Braless in Wonderland (19 page)

“Oh, man, it's gonna take forever till the next take,” said one of the extras.

“Nice. Now we'll get overtime,” another one answered.

I reached down to help her out, but the stylist yelled at me, worried I'd get my clothes wet. Who cared? The hair and makeup guy could just blow-dry it out. Honestly, everyone thought models and actors were so difficult, but the truth was that we had the least issues compared to everybody else in the business.

We did it a few more times and Brynn and I didn't crack up once, proving we were pros. She and I high-fived each other when it was all done. Things had changed a lot between us, probably starting with the day I caught her crying. And she was in a good mood most of the time. She seemed pretty clean these days.

Hopefully, we'd work together again before I had to go back home in a few weeks. The end of season was near, and everybody would be going off somewhere. The difference was that they were all going to exciting places like Paris and Milan to do the fall/winter shows, while I was going to Cape Vomit for summer school. It would be weird leaving all this. At least I'd be at Yale in a few months. It all seemed a million years away, when really, it was around the corner.

I waited in my car for Brynn while she was in the bathroom. This commercial was just a limited-run regional, so it wouldn't be that much money, but it would look good for my reel. It showed I could handle dialogue and a principal part.

Where was Brynn? She'd been gone a long time. She'd said she just had to pee. I'd better see if she was okay.

The crew was still disassembling equipment and packing up. I found the door to the cabana bathroom and knocked. “Just a sec.” It was Brynn. She came out, sniffing, moving her nose around. One of the crew guys came out behind her.

They'd been snorting coke.

The guy walked away, and Brynn and I had a stare-off. I won. She looked away first, then started walking toward the car. “So, you wanna hit Glitter tonight with me and Luca? They're having free Roberto Cavalli cocktails. Oh, yeah, that's right, you don't drink. Anyway, I got passes. And I'll let you borrow my Dolce & Gabbana jeans, the ones you like, the white ones with the gold letters.”

“No, thanks. I'll pass.”

 

I loved Ocean Drive first thing in the morning, when it was getting ready for the day. Chairs and tables were being set up at outdoor cafés, striped awnings were being rolled out, sidewalks hosed down. Halter-top-wearing hostesses were taking their posts with clipboards in hand, and soft classical music was playing on one block, then drowned out by salsa music on another.

The agency was still eight blocks away, but I had to stop first at the Marlin hotel to get Brynn. We both had to meet with our bookers and we wanted to go in together. She'd just called to say they were about to wrap her commercial. I was glad she'd made it to her booking. She had never come home from Glitter last night.

I bladed to the Marlin without falling. It was a cool, retro deco hotel with a rock 'n' roll atmosphere. The crew was outside on the front terrace. It was an exterior scene, so I could watch from across the street. I sat on a bench next to an old lady with peach-colored helmet hair. There was a sliver of space in between the equipment and the crew where I could see everything. Brynn was coming down the top steps in a sequined mini and tube top, hanging on the arm of some guy in tight jeans. She lost her balance and he pulled her back up. The director said, “Cut.” She crumpled down on the steps and rested her head in her hands.

I heard Luca's motorcycle before I saw it. He pulled up to the curb in front of my bench, his bike chugging and jumping. I swear that thing was a live animal. The lady next to me clutched her purse with both hands. I didn't blame her. He looked scuzzier than Ewan McGregor did in that movie
Trainspotting
right after he crawled out of the toilet. “She come home last night?” he asked. We were both looking at Brynn, crumpled on the steps.

“No. I thought she was with you.”

His lizard face looked worried. Brynn did the scene a couple of times, finally got it right, then collapsed on the steps again. I heard the director call, “We're wrapped,” and I Rollerbladed over there. Luca followed on his bike.

Brynn fell on me. “Well, that wuzzaz fun as a sandpaper enema,” she slurred into my shoulder. She smelled like smoke and alcohol.

“Hey, biatch, where ya been?” Luca called from his bike. “Lemme take you back to my place.”

Her bloodshot eyes went all soft at the sight of him, proving that love is blind. She blew him a wobbly kiss. “Wait here. I'll get my bag.”

“She's got a meeting at the agency,” I told him while she was inside.

