Braless in Wonderland (7 page)

“No. I had a booking, actually.” Her eyes narrowed. “Were you?”

“What?”

“On a casting.”

“Oh, no. I don't even have a comp card yet.”

“So you've never modeled before?”

“Uh-uh.”

“You've never done anything?”

“No.”

She looked satisfied. She was obviously really experienced. “Do you always wear your BlackBerry clipped to you like that?”

“Why?”

She shrugged, blew a smoke ring. “It's just very Revenge of the Nerds, that's all.” I felt my mouth open a little, beyond my control. I didn't know how to respond to someone like this. “Sorry, I don't filter well. You'll have to get used to it, Allee.”

And then it occurred to me how to respond. “I didn't have any castings today, but Momma said she's going to send me to the L'Oréal casting coming up.” Now it was her jaw that dropped. I'd caught her off guard. It gave me a charge, made me feel stronger. “My comp should be ready by then. Momma says I'm perfect for it.” Ha! Maybe I was finally getting more assertive. “So I guess I might get some of the castings you don't. You'll have to get used to it, Brynn.” I ruled!

She raised an eyebrow. ‘How old are you?”

“Almost seventeen.”

For some insane reason, she was smiling. “You talk a pretty good talk for almost seventeen. I'm nineteen, in case you're wondering.” She put out her cigarette in the ashtray. “Just be careful. This market is pretty cutthroat, you know. It's competitive out there.” She yawned and gently pulled off one row of false eyelashes. “Take me, for instance. I'm not about to let some girl who looks like me walk in here out of Cape Hicksville or wherever the hell you're from, and take what's mine. Mine, as in, my castings, my clients, my bookings, you hear what I'm saying?” Now she was pulling off the false eyelashes from her other eye. “That's just not going to happen. Believe me. I'll do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn't happen.”

Omigod. Was that a death threat?

The front door opened, and a model I hadn't seen before came in. “Hey, y'all,” she said, smiling. “You must be Allee.” She was in a bikini and a mesh cover-up that covered nothing. Her body was a perfect ten, athletic and curvy at the same time, like a
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit model. Maybe she
was
a
Sports Illustrated
model.

“Hey, Summer,” Brynn said. Summer. That's exactly what she looked like. She had yellow hair, thick, with white-blond highlights, wide-set blue eyes, full lips, and a sprinkling of pale freckles. Like with Irina and Vlada, it was hard not to stare, but there was more than beauty to this girl. I couldn't say why, but it was like some mysterious force was pulling my eyes to her, as if she was plugged into a secret light source the rest of us didn't have.

The phone rang. Brynn answered it, “Hi, Ma,” like she was expecting the call. She went into Irina and Vlada's old room, shutting the door behind her. Wow. It was weird to think of Brynn having a mother. Her mom probably wore leather jackets and carried a switchblade.

“'Scuse the way I'm dressed,” Summer said. “I just came from a casting.”

“For bathing suits?” I asked.

“Nope, for a Ludacris video.”

We were quiet for a few seconds, listening to the muffled sounds of Brynn talking on the phone in the next room, followed by her shouting, “Ma, what the hell's the matter with you? You can't eat ice cream every night. You got high cholesterol.”

“Miguel says you're from Florida,” Summer said. She pronounced Miguel
Mee-gayal
. “Zat right?”

“Yeah. I've never been away from home before,” I found myself telling her. I was totally mesmerized by her smile, her warmth, her everything.

“Me either. I'm a Georgia girl myself. It's hard at first, but you'll get used to it. How old are you?”

“Sixteen. I'll be seventeen next month.”

“I'm eighteen.”

“Ma, I don't want to hear it!” Brynn belted out from behind the door. “Shut your pie hole and get on a treadmill already, or stop complaining you're fat.”

“Well, I know how scary it is to be away from home for the first time,” Summer said. “I'll show you the ropes.”

“Thanks.”

“Where's your stuff? I'll help you unpack. I got some drawer space you can use. It ain't much, but…”

“Thanks,” I said again.

She had the energy Monique was talking about. She was bubbly and sweet and cheerful and all the things I wasn't. If we were back in Comet I'd have hated her on sight, or at the very least, lumped her in with Hillary High Beams and her crew, or been intimidated by her. I'd definitely keep my distance.

