Not In My Wildest Dreams (Dream Series) (2 page)

She turned off the ignition, pulled something from the visor, and stepped out of her car. She stood and faced me, her tight top left little to the imagination.

“Do you like living here?” she asked.

Okay, these questions were getting a little weird, even for me. And I had a lot of weird ideas.

She started to walk up to me, and I got to take in the full effect of ‘Ms. ‘Vette’, and I didn’t give a shit anymore that she was asking strange questions. I tugged at my jeans to shift the growing beast that was tucked inside a little too tightly now. She had legs that went on for days under a super short skirt that could be left on for what was going through my mind. And those legs were only made hotter by the black stilettos on her feet.

She stopped a couple feet in front of me. She studied my face, then walked to the side of me. I followed her with my head as she chewed on her lower lip.

“Look forward, please,” she said.

“Uh, okay,” I scoffed. “Mind clueing me in on what you’re doin’?”

“I’m looking.”

I glanced to the side, and she
was
looking. Up and down. Felt weird to be standing on Davis Street, with a smokin’ hot babe checkin’ me out, but I couldn’t help being totally turned on by it either. I knew I was hot. But when an older chick thinks you’re hot, it’s a whole new ballgame.

“What are you? Six foot three? Six foot four?” She walked back in front of me and studied me again.

“Somethin’ like that,” I shrugged.

“Smile.”

“What?” I laughed. I was actually starting to get freaked out. She nodded, and a smile slid across her face.

“You might want to take a picture, it lasts longer.”

“That’s sort of what I’m hoping for.” She finished her appraisal of me and leaned against the wall next to me. Taking the cigarette from my hand, she took a drag. She handed it back to me and I almost came in my pants looking at the red lipstick she left on the butt.

“Eighteen?” she asked, letting out a slim stream of smoke.

“Almost nineteen.” I replied.

“You going to college in the fall?”

“Going to the community college just north of Boulder, if I can save enough money.”

She nodded pensively and handed me a small card. I took it, but didn’t look at it. She pulled her shades off and had me pinned with her shocking blue eyes. Extending her right hand toward me, she started, “Penny Paulson. I’m with Ford out of New York.”

I laughed a bit, weakly shaking her very soft, delicate hand. “Sorry, hon. Ford is in Detroit. And wouldn’t a Corvette break some sort of rules?”

She looked at me for a second, almost confused, then she started to laugh. “No. Good god, you are a country boy, aren’t you?”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”
Who is she calling a country boy?

“Ford
Modeling.
Out of
New York City
.” She looked at my face for things to register with me, which they didn’t. “As in, my company represents models. The people you see in ads.” I raised a brow, still not understanding what this had to do with me. “We’re going to turn the male modeling world upside down with a new direction. And you have the ‘look’.”

I was just taking a drag off my cigarette, which turned out to be a bad idea, because I started coughing on the smoke. When I’d regained most of my cool, I coughed. “Come again?”

“Look, it pays well. Granted it’s long hours, under hot lights. Clearly you’re a hard worker,” she said, checking out my phenomenal biceps. “Modeling isn’t easy work. You’ll earn every dollar. What’s your name?”

“Wait, you’re serious? You want me to pose all pretty in front of cameras? Wearing fancy clothes and shit.”

“I’m saying, if you can take the time off, I’d like to have you come to New York. We’ll get some test shots, see what the clients think.”

Shit! She’s serious.

“Well, you have my card. I’m on my way back to New York today. Call me. What’s your name?”

“Uh, okay. It’s Jack. Jack Stevens.”

She winked and started to strut back to her car. “Talk to you soon, Jack Stevens!” she hollered, slipping behind the wheel and turning over the engine. She turned up the radio, threw the car in reverse, and after making a three-point turn, got herself back onto Main Street.

