A Diamond in the Rough Read online

  “Kim.”

  “Coat racks look nice, and thin, and it all comes down to the beautiful clothes hanging on them.”

  “But—”

  “Coat racks don’t talk back, either. They just listen. You do what I tell you to do. No screw-ups.”

  Instantly I start questioning myself. Will I be sent to the coat rack junkyard—along with all those other coat racks who have tried and failed, after an arm breaks, after a leg breaks? After I’ve become old, overweight, and damaged?

  “Cavall!” she reproofs as I look away. “Did you hear what I just said?”

  I can hear Kim perfectly, but my ability to stray from a subject is also impeccable.

  “Your phone is ringing,” I tell her.

  She pats her pockets, then answers the phone, addressing the person like he or she is too deaf, or too stupid, to follow instructions. Her voice slowly becomes muffled as I sink into myself, wondering why I have to put careful consideration into what I say or do, try to blend in with other human beings, but Kim just opens her mouth in an unhealthy way.

  “Come on, Cavall! Get moving! Look alive!” She snaps her fingers. “And somebody get her a towel for crying out loud!”

  I collapse into an unoccupied vanity station with twinkly light bulbs around the mirror. Tina, my usual hair and makeup assistant, quickly surrounds me while three people start working on my hair. My hazel eyes look tired, droopy. Rain droplets sprinkle down the little golden hairs on my round forehead. Down, down, down they go. Down my thick eyebrows, down my tapering cheeks, and down my long neck.

  “Sophie Cavall!” Tina greets with her usual sass. “Is dat yuh, girl?” The way she talks fast in her unique Jamaican patois always leaves me asking myself what the heck she said.

  She lifts my chin to look up at her. “Sophie, duh yuh ’ave a hearin’ prablem?”

  “What?”

  She speaks slower. “I seh wen is di lass time yuh slept? Mi a goh fix dem dark circles.” She lightly taps the skin under my eyes. “Dey showing.”

  “Oh...yeah.” My head is worked up over her speech. “I’m sorry my skin sucks.”

  After finishing priming my skin, she turns around and rummages through her makeup gear. She tips foundation on the back of her hand and pats a brush in it. She buffs the brush on my face.

  “So, wat is happ’ning? How is yuh doin’?”

  I exhale harshly. “Exhausted.”

  “Exhausted? Exhausted fram wat?” she asks, her eyes wide and questioning. “I be half yo’ age! I ’ave two kids, debts up to mi eyeballs, and mi husband just left mi fi some skinny ass, white lil bitch.”

  “I didn’t know that...I’m...I’m so sorry.”

  “Everyting cool. I be betta without him anyway,” she says uncaringly. “But I be tellin’ yuh a long time...yuh’re a pretty wooman, and yuh ’ave a pretty life. Yuh a lucky, Sophie Cavall! Betta appreciate, doll.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m the luckiest.”

  I sit in silence, thinking about my heaven-sent luck for the duration of my beauty boost. When the professionals are done, I get up and shoulder my way through the whirl of tall, thin girls in designer lingerie and dreadfully high heels.

  The director runs back and forth, shrieking like a cockatiel as there is a lack of girls ready to form a lineup. “Where are my models?”

  I quickly snatch my outfit from its hanger on the clothing racks and slip it over my still rain-chilled skin—a sheer, nude colored babydoll with ruffle details and a black waist tie. A skinny model closes in beside me. She holds a cigarette between her fingers. Eyes closed, head tilted back, she blows bluish smoke slowly through her painted lips and perfect nose.

  “Care for a smoke?” she offers.

  “Dying for one.” I bum a Marlboro and as I taste the sickly-sweet aroma of burning chemicals and paper, I can’t help but unwind. We can all become addicted to something that can take away our troubles.

  The skinny girl inhales the last of her Marlboro and tramples it with the toe of her stiletto. I’m in my little bubble of smoke as she starts explaining that her boyfriend is coming to see the show. I want to shout, “Really? Who cares about you or your boyfriend?” But no, that doesn’t seem like something a kindhearted member of society would say. I internally curse my wandering thoughts and push myself to think of nicer, more civil, casual talk.

