LITMIR.BIZ

       Claudia Schiffer

      It was Sunday. Mum had practically dragged me out for a walk around the Marais district to take my mind off things. I didn’t feel like it; I didn’t feel like doing anything. I was revising for my Bac, the final year school exams in France, and the entrance exams for Sciences Po, France’s leading political studies college, and as they loomed, my anxiety levels were rocketing. But mainly, I was brooding over my heartbreak. It was the first time my heart had been broken – by Hugo, who had just left me for Juliette. Dumped. Cast off like a useless, worthless object. The few words he’d said were like a slap in the face, a blow to the soul. A failure. Since then, I’d been hurting a lot, and had felt a bit scared too. Of being dumped over and over again, of being alone. Of not knowing what to do with my life, let alone with whom. Scared of the unknown, of getting it wrong, of maybe losing my way.

      All of a sudden everything had become really complicated. After a ‘problem-free’ time at primary school, changes in the timetable cut me off from all my friends when I started secondary school. I completely stopped working and then I decided that I’d never set foot in a school again – I would prepare for my Bac on my own, at home. I planned everything out before announcing my decision to my parents: the contact details for a school where I could study by correspondence; my timetable, planned out to the minute, so that they could see that I really had thought things through; and my promise to do what it took to be the best.

      My parents were hardly over the moon, but they agreed to it because they knew what I was like. I was a good pupil, I could put my mind to studying and more than anything I would never have let myself fail at something to which I’d committed myself. Especially when I’d just forced them into a corner. And I would pass my Bac, with a top mark.

      It gave some structure to my life. I like to work fast; as soon as things start to drag, I get bored. I got the whole year’s syllabus out of the way in six months so that I’d have time to do something else with the rest of the year. Like spending time with Granddaddy and Nan, my beloved grandparents. I learned how to dance the salsa and the tango and I also did a bit of acting. I hung out with my cousin Tom and his thirty-something friends, who used to take me out at night. And I spent time with my best friend Sophie, who I’d met at the dance classes. My life was very structured.

      I’d get up at eight o’clock and at nine I’d settle down to work at my bedroom desk with Plume my cat for company, while Mum worked upstairs in her workshop. My mother is an artist – she paints, sculpts, makes collages and draws. She can put her hand to anything. And then it would be the lunch break, watching dumb serials on the box. Mum has never had much of an appetite and didn’t stop for lunch. But I often went up to her workshop in the afternoons to spend some time with her, or we would go off to an exhibition or go shopping until the boys got back from school.

      I’ve got two brothers: Alexis, who’s a year and a half younger than me, and Léopold, who’s six years younger. I used to feel happy when they got home. We’d have tea together in the kitchen, and life was peaceful and safe.

      ‘No doubt about it – you’re the next Claudia Schiffer.’ We were window-shopping for watches in Rue des Francs-Bourgeois when a puny little guy accosted me. He hardly came up to my shoulders. I looked him up and down and he smiled at me. ‘Have you ever thought about being a model?’ Yeah, right, great chat-up technique. Thank you, and goodbye. But instead of ignoring him, Mum showed an interest. ‘Your daughter is extraordinarily beautiful. She has a great nose! It balances her face and would catch the light perfectly. Believe me – I know what I’m talking about.’

      He knows what he’s talking about? When it comes to noses? I felt like laughing, because I know perfectly well what my nose is like. It’s got a little bump, which has been handed down the maternal line in my family for at least three generations and which I spent my whole childhood rubbing, trying to flatten it out and make it go away. So much so that it’s left a slight blue mark. Any true ‘connoisseur’ would know that what was not quite right about my face was my nose.

      He addressed me informally as if we’d known each other for ever. ‘I promise you, I know what I’m talking about. I work for a modelling agency called Elite. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them? You were made for the profession, believe me. I could get you to New York for September fashion week, and you’d go down a storm. Here, take my card. Think about it, and call me. I promise you, you really are made for it. If you let me handle things, I can make you into a supermodel.’

      I said thank you, but that I was revising for the Bac and for Sciences Po and none of this was on the cards.

      ‘Just call me,’ he said, and off he went.

      Mum was looking at me with a big smile on her face. Once he was out of earshot, we burst out laughing. So they were true, then, these stories of scouts from modelling agencies accosting girls in the street and it all happening just like that, with a snap of the fingers in front of the window display of a jeweller’s shop! Supermodel? Whatever next?

      Mind you, Elite was a pretty big name. I might not have been a fashion addict, but I did read some of the women’s magazines and I knew that Elite was one of the top agencies. A quick search on the internet that evening confirmed what I’d thought: Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista … Even though that Seb guy – the name Sébastien was on his business card – had gone over the top, it had still been nice of him to say that, just maybe, I could be part of that select band of the most beautiful girls on the planet!

      It did me some good. I stored away Seb’s card

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