I looked around me. Not in my wildest dreams could I wrap my head around what just went down. And, fuck me, there were no witnesses to what had just happened. It must have been a figment of my overactive, virile, teenaged imagination. Surely a hot chick, in a bitchin’ car, didn’t just stop and offer me a job in New York City—to have my picture taken. But looking down into my hands, I was still holding the cigarette butt with her red lipstick in one hand, and her business card in the other.

Penny Paulson

Ford Models, Inc.

(212) 555-FORD

The card looked legit. She looked legit.
Fuck!
This is crazy.

“Stevens! Break is over! Quit bein’ such a slacker and get back on the job. You’ve still got two aisles to straighten and the delivery truck will be here any minute,” Mr. Thompson shouted from the doorway.

I looked at the round, red-faced, balding man, and then back at the card in my hand.

“Mr. Thompson. I’ve wanted to say this for two years now.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me, daring me to say whatever it was I had on my mind.

Don’t ever dare a Stevens,
I thought. “Mr. Thompson. Sir. You know that song that’s playin’ on the radio by Johnny Paycheck? Well, it’s like he said: Take this job and shove it!”

I took one last drag of my cigarette and stomped it out. I untied the apron. I balled it up, threw it toward the door, and walked away.

“Stevens! You walk away now, you won’t get your pay for the week!” he shouted. “And don’t even think of groveling for this job back tomorrow,” he went on. “I’ll have a new kid in your place faster than you can say…”

I never heard how he finished the sentence. I didn’t care. I laughed all the way to my beat up F-100. I set my prized, red-lipsticked butt in the ashtray and popped Ms. Paulson’s business card into the visor.

I twisted the side view mirror to check out my reflection in the metal-framed square. I knew I was good looking. Shit. Even with a nickname like Jackass Jack I still had girls falling for me. I ran my hand through my thick, dark brown hair playing with the waves that drove the chicks crazy. I kept my hair longer, more for the ladies to run their fingers through and grab. I stared at my dark brown eyes. They were so dark that you couldn’t even see the pupil. The girls like to say my eyes were like chocolate. I admired my nose. My mother always said I had a noble nose, straight and narrow. I thought my face was long, but had good bone structure. I had a good chin and cheek-bones, I guess.

I ran my hand over my jaw. I didn’t need to shave. I still had a baby face without facial hair to speak of, a Stevens family trait. Not very masculine when half the guys I saw were sporting a full mustache, and many had beards to match. But it allowed my good skin to show. I was lucky to have avoided acne, making it through my teen years with only a zit or two, but nothing major.

I smiled, nodded, and jacked up the radio. Donna Summer was belting her hit
Hot Stuff. Yes. Yes I am,
I thought to myself and headed home.

Two hours later, I had pulled all of my money out of my bank account that I was saving for college, a rather impressive four-thousand two hundred and eighty dollars, and told my parents I was going to New York. I think they thought I was kidding. Like the time I was going to start my own car fixing business after I was successful at getting my F-100 up and running. Or the time I was going to be a fitness trainer. I dropped the ball on both of those things. Hell, they probably just didn’t care. Same for most of my brothers and sisters. Mike gave me a hundred dollars and told me it was for gas, not hookers. Laura, my closest sister, in both age and relationship, tried to stop me. She said that running away from my problems wasn’t the answer. Only thing was, I wasn’t running away from my problems. I was off to bigger and better things. Good money so I could go to college. Had to be better than stocking shelves for Mr. Thompson. This was fate.

T
wo and half days of driving and sleeping in my beat up truck, I finally reached New Jersey. I was almost there! I saw a billboard for a hotel comparing their rates to New York City room rates and did some quick math. I’d never been good in school, but $35.00 a night here, or $85.00 in the city, and I knew I didn’t have a choice. I’d already blown through a $118 on gas and food.

