Here's Lily Read online

  Mom looked at Dad, but he gave her the this-one’s-up-to-you shrug. “Hon.” Mom touched Lily’s arm gently. “I have a feeling the lady is trying to drum up business for her school. I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but that could be why she gave you her card.”

  “Then why didn’t she give everybody cards?” Lily said. “They were practically begging her to, but she only gave one to me.”

  “Oh.”

  “She has a point,” Dad said.

  “But I’ve never known you to have an interest in modeling before,” Mom said. “We don’t know how much this is going to cost, and for something you just suddenly decided you wanted to do . . .”

  “I don’t know if I want to do it,” Lily said. “But she said I’d be good at it. If Art wanted to try a new instrument he’d never played before, you’d let him do it.”

  “He’s a musician,” Dad said. “We established that when he was five years old.”

  “And if Joe wanted to play another sport, you’d sign him up.”

  “He’s an athlete—”

  “But what am I?”

  “You’re—”

  Mom stopped shaking out jeans and looked at Dad. He was chewing on the earpiece of his glasses.

  “See?” Lily said. “Nobody knows. I don’t even know! I want to have a ‘thing’ just like all of you do.”

  Her parents exchanged more looks, and Lily bit her lip to keep from nagging. That was one sure way to get your whole case thrown out. Finally, Dad cleared his throat, and Mom nodded.

  “All right,” Mom said. “I’ll call her and get the particulars, but we’re not promising anything.”

  “Will you call her now?” Lily said. “The phone number’s on the card.”

  Mom sighed and pushed the laundry basket toward her. “I can see there will be no rest until I do it. Finish folding those for me, would you?”

  “You might have to describe me to her,” Lily called after her. “Just in case she doesn’t remember me.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Dad said.

  Mom was back in five minutes and announced that Saturday afternoon they’d all be going to a meeting at the agency for prospective models and their parents where they’d get the answers to all their questions.

  “You’ll have some kind of interview,” Mom explained. “Then they’ll decide if they want you, and we’ll decide if we want them to want you—or something like that. Now can we drop it between now and then, or are you going to drive us crazy until we get there?”

  “I’ll drop it,” Lily said.

  But she didn’t “drop it” from her own head. She could think of almost nothing else until Saturday.

  She used her half hour on the computer she had to share with Joe to look up the Rutledge Modeling Agency. All the girls on the website seemed so perfect that she couldn’t imagine herself fitting in. Still, Kathleen had invited her. Maybe she would look like them when she was done.

  When she wasn’t memorizing the website, she e-mailed Reni. Called Reni. She would have texted her too, if she’d had a cell phone.

  Lily did tell Reni about the modeling thing, of course, and they whispered about it at school every chance they got—a fact that didn’t escape Shad Shifferdecker. It suddenly seemed like every time they put their heads together, Shad appeared with his hand cupped around his ear.

  At Friday afternoon recess, the two girls were sitting against the fence in the corner farthest from the building under the only tree on the playground. It finally looked like they were safely out of Shad’s earshot, so they didn’t whisper as they picked up gold- and rust-colored leaves from the ground and made confetti out of them while they talked.

  “I so can’t wait until Saturday,” Lily said. “Only . . . I’m a little freaked out. What if they don’t want me after they talk to me?”

  “Why wouldn’t they want you?” Reni said. “Kathleen already said you were beautiful.”

  “I don’t know—”

  But Lily never got to finish the sentence. Something suddenly dropped out of the branches over their heads and hit the ground in front of them with a heavy thud. It obviously wasn’t an autumn leaf.

  Reni screamed. Lily jumped up, grabbed a stick, and held it over her head, ready to pound whatever it was. She’d learned a few things growing up with two brothers.

  But she stopped with the stick in midswing. “Shad Shifferdecker!” she said, gritting her teeth. “You were spying!”

