Chapter One: Scouted

Emily gets scouted by a Ford Model scout.

‘’Emily, hurry up!’’ my mother hurried me along. I sighed and sped up my pace. Shopping with my mother and aunt wasn’t exactly the way I had pictured spending my Saturday.

 

‘’Look, darling, isn’t this the perfect jacket for you?’’ my aunt gushed, holding up a green and white striped (decidedly ugly) blazer.

 

‘’Oh, it would go perfect with your emerald eyes,’’ my mom joined in, holding the jacket against my frame. ‘’I knew we should have called you Emerald! Your father wouldn’t hear of it though. He said he wouldn’t have his daughter named after a stone. I think it’s a real pity!’’

 

‘’Thank you, but I’m afraid it’s not my style,’’ I smiled politely. My aunt shook her head. ‘’Nonsense, dear. Go try it on!’’

 

I shook my head. ‘’No, really, I have so many blazers already. But you have beautiful green eyes, aunt Jane, and I think it’s just right for you. How about you try it on?’’ I suggested. My aunt beamed at my compliment about her eyes and smiled at me.

 

‘’Thank you, dear. You know what? Maybe I will.’’

 

‘’Yes, Jane, it would look beautiful on you!’’ my mother agreed.

 

‘’Are you sure it is not too young?’’ my aunt asked anxiously. My mother and I shook our heads. My mother because she didn’t think it was too young, me because I wanted my aunt to buy it and stop bothering me about it. Don’t get me wrong, I really love my aunt Jane, but she has no fashion sense. Not that I have, but at least I know what clothes suit me and my age.

 

‘’Clara, please come with me. I need your opinion!’’ Aunt Jane pleaded. My mother nodded and told me to stay in the shop and look around. I sighed. Sometimes, my mother treated me like a five year old. I began trailing through the shop, looking through the clothes. I rarely found anything I liked in this part of town. It was all a stuck up, old- ish kind of fashion. I liked the casual- sweet fashion. I liked vintage, sure, but not on me. Vintage never made me look good. Not that I looked all that good to start with. My mother and aunt always gushed about how beautiful I was and how they wished they had looked like that when they were young and stuff, but I never seemed to see what they saw. I looked so… plain. I had average eyes, average nose, average mouth. I hated the fact that my mouth was shaped into a pout. It made me look stuck up. I never actually had a boyfriend before, I wasn’t exactly popular at my high school. I was known as the quiet little mouse. I'd had 5 boys ask me out, in total. And I was 16. Two of them were in elementary school, three in high school. I turned them down, because I was scared. I was a little socially awkward- except with my friends. Yes, I actually had friends. I had two crazy-a*s BFF’s, Tennessee and Dakota. They both had a name of a state, weird, right? I thought it was cool, though.

 

‘’Emily?’’ I heard a girly voice squeal and I turned around so fast that I got whiplash. It was Dakota,with her elder sister Savannah.

 

‘’Dakota!’’ I squealed, and we hugged. I laughed as we did our special handshake. It was probably childish and immature, but we’d been doing it since we met in kindergarten, and we weren’t about to stop now.

Savannah grinned, shaking her head, and started to browse through the rows of clothing in the shop. I turned my attention back to Dakota.

 

‘’I didn’t know you were going to be here, bae!’’ she smiled, hugging me again.

 

‘’I didn’t know you were going to be here either!’’

 

‘’Are you alone?’’

 

‘’No, I’m with mom and Aunt Jane,’’ I said, making a face. She made a face, too. ‘’Ugh, horrible. Why on earth do you go with them?’’

 

‘’Mom makes me! She threatens to take away my allowance, if I don’t. Apparently, aunt Jane enjoys the company of young people and we should do all we can to make her happy. She’s had a rough life up till now. Whatever,’’ I said.

 

‘’Come on, be nice for an old lady!’’

 

‘’She’s not that old. She’s just a few years older than mom and you know what? The only ‘rough’ thing in her life up till now was that she had a severe case of pneumonia and she never married.’’