  “Most models are worried about fat, posing, walking down the runway,” is all I could come up with, “or tripping.”

  “Clearly, you don’t know him,” she says. “He makes Liam Neeson look like a wimp.”

  “Liam Neeson?”

  “Have you been living under a rock? Liam Neeson. The actor in Taken...you know, the movie? Daughter gets kidnapped, dad rescues her, that movie?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  She shakes her head. “God, you’re hopeless. Liam Neeson looks for you, he finds you, and then he kills you...in a manner of speaking, of course.”

  Nothing like being rendered cinematically inept by a runway model with boyfriend issues. Clusters of girls start to gather around us, priming to walk down the runway. I push my hair away from my face and say, “Good luck.”

  “Yes! That’s exactly how it goes in the movie!”

  “I meant with that boyfriend of yours.” I flick the cigarette. “If he’s going to look for you, find you, and kill you...then good luck. He sounds out of his mind.”

  Her eyes, the color of celery, take on a far-off, miserable look. Her mouth wrinkles, maybe because her boyfriend isn’t out of his mind, or maybe because he is. She lights up another cigarette.

  The director yells over the music. “Why aren’t you girls in line?”

  I stub my cigarette out and rush toward the lineup like a schoolgirl from math to lunch.

  “You’ll be modeling five pieces,” he tells me. “Opening outfit is important, darling. So...make me a happy man.” He strokes my arm ever so sinfully. “All right ladies, here we go...five, four, three, two, one—” I am spanked as he says, “go, Sophie, go!”

  ***

  THE AFTER PARTY is glitzed up by trendy fashionistas—distinctively young, dressed to kill, with bubbly beverages in hand. Between the dull and droning conversations about how wonderful the show had been, how great I was in it, and how spectacular I looked, I begin to zone out.

  “Excuse me,” I tell the crowd bunched around me. I’m yearning for meaning in this crushing sea of meaningless babble. Since I was a little girl, I learned how to work a crowd—smile, compliment, and look interested. My mother insisted I develop a personality. “People with good personalities go to well-paid places, Sophie,” she would say. Look at where that got me, mother. If she were alive, she’d soon be dead from hearing me say that. Now, I’m a chameleon of personalities, adapting my skin to the environment. When faced with having to mingle with a multitude of people, I will call upon my more outgoing alter ego and engage in the foreplay of current topics. But I hardly ever enjoy it.

  I give up on finding any type of real conversation and slip out of the party. On my way out of the hotel, I fling on a raincoat and press a black trilby hat on my head. I edge my way around puddles and keep an eye open for any cab with its light on. Daylight falls through the thick wall of trees. Rain continues to play havoc, pelting me all over. Leaves separate from their perches, being pushed and shoved with every bulleting raindrop.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see a shadow of movement. I freeze up. I look around. Tires screech to a halt. My pulse hammers as a van whizzes by me and stops at the curb with only an inch to spare. A man in a hood wearing a full-face black mask flings the side door wide and scrambles out of the van. I’m numbed by panic, chilled, my heart throbbing with fear. I think about the threat I received today and all the rest I’ve been ignoring. One by one, rapid flash-card images race through my mind.

  The masked man is on me in a blur and slides one arm around my neck. His other hand slaps roughly over my mouth. Between muffled grunts and agitated maneuvers, my hat flies
off my head and it occurs to me he may have the element of surprise, but I have the element of teeth. Fight instincts replace panic completely and it’s game on.

  He breaks out in a loud bellow when I bite his bony hand as hard as I can. He seizes a fistful of my hair and yanks. I grip his wrist, trying to pull him off, and plunge my stiletto heel into the side of his shoe. It doesn’t make him drop on his knees, but at least it distracts him.

  I could’ve run; I should’ve run, but instead I bend my knees, pivot my hips, and clench my fists up next to my chest. The Mask looks at my demeanor and laughs. I shift my weight and thrust my foot straight into his stomach, sending him crashing back against the van. He’s not laughing anymore. He swings a fist at me and I squat down, but he strikes my chin with an uppercut. Another punch sinks into my flesh below my bellybutton. I curl into a ball as he knocks the breath out of me. My mouth falls open and I begin to cough.

