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Did you hear that? They’ve “taken the liberty” to change my course schedule. Doesn’t that violate my privacy? Has the registrar at Columbia never heard of the First Amendment? Who does Leslie Chesterfield actually think she is?

Maybe the Chesterfield Agency is not really a modeling agency at all. I mean, think about it. The acronym
CIA
stands for “Central Intelligence Agency.” The full name of Leslie’s company is the Chesterfield International Modeling Agency. The
CIMA
. CIA. CIMA.

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

11

Busy Bee

No
lie. The new schedule that Leslie had me on kicked my butt. Don’t even get me started on my trainer, Jenisa. She is like five feet, two inches of pure muscle, and even at six in the morning, she is wide awake and cheerful. I don’t know what made me more nauseous, having to do thirty pop-ups in a row (dropping into push-up position, then jumping straight up into standing) or the fact that Jenisa always wanted to have philosophical discussions about the meaning of life before the crack of dawn.

Tuesdays and Thursdays were jam-packed with classes, then on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I had to take my portfolio around to potential clients on “go-sees” all day. Then after a whole day of hearing, “Too tall/too short/too thin to be a plus/too big to be a plus,” I had to rush back to school for my six p.m. History of Western Music. Sometimes, in the middle of the professor playing a baroque chamber orchestra, I took a little nap. Luckily, it was a big class and I don’t snore. Well, if I do, nobody’s ever told me.

It kinda sucked not being able to tutor Kevin anymore. We met at Starbucks for our last session, but instead of being Minnie the Moocher, I actually treated for the caramel macchiato and a double chocolate chip frappuccino for him.

“So Kevin, I can’t tutor you anymore,” I told him, setting the beverages down on the little table between us.

“What’s the dealeeyo?” he asked. “I got a B on my last exam. With your help, I’m tearing up this math thing.”

I could see that a B meant a lot to him. Considering the D he’d been at when we started, I had to agree.

“It’s just that I’ve got this other job,” I said.

I don’t know why I didn’t just come out and tell him. I guess it was because I knew that I was already twenty pounds more than when I met him. I didn’t want him to burst out laughing when I said that I was a model. But he kept pressing.

“What kind of job?” he said. “You’ve got other students you like better than me?”

Honestly, besides Chela and of course Brian, there’s no one I really hung out with other than Kevin. So I decided to fess up.

“I’m doing some modeling,” I said.

“That’s kinda fresh,” he said, flashing me one of his butter-melting grins. “I always thought you were a dime piece.”

“A dime piece?” I asked. Being from Philly, I knew a lot of hip-hop lingo, but Kevin was always one step ahead of me.

“You know, a perfect ten,” he said. “A dime piece.”

My whole face went red. Kevin was just trying to make me feel better. Was it national “be nice to a chubby girl” day? I knew Kevin was bad at math, but I didn’t know just how bad until that moment. I was a ten plus four: a perfect size fourteen, maybe.

“Whatever,” I said. “You know, it’s not real modeling; it’s plus-size modeling.”

Kevin put down his drink and looked really bothered. “Bee, I’ve been in show business for a little bit longer than you, so let me tell you now,” he said. “There’s a lot of people in this industry that’s going to try to pull you down just because they think you’re trying to steal their shine. You’re never going to succeed unless you believe you deserve everything you’ve got.”

“Okay,” I said, opening his textbook and trying to change the subject. “Now, let’s talk about polynomials.”

But he closed the textbook and said, “I’ll get another tutor. Let’s just talk. You’re coming to my album release party on Thursday night, right?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” I said uncertainly.

“And if you can’t come, then call me,” he said. “This is a VIP pass, so you’ll go straight to the front of the line.”

“Really?” I said, which is what I always say when I can’t quite believe something and which my mother calls the painful elaboration of the obvious.

I looked at the invite. The party was at Bungalow 8. Chela and I tried to get into that club once, and we stood outside for two hours before we gave up. And believe me, that’s saying something. Chela has never met a bouncer she couldn’t charm.

“Bungalow 8. So many people will be there you won’t even notice,” I said, slipping the invite into my fake Louis Vuitton.

“I’d notice,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” I asked coyly.

