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three cubicle walls and a curtain) and this would get the Hollywood ball rolling. I think for a kid who lived in a housing commission complex also known as ‘The Ghetto’, it was a pretty standard escapist scenario.
    I was so excited on the day. I tried to look as close to Mariah Carey à la ‘Dreamlover’ as I could, and brought my favourite tracksuit for the outfit change (I thought it would show off my ‘fun/sporty’ side – important for demonstrating range).
    I had my precious $90 fee (a birthday present) in a little envelope that I handed over to the lady/photographer/only person who worked there, while my mum and sister waited outside.
    â€˜Oh, so it’s just Rosie getting photos done today?’ the lady/my ticket to Hollywood asked as she stared longingly at Rhiannon’s perfect face. My sister had only come because she thought the whole thing was hilarious, and I was a massive dweeb who deserved to be ridiculed (which was almost certainly true). She didn’t have any intention of actually being involved, which seemed to disappoint the photographer a great deal.
    She kept asking me if my sister had done any modelling, and I had a bad feeling about where the whole thing was headed.
    But I persevered, damn it. I was determined to make this woman see what I had to offer. I posed for about eighty-seven photos while sitting on an upside-down bucket (obviously also holding a giant sunflower, because this was the ’90s), then I changed into my sporty four-coloured tracksuit, which had a different colour for each of my arms and legs, because I thought it was important to prove I had personal style.
    I worked it, hard. I was like my own stage mother, and I could feel a win in my bones.
    Then Rhiannon had to go and ruin everything with her perfection.
    When we came out of the studio, the lady whispered something to my mum, who whispered something to my sister. Rhiannon rolled her eyes, shrugged and followed my ticket to Hollywood back inside.
    I may have been young, but I was astute enough to know that I was being looked over, and not very subtly. I barged through the door (again, literally just a curtain) to see Rhiannon standing in the front of the camera, face entirely unimpressed, getting a photo taken. The lady (who was now looking less and less like my ticket to Hollywood), then thanked my mum profusely for letting her take a photo of my beautiful older sister. For free. My ninety bucks stayed firmly in the cash register.
    A few weeks later, I had all but forgotten my modelling efforts. I was happily playing Nintendo (Duck Hunt, for those in the know) when my mum got a phone call. She looked at me, panicked. Then she gestured quietly to Rhiannon that she needed to speak with her in private.
    I should have seen it coming.
    She had won. My sister had won the modelling competition. From one shot of her looking directly into the camera, barely smiling, Rhiannon had won the whole damn thing.
    And the bitch didn’t even care. I think she was more amused by the fact she had managed to win a contest she hadn’t evenentered, rather than excited by the fact she had won. She already knew she was beautiful, people told her all the time, so . . . big deal, right?
    I, on the other hand, was pissed. I cried at the injustice of it. What a waste of a birthday present. I couldn’t believe my four-coloured tracksuit hadn’t got me over the line. But it was finally clear to me that day: she was Brad, I was Doug. She was Kim, I was Khloe. She was Gisele, I was whatever Gisele’s sister is called.
    So, a year later, when Jesus decided he wanted to marry her and not me, I was disappointed, but hardly surprised. That’s just how life goes for the Dougs and Khloes among us. Your sister ends up with Yeezus, and you end up with a crack-addicted basketballer.
    We had never really been religious. I was meant to be baptised Catholic to make my dad’s family happy (I think they