Chapter Fourteen
‘Your walk is still too fast,’ Liv tells me six months later while I stride along the hallway between the front door and our kitchen. ‘You’ll never get picked for any fashion shows if you practically run it. Now go back to the front door, slow down and try again.’
My eyes widen. ‘All right, Bossy,’ I say and give her a pointed look. My agent has told me I’m in with a shot at a few shows in different cities, if I’m prepared to dedicate the time to flying around, going for castings. Which I am. But apparently my walk needs work.
‘Come on,’ Liv says, paying no heed to me. ‘We’re in this together. Your success is our success, and your glamorous new life might rub off on us.’
‘I don’t wang on that much, do I?’
‘Enough to make me jealous of being stuck in a dingy terraced house with two boys who hog the TV all day, watching football. I need the pay-off of that good celebrity backstage gossip from the shows, and I won’t get that if you don’t get any jobs.
So go back to the front door, turn around and walk like you want it. ’
‘I do want it. I need the money.’
‘You always need the money. What do you do with it?’
‘Clothes, plus I give some to my mum and buy English set texts.’
‘That you don’t read,’ Liv says.
‘I do read them. But I don’t always manage to understand what’s going on or to convey any meaningful thoughts to paper, when it comes to my essays.’
I attempt the walk again. Liv shakes her head, gives a grim expression and swirls her finger round in the air silently, telling me to go again.
I huff and sigh in frustration. ‘Maybe we should watch those YouTube videos again.’
‘It’s just walking. How are you finding it so difficult? You do it every day.’
‘Because this isn’t standing still, like the fashion shoots I’ve been doing for those brands that no one’s ever heard of. This is model-walking. It’s nonsense. No one walks like this.’
‘You will. For money, and fame. And glamour.’ Liv picks up her phone from the kitchen table and we watch a series of models on runways until I think I’ve got it. ‘How do your tutors feel about you being away from lectures so much?’ she asks as she puts her phone down.
I go back to the front door, brace myself for another failed attempt at something that looks so simple, but is in fact ridiculously hard.
‘I don’t really want to think about uni,’ I say and this forces Liv’s face into a frown.
‘That seems a bit head-in-sand.’
‘I suppose it is,’ I reply honestly, walking for the eleventh time and still not mastering it.
‘Your shoulders are a little high. You look anxious and hunched.’
‘You just asked me about uni – I got anxious and hunched.’
‘Do you really hate it that much?’
‘Uni?’ I ask and stare at her, then I look away thoughtfully.
‘I think … maybe, yes.’ I’ve not really thought about it before.
But yes, I don’t like uni. Or rather, ‘I don’t like English Lit,’ I voice.
‘But I’m halfway through the course. It feels defeatist to turn back now, drop out. I’ve got to see it through, haven’t I?’
She thinks and then nods sombrely. ‘Probably.’
‘I’m still failing,’ I confess. ‘I think I’m on track for a third.’
‘Yikes,’ she says and makes a face. ‘That’s not … great. But it’s not a fail.’
‘It might as well be. I know now why I’m the first person in my family to go to uni. It’s hard. Maybe I chose the wrong subject – Ollie was right. And now I’ve left it too late to change.’
‘Ollie said you’d chosen the wrong subject?’
I nod. ‘He called it ages ago. I don’t know why I didn’t listen to him.’
‘Because he’s an interfering know-it-all,’ Liv says.
‘Liv!’ I protest. ‘He’s your man. You can’t say that.’ Their rockiness is only getting worse.
‘I can, because it’s true. He’s annoying.’
I start to contradict her, but think better of it. Whatever’s going on there, she shakes herself out of it and refocuses on me.
She brightens and sits up straighter at the table. ‘Close your eyes,’ she instructs and I do. ‘Imagine you’re not at university any more.’
And – back at the front door again – I try to picture this. It feels good.
‘Imagine …’ Liv goes on slowly, ‘that you’re a successful model, earning so much money you don’t know what to do with it.
Imagine you’ve been selected for every single fashion show going and that you’ve got limitless energy to do them all.
Imagine you have everything you’ve ever wanted from your career and you’ve got it all right now, and you don’t need to worry about university because it doesn’t exist in this fictional world I’ve created for you. ’
My eyes still closed, I try to picture my life like this and I smile, nod.
‘Now open your eyes. And walk.’
I feel a bit different. Good different. I walk towards Liv slowly, without really thinking about it, just sort of hoping for the best. This time she doesn’t stop me when I reach her, as she normally does.
I turn when I near her, continue the walk back to the front door and then stop.
When I’m finished, I turn to her reluctantly and make a hopeful face.
She extends her arms and gives me two big thumbs-up. ‘That’s the one.’