“Tell 'em she's sick. She's gotta sleep it off.” I hesitated. “Go on. I'll take care of her.”

And then it hit me. I'd told Momma and Kate that Brynn wouldn't listen to anybody, but that wasn't true. There was one person she listened to, one person who cared about her more than anyone.

And it wasn't Luca.

Someone had to call Brynn's mother soon, before it was too late.

My parents finally got me to go home for a weekend. Cape Comet had a smell. Not a bad one, really. It was like salt, rust, and wood all rolled into one. I had the window open so I was getting a really good whiff of it, driving into town. A pickup truck full of fishing gear was passing me. So were cars with Kennedy Space Center license plates. I turned onto our street just as an Air Force plane flew above me with a loud roar.

I was home.

Mom, Dad, Abuela, and Robby rushed out of the house when I got out of the car. Mom hugged me and put her hands on my cheeks. “Omigod, Allee, look at your hair, your makeup! Are you wearing heels? You are! I can't get over it,” and on and on. Then Dad hugged me. “There she is, the TV star,” he said all proudly. Abuela was next. She had three words for me. “You're too thin.” Robby just wrapped himself around my leg. He'd gotten so big!

Where was Sabrina? I was hoping she'd be the first to welcome me back, not the last. It was her I'd been thinking of the whole drive here. I was wearing the dress she'd made. I picked up Robby and carried him into the house.

And there she was. Standing in the family room, waiting for me. Wearing the necklace I'd sent her. Her hand flew up to her throat, adjusting it. It matched her eyes, just like I knew it would. Except her eyes were looking a little more red than violet right now.

I knew how she felt; my eyes were tearing up too.

“Look, Sabrina,” Robby said. “It's Allee.” I put him down and did a little twirl. She didn't say anything.

“So?” I asked.

She wiped her eyes and said, “It's a little dressy for daytime, don't you think?”

And then we hugged. Hard.

 

My room looked different now. Sabrina's sewing stuff was everywhere. My bed was covered with fabric and hand-drawn patterns, and the desk was a mess of scissors, spools of thread, pattern books, buttons, pins, and zippers. How could she afford all this? And how did she find anything in this sty? It was worse than our apartment in Miami Beach. I'd have to clean some of this up later.

She was on her bed, flipping through my portfolio. I was changing into jeans and a halter top. “Hard to believe you were ever fashionably challenged,” she murmured, turning a page. “Why'd they put you in a beret and cowboy boots? You never mix western with French.”

“Good to know. What'd you think of my Taboo commercial?”

“Allee, I told you you couldn't dance. What were you thinking?”

“I always thought you were teasing.”

“People at school do their own version of it, like, imitating you. They're always asking me if I knew you were so funny. You know, because you were such an egghead in school and all.”

“Take a look in the back.” She did, and pulled out the issue of
Dietra
magazine that I was in. “The client sent some copies to the agency this week. Take a look.”

She flipped a few pages and then her eyebrows shot up. I knew which picture she was looking at. “Omigod, Allee, look at you.” She wasn't smiling.

“You don't like it?” I asked, stunned.

She looked up at me. “I love it.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Her opinion was important to me. “Keep it if you want. I've got another copy.”

“Your body looks hot. Wow, if you look close, you can see your—”

“I know, I know, don't remind me. And hide it before Dad sees it and has a heart attack,” I said, lacing up my wedge espadrilles. “So what else is going on around here?”

“Nothing, as usual. They opened up a Piggly Wiggly next to the coin laundry. Oh, and guess what? Some kids have actually, like, bought the clothes I made. Hillary paid forty bucks for one just like the one I sent you, but in red. I'm, like, taking orders.”

“Sabrina, that's so awesome,” I said, brushing my hair. “You know, you could charge two hundred for that dress.”

“In Cape Comet? Keep dreaming. But maybe someday.”

“What's someday? You want to open a store? I thought you wanted to be a model.”

She chewed her lip, hesitating. “I never wanted to be a model.” I stopped brushing. Was she joking? “I
thought
I wanted to be a model, but now I realize I didn't.”

“Then what the hell were you not speaking to me for?” I yelled. I held up my brush, poised to throw it at her.

“It was always the clothes I was into. Designing and making clothes made me see that. I want to be a designer. It's, like, my passion.”