  Shad picked himself up from the dirt and brushed some of it off his huge T-shirt, which hung down to his knees. The boys weren’t allowed to wear clothes seven sizes too big to school, but Shad somehow got away with it. She was pretty sure that underneath, the waistband of his jeans hung down that far too, and his boxer shorts were probably sticking up above them like he was a gangster or something. The thought of it was disgusting.

  “Big deal,” Shad said, beady little eyes snapping. “You didn’t say nothin’ I was interested in. Me? I hang out at the mall on Saturdays.”

  “Doing what?” Reni said.

  “Anything I want.”

  “And your mom lets you?”

  “My mom doesn’t ‘let’ or ‘not let’ me do anything. I’m practically on my own now.”

  Lily felt her lip curl. She couldn’t have cared less what Shad did on Saturdays. He could be out robbing convenience stores for all she gave a rip. What she did care about was how much of their conversation he’d heard, and how much he would carry back to Leo and Daniel so they could get in her face about it later.

  “It isn’t nice to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations,” Lily said.

  Shad smiled, and his braces glittered in the sun. “I dropped all right. You didn’t even know I was up there. Duh! I heard everything you said for the last hour.”

  “We haven’t even been here an hour,” Reni said.

  Lily folded her arms across her chest so she’d appear casual. “What did we say then?”

  “Somethin’ about bein’ all freaked about goin’ someplace Saturday.” His voice went up into a high pitch. “‘What if they don’t want me?’” Shad gave a grunt of a laugh. “What’s goin’ on? Are your parents putting you up for adoption or something?”

  “None of your business,” Lily said. But she was relieved. At least he hadn’t heard them talking about the modeling agency.

  “I can tell you exactly what’s gonna happen on Saturday,” Shad said. “Whoever ‘they’ are, they’re not gonna like you.”

  “You just hush up your mouth, Shad,” Reni said. She stretched her neck up about as far as it would go. “You don’t even know anything.”

  “I know they’re not gonna like her,” Shad said again, “because nobody likes her. She’s too stuck-up.”

  “You are such a liar,” Reni said.

  Shad looked at Lily like he was waiting for her to start yelling too. But her face was stinging, and she knew if she said anything, she’d start crying. Shad got even more evil when he managed to make somebody bawl.

  Lily hugged her arms in closer to her chest and turned on her heel and walked away, tossing her hair as hard as it would toss. Behind her, Shad grunted several times, his version of a laugh. Reni hurried to catch up with her.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” she whispered to Lily.

  “I won’t,” Lily said. Yeah. Like that was even possible.

  Finally the next day came, and Lily was ready hours before it was time to leave for the Rutledge Agency. She parked herself on the loveseat in the entranceway of their house, dressed in her newest flouncy skirt and the only tunic top that had escaped the day Art did the laundry and washed everything in hot water. Art stopped on his way past and asked her if she was waiting for a bus.

  She kind of hoped they would take Dad’s little Honda Accord instead of the van Mom always drove. Dad didn’t cart kids around. Mom did, which was why the van always had sticky yogurt spoons on the seats, sported really old Fruit Loops on the floor, and smelled like Joe’s
dirty socks.

  I don’t want to go into the Rutledge Agency smelling like Joe, Lily wanted to protest. But as they climbed into the van, she heard Dad say, “Tell me again why we’re doing this?” So she decided to keep that to herself.

  When they got to the agency, it was obvious that other people were close to freaking out too. The meeting room was filled with mothers and fathers and girls who had apparently spent as much time in front of the mirror as Lily had. From the looks of the curls and outfits and even lipstick on a couple of the girls, some had even primped longer. Lily immediately wished she had some of that blush and lip gloss Kathleen had put on her.

  What really surprised Lily was that a few boys came too. One of them, who was wearing very cool jeans and had shiny nut-colored hair hanging down over his eyes like Justin Bieber, walked past her, looked back over his shoulder, and started to laugh.

  What’s so funny? Lily wanted to say to him. She felt her nostrils to be sure nothing was hanging out of them.

