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Geek Girl and Model Misfit
“You’re not having coffee, Harriet,” Annabel says as I start whining outside the window.
“But Annabel…”
“No. You are fifteen and permanently anxious enough as it is.”
To make matters worse, when we finally locate the right street in Kensington, we can’t find the building: mainly because we’re not looking for a blob of cement tucked behind a local supermarket.
“It doesn’t look very…” Dad says doubtfully as we stand and stare at it suspiciously.
“I know,” Annabel agrees. “Do you think it’s…”
“No, it’s not dodgy. I saw it in the Guardian.”
“Maybe it’s nicer on the inside?” Annabel suggests.
“Ironic, for a modelling agency,” Dad says, then they both laugh and Annabel leans over and gives Dad a kiss, which means they’ve forgiven each other. Honestly, they’re like a pair of married goldfish: squabbling and then forgetting about it three minutes later.
“Well,” Annabel says slowly and she squeezes Dad’s hand a few times when she thinks I won’t notice. She takes a deep breath and looks at me. “I guess this is it then. Are you ready, Harriet?”
“Are you kidding me?” Dad says, ruffling my hair. “Fame, fortune, glory? She’s a Manners: she was born ready.” And – before I can even respond to such a shockingly incorrect statement – he adds, “Last one in is a total loser,” and runs to the door, dragging Annabel behind him.
Leaving me – shaking like the proverbial leaf in a very enthusiastic proverbial breeze – to sit down on the kerb, put my head between my knees and have a very non-proverbial panic attack.
This might surprise you, but here’s a fact: people who plan things thoroughly aren’t particularly connected with reality. It seems like they are, but they’re not: they’re focusing on making things bite-size, instead of having to look at the whole picture. It’s procrastination in its purest form because it convinces everyone – including the person who’s doing it – that they are very sensible and in touch with reality when they’re not. They’re obsessed with cutting it up into little pieces so they can pretend that it’s not there at all.
The way that Nat nibbles at a burger so that she can pretend she’s not eating it, when actually she’s eating just as much of it as I would.
Despite my rigorous planning, I can’t break this down into any smaller pieces. Walking into a modelling agency and asking strangers to tell me objectively whether I’m pretty or not is one big scary mouthful, and the truth is I’m terrified.
So, just as I think things can’t get any worse, I abruptly start hyperventilating.
Hyperventilation is defined as a breathing state faster than five to eight litres a minute, and the best thing you can do when you’re hyperventilating is find a paper bag and breathe into it. This is because the accumulation of carbon dioxide from your exhaled breath will calm your heart rate down, and your breathing will therefore slow.
I haven’t got a paper bag, so I try a crisp packet, but the salt and vinegar smell makes me feel sick. I think about trying the plastic bag that came with the crisp packet, but realise that if I inhale too hard, I’m going to end up dragging it into my windpipe, and that would cause problems even for people who weren’t struggling to breathe in the first place.So, as a last resort, I close my eyes, cup my hands together and puff in and out of them instead.
I’ve been puffing into my hands for about thirty-five seconds when I hear a human kind of noise next to me.
“Go away,” I say weakly, continuing to blow in and out as hard as I can. I’m not interested in what Dad thinks. He plays games of Snap with himself when he’s stressed.
“This isn’t Singapore, you know,” a voice says. “You can’t just fling yourself around on the pavement. You’ll get chewing gum all over your suit.”
I abruptly stop puffing, but I keep my eyes closed because now I’m too embarrassed to open them again. My suit is grey and the pavement is also grey; perhaps if I stay very still and very quiet, I’ll disappear into the background and the owner of the voice will stop being able to see me.
It doesn’t work.
“So, Table Girl,” the voice continues, and for the second time today somebody I’m talking to is trying not to laugh. “What are you doing this time?”
It can’t be.
But it is.
I open one eye and peek through my fingers, and there – sitting on the kerb next to me – is Lion Boy.
