by Victoria Fox
Calida Santiago got her break at the start of 2007.
She left SilverLine Studios a little after eight, her back aching from the set she had stayed behind to dismantle. ‘Get Calida to do it,’ was the line in Ryan Xiao’s kingdom. ‘Is Calida free?’ She ensured she always was. Graft today. Glory tomorrow.
As she was entering the subway, she realised she had forgotten her purse.
‘Mierda,’ she muttered, heading back up East 8th, where she unlocked the studio doors and met a gust of empty darkness. Between six and six, the place buzzed with activity; at night, an abandoned creepiness settled over the ghosts of the day.
Calida was crossing back to the entrance when she heard a faint, female sobbing trickling through from one of the dressing rooms. It was an elegant sound, a sustained, mournful weep rather than an all-out cry, and so it came as no surprise that the person making it should be equally refined: a six-feet vision with tumbling syrup-blonde hair and exquisite cheekbones, sitting in a corner and sniffing into a tissue like a tear-streaked Cinderella. ‘Winona?’ Calida stopped. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Of course I’m not all right, you idiot,’ came the reply. ‘Do I look all right?’
‘Well—’
‘I’m ugly! I’m hideous! Look at me!’
There was nothing in the least bit ugly or hideous about supermodel Winona Glazer except for the verbal bullets she occasionally fired off in an unsuspecting assistant’s direction. The epitome of glamour, Winona had been tagged Sexiest Woman of the Century in USay magazine, and regularly topped global beauty polls.
‘What are you still doing here?’
‘I’m hiding,’ Winona snivelled. ‘I’m meant to be at some fucking junket downtown but there’s no way I can show my face.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why do you think?’ Winona’s features shot up at her, stained with mascara, her eyelashes clotted and her hair a nest. True, this wasn’t her finest hour. ‘I’m too ashamed to appear in public ever again,’ she moaned. ‘That’s it. My career is over.’
Calida sat, cautiously, as if Winona were an animal about to bolt.
‘How can you say that?’ she tried. ‘You’re stunning.’
Winona produced a fistful of stills. ‘See these?’ She thrust them into Calida’s hands. ‘I’ve never seen anything so grotesque in my life. These are the worst pictures ever taken of me, ever. I might as well retire right now. Everyone says how Ryan Xiao’s this fucking genius, how he makes girls look so much better than they really are—but if that’s the result then what the hell do I look like in the first place? God!’
Calida consulted the headshots. She had to admit that Ryan had suffered an off day. For starters, the lighting was wrong. Tiny pores on Winona’s forehead and chin were visible in the glare, and the shadows beneath her eyes were less sultry than sleep-deprived. She was dressed in a 1920s turban with a glittering diamond clasp, all Man-Ray pale limbs and classic sensuality, but Ryan had failed to capture that special added dimension for which his work was famous. She could only put it down to the tensions that had crackled between the pair since last year: Ryan had grown weary of Winona’s emotional outbursts, while she believed a woman of her rank should be exempt from his catty sniping. One thing Calida had learned during her time at the studio was that the relationship between model and photographer was paramount.
‘What are these for?’ Calida asked.
‘A spread in Chic.’ Winona wiped her nose. ‘It’s meant to mark my five-year anniversary in fashion. It looks more like fifty years!’
‘It really doesn’t.’
‘Ryan’s bored of me. I can tell. He’s a doll to every other girl who walks through these doors, then I come along and he’s, like, whatever. Now I have to suffer this humiliation. All those bitches will have their claws out, just you watch.’
‘What bitches?’
‘Clara Steiner, Felicity Clark, Mimi Gardner—Felicity’s on Twitter and she’s set up this catalogue of her best shots and now they’re all posting theirs too.’
Calida hadn’t yet succumbed to the newest social network, but one thing was certain: it was great for compounding anxieties such as Winona’s. Since its launch last year she had logged on a few times to view Tess Geddes’ account, gleaning as much information as she could, fascinated and sickened by it both at once.
‘What am I going to post?’ Winona went on. ‘I look like a fat pig. Next week it’ll be splashed across every page—they’ll be laughing so hard they’ll cry out their Botox. No, that’s it, I can’t do it—I’ll call my agent and tell him to pull the piece.’
