Page 18 of Meant to Be

CHAPTER 6

Cate

When I was little, my mom used to take me down the shore for the day. We rarely spent the night—she couldn’t afford the time off work or the price of an Atlantic City hotel room—but every once in a blue moon, we would splurge and stay over. To me, there was nothing more thrilling than the way the boardwalk transformed at nightfall. I loved everything about it. The colorful blinking lights of the rides and arcades, the shiny lure of those souvenir shops, the smell of delicious food cooking in the salty ocean air.

Of course, once Chip came on the scene, my mom and I stopped going, and there was a several-year gap when I never saw the ocean. Fortunately, that changed again when I became friends with Wendy. Her parents had a beachfront condo in Margate, about twenty minutes south of AC, and they would often invite me to stay with them. Wendy and I had a blast there. It was where I learned to drink and smoke and hook up with random guys who I wouldn’t have to later face in school. But being on the boardwalk at night always made me a little bit nostalgic, too, thinking about that fleeting, magical part of my childhood when it was just my mom and me.

On one of those trips, Wendy met a boy she really liked. While the two of them were off making out somewhere, I strolled along Steel Pier alone, eating cotton candy and avoiding eye contact. Feeling melancholy and resentful toward Chip, I wasn’t in the mood to flirt or talk to anyone at all, so I was extra annoyed when some lady approached me with a bright smile.

“Excuse me,” she said in a polished voice. “May I ask your name?”

I hesitated, as it was so instilled in me not to answer these sorts of questions from strangers. But we were in a public place, and this woman didn’t look like a kidnapper, so I told her.

She nodded and said, “And how old are you, Cate?”

“Sixteen,” I said, warily.

The lady reached into her quilted black Chanel bag, like the one Wendy’s mother carried. She pulled her hand back out and gave me a business card.

“My name is Barbara Bell,” she said. “I’m a talent scout for a modeling agency.”

In a state of disbelief, I looked down at the card and saw the wordsElite Model Management.

“Is this the same Elite that reps Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista?” I asked.

“Yes! One and the same!” she said, looking surprised. “You’re familiar with us?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking that my fascination with fashion models was paying off.

“And haveyoudone any modeling, Cate?”

“No,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I haven’t.”

“Well, Cate, you’re a stunning young woman…. I’d love to set up a meeting with you and your parents. Do you think that would be possible?”

“Um, maybe…” I said. “I’d have to ask them.”

My mind was racing. This woman could not be serious. Maybe she was one of the child molesters Chip had warned me about? Then I remembered the photos that Wendy and I had taken in her bedroom—how pretty I’d looked in them—and wondered if maybe she really was a legitimate model scout and saw some potential in me.

“Well, I do hope you give me a call,” Barbara said. “Because I really think you have something special.”

—

For some reason,I didn’t tell Wendy about Barbara for the rest of that week. Maybe I thought she’d be jealous; maybe I worried that she’d be skeptical and dash the hopes I could feel building inside me. In any event, I kept the secret until I got home and told my mom. She seemed to feel that Barbara Bell was for real and was as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning, talking about photo shoots in the Caribbean and catwalks in Europe. For a second, I got caught up in her excitement, but then I reminded myself that my mom didn’t always have the best judgment. As much as I hated to agree with anything Chip had to say, he was a little bit right about that. After all, she’d marriedhim.

Besides, even if Barbara was legit, she was probably wrong about me. I calculated that for every so-called story of discovery, there had to be a dozen misfires. Girls who seemed pretty or interesting in a certain golden moment—only to get under the bright lights of a studio and falter. I told myself that the whole thing was way too risky. I needed to save myself a lot of trouble and disappointment and just say no.

But every time I thought about throwing away Barbara’s business card, a little voice in my head reminded me that this could be my ticket out. My shot to get away from Chip. And maybe not just an out for me, but for my mom, too.

So I went out on a limb and asked for his permission. Miraculously, he gave it to me, likely because he had dollar signs in his eyes. I called Barbara, and the following week, my mom and I boarded the New Jersey Transit train to Manhattan. After arriving in Penn Station, we walked over to Elite’s Fifth Avenue offices, then rode the elevator up to the twenty-fourth floor. I was so excited, but it all felt very abstract until we pushed open the glass doors and saw gigantic photos of Linda, Naomi, and Cindy adorning the walls of the reception area.

“Wow,” I whispered, getting chills.

“I know,” my mom whispered back, shaking her head, staring up at Cindy. “This could beyouone day.”

I took a deep breath as a stylish receptionist looked up and asked if she could help us. I gave her my name and said I had an appointment with Barbara, and she smiled, nodded, and picked up her phone.

A second later, another well-dressed woman arrived. She introduced herself as Tonya, Barbara’s assistant, and ushered us down the hall to a conference room with modern furniture and a gorgeous view of the park.

---