This is the conclusion to the interconnected Amy Amstel stories started in “My Date as a Teenage Girl Model”. If you haven’t read the earlier stories I suggest you start there (330+ Kudos clickers can be wrong but the odds are in your favor). The stories about Amy Amstel are mostly self-contained though.

Transatlantic flights seldom are fun. If you start from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport terminal 2 you don’t exactly get off on a good start either. If you really are a bit too tired to work it’s even less fun. Flying west I try not to sleep on the flight since that really messes up my sleep-cycles. I was a bit surprised to find a scraggy teenager in the seat next to me. Not the usual passenger in first class. I decided that a long chat with the boy would be preferable to pretending to work. It didn’t start too well. When I introduced myself, Harry Howard, and told him that I was editor–in-chief of the most important fashion magazine for men the boy looked horrified. Apparently not a fashion aficionado. Well, I could have told that from his clothes. Jeans and white T-shirt as well as disheveled hair. Despite that he had a “groomed” look if you looked closer. Actually if you looked very closely he was kind of “pretty”. Shaped eye-brows, holes in his ears, just a hint of mascara remaining on those very impressive eye-lashes. Intriguing.

Despite his first negative reaction I kept telling him about my work and the world of male fashion. He relaxed a bit and asked

- You work exclusively with male fashion, not female?
- Exclusively male fashion. I completely turned my back on female fashion many, many years ago.

From that point we started having a really nice chat. The boy introduced himself as Andrew McPherson. As the conversation went on I gathered that he was a business administration student at Harvard and that he had a boyfriend who also studied business administration at Harvard. Andrew also complained that those studies combined with his extra work were a bit too much. He also let slip that he just had spent the summer in Paris for his extra work and was completely exhausted. What kind of all-year round extra job would a college kid have that included intensive work in Paris over summer? I didn’t want to spook him again so I didn’t pry. There were tell-tale signs of incipient burn-out. I have seen those before. Well, if I could give the kid some relaxation for a few hours as well as getting a pleasant flight, so much the better.

As we were talking and I got a good look at his face I got the feeling that I had seen this kid somewhere else before. He was intelligent. He was well-read. He was up to current affairs. How did he manage that at the same time he apparently was over-worked? He came across as a highly ethical person. He was nice. He was just like the son I wished to have had but never did, to my great regret. As a matter of fact the conversation was the most interesting I had had for a very long time. After a while Andrew started to lose concentration. The kid really was run-down. That fatigue was not just a transient thing. To give him some rest but at the same time not losing the pleasure of the conversation I started to tell him about the fashion world, the people, the intrigues, the scandals. At times I could see him smiling in a knowing way which intrigued ME. As I was comparing models completely swallowed up by the business and those who managed to keep some distance to the swamp. One of the latter was a new star that modelled clothes designed by Serge, great friend of mine. The model was called Darius. He had become quite a hit, especially among young gay men. More than one teenage boy heart had been broken when it became known that Darius had found a girlfriend on campus – at Harvard. As I was talking I realized where I had seen Andrew before, at a party in Boston where Darius had been accompanied by his girl-friend Andie. Andie McPherson! Oh, my Darius wasn’t as straight as he had led everyone to believe! And wasn’t there a scandal about a male stand-in for a girl model connected to Darius just as he started modelling?

I must have said “Andie McPherson” out loud since Andrew reacted. He admitted that he was Darius’ girl-friend. He insisted he wasn’t Darius’ boyfriend. I told him that everything we talked about during the flight was strictly off-the-record. Then he opened up, talking rather silently to be on the safe side, about his (her?) relationship with Darius. She very subtly became more feminine. She told me how worried she was about how much time Darius spent with Serge. There I could assure her. I know Serge very well. He can be ruthless. He certainly tries to bed most male models modelling his clothes, and any other handsome young man willing. However, on the rare occasions he CARES about someone there is no more honorable man. I know for a fact that Serge CARES about Darius. If Darius is in a serious relationship Serge would never make a move. Serge was also one reason Darius had been able to keep some distance to the fashion world. In many subtle ways he had been shielding Darius in the guise of trying to keep him for his own brand.

Well, the hours passed in a most agreeable way. Best Atlantic crossing ever. I may have been a bit hasty in promising off-the-record but on the other hand what I learned about Andie and Darius and their life was fascinating, even if I didn’t get to know what Andie’s extra job was. As we were approaching Logan International Airport he mentioned that he was catching a connecting flight to the Twin Cities to go home for a week before the next semester started. I was surprised and delighted since I also was going to Minneapolis. Even if we weren’t going to sit next to each other on that flight at least we could spend the waiting time together. Before landing Andrew, his male persona had reasserted itself once more, swallowed the last peanuts. That’s when it happened. He choked on them. While I never imagined that I’d ever need it I had learned how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre. I still don’t know how I could react that fast. As I let go of him afterward he totally collapsed. It was as this incident had deprived him of his last strength. An hour later, sitting in a secluded corner of the lounge, Andrew visibly came to a big decision.

