All That Glitters (16 page)

Or – you know. A lot.

Oh, there are huge amounts of dough involved. Ridiculous quantities. Masses. You really need to focus on making the dough. That’s the important part.

You just need to stay as cool as possible.

I am sometimes very hot, yes. Baking, in fact.
[I snort with laughter.]

Oh my God. We weren’t talking about biscuits
at all.

I stare at Nat in silence with my cheeks flaming. Why isn’t there some kind of magic potion I can drink to stop me being such an idiot? Or at least make me very tiny so I can climb under a toadstool where nobody will hear me say things.

“Hey!” a girl exclaims as she walks past and double-glances at the enormous poster directly behind me. “Oh wow! Is that you?”

She points at the girl in the lake: Photoshopped and glossed and de-flawed, but – thanks to the bright orange hair, pointy nose and lack of make-up – still recognisably me.

That and the blank expression, obviously.

“Umm,” I say, swallowing anxiously. “I guess so. Yes?”

“That is so cool! You’re, like, famous!”

And before I can stop her, the girl snaps a photo of me with her phone and walks off.

Panic is starting to rise up like an icy tidal wave.

What is she going to do with that? American Indians used to believe that every photograph stole a part of your soul, and it suddenly feels like I’ve just given an irreplaceable bit of mine to a total stranger with a crystal heart stuck on the front of her bag.

Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God oh—

“Harriet?” Nat says, grabbing my arm. “Are you OK?”

“Uh-uh,” I say blankly as the panic keeps rising: to my ankles, to my knees, to my stomach and my shoulders. “Mmmm. Brilliant. Superbo.”

“Totally not a word,” Nat says gently, patting me as if I’m a small puppy on firework night. “This is
freaking awesome
, H. I’m
so
proud of you
.
” She strokes my arm a few more times – eyes shiny and far away – and then adds in a burst of triumph: “I
knew
you’d be a megastar eventually.”

And that does it.

Panic washes up from my shoulders, into my throat and over my head until I can’t breathe. Leaving me with no other option but to abruptly crouch down on the floor outside the chemist’s, put my head between my knees.

And have a very un-awesome panic attack.

xperts say that the best way to stop a panic attack is to find something else to think about.

Unfortunately, there’s a massive flaw in this logic.

I’m now so anxious about finding something else to think about I can’t inhale at all.

In desperation, I close my eyes and begin reciting the periodic table loudly: starting at the alkali metals and working to the right until I can feel myself beginning to calm down again.
Lithium. Sodium. Potassium. Rubidium.
Then Alkaline earth metals.
Beryllium, Magnesium, Calcium, Strontium.
Then Transition metals
: Scandium, Yttrium, Titanium.

I’m all the way into the noble gases before I’m stable enough to look up again.

The irony of which does not escape me.

“You know …” Nat says, sitting on her coat next to me. She hands me half a chocolate-chip biscuit she must have found at the bottom of my satchel. “You may be the only supermodel in the world who repeats the entire periodic table when stressed.”

“It wasn’t the entire thing,” I admit sheepishly. “I still had lanthanoids and actinoids to go. And ununoctium.” Then I stuff the entire cookie in my mouth and anxiously spray: “And I’m not a supermodel, Nat.”

Except it comes out
nmnaspamdlnatttt.

“Maybe not quite,” Nat agrees, grinning with excitement. “But you’re
definitely
about a million steps closer.”

A few more waves of terror ripple through me.

You know what’s utterly ridiculous?

I’ve been modelling for nearly a year now – since I was unintentionally spotted at a fashion event that Nat dragged me to. Ten full months of getting paid to stand in front of a camera and wear beautiful clothes in foreign countries – first Russia, then Japan, then New York – and this is the first time it’s actually felt
real
. All this time, I’ve used modelling to run away, to run towards – to escape, find myself, lose myself, transform – but never as an end in and of itself. I’ve been so focused on the verb –
modelling
– that it never once occurred to me that I’m also the noun.

Harriet Manners:
model
.

Or that my face might actually one day be used in public to, you know: sell things.

Because apparently I’m an intelligent girl with no grasp of cause and effect, who thought she could have all these great fashion adventures and then the evidence would just up and vanish as soon as she was done.

Poof!
Like the magical fairytales they were.

