Box Girl (8 page)

“Well, I graduated in May and recently moved out here with some girlfriends.” I decided to forgo the business about the writing and the journalism degree. What good would that do anyway? “And I'm really ready to take on something new and exciting.” I tried to sit up as straight and skinny as possible on the saggy couch. She asked me a few more questions: where I was from, what part of LA we had moved to, that sort of thing. Then, after only a few minutes, she clasped her hands and said, “Okay, well, I think you're great!”

I was startled. That was it? That was all she needed? No Polaroids, no runway walk, no height, no weight, no measurements? With just a quick look, she was sold. Why had I underestimated myself?

“So,” she went on, “your primary responsibilities will be . . .”

Responsibilities? Hmm
, I thought.
I wonder what those are? Working out twice a day? Applying Crest Whitestrips? Brushing my hair a lot?

“. . . faxing, filing, answering phones, scanning.”

My confusion must have been palpable because she paused. “You do know how to scan, right?”

I tripped over the beginning of at least two sentences. She must have thought I was really scared of scanning. Finally, I stuttered, “No. No, I'm sorry, I actually
don't
know how to scan.” My shoulders slumped back to their normal elevation and I cupped my hands together on my lap. “But,” I said, wagging a convincing finger in the air, “I am a quick study!”

I think part of me was relieved. While the thought of being a model was flattering, I wasn't sure I had it in me. It seemed like an awful lot of work, staying so skinny. I accepted the job as an assistant at the agency. I would have taken any job at that point; I needed to pay my rent. Even though I was fairly certain I hated LA, I desperately wanted to make
the city work, if for no other reason than to prove it to my parents. My poor mom had flown to Boulder after graduation to help pack up my things, which we then boarded onto a U-Haul and drove across eight states to Connecticut. Before I left Boulder, I sold my car—because, I told them, I wouldn't need one in Manhattan. Then, three months later, I announced I was actually not moving to New York, but to California, and they'd have to pay to ship all my belongings
back
across the country. Oh yeah, and could they please buy me a car because I'd need one in LA. I had caused my parents enough anguish already. The least I could do was get a job so they would no longer have to pay my rent. Plus, this woman Francine was pregnant and from New Orleans. Her easy laugh was warm and welcoming and, in the middle of those freakishly unfamiliar surroundings, her southern accent felt like home.

The fact that working at a talent and modeling agency in Beverly Hills enlisted absolutely none of the skills I acquired while getting a writing degree was not lost on me. In addition to various administrative duties, one of my primary responsibilities was getting the models to go to their castings, which, I would learn, actually took some skill. It was like herding a pack of underfed, hungover, directionally retarded house cats. (The following year, Rachel got a job at a talent agency, and her boss eventually confessed that it wasn't her education or work experience that got her the position, but the fact that she used to be a camp counselor. “That's just what you need to talk to actors,” her boss said.)

From the mouths of models, I have now heard every excuse, explanation, and inane utterance imaginable. Or I should say, unimaginable. You just couldn't make this stuff up. The excuses ranged from the typical “My car won't start” or “I overslept” to the outrageous “I can't make it to the casting because I burnt my eyeballs in the tanning bed.” Were her eyes
open
in
the tanning bed? It was a real head scratcher. There were some I had to write down, like the following:

Me:
“I'm calling with a casting for you for 2:00 pm tomorrow.

Model:
“I can't go on any castings tomorrow.”

Me:
“Oh. Why not?”

Model:
“Because it's a holiday.”

Me:
“Wait, it is?”

Model:
“
Yeah
, Valentine's Day!”

Me:
“Well that's not like a real holiday.”

Model:
“What do you mean?”

Me:
“The banks aren't closed, the schools aren't . . . you know what, forget it. Enjoy your day!”

The models often stopped by the office to pick up checks or say hello. They'd roll in, looking effortlessly stunning without a stitch of makeup, sipping iced coffee and smelling of cigarettes. Sometimes, if they didn't have any castings to attend, they'd hang out all day, twirling around in office chairs, regaling us with stories of parties at celebrities' houses in the Hollywood Hills. Some would prattle on while we worked at our desks, trying to ignore them. One day, one of the models announced that she wanted to get a gap put in her teeth.

