‘Aurora!’ Sara yelled out to me as I arrived at school the following morning, heavy heart in tow. She, Lindsay, Jelena and Cassie signalled frantically at me to join them at their table. ‘Is there a reason you’ve been keeping this a secret from us?!’
They knew about my feelings for Hayden. Was I so obvious?
Sara turned her laptop around to face me, tapping the screen for emphasis. Facebook? What could that have to do with me keeping my love for Hayden a secret? Had someone secretly changed my relationship status?
My jaw dropped and I pulled the laptop closer. Right there, on the Facebook page for Get High (Heels!), were the words Could Aurora be Autumn? Who’s the girl you want to see wearing the heels? Click ‘like’ to cast your vote for our four new seasonal faces from the fifteen finalists. Alongside the text was one of the shots that my mother had sent to the agency two months ago. I blinked. It had to be a mistake. But there was my name and photo, along with information about the label’s new look for autumn: Camel-coloured, pin-thin heels, rich velvety reds — let’s make Autumn a season to delight in.
‘You’re in a competition to be the face of my favourite shoe label and you didn’t even think to tell us about it?’ Sara shrieked.
‘That photo of you is gorgeous!’ Lindsay sighed. ‘I’ve already voted!’
‘Congratulations!’ Cassie threw her arms around me.
Jelena didn’t say anything, just stared at me.
‘So spill!’ Sara demanded. ‘How did this happen?’
‘I-I don’t even know myself,’ I stammered, feeling completely overwhelmed. I was on a Facebook voting page?
‘You don’t know?’ Sara shrieked again, right in my ear.
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. But I knew one thing: I was calling my mother. ‘Excuse me for two minutes, guys. Sorry.’
I stepped away from the girls and punched in the numbers.
‘Hello, darling.’
‘You actually picked up!’
‘I was expecting your call,’ she said smoothly. ‘The Get High (Heels!) voting page launched today.’
‘I knew this had something to do with you,’ I said, pacing up and down by the school gate. ‘Why has the agency entered my photos in a Facebook competition?’
‘It’s the label’s competition, Aurora, not Facebook’s.’ Mum’s voice was matter-of-fact. ‘Don’t worry, it’s legitimate. The label contacted various agencies looking for girls. They didn’t want open entry —’
‘Seeing as I’ve told you that I don’t want to be a model, and specifically asked you to get the agency to take me off their books, why am I now in the position of having my entire high school able to “like” me on a public website?’ I said, trying not to grit my teeth.
‘Well, I was about to inform the agency, but then I heard that Get High’s intending to run TV commercials, and now that you’ve got the acting buzz —’
‘I got the acting buzz to please you!’
‘I thought it was a fantastic opportunity and as your legal guardian, I okayed them to enter you into the competition.’
My legal guardian? I barely saw my mother, let alone lived with her!
‘And how long have you known that they’d chosen me as one of the finalists?’ I asked, taking deep breaths to keep my cool.
‘Oh well, since Monday —’
‘Monday!’ I cried. ‘And now it’s Friday, four days later?’
‘Darling, I’ve been virtually cut off from all modern civilisation. I’ve been on Bellbird Island with clients, completely uncontactable.’
‘I’ve noticed!’ I said, thinking of my dozen phone calls.
‘I couldn’t call you,’ Mum said. ‘Believe me, I wanted to. I was excited.’
‘If you were uncontactable, how’d you find out about the contract?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘By email, of course.’
‘So you could receive emails, but you couldn’t call me?’ I said, gripping my phone tighter.
‘Don’t be difficult, Aurora.’ Mum’s voice was stern.
‘Difficult? I’m the one being voted for on Facebook! Now that you do have access to technology, I want you to call the agency and retract your permission.’
Mum laughed. ‘Darling, don’t be ridiculous. The four girls chosen win a sizable amount of money, along with a year’s contract. It’s money you can put away for university. Do you know how unusual it is to be in the running for such a huge job at the beginning of your modelling career?’
‘Right, I’m calling the agency myself.’
‘Don’t disappoint me, Aurora.’
‘You disappointed me! What about Saturday night?’
She hung up without responding. I felt like screaming.
My friends surrounded me. They’d obviously overheard my heated conversation.
‘You didn’t know about any of this?’ Sara asked.
I sighed. ‘Completely clueless. How did you all find out about it?’
