How to be Famous

Chapter Fourteen: Runway

“I’ll get dressed right away, Mrs. Greene.  Just wait fifteen minutes and I’ll be down!”  I called behind me as I ran up the staircase.  Throwing on a more presentable outfit, I tried to finish my light makeup quickly.  Nothing could be more frightening yet exciting: I was about to learn how to be a runway model.  

Chapter Fourteen: 

“That’s what makes you beautiful!”  My phone began ringing obnoxiously.  I checked the clock, and saw that it was just a few minutes past nine.  Therefore: way too early for me to be up on a day that I didn’t have school.  

I grabbed blindly, as my contacts were not yet in my crusty eyes.  Without contacts or glasses, I was just a step away from being considered blind.  When I finally grasped the flashing and vibrating contraption, I saw Madlyne, the agent that Mrs. Green had assigned me.  Her voice screeched, and it drove me insane; it would make me go crazy if I heard it this early in the morning.  

After the tone stopped, it still rang, and I guessed that she would never stop calling.  I finally decided to answer, just to get Madlyne off my back.  

“Hello?  This better be good, Mad.  It is way too early in the morning to deal with this,”  I stated.  There was nothing that I would have loved more than to hang up, throw my phone away, and shove my head back into the many fluffy pillows adorning my assigned bed that normally remained unused.  

“Wake up!”  she screamed as loud as she could.  I guessed that this was to fully wake me up, and it accomplished that goal.  Now instead of hanging up I wanted to pinch her head off of her short little body and then do my second and third desires.  

“Now that you’re awake, honey, guess what?  I booked not just any modeling gig, but runway!  With this you’ll be able to expand your options instead of always doing magazine shoots.  From here you could go on to do commercials on television, internet, or who knows what else.  That is, if you accept.  What do you say?”  She said, posing the question as something set up to only be accepted.  I felt as if I had no choice in this matter, and I’m sure that that was her goal: to have complete control of where my career goes.  

“Um... Well, I guess?” I questioned, not quite sure whether this was some scam or not.  Madlyne had not necessarily been kind to me yet, I could see her making fun of me by acting like my career was actually taking off when we both knew that I would never get anywhere.  

“One, I know you are doubting this, thinking it can’t be real, but I believe in you and you need to make me proud in this.  I can just dump you, you know.  I choose who I agent for, and I thought you had potential.  Maybe I was wrong,” here she paused, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to stand not proving myself right.

“Fine,”  I sighed, knowing I had been defeated.  “When do I need to get over to the agency?  I’ll have my friend’s mom drive me.”  No need to admit that Mrs. Green, the head of the agency, was my best friend’s mother.  

“Yes, Mrs. Green told me that she would drive you up here when she herself came in for work.  Nice job, by the way, making friends with your boss’ daughter.  Very wise business choice.”  Well, I guess the cat was out of the bag for this one: now everyone was sure to think that I was a suck-up only out to advance my so far nonexistent career.  Once someone knew something juicy in an agency such as this, everyone knew it.  In fact, most modeling agencies had secret gossip sites, I had found.  

“No!  No, no, no, no,” I stated, starting to panic.  “Well, maybe.  Okay, yes.  But please, please, please don’t tell anyone that I am friends with Lyssa; they’ll think I’m just doing it for the fame.  She’s a really great friend and I don’t want to lose her because she finds out about all of the rumors.  Promise me?”  I pleaded, checking to make sure that Alyssa was still asleep while we were having this conversation.  She let out a content little snore when I shoved her a bit, so I assumed that she would be okay.