Chapter One
Doralee
DOES A NUMBER ON THE scale define everyone?
My chest feels tight as I glare at the number staring back at me, but it’s not changing.
I snap a picture with my phone and send it to my father, because I refuse to send it direct to Melany. It might only be a small rebellion, but I take them where I can get them. The timestamp shows 6PM exactly, and right on cue my stomach growls.
“Eat something, for God’s sake.” My only friend in the whole world, January Jones from Los Angeles, glares at me through the Skype screen.
I take the glass from the bathroom vanity and chug down half the water inside, making me breathless and more lightheaded. Then I take one look at the pills sitting on the side and draw a deep breath. Gritting my teeth, I pick them up, hold them out in my palm, and throw them down the drain. “I’ll get something at the party,” I lie.
“When are you leaving?”
“Half hour.”
I turn to grab my Egyptian cotton robe off the hook, pulling it around me before I step out onto the inch-thick pile of my bedroom carpet. Most girls my age might be self-conscious talking naked on Skype, but January and I have known each other a long time and my upbringing has made me immune to embarrassment when it comes to my body.
Throughout my teenage years I’ve grown used to undressing in rooms with dozens of other girls as I change from one outfit to another for junior fashion shows and photo-shoots. I pull the door to my bathroom closed, humming as I play an imaginary tune on an imaginary piano in the air, and a soft growl draws my attention to the two velvet-lined doggy baskets.
“Hey, Blubson,” I trill, blowing a kiss. “Hey, Glubson.”
The two pugs regard me with something between love and inquisitiveness. Is it time for a walk?
“Not now, you be good while I’m out.”
Blubson continues to watch me a moment longer, but Glubson—always the laziest of the two—yawns and lays back down. It took three years of begging, negotiating and achieving certain goals—which Melany and my father set forth—before I was finally allowed them, and they are my favorite things in the entire world. They are my heart and soul and I can’t imagine a day without their goofiness to offset my overly serious world. A fact that Melany is well aware of.
“Half an hour?” January’s voice is sharp and her disdain for the constraints of my life is on full display. “And then there’s the journey to get there, followed by an hour watching your stepmother work the room before you even get close to any food. Eat something now. Order a pizza. Better still, let me order one for you.”
“January…” I let out a sigh. “First, Melany is not my stepmother.”
“As good as…”
I shiver involuntarily as I drop onto the edge of my bed. “Second, I have to watch what I eat. I mean, pizza? How many calories are in even a single slice? A billion and one? I don’t think I’ve eaten carbs since I was ten…”
“Hey.” She snaps through the phone. “I care about you, and this is bullshit. People don’t live like this. Logging every sip of water, every crumb, and reporting it back to the very people that should be the ones caring for you and keeping you healthy instead of heroin chic?”
“I’m fine. I just have to get through this party. It’s an important night.”
“To whom?” The sarcasm in her voice is clear and it makes me snap.
“To me!” I draw a breath as I stand, throwing the phone onto the bed. Let her stare at my ceiling. “This is my dream too, you know.” I step to where the sapphire blue, beaded gown is hanging on the back of my bathroom door and take it down, dropping the robe and slipping the dress over my head.
“Is it though? Or are you just saying what you’re supposed to say? Being a model is fine, I get it, you want to follow in your mom’s footsteps. But models don’t have to be stick insects anymore. They’re allowed to eat a burger and fries once in a while.”
I zip up the side zipper on the dress, admiring myself in the mirror on the back of the door. There’s a humiliating pride that it’s looser on me than it was when I went to pick it up at the designer’s studio a few days ago. I note the waves of bone that show in the plunging neckline. There’s no cleavage. If there was, the neckline would dip inches below where I would feel over-exposed. But, one thing I’ve learned in the modeling I’ve done so far, is you put up and shut up—or you don’t get to join in the parade.