Calida had an idea. ‘I could take your picture … if you want?’
Winona pinned her with a stare that went from surprise to disbelief to humour. ‘You? Thanks, sweetheart, I needed cheering up.’
‘I mean it. I’m good. We’ll recreate the set right now—it won’t take ten minutes. I’ll shoot you against the window then we’ll catch you in silhouette. We can light you from above, like a spotlight, maybe use costume jewellery, and—’
‘No offence, but I’ve been photographed by the best in the business.’
‘And you’re not happy with the results. You said so yourself.’ Calida’s words hung in the air between them, laced with treason. This was either the smartest move she’d ever made, or the most stupid. It was one thing to convince Winona on her own merit, but to sideswipe Ryan? Unwise. The girl she had been on the ranch would have run miles, afraid of upsetting or offending, of getting told off. The woman she was now understood that there were a handful of openings in life that came about once and never again. You had to be ready to take them—or else watch them sail away.
Winona narrowed ice-blue eyes. After a moment she lifted her shoulders and sighed. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I suppose. Might as well see what you can come up with.’
Over the next two hours Calida worked like she had never worked before; even on Cristian Ramos’s vineyard with the sun beating down on her back, or at home with the horses, reining them in on a storm-tossed day, she had never worked like this. It was exhilarating. First she sat with Winona and listened to her, really listened—what the model felt were her best assets and her worst angles, how she liked to be positioned, the frustrations she’d had in the past and how these could be rectified. Calida agreed with some and disagreed with others but didn’t comment either way: the crucial thing was that Winona felt she had a voice. Once the model’s concerns had been aired she began to relax, and, by the time Calida slipped behind the camera she was purring like a kitten, transformed from the wreck she had been an hour before.
Together, they settled on styling. Whenever Winona veered off-piste, Calida steered her back, all the while maintaining the illusion that Winona had arrived there herself. Beneath Calida’s lens, she became playful, coy, sassy, flirtatious, timeless, romantic, austere … She became a hundred women yet stayed archetypally herself. Calida used her own camera because it was an old friend and it wouldn’t let her down. She thought of all Diego had taught her, and it struck her as special that to capture a condor against the crystal-blue Patagonian sky was no different to capturing a model with an attitude problem. The thing that remained the same was her.
Calida shot in colour and black and white, in sepia and grey. She caught Winona from behind, above and beneath, until the profile she had deemed as ravishing in Ryan’s photographs became something close to divine. With every shot she had it nailed. Frame after frame, Winona Glazer shone like fire.
Afterwards, Calida shared the images. Winona sat next to her and was quiet for a very long time while she went through them. Eventually, she looked up.
‘I love them,’ she said.
The next few months were a hurricane. Winona insisted on using Calida’s pictures for the anniversary spread in Chic, and, while Calida planned to approach Ryan herself on the subject and duly requested Winona hold back, of course as soon as given the chance Winona paraded the switch, unable to keep her ‘revival�
�� under wraps.
Ryan summoned Calida for a meeting. ‘You’ve got nerve—you know that?’ he said. ‘It takes some big cojones to go behind my back. You shouldn’t have done it.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘But not so sorry that you want Winona to scratch the feature?’
‘No.’ She met his gaze. ‘Not that sorry.’
Ryan was chewing gum. He put his hands in his pockets.
‘I’ve seen the shots,’ he said, ‘and I’ll be frank with you, Calida, OK? I got into this business because I’m passionate about portraiture. Lately, dealing with princesses like Glazer, I’ve lost sight of that. Your pictures made me remember. Don’t for a second imagine I’m not royally pissed at you—what you did was wrong. But I’m not standing in the way of genius. And I’ve a feeling you won’t let me.’
After that, Ryan promoted her to his second-in-command. They spun the Chic item not only as Winona’s celebration but also as a showcase for Ryan Xiao’s newest protégée. Acclaim was unanimous. Winona’s reputation as the number one catwalk queen was cemented and her nemeses on Twitter stayed notably silent.
Before long, word was spreading about the city’s hottest new property. Mags Lalique requested a private session to refresh her portfolio. Brett Bennett announced he would only shoot at SilverLine if Calida Santiago was there. Within weeks their schedules had multiplied; huge names, stellar names, everyone coveted a slot. Calida soaked up all she could learn, and Ryan, not wanting to let her go, taught it.
