Someone touches my shoulder. I open my eyes.
“Wake up,” Tina says. “Wi ah here a’ready.”
She pulls her thick-boned body out of the SUV and throws her arms into the air. She rolls her neck and cracks her back a little. I follow behind, muffling a yawn, and I instantly shrink at the low temperature.
“You can’t be serious. It’s freezing out here,” I squeak and wind my arms around myself. I’m still trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes when a cold, unruly gust licks at my face and creeps under my clothes. “Where are we?” I look around and all I can see is acres of high grass.
“We’re a privately owned airfield outside of Buffalo,” announces Kim
“It’s a gud ting mi horoscope seh I shud wear a jacket,” Tina says, wrapping herself up in a large winter coat with a fur hood.
I raise an eyebrow. “You mean the weather report?”
“Nuh, girl, mi horoscope.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Tina. I’m sorry.”
She raises her hands in a victory position. “A’rite. But I ain’t freezing.”
Pride beaten, I push past the grass leading to a pathway, following Kim into a big warehouse room. There is floating pollen everywhere that makes me think of Jess, and she’d be proud to hear I’m not looking forward to inhaling it. Handymen struggle with the backdrop for the shoot. Wardrobe assistants push clothing racks in and out of the dressing rooms. Everyone seems to be running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off.
Supportive as Kim is, she leads me to the dressing room like a drill sergeant. I quickly slide out of my clothes and into Calvin Klein underwear, then I slouch across the sofa and wait patiently to be summoned.
“Boss.” Reed walks inside my dressing room.
“Hey, Reed. I was wondering where you were hiding.”
“I have coffee for you.” He hands me a big cup. “I hope this helps you.”
My lips thin into a smile. “Oh, great. Thank you.”
The smell of pure caffeine vaults me out of my droopy state.
I’m called out to the scene. I push to my feet with mental resolution to set the photo shoot on fire. But the fire within me is put out instantly as I’m told we’ll be working out in the open-air. It’s a spicy photo shoot involving a large, abandoned helicopter not intended to move. The shots are going straight to Calvin Klein’s underwear ad campaign for spring, meaning I have to look fiery and vigorous instead of insipid and flash-frozen.
The field of tall grass greets me again. I tromp on it, feeling like a lioness on the prowl, until I reach the helicopter. I climb up the helicopter prop. It has no doors or seats. I grab on to the frame and begin contouring my body into a whole array of poses.
“Yeah, baby, give it to me!” the photographer shrieks exuberantly. “Wonderful, Sophie! Perfect! Hold that pose!”
I’m feeling pretty adventurous. Not only that, but I want to make it up to Kim. Given, she is a complete, uncivilized barbarian, but aside from that she really knows her business, and she pursues every job down to the fiery pits of hell for me. It is a love-hate relationship—emphasis on the hate—but I know she means well.
“Try not to look so cold, Sophie,” says the photographer.
“I am cold. I’m close to naked and my body is frosting over.”
He pouts and rubs his forehead. “Get Caesar in!”
“I’m sorry, who?”
In comes a male model, nearly nude, wearing only skimpy briefs.
“That oughta warm you up. Places, everyone!” he yells and I recoil, hurtling back to reality. “Caesar, wrap your arms around Sophie’s waist like your trying to comfort her.”
This Caesar person gets on the helicopter.
“Let’s do this, people!” The photo-shoot director yells impatiently.
I cannot think properly. I try to achieve, to execute, but anxiety oozes out of me like a leak in a faucet.
The photographer shouts, “Come on, Sophie! Get into character!”
All of me washes away in the seconds of this so-called Caesar character warming up around me like he is an ape-man and I am his jungle. All of me feels insecure as the photographer orders Caesar to turn to his right, to make his left arm cover my breasts.
“Get your hands off me,” I whisper. He does as I say, never uttering a word.
“Caesar, no, no. Get your hands on her! On her!”
