Kamille
Kamille’s phone began ringing in the middle of Some Like It Hot, which was one of her (and Kass’s) favorite films of all time. She and Simone were hanging out at the house, drinking a pitcher of midori sours and discussing who looked hotter in a dress, Tony Curtis or Jack Lemmon. Kamille had left Kass a message telling her to get her butt home ASAP so she could watch the rest of the movie with them.
“Is that your loser sister calling?” Simone sniped as she tossed back the rest of her drink. She poured herself another, picked up her own phone, and began texting.
“That’s nice, Simone. You talk like that about Kassie again, I’ll beat the shit out of you.” Seeing Giles Sinclair’s name on the caller ID, Kamille hit the talk button. “Hello?”
“Kamille? It’s Giles Sinclair. Do you have a minute? I have some news.”
Kamille sat up. The guy worked fast! She had met him exactly a week ago; since then, he had arranged for her to do a test shoot at a supercool photo studio in Culver City and promised to send the pictures out to prospective clients. And he was already calling her with news?
Kamille dug around for the remote, which was buried under a pile of silk pillows, and turned down the volume. “Hey, Giles. What’s up?” she said eagerly.
“Jeunesse is launching a new perfume, and they want to use you for their ad campaign!”
“Whaaaaaat?” Kamille jumped to her feet. Jeunesse, the famous French perfume maker, wanted her for their new ad? “Are you joking? You’re not joking, are you?” she said breathlessly to Giles.
Giles chuckled. “No, love, I’m not joking. I just got off the phone with them. I must warn you, though, it’s a bit of a rush schedule. They’d originally signed another model for the job, but she had to drop out at the last minute because she just got LASIK eye surgery done. She didn’t realize she can’t wear eye makeup for two weeks after. Anyway, they want to do the photo shoot next Tuesday so they can make the October issues.”
“Next Tuesday?” That was only four days away.
“Will that be a problem?”
“Yes! I mean, no! Next Tuesday’s perfect!”
“Super! I’ll be in the office tomorrow morning, catching up on some stuff. Why don’t you come by and we can go over the paperwork together? Say, ten o’clock?”
“I’ll be there. Ohmigod, Giles, I love you!”
“I’m glad you’re pleased, Kamille. And get used to it, because this is just the beginning. Once this ad comes out, my phone’s going to be ringing off the hook. Everyone’s going to want to use that lovely face of yours.”
“Ohmigod! Thank you so much!”
Kamille said good-bye and hung up, almost beside herself with excitement. Her mind raced with a frantic to-do list: total body and face wax; mani-pedi; haircut; facial; a two . . . no, three-day cleanse. No LASIK eye surgery obviously, ha-ha. It was hard to organize her thoughts with so much happening . . . and with so many midori sours in her system.
“What’s up? You have to explain this movie to me, I have no idea what’s going on,” Simone said, cranking up the volume.
“Giles got me a modeling job!” Kamille practically screamed.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“I’m shooting a perfume ad for Jeunesse. Isn’t that the most awesome news, ever?”
“Definitely. Wow, cheers!” Simone raised her empty glass in the air. “Crap, we need to make another pitcher. Hey, does this mean you get free Jeunesse stuff from now on?”
Simone was obsessed with freebies, which made no sense, since her parents were zillionaires. Or her father was, anyway. He was the owner of the ultrasuccessful Pretty Me cosmetics company. He’d left Simone’s mom ages ago and moved to London, and Simone hadn’t reunited with him until high school, when he moved back to L.A. Kamille knew she liked getting her revenge on him for the years of neglect: by stealing his new (twenty-four-year-old) wife’s designer outfits out of her closet, having sex in them, and returning them stained . . . by marching into Pretty Me salons and demanding thousands of dollars of free products and free services . . . and in general being an attention-whore pain-in-the-ass.
“I don’t know if I’m getting free Jeunesse stuff, Simone,” Kamille told her. “Anyway, who cares? Ohmigod, I can’t believe this is happening! I’ve gotta tell my mom!”
“Yeah, your mom’s totally not a bitch like my mom. My mom would be, like, ‘Who’d you blow to get this job?’ ” Simone picked up Kamille’s phone and started scrolling through it. “Your mom’ll be superproud of you, though. She’ll probably buy you a new car or something.”
Kamille blinked. Her mother, proud of her? She couldn’t remember the last time. The thing was, Kass was a hard act to follow. She was basically Miss Perfect. Kamille, on the other hand, led a more spontaneous, less OCD life. She was on her way to achieving great, amazing things. But “her way” wasn’t the same as Kass’s. Kass was all about pros-and-cons lists, schedules, plans. Kamille was about today, going with the flow, seizing opportunities.
“Wait, why do you have Nola Harrison in your contacts list?” Simone said, scrolling. “Do you know what that witch did when she found out I hooked up with her boyfriend? She sent me a Tiffany box in the mail, full of dog shit.” She added, “I’m totally deleting her.”
“Fine, whatever,” Kamille said distractedly.
Simone squinted at Kamille’s phone. “Hey, your loser sister texted like half an hour ago. She said she’ll be home soon and that her, uh, ‘study group’ ran late. Study group, is that like an orgy for geeks? Although I doubt Kass ever gets any. She’s totally a virgin, right?”
“What?”
“Or a lesbian? Or is she just trying to look like a lesbian, with her baggy man shirts and nasty lip mustache and—”
“Excuse me?”
Kamille glanced up, startled. With the TV blaring and Simone blabbering, she hadn’t heard Kass come through the front door. Kass was standing in the living room doorway, clutching her backpack to her chest. She was glaring at Simone, her hazel eyes furious.
“Hey, nerd, we were just talking about you! Take a load off!” Simone patted the spot next to her on the couch.
“No, thank you. I don’t think I should sit that close to you, Simone, I might catch something. Kam, a word?” Kass said coldly.
“Wait, what did she just say to me?” Simone huffed at Kamille.
Kamille put her hands over her ears and shook her head. Tonight was her night. She deserved to bask in her news. The last thing she wanted to do was to play referee to Kass and Simone.
“Both of you. Shut up. I want to celebrate,” Kamille said irritably.
“Celebrate what?” Kass asked her.
“Her hot British agent just called,” Simone said, flipping her long platinum hair over her shoulders. “He got her a big-ass modeling job. For that French perfume company . . . Jeunesse.”
“Really?” Kass stared incredulously at Kamille. “Is this true?”
“Of course it’s true. What, you think it’s a joke?”
“No, no. It’s just that . . . oh, never mind! Congratulations!” Kass came over and hugged Kamille.
“Um, thanks.”
“We’re making more midori sours,” Simone told Kass. “You want one, right? Or are you going to wimp out as usual and have a Coke or whatever?”
Kass ignored Simone. “I’ve gotta go study,” she explained to Kamille. “Sorry, big econ quiz on Monday.”
“What? Kassie! It’s Friday night, and we’re celebrating, and . . . look!” Kamille pointed to the TV screen. “It’s your favorite scene! Osgood’s about to propose to Jerry!”
“I know, I know. TiVo it for me, okay?”
As Kass wandered down the hall to her room, Kamille wondered what was up with her. Sure, she’d walked in on Simone saying bitchy things about her behind her back. But that was Simone being Simone, and Kass must be used to it after all these years. Couldn’t she make an exception just this once and hang out with them? Kamille had just gotten the biggest news of her life.
Or was something else bothering Kass?