“I notice
everything
,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

Then he left. And I sat there in Starbucks for a long time, staring into my four-dollar beverage. What did Kevin mean when he said he noticed
everything
? Maybe he meant it when he said I was a dime piece. Did he really care if I came to his launch party? And if he didn’t care, why did he give me a VIP pass? This may seem like the painful elaboration of the obvious, but I’m just going to go ahead and say it: boys are confusing. After a while, I realized it didn’t matter what Kevin wanted. I wanted Brian, and that was all the confusing boy drama I could handle.

By the time I got home, I’d talked myself out of going to the party. One, I was in love with Brian, and as soon as he learned that I was a model, he was going to figure out what a dime piece I really was. Two, Kevin was a rapper and was probably going to end up dating some kind of video hoochie.

On Wednesday, I got booked for a Thursday shoot. Which meant I’d have to miss Kevin’s party anyway. Which was partly a relief and partly sucked because it was probably my one and only chance to get into Bungalow 8. I gave my VIP pass to Chela under the express condition that she find Kevin and explain to him that I had to work. She promised. That is, she promised after she jumped up and down and screamed, “Get out! VIP passes to Bungalow 8? Get out!” about a dozen times.

My shoot on Thursday was for
Lad
, a British men’s magazine. The concept for the shoot was that I was supposed to be some sort of sexy farmhand. The location was a real farm in upstate New York. They sent a car service to pick me up, but still it was a haul. It was a two-hour drive up there and a two-hour drive back. The photographer wanted to shoot at the magic hour, right before sunset, which means I wasn’t going to get back until really late.

My call time was two p.m., and when I showed up, there wasn’t a single person I knew. The photographer, Laurence Goodman, was a big bruiser of a guy who looked more like a football player than a fashion photographer. He was also a mind reader because five seconds after shaking my hand, he pointed to his knee and said, “Bum knee. Ruined my chances at pro ball. My best friend plays for the Giants, but I get to hang out with a lot of pretty girls.”

Then he introduced me to the whole crew: Rosie, the stylist, Teresa, the makeup artist, and Sonia, who did hair.

I almost fell over when I saw the wardrobe: super-tight Daisy Duke shorts, brightly colored gingham blouses, and super-high Candie’s wedges.

“I don’t know if I can fit into that stuff,” I said nervously. Leslie had me meeting with a nutritionist once a week and I was on this Zone meal delivery service. But Chela and I had gone out for burgers and fries the weekend before, and I was already feeling a good two pounds heavier.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rosie said. “I pulled a bunch of sizes, and you are going to look super-cute.” She gave me a sympathetic smile. Cute, maybe. But I’d be freezing. It was already late November, and we were shooting a feature for the June issue.

Laurence and his assistants had prepared three setups: one with me milking a cow, one of me grooming a horse, and the third of me wearing galoshes and throwing handfuls of corn at a pen of pigs.

Did I mention that I grew up in Philadelphia? That in my world, milk came from cows, horses were for driving carriages around Central Park, and don’t get me started on pigs. Ever since I read
Charlotte’s Web
in third grade, I tried really, really hard not to think about where bacon came from.

I went into hair and makeup, and I have to admit they did an amazing job. Sonia sewed all these hair extensions into my own hair, giving me these long ringlet curls like a Botticelli goddess.

I was admiring myself in the mirror, something that I do like never, when it occurred to me that maybe I could make Kevin’s album release party. I’d call him as soon as the shoot wrapped and see if he could leave me an extra ticket at the door. After all, it would be a shame not to go out when I had this all this fake, fabulous hair and diva makeup on.

Laurence led me over to the cow, which was WAY bigger up close than it had looked from the other side of the barn, where they’d set up hair, makeup, and wardrobe.

“Okay, Bee, the first thing we want you to do is milk this cow,” Laurence said.

“You mean, pretend to milk the cow,” I said. I put my hand on the udder, and it was not a nice feeling. I shivered. I knew my day rate was seven a day, which was ridiculously high. But today I was really, really earning it.

Laurence seemed to feel my pain. “Do whatever makes you comfortable,” he said.

I pretended to milk the cow and tried to remember all the things that Leslie had told me. Connect to the camera with my eyes. Smile, but not so wide that you could see halfway down my throat. I threw my weave around and even wiggled my hips in my Daisy Dukes. It was fun. It felt like I was finally a real model.

