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I was racing across campus, desperate to get home so I could get into full cry mode: Bedhead pajamas, rum raisin ice cream, daytime television on mute. I could barely see through the glaze of tears that were ready to fall, which is why I wasn’t looking where I was going. Which is how I bumped right into Brian.

“Hey, Bee,” he said, like we were long lost friends.

Oh God.

“I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said.

If I had run into Brian just twenty-four hours earlier, I would’ve told him where to step off. The thing is, crushing on Kevin made me sort of forget that the whole reason I wanted to be a model was to get Brian back. But it wasn’t twenty-four hours ago; it was now. And just like Justin Timberlake in the video for “SexyBack,” Brian was back in my life. And he brought all of his sexiness with him.

18

Bee’s Boyfriend Is Back

I woke
up the next day happier than I’d been in such a long time. Brian and I were back together! How cool was that? I know he’d been a bit of a jerk, but so what? We all make mistakes. Brian had apologized to me profusely, all throughout dinner last night and then on a moonlit walk to Central Park. He told me that he didn’t even care that I was modeling, that he didn’t need some stupid magazine to tell him that I was beautiful, he’d fallen in love with me the first moment he saw me.

“Do you remember that day?” he asked me.

I nodded; how could I ever forget?

“I was so scared to ask you out,” he said as we walked down Broadway to Columbus Circle.

We got to the circle, and Brian did the most romantic thing. He hired one of those horse-drawn carriages that cost like $50 an hour and he took me for a ride around the park.

“I think I was scared our entire relationship. I knew you were the one, but I was afraid to commit. That’s why I freaked out over Thanksgiving.”

Just then my cell phone started to ring. I looked at the number. Kevin. I pushed the reject button and the call went straight to voice mail.

“Do you need to get that?” Brian asked.

“Nope,” I answered.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. Kevin.

“Someone’s trying to get ahold of you,” Brian said.

“No one important,” I assured him. Then I switched my phone off, turned to Brian, and kissed him good night before hopping in a cab. I was beaming the whole way home.

I know it probably seems like I jumped right back into Brian’s arms. He was my first love, and I hoped, all confusing feelings with Kevin aside, that Brian would be my only love.

The next morning, in my apartment, I turned on my phone. Three missed calls from Kevin but no messages. What did I tell you? He’s as fake as a $25 Louis Vuitton purse from Chinatown.

There was also a message from Chela:
I see you made dean’s list. Congratulations, girl. I’m up there too. I know things have been hectic with us, but call me. We’ll celebrate.

Chela. The whole time I was with Brian the night before, she hadn’t crossed my mind. But how could I have forgotten? He was the whole reason that I’d met Chela in the first place. She went out with him before I did. He’d broken her heart too. Lyin’ Brian, she’d called him. I couldn’t get back with him and keep my friendship with Chela too.

The way I saw it, I had three choices. I could

1. Come clean with Chela and lose her friendship entirely.

2. Try to keep her and Brian separated and pray that sometime before I married him, I’d find the courage to tell her and she would forgive him—and me.

3. Lie to Chela and tell her that I was seeing Kevin, hence using the nonexistent superstar boyfriend as an excuse for my frequent absences.

I decided to go with door number three. I called Chela back.

“Hey, girl, nice job on the dean’s list,” she said.

“Thanks, C. That physics final nearly did me in.”

“But you aced it, right?”

“Professor Trotter gave me an A-minus.”

“Nice. So I take it you were hanging out with DJ Smooth and Sexy last night.”

“Something like that,” I said. FYI, if you ever need to ask me a question, ask me in person. I can’t lie to your face, but I can lie my butt off over the phone.

“So when do I get to meet Mr. Top of the Charts? Are you officially dating now?”

“Um, well . . .”

“Oh, don’t tell me he doesn’t want to meet your commoner friends. You can’t go out with a guy like that, Bee.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just that he keeps these crazy hours. He’s in the studio all night, then he sleeps all day. I’m lucky if I can meet him for breakfast, which for him is like three in the afternoon.”