  Just then, Kathleen stepped up to a microphone at a podium and asked everybody to have a seat. Lily followed her parents to three seats in the second row. She stifled a groan when she saw that Cool Jeans was sitting right in front of them. His mother ran her hand over his head to smooth his hair, and he pulled away from her with a jerk.

  Evil child, Lily thought. Why did there always have to be boys? Life would be so much easier without them.

  “Welcome, all of you!” Kathleen said into the microphone. “I hope you’ll all take a moment to look around the room because the young people you see here are very special.”

  Lily glanced around, and her heart sank. They were better looking than your average kid. She felt like a giraffe again.

  “The reason they’re special,” Kathleen went on, “is because I handpicked them from the schools I’ve been visiting over the past few weeks.”

  Lily saw Cool Jeans flip his hair around importantly.

  “But not all of you will be invited to join our next beginners’ class,” Kathleen said. “We’re here today to tell you about the agency to see if you want us, and we’re here to see if you are the kind of person we would like to work with.” Her eyes went right to Cool Jeans. “We’ll be watching to see how you treat other people, for instance. If we see that you’re going to put other people down to make yourself feel better, we won’t ask you to come back.”

  She still didn’t move her eyes from the kid in the jeans. Lily could see him squirming. “We may ask some of you if you would be willing to do certain things, such as cut your hair so we can see your eyes.”

  When Kathleen finally looked elsewhere in the room, Cool Jeans whispered to his father, “No way! I’m not cuttin’ my hair!”

  Lily let out a long breath and leaned easily back in her chair. I like it here, she thought. I really want to come to this class.

  After she told them about the Rutledge Agency, Kathleen said she was going to go into her office. Her assistant, Tess, would call each one of them back, and she wanted them to come into her office and introduce themselves.

  “Then what do we do?” someone asked.

  “Nothing,” Kathleen answered. “That’s it. That’s the interview.”

  When she left the meeting room, the room was one big whisper.

  “You mean I got you all dolled up for that?” said a mother across the aisle from the Robbinses. She looked in dismay at her daughter’s mass of carefully placed curling-iron curls. “If I’d known that, I would have saved myself the trouble.”

  “Oh no,” said another woman in the row behind them. “That’s all the time you get in a real interview for a modeling job. You have to sell yourself in thirty seconds.” She sniffed importantly. “My Cassie has the technique down cold.”

  Lily looked at the girl she assumed was Cassie, who dazzled the group with a toothy smile.

  Oh . . . Lily thought, I don’t think I can do that.

  “So what are they looking for?” said one dad. He nudged his now crimson-faced daughter with his elbow. “Listen up, Stinky. This is how you impress the lady.”

  Stinky? Lily thought. My whole face would turn into a tomato if Dad called me “Lilliputian” in here. I’d croak if he called me “Stinky.”

  “You have to make eye contact,” the mother behind them was saying. “And be assertive. Enter and exit gracefully.”

  “Uh-oh,” Mom whispered to Lily. She grinned. “If you don’t get asked back, Lil, remember that it isn’t the end of the world.” She gave Lily a gentle nudge. “Who needs graceful anyway?”

  If that was meant to make Lily feel better, it didn’t work. She turned around and concentrated on not letting her face get any blotchier than it probably already was.

  Tess started calling people’s names, and it looked like the know-it-all mother had been right. Nobody stayed in the office longer than thirty seconds. Lily’s dad was timing it. Lily was pretty sure that was how he was staying awake.

  When Tess called Lily’s name, several people wished her good luck.

  “You’re gonna need it,” Cool Jeans whispered.

  Am I, like, a magnet for absurd little creeps? Lily thought.

  She made herself move out of the row without looking at him. The closer she got to Tess, the prouder she was of her self-control.

  Maybe I really do have what it takes to be here, she thought—until there was a sudden shriek of laughter from the chairs behind her, a ripple of chuckles, and a few “Oh dears.” Lily looked frantically over her shoulder to see half the people covering their mouths with their hands and the other half pointing right at her.

  Well, not at her face. At the seat of her skirt.