  One minute I’m making significant progress, the next he’s wrapping his broomstick arms around my waist again, pressing my back against his chest, and dragging me backward. Everything happens so fast.

  This is it. He’s going to take me. Who was I kidding? I can feel myself tiring quickly as I try to twist out of his tight grip.

  I glimpse a second man in a suit step up. I can’t fight off two men. I hear a shout. I freeze again, or panic, or both. The Mask gives me a hard push forward and jumps back inside the van. I groan as I ram into the second man—my chest to his—toppling us both onto the pavement. It is a heck of a fall.

  “Are you okay?” he says over the rain, with such a deep, gravelly voice.

  My long hair dangles like a curtain of wet silk on the man’s face, obscuring what little he can see. Heavy raindrops cling to my lashes, stream down my face, moisten my lips, and trickle down my neck. Here I am, half-kidnapped, at a loss for words, hovering over a man in cold rainwater that has the sewers overflowing, and it doesn’t occur to me to get up. But he is just as bold as I am because he’s suddenly touching my face like he’s making sure I’m still on this earth, then pushing my hair back with his hand. I nearly falter.

  My forehead creases. I mean to say, “Yeah. I think so,” but I don’t. I take one brief look at him and my breath hitches in my chest. I scramble to get off him. Halfway on my toes, I skid and fall on my back. I scurry on my backside, pushing with my hands and feet, until I’m completely away from his chest.

  He props up on his elbows. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  I hear a smidgen of honesty in his voice, and he probably sees the terror in my face, but my body has already made up its mind. I push up from the ground and flee as quickly as my stilettos will allow.

  TWO

  GROWING UP, MONEY, living quarters, and expressions of love were scarce, as you can only assume they are for most people born to a single mother and an absent father registered as a sex offender. Before my mother was separated from me at age six, she and I lived in Toms River, New Jersey, in a mobile home the size of some people’s walk-in closets. When I was a few months old, she came across a casting call seeking babies for a Pampers advertising campaign in New York. Claiming women would stop her on the street to admire me, she saw it as her golden opportunity to making loads of cash. Fast-forward a couple of months, and my baby pink face appeared on the packaging of a variety of Pampers diapers. From there, things escalated pretty quickly to child beauty pageants, which was pure madness. And that’s how it all began, the constant drive for beauty and perfection.

  My relationship with my mother wasn’t nearly as pleasant as I would have liked it to be. In my house, there was no complaining; there was only lying and saying what I thought my mother wanted to hear. On the whole, she was a spiteful parent with no income other than my beauty pageant winnings. Me being an only child, and thus her only ticket to fame and fortune, she would always want me to act like a princess, wear pretty dresses, and perpetually beam with delight. To her misfortune, I started out a quiet baby, then a tomboyish girl who preferred to be outside running around and wrestling in the mud, as opposed to playing with dolls and fluffy teddy bears. In truth, I was a mucky child. Any bit of grub, I would attract it. This enraged my mother to no end, and she would let me know about it all the time. There were very few physically violent encounters. More often than not, she would just shoot me down with one of her cantankerous looks or an ill-tempered phrase.

  It wasn’t all hell and warfare. She used to tell me stories to put me to sleep, wrap me in a blanket, and pull it up to my nose so that the cold wouldn’t get to me. I was still cold, but I felt good. She saved all my awards, tiaras, and newspaper clippings from when I was a child pageant star, which makes me think she was proud of me. The money, she didn’t quite save. Years have passed after her death, but most of the time, I feel like she’s still alive.

  I think about my mother for a moment as I examine myself in the small bathroom mirror of my apartment. I look like I’ve been thrown into an abyss of crap so unappealing my mother would probably roll around in her grave. I’m wearing an oversized gray shirt with blue pajama shorts, my face is stripped of makeup and dignity, my hair is straggling down in a flat lifeless horror, and a virtual “We’re closed for the night” sign hangs on my chest.

