Olivia's Odyssey Chapter One I found out fast how weird it is to be famous. Even sort of famous. For one thing, you have no privacy. For another, if you happen to be famous because you're pretty, then every flaw that you thought you'd hidden is suddenly Right There for everyone to discuss. In committee. In detail. With memos and PowerPoint presentations. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much. Take the photo shoot in Central Park, for example. I'd been in New York for all of forty-eight hours, and had already had twenty-seven girls ask me for autographs and nine guys ask me on a date! For a girl who'd been on exactly one date in her entire seventeen years, that was pretty heady stuff. Anyway, there I was in the playground across Central Park West from the Museum of Natural History. Sydney and Veronica were in this shoot, too, and the art director was moving us around doing his thing with the light and the composition and all that other art director type stuff. The three of us were among the winners of Hipster Chick and Vamp Modeling, Inc.'s 'Are You The Next Hot Supermodel?' contest, and our lives had been turned totally upside down. In the span of two days, we'd been whisked around New York for photo ops, make-overs, radio and television interviews, and all sorts of public appearances. (I even got to cut the ribbon at the opening of a new Sephora. That was cool.) The whole thing was way exhausting, totally stressful, and completely cool. Anyway, Stan, the art director, had perched Sydney and Veronica on one side of a teeter-totter, then started to move me into the scene, pausing first to unbutton all except a single tiny button on my already nearly-nonexistent blouse. The shirt flared open in the breeze, exposing my tummy, my belly button, and pretty much everything else. Well-trained by a grandmother who thinks parkas are too revealing, I automatically reached to button myself back up. Stan just as automatically slapped my hand away. "You're my canvas," he said. "No directing the art director. Capiche?" He gave me a stern look, and I was just about to nod, when his focus shifted from my eyes to my forehead. Uh-oh. He frowned and I felt my cheeks turn bright crimson, because I knew exactly what he was looking at. Forget revealing my belly button. The monster zit from hell had completely stolen the show. Around us, cameras snapped and video cameras whirred. The onlookers were recording all of this for posterity. Which, of course, made my mortification complete. "It's, um ..." I stammered, moving my hand up toward my face. "Stop!" he commanded. "I have to think!" Five seconds later, I was surrounded by people. Which was actually good because I was shielded from the tourists, paparazzi, and general crush of humanity. Tanja, the personal assistant the Vamp Agency had assigned to me, sidled close. As did Lisa from make-up. And Joey from hair. And Cristof from props. And Adeline from skin care (which is separate from make-up). And Daphne the photographer's assistant. Even Roger the craft services guy (which, as I'd learned the day before, means snack food) was in on the pow-wow. "How could this happen?" Stan demanded, except he wasn't asking me. I answered anyway. "I, um, get nervous, and—" "Silence!" "Concealer," Lisa said. "It won't be noticeable at all." "We'll re-do her hair over her forehead," Joey said at the same time. "No chocolate," Roger muttered to himself, making a note. "Or pop." "Don't worry," Daphne said. "We can airbrush it out in production." "Don't worry?" Stan repeated, his cheeks turning ruddy as he focused on the volcano nearing eruption about an inch above my left eye. I shrank back as he moved in closer, finally managing to button my shirt (a total defense mechanism). "How am I supposed to not worry?" he wailed. "It will be fine," Tanja said, pushing him away. "All of you, shoo." She made little waving motions and the rest of them scattered, with Stan following reluctantly and muttering under his breath. I stayed right where I was, certain I was going to cry. "It's not that bad," she said. "It's huge. It's like that creature from Alien. And it's going to burst out of my brain and take over Manhattan." "Well if it does, maybe it'll eat Stan first." That almost got a smile out of me. "I get them when I'm nervous. I can't help it." "Everyone does, sweetie. You should see some of the doozies I've dealt with over the years. Some of those zits deserved their own zipcodes. That's why God invented the airbrush." "Really? But Stan—" "Stan likes to bluster. And he wants you nervous. He wants you eating well and drinking water and sleeping twelve hours and all that stuff which isn't going to happen because we're going to be sending you all over the City to show off your very pretty face and sparkling personality." "Formerly pretty face," I said, unwilling to be cheered up quite so easily. As for sparkling personality ... well, until recently, I was quite the wallflower. But I thought it best not to remind Tanja of that at the moment. "We'll get Dr. Lou to look at it right after the shoot," she said, referring to the dermatologist the agency keeps on staff. "I'm sure it'll be gone in the morning. At least enough to hide with make-up and hair." She gave me a quick squeeze. "And it's only your second day. Of course you're nervous. But as soon as you get more comfortable, your skin will be as smooth as a baby's bottom." "Until then, do you think the agency would buy me a truckload of Pro-Activ?" "Honey, I'm sure they would." She cocked her head, signaling toward the trailer parked just beyond the playground. "Let's get you to Joey and Lisa. They'll fix you right up." I sighed and looked around. Stragglers and tourists were still snapping pics, and I could only hope my zit wasn't going to make their cameras explode. Beside me, Tanja laughed. But in a nice way. "Come on, Olivia. It's not that bad. Is it?" I considered the question. True, I wasn't crazy about having Stan in my face, poking at my zit and making me feel lower than a bug for having one. But it was only one. And I knew the way my nerves worked. Even without Dr. Lou, my skin would be clear by morning. And if I looked at the world from a zit-free perspective, I had to admit it was pretty good. I still hadn't answered, and Tanja started to look so concerned that I had to laugh. "No," I finally said. "It's not that bad at all." In fact, nothing about this new gig as a model could be considered bad. Even Stan and his rants. Weird, yes. Different, absolutely. Totally one-hundred-eighty degrees from the lab coat-wearing, microscope-peering job I'd figured me and my hard-earned GPA would be landing for the summer? Oh, yeah. After all, I'd never once considered my tone tummy to be something that would look good on a resume or college application. But nothing about the sitch was bad. Even though I was totally missing my boyfriend—and even with my forehead about to erupt like Mount Vesuvius—it wasn't bad at all. It was going to get bad, though. The kind of bad that even Pro-Activ and Clearasil couldn't do a thing about. I just didn't know it at the time... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Buy the Book Amazon Barnes & Noble Booksense