Him and whoever hands out the Nobel Prizes. Just – you know. In case.
“Umm,” I say into my palms, thinking as quickly as I can. Hyperventilating doesn’t sound very good, so I finish with: “Sniffing my hands.”
Which, in hindsight, sounds even worse. “Not because I have smelly hands,” I add urgently. “Because I don’t.”
I take a quick peek through my fingers again and see that Lion Boy is lazily flexing his feet up and down and staring at the sky. Somehow – and I don’t know how he has done this – he has managed to get even better looking than he was on Thursday.
“And how are they?”
“A bit salty,” I answer honestly. Then I nervously blurt out: “Do you want to smell them?”
I trawl through fifteen years of knowledge, passions and experience and the best I can come up with is: Do you want to smell my hands?
“I’m trying to cut back,” he says, lifting an eyebrow. “But thanks anyway.”
“You’re welcome,” I reply automatically and then there’s a short silence while I wonder if – in an alternative universe somewhere – another Harriet Manners is having a conversation with a ridiculously handsome boy called Nick without making herself sound like a total idiot.
“So,” Nick says eventually. “Are you ready to go upstairs yet? Because your parents are waiting in reception, and judging by the look on your mum’s face five minutes ago, everybody up there may already be dead.”
Oh, sugar cookies. I knew Annabel was going to start channelling Tomb Raider: she’s been in a scratchy mood all morning. “How do you know they’re my parents?” I ask coolly, hoping to pretend that I’ve never seen them before in my life.
“Your mum is wearing exactly the same thing as you, for starters. And you have the same hair colour as your dad.”
“Oh.”
“And they keep saying, ‘Where the hell is Harriet?’ and looking out of the window.”
“Oh,” I say and then I stop talking. My hands are shaking and I’m not sure I can handle any more shades of embarrassment. I’m already purple as it is. “You know,” I say, after giving it a little thought, “I think I might just stay here.”
“Hyperventilating on the kerb?”
I look up and see that Nick is grinning at me. “Yes,” I tell him curtly. He has no business laughing at breathing problems. They can be very dangerous. “I am going to stay here and I am going to hyperventilate on the kerb for the rest of the day,” I confirm. “I’ve made an executive decision and that is how I shall entertain myself until nightfall.”
Nick laughs again, even though I’m being totally serious. “Don’t be daft, Harriet Manners.” He stands up and a little flicker of electricity shoots through my stomach because I’ve just realised he has remembered my name. “And don’t be nervous either. Modelling’s not scary. It can actually be sort of fun sometimes. As long as you don’t take it personally.”
“Mmm,” I say because frankly I take everything personally. And then I watch as he starts wandering lazily back towards the building. Everything Nick does is slow, as if he lives in a little private bubble that’s half the speed of everything around it. It’s mesmerising. Even if it does make me feel like everything I do and say is too fast and frantic and sort of unravelling like the cotton on my grandma’s sewing machine.
“And you want the really good news about modelling?” Nick says, abruptly turning round.
I glare at him suspiciously and try and ignore the flip-flop feeling as my stomach turns over and starts gasping for air, like a stranded fish. “What?”
“It’s an industry full of tables to hide under. If you decide you don’t like it, you can literally take your pick.”
Then Nick laughs again and disappears through the agency doors.
Forty-eight hours ago, the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me was having my hand accidentally touched by the least spotty boy in the local bookshop, and that was just because he was handing me a book. Now I’m expected to get off the pavement and follow the best-looking boy I have ever seen into an internationally famous modelling agency as if it’s the most natural, normal thing in the world.
So let me clarify something, in case you don’t know me well enough by now.
It’s not.
It’s no use: Nick stays just ahead of me, as if he’s the carrot and I’m the eternally optimistic donkey. By the time I reach the reception of Infinity Models (three floors up) he has disappeared completely, and all that’s left is a slightly swinging door to convince me I didn’t just invent him in the first place.