Seriously. I’m supposed to be getting smarter as I get older. Nobody told me it would be the other way round.

“What is this dress even made of?” Nat continues, staring at the leaflet. “How does it light up like that?”

“It’s thin woven optical fibres,” I say distantly. “They’re hollow, which allows photons of light to bounce down the centre of them and—”

A sudden memory flashes.

Nick, looking like the world’s most beautiful banana in yellow wellies and a yellow waterproof coat. I can remember the exact coldness of the water, the precise warmth of my stomach and fingers and toes. The position of the stars and the lights; the shape of the mountain and the lake. The happy glow in his eyes.

The happy glow in mine.

Now immortalised and stuck all over town to remind me of exactly what I don’t have any more every time I need to buy deodorant.

Without equal.

Oh my God: of all the shoots I’ve ever done, why did they have to stick
this
one in the window of the chemist? I’m going to smell for the rest of the year.

Wobbling slightly, I get to my feet.

Abruptly, I need to get as far away from both the shopping precinct and this particular photo as fast as physically possible.

“Harriet,” Nat says, jumping up too, “I know you’re freaking out right now, but I honestly think you just need a little time to process how amazing this is. This is
huge
, H. It’s
epic
. You’ve really made it.”

I stare at my best friend blankly.

“Here,” she adds, thrusting a leaflet into my hand. “I’m so sorry, but I need to run back to college for a late class on evening gowns. I only popped out to pick up some extra material.”

Nat pulls a bit of black satin out of her bag to show me, gives me a tight hug, then starts trotting towards the bus stop. “Call me when it’s sunk in, OK?” she yells over her shoulder.

I nod, but honestly: she may be waiting some time.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word
epic
can mean
impressive or remarkable
.

It can also mean
heroic or grand in scale.

Since I was five years old, I’ve thought about all the ways I might eventually make my mark on the world. Dragons I could fight and winged horses I could fly and elements I could magic into being with my bare hands. Then – when I got a little older – I dreamed about diseases I could cure, dinosaur fossils I could unearth and stars I could discover and then name.

I’ve spent eleven
years
of my life studying as hard as I can in the hope that one day – with enough knowledge, enough commitment and enough dedication – I might eventually achieve something worthwhile.

Something heroic. Something grand.

Something
epic.

I just never thought for a single second that my most tangible achievement would come at sixteen years old for sitting in a lake, wearing somebody else’s clothes and staring at a camera.

Doing absolutely
nothing.

n the upside, somebody else knows what I look like too now. As soon as Nat’s gone, I somehow stumble to the bench near my house, plonk myself down and make the obligatory call-back.

My hands are shaking, my head is spinning.

My fingers are so sweaty it takes four attempts before I can get my phone to stop taking accidental selfies up my nostrils.

“Lovely
girl
! How
are
you, darling? We haven’t
spoken
for simply
ages
!”

I pull my phone away from my face and stare at Stephanie’s voice for a few seconds. We haven’t spoken for simply ages because last time I rang Infinity Models I heard her say:

“Who? Tell her I’m out.”

“But I can hear her,” I observed, and the receptionist passed the message on.

“Then tell her I’m dead. Freak polo accident.”

“I can still hear her,” I said sadly. “But thanks for trying.”

I’ve rung Infinity Models thirteen times over the four months since my return from Tokyo, and this is the first time Wilbur’s replacement has ever picked up. It’s quite difficult to really get to know someone properly when they’re pretending to fall off horses.

“I’m fine, thank you.” I’m slightly tempted to point out she sounds pretty buoyant for a recently deceased person.

“That’s ‘triffic!” she trills. “And
how’s
your …” There’s a pause while she tries to remember anything about me. “
Anyway
, I was just calling to say that my phone has been on
fire
this morning with
love
for my best model. Those photos are
just scrummy.
What a
seuw-per
time you must have
had
in China!”

“Japan.”

“Exactly! I just
adore
Mount Kilimanjaro!”

“Fuji.”

“Yah! I have some
very
big designers who want to see you, ey ess ey pee. Gucci, Prada, Versace, you name it. Pop in on Monday and I’ll set up some meetings.”

I blink. “I’m sorry, Stephanie, but I’m at school.”

“
Are
you, darling? How
delightful
! What
for
?”