
. Mandy's face was red and her sparkly eye makeup was running and refracting in her tears.
“Are you okay?” Polly asked, approaching her by small steps. “What's the matter?”
“My stockings have a huge hole and a run down the back.” Mandy's words came out in a sob. She turned around to show Polly.
“Second group, up to the front!” Karen shouted.
“I'm in the second group!” Mandy -wailed. She dug her fingers into Polly's arm. “What should I do?”
“Can you get a new pair?” Polly asked.
“No! I tried! There are no other blue ones or gray ones or dark ones. I have to wear dark ones for this outfit.”
Polly felt terribly tense about what would happen -with Mandy's eye makeup if she kept on crying. She felt tears beginning in her own eyes, partly out of sympathy and partly because Mandy -was squeezing her arm so hard.
“Can you go without any?”
“No!” Mandy let out another sob. “Polly, I'm not going to go. I can't. I'm going to tell Karen.”
Polly looked down at her own dark legs. “You can have mine,” she said quickly.
“What?”
Polly started pulling her stockings off. “These would look good. They're even darker than yours.”
“But you need them.”
“I think my outfit looks good either -way,” Polly said, trying to sound confident.
“But you're short.”
“They stretch,” Polly declared. “That's the thing about them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Go!”
“Third group! Please begin to assemble,” called Karen.
Polly could hear the loud music starting from the runway.
“Hurry!”
Mandy pulled and stretched and got the stockings on.
“Lean down,” Polly ordered. Mandy did so obediently, and Polly tried to clean up the running makeup with a tissue. Her hands, though inexpert, did a pretty good job. “Okay,” she breathed. “Go.”
Mandy hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Polly felt Mandy's tears on her face and the slick of lipstick on her cheek.
“This is supposed to be a competition, girls!” Karen yelled at them. “Let's get going!”
Polly watched Mandy skitter to the end of her line and sent her hopes along -with her. She thought, for some reason, of all the slow afternoons of Sunday soccer, rooting for Jo and picking grass on the sidelines. She'd begged her mother to let her play, but she'd never really had the knack for competition.
When Amas group piled onto the bus the next morning for the drive to the airport, Jared handed out their final reports.
Ama took hers with some trepidation. It doesn't matter, she told herself. You know what you did here. That means more than any grade.
When she opened it she saw that she'd gotten an A. She almost laughed, as much out of surprise as happiness. It was nice, yes, but it looked slightly flimsier than As usually looked to her, as though it knew it was kind of beside the point.
She went to the back of the bus and sat next to Jared. “I was the worst person on the trip,” she said. “Why did you give me an A?”
Jared laughed. “If you're talking about competence, maybe. Not if you're talking about effort.”
Ama laughed too.
“Anyway, don't tell this to anyone, but we like to give everybody an A,” Jared said in a low voice.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Everybody who finishes.”
When they were milling around in the parking lot at the airport, Ama was surprised to see two other buses pulling in filled with two other groups from Wild Adventures. It was like looking at alternate universes.
When the other groups filed out of their buses, Ama was also surprised to see several other black kids. At least three in one group, four in the other.
So she wasn't the only one. Not even close. She felt guilty about all the pictures she'd refused to smile for.
She couldn't resist asking Maureen about it when she came over to help Ama with her gear. “How come they didn't put me in one of those groups?” Ama asked, gesturing toward the two buses parked across the way.
“What do you mean?” Maureen asked.
“I mean -when they divided up the groups, why didn't they put me with other black kids?”
“Oh.” Maureen shrugged. “I don't know. We don't ask for that information on the application. I didn't know you were black.”
Polly tried to walk down the runway in a manner that was strident and seductive, as she'd been taught, but the shoes were very difficult to walk in. Without the dark stockings, she was afraid her short, bias- cut dress looked like a bad figure- skating outfit.
She felt like her skirt was sticking to her bare leg and she wanted to look down and fix it, but she was scared that if she did, she would lose what tenuous grasp she had on her runway walk and pitch into the photographers.
Cameras flashed. Spotlights roved and music blared. The audience was in darkness.
As Polly teetered to the end of the walk and executed her turn, a spotlight roved over a face she knew. It was Dia. Dia, who'd said she wasn't coming but had come. Dia, who was supposed to be meeting -with the people at her art gallery this afternoon.
