Page 29 of Meant to Be

I made a face and said no, not even close.

“Have you ever been?”

I shook my head, thinking that there was no way I would bring anyone home to Chip and my mom, which made it sort of hard to have a boyfriend. I went out on a limb and told her as much, alluding to my “difficult home life.”

“Difficult how?”

“My stepfather’s a dick.”

Elna’s light green eyes narrowed. “Is he abusive?”

“He hits my mom. He’s just a run-of-the-mill asshole to me.” I gave her a few examples, including the litter box story, then said, “It’s not nearly as bad as what you went through—”

Elna cut me off and said, “Abuse is abuse. And your mother is allowing it, just like mine did.”

“Yeah. But there’s really nothing she can do.”

“Bullshit!” Elna said, sitting up, now animated. “She could protect you. And she’s not. You need to leave, Cate.”

“I will. As soon as I graduate high school,” I said, though I was on the verge of flunking most of my classes due to unexcused absences and missed assignments and abysmal test scores.

“You can get your GED,” she said. “It’s what everyone does.”

“Yeah. It’s not just that, though. I can’t leave my mom,” I told her, explaining how, in recent months, I’d been able to quell some of Chip’s attacks simply by giving him cash. And when that didn’t work, I’d get in his way—physically.

“Oh. So you pay the bills—and now you’re her bodyguard?”

I stiffened, feeling both resentful and defensive at once. “There’s really nothing she could do. I think he’d try to kill her if she stood up to him—”

“Well,” Elna said with a surprisingly callous shrug. “That’s the price of poker.”

“Elna!” I said. “You can’t blame the victim!”

“You’rea victim, too,” she said. “And she’s yourmother. AndI’m sorry she’s suffering, but if she won’t protect you, you have to protect yourself. Get the fuck out of there. Every woman for herself.”

—

From that pointon, Elna and I were a team, fiercely protecting each other. She became my best friend. In some ways, she felt like the only real friend I’d ever had.

I stayed in touch with Wendy, even after she went off to Cornell, pledging a sorority and falling in love with the man she’d eventually marry. She annoyed Elna to no end, who criticized the way Wendy only surfaced for the big, glamorous moments—like Fashion Week or other high-end parties. “I feel like she uses you,” Elna said once.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said.

“Well, at the very least, she’s a fair-weather friend.”

Maybe that was true, but I explained that it really wasn’t Wendy’s fault. She was just sheltered, having never worked a day in her life, save for a short stint at the Gap that she quit because she “hated folding.” Wendy had absolutely no clue how grueling being a model really was. The obscene hours. The shoots that would last all night. The endless flights and jet lag and waking up in hotels and forgetting where we were. The starvation diets that gave new meaning to running on empty, as we were told that there was no such thing as too thin and some of our friends who had to be hospitalized for anorexia werepraisedfor looking like skeletons. Hell, there was really no such thing as a model without an eating disorder; it was more a question of degree and method. Elna chose to binge and purge, but I couldn’t stand the feeling of throwing up, so I went the extreme exercise route. Sometimes I’d go to the gym and ride the bike for three hours at a time, paying the price for a few chips and guacamole. Nicotine helped, too, apack a day being standard fare for most models, Elna and me included.

We did have a no-hard-drugs pact, though—Elna had been down that road and was determined never to relapse. My reason had more to do with wanting to stay in control of my body and mind and emotions. Along those lines, I continued to hold guys at arm’s length, noticing that the nice ones generally didn’t pursue me anyway, perhaps too intimidated by the toughness I did my best to project. The ones who seemed confident in the beginning turned out to be the most insecure. They talked a big game at first, bragging to their friends that they were dating a model, but most of them could only take so much before a steamy photo shoot or long trip would push them over the edge. Sometimes I would break up with them from sheer annoyance; in other cases, they would preemptively dump me, quickly transitioning to a safer girlfriend with a less threatening lifestyle. Meanwhile, I reminded myself to stick to casual dating with men who couldn’t disappointme.

—

In the springof 1995, I was in the Hamptons on yet another Obsession shoot. It was miserable. To be honest, beach shoots werealwaysmiserable, the sand blowing in your eyes and chafing your skin, to say nothing of the freezing water. That day was actually sunny and sixty, but the wind still made it feel like winter. While the art directors, fashion designers, and photographers wore puffy down coats and boots, I faux frolicked in the ice-cold surf wearing nothing but a bikini and a sheer white linen blouse.

Between takes, the team did their best to warm me up, though that had more to do with not wanting my skin to look blue in the photos than with my actual comfort. During one of those breaks, as I sat under a heat lamp, sipping green tea from a thermos, Ispotted him walking toward us with his dog. The one and only Joe Kingsley.

Curtis, my favorite makeup artist and close friend, saw him at the same time. “Holy shit, girl! Is that who I think it is?” he whisper-shouted, grabbing my arm.

“It sure is,” I said, marveling at seeing Joe Kingsley in person but also wondering why I was so surprised when sightings of him were quite commonplace in the city and in the Hamptons. In fact, almost everyone I knew had encountered him at some point.

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