“Wait. Put
in
?” I asked, swiveling toward her in my desk chair. She was picking something out of her hair.

“Duh,” she explained. “Fucked-up teeth are so in right now.” (Granted, this was the same girl who once referred to parentheses as “those half-moon thingies.”)

Another time, an older client—she had graduated to catalog modeling—fell out of her chair mid-sentence.

“Oh my god, Valerie, are you okay?” I reached for her wrist, its circumference the size of a silver dollar.

“The funny thing,” she said as I pulled her back onto the
chair, “is this is the first time I've come into the office sober!” She laughed like a maniac.

“But Valerie, you always come into the office at, like, 11:00 am.”

“I know!” she howled. More maniacal laughter.

Successfully relaying audition information to the models was another challenge. This was back when phone calls were still the primary mode of communication and before most cell phones had email access. I'd have to dictate five-digit street addresses—“11317 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, CA 91604”—over the phone, frequently to someone who was, at that moment, driving, smoking, and petting a small dog in a purse on her passenger seat. Time and time again, while making one of these calls, a model would answer and stop me mid–zip code.

“Wait, will you call back and leave this on my voicemail?” she'd ask.

“Well, I would have left it on your voicemail in the first place if you hadn't picked up,” is what I wanted to say. But what I'd really say was, “Sure! No problem!” and then hang up, re-dial, re-recite.

This was also well before iPhones and cars with navigation. This was the era of the
Thomas Guide
, though none of these models owned one. Addresses were often so garbled by bad cell connections that they were totally lost in translation. One afternoon, a model called me in an absolute panic.

“Where the
hell
is this casting?” she demanded, in a whisper.

I repeated the addresses.

“That's where I
am
,” she breathily snapped back, “and there is a sign on the door that says
NO GUNS ALLOWED
.”

After some back-and-forth we realized that she thought I had said “Perry Avenue” instead of “Barry Avenue,” which landed her right in the middle of the hood. “Okay,” I instructed her, now also whispering. “Walk away from the house, get back in your car, and lock the door.”

Almost daily, the agency received presents, and most of them were edible. I always thought it was sort of cruel to send your agents cornucopias full of crap you'd never eat yourself. A cookie and muffin combo would arrive from a fancy LA bakery, with a card attached that read: “Thank you for booking me on the Revlon job!” This, from a girl who wouldn't be caught dead eating a muffin. In those first six months, I gained fifteen pounds. I know this because there was a scale in the agency's kitchen. The
kitchen
. It was for weighing the models, but of course we weighed ourselves too, the boxes of See's Chocolates mocking us as we slid the scale tab ever farther to the right.

Aside from babysitting in high school and briefly working as a hostess in college, this was my first job. I didn't yet know that you weren't supposed to eat everything in sight, all the time. Because, I would learn, there was always something to eat. Candy on desks, edible arrangements from clients, cupcakes for a coworker's birthday. The dress code at our office was casual, but for the first few weeks I tried to look cute. By month two, I rarely wore makeup and often showed up with my hair still wet. I made a point of looking like the assistant, not one of the gorgeous models falling out of twirling chairs.

I had accepted my station on the other side of the camera lens. The dream had died.
Lucky
hadn't even used me as a “real person,” and the idea of me being a “real model” hadn't crossed Francine's mind. I was simply a real “real person.” I could eat all the muffins I wanted.

Worse still, I was surrounded by models at all times, and not just in the office. Because I was the youngest employee, it was my job to accompany the girls to various fancy functions and red-carpet events. The promoters throwing the parties would call our agency and ask for “twelve girls” or “twenty girls” or “our top three” to help up the attractiveness of their events. While I felt lucky to get to attend, in my role as model wrangler/babysitter, I always felt more than a little awkward at these
soirees. I was never quite sure what to wear. I felt like a poser donning the same slinky cocktail dresses the real models wore, but jeans and a blazer made me feel frumpy. I was rarely allowed to bring friends to these events, and no guys ever talked to me because I was perpetually engulfed by a pack of perfect tens. I spent the majority of these nights pretending I had to go to the bathroom and looking for Leonardo DiCaprio. (I only found him once, wearing a black leather jacket and a baseball hat, already insulated by his own moat of models.)