‘I’m a Facebook fan of Get High,’ Sara said. ‘I woke up, scrolled through the news page and there it was. I started freaking out and messaging everyone I knew before I’d even got out of my pyjamas.’
Sara’s Facebook friends list was in the several hundreds.
‘It’s spread remarkably quickly,’ Cassie said. ‘You’ve got two hundred and sixty “likes” already.’
‘Oh my god.’ I shook my head. ‘I have to stop this.’
‘Stop it?’ Jelena rolled her eyes. ‘God! I can’t believe you’re even daring to complain. The face of a footwear label? Get real, Aurora!’
‘Jelena!’ Cass frowned. ‘Not everyone wants to be a model. She shouldn’t be forced into it.’
‘Oh, you’re so lucky!’ Lindsay said again. ‘Think of the shoes!’
‘The money,’ Jelena added.
‘The male models!’ Sara said. ‘Get High had some really hot guys in its last catalogue.’
I barely registered their words, or the next few hours: Jeffrey waggling his eyebrows and asking if I was going to move into lingerie modelling; Benjamin accosting me after my first class to tell me that my next step was to join a television casting agency and did I want to go for a drink this evening to discuss it with him; my classmates openly discussing their opinions of my photo and whether they intended to vote for me; a running tally of how many ‘likes’ I’d accumulated.
At lunchtime, Cassie, Sara, Lindsay, Jelena and I found a quiet spot to lay out our picnic blanket. Alex and Tyler joined us, but so did a horde of other people, all bombarding me with questions. When would they announce the winner? Was it a national ad campaign? What magazines would I be appearing in?
I kept repeating that my photo would be taken out of the running once I spoke to my agency later this afternoon, but no-one was listening.
‘Do you think you’ll be on billboards?’ Alex asked. He handed me a can of soft drink. ‘Here, I picked this up for you at the canteen.’
I took it from him absently. Billboards? Oh god, I hadn’t even thought about billboards. I couldn’t be legally locked in to this, could I?
‘Hey, I was thinking,’ Alex said, before I could respond, ‘why don’t you come with Jelena and me to the club tonight? I know the guy on the door, so the age thing isn’t a problem. Hell, it probably wouldn’t be anyway. You totally look over eighteen, Aurora.’
Jelena, who’d been playing with her bracelet, looked up with a frown. ‘Alex, it’s meant to be a date.’
Alex shrugged. ‘Yeah, so?’
‘A date’s usually just two people?’
‘Oh, come on, babe.’ He took a swig of his drink. ‘You and me and Aurora on the dance floor? It’ll be fun.’
‘I, um, I’ve already got plans,’ I improvised. It would be totally wrong to crash Jelena’s date, even if I felt like going out clubbing.
‘Cancel them,’ Alex said.
‘Alex, she’s got plans,’ Jelena said firmly. ‘Give it up.’
Alex frowned at her. ‘I don’t get the big deal. Can’t we have a little fun?’
‘Are you saying that being with me isn’t fun enough?’ Jelena’s eyes were dangerous.
‘Really, guys, it’s fine,’ I said.
Neither of them took any notice of me.
‘Because if that’s what you’re saying, Alex, then you’d better forget about …’
‘Aurora?’
My breath caught in my throat. Hayden was standing at the edge of our picnic blanket. What would I say? What would he say?
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey,’ I replied.
He wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t he happy about talking to me? But why would he have come over if he didn’t want to chat? He didn’t say anything, though, and I was equally mute. This was getting uncomfortable.
‘Did you —’ I started.
‘Aurora, I —’ he began at the same time.
We both fell silent and I blushed. Thank god everyone else was focused on Jelena and Alex’s quarrel instead of the ice age between Hayden and me.
Hayden gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘Listen,’ he said slowly, ‘I want to say congratulations on the big competition.’
Thank god the silence was filled. Even if what filled it was related to my completely implausible new career prospect.
I shook my head. ‘My mum. It’s a long story but let’s just say no-one will be able to “like” me for much longer. It’s inconceivable things even got this far.’
‘It’s not inconceivable in the slightest,’ Hayden said. ‘The company recognised how special you are.’
He thought I was special? My heart was dancing like the daffodils in Wordsworth’s poem. ‘Th-thank you,’ I stammered.
‘So …’ Hayden seemed to take a deep breath. ‘I was wondering if you wanted to watch the savannah DVD with me tonight? I know it’s short notice, and I understand if you don’t want to stay in on a Friday night, but it could be fun — and I owe you after running out on dinner the other night. We obviously need to talk …’
Yes, yes, yes! But just as I was working out a friendly, not bordering-on-obsessive reply, Alex interrupted.