Suddenly Polly felt like her posture was crumbling. Dia never came to any of her things, but she'd come to this. She was clapping for Polly and Polly had to resist the urge to wave at her. Polly stumbled a little on the way back to the curtain. She was desperate to get to the end of the walk. She was aiming forward, walking too fast, tipping on her heels, not remembering about being seductive or strident. She just wanted this part to be over and to go see Dia.
As soon as Polly got through the curtain and out of the view of the audience, she scrambled through the backstage madness and went out the side door of the ballroom, -where the audience was assembled. There was a break before the next group of models and Polly wanted to see Dia, to let her know she knew she had come.
One song ended and it took a few moments of apparent DJ scramble to get another one started. Polly got stuck a few rows behind where Dia was sitting and tried to squeeze past some of the folding chairs to get through. She waved her arms in the hope that Dia would see her.
In the absence of music, Polly heard a familiar voice. It was a gift of Polly's that she never forgot a voice. “I tried to do her makeup,” Genevieve was saying to another woman whose voice Polly didn't recognize. “I don't know how much good it did. She's the sweetest kid, but God knows -where she got the idea she could model.”
“She needs braces, obviously,” Genevieve s friend said.
Polly froze. She brought her arms down to her sides. The runway was temporarily empty. The music hadn't begun. Polly knew they were talking about her. She started to back away, because she didn't want them to see her there.
Polly saw her mother directly in front of Genevieve, but she no longer felt like getting anybody's attention. She hoped her mother hadn't been paying attention to Genevieve. She hoped she wouldn't turn around. Polly wished that the music would start again and the next model would go and that the conversation -would be swallowed up and forgotten in the ensuing noise. Polly -would flee backstage and see her mother after the show -was over. But it -was not to be.
Polly -was standing behind some tall people, -waiting for her moment to make a run for the side door, -when she saw Dia turn around. From the set of Dias body, the look of her face, Polly sensed there -was trouble.
“Excuse me, but -what is that supposed to mean?” Dia demanded, glaring at Genevieve. Her voice -was angry in a -way that cut through the frivolity of the place like a hatchet.
Genevieve stared at Dia in surprise. “I'm sorry. Are you talking to me?”
Polly knew the look on her mother's face. She wished she had stayed backstage. She felt cursed by her combination of soft feet and fine ears. She took a step forward. “Dia, it's fine,” she said, forcing her voice up and out. “She didn't mean anything.”
Dia
barely registered Polly's presence. “Yes, I am talking to you,” Dia raged toward Genevieve.
Polly was suddenly afraid Dia was going to shove Genevieve. She took another step toward her mother.
“What I meant was— What I said was—” Genevieve did not know what she was dealing -with, and she was too staggered to ask.
“What you said was what?”
Genevieve glanced briefly at Polly. She was mortified, flustered and defensive. “I said she's a sweet kid who maybe isn't cut out to be a model.”
The music finally scratched back on, but not loud enough to muffle anything.
“Dia, it's fine. Seriously,” Polly whispered. She was shaking.
Dia still had her death glare trained on Genevieve. “And why do you say that?” The contortion of her features made Polly look away.
“She's—she's not tall,” Genevieve said haltingly. “She's—”
“She's a beautiful girl,” Dia cut in, her voice ragged and raw.
Polly put her hands to her face and closed her eyes. When she looked again, she saw her mother's face, no longer angry but desolate.
Polly didn't want to go back into the audience. So she waited backstage for the lists to be handed out. All the girls were screaming and giggling in groups, reliving the big moments. Polly stood by herself with her hands clasped near her face, trying not to cry.
A lot of them -were grouped around the refreshment table, downing bagels and turkey wraps and mini- brownies. Polly wasn't the only girl -who hadn't been eating much the last few days. She wanted to feel hungry, but the feeling didn't come.
Karen's three assistants were feverishly -working on computers in the office area at the back of the room. Polly heard the huff of the printers going and going.
Mandy came by and hugged her again, but a little more awkwardly this time. “Good job,” she said.
Polly just blinked and nodded. She didn't trust herself to open her mouth. She wondered if her mom -was waiting for her or if she'd left.