  On my chin, a nasty splotch of purple and yellow is starting to emerge from underneath the skin. Carefully, with just the tip of my finger, I smear aloe vera gel on the spot, across and around it. Jess has a pharmacy of drugs and remedies in the kitchen cabinet. “Just in case,” she says all the time.

  In my room, as I’m snuggling deep into the sheets of my bed, Jess slinks inside. The high, dark brown ponytail on her head flows like a running fountain and a sleeping mask dangles around her neck. I wonder how it is that she’s getting ready for bed and still looks flawless.

  She comes closer and sweeps away imaginary microbes on the bed. She sits down as if she may have missed a few flu germs. “I brought you some chamomile tea to help you sleep.”

  She passes the mug over and I curl my hands around the warmth before taking a sip. “Thanks. I probably need an entire tea plantation for that to happen.”

  “Seriously, how much do you sleep in a twenty-four hour period? Be honest.”

  “I don’t know. Three, four hours, every couple of nights.”

  “Dear God, how do you live with yourself?”

  “Good question.”

  She sighs as she tucks her head down. She peeks up at me through her thick eyelashes. “How are you holding up with the whole attempted-kidnapping situation?”

  I sneak a smile.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “The word kidnapping,” I say. “It’s just a strange word, don’t you think? I mean, I’m not a kid and I wasn’t napping when it happened.”

  “You shouldn’t joke about this.”

  “Yeah...” I take a sip of my tea.

  “Do you think what happened today is related to those threats you’ve been getting?”

  “I don’t know.” I carefully put the mug on the bedside table. “You keep asking me questions I don’t have the answers to. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why it happened. I don’t even know what I’m feeling about it happening. All I know is tomorrow is another day.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  Jess isn’t giving up that easily. “If you want to act like nothing happened, then fine. You’re a strong woman, Sophie, but you don’t always have to be. God helps those who call upon his name. I think you should tell the police...your aunt...somebody. It happened once. It could happen again. Someone needs to know.”

  I inhale deeply and exhale groaning, massaging my temples with my fingers. “Look...do me a favor. Don’t tell anyone about this. I refuse to think about what would happen if anyone were to find out. And by anyone, I mean the press. I don’t think I can handle all the fuss, much less being their pity project.”

  “You’re not a pity project.”

  “I mean
it, Jess. Not a soul outside these walls.”

  “When have I ever let you down? My lips are sealed.” She makes a movement with her thumb and forefinger across her mouth.

  I can only imagine—The New York Post: “Model Fears for Her Life!” in big, black letters printed over an image of me running from the media. “Sophie Cavall faces kidnapping attempt in midtown Manhattan.” The header shouts, “Read the Juicy Details Inside” with a lead-in text in red letters and a huge exclamation point following the word exclusive.

  Jess cuts through my layers of pessimism to tell me her boyfriend called. “Eric’s night shift is over,” she says. “Is it okay if he crashes here tonight? I think you’ll feel safer with him being around.”

  I want to tell her I’d feel safer walking into a New York alley at night in a bikini, but then we’d get into it about why I refuse to get along with her boyfriend. I’m just not in the mood to tell her the truth. I have no idea what to say and I don’t have the energy to figure it out. Before I know it, for the second time today, I tell Jess I’m “fine” with something I’m not.

  The doorbell buzzes loudly in the background.

  “I’ll get that,” Jess says. “It’s probably Eric.”

  Off she goes. As I hear the sound of giggles and sniggers, I assume Eric is at the door. I burrow deep into my bed and take a sip of tea, but in a matter of minutes, Jess barges back in my room.

  “Sophie! Quick! Get up!”

  I flinch and the burning mug falls from my hands, the tea spilling all over the bedspread. I should be telling Jess not to worry about it after she apologizes at least ten times and shakes my bedspread dry, but I refrain.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she says. “There’s someone here looking for you.”

  “Who?” My mind is a raging gush of confusion. “I’m not expecting anyone. Nobody should be here.”

  “Well, maybe you should go see who it is.”