Knowing I probably smelled worse than a steer in the heat of a summer day, I stopped at the place advertised on the billboard, which was in Hoboken, New Jersey. I booked a “residence room” which meant there was a kitchen. Well, not a kitchen exactly. In the corner of the room was a tiny fridge, a sink, a few mismatched dishes in the cupboards, and a little counter, which had a small hot-plate. The fake wood walls were probably the nicest feature, but the leaky faucet was going to drive me nuts. I’d have to check with the front desk about getting that fixed. The room was disgusting compared to my room back home, but I needed a place to sleep.

After I took a shower, I smiled at my reflection and practiced what I thought would be good poses for a modeling company. I laughed at myself and put on my best jeans and T-shirt, locked up my new ‘home,’ and climbed into my truck to go find this Ford Modeling company.

Driving in New York City was insane. The place was so fucking huge! And crowded. And busy. I found the address after nearly crashing half a dozen times from checking the map and not seeing the yellow taxis who had probably gotten their licenses out of a box of Cracker Jacks.

The giant building, where the company was located, almost sent me packing. I was actually intimidated. And what was I doing here to be a model anyway? This was stupid. But I found myself in the elevator and going up before I knew it. Yeah, I was an impulsive one. Always had been.

The girl at the front desk had me drooling. She was hot. In fact, looking around the place, all the women were hot. Okay, so maybe this wasn’t so stupid after all.

“Can I help you?” she asked, snapping me out of my drooling stage. She was completely unaffected by
my
looks, which hurt a bit. Back home, my whole life, people were always checking me out.

“Uh, yeah.” I pulled Penny’s business card out of my back pocket and showed the girl, her large green eyes making my knees weak. “I’m here to see Penny Paulson.”

“Uh-huh. You and a dozen others,” she said, nodding at the bank of chairs behind me. I turned and looked. Sure enough there were about a dozen people sitting in seats. There were a number of drop dead gorgeous women, and about an equal number of guys, sitting there; everyone was dressed much better than I was. “Take a seat.”

I shoved the card back into my pocket and went to take a seat next to a blonde. Right away I pegged her as a bimbo as she sat there popping the fruity gum she was chewing. Her over-glossed lips turned up in a small, conceited smile as I sat down. I started checking out the other guys. Two guys had that goofy Marlboro Man mustache look. Okay, I was slightly jealous of those guys again. One guy, it seemed, thought he was John Travolta from
Saturday Night Fever
, decked out in a white disco suit. I looked at my jeans and rubbed my chin, feeling wildly out of place. Everyone had photos in their hands, many had fancy leather cases to showcase them. One guy was holding a leather binder and he was flipping through it. I saw that they were all pictures of himself that looked like they were already ads in magazines. I was nothing like these guys.

I was just about to get up and leave when the door behind the girl opened and Penny Paulson stepped out. Everyone looked at the door; two guys stood up.

She had a couple of words with the green-eyed girl that was guarding her door before she scanned the group. A huge smile burst onto her face when her eyes came to rest on me.

“Jack Stevens! I can’t believe you came!” she said, her eyes bugging out.

“Well, you said—” I said, glancing around nervously, noticing that everyone’s eyes were on me.

“Yeah, yeah. Please, come on in,” she said, waving me into her office.

The guy that was paging through his binder snapped his book closed and leaned back and muttered under his breath, “Fuckin’ A!”

The gum popper that I was seated next to said, “I knew you had the look the second you stepped through that door. Good luck.”

I stood and wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans and turned to the gum-snapper. “Thanks,” I said and walked over to where Penny was waiting, passing the two other guys who were still standing, and I noticed that I was taller than them.

“You should have called first, but I’m so happy you came,” Penny said, closing the door to her office.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was just—”

“No problem, no problem,” she said, sitting behind her large white desk. “Sit, sit.”

She motioned toward an orange chair, so I sat, and she was a flurry of activity and words. Shuffling papers, making calls to guys named ‘Pierre,’ and ‘Miguel.’ Then I signed some
provisional
something-or-other and the green-eyed girl was called into the office.