  Lily grabbed at it just as her mother got halfway out of her chair and whispered loudly between her hands, “Do a fanny check, Lil. I think you brought in some debris from the car.”

  To her horror, Lily’s hand did touch something sticky. When she tried to pull it off, part of it stayed there, and part of it stuck stubbornly to her hand.

  Her face, she knew, was one big blotch as she twisted around to examine the back of her skirt. A large wad of grape gum—already chewed grape gum—hung from her seat and was connected by an ever-growing string to her fingers.

  “You must be Lily,” someone whispered near her ear.

  Lily looked up to see Tess at her elbow, but she couldn’t say anything except, “Gum.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Tess whispered. “Kathleen told me about you. Just go in and be yourself.” She winked. “It’s a piece of cake.”

  “But . . . shouldn’t I go get this off?”

  Tess shook her head. “Pretend it isn’t there.”

  By now Lily was no longer hearing the smothered laughter of the other candidates and their parents. Pretend it isn’t there? she wanted to scream at this Tess person. I wish I could pretend I wasn’t here!

  For a second she seriously considered making a run for the door and escaping to the parking lot and running for the New Jersey Turnpike. As it was, she looked back again at her parents. Dad was looking bewildered, as if he didn’t see what was so funny. Even though her mom was nodding for her to go on, she had her hand halfway over her eyes.

  Lily could feel her face going beyond blotchy. She was sure all the color was draining right out of it. She had to get away from these people and their sick senses of humor, and Kathleen’s door was the closest. She went for it.

  “Atta girl,” Tess whispered. “Stand straight. Focus.”

  Lily pushed open the door, certain that she was leaving a clothesline of gum behind her. Kathleen looked up at Lily from her desk and smiled.

  “Hi,” Lily said. “I’m Lily Robbins.”

  Kathleen put out her hand. Lily stood frozen for a moment, trying to remember which hand she’d touched the gum with. She still couldn’t remember as she desperately stuck one in Kathleen’s. She nearly fainted on the desk when it came forward clean and gum-less.

  “Very nice to see you again, Lily,” Kathleen said. �
�Very nice. You can go on back to the meeting room.”

  Lily panicked. “Now?”

  Kathleen’s smile got wider. “Now would be good. Unless you have a question.”

  I do! How am I going to get out without you seeing this bubblegum plastered all over the back of my skirt?

  Lily shook her head and began to back toward the door, feeling behind her for the doorknob. “Thank you,” Lily said, still groping. So far she was coming up with only air.

  “You’re certainly welcome. I’m so glad you came this afternoon. After I talked with your mother, I wasn’t sure you would. She seemed to have some reservations. Just a little more to your right, and you’ll have it.”

  “What?”

  “If you move a little more to your right, you’ll find the doorknob. There you go.”

  I want to die, Lily thought. Or at least run for the exit the second I get out of Kathleen’s office. But somehow she managed to get back to her seat between Mom and Dad without bolting from the building.

  “I’m sorry, Lil,” Mom said. “Really, I am. I’m going to make Joe clean the whole car tomorrow. He’s the only one who chews that color.”

  “Are you going to make him apologize to me for making me lose out on this opportunity?” Lily said.

  “Nicely put,” Dad said.

  “Are you?”

  Mom cocked her head at Lily so that her ponytail swung to one side. “If it’s meant to be, Lil, it’ll be. Frankly, I don’t see—”

  But just then the microphone squealed, and Kathleen stood in front with a clipboard in her hand.

  “I won’t prolong the suspense,” she said. “Let me just read the names of those young people we are inviting to join our class. Cassie Bauer.”

  “Now, Lil,” Mom whispered, “just remember that some of these kids have been being groomed for this since the high chair—”

  “Lilianna Robbins.”

  “That’s me!” Lily said. “I made it!”

  Mom looked at Dad, and he took off his glasses and chewed on the earpiece. Lily didn’t like the feeling she was getting.

  “I can be in the class, can’t I?” Lily said. “I mean, I was picked. I’m special, even with stupid gum on my skirt—”