Here's Lily by Nancy Rue Read Free Book Online Page B

“audience” and that he was totally blown away by her presence.
    â€œI was right,” Mom said on the third night, when she and Lily were headed for Maggie Moo’s after class.
    â€œAbout what?” Lily said.
    â€œYou are going all out for this.”
    â€œI want to be the best,” Lily said.
    Mom licked thoughtfully at the drippy edge of her cone. “Have you figured out where God is in it yet?”
    â€œNo.” Lily swallowed hard. “I forgot about that.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œSo . . . how’s your volleyball team doing?” Lily asked quickly. “Do you think they’ll make it all the way to State?”
    Mom gave her a long look that clearly said, Since when are you interested in how my volleyball team is doing? But then she took another lick of chocolate from her cone and said, “I think they will. Thanks for asking. The tournament’s in three weeks.”
    Lily promised herself she’d think more about the God part. But it was sure easier to think about ways to be even better in Kathleen’s class.
    She packed away all her rock and feather collections and decorated her room with pictures of teen fashion models who looked “poised and confident.”
    When she got money for doing extra chores around the house—like reorganizing the linen closet and cleaning the top of the refrigerator and all those other things her parents never had time to do—she spent it on skin care products and fashion magazines and cute shirts in “her” colors. Mom and Dad had entire “eye conversations” about all of it; they agreed she could do it as long as she didn’t take her mind off the things she was supposed to be thinking about.
    On the night of the actual photo shoot, Lily couldn’t think about anything else .
    They’d been practicing for a couple of sessions on how to project themselves to the camera, and Lily was ready. She picked out an aqua tunic top that Kathleen said was perfect with her coloring, and since they were just doing head shots, she concentrated on her hair.
    Art came by the bathroom when she was in there smoothing it down to fit into two clips, the way Kathleen had shown her.
    â€œIf either of those gets loose,” he said, “somebody could be killed.”
    Lily closed the bathroom door.
    â€œWimp!” Art called through the door. But he didn’t sound quite as cocky as usual.
    The moms were allowed to come into the classroom at the beginning of the session that night so Kathleen could talk to them about the photo shoot.
    â€œIf your son or daughter is going to go for modeling jobs,” she explained, “you’ll need to have a résumé for him or her, which includes a list of your child’s characteristics and experience and an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven color copy of your child’s best head shot, plus the digital file. We’ll also use that photo for your child’s composition card.” She held up a card that looked a lot like the baseball cards Joe collected. “It will have a picture on one side and vitals on the other. Sometimes a casting director will flip through a hundred of these and pick out five kids he wants to see in person.”
    â€œHow can he tell anything from that?” It was Cassie’s mother, of course. She had a tube of lipstick in her hand, which she was about to apply to Cassie’s lips while Kathleen was talking.
    â€œMost casting directors are searching for a particular look—maybe wholesome all-American or academic, something like that,” Kathleen said. “One glance at a photo will tell them if Cassie has that look, but he won’t even consider her if she’s covered with makeup. He wants to see the child—the talent, as we call it in the business—not the makeup.”
    Cassie’s mother gave a loud sniff and shoved the lipstick back in her purse.
    When Kathleen was finished and the moms got