“Have a seat, Devin,” he said. He slid the ponytail holder out of my hair. “Oh boy. You know they make this thing called a hairbrush, right?”

I could feel my cheeks getting hot. “Sorry. I was kind of in a hurry this morning.”

Gary started spraying stuff in my hair and sighed. “Don’t worry, we’ll fix this in no time!”

In ten minutes my hair was sleek, shiny, and bouncing on my shoulders. I’d never done a shoot with it down. Then the woman with dark hair, Delia, instructed me to change into some black leggings with a pink tank top and matching hoodie. In the changing area in the back of the trailer, I found three other girls getting dressed. Nobody said hello.

Okay, it’s kind of like a locker room, I thought, and I quickly changed into the workout outfit. Then I headed outside. Mom and Maisie were sitting on a park bench—well, Mom was sitting, but Maisie was standing in front of her, doing model poses. Mom was shaking her head. I walked over to the other girls who had been in the changing room with me. Maybe it would be easier to talk to them when we weren’t all getting dressed, I reasoned.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Devin.”

They were all staring at their cell phone screens.

“Aubrey,” said a girl with freckled skin and straight blond hair, looking up for one millisecond to nod at me.

The brown-skinned girl with curly hair standing next to her looked at me. “Julianna.”

The third girl, who had dark brown hair and a golden tan, didn’t tell me her name at all.

Okay, I thought. Let’s get this over with!

But that wasn’t going to be as easy as we thought. We milled outside for at least twenty minutes, and nobody told us what to do. Then I realized I didn’t see a photographer.

I walked over to the woman with the clipboard who had greeted me and overheard her talking to a guy in a yellow T-shirt with a YL logo on it and the word “youthleisure” underneath it in script.

“I’m sorry, Marcus is always late,” she was saying. “But you wanted the best, and he’s the best!”

“Fine, but I’m not paying everyone to wait for him,” the guy responded.

“Actually, you are,” the woman told him. “It’s in your contract.”

The man scowled and walked away. I headed over to Mom.

“I think the photographer’s late,” I told her. “Do you think we’ll still make it to the game?” I thought of Jessi and her warnings.

She looked at her phone. “We still have hours until the game starts. I think we’ll be fine,” she said. Then she looked me up and down. “Very nice, Devin. I like this outfit.”

“Me too,” Maisie said. “You look pretty.”