I tossed the brush on her bed and sat next to her. “I think that's great, Sabrina. Really.”

“Do you think I'm good enough? As a designer, I mean?”

I glanced around at all her sewing stuff on my bed. “You're more than good. Everybody always asks me about that blue dress, and you should see their faces when I tell them my sister designed it.”

Her eyes got all misty again. “Really?”

I looked away. This wasn't easy to say. “I owe you an apology.”

“What for?”

“I used to think that because you were so into fashion that, well…” I knocked on my head. “I sorta thought you didn't have much going on upstairs. I even called you The Fluff. Secretly. To myself.”

“Pretty and stupid.” She raised her eyebrows. “Right?”

I nodded. I guess I had stereotyped her. “Pretty and smart. I was wrong. And I'm sorry.”

“You do that to a lot of people, you know.”

“What?”

“Put them in, like, a category. The Fluff. Hillary High Beams. What do you call my friends? Trendy Wendies? You don't even know them. You even put yourself in a category. You're”—she made quote marks with her fingers—“the smart one.”

I thought about that.

The Fluff…Hillary High Beams…

Maybe it was true.

Okay, it was. I did do that to people. Especially Sabrina. And I'd always purposely avoided fashion and beauty because I wanted to make sure people knew I was smart. Like if I was too girly I wouldn't be taken seriously or something. As if beauty and intelligence were mutually exclusive. How stupid was that? And the worst part was, I knew I would have enjoyed hanging out with Mom and Sabrina more, going clothes shopping or watching a show about beauty secrets or whatever. Instead, I was too busy trying to make a point. A point that was wrong. Way wrong.

It sucked to admit crappy stuff about yourself.

Sabrina closed my portfolio. “And calling her Hillary High Beams? That sounds like something a pig like Jake or Scott would call her, not someone who says she's, like, a feminist or whatever.”

I thought about that one too.

Maybe I'd take a women's studies course at Yale.

Since season was winding down, the agency had time for open calls. There was an army of overlipsticked wannabe models in the lobby. I held the door open for two girls walking in. “If they don't want me,” one of them said, “then frankly, I question their taste.”

Bonnie, the high-security receptionist who'd crushed my confidence the first time I came here, buzzed me in now without a word. I clicked past the wannabes in my Bottega Veneta pumps and Elie Tahari blouse, and I could feel them sizing me up. Some recognized me from my Taboo spot, and probably from Dentyne Ice too. I could tell by the whispers. I held my head up high, smiled graciously. It was a long way from Cape Comet, and I wasn't beige anymore.

I sat next to Momma, Kate, and Dimitri in front of Monique's desk. Monique was eating a bagel with plenty of cream cheese. It was nice to know her facial muscles were back in working order. “Allee, I'm going to cut right to the chase,” she said with her mouth full. Agents didn't waste time with small talk. They always got right to the big talk. “There's an agency in Japan that's very interested in you. We want you to consider going for the summer season there.”

“Excuse me?” I could never understand anyone when their mouth was full.

She swallowed and said, “Agence, an agency in Tokyo, wants to us to place you with them for the summer.”

“Tokyo, Japan?”

“Ye-e-es. Tokyo, Japan.”

“It would mean a lot of money for you, sweetie,” said Momma. “There's a lot of TV work there. Agence saw your reel and fell in love with you. And it would be the experience of a lifetime.”

“You would do very well in the Japanese market,” said Dimitri. “They don't like them too tall.”

“Oh,” said Monique, jumping a little in her seat as if she'd just thought of something. “We have to put five eight on your card, not five nine. In Japan, you want to go more petite.”

“I can't go to Japan,” I told them. “I have to finish high school this summer.”

“You could go right after that or get a GED,” said Dimitri. Me? Get a GED? I almost laughed in his face.

“But I'm going to Yale in the fall. That's why I started modeling, for the extra money I needed to pay for it.”

“Yale will always be there, sweetie,” said Momma. “Tokyo is a now-or-never deal, and you can bet your ass it's the experience of a lifetime.”

“But I was planning on going to college.”

Monique chomped on her bagel, looked at Dimitri and Momma. “Look, we can't stop her from going to college, especially Yale.” Monique swallowed, looked back at me, wiping her hands on a napkin. “Listen, there are girls desperate to go to Japan. Do whatever you want, Allee.”