‘Sorry, Hayden, but she’s got plans. And seeing as she wouldn’t cancel them to come to the club with us, there’s no way she’s going to drop them to watch some DVD.’
My smile faded. My fictitious plans, constructed to save Jelena’s love life, were destroying my own! If I said that I had no plans, then Alex would get all insulted, or pressure me further about going out with him and Jelena.
‘So, who’s the lucky guy?’ Sara teased. ‘Benjamin? I heard him asking you out after maths class.’
Hayden’s face clouded over.
Oh no. Bringing up Hayden’s enemy wasn’t going to help ease the tension between us.
‘N-no,’ I stammered, trying to think what my plans might be.
‘Half the guys in the school are after Aurora.’ Alex laughed. ‘She’s hot property!’
‘Okay, well, maybe some other time then, Aurora,’ Hayden said. ‘See you.’ He dashed away.
‘Hayden, wait!’
I didn’t know what to say, but everything felt wrong and I desperately wanted to fix it. But he didn’t look back.
‘Ooh!’ Lindsay, who’d been studying the fashions in the latest Vogue, clapped her hands together with an expression of delight on her face. ‘Are your plans with your secret admirer?’
Alex’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘She has a secret admirer?’
‘I told you,’ Jelena said, still annoyed. ‘He’s the one who sent her those roses and the poem: “She’s like the stars, blah blah blah”. Ridiculously soppy, in my opinion.’
I jumped. My secret admirer! Had the past twenty-four hours rendered me stupid? Not only had I completely forgotten he existed, but I’d fallen in love with someone else. I was a traitor! Fickle! Unfeeling! My secret admirer had been pursuing me for weeks and I’d just carelessly turned my mind to another.
Oh, why was everything so messed up? My life was Much Ado About Nothing on steroids.
Seeing as I was meant to be ‘out’, I spent the evening at the city library, perusing the poetry stacks for advice on love from other writers. Except my attention kept drifting from the page. Right in the middle of writing a poem of my own (which, much as I hated myself for it, actually referred to Hayden’s ‘smouldering eyes’ — was I becoming a walking cliché generator?) my mobile lit up with Cassie’s number. I glanced around cautiously for irate patrons, but being Friday night, the library was virtually empty.
‘Cass,’ I said, ‘you’re meant to be on your date now! Why aren’t you there?’
Cass giggled. ‘I am. I’m calling you from the restaurant’s bathroom!’
‘Then what’s up? Are you calling for advice?’
‘No, it’s going great!’ Cass sounded enthusiastic. ‘The art show was really inspirational and we had the best fun talking about the pieces. And you know what he told me? He’s been crazy about me since he first saw me in history! Can you believe it?’
‘Yes, Cass, I can.’ I smiled, thinking of the way Scott’s eyes lit up whenever he looked at my best friend.
‘And the rose? Well, it turns out he chose yellow because it reminded him of my blonde hair!’
I laughed. Sometimes things could be absurdly simple.
‘Anyway, I wanted to tell you about the date now, because Jelena and I are leaving really early in the morning.’
‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
‘Oh. Well, Jelena was all dressed up to go to the club with Alex, and then he cancelled —’
‘He what?’ I couldn’t believe it. He’d been so pushy about going.
‘Jelena was furious and hung up on him. She called me just as I was leaving to go to the art show, and said that she was going to show Alex that she wasn’t Ms Always Available and so she’d asked her mum if they could go to that spa down the coast for the weekend, and did I want to come along?’
‘She didn’t ask me,’ I said, feeling a little hurt.
‘She said her mum was bringing a friend so there was only space for one of us.’
‘She’s not mad at me, is she?’
Cass paused. ‘She was a bit annoyed about Alex inviting you on their date, but that was all. Anyway, I’d better go. I’ve been in the bathroom for a while now.’
‘Okay, Cass. Hope the evening gets even better.’
‘Hey,’ Cass added, ‘is everything okay with you and Hayden? It seemed a little strained at lunch.’
I’m in love with him and he doesn’t feel the same way.
I put on a cheerful voice. ‘Yeah, everything’s fine. Have a great time at the spa!’
If only I could believe my own lies. I slumped in my chair, feeling utterly miserable.
