Super Model's Daughter

Chapter One

Super Model's Daughter

By Rachel S. Rentz

ONE

Ava Marx's skinny right hand held a half-full can of her favorite energy drink to giveher that serious extra boost she needed in the morning-Red Bull. While she and her best friend, Charlotte White, searched through what seemed like twelve thousand minis at Bloomingdale's for the upcoming Hollywood debut for Ava's mother's new fashion line, her stomach felt queasy. Being the famous supermodel, Summer Marx's daughter had its challenges. To her and Summer's fans, life seemed like just peaches and cream for her and her mother. But to Ava, life kind of sucked at times. Normally when her mother actually paid the least bit of attention to her, they were always attending super-star studded red carpet fiascos and whatnot. And every time she and her mom went out, the paparazzi always did a cover story on Summer. But did they ever think to mention Ava, her almost-famous fifteen-year-old daughter? No.

   Charlotte held up a teal sparkling mini dress from some designer Ava had never even heard of named Pierre VonHugh. Probably a wannabe fashion extraordinaire, Ava thought, grimacing at the teal thing and Charlotte hastily settled it back down on its rack.

   "I don't get why I have to follow my mom around everywhere," Ava groaned. "And honestly, as if the press even gives a crap about Summer's no-name daughter." She took a swig of Red Bull and examined a violet red mini that sported ruffles at the top along the no-sleeved seam. She tossed it behind all the other dresses on the rack, hiding the dress in its shame.

   Charlotte rifled through more dresses as Ava stood there in the middle of the store, one hand on the hip of her distressed True Religion jeans-a special gift from her dad, Quentin Marx, a big-time business billionaire. Ava's cropped tee from the chic-but-surprisingly-cheap Delia's catalogue hung around her thin figure. The little orange owl with Harry Potter-like glasses on her tee looked perplexed looking at all the not red carpet-worthy dresses in front of it-as did Ava.

   "I still think you should take this big debut as an opportunity to be ambitious! Become the person you were meant to be, Ava. And by that, I mean get some publicity! The cam will love you," Charlotte argued, throwing Ava a golden, shimmery mini. Ava was always secretly a little annoyed by Char's big-vocabulary talk and lectures about how she should keep on striving to be the best. Well, according to Ava, she was already the best and was never brought down to lower standards. At Bradley-Lloyd Prep, anyway.

   BLP was the school every person in southern California dreamed of going to, but only a little amount of people actually could. People like Ava and Charlotte were part of that amount. 

   "Char, I get it, okay? But I've tried that, like, oh I don't know-fifty million times already? Honestly, if the camera loved me, then it'd be basking in my glory twenty-four-seven and not the fabulous Summer Marx's. Didn't you ever think about that, Char?" Ava said, then she took in deep yoga breaths just like her yoga instructor, Madelyn, had reminded her oh-so-many times to do when she was upset and needed to calm.

   Ava was also trying to get out of the habit of calling a cab almost every day down to Adelaide's Pool & Spa just when she was stressed about school or getting Lyle Bronson's attention. Even though at her house (achem, excuse me, mansion-slash-castle-slash-Californian paradise) they'd had any kind of assistant they wanted, Adelaide's was the best way to steer; even if it did charge over one-hundred-fifteen bucks to her father's MasterCard a day. Sometimes a deep-tissue shiatsu massage was all a girl needed to be centered again.

   Charlotte sighed in sympathy to her friend. "It must be awful, huh? We can go down to Adelaide's today. Will that help?"

   Ava shook her head and took another sip of her ultimate-energy and replied, "No. I'm on spa-probation from five mud baths last week. How 'bout I just call Tillie, my fashion consultant? She can find me some amazing dresses, pronto." Tillie Moore had been the fashion specialist for Ava for almost four years. She'd know exactly how to handle a crisis like this.