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something that happened when I was fourteen and I have never admitted to anyone: not to friends nor therapists; not even in rehab when we were detailing our own personal spirals of shame did I confess. It is this: I am a graduate of the Barbizon School of Modeling.
    And if you asked me, I could—even today—glide down a runway while my jacket slid from my shoulders and down my arms. I could then catch it by the collar at the very instant I reached the end of the runway, pause, and sling it over my opposite shoulder while completing a full-Dior turn and then head back up the runway to exit the stage correctly.
    You see, I didn’t
just go to modeling school
; I approached Barbizon with the same focus and dedication as any student at M.I.T. or Harvard.
    “That’s it, yes!” Phillip shouted as I kicked a leg in the air. He touched his short, somewhat plump fingers to the scoop of his neck. His thick black hair was perfectly sprayed into the style of a fifties crooner, and his almost handsome but fatally doughy face was overmoisturized. He looked to be about thirty, but it was a very real possibility that he was closer to fifty. “But when you bring that leg back down, remember to park it at a forty-five-degree angle from your other foot.” Then Phillip clapped his hands like an impatient dog trainer and addressed the entire room, men and women.
    “People, remember, please. Ladies, when you stand, your right foot is
always
at a ninety-degree angle to your left foot. Gentlemen,
your
right foot is always at a forty-five-degree angle. I can’t stress the importance of this enough. Forty-five degrees for the men, ninety degrees for the ladies.”
    There were about twenty of us, and we were in posing class, first semester.
    The previous Saturday Phillip had given us an assignment. “I want you people to
pore
through the magazines—
GQ, Elle, Vogue
. And gentlemen? I want you to look through
Vogue
and
Elle
, too, because you can use a lot of the same poses the girls use, with very minor modifications. So I want you all to go through your magazines and tear out ten, fifteen pages that feature models in poses you like, that you think you could master. And then I want you to spend
at least
an hour each day falling into these poses. Then, next Saturday, you’re all going to go through your poses in front of the entire class. So, really, you’d better practice.”
    And now my groin hurt from kicking my leg so high in the air. I’d selected my dozen poses from the magazines, but my favorite, the only one I’d spent any real time practicing, was from an ad for Calvin Klein jeans, featuring Brooke Shields.
    Goose bumps ran up my arms as soon as I had turned the page in
Vogue
. Brooke was leaning back on her hands, butt off the floor, chest turned toward the camera. Her huge right foot was flat on the floor, and her left leg was extended up and out. Her off-white silk shirt was buttoned only in the middle. Her long chestnut hair and the fabric of the blouse were gently blown back by an unseen fan. Although we hadn’t worked with fans yet, we knew it was only a matter of time, and we were all excited. “Fan work” was something you tackled in the second semester, once you had your poses down. That I would even
consider
a fan-assisted pose now, I thought, would telegraph my ambition to the instructor.
    At the next class where we were all to demonstrate our poses, I intentionally saved myself for last. I wanted to watch the other students, so that I could modify, if need be, my pose. I was going to be the star of the class, this much I had decided. But to my surprise, the poses were very ordinary. The men chose standing poses, mostly from the Sears catalogue. They stood, and they looked off into the distance, and they pointed. This, I knew, was a pose that only worked if you were standing next to another person. Other people chose to lean against the wall, legs crossed in front, face turned to the side. And while I thought this