 

I caught Savannah’s disapproving look. ‘’Okay, I know I’m being mean and judgmental and horrible, but you aren’t dragged from shop to shop, being forced to try on the most horrible outfits and ‘model’ for them,’’ I said.

 

Dakota slung an arm around me. ‘’Come on, you’ll survive,’’ she smiled.

 

‘’Why don’t you ask your mother if you can shop with me and Savannah? You know school starts a day after tomorrow and we can use the excuse that we have to find an outfit,’’ she suggested. I grinned at her. ‘’Sometimes, Dakota, I really think you’re making use of those brains inside your head!’’

 

‘’Hey!’’ she protested, hitting my arm. ‘’I’m always making use of them!’’

 

‘’Yeah, yeah,’’ I giggled, poking her side. She poked back, making me squeal.

 

‘’’Well, dearie. Who is this pretty young lady?’’ aunt Jane’s voice said next to me. I looked up managed to stop laughing. Dakota pulled herself together as well and offered aunt Jane a hand, who looked positively delighted. She shook poor Dakota’s hand so firmly that the girl clutched her hand in pain after it had been released.

 

‘’I’m Dakota Remmington,’’ she introduced herself.

 

‘’Why, Dakota. I’m positively delighted to meet you. I’m Emily’s aunt. You can just call me aunt Jane, if you want,’’ she smiled.

 

‘’Nice to meet you as well,’’ Dakota mumbled, still clutching her hand. I bit my lip so as to not start laughing. Poor girl!

 

My mom came over and smiled at my friend. ‘’Hello, Dakota!’’

 

‘’Hi, Mrs. Ricketts!’’ Dakota greeted back.

 

‘’Oh, mom. Do you mind if I continue the shopping with Dakota and Savannah? We’ve just got to find a new outfit for tomorrow and Dakota and I always do that together. Please, please, please?’’ I begged. My mother frowned, but before she could say anything aunt Jane gave me a broad smile.

 

‘’Why of course, Emily! I’m sure your mother won’t mind. We can’t break the tradition, can we? Well, Clara, shall we continue?’’ she took my mother’s arm and dragged her out of the shop. Oh, dear aunt Jane. I take everything back what I said about her. Sometimes I could just hug her! Well, maybe I wouldn’t go that far.

 

‘’Come on Dakota, Emily! Let’s go!’’ Savannah called us, impatiently, and Dakota started dragging me out of the shop.

 

We went to Mia’s Mansion first, where they have awesome girls clothes. I found the cutest white dress with gorgeous light pink heels.

 

‘’Go on, try it on!’’ Dakota and Savannah urged. I hesitated, but went into the dressing room and put on the dress and shoes. I had to admit, it looked pretty good. The white dress made my too light skin seem more tanned, somehow and the heels made my legs look long and slender. The dress wasn’t too short either, it went to just above my knee. It was perfect.

 

‘’Guys, I think I’m going to get this,’’ I said, stepping out of the room and strutting about in front of them. Dakota snapped some pictures, laughing.

 

‘’Look at the model,’’ she grinned. Savannah shook her head. ‘’I’m jealous, Emily. You’re sixteen and you have a really good body. Yet you never seem to work out or diet. How do you do that?’’

 

I laughed. ‘’My body is anything but really good. There’s nothing to be jealous about. I’m not even that pretty.’’

 

‘’Oh, but you are,’’ a deep voice said. We all looked around, trying to find the owner of the voice. We saw a man dressed in a grey suit standing at our right. He took a step forward and held out his hand.

 

‘’Robert Jensen,’’ he introduced himself. I cast a confused look at Dakota and Savannah. Should I actually shake hands with a forty year old guy who called me pretty? I decided to be polite and shook his hand. ‘’Emily Ricketts,’’ I introduced myself.

 

‘’I’m sure you must be confused and thinking I’m a weirdo, but actually I’m a scout-’’

 

Savannah’s eyes widened, but Dakota and I shot each other confused glances. What kind of ‘scout’?

