Once, when she was in seventh grade, Dr. Ayars bought his daughter an expensive white dress with a designer’s label on it. Laura loved the dress. She was sure that it was going to change her whole life. She looked pretty in it. Her father had said so. And Laura was going to wear it to school, and all the popular girls were going to think she was pretty, too. They would all like her—even Lisa Sommers, the prettiest girl in the class. They would ask her to sit with them during lunch instead of by herself in the back of the room. They would ask her to play hopscotch with them during recess instead of making her stand away from them where no one would talk to her. And who knew? Maybe Lisa Sommers would invite her to go over her house after school.

Laura was so excited, she could hardly sleep. She got out of bed very early the next morning, showered, and put on her new dress. Her older sister, Gloria, who was really popular with the boys, helped her get ready. Gloria brushed Laura’s hair out, curled it, and even added light touches of makeup. When Gloria was finished, she stepped back and let Laura look at herself in the mirror. Laura tried to be critical but she could not help it. She looked pretty.

“Do I really look okay?” she asked her sister hopefully.

Gloria hugged her and stroked her hair. “Just perfect.”

When she came down to breakfast, her father smiled. “Well, well, just take a look at my little princess.”

Laura giggled happily.

“You look lovely,” her mother added.

“The boys will be fighting in the playground today,” her father chipped in.

“Do you want me to walk you to school?” Gloria asked.

“That would be great!”

Laura beamed with joy as she headed to school with Gloria. When they reached the edge of the playground, Gloria turned to her little sister and gave her another big hug. Laura felt warm and secure in her sister’s arms. “I have cheerleading practice after school,” Gloria said. “I’ll see you at home later tonight, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You can tell me all about your day then.”

Laura watched her sister start walking down the hill toward the high school. Then she turned and faced her own schoolyard. Laura could not wait to hear the comments of her peers when they saw the new Laura. Finally, it was going to be her day. With a deep breath she crossed over to where her schoolmates were playing.

The first comments came before the bell. “Hey, look! Tubby Laura is wearing a new tent!” Cruel voices came from everywhere. “She looks like a great white whale!” “Hey, Four-Eyes Fatso, since you’re wearing white, we can use you as a movie screen!”

Lisa Sommers walked up to her, looked her up and down, and then held her nose. “You’re disgusting!” she shouted with glee.

And the cruel laughter. The cruel laughter that scraped at Laura’s young heart like a jagged piece of glass.

She ran home with tears streaming down her face. She put on a brave face and tried to hide the rip that Lisa Sommers had made in her new dress during recess. But parents are very sensitive to the pain of their children. When her father found the torn dress, he was furious. He burst into the principal’s office to report what had happened. The girls responsible were punished.

And, of course, that only made the popular girls hate Laura even more.

During her anguished childhood, Laura studied as hard as she could. If she could not be popular or even liked, at least she was going to be smart.

And she had Gloria. Laura often wondered if she could have survived those long years without her only two friends: her schoolbooks and her older sister, Gloria. Physically, Gloria was the buxom bombshell all the high school boys lusted after. But she was also bighearted and kind to a fault. When Laura felt the world was coming to an end, Gloria would comfort her with warm words and warm hugs. Gloria would tell her that everything was going to be okay, and for a little while, everything was. Sometimes, Gloria even canceled dates with boys just to stay home and console Laura. She took Laura to the movies or to the big department stores or the park or the roller rink or wherever. Laura knew that she had the greatest sister in the whole world. She loved Gloria very much.

That was why Laura had been devastated when Gloria ran away from home and came very close to committing suicide.

Laura’s physical metamorphosis took place in the summer before her junior year of high school. Yes, she exercised. Yes, she started to wear contact lenses. Yes, she dieted (stopped eating actually). But that would not have been enough to explain the change. Those things may have accelerated the process, but the transformation would have occurred anyway. It was simply her time. She suddenly blossomed and no one in her school could believe their eyes. A little while later, a modeling agency spotted her and she was on her way.

At first, Laura could not believe she was beautiful enough to be a fashion model. Fat, ugly Laura Ayars a fashion model? Uh-uh. No way.

But Laura was neither blind nor stupid. She could look in a mirror and see for herself what everyone else was talking about. She soon got used to the whole idea of being attractive. By some queer twist of fate, the homely child had turned into a high-paid supermodel. Suddenly, people wanted to be with her, to dress like her, to be her friend. Just because she was now physically appealing, those who had wanted to spit on her and tease her thought she was something special. Laura became more than a little suspicious of people’s motives.

Modeling was easy money for Laura. She made more than half a million dollars when she was just eighteen. But modeling was not an occupation she particularly enjoyed. While the hours were at times grueling and tedious, the work was never what she would call demanding. There was little challenge to be found in posing for a series of snapshots. It was downright boring actually. She wanted to do something more but the world seemed to have forgotten she had a brain. It was all so ridiculous. When she was ugly with glasses, everybody thought she was a bookworm. Now that she was beautiful, everybody assumed she was an airhead.

Laura did not do many location shootings in those days—just the one in Australia and two on the French Riviera—because unlike many of her colleagues, she did not leave school. It was no simple task but she managed to finish high school and graduate from Tufts University four years later. Once Laura received her degree, she was ready to take on the fashion and cosmetics industries. The industries, however, were ill prepared for her onslaught. June 1983 marked her last cover appearance on a woman’s magazine as Laura retired from modeling at the ripe old age of twenty-three. She invested her substantial earnings to develop her own concept: Svengali, a company for the woman on-the-move, blending practical, intelligent, and sophisticated looks with the feminine and sensual.