“That’s cool. But you tell him I want to meet him. I’ll let the chucklehead know what a Bronx girl will do if he messes with my friend.”

That’s the thing about Chela. She always, always has my back. And in exchange for her kindness, I was lying to her.

“Thanks, chica,” I said.

“You’d do the same for me, right?” she said. “You’d show Alejandro how those Philly girls roll if he broke my heart.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

And I hung up the phone feeling like an absolute jerk. I could just see my future nuptials now:

“Lyin’ Brian, do you take this woman, Bogus Bee, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

The next day I had a photo shoot for face cream. It was my first beauty shoot, “just head and shoulders,” Leslie said. I was getting ready to leave my apartment when Brian called.

“Hey, baby,” he said.

“Hey, yourself. I gotta run.”

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

“I’ve got a shoot downtown.”

“A photo shoot?”

“Yep.”

I was still following Leslie’s rule and was always early for my call time. I looked at my watch. I had to go.

“I want to come with you,” Brian said. “I’ve never seen a professional shoot before.”

I thought about it for a second. People had friends stop by shoots all the time. It was probably no big deal to take him with me. It’s not like there wouldn’t be a dozen people running all over the place.

“Okay,” I said, looking at my watch. “Let me give you the address and I’ll meet you down there.”

“No way, we’ll go together,” Brian said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Waiting ten minutes would still get me at the call early. So I said okay, then hung up.

Half an hour later, when Brian arrived, I was bouncing off the walls.

“Let’s go,” I said, turning my face when he leaned in to kiss me.

“Don’t be mad; it’s just that I thought I should shower and shave. You never know, they might want to shoot us together, the hot young couple in love.”

This made me a little uncomfortable; no one was going to be taking Brian’s picture. But why not? He was good looking. Was I turning into a model bitch?

I introduced myself to the photographer, a guy named Oscar Perez that I’d never worked with before.

“You have beautiful skin,” he said, touching my face. “Today will be easy.”

“Hey, hands off my woman,” Brian said, making a joke.

“Oscar, this is my boyfriend, Brian.”

A flash of concern, or something a lot like it, crossed Oscar’s eyes. But then he smiled and shook Brian’s hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Why don’t you take a seat while we get Bee into hair and makeup.”

Andy and Syreeta were both there, waiting for me.

“Slept in, huh, girlfriend?” Andy said, nodding to Brian, who was following Oscar’s assistants around and playing with different lighting equipment.

I took a seat in the chair. Syreeta said, “You should get changed first.”

“What am I wearing?” I asked. “It’s a beauty shot, right?”

Syreeta handed me a white cotton sarong with Velcro across the top.

“Your gown, madam.”

“Cool,” I said, stripping down in front of them. One thing about being a model is that you can’t be shy. There are too many people around to get weird about changing rooms, and none of them are paying attention to you anyway.

I was just about to take my bra off when Brian poked his head into the makeup room.

“You know, I was thinking maybe you could do some sort of benefit show for Amnesty International,” Brian said.

I have no problem using my model powers for good, but I was in the middle of a job.

“Brian,” I said, as sweetly as I could manage. “Can you wait for me outside?”

“No problem,” he said, walking away.

“This is why you don’t bring your boyfriend to a photo shoot, sweetie,” Andy said.

“Is he doing something wrong?”

“No, he’s just in the way, ruining the vibe.”

I took a deep breath. “The vibe is cool,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

Andy gave me this off-the-hook weave, with big loose curls. Syreeta gave me beautiful, flawless, golden skin. I sat on a box while Oscar used an 8 × 10 camera to pull in close on my face, neck, and shoulders. A manicurist had done my nails in a pale pink, and Oscar encouraged me to bring my hands gracefully into the shot as well.

For the first hour, everything was fine. Then Brian started to act up again. He stood next to Oscar saying the stupidest things like, “Do you recycle your film canisters? I think the PVC of all that plastic is probably pretty major. Maybe you can approach the magazines you work for about going zero, reducing the environmental impact of your shoots by planting a certain number of trees for every shoot that you do. I know some people at Go Zero; I could hook you up.”