“Just think about it,” Kate said.

There was nothing to think about. They were all waiting for some kind of response from me. I was curious about one thing. “How can I work for another agency? I thought I was exclusive with Finesse.”

“We're your mother agency,” said Momma. “When our season is over, we place you with another agency in a different market, then you come back to us in the fall.”

“Oh. Well, I don't think I can do it. Especially in Japan. Aren't they a really sexist society? I'm sort of a feminist. I don't think I could live there.”

That got a flat-out laugh from Kate. “What kind of flipping feminist are you? Aren't you forgetting you posed showing some of your naughty bits in tiny knickers and a weensie bra?”

“I didn't show any naughty bits!” I sort of shouted.

“Almost. Look at the picture. It's a matter of centimeters, love. Centimeters.”

I was trembling like a Chihuahua. I'd never really yelled at an adult like that before. Man, this assertiveness thing could get out of control if you weren't careful. But Kate was pissing me off. It wasn't as if I'd posed for
Playboy.
It wasn't as if I'd stopped having feminist values. I'd just posed scantily clad
in spite of
my values.

Or something.

Monique clasped her hands on her desk, leaned toward me. “Allee, do you realize you're in the one business dominated by
women
, controlled by
women,
where
women
categorically make more money than men?”

“Yeah.” I glanced at Kate and had to admit, “By exploiting their bodies, I guess.”

Monique leaned forward even more, one eye glinting at me. “Celebrating their bodies, not exploiting. You say you're sort of a feminist. Isn't a big part of feminism supposed to be about taking ownership of your body, feeling good about it and saying
vagina
over and over and all of that?” Nobody moved. I couldn't believe she'd just said
vagina.
“What's the difference between that and celebrating your body in a picture, an artfully done photograph?”

Um. I honestly didn't know. I'd never thought about it like that.

Monique threw her hands up. “If that's not feminism, then I don't know what is.”

I didn't know either anymore. I was very confused.

Monique sighed and her lips went tight, a feat I didn't think possible. “Just think about Japan,” she said.

“Okay.” As I opened the door to leave, I looked back at them and said, “Thank you for the opportunity.” I had learned some things from Summer. And the truth was, it
was
an incredible opportunity. For someone else.

Just not me. Because I had other goals, and I'd never wanted to be a model in the first place. Even though the idea of modeling in an exciting foreign country, making tons of money, having great adventures and experiences was like winning the lottery for some people, it wasn't for me. Because I was headed for an Ivy League future.

Period.

 

Miguel was at his desk. It had slowed down a lot in the booking room. Just two weeks ago this room had a tense atmosphere, with the bookers glued to their interconnected desks, talking into headsets, and staring at their screens with such concentration I wondered if somehow they were stopping a nuclear reactor from detonating instead of booking pretty girls and pretty boys in pretty pictures.

But right now it was very relaxed. One of the bookers was cutting old composite cards and making finger puppets. The bookers were having a bash-and-trash session. They must have forgotten I was in the room, listening.

“You could land a plane on that forehead.”

“That's not a forehead, that's a fivehead.”

“Check the new girl, Maria K. She's got that it's going to be very expensive to hook up with me look.”

“Yeah, you'd never know that in Nicaragua she was sorting coffee beans for pennies a day, wearing one of those sad little kerchiefs on her head.”

I whispered to Miguel, “What do they say when I'm not around?”

“I can't tell you because that would be unprofessional. But walk on my back and I just might. Oh, by the way, I think I've found your ticket.”

“You found my ticket and you didn't tell me?”

“I have to show you, not tell you. Let's pull up your e-book.” He clicked the Lifestyle icon on his computer and all the models on Finesse's commercial board appeared, including me. He clicked on my image and photos from my portfolio appeared. The lingerie shot for
Dietra
was the first one. “Here we go.” He snapped his fingers, swayed in his seat. “She's a sexy supah stah, yeah…”

“Stop,” I said. All of Uta Scholes's pictures popped with feeling and surreal visuals. Miguel clicked on the shot of me lying across the blanket in the Gaultier tutu, with the boy and the bunnies. It looked like a painting. So much had gone into this photo, so many talents. All of us—me, the boy, the crew—made that image together. We all had a part in bringing the vision to life, like the cast of a play, almost. I was totally wrong about fashion photography not being art. It was, sometimes. I was even starting to see some of the clothing as art. What was the difference if you hung it on a person or a wall? A creation was a creation.

