by MV Ellis
This was a fact, one that not only had I considered but fretted over for a considerable amount of time recently, especially.
“I know.”
“So you understand where we’re coming from. We have to stay competitive and relevant in the market. Have you put much thought into what you’ll do next?”
I had to hand it to the fashion industry, as tough and unforgiving as it was on any given day being assessed purely on the basis of your looks and being told you’re too skinny, fat, thin, old, young, tall, short, etc., there was always lower to stoop. Now I wasn’t relevant. Though arguably if I thought about it, I never had been, not even to my own parents. Especially not to them.
“No.” Lie. Lie. Lie.
I’d been worrying on the thought for months and always drawn a blank. I’d been modeling for so long that I had no idea what else I could do, or would want to do. I was literally clueless. If I wasn’t Marnie Harloe, international model, I had no idea who or what I was. Fuck.
“Maybe now is a good time to have a break and find out what would be a good next step?”
Yeah, sure, sounds like a breeze. What great fucking career advice.
“Well, I guess the break part is a given seeing as you’re firing me.”
Sandra at least had the good grace to look red-faced and guilty.
“I’m not firing you. I’m… we’re not renewing your contract. There’s a big difference between the two.” She prodded her pasta around her plate aggressively but seemed to have lost her appetite.
“Not really. This morning when I woke up, I had a gig, or so I thought. Now I don’t. How does that differ from getting sacked?”
“Don’t be facetious. When a person is dismissed from a job, it’s because they’ve done something wrong or fucked up in some way. Not having your contract renewed isn’t a reflection on your performance or conduct. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re just no longer needed.”
The words hung heavily in the air between us. No. Longer. Needed.
Right. So I was irrelevant and surplus to requirements. Like a tired old housecoat. I almost wished I had been fired. At least then there would have been a chance I could have gone down in a blaze of glory. This way I had simply been discarded like unwanted trash. Again.
“Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, I was a little shocked is all. I’m okay now though. Ummm… thank you for signing me and keeping me on for all these years. I appreciate your belief in me and support of my career growth.”
Sandra beamed with the look of relief people have when they’ve been gifted a reprieve. Nobody likes to have to be an asshole—at least most people don’t. I was totally unsurprised that she had grabbed the lifeline I’d thrown her, letting her off the hook.
“You’re so welcome, darling. Thank you for all these years of hard work and commitment. Until recently, you’ve been one of our most solidly booked and reliable girls, and we really appreciate your contribution to the agency. Your absence will be felt by everyone, not the least of which being me. I’ll miss you, dear girl.” Empty platitudes piled up on top of each other in a monstrous tower of insincerity.
I smiled again, indicating that there were no hard feelings. If nothing else, years in the game had taught me how to look happy despite the reality of any given situation. In fact, it was part of the job description. “Smile through the pain.” Whether that pain was the bone of a corset cutting your skin to shreds, walking the runway with your feet shoved into shoes that were two sizes too small, or dealing with yet another rejection.
I really just wanted the conversation to be over. It wasn’t like I was going to convince her to change her mind. It was a done deal. I was out.
“I’ll miss you too. Thanks so much for everything, especially for seeing something in me that nobody else did, and for giving me my break. Honestly, I’m so grateful.”
I didn’t want to cry, not there in the middle of the busy restaurant and in front of Sandra. I was bigger than that. Better than that. I was sure as shit stronger than that. I stood up and went to her side of the table to give her a hug. She stood to receive it.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, my darling girl.”
“Okay, well, I was just expecting this to be the usual re-signing meeting, so I didn’t allow time for lunch, and I have another appointment I need to get to. Do you mind if I cut and run?” This was another lie, but there was no way I could sit through dessert and coffee and all the inane pleasantries that entailed, so I needed an excuse to leave sooner rather than later.
Sandra shook her head. “No problem, I understand. You get going. Don’t let me keep you.”
“Okay, thanks.” I turned on my heel and made sure to maintain my top model swagger as I crossed the restaurant and slipped out the door into the New York afternoon. Fuck.
I felt as though the rug had literally been pulled out from underneath me, as though my legs would buckle like Bambi’s. I made my way to the alley alongside the restaurant and leaned against the wall, allowing my back to slide down the rough weathered bricks. They pulled on my delicate silk shirt, no doubt doing irreparable damage, but I didn’t care. I bent my knees upward and lowered my head into my cupped hands.
Seconds later the tears were flowing freely, and I was sobbing uncontrollably. Yes, I was upset to lose the only job I had ever known, but it was more than that, more than the embarrassment of being fired, dropped, not re-signed, or whatever Sandra wanted to call it. It was about being rejected again, thrown away like yesterday’s newspaper by someone I had thought was on my team. I had trusted so few people since my parents deserted me, but even restricting my inner circle to a tiny core of key players had still left me exposed and vulnerable.