One quick glance, however, shows me that he was right and Annabel is totally fuming. While Dad bounds around the room, annoying the hell out of the receptionist, Annabel is sitting in total silence, bolt upright, with her back nowhere near the chair. The tendons in her neck are standing out like the bubbles in our living-room wallpaper.
Then I realise why. Somewhere in the direction Annabel keeps looking, I can hear the distant sound of a girl crying.
“Where have you been?” she demands as soon as I walk in, but I’m saved by Wilbur, who bursts through the reception door in an explosion of orange silk trousers and a shirt with paint splashes all over it, except they’re clearly not a result of anyone painting.
“Gooooood mooooorrrnniiiinnng,” he squeals, clasping his hands together. “And if it isn’t Mr and Mrs Baby-baby Panda! Just right there in front of me, like two little matching pots of strawberry fromage frais! Ooh, I could just eat you both up. But I won’t because that would be terribly antisocial.”
Annabel’s eyes have gone very round and her mouth has dropped open. Even Dad has stopped bounding and he takes a slightly frightened seat next to her.
“What?” she whispers to him. “What did that man just call us?”
“This is fashion,” Dad murmurs reassuringly, taking her hand gently as if she’s Dorothy and he’s the White Witch. “This is how they speak here.”
“And it’s Mini-panda herself!” Wilbur continues obliviously, waving at me. “In a suit this time, no less! What’s the inspiration this time, Monkey-chunk?”
I glance quickly at Annabel and see that she’s mouthing Monkey-chunk? at Dad, who shrugs and mouths Mr Baby-baby Panda? back. “My stepmother’s a lawyer,” I explain.
“My Stepmother’s a Lawyer,” Wilbur repeats slowly, a look of growing amazement on his face. “Genius! I’m Wilbur, that’s with a bur and not an iam,” he continues happily, semi-skipping over and grabbing Annabel and Dad’s hands, “and I am so thoroughly, thoroughly giddy to meet you both.”
“It’s an – erm,” Annabel manages, and Wilbur holds his fingers up to her mouth to stop her speaking.
“Ssssshhh. I know it is, my little Pumpkin-trophy. And I have to tell you I’m totally incandescent right now about your beautiful daughter’s visage. It’s special. New. Interesting. And we don’t get much of that round here. It’s all legs up to here,” (he points to his neck) “and eyelashes out here,” (he moves his hand a few centimetres in front of his face) “and lips out here,” (he keeps his hand in the same place).“Dull, dull, dull.” He turns to me, beaming. “You don’t have any of those things, do you, my little Box of Peaches?”
I open my mouth to answer, and then realise he’s telling me I don’t have any of those things. Otherwise known as beauty. Fantastic.
In the meantime, Dad is still staring at the hand Wilbur is holding. “Um,” he says, trying to tug it away as politely as he can.
“I know,” Wilbur agrees, holding on tighter. “Doesn’t it feel like a whirlwind of adventure?”
And before either of them can say anything else he pulls both Annabel and Dad to their feet and starts dragging them across the reception floor.
“Right!” Dad says and high-fives him.
“For crying out loud,” Annabel sighs as Wilbur shows us to little plastic seats. “Will somebody other than me please take this seriously? And you should know that I’m making notes,” she adds sternly, getting out her notepad.
“How funalicious!” Wilbur cries. Annabel writes one word down, but I can’t see what it is. “Now,” he continues, “are we definitely set on the name Harriet?”
We all look at him in shock because… well, it’s my name. I’ve been sort of set on it for the last fifteen years.
“My name,” I tell Wilbur in the most dignified voice I can find, “was inspired by Harriet Quimby, the first female American pilot and the first woman ever to cross the Channel in an aeroplane. My mother chose it to represent freedom and bravery and independence, and she gave it to me just before she died.”
There’s a short pause while Wilbur looks appropriately moved. Then Dad says, “Who told you that?”
“Annabel did.”
“Well, it’s not true at all. You were named after Harriet the tortoise, the second longest living tortoise in the world.”
