Just Wanna Testify (7 page)

Aretha was moving through and around the crowd, snapping pictures and murmuring encouragement. The models didn’t need it. Their languid posing seemed to have a life of its own. When she stopped to change cameras, they stood where they were without changing expression.

The blanker the better
, Regina thought.
And whose idea of beauty was that?

“Do you follow high fashion?” Serena’s voice at her elbow seemed to answer the question Regina had just asked herself. It was a phenomenon she was used to since her husband and her aunt were both inveterate mind readers, although she had made them promise not to do it without her permission. She had no such agreement with Serena.

“Not so much,” Regina said.

“Then how do you come to be representing a fashion photographer?” Serena’s head moved very slightly in Aretha’s direction like a weather vane on a day without much wind.

“She needed some advice and I was in a position to give it to her. Our arrangement is still fairly informal.”

“I see,” Serena said. “So should I be talking to you about what we hope is a very exciting opportunity, or should I wait and talk to Aretha directly?”

Regina looked at Serena’s smoothly unreadable face and was glad their first negotiation had been on the phone. Trying to read her emotions like Regina could with most people would only be distracting and, ultimately, useless. Serena’s expression never changed. If Aretha was going to do business with these women, she still needed all the help she could get.

“You can talk to me.”

“Good.”

Regina and Serena watched Aretha across the street, checking the lighting for the next shot. The models watched her, too, offering no opinions, while the ever-busy stylists stood on tiptoe to touch up the blush on a sharp cheekbone or gently dab a bit of color on a pair of pouty lips, outlined in crimson.

“She’s a natural,” Serena said in her breathy half whisper.

Regina nodded without turning toward her. It was easier to talk to Serena when she couldn’t see her. “Yes, she is.”

“I hope you weren’t offended by Scylla’s abruptness,” Serena said, not turning around either. “She’s responsible for the other girls on the road and sometimes, they can be a real handful.”

“Not at all,” Regina said. “She was right. What I gave wasn’t much of an answer to a very real question. I’m glad it gave us a chance to clarify things.”

“I’m glad, too,” Serena said, nodding slowly.

She’s as blank as her sisters or cousins or whatever they are
, Regina thought.
These girls take having a poker face to a whole other level
.

Aretha had isolated two of the models for some close-ups and while she worked, two of the others stood waiting nearby, looking bored and ignoring the boys still hovering at a respectful distance. But off to one side, Regina saw Scylla engaged in an unexpectedly
lively-looking conversation with a smaller group of five or six students wearing dark suits, white shirts, and maroon ties. They were looking up at her and although Regina was too far away to see their expressions, their body language was that of supplicants rather than would-be suitors.

“We’re hoping to talk Aretha into taking over the shoot for our new portfolio,” Serena said, gazing down at Regina. “She’s got something fresh and original that’s exactly what we’re looking for.”

No way was Regina going to admit right off that she had no experience with the intricacies of arranging to shoot portfolios for high-end fashion models, so she just nodded. “That sounds like a great opportunity.”

“It’s a
fabulous
opportunity,” Serena said. “There are photographers all over the world who would kill for this chance.”

Unfortunately
, Regina thought,
Aretha is not one of them
. She could only imagine how hard she’d have to lobby to even get her to consider another assignment with these strange creatures, but that was part of an agent’s job, wasn’t it? Making sure the artist took advantage of the good things that came her way? Reminding her that the important thing was to create a body of interesting work, not to stand or fall on any one thing?

“How big a job is that usually?” Regina said.

“The biggest.” Serena raised her eyebrows slightly in an approximation of surprise. “Models spend their lives fitting into someone else’s fantasies. Sometimes we find those fantasies interesting and sometimes they are beyond banal. The portfolio is the only place where we get to work with somebody whose vision
we
decide we want to bring to life.”