“Listen to me. If you put your hands on me one more time I’m going to—”
“I’m sorry. Am I not making myself clear? Or is there a hearing-problem over there?”
Caesar and I shake our heads at the deafening roar of the photographer.
“Good. Then get to work. Look at her with lust, Caesar. Like you desire her, like you want to have her.” He says it so dramatically. “Somebody spray him with water. And oil...definitely more oil.”
Hesitantly, I raise my leg across Caesar’s hip and waist, arching my back and tossing back my glossy mane.
“Yes, yes! That’s more like it, Sophie darling!”
Caesar spreads out horizontally and I perch over his midsection, my hands on his shoulder blades. His hands sinfully repose on my legs. He strokes my outer thigh with one hand. Water and oil drips from his skin. I’m shivering—my goose bumps have goose bumps of their own—not so much from the cold as from the position we are forced to lock our bodies into.
“Put your hands on her hips, Caesar.”
In a short pause, Caesar tries to soften me up by caressing my leg. “Hey, you okay?”
“No. I’m not okay. Stop touching me.”
“Hey, relax all right? Just enjoy it.”
“Bite me.”
“Just one more shot,” the photographer notifies, but the photo shoot goes on longer with a few brief water breaks.
It’s part of the job, I keep saying to myself like a tired vinyl track on loop, a job Kim had planned for months. A job I needed to score. A job I needed to do to stop my agent from going insane. A job I needed to do to get some decent pay around here.
Kim walks up to me as the wardrobe assistant is handing me a robe. “Well look at you,” she says. “Ain’t you a ray of sunshine today?”
“Are you giving me a compliment?”
She puts her hands on her hips. “You did good out there. Good job.”
“Thanks. Listen, about this morning—”
“Yes, yes, I get it. You slept with someone, big deal. Anyone I know?”
“I don’t think so.”
Reed’s dark head pops through the door. “Boss, Mr. Black is calling you on your phone. You left it in the car.”
Kim tilts her head and gives me a questioning stare. “Oliver Black?” She mouths at me. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I take the call. “Hey, Oliver.”
“Amelia Sophia, how is Buffalo treating you?” The way he speaks my name is dramatic in his Oliver voice. I smile self-consciously, playing with my robe straps and shooing Kim outside.
“How do you know where I am, stalker?”
“I always know where my interests are located. I read your tweet. ‘@SoCavall On the road again! Thrilled to be shooting for #CalvinKlein at The Queen City!’”
“First of all, I stopped using Twitter. I’m sure you can understand why. Second, I would never say ‘thrilled.’ It was probably Kim.”
“How are you?”
“Good, good...good,” I say coyly, looking into the mirror in front of me as I speak. “I’m going to wrap this up soon. It’s ridiculously cold here.”
“Also read that on your Twitter. ‘@SoCavall BURRR...snowflake and snowman emoticon. Artic air moving through Buffalo.’”
“Oh my God, I sound so lame. Kim has to stop. And you, stop reading things I never wrote.” His beautiful, masculine laugh swishes on the other end of the line. “So, where’d you run off to so early in the morning?”
“I went for a run.”
“A run? At five?”
“This is interesting. Now
who is stalking whom?” The teasing tone in his voice is evident.
“Okay, calm down, let’s not get crazy here. I’m not stalking you. My trashy neighbor whom I’m almost positive is a prostitute, happened to let me know when I ran into her in the elevator. I hardly noticed your absence.” It was the first thing I noticed.
“You mean Sunshine? Yes, she was very friendly, even gave me her business card.”
“What?”
“Laugh, it’s a joke,” he assures me through his snobbish laughs. “I knew you would cope admirably in my absence. I’m a morning person, Sophie. Anything past seven is sleeping in. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m sure you didn’t want to wake me. It’s cool,” I reassure, even though it is far from cool. “You don’t have to make up an excuse for leaving.”
“It’s not an excuse.”
“Sophie.” Kim barges in. “We are doing a couple more shots. Quickly, slip into your wardrobe.”