I'll never forget one party at “P. Diddy's house.” (We later found out that was a rumor started by the event planner. I think they called him “P. Daddy” on the invite so they could get away with it.) At the party was the not-yet-infamous duo—we'll call them Blonde Beard and The Bro—and it took them no time to sniff out our pack of models. The Bro tried to brag to us about how they weren't on the list, and how they had to scale a wall to get into the party, and how he'd ripped his designer pants (I want to say it was an Armani suit). Meanwhile, Blonde Beard told us they were in the process of pitching a reality TV show about their own exploits in Southern California. (Those two have been trying to get famous for a very long time.) Blonde Beard started talking to me, but when I said I was the assistant at the agency that represented all these girls, he quickly lost interest and moved on to the real model to my right. After standing there like an asshole with no one to talk to, I sucked down the rest of my vodka-soda and pretended I had to go to the bathroom.

About a month later, I ran into Blonde Beard at a bar in Hollywood. That night, I wasn't with any models, just real “real people.” Again, he tried to strike up a conversation with me.

“We've met,” I said.

“Um,
pretty
sure we haven't,” he replied.

“Yeah, we met at that fake Puff Daddy party, and you proceeded to totally blow me off when you found out I wasn't a model.” I stabbed the lime at the bottom of my glass.

“No wayyyyyyy,” he said in his fake surfer drawl. He punched his buddy in the arm to get his attention, then cupped my chin in his hand, asking his friend, “Could I forget a face like this?”

I arched my eyebrows, unconvinced, and retracted my head from his grip. Yet again, I found myself pretending I had to go to the bathroom.

Later that night, Blonde Beard found me and asked for my number. I had no business giving it to him—one, I was dating someone, and two, I never found him remotely attractive. But he was a guy who allegedly only dated models, and he complimented my face.

He called me twice, and twice I didn't answer, guilt-ridden than I'd given him my number in the first place. His first message said, “Lilibet, it's me. Give me a call.” Or something like that. The second one said, in the lackadaisical So-Cal cadence that he would later become known for during his horrifying stint on a show that took place in the Hollywood Hills, “Lilibet, what the fuuuuuuuck, why aren't you returning my calls? It's so laaaaaaaaaaame. Why are you blowing me offffffff?” I was driving west on the 10 when he called. I waited for the last ring, listened to the voicemail, snapped my phone shut, and smiled. I never called him back; the messages were validation enough. If I had only known what a famous freak he would eventually become, I would have held onto those voicemails for dear life.

My other responsibility as a rookie assistant landed me in equally awkward situations. This involved me running the agency's Open Calls, a try-out of sorts for prospective models from three to four on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'd recite the rundown to hopefuls over the phone: “You must be five foot eight or taller and between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two.” And twice a week, girls five foot eight or taller would line the hallways, snapshots of themselves on their
laps. I'm not sure why we did this; the agency almost never signed anyone from this human slush pile. I always wanted to—it would have been fun to claim I discovered the next Giselle. But really, more than anything, I just hated saying no. Once, while working the front door of an art gallery party in downtown LA, I unclicked the rope for every single person who showed up, even if they weren't on the guest list.
Especially
if they weren't on the list. I mean, they had come all that way and were so dressed up . . . Unfortunately, the agency's velvet rope was harder to unclick. It is sad to say, but most of these girls had no business believing they were the next Giselle, or even the next girl in the JCPenney circular. I just couldn't bring myself to break that news, so instead I'd say, with the
hey-girlfriend
inflection of Tyra Banks, “You're a beautiful girl, Chastity, but you're just not right for this agency. I would definitely try your luck somewhere else, though.” And with that, they'd gather up their snapshots and head down the road to Elite.