But Summer's smile looked real. “If there's anything you need, any questions, jest give me a holler, 'kay? When I came here I didn't know nothin'.”

I wanted to hate her, but I couldn't. She was just nice. It was that simple. Okay, so maybe I wouldn't be having intellectual discussions with her, like on the use of double negatives, for example, but I could live with this girl. She was a relief after Brynn. At least she was kind, and kindness was always a good thing to have around.

From the other room, I heard, “Ma, you shoulda seen that new girl just now when I told her she better watch it. She almost crapped her pants!”

Especially when you thought you were going to need it.

We were on a five-minute break, and thank God for the blanket. Underneath it, all I had on was a wet, flowered bikini and tiny cover-up shorts. It turned out the beach was freezing at seven a.m. Well, freezing by Miami-in-January standards. It was about fifty-five degrees. “Can't have a comp card without a bathing suit shot,” Momma said when I asked why I had to pose in a bikini for my first test shoot. Not that I had anything to hide. I'd been a runner since middle school, so my butt and legs were pretty tight. But just on principle, why did my very first set of pictures have to be all about T and A?

Momma also told me I'd love the photographer. She was right. Sean was thirtysomething, bearded, and overtanned, and I liked the quiet way he was giving me directions. He was also probably the first straight man I'd met in the three days I'd been here. The handful of men in the booking room were all gay, but it was a wide range of gay, from totally obvious to not at all obvious. Miguel registered a ten on the gay-o-meter, and gorgeous Dimitri a one or zero. Dimitri seemed so straight, the way he talked to me and how he kissed me hello, but Miguel assured me he was “gayer than Christmas.” Anyway, I knew Sean was straight because a) he kept grabbing the stylist's butt, which was okay because I was pretty sure she was his girlfriend, and b) I saw a
Stuff
magazine in his van, and c) he was listening to Black Sabbath, which I highly doubt was a musical fave among the gay crowd here.

Momma told me this was a very major test with a full crew, that most new faces had a more simple test with just a photographer and an assistant, and some even skipped a test altogether and went to castings with just a Polaroid. She said the agency had a lot of faith in me and wanted to send me out with the best card possible. It was getting me nervous. I mean, they seemed to think I was going to be some great model. What if that didn't happen?

Yesterday we went to three different locations before the rain cut our shooting schedule short. The first was of me sitting on a vinyl-cushioned stool in front of an outdoor window at Cafeteria Café Cubano, sipping a teensy cup of Cuban coffee. Lily, the stylist, put me in a real cuchifrito outfit: red flared minidress, gold heels, flower in my hair, hoop earrings, plastic bangles. Talk about a
hispana mamá
stereotype. The shoot was going great until I felt those damned bugs in the flower. My scalp was all bumpy where they stung me.

For the second shot, I had to walk in front of a parked school bus and pretend I was talking on a cell phone. Every few steps I looked up and said “cheeesebuuurger” real slow into the phone, then walked back and did it again, over and over. This time Lily let me wear my own clothes: favorite Levi's, green polo shirt, Yale backpack. I guessed this look was supposed to be Anglo Allee as opposed to Latina Allee.

The last location was the pink sidewalk right in front of my apartment. I had to ride a bicycle barefoot in a skirt and tank top while smiling and holding up a soda with one hand. Excuse me. Who would do this in real life? The biggest challenge was not crashing the bike into any of the cars that are always parked bumper to bumper along the curb, and also not letting the wind blow my skirt up too much because by accident I put my thong on sideways yesterday, so the shoot could have easily gotten embarrassing if I wasn't careful.

The whole thing got easier when Sean let me sit on the bike and blow giant bubble-gum bubbles. I was actually getting into it until Brynn opened the window and hung her head out, watching. Just my luck, she was home. It threw me off and I couldn't blow any more big ones after that, especially because she was shouting things like “Come on, Allee, you can do better. Sean, tell her she blows.” For a pro, Brynn seemed pretty unprofessional.

Today she was nowhere in sight, so I was feeling pretty good. “The light at this hour is amazing,” Sean said, adjusting his ponytail and fiddling with his camera. “I've shot all over the world, but I tell ya, the color of the light in Miami is the most beautiful.”

