WHEN KELLY TURNED ten, Ethel put her to work helping around the boardinghouse.
Kelly rose at five every morning to clean the toilets, scrub the kitchen floor, and help prepare breakfast for the boarders. After school she did the laundry, mopped the floor, dusted, and assisted with dinner. Her life became a dreadful, tedious routine.
She was eager to help her mother, hoping for a word of praise. It never came.
Her mother was too preoccupied with the boarders to pay any attention to her daughter.
When Kelly was very young, a kind boarder had read to her the story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Kelly was fascinated by the way Alice escaped into a magic rabbit hole. That's what I need, Kelly thought, a way to escape. I can't spend the rest of my days scrubbing toilets and mopping floors and cleaning up after messy strangers.
And one day Kelly found her magic rabbit hole. It was her imagination, which would take her anywhere she wanted to go. She rewrote her life?
She had a father, and her mother and father were the same color. They never got angry and yelled at her. They all lived in a beautiful home. Her mother and father loved her. Her mother and father loved her. Her mother and father loved her?
* * *
WHEN KELLY WAS fourteen, her mother married one of the boarders, a bartender named Dan Berke, a surly, middle-aged man who was negative about everything. Kelly could do nothing to please him.
"The dinner is lousy? "That dress is the wrong color for you? "The shade in the bedroom is still broken. I told you to fix it? "You haven't finished cleaning the bathrooms? Kelly's stepfather had a drinking problem. The wall between Kelly's bedroom and her mother and stepfather's bedroom was thin, and night after night, Kelly could hear the sounds of blows and screams. In the morning, Ethel would appear wearing heavy makeup that failed to cover bruises and black eyes.
Kelly was devastated. We should get out of here, she thought. My mother and I love each other.
One night, when Kelly was half asleep, she heard loud voices from the next room.
"Why didn't you get rid of the kid before she was born?" "I tried to, Dan. It didn't work." Kelly felt as though she had been kicked in the gut. Her mother had never wanted her. No one wanted her.
* * *
KELLY FOUND ANOTHER escape from the unending dreariness of her life: the world of books. She became an insatiable reader and spent as much of her spare time as she could at the public library.
At the end of the week, there was never any money left for Kelly, so she got a job as a babysitter, envying the happy families she would never have.
* * *
AT SEVENTEEN, KELLY was developing into the beauty her mother had once been. The boys at school began asking her for dates. She was repelled. She turned them all down.
Saturdays, when there was no school and Kelly's chores were finished, she would hurry to the public library and spend the afternoon reading.
Lisa Marie Houston, the librarian, was an intelligent, sympathetic woman with a quiet, friendly manner and whose clothes were as unpretentious as her personality. Seeing Kelly in the library so often, Mrs. Houston became curious.
One day she said, "It's nice to see a young person enjoying reading so much. You spend a lot of time here." It was the opening gambit of a friendship. As the weeks went by, Kelly poured out her fears and hopes and dreams to the librarian.
"What would you like to do with your life, Kelly?" "Be a teacher." "I think you'd make a wonderful teacher. That's the most rewarding profession in the world." Kelly started to speak, then stopped. She was remembering a breakfast conversation with her mother and stepfather a week earlier. Kelly had said, I need to go to college. I want to be a teacher.
A teacher? Berke had laughed. That's a dumb-ass idea. Teachers make zip. Do you hear me? Zip.
You can make more sweeping floors. Anyway, your old lady and I don't have money to send you to college.
But I've been offered a scholarship andSo what? You'll spend four years wasting your time. Forget it. With your looks, you could probably peddle your ass.
Kelly had left the table.
Now she said to Mrs. Houston, "There's a problem. They won't let me go to college." Her voice was choked. "I'll spend the rest of my life doing what I'm doing!" "Of course you won't." Mrs. Houston's tone was firm. "How old are you?" "In three months I'll be eighteen." "You'll soon be old enough to make your own decisions. You're a beautiful young woman, Kelly.
Do you know that?" "No. Not really." How can I tell her that I feel like a freak? I don't feel beautiful. "I hate my life, Mrs. Houston. I don't want to be like?I want to get away from this town. I want something different, and I'll never have it." She was trying hard to control her emotions.
"I'll never have a chance to do something, to be somebody." "Kelly-" "I never should have read all those books." Her voice was bitter.
"Why?" "Because they're filled with lies. All those beautiful people and glamorous places and magic? Kelly shook her head. "There is no magic." Mrs. Houston studied her a moment. It was obvious that Kelly's sense of self-worth had been badly damaged. "Kelly, there is magic, but you have to be the magician. You have to make the magic happen." 'Really?" Kelly's tone was cynical. "How do I do that?" 'First, you have to know what your dreams are. Yours are to have an exciting life, filled with interesting people and glamorous places. The next time you come in here, I'll show you how to make your dreams come true." Liar.
