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Mr. Boy bit his fleshy, wormlike lip and studied her with judging eyes. He motioned for Marcy to turn down the music, thank God, that annoying song about the black horse and the cherry tree. Mr. Boy studied her some more, and she felt, for the first time that afternoon, horribly self-conscious.

“You’ll have to take it off. Take the suit off.”

“Right now?” was the only thing Ava could say.

He shook his head, a swath of blondish red hair swinging. “No, dear, go into the back, take off your suit, wrap a towel around you and come back out. We’ll do some nude shots. That suit doesn’t work.”

Her heart started thumping like something just woken up. No. She didn’t want to do this. Did she have to? Of course, she didn’t have to. Her mother had always told her that she didn’t have to do anything involving sex that made her uncomfortable. Taking off her clothes for Mr. Boy had to do with sex, but it was also just playacting at sex, and it had to do with fame and fortune. She didn’t want to do it, not because she had anything against sex and fame and fortune, but because she was ashamed of her naked body, that she was sure wouldn’t measure up.

Ava glanced at Nance for help. “Can I talk to you?”

Nance came over and walked uncertainly out under the big lights, blinking and squinting like a mole rat, her face a hypnotizing surface of crosshatched fine lines. It was all Ava could do not to touch them.

“Should I take off my clothes?” Ava asked her, her face flushing. She towered over Nance in the high heels.

“Absolutely not,” said Nance in a low voice. She pulled on Ava’s arm, trying to get Ava to lean close, but Ava couldn’t help shrinking away. “Just put your clothes back on and let’s get out of here.”

“Okay.” Ava let out a huge breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“You didn’t really want to get on that show anyway,” Nance muttered.

Behind them, Marcy and Mr. Boy were laughing about something. Probably about her.

“What? I do too want to go on it.”

“Well, you have to be willing to pose naked.” Nance shrugged. “And you’re not.”

“Would you do it?”

Nance laughed that barkish laugh. “If I looked like you, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“Who would see them? The pictures?”

“Just the judges. That’s all.”

“Nobody else?”

Nance grasped her arm again. “Not unless you want them to.” She winked at Ava. Did she really wink?

There was something wrong with Nance. Ava might have a syndrome, but she could tell that there was something off about Nance. The way she’d used reverse psychology on Ava was creepy. Ava had learned about reverse psychology in school. “I don’t trust you,” Ava blurted out.

“Why not?” Nance backed up, with an inscrutable little smile, and Ava knew then that Nance was no Miss Clavel from the Madeline books. Nance, unlike Miss Clavel, didn’t care about something being not right.

“Are we ready?” called Mr. Boy. “Chop-chop.”

Lounging naked in a beach chair and letting Mr. Boy take pictures of her turned out to be the easiest thing she’d done that day. It was easy as soon as she decided to act the same way she’d acted when she’d had sex with that boy from her writing class. He’d taken her to a motel room on Monroe Street, the Prince Murat, and asked her to pose for him on the bed, and she did, and then she let him do things to her that, when added up together, amounted to sex. Most of what he did either hurt her slightly or felt annoying, but it was all over quickly. She didn’t really like the guy, Cesare was his name, but she just wanted to check “lose virginity” off her to-do list, and he just wanted sex, too, so there was a low-stress businesslike feeling to the whole encounter. Plus, her parents would lose it if they knew, which was an added bonus.

“Beautiful, beautiful,” Mr. Boy was crooning, leaning over her and snapping away.

Yes, she was beautiful. “Too bad you aren’t Elvis,” she said to Mr. Boy.

“But I am Elvis,” he said without missing a beat. He curled up his wormy lip, and it didn’t look so bad. “I’m the King, baby.”

Mr. Boy was cool. Ava loosened up even more. She felt her vagina getting slickery and