“One more round, boss?” asked Sean's assistant. He was Jamaican, and his dreadlocks were tucked under one of those striped knit hats that look like a Jiffy Pop microwave-popcorn bag.

“Yeah,” Sean answered, still fiddling with his camera. “Check the exposure again, will you? And hold the reflector facing the water this time. Allee, go stand over there.” I took off the blanket and stood in front of the round silver disk that Jiffy Pop was holding up. He held a light meter to my face as Juan, the hair and makeup guy, touched me up with some powder, lip gloss, and blush. Earlier, Juan had done my hair in two Dorothy braids, and Lily had put a canvas hat on me in the same flowered fabric as the bikini top. Okay, so this bathing suit was more cutie-pie than T and A.

Sean squatted down a few yards away from me, pointing the camera upward. “Okay, Allee, take a few steps into the water, get your feet wet. Now act excited. Kick up some water—that's it. Don't look at the camera. These are lifestyle shots, they're supposed to look candid.”

There was a stray hair in my mouth. I blew it out and attempted to keep my smile going. Oh, wait. I forgot to kick the water. What did I do with my arms?

“Come on, a bit more energy. Get excited, pretty girl.” I was trying, but my movements were awkward and jerky. Sean wasn't clicking away like he did yesterday. I must have looked as stupid as I felt. “You're giving me too much chin. Keep your chin down.” He stood up. “This isn't working,” he said quietly.

A few yards off, two pudgy old ladies were sitting in aluminum chairs, watching. Their sun-damaged skin was the color and texture of beef jerky. I just knew they were laughing at me. I bet everyone in that yoga class way down the beach was thinking it was too bad I didn't have any natural grace like they did. I wanted to cry. How could I fail at something as simple as taking a stupid picture?

Sean and Lily were whispering. Juan came over to me. “Close your eyes,” he said, brushing eye shadow on my lids. “You're too stiff. You need to get loose.”

“I know. But I don't know how.”

“It's easy. Just be a beautiful girl.”

“What do you mean?”

“Until you believe you're beautiful, you're not going to be comfortable with your body. Believe you're beautiful. Open your eyes. Look up.” He smeared something under each eye. “So imagine yourself as the girl with the perfect face, the perfect body, a perfect ten. Really see it in your mind.” He held up my chin and looked at my face, tapped the top of my head. “It's all up here. Tell yourself you're beautiful, say it in your mind while he's shooting, okay?” I nodded back at him. “Be that girl in your head.”

“Okay, let's try something different,” said Sean. “Allee, you're getting wet.”

Of course I was getting wet. I was standing in the water, you—Hey, why was Lily holding a big plastic pail? Oh no. No. No. She was
not
throwing a bucket of water at me, she was not—

She was. I screamed, jumping out of the way to block the spray. My rear end got soaked anyway, and I heard laughter and orders to jump again. So I did, just as another pail of cold water blasted my legs. I laughed along with the others to show I was Playful, Amusing Allee now, but this was so not even remotely funny or amusing. It totally sucked to be doused in freezing water. But I forced out a laugh, because that's what they wanted.

“Twirl,” Sean said. “Now throw your hat up. Great.” Great? This was not great.
Whoosh.
Another wave of water, this time courtesy of the ocean. I screamed.

“Scream ‘whee,'” said Sean.

“Wh-what?” I asked. My teeth were chattering.

“Scream again, but scream the word ‘whee.'” What was he talking about? “Can you do that?”

“Sure. No problem.”

“On three. Lily, get ready with the water. Allee, scream ‘whee' when the water hits you. One, two…”
Wham
. Lily didn't wait for three.

“Wh-whee.”

“Louder!” Sean shouted.

“Whee!”

“Louder!”

“WHEEEEEEE!!!” I shrieked with insanity, throwing my arms up and kicking the crap out of the water.

“Got my shot,” said Sean, giving me a thumbs-up. I knew where he could put that thumb. I wasn't loving him so much anymore.

But wait. I wasn't stiff. My arms and legs felt connected to my body. My blue lips were smiling for real now. And Sean was clicking like crazy. I arched my back and twirled around in the surf. I was being that girl, like Juan said.
You're beautiful, Allee Rosen. You're a perfect ten. And you can do this.

But it couldn't be that simple. Just to tell yourself you were beautiful and
poof
, you were.

Could it?