Regina had a sudden thought that perhaps the way they looked today was just the uniform required for the work they did, like a firefighter, or a lab technician, or a ballet dancer. Maybe when they weren’t working, they put their hair in a sloppy ponytail, grabbed an old pair of jeans, some ballet flats, and headed for the mall. It was an interesting notion, but they would still be ten feet tall and skinny
as a rail, so how much passing for regular could they do, even if they wanted to?

“Scylla and I look at everybody’s work and we wait for that moment when we are touched by the soul of the artist, by the life force behind the vision. When we saw Aretha’s stripper series in New York, we knew she was the one to do the new pictures. The way she humanized those women really resonated with us.”

Several years ago, Aretha had taken a series of portraits of some of the dancers at Montre’s, a notorious strip club that used to sit across the street from the West End Mall. She took two shots of each woman. The first one, naked or in costume. The second one, in whatever clothes made the woman feel most like herself. She hung the portraits side by side for the exhibition and the contrast between the women they projected for the paying customers and the women they really were was startling. Just looking at them did more to break through the wall between the dancers and the other women in West End than any abstract discussion about the nature of the sex industry and the need for bonding across lines of race and class. The show was a hit and scored a New York gallery showing for Aretha, which is where Serena discovered her. It also launched the careers of several of the featured dancers who suddenly found they could negotiate a better deal for themselves than Montre’s five-dollar lap dances.

“I’m sure she’d be interested in exploring the possibilities,” Regina said, wishing she knew more specifically what an agent was supposed to do at a moment like this.

“We’ll pay top dollar,” Serena said, watching Aretha crouching on a low wall to get the angle she needed. The model who had been so furious about her hair was moving through a series of poses so slowly that it looked as if she were underwater.

Regina had no idea what top dollar might be, but she didn’t think Joyce Ann and Sweetie’s classes needed to worry about having enough computers for quite a while.
Maybe through high school
.

“We need to get it done fast because we’ve got a shoot for French
Vogue
coming up, and if I show them the same old pictures, they’ll offer me the same old money,” Serena said, “and that will never do.”

“I understand,” Regina said, wishing the woman would crack a smile, even a little one, now and again. “I’ll be happy to talk to Aretha and gauge her interest, then maybe the two of you can …”

Before she could finish the sentence, Regina heard raised female voices and turned to see what was going on. Four of the models were huddled in a nervous knot in the middle of the street, gazing in the direction of the towering King sculpture the way people do when they glance across a field and see a funnel cloud headed in their direction.

Scylla was standing in front of Aretha, her Jimmy Choos practically toe-to-toe with Aretha’s Dr. Martens, which were not backing up one inch. Without consulting each other, Regina and Serena moved immediately in the direction of the confrontation. The still smiling sergeant was standing nearby, but making no move to get any closer.

“It’s in the contract,” Scylla was saying in a loud, indignant voice. “How can you not know that?”

Aretha managed to look the woman in the eye even though she was a good six inches shorter, if you counted that hair. “Choosing locations is my responsibility, not yours. The statue is the reason we’re here at this location in the first place.”

Behind Scylla, the other models rippled a little, as if the very idea made them feel skittish. It was almost as if they hadn’t noticed that they had been moving around in Doctor King’s shadow all morning.

“All right,” Aretha said briskly, pointedly turning away from Scylla and back toward the others, her eye quickly finding the two she was looking for. “I need you two over there near the base. One on each side. Get close, but don’t touch it yet.”

Their increasingly obvious discomfort manifested in a collective step in the opposite direction. They weren’t even looking at the statue anymore, and merely being in its presence seemed more than they could handle. The two stylists hovered nearby but didn’t get
too close, as if the group might bolt at any minute, endangering any who got in its way.

What the hell is going on?
Regina thought, turning to Serena, but Serena was watching Scylla, who was clearly not used to being challenged, much less so casually defied.

“It’s against our religion,” she snapped. “Look it up!”