“I’m sorry, Oliver.” Kim is difficult enough when things are running smoothly. I don’t want to give her cause to be extra demanding. “I have to go. I need to get back out there. Talk to you soon.”
“Goodbye, Sophie.”
At hanging up, my cellphone suddenly lights up again. New text messages. With my finger, I slide the screen and click on the message. A thin, almost absent smile comes to my lips as I read it. What’s cookin’, good lookin’? I’m back!
Stacey Taylor, my long-time friend. I move my fingers swiftly around the keyboard and type up a reply. Lunch, honeybunch!
It’s been two weeks since Stacey went off to Singapore for modeling work and even though I’m not dying to see her, I call her after work and we decide we should meet up.
***
JESS IS WORKING the DVD player in the living room as I kick the front door shut. “Hey! Want to watch this movie with me? It’s a thriller about a psycho killer and a prom girl.”
She jumps onto the sofa and pats the squishy cushion beside her in welcome, but I’m not up to a creepy movie that will bring back too many memories of my own bloodcurdling saga. “Thank you, Jess. That does not sound tempting. I’m having Stacey over.”
“Oh...Stacey.”
“I know you don’t like her.” I hurl my bag on the sofa. “You can stop it with the excessive eye rolling. And don’t worry, I’ll clean up after we’re done.”
“I know you know why I don’t like her. It’s just crazy for you to be her friend after how she goes around treating everyone. I don’t understand why you keep going back to her. She doesn’t care about you or anybody else.”
“There are a lot of things that you do that I don’t understand either.”
“Like what?”
“I’m tired. It’s been a long day. I’ll be in my room.”
“Why, Sophie? I can’t figure it out,” Jess goes on. “You are so above that girl. Please stop giving her the time of day, will you?”
TEN
A TWELVE-PACK of Coronas, a bowl of slightly burnt popcorn, and a box of Camel Silvers sit on the balcony table. Two matching chairs are butted up on opposite sides of it. Sitting down on the sturdy chairs—their mobility is reduced due to my little bathtub of a balcony—are Stacey and I.
For the last half hour or so, Stacey’s been jabbering about Jonathan, her latest fling she met in Singapore. For the last five minutes or so, I’ve been stealing looks at my cellphone, urging it to ring.
Stacey is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed outspoken ball of fire; she always tells it like it is. She is the jury, the judge, and the executioner all together. When I first met her at an audition for a fast food commercial, she talked and talked about her love life like it was the second coming of Christ, which naturally made it almost impossible for her even to wonder what I was thinking, feeling, or wanting. And since I didn’t want anybody bothering about what I thought, felt, or wanted, Stacey was a win-win situation for me.
Her vocabulary—to phrase it delicately—is enormously colorful, and she lays on her full complement of vulgarities up to the point where she miraculously detours and asks me about my dating life. I tell her I met a guy named Oliver and I pretty much leave it at that. Not a single word is said about what happened to me a few days ago. Whether she doesn’t know about it or she just doesn’t care, I’m glad I don’t have to talk about that or the Eric-kissed-me situation.
Three times she tells me I should call Oliver since I’ve barely said a word all night. “Call him,” she commands. The second time she tells me to fucking call him, and the third, to fucking call him fucking right away.
“No, I’m not going to play that game.”
“Why not?” She takes a pull from my cigarette. “You’re already playing the let-me-look-at-my-phone-until-he-calls-me game.”
Annoyed about her snappy retort, I turn my head in another direction and take a drag off my smoke. “I slept with him.”
“Good for you! How was it? Is he good in bed?”
“This isn’t about sex.”
“I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear. It’s always about sex. It’s human-fucking-nature.”
“You’re missing the point. We were doing it, and right when I was about to...you know...”
“Have an orgasm?”
I nod. “He put his arms around my waist. Really hugged me, you know? He said ‘look at me.’ And I did. In that moment, I could hear our breaths, our bodies pounding together. It was like for a second...time stopped.”
