Home for Wayward Supermodels

Chapter One Maybe I was holding on to Tom so tight at the airport because some part of me knew I wouldn't be coming back, at least not the way I planned, and not for a long time. But that day, my clinginess just seemed strange. All I'd been thinking about for months and months was the trip to New York my mom was taking me on as a combination graduation/birthday/last-and-next-Christmas present, and then when we got to the airport I couldn't stop holding on to Tom. Suddenly I didn't want to go, didn't want to leave him for even one minute, couldn't imagine why I ever wanted to see New York in the first place, even though I'd been dying to go there my entire life. "Let's tell them now," I whispered to Tom. My lips brushed the edge of his tattered green fishing cap, fragrant with the trout he'd caught that morning and a hundred other mornings before. Tom was the only boy in Eagle River who was both taller than me and liked my height, as well as most everything else about me. He'd delayed a trolling trip to Big Secret Lake with a high-paying client to be here at the Rhinelander, Wisconsin, airport with me. I felt him shake not just his head, but his entire lean and muscular body, as resistant as a hooked rainbow. It wasn't like Tom to waste a word when he didn't have to, even as short a one as no. But he was adamant that we were not going to tell my parents that we'd decided to get married until after my eighteenth birthday, which I'd be celebrating in New York with Mom. "I'm scared," I whispered. I was afraid that going on this trip would be like the pebble that starts the avalanche, the one tiny change that would set off the reaction that would somehow transform everything. I loved things exactly like they were right now. Blinking back tears as I stared over Tom's broad shoulder at the Oneida casino posters, I thought maybe Tom would meet someone else while I was in New York, and that by the time I got back he wouldn't want to marry me anymore. But Tom believed I meant I was scared of the flight, or of New York itself. He gathered me in close and hugged me with those arms that were stronger than he knew, so tight that all the tears popped right out of my eyes, blinding me. I had to think so hard about breathing then that I stopped feeling scared. I kept meaning to complain about the tightness of those hugs, except I was afraid that would make him stop giving them to me. I heard my dad clear his throat and then Mom said, "It's time, Amanda." Then Tom shocked me by giving me an enormous kiss, right on the lips, with tongue, in front of my parents and everyone. For once, it was me who pulled back, just in time to see my dad reel around and pretend to be deeply interested in the Avis sign. "Amanda," said my mom, reaching out her dimpled arm to me. "Please," I said to Tom, gripping his waist. But instead of answering me he stripped off his fishing vest, the one decorated with all his favorite flies in the world, and handed it to me. Then, without a word, he turned around and headed toward the door and the parking lot beyond, waving over his head so I would know he was still thinking about me, even if he could not show me his face. He and Dad were driving home together, so Dad watched after him nervously, and then moved to kiss first me and then Mom on the cheek. "Have fun, you two," he said. And then he too was gone. As I moved zombielike with Mom through the makeshift security gate, where they actually made me take off my sock monkey slippers and send them through the X-ray machine, I tried to think of ways to distract myself from my near overwhelming feeling of dread. Here's what I did: 1. Took breaths so deep I swear I could feel them in the crotch of my cutoffs. 2. Tried to imagine what kind of underwear each of the other ten passengers waiting for our connecting flight to Milwaukee was weSatran, Pamela Redmond is the author of 'Home for Wayward Supermodels ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781416516910 and ISBN 1416516913.