 

‘’I’m a scout for Ford Models, the largest international model company in America,’’ he clarified. Dakota’s eyes widened, but I was still confused. What did this have to do with anything?

 

‘’I was sent out today to find a new model for Celina Thayer’s new clothing line International. And you, you’re perfect for that position.’’

Author's Note

First chapter's up! Hope you like it! <3

Reviews

[Mister T.]

I have to say, very well written!
Now, let me explain, I'm not saying this to bombard you with compliments. I noticed you're very, very good at creating realistic and smooth conversations. The characters all have their own characteristics, of course, but you can see these properties return in the way they act or speak. You even managed to make me laugh once in front of my computer :p

Anyway, I'll get to the point. In general, I really enjoyed reading it, though I spotted some minor errors which I'll sum up for you:
- 'I cast a confused look at Dakota and Savannah': present tense?
- 'The white dress made my too light skin seem more tanned, somehow and the heels made my legs look long and slender': unnecessary comma
- 'She threatens to take away my allowance, if I don’t': unnecessary comma
- 'You can just call me aunt Jane, if you want,': sentence ends with a comma
- 'Yeah, yeah,': sentence ends with a comma
- 'Mom makes me! She threatens to take away my allowance, if I don’t. Apparently, aunt Jane enjoys the company of young people and we should do all we can to make her happy. She’s had a rough life up till now. Whatever,': sentence ends with a comma

I noticed you had some trouble with the use of comma's and dots. For example, ending a quote with a comma. I feel like this is wrong. It could be me, but I always end a quote with a dot inside the brackets.

Don't mind me, I'm very precise xD
Keep up the good work!

[Lavorther]

Wow, Dawn was right about you. You're a good writer indeed. I really enjoyed this chapter, although it felt like it was mostly aimed at girls. Which is fine, but I might be slightly biased because I'm a guy. I still could follow along pretty well though, as there were enough other things happening, like conversations and inner monologues.

The flow was great and it was easy to read. I like the humor you managed to work into the story, which made it pretty funny to read. The conversations felt really natural and smooth, which can be difficult to get right. I also loved how you used cursive text to accentuate certain words. I never really use it, but you've give me great examples as to why and how you could use it. It certainly livens up the chapter, and adds an interesting touch.

I did noticed some things while reading the chapter. Here are some suggestions:

You were really negative about the name Emily. I get that it is a common name, but you might want to tone it down a little so you don't offend anyone who's name actually is Emily. Just a suggestion, but that is something you might want to consider.

"It was Dakota, one of my best friends, with her elder sister Savannah."
The part "one of my best friends" is kinda redundant, as you introduced her as one of Emily's BFF's just a few sentences back. I think it's still pretty clear who she is if you remove that part.

Savannah was kinda in the background for the whole meeting in the shop, while Emily was waiting for her aunt and mother. In my mind I pictured her just awkwardly standing there, doing nothing. If you don't want to include her in the conversation, you should make her do something else, like browsing through the clothes, for example. Just adding one line specifying that she was doing something while Dakota came over would remove that awkwardness.

"You know school starts day after tomorrow and we can use the excuse that we have to find an outfit"
Add a "the" between "starts" and "day after tomorrow".

"Savannah’s eyes widened, but Dakota and I shot each other confused glanced"
I believe "glanced" should be "glances".


Other than that, really impressive first chapter. It could have come right out of a book. I'm curious about the rest of the book. Well done!

[Cass Morgan]

Words can't describe how grateful I am for your review. Thank you a million times. I definitely see what you mean with your advice though. The funny thing is, the first two errors you wrote down were added in when I was editing the chapter :D But I'll remove them again, because you are right. I don't want anyone to be offended, and after all, I actually like the name Emily. :D
Thank you again!!

[Lavorther]

You don't have to remove that part about her name completely, as I think it fits perfectly. Just reducing it to not liking her name because it is average or common should not offend anyone while still keeping the message you want to send.

Glad you appreciate my review. I often give a load of suggestions, but all with the best intentions. I really enjoyed reading the chapter, and I'll be flowing this book and your work in general.