Laurence seemed really happy too. He kept jumping all around, catching me from different angles. “That’s great, Bee,” he said. “More like that. Not too sexy; we’re going for all-American-girl sweetness here.”

All of a sudden, I felt like someone had thrown scalding hot water onto my leg. I screamed and slumped onto the floor of the barn. “Ow, ow, ow.”

Everyone came rushing over, and Laurence, who’d apparently grown up on a farm in Wisconsin, was fighting to hold back a grin.

“It burns,” I said, holding on to my leg and rolling around on the floor. “It really, really burns.”

“Cow pee usually does,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “You’ll be okay. Let’s take a break, get you a shower, and have some dinner.”

A cow, an honest-to-goodness cow, used me as her own private urinal. So much for the glamorous life of a fashion model.

By the time I’d showered, had dinner with the crew, and got back into hair, makeup, and wardrobe, it was another two hours. If everything went well, I could be in the car by nine p.m., at Kevin’s party by eleven p.m. A little late, seeing as I had an early morning go-see, but I could at least go in for a hot minute to say hello and congrats.

In the next setup, I was grooming a horse. I wore another pair of Daisy Dukes, a white T-shirt, a suede vest, and a pair of cowboy boots.

It was all good. I don’t know a lot about horses, but this one was a beauty: a gorgeous chestnut brown Appaloosa with patches of white on its haunches.

Then the horse started to poop. I tried not to complain, but the odor got stronger and stronger.

“Oh my God, this horse smells,” I said as quietly and professionally as I could.

“I know, darling,” Laurence said. “But the manure is not in the photograph, and we’ll lose the light if we take the time to muck the stable out.”

I tried to give good strong model faces, to contour my body in interesting shapes against the strong profile of the horse. But after about twenty minutes, I just gave up.

“I can’t take the smell,” I said. I felt like I was going to pass out.

“Sure, you can,” Laurence said. “You’re a pro. Give me some great shots and we’ll move on to the next setup.”

I took the brush from Laurence’s assistant, then lovingly brushed the horse as if his poop didn’t smell to the high heavens. Finally Laurence called, “Okay, next setup.”

I was so excited that I threw the brush down and it hit the horse’s foot. The Appaloosa started to kick up manure, and before I knew it, my bare legs were covered with the stuff.

“No, no, no,” I said, staggering away. “This can’t be happening to me.”

Laurence called out to Rosie, the stylist, “Another shower for Miss Bee, and make it snappy because I’d like a nice twilight for the final shot.” I showered and got dressed again, and the hair and makeup people dolled me up with a new look. Laurence led me over to the pigpen and gave me a feed bag full of corn. I was wearing a 1950s-style housedress and pumps, and my hair had been teased into a giant bouffant.

“This one’s easy,” Laurence said. “You’ll stand on this side of the fence, and all you have to do is toss corn at the pigs. Toss it far and they won’t be anywhere near you.”

“Got it,” I said. “Then we’re out of here, right?”

“You’ll be off faster than a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat,” Laurence said, flashing me a huge smile.

It had been a crappy day, literally and figuratively, and Laurence had kept the mood on the set light.

“Okay, Bee,” he said. “I’m coming in for a close-up.”

“No problem,” I said, smiling sweetly.

“I’d like to get a little closer,” Laurence said, inching in. “Could you arch your back? A little more, a little more? Like a ballet dancer. Did you ever dance ballet?”

The answer to that question is no, I never danced ballet. Which is probably why I ended up toppling over the pigpen fence and plopping right into the mud. And because I was holding a sack of corn feed, I was surrounded by pigs eager to eat the treats that had also fallen in the mud.

Maybe it was because it was so late or maybe it was because I really did look ridiculous, but everyone just burst out laughing. After a while, I started laughing too. Everything that could’ve gone wrong had gone wrong, but I’d survived and it was over.

By the time we’d wrapped, it was nine p.m. and by the time the car dropped me off, it was almost eleven p.m. I thought about going to the party, but one, I was exhausted, two, I couldn’t face the crowds, and three, I wasn’t entirely sure I didn’t smell ever so slightly of cow pee and horse manure.