- Harry, since you saved my life I will give you a scoop. It’s something I’ve been thinking about revealing for a long time to put an end to things. Look closely at me. I know you don’t follow female fashion but look closely at me. Do you recognize me?

I looked carefully. I couldn’t see anything I hadn’t seen before. The he angled his head and shaped his mouth in that iconic way and I was struck by how blind I had been. AMY AMSTEL! Andrew, a nobody boy from Minnesota was AMY AMSTEL, the teenage girl model catapulted to supermodel status over the last two years, going from catering to young teenage girls to older girls/young women featuring more daring clothes (though, strangely enough, never lingerie or swimwear). Amy Amstel was a boy! He had fooled the entire fashion industry for YEARS. No wonder Andrew’s “extra job” was grinding him down.

Our flight was called and “Andrew” rose.

- I want this to end and I figure if I create a big enough scandal I will burn all bridges. I want to be only Andie and no one but Andie. Nowadays I’m only Andrew when I’m risking to be recognized as Amy. In order to study Business Administration on top of everything else I have to be damned disciplined and structured. If you ever watch “Hannah Montana” again don’t ever believe the part about “The best of both worlds”. A life like this is hell. Here is my contact information. I’m willing to give you, and only you, an on-the-record interview.

I was still stunned as Andrew disappeared. I was sitting some rows behind him on the flight. I looked at him for long time. I really only could see the back of his head, tilted in a rather awkward angle since he had completely blacked out. I was beating myself mentally not having appreciated that glorious hair earlier, even if it was disheveled. Had I needed any confirmation about what Andrew told me I got that at Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport. The young man meeting Andie definitely was Darius. I had met him too often not to recognize him even in a hoodie and dark glasses. I was pleased watching the passionate kiss they greeted each other with. Young love!

I called my personal assistant.

- Peter, cancel all my appointment for the next three days. Get me a rental car for tomorrow I have to go to (I looked at the piece of paper and read out the name of a town I‘d never heard of before). Book me on a flight to wherever Henri Dupond is and get me an appointment with him. DO NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER. If necessary remind him about “that thing” we said we’d never mention again.
- Yes, it’s THAT important.
- He’s in Florida vacationing with his brother? That’s the brother who owns the agency?
- EXCELLENT! Make sure I meet both of them

I was going to do something I’d never done before in my 40 years in the business. I was going to commit professional malpractice. Andie had NO idea was she was letting herself into. How could she still be so naïve? Really an endearing trait but sooo stupid.

Revealing that teenage girl supermodel Amy Amstel in reality was a boy, and had been doing it for YEARS, would blow up the fashion world all right but not in the way Andie hoped. What would have been a scandal a few years ago when targeting younger girls, and their mothers in particular, would make her the focus of the entire world’s attention as a model for twenty-somethings. And that attention wouldn’t be limited to the fashion world. There will absolutely no way she can pull out after that. The media attention will be incredible. The pressure, the money! So what if she’d be a wreck in two years’ time? Possibly the agency, but wouldn’t the short-time gain outweigh the long-term?

Well, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." No matter what.

Headline One Week Later

"Supermodel Amy Amstel killed saving life of King of Ruritania."

The article detailed how supermodel Amy Amstel threw herself at an assassin that was trying to kill young King Carol of Ruritania and how she was shot and bled to death within a minute in the arms of the king. The article managed to imply that King Carol was about to announce his engagement to Amy Amstel. The Ruritanian court declined to comment. The assassin was killed and no motive was found.

Three Years Later, Christening Cermony in a Small Town in Minnesota

Looking at the two babies about to baptized I couldn’t be more proud and happy. The proud parents are extremely good-looking and radiant. Neither of them is a model any longer. Darius stopped after Andie also had got her degree from Harvard. And Andie? I HAD intended to persuade her and persuade/blackmail Charles and Henri to just let Amy Amstel disappear. Andie wouldn’t see reason. She wanted to go with a bang. I have to admit I sort of liked her dramatic exit. The prime minister of Ruritania was all for getting his small country a bit of publicity and twisted the King’s arm. The assassination? The body of the asssassin? The Police and official investigation? Let’s say that law and order in Ruritania is somewhat “flexible” and at times very creative. Charles and Henri were a bit more difficult to deal with but essentially they are good people. Of course it helped that Serge paid them extra for the last Amy Amstel shoot (some done “posthumously”). After all it was his collection that was Amy Amstel’s last. You can’t imagine how popular that collection became. I’m told even lovelorn boys bought items to remember her by.

Over the years I have grown very close to Darius and, in particular, Andie. That’s why I was standing in that church. I consider her as the daughter I never had. I totally engrossed myself in my work for years and years and then … it was too late

Of course Darius and Andie had had to use egg donors and a woman willing to host their babies. The baby resulting from Darius’ sperm was a boy. The baby resulting from Andrew’s sperm (frozen since before Andie had her operation) was a girl. I’m her godfather. Well, it’s rather fitting considering I sort of arranged to have her mother murdered …

The mother who asked me something that made me deliriously happy. She asked me to donate one of the eggs I had had harvested and frozen before I changed sex.