Aretha stopped on a dime and spun around. She was losing patience and once that happened, there was always the chance that she would pack up her cameras and walk. Promises of portfolios notwithstanding. “What do you mean? That’s Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, not Jesus Christ!
How can you not know that?
”

“We’re not allowed to worship
any
graven images and that”—Scylla waved her long fingers in the direction of the statue without looking directly at it—“is definitely a graven image.”

“I’m not asking you to worship it,” Aretha said. “I’m asking you to pose.”

Regina took a step closer in order to join the conversation before things got completely out of hand. She had read the contract many times and knew there was no mention at all of any religious prohibitions on anything.

“There’s nothing like that in there,” she said to Scylla, wondering if she should be talking to Serena instead. “I have a copy with me if you want to take a look, but I can assure you—”

“Our religion is very important to us, Ms. Hargrove,” Serena interrupted her smoothly, still looking at Scylla. “We don’t like to talk about it much because some in the fashion world don’t respect real devotion that actually circumscribes the movement of your life. They’re afraid it will get in the way of the client’s wishes.”

“The client had nothing to do with picking this location,” Aretha said. “It was my choice alone.”

“Then it is to you that I should appeal,” Serena said, still silky smooth and conciliatory, “for your understanding and for your tolerance. We lost so many traditions in the hurricane. Perhaps we do cling a little too hard to the few that still remain, but they’re all we
have left. Can you find it in your heart to indulge our dwindling little band of survivors?”

She’s good
, Regina thought.
No way Aretha could resist such an appeal
.

Aretha sighed, a small frown signaling her resignation to surrender. “Of course I respect your religious beliefs. I just wish someone had told me before I built a whole idea around Doctor King.”

Above their heads, the sculpture loomed majestic and oblivious.

“Of course, I accept full responsibility for the confusion, and for asking you to change horses in midstream,” Serena said. “But I think the question now is, how can we make this work?”

“We can use what we’ve got already with these random kids,” Scylla said immediately as if Aretha was no longer in charge or even particularly relevant. “Then we can take these five over here and do some stuff inside.” She pointed to the guys Regina had seen talking to Scylla earlier, and they shrank back as if hanging around with a bunch of supermodels was the last thing on their minds.

Aretha looked at Scylla for about ten seconds and then turned to Serena. “Let me explain something to you,” she said, her voice calm but steely. “If you want to shoot this yourself, or find another photographer to shoot it, you can pay me for my time and be my guest. But if you want me to take these pictures, then I am in charge of the creative vision. This is not a collaboration.”

Scylla curled her lip in an arrogant sneer, although Aretha never turned back in her direction to see it. “Is that right?”

Aretha’s eyes remained fixed on Serena. “That’s right.”

Her words hung heavily in the air in the sudden silence. Over Aretha’s shoulder, Serena made eye contact with Scylla and it was clear who was really in charge. Serena’s nod was so slight as to be almost imperceptible, but it produced an immediate response.

“All right,” Scylla said, sounding annoyed. “I was out of line, okay? As a creative person, I sometimes get a little carried away, but I understand the need for boundaries.”

“That’s what first days are for,” Aretha said, all business again. “Finding boundaries.”

She looked up at the statue one more time, talking almost to herself. “
So
, no posing anywhere near Doctor King. I got it, but I’m going to need to do some rethinking.”

Serena was standing next to her, seemingly waiting for instructions. The power was back in the right hands.

“Why don’t we do this?” Aretha said. “Since we’ve already stopped, let’s take a break, then the girls can change for the next setup.”

The four other models who had been listening quietly, standing so close together they appeared joined at the same bony hip, relaxed and headed back toward the building without so much as a backward glance at the remaining boys, who watched until they disappeared inside, sighed, and then focused any remaining longing on Serena and Scylla, who couldn’t have cared less.

Scylla looked at Aretha like she had a few things still on her mind, but thought better of it and headed inside, too.

“Maybe you’re right after all,” Scylla said to Serena over her shoulder. “She’s tougher than she looks.”