There’s a silence while I stare at Dad, and Annabel puts her head in her hands so abruptly that the pen starts to leak into her collar. “Richard,” she moans quietly.
“A tortoise?” I repeat in dismay. “I’m named after a tortoise? What the hell is a tortoise supposed to represent?”
“Longevity?”
I stare at Dad with my mouth open. I don’t believe this. Fifteen years of the worst name ever and I can’t even blame my dead mother for it?
“We could try Frankie?” Wilbur suggests helpfully. “I don’t believe there were any famous reptiles, but I’m sure there must have been a cat or two.”
“She stays Harriet,” Annabel says in a strained voice.
“You have to admit it was worth a punt,” Wilbur whispers to me, but I’m too busy giving my father the evil eye to say anything back.
“Now,” Annabel continues. I can see that she has a list in front of her. “Wilbur. You’re aware that Harriet’s still at school?”
“Of course she is, Fluff-pot; the others are decidedly too old.”
Annabel glowers at him. “I see I need to rephrase that. What happens with Harriet’s school work?”
“We work around it. Education is so very important, isn’t it? Especially when you stop being beautiful and perhaps get a little fat.”
Annabel’s eyes narrow a bit more. “How much is this going to cost?”
“Gosh, she’s to the point, isn’t she?” Wilbur says approvingly, winking at Dad. “If it’s a testshot, everyone works for free and it costs nothing. If it’s a job, Harriet gets paid and the agency gets a cut of that. That’s sort of the point, isn’t it? I’m not here just for the free dinners.” Wilbur pauses thoughtfully. “I’m a little bit here for the free dinners,” he corrects. “But not entirely.”
“And who looks after her? She’s only fifteen.”
“You do, poppet. Or Panda Senior over there. At fifteen she has to have a chaperone at all times, and I’m going to suggest that it’s one of you two because the total strangers we drag off the streets just don’t seem to care as much.”
I glance quickly at Dad and note that his excitement levels are getting dangerously high. Annabel scowls at him. “And who was that crying earlier?” she hisses. “Why were they crying?”
Wilbur sighs. “We had to turn a girl away, Darling-cherub. If we made everyone who wanted to be a model a model, we’d just be an agency for human beings, wouldn’t we? Fashion’s exclusive, my little Butternut-squash. That means excluding people.”
“That was a child,” Annabel says in an angry voice.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Wilbur shrugs. “It’s hard to tell: sometimes they just don’t eat very much. Confuses the growth hormones, you know? Either way, we sent them packing.” And then he beams at us all. “I won’t be sending you packing, though, because you’re here by special invitation of moi.” And he throws the Polaroids from The Clothes Show on the table. “Your daughter is adorable. I’ve never seen such an alien duck in my entire life.”
“A what?”
“Frankie here looks just like the ginger child of an alien and duck union, and that is so fresh right now.”
“Her name is not Frankie,” Annabel hisses in barely contained frustration. “It’s Harriet.”
“Could you not at least have smiled, Frankie?” Dad sighs as he studies the photos. “Why do you always sulk?” He looks apologetically at Wilbur. “She ruined eighty per cent of our photos when we were in France last summer.”
“Her name is Harriet!” Annabel almost shrieks at Dad.
“Oh, no,” Wilbur says earnestly. “That works for me. People like their high-fashion models to look as deeply unhappy as physically possible. You can’t have beauty and contentment: it would just be unfair.” He looks at the photos again with a satisfied expression. “Harriet looks thoroughly miserable: she’s perfect. Once we’ve straightened out that lazy eye, obviously.”
“What are you talking about?” Annabel shouts and her voice is getting higher with every sentence, as if she’s singing it. “Harriet does not have a lazy eye.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Wilbur says, waving his hands around in an attempt to calm her down. “What’s a more politically acceptable way of putting it? Directionally challenged?”
Annabel looks like she’s about to bite him.
