“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.
Once I solicited her guarantee, I quickly bid her goodbye and then raced downstairs. To make it up to Lyssa for anything that she might have heard, I decided to make breakfast. I knew that there was nothing that she loved more in the morning than a nice plate of eggs and pancakes. So, I did exactly that, at six thirty in the morning. Scrambling through the kitchen’s various cupboards and shelves, I finally found all of the ingredients and tools necessary for the dish. Forty-five minutes later, I had successfully not only finished the dish, but also creatively made the whole kitchen area a gigantic mess. Hopefully the maid came to clean everyday, or at least today, because if not, I would be in quite a bit of trouble with the whole family. State of the art, their kitchen was quite impressive: that is, before I completely made a wreck of it. At least Alyssa would not be mad at me, as I had made her a delicious, steaming plate of heaven that was just begging to be eaten. I set syrup, whipped cream, chocolate chips, and salt(for the eggs, that is) out on the table before I went to go wake her up.
If there was one thing that Lyssa truly loved more than anything, it was sleep. So waking her up in the morning (which she classified as any time before noon) would result in a throbbing head from where she punched you. You had to have a strategy; there was an art to waking the sleeping beauty. First, you had to find a position that she would be unable to injure you from, and then you positioned yourself likewise. Second, you had to carefully start coaxing her out of bed without getting in her line of fire. Then, you grabbed the bucket of lukewarm water, so as not to produce more reasons for her to bring her wrath down on you. Finally, you dump the bucket and make a run for it. Once she grabs her glasses (wearing contacts would take too long), she will begin chasing you, eager to strangle you by wringing your sorry little neck.
Once these events took place, I ran behind the table, hoping that once she saw the food she would forget about the rude awakening. My hope came to being, and she sat down in front of the plate eagerly.
“I don’t know why you are doing this, and what you did wrong that you are trying to make me forget, but you are going about it well. Let me guess,” here she turned around, avid to find what I had done wrong this time. When she finally saw the kitchen, she shrieked in horror.
“JJ! Seriously, girl, you better go grab the mop. Unless, of course, you plan to wait until the maid comes in on Monday.” One hand on her hip, she smiled wickedly, knowing that I would now have no choice but to clean up the whole mess.
Sighing heavily, I went to where they kept the cleaning supplies. I knew where these tools resigned because of how many times I had made messes or broken things. You should see me on ice skates! Considering that my balance leaves much to improve, when I get on thin little blades and climb on a sheet of ice, you can imagine the likely outcome. I take out people like bowling pins.
Grabbing a mop and a bucket, I set about the work. With batter, egg shells, and, somehow, utensils all over the floor, I had much to do. Always the eager procrastinator, I stared at the mess for several minutes, trying to imagine something to do before I got knee-high in this tragic mess.
A brilliant idea struck, so before I started cleaning the terrible mess, I ran upstairs and grabbed my friend’s iPhone off of its stand and shuffled to my favorite playlist. With music blaring, now I could work. No one else in the world understands this, but without music life is boring: how in the world am I supposed to focus on homework without anything else interesting going on around me? I get that the point of homework is to suck all entertainment and joy out of life for as long as possible, but is it such a crime to listen to music while doing it? My teachers don’t need to know.
Several hours and lots of cleaning supplies later, I had finally finished cleaning the mess up. The whole time, Lyssa had just stared at me, smirking while I worked hard. That’s a best friend for you, folks. Always eager to be there through the enjoyable times, but once it gets rough, takes a step back and watches the show. Not to forget laughing while watching you in pain! Luckily, no one else saw the mess before I finished cleaning it up.
After I put all of the miserable tools away, I jumped onto their leather couch. Bigger than my bed, the sofa could easily fit ten people all lying down. It was one of those modern pieces of furniture that nobody really understood but everyone loved.
Coincidentally, the moment that I finally began to relax, Mrs. Greene came down the stairs, all dressed up in her work clothes. Dressed in a slim olive green pencil skirt that accentuated her legs and a white blouse, she looked as much like a model now as ever. I scrambled up onto my feet, brushing off the invisible dust on my geeky pajamas.
“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.
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Thanks for reading! By the way, I also uploaded a new poem and HIdden Fame, so check those out as well! :)
~Hannah