* * *
THE WEEK AFTER Kelly graduated, she returned to the library. Mrs. Houston said,
"Kelly, do you remember what I said about making your own magic?" Kelly said skeptically, "Yes." Mrs. Houston reached behind her desk and pulled out a handful of magazines:
COSMOgirl, Seventeen, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Essence, Allure?She handed them to Kelly.
Kelly looked at them. "What am I supposed to do with these?" "Have you ever thought of becoming a model?" "No." "Look at these magazines. Then tell me if they give you any ideas that might bring magic into your life." She means well, Kelly thought, but she doesn't understand. "Thank you, Mrs.
Houston, I will."
I'll start looking for a job next week.
* * *
KELLY TOOK THE magazines back to the boardinghouse and shoved them into a corner and forgot about them. She spent the evening doing her chores.
As Kelly started to get into bed that night, exhausted, she remembered the magazines Mrs. Houston had given her. She picked up a few out of curiosity and started to skim through them. It was another world. The models were beautifully dressed, with handsome, elegant men at their sides, in London and Paris and exotic places all over the world. Kelly felt a sudden sense of yearning. She hastily put on a robe and walked down the hall to the bathroom.
She studied herself in the mirror. She supposed that perhaps she was attractive.
Everyone always told her she was. Even if it's true, I have no experience. She thought about her future life in Philadelphia and looked in the mirror again. Everyone has to start somewhere. You have to be the magician?make the magic happen.
* * *
EARLY THE NEXT morning, Kelly was in the library to see Mrs. Houston.
Mrs. Houston looked up, surprised to see Kelly in the library so early. "Good morning, Kelly. Have you had a chance to look at the magazines?" "Yes." Kelly took a deep breath. "I would like to try being a model. The problem is that I have no idea where to start." Mrs. Houston smiled. "I do. I looked in the New York telephone directory. You said you wanted to leave this town?" Mrs. Houston took a typed sheet of paper from her purse and handed it to Kelly.
"This is a list of the top dozen modeling agencies in Manhattan, with their addresses and telephone numbers." She squeezed Kelly's hand. "Start at the top." Kelly was stunned. "I-I don't know how to thank-" "I'll tell you how. Let me see your photograph in these magazines." At dinner that evening, Kelly said, "I've decided that I'm going to be a model." Her stepfather grunted. "That's your stupidest idea yet. What the hell's the matter with you?
All models are whores." Kelly's mother sighed. "Kelly, don't make my mistake. I had false dreams, too.
They'll kill you.
You're black and poor. You're not going anywhere." That was the moment Kelly made her decision.
* * *
AT FIVE O'CLOCK the following morning, Kelly took a packed suitcase from under her bed and headed for the bus station. In her purse was two hundred dollars that she had earned babysitting.
The bus ride to Manhattan took two hours, and Kelly spent that time fantasizing about her future.
She was going to become a professional model. "Kelly Hackworth" did not sound professional.
I know what I'll do. I'll just use my first name. She said it in her mind over and over. And this is our top model, Kelly.
* * *
SHE CHECKED INTO a cheap motel, and at nine o'clock, Kelly walked in the front door of the modeling agency at the top of the list Mrs. Houston had given her.
Kelly had no makeup on and was wearing a wrinkled dress, because she had no way to iron her clothes.
There was no one at the reception desk in the lobby. She approached a man sitting in an office, busily writing at a desk.
"Excuse me," Kelly said.
The man grunted something without looking up.
Kelly hesitated. "I wondered if you needed a model." "No," the man muttered, "we're not hiring." Kelly sighed. "Thank you, anyway." She turned to leave.
The man glanced up, and his expression changed. "Wait! Wait a minute. Come back here." He had jumped to his feet. "My God. Where did you come from?" Kelly looked at him, puzzled. "Philadelphia." "I mean-never mind. Have you ever modeled before?" "No." "It doesn't matter. You'll learn it here, on the job." Kelly's throat was suddenly dry. "Does that mean I'm-I'm going to be a model?" He grinned. "I'll say. We have clients who will go crazy when they see you." She could hardly believe it. This was one of the biggest modeling agencies in the business and they"My name is Bill Lerner. I run this agency. What's your name?" This was the moment Kelly had been dreaming of. This was the first time she was going to use her new, one-word professional name. Lerner was staring at her. "Don't you know your name?" Kelly drew herself up to her full height and said confidently, "Of course I do. Kelly Hackworth."