Holly Smale - Head Over Heels

Also, I’d like to make the point that he’s the only one in the room not wearing a suit.

His irritation is visibly rising.

“Frankly, your uncontrollable father cost this agency thousands of pounds. And now you have the audacity to break into my company, my lunch, in front of my clients, dripping with sweat, jumping the queue, giggling, phone ringing, wearing whatever that is …”

“A home-made JINTH T-shirt and dungarees.”

“… no portfolio, unregistered agency, no idea what you’re doing or what time you should arrive or why you’re here or what job it is you’re even trying to get.”

His argument is undeniably strong.

“But I—”

“And we’re … what, exactly? Supposed to be won over by your eccentricities? Charmed by your quirks? Besotted with your totally unprofessional attitude and lack of respect for this industry and everybody in it?”

I’m so hot with shame there’s a chance I’ll combust and they’ll have to identify me from the name written on the inside front cover of my Russian literature.

Swallowing, I lift my chin. “I’m very sorry, Sir. I didn’t mean it.”

“From what I can tell, model Harriet Manners, you never seem to mean anything.”

I’m completely speechless.

“So I suggest,” he says, sitting back in his chair and making a triangle with his fingertips, “that you stumble out of the modelling industry and leave room for somebody who actually wants to be there.”

Mr Trout picks up the last mouthful of his baguette and points with it at the door.

“ Now you can go.”

xperience is apparently genetic.

Scientists discovered that the knowledge one mouse acquires is passed on to future generations, buried deep in their DNA: which means a lesson learnt by a parent can permanently alter the behaviour of its children.

This clearly doesn’t work for the Manners family.

Neither Dad nor I have learnt anything.

Staring at the floor, I manage to scoot out of the room backwards like a humiliated hummingbird.

I close the door behind me.

Holding a shaking hand over my eyes, I take a deep breath.

Then I look up and try not to notice the dozens of beautiful, glossy, neatly dressed girls lining up quietly along the corridor with shiny portfolios tucked under their arms.

Brushing their hair and checking they look presentable.

Waiting to be called into the casting.

Being professional. Poised. Prepared .

i.e. all the things I failed to be.

Because apparently my surname is ironic.

“How did she get in so early?” someone mutters as I grab my phone and scuttle back down the corridor as invisibly as possible. “I travelled two hours to be here. I will kill my agent if the job’s already gone.”

I think I can say with some certainty it’s not.

Cheeks burning, I retrieve my phone from a tangle of scarf.

Then with a twist of my stomach I click on the email that’s been sitting in my inbox for nearly an hour.

Re: URGENT CASTING

Harriet,

As promised, here are maps, train timetables and suitable connections. Casting starts at 6:30pm sharp, and you’re meeting Peter Trout – Creative Director of DBB. A well-known American brand is launching a new fizzy drink and this will be very competitive so I suggest the close-up snowflake shot goes in the front of your portfolio, followed by the lake shot. We can rearrange properly next time I see you.

FYI my new agency is called PEAK MODELS.

You’ve got this, my girl!

Wilbur

I blink at the screen.

All the words in the message are acknowledged by the Oxford English Dictionary, so I’ll assume this was written by his new secretary.

Then I click on a flurry of texts from Nat that could not have arrived at a worse possible moment.

Are you nearly back yet? We’re almost hungry enough to eat your sandwiches. xx

LOL only joking. The world will end and your sandwiches will remain uneaten. x

TOBY JUST ATE ONE WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM. Where are you? X

I glance at my watch.

It’s been fifty-eight minutes since I left the park. Every single calculation I’ve made this afternoon has been wildly wrong.

Quickly, I type:

So sorry – please wait just a little longer! Hx

Phone still in hand, I head towards the front door, past the two white sofas now filling with yet more girls.

Actually, you know what?

I don’t think I’d really want to promote fizzy drinks anyway. We consume six million litres of them every year in Britain: they don’t really need any more attention.

Plus, they’re bad for us.

In fact, fizzy drinks indirectly kill 184,000 people a year, and have been shown to cause hyperactivity, memory loss and –

And –

And …

I’m tugging on the mirrored front door when my phone starts ringing and ANNABEL appears in a flash across the screen.

With a swooping stomach, I tug on the door again. I know I wrote a text to Dad but did I actually send it?

Still staring at my phone, I tug a bit harder.

Then again.

Finally, I look up at the door with a jolt of surprise.

My reflection has started tugging back.

t least, I assume it’s me.

All I see is bright red hair and pale white skin, a pointy chin and button nose. Lots of freckles, pink cheeks and large far-apart green eyes.

It’s only when I scowl and my reflection doesn’t scowl back that I realise the door’s actually transparent.

Also that my side says PUSH.

Only ten species on the planet are able to self-identify: I’m officially less intelligent than a dolphin.

My double and I stare at each other. No longer distracted by my phone, I can see we’re not actually identical: we’re just similar enough to be disorientating.

Her skin is translucent and spot-free: her eyelashes are long and dark. Her hair is perfectly curled and shiny; her eyebrows tidier, her lips slightly fuller.

She’s smartly dressed in a black dress, black coat and black leather boots, and nothing she’s wearing has been personalised with marker pen.

She’s not sweating or flushed, which indicates she walked here calmly, knowing where she was going.

Basically, she’s me but better.

Harriet Manners 2.0: upgraded with all my bugs fixed and crashes wiped, my best qualities enhanced and my instabilities improved.

And I already know her.

This is the model who replaced me in the Levaire watch advert last year. The girl who wandered the Sahara dunes, looking ethereal, content and super-coordinated.

And who at no stage got attached by the ear to a Moroccan market stall or threw herself into the sand and attempted to dance like a crumpet.

My phone starts ringing once more and I finally snap to my senses and stop battling with the door. My doppelganger pulls it open with a polite smile: one that indicates she sees nothing of herself in me whatsoever.

She flashes two sweet dimples I don’t have.

Then the superior, upgraded version of Harriet Manners glides smoothly into the mess I’ve just left behind me.

Again.