I hated that, hated that I’d ever put my faith in Sandra. I should have known better, but so many years had passed that I had dared to think that she was one of the good ones. How naïve of me. I had seen so many times that there was no honor among thieves in this industry. It was dog-eat-dog, even between those who were supposed to be allies. In fact, especially then because that’s when it hurt the most. So many times I had seen people who claimed to have each other’s back dig the knife in and leave their friends for dead. Trusting no one was the best approach, that way I couldn’t be surprised or disappointed when people screwed me over. Still, shock or not, when it happened, it hurt like a bastard.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that, sitting in the gutter, but it was long enough for my butt to go numb and for the overpowering smell of trash in the alley to start to turn my stomach. As the thought struck me, my mouth started to water and fill with saliva, and I felt a telltale lurch in my belly. I managed to scramble to my feet just in time to stand and spew my guts on the ground, rather than into my lap. Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, it had. I looked at the pile of vomit on the ground and sobbed some more. Fuck my fucking life.
I texted Arlo. He had messaged me a while back asking if I wanted to catch up, but I had been away for work. Now that I was back and had been dragged through the wringer, today was the perfect time to take him up on his unspoken offer.
Me: I’m back. You wanna scratch that itch?
Arlo: Tonight.
Me: Sure thing. Can’t wait.
That was how the thing I had with Arlo worked. I didn’t expect anybody else to understand it. Hell, in some ways, I didn’t even really get it myself. All I knew was that what he and I had served a need for both of us. He was a point I always returned to, like north on a compass. It was the way we needed it to be, and pretty difficult for anyone else to fathom because let’s face it, Arlo was about as reliable as a chocolate pocket watch. He was the very definition of unreliable, unpredictable, and, kind of unstable.
However, for me, he provided a level of human connection I was comfortable with. No man is an island, as the saying goes, and I had never wanted to be completely alone, but on the other hand, I was also desperate to avoid the kind of destructive and obsessive love my parents had
for each other. I had figured early on that bypassing intimacy was far better than getting myself tied up in the kind of mess that had led to my parents’ demise. I’d rather have no feelings than feelings so intense, so crazy over-the-top, that committing suicide and abandoning your only child would seem like the only reasonable choice.
The great thing about my relationship with Arlo was that it was physical without ever being emotionally close. We hung out a little—very little. We fucked. We fucked some more. Neither of us wanted anything other than exactly what we got. Postcoital endorphins were where it was at. We weren’t looking for the love of our lives, but on the other hand, we didn’t want to go through the pain and annoyance of online dating or any other kind of dealings with strangers—for Arlo especially, it wasn’t really an easy option, given his level of fame. This way we got to have our cake and eat it too.
Even without the emotional connection, sex between us was phenomenal. We were highly compatible, to the point where I’d very rarely, if ever, had better sex with anyone else. That was enough to keep me coming back to him, no pun intended, whenever we were both in town—any town, anywhere in the world. I’d defaulted to Arlo more often than not, and the thing I had with him helped me justify the fact that I didn’t really see other guys. Or at least, I hadn’t for many years. Not that Arlo knew this. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea and think I was in love with him. I wasn’t. I defaulted to him because he was a distraction—a beautiful, sexy distraction.
Five
Luke
Jaded. It was a funny word. Funny weird, not funny haha. Definitely not funny haha. It was how I seemed to feel most days lately. “Over it” was another way to describe my vibe. A keen observer might say I was burnt out. On some level, that was totally understandable. We were back from weeks on the road, our Cold, Hard, and Heartless tour having been cut short due to Stevie, our drummer’s deteriorating condition. The decision was made by the whole band, management, and the man himself that the tour couldn’t continue with his worsening health. It was a relief for all of us to know that he was going to get the help he needed to hopefully conquer his addictions, but it left the rest of us in an awkward limbo as we waited to hear if and when he would get the okay to go back on the road.
That was definitely the most obvious and easily identifiable explanation for my increasing sense of unease but unfortunately not the only one. I’d always lived by the adage “do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life,” but lately, for the first time in fifteen years at the top—touring relentlessly, pushing out album after album, publicity, signings, all the shit in the machine of being the Heartless Few—it was all starting to feel like hard work, rather than the passion I got paid to pursue, as it had always been.
But then I guessed seeing the industry almost break one of your closest friends—pretty much your brother—chew him up and spit him out the other end like cannon-fodder would do that to you. Maybe the feeling of unease was nothing that a little R & R and sleep wouldn’t cure. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a vacation. It was possible that a week or two stretched on a brilliant-white sandy beach in the Maldives would cure my ills, but I wasn’t so sure.
I reached for my notebook—I seemed to be doing that more often than not recently. When the mood struck me, I’d jot down whatever came into my head that I felt I needed to get out and onto paper. Single words and phrases, full sentences, even full poems. Flicking through the pages was like a mind map of where my thinking was at the time. The good, bad, and ugly. More ugly than anything these days. Everything and everyone seemed to piss me off, especially Arlo, which was awkward. I was crashing at his house while we were camping out in New York waiting for Stevie to go through rehab, we worked together, and just about lived in each other’s pockets 24/7 when we were on the road.
Maybe that was the issue. Perhaps I needed to stand on my own two feet for once and do something that had nothing to do with Arlo—nothing to do with anyone, in fact, but something just for me: Luke Jones. What would that even look like? I had never had a “proper” job, having finished high school and pretty much instantly hit the big time with the band. Barring my brief and ill-fated dabble with film school, there had been no time to pursue my own interests. I ate, slept, and breathed the Heartless Few, and had done so for half my life.