“I love, love, love this shot,” said Miguel, pointing to my lingerie shot. “It's
perfecto dilecto
. The sunset, your skin, your shape.”

“I still don't know how I booked that.”

“I don't know either,” said Dimitri.

Miguel slapped his hand on his desk and shouted at Dimitri, “That is so mean!” He turned to me. “She's so bitchy today, she's driving me up the wall.” It took me a sec to realize the “she” he was referring to was Dimitri.

And Dimitri didn't like it. “I am not being bitchy today, but if I am, it's because you took my last farking pencil, you little thief. I said I don't know how she booked that because she's not edgy enough.”

The bookers all weighed in on this topic. “That's why they booked her, because the very idea of edgy is doing the unexpected.”

“And what could be more unexpected than taking a commercial girl, edging her up, and putting her in a fashion editorial?”

“You're right, that
is
edgy.”

“The essence of edgy.”

I didn't want Miguel to lose his focus on me. “Excuse me, but could we get back to my ticket?”

Miguel turned back to the computer and clicked on another of my pictures. It was an ad for Viva deodorant, a still taken from the commercial I'd done in Costa Rica. It was an
hommage
to Amelia Earhart. I was standing next to an antique propeller plane with an old-fashioned flight helmet on, leather jacket, and slouchy pants. Next was a test shot of me gazing out from a rooftop and another where I was driving a speedboat with some guys in the backseat.

“Were you really driving that?” Miguel asked.

“No, it wasn't even moving.” There was a catalog tear sheet from an athletic-wear catalog where I was running away from the camera and looking back with a playful smile, my hair flying out wildly in the wind as I was being chased by a guy. I really liked the Latina Allee pictures from my first test shoot. I was sitting outside, sipping Cuban café out of a little cup, touching the flowers in my hair. I remembered trying to take them out because there were bugs biting my scalp. The last picture was at the beach, and I was screaming “Whee!” in a bathing suit. It was at an angle, and my rear end was jutting out, high and round.

Miguel was watching me, not the screen. “Do you see your ticket?”

It might have been my legs or hair, but models with great hair and legs were a dime a dozen, so that couldn't be it. I really hoped it wasn't…“My butt?”

“No.” He laughed.

“My hair?”

“No. Your ticket isn't physical.”

“What? How could it not be physical?”

“It's what shows up in the pictures,
niña,
and what shows up in the pictures is your attitude.”

“I have an attitude?”

“You do, a good one.
Mira
, look at this.” He clicked onto an extreme close-up of my face, known as a beauty shot. There was a burning look in my eyes. “See? A client looks at that and goes, ‘There's a lot going on in that pretty head.'”

“I don't see it. What are you saying? My ticket is my intelligence?”

“Well, I don't know how intelligent you are if you can't see your ticket.”

“Miguel, just say what it is already.”

He inhaled, exhaled, smoothed back his hair. “You're versatile and you have a range of looks, like a model should, but you're bringing more than just personality to the table. In every picture, you're a strong girl, someone smart, in charge of herself. There isn't one shot where a guy is dominating you or where you're just standing there, even when the client has another guy in the shot.”

“But I did do a couple of jobs with guys where it looks like that.”

“We didn't put them in your book. Those aren't your strongest shots, probably because you're not comfortable with the pretty plaything role. Your ticket,
mi amor
, is your approach that girls—
perdón—
women aren't just objects of beauty.”

“So my ticket is my point of view?”

“
Sí.
It's unique, especially around here. It's what makes you you, and it shows in your pictures. I don't know how, but it's there.”

That was extremely cool. In fact, that was the best ticket I could have hoped for, and by far, a better ticket than anyone else had. I smiled at Miguel, and it wasn't my casting smile, it was a real one. “Thank you. I wouldn't have figured that out on my own.”

“I know. You can't even figure out how to coordinate. Look at your shoes and purse. But if you want to thank me, I'll let you walk on my back.”