Paint Me Beautiful

over here?” Lianna holds out her hand and motions towards a velvety red chair that helps make up the single seating area. “And why don't I get you some tea and maybe a bagel … ”
    “ Some tea would be nice,” I say, hoping there's no sugar in it. “But no bagel for me, thanks. I just ate.” Lianna exchanges a glance with her assistant when the girl comes running back, a blanket in hand and a look of pity on her face. She sits me down like I'm an invalid and wraps it around my shaking shoulders. Still unable to figure out what's happening here, I wait in silence as the people around me exchange glances and finally drift away, seemingly following some silent order from Miss Cheung herself. When she kneels down next to me and places one hand over mine, I know I'm in trouble.
    “ Claire … ”
    “ I'm still too fat,” I say, interrupting her before she gets a chance to say it herself. I feel like if it comes out of her mouth, I'll never recover. I can say it a hundred times, but the first time somebody else does, I'm going to collapse. I take my hand from hers and hold both out, palms up in a silent plea. Tears are rolling down my face, hot and salty, dripping down to my chest and soaking into the already wet fabric. “But I've been trying so hard,” I whisper. “In the last week, I've dropped twelve pounds.” Lianna cringes and closes her eyes for a moment, taking a deep, deep breath before she can find the strength to say to me what she has to say.
    “ When I asked you how you were working to improve your body image, I thought you understood where I was coming from.”
    “ But I did,” I plead, leaning down, touching my blue fingernails to the snake tattoo that winds up Lianna's arm and disappears under her dress. “I've been fasting,” I admit, not caring who hears, just desperate to save this opportunity. Now, in this horrible moment, I remember why I used to have casting calls lined up from one end of the week to the other. It was so I could avoid that horrible moment when it feels like all is lost, when your one hope in the world is gone and there is nothing else. That's where I'm at right now. “I've been exercising every day, too. Miss Cheung, please. This is all I think about. I eat, sleep, and breathe modeling. Fashion is my life, and my dreams are my future. You can't do this to me, you just can't. Please!” Lianna looks away sharply, like somehow this is her fault.
    “ Claire, when you were here before, I turned you down not because you were too fat but because you were dangerously skinny.”
    Time stops. The world slows to a crawl around me.
    What did she just say?
    “ Excuse me?” I whisper.
    Skinny. Skinny. Skinny. She said skinny. She said that I was too much the one thing that I've always wanted to be. That can't be possible; that isn't possible; this is not possible.
    “ Miss Simone, I believe in you. That's why I asked you back. To tell you the truth, that is not something I've ever done before for any girl. But you, you really do remind me of me. Just as I struggled and overcame my difficulties, so too will you.”
    “ You're telling me to get out, aren't you?” I ask, my voice little more than a whisper in the quiet room. The rest of Lianna's crew looks on with sympathy that I absolutely do not want, that I in no way deserve.
    “ Of course not,” she says as she stands up slowly, like this whole situation has bogged her down and made her feel ten times heavier than before. “It's freezing out there and you have no coat; you're soaking wet. Is there someone I can call to come pick you up?”
    Only one name comes to mind.
    “ Emmett Sinclair,” I whisper, trying not to break into a million pieces and shatter across the floor. “Please call Emmett Sinclair for me.” I give them the number and then I just sit still, trying to blend into the couch, trying to get their eyes off of me. I've just stormed in here and made a fool of myself because I'm what? Too skinny? Is there such a thing? There can't be. I look back at the fat girl, and my mind says plus-sized model. I am in such a deep state of denial in that moment that I don't even register the time that passes between the assistant’s quietly placed call to Emmett and the moment he steps in the front doors. The whole time I'm sitting there, I'm working to convince myself that Lianna, who is round and curvy herself, only likes fat girls, that she doesn't mind being the laughing stock of the modeling world, the