“You’re such a romantic, Soph.”
“It was different, Stace. I swear to God. It felt so...intimate. I had never felt so close to someone like that before.”
“And now you’re freaking out because you moved too fast, had sex with a guy you’ve known for, like, two seconds...he hasn’t called you, and you think you fucked up something that could’ve been cool. What a cliché.”
“I don’t know what to think. I’m just trying to keep my calm.”
“You’re kidding yourself, Soph, really, you are. There is no such thing as being calm when it comes to men. Fuckers always play you and break you.”
Something about the conversation arouses repressed memories inside me. I get up from the chair as I say, “I can perfectly act calm in any situation. I can have what I need and be whomever I need to be to survive whatever madness is thrown my way. I am my own woman. I’m in magazines, and ads, and commercials, and I refuse to let some man I barely know take control of me. I’m not desperate. I won’t let that happen!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about? Relax. Take it slow.”
Amidst the shouts and screeches, Jess storms out of her room, her pale face coated with a blue night cream, and her black hair cinched back with a scrunchie. “I’m trying to get some rest over here,” she calls out from the living room, aggravated, standing with both hands on her hips.
“I’m sorry, Jess,” I say. “We’ll keep it down.”
She treads on back to her room and Stacey lands her stare on me. “What the hell is her problem?”
Stacey is Jess’s problem. I stay mute for a minute, having a secret battle in my head. In and out of my mouth come the anxious puffs of smoke. The smoke overpowers me in its prominent lure, but reality creeps over my shoulder in a second.
“This guy, he makes things happen, Stace.” I look from my balcony into the view of public nightlife on the streets. “He’s aggressive. He’s a chaser. He’s a go-getter. People respect him and look up to him. If he wanted to call, believe me, he’d call. I know that much about him. He’d pick up the damn phone and call.” I turn around to meet her eyes. “I’ve dated a lot. I know all the normal routines, all the little rules, what not to do. A man should be a man. I’m not going against his basic instincts.”
“Look, don’t walk around on eggshells. It really is very simple. Grab some balls of your own! Don’t fucking sit back and wait. Take that damn bull by the tail and face him straight in the eye.”
“B
y the horns,” I say into my Corona, sitting back on my chair.
“What?”
“The phrase...it’s ‘take the bull by the horns.’ You can’t really have the animal by both ends at once.”
“Whatever, Soph, whatever. You get the point.”
I finally make a decision and a wave of nausea washes over me. My fingers twitch as I press call on Oliver’s number and put the phone to my ear. After several rings, I’m panicked he won’t answer. Maybe I am freaking out.
“Sophie.” Oliver answers with a tired voice. It isn’t his everyday deep voice; it is particularly lower.
Stacey immediately signals me to put him on speaker.
“Hey. Were you asleep?”
“It’s three-thirty in the morning. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s cool. I’m sorry. I forgot about the time difference.”
“Sophie, it’s fine. I’m glad you called.” There’s a second of silence. “How are you? Did you do anything exciting today?”
I blink at the question. “Well, I had about fifteen minutes to have lunch. I had a burrito. Does that count?”
“What was exciting about that?”
“That I actually had time.”
“That’s actually sad.” Stacey rolls her eyes as if saying, “Boring.”
“What about you? How’s Edinburgh? And how’s it going with the whole saving the world and all?”
“Well...” I can tell he is moving around on the bed. “There were some complications with a few structures onsite, but it’s been solved. People will be drinking clearer water for generations to come.”
“Wow. Congratulations. That sounds amazing.”
“Let’s discuss amazing. What are you wearing?”
I’m sidetracked by his change of subject. The idiotic thing that goes through my head next is: was last night a means to an end, or an end in itself? Did we rush things by being intimate early on? Where the heck do I stand with this guy? Is Stacey right about everything?
“Sophie, are you still there?”
“Yes. I’m here. Go back to bed. I’m sorry I woke you up. I’m glad everything is going great with you.”
A Diamond in the Rough Page 13