“Are you sure,” I finally manage to interrupt before Annabel rips the entire room to shreds, “that I’m what you’re looking for? That there isn’t some kind of mistake?”
Because with all of the nerves and the tension and the shouting, I haven’t been able to get a word – or a thought – in edgeways, but some of the things I’ve heard have kind of stuck. Words like: ginger, tortoise, alien, duck, lazy and eye. This isn’t quite the magical metamorphosis moment I was looking for. I don’t feel very beautiful at all. In fact, I think I feel worse than I did before I came in here.
“My little Tortoise,” Wilbur says, reaching out to grab my hand as my squinty, directionally challenged, short-lashed alien eyes start welling up. “Cross-eyed or not, there’s no mistake. You’re perfect just the way you are. And it’s not just me that thinks so.”
“No, your daddy does too,” Dad says, leaning over and ruffling my hair in an attempt to make peace with me. I growl and bat his hand away crossly.
Wilbur smiles. “Actually, I’m rather enigmatically referring to an enormously important fashion designer who saw the Polaroids and wants to meet Harriet asap.” He pauses and looks at his watch. “Asap is an abbreviation of as soon as possible,” he adds.
There’s a long silence while Annabel, Dad and I stare at Wilbur with blank expressions. After twenty seconds of nothing, Annabel finally snaps. “What the hell are you talking about, you strange little man? When?”
Wilbur’s watch starts beeping. “Now,” he says, grinning and standing up. “It’s the other engagement I was talking about.”
“Now?”
“Yes.” And then Wilbur looks directly at me. “She’s sitting next door.”
I know that the word ‘mummy’ comes from the Egyptian word for ‘black gooey stuff’. I know that every year the moon steals some of the Earth’s energy and moves 3.8cm further away from us. I know that when you sneeze, all bodily functions stop, including the heart.
And I know nothing about modelling.
However, I’m pretty sure that this is not how the story is supposed to go. The agency are supposed to assess me and then think about it, we’re supposed to assess them and think about it, and then we’re all supposed to make lots of careful decisions and go through lots of boring waiting time before anything interesting happens. If anything interesting happens.
They’re not just supposed to lob a fashion designer at me the way Alexa lobs a netball at my head before the game has even started. What’s more, I haven’t been transformed at all yet. I’m not ready. I’m still a caterpillar.
“What?” Annabel finally stammers in total disbelief. “She’s what?”
In the meantime, Wilbur has manually picked me out of my chair and is pushing me towards the door on wobbly Bambi legs. “She’s next door,” he repeats. “You know, they sell the most fabulous little ear syringes in chemists that will clear these hearing problems right up for you.”
“I don’t think so,” Annabel hisses, starting to get out of her chair too.
“Oh, they do,” Wilbur insists. “It’s like pop, and suddenly you can hear again.”
Annabel clicks her tongue in frustration. “I mean, Harriet’s going nowhere.”
Wilbur looks at Annabel in confusion. “But it’s a super important designer, my little Door-frame. I don’t think you quite understand. Frankie’s a very lucky little girl to even get a chance to meet them.”
“I don’t give a flying duck if they’re Queen of the World,” Annabel snaps. “Harriet’s not just being thrown into it like that.”
Wilbur sighs. “Let’s be rational about this, non? You haven’t signed anything and you haven’t decided anything. You can still say no. But isn’t it best to know what you’re saying no to? That’s just basic maths.”
“It’s not maths,” Annabel sighs. And then her head furrows in the middle. I can see the logic has started worming its way in.
“Plus, Annabel,” Dad says anxiously. “What if it’s the Queen of the World?”
“Oh, for the love of Pete,” Annabel says after staring at Dad for a few seconds, and then she turns to me. (“Are you Pete?” I hear Wilbur whisper to Dad.) “Do you want to meet this person?”
“Uh,” I say because everything has suddenly gone very far away and quiet, and my whole body is shaking – even my thumbs.
This cannot be happening. This is not on the plan. This is not on any of the plans.