Until recently I had been happy with the way things were, but doubts had started to creep into my mind that maybe there was something more to life than playing second fiddle to Arlo, singing words he wrote and playing the rhythm while he played the melody. I had never wanted to be the center of attention, but there was a difference between not taking center stage and being overlooked completely. Sometimes I felt I was something between a moving musical prop and Arlo’s butler or faithful manservant. I was there to pick up his messes, be a buffer between him and the outside world, and be his filter when the buffer failed.
The part that seemed to be missing in recent times was me having the freedom, time, or leeway to do anything for myself. A band was a team, which often meant compromise and putting the good of the group ahead of our individual desires or benefits. I got it, I really did. A group like ours wasn’t together for as long as we had been without learning how to work around five very different personalities, and egos to match. On the other hand, some of us seemed to compromise a whole lot more than others, and that fact was starting to wear thin.
The truth was that the dynamic of the band was that Arlo did Arlo, and the rest of the band yielded, sacrificed, and negotiated around our own egos to make that work for all of us. We yielded. The word compromise was literally not in his vocabulary. It was his way or the highway, and if someone chose the highway, he wouldn’t give it a second thought. He was never going to be the guy to think that maybe he should back down or pander to the other person; it just wasn’t in his DNA. There might not be an I in team, but there definitely is one in “Arlo doesn’t give a fuck.” I’d accepted this as the status quo for so many years, but recently the imbalance of the whole thing had started to get to me.
I felt like we’d gotten stuck in a dynamic that had been established when we were kids—Arlo was the confident and gregarious twin. The lead twin. In fact, he was a leader in all aspects of his life, not just between the two of us. He had a presence that made people sit up and take note. It was beyond his looks, although I knew that was always a feature, but given that as kids we were pretty much physically indistinguishable to all but our closest friend and relatives, and now as adults it was Arlo’s menagerie of tattoos and our hairstyles that set us apart, it was clearly not just that. Even as a boy, he had gravitas and charisma that set him apart from me and our peers.
I, on the other hand, was the quiet twin, the B twin. I was chronically and cripplingly shy growing up, to the point where social situations were pretty much torture, and I hated meeting new people or being in large groups. In fact, apart from my family and the guys with whom I later went on to form the Heartless Few, I pretty much disliked being around people. Period. Back in the day, I went to great lengths to avoid situations where I would be forced to deal with random people, and when I couldn’t avoid it, I let Arlo lead, while I took a back seat.
In private, between the two of us, things were completely different. You see those cute ultrasound images depicting twins holding hands in the womb, but not us. The struggle for balance in our relationship began before we were even born. Even in utero, I had been dominated by Arlo—having spent six months with him pretty much standing on my head. I managed to assert myself once at least: clearly sick of carrying another human on my skull, when it came time for us to be born, I beat a hasty retreat. As a result, I was thirteen minutes older than Arlo, and I took every opportunity I possibly could to remind him of that fact, even as grown-ass men. Of course, it made no difference to anything, but the mere fact that I knew he hated it was enough to motivate me to repeatedly rib him about it.
I was aware it was petty and childish, but I was equal
ly aware of the reams of research available documenting the unique dynamics at play between identical twins. It wasn’t exactly normal, and definitely wasn’t healthy, but considering how much time we spent in close quarters, relations between us could have been a whole lot worse, and in fact, at various times in our lives, they definitely had been. The lowest point was when, as teenage boys, we couldn’t be trusted to be in the same room at home for more than a few hours without threatening or trying to kill one another, to the point where our parents made the unorthodox decision to separate us with one living at Mom’s for half the year, while the other lived at Dad’s, and vice versa.
Those days were long behind us, but I was the first to admit that there was still a certain amount of residual toxicity in our dynamic. Whether overt or subliminal, a power struggle often raged between us in our spoken and silent communication. Over the years, we had made glaring an art form. It was like a game of chicken to see who would look away first. I never kept a tally, but it didn’t take a genius to guess that I conceded defeat a lot more often than Arlo. He was a no-retreat, no-surrender kind of guy, always had been.
Despite all of that, though we had our creative differences at times, as would be expected with any group of individuals working together, part of the secret of our long-term success as a band was that in reality, those differences were pretty few and far between, and when they did occur, they tended to be minor and resolved quickly. We expected to disagree, but we also expected to compromise. Everyone except Arlo, that is. We didn’t take it personally—it was all part and parcel of what we did.
The thing that Arlo and I had locked horns over most through the years was Marnie. This we couldn’t agree on. We couldn’t even agree to disagree. Marnie was the one subject I wouldn’t yield on, and unusually for someone who was generally quite laid-back, I had no qualms about taking one of our “conversations” to the limit if Arlo refused to back down. I was against any woman being disrespected or treated badly in any way, even more so this particular woman, and despite Arlo’s claims to the contrary and Marnie’s own emphatic denial, I could never shake the feeling that he was somehow doing wrong by her.