‘This business will be yours one day,’ he said. ‘You realise that, don’t you?’
‘If I decide to stay.’
He grinned. ‘Now you’re getting the hang of it.’
In July, she moved out of the Williamsburg house. Lucy had started a job at MOMA and they decided to room together in an apartment on West 86th. ‘I can’t afford that!’ Lucy chewed her lip when they went to view the space. Calida didn’t mind paying the difference. The way she saw it, if she hadn’t met Lucy when she’d arrived in New York, none of this would have happened: Williamsburg, Brandon, Ryan, Winona … Besides, Lucy was her friend, and friends helped each other out.
Throughout the summer, Calida’s involvement at SilverLine grew and grew, until eventually she surpassed it. With Ryan’s consent, she began taking on clients of her own. Her work was esteemed, her name whispered in dressing rooms and in private dialogues at parties—the shortened version Ryan had christened her with: ‘Have you worked with Cal Santiago? Did you see what she did for Tilly/Catherine/Eva/Katie? I don’t care what it takes, I need a booking.’
Ryan kept giving her raise after raise but it wasn’t enough.
‘I want to be partner,’ she said one day. ‘Existing clients we’ll split seventy-thirty, but for those I bring in it’s straight down the middle. I want my name on the brand: I want in on all decisions and strategies and I want to re-brand to signal the change. Here.’ She showed Ryan her designs—a black square logo, stark and cool, surrounding the block white letters XS. ‘It’s all we need to say.’
Ryan loved it. ‘Since when did you become a ball-breaker?’
Calida wondered if she hadn’t always been one.
Early fall, she received a summons to Winona Glazer’s birthday party. The celebrity world impressed her no more than it had as a child, but today she grasped its usefulness, the ways in which it could propel her into ever more prominent circles.
The night of the party arrived. ‘I can’t wait!’ Lucy trilled as she rifled through her closet and flung a rainbow of clothes on the bed. ‘Is Brett going? He’s gorgeous.’
‘I expect so. I’ll introduce you.’ Calida wore her usual black dress and gaucha boots and kept her hair loose. She applied thick eyeliner and a sweep of mascara, but no other make-up. She took ten minutes getting ready, which was about the time that Lucy emerged from the shower wearing a towel turban and not much else.
‘How can it take you so long?’ Calida collapsed on the mattress as Lucy embarked on the painstaking process of toning, moisturising, coiffing, and finally painting. Her friend did it all completely naked then at the last moment dropped a jade silk slip over her blonde head and, almost as an afterthought, stepped into a pair of barely-there panties. Her nipples were visible through the dress.
‘You sure you want to wear that?’ Calida asked.
‘Why? Does it look bad?’
‘It’s a bit … revealing.’
Lucy snorted. ‘You sound like my mom,’ she said. ‘It’s sexy!’
They set off. Winona was toasting her twenty-fourth at the top of the Standard Hotel, in the gold-barred, glitzily lit, panoramic-viewed celebrity hangout known as The Boom Boom Room. ‘This is insane,’ Lucy clung to her as the elevator delivered them to the eighteenth floor. Even in Calida’s line of work, she had never seen so many stunning people at once. It was like stepping into the glossy pages of Tatler.
‘Cal! You came!’ Winona fell against her like a sequin avalanche, her breath hot and sweet with pickle martinis. ‘Look, everyone: Cal’s here!’
Calida was led to her table. Lucy followed, nervously pulling down her dress.
‘I didn’t think you’d make it!’ Winona slipped into the booth next to her, coked up to her eyeballs, then asked baldly: ‘Who’s this, your girlfriend?’
Calida introduced them. Lucy smiled, star struck, and extended her hand.
‘How come we never see you out?’ Winona ignored Lucy and instead draped an arm round Calida’s shoulder. ‘You should party more,’ she purred. ‘It’s fun … Ooh, look who it is!’ Mercifully, Winona was diverted by model-turned-actor Harry Duvall, who had just turned up with his not-so-secret boyfriend. ‘I’ll be back!’
When Winona had gone, Lucy made a face. ‘Was she coming on to you?’
‘She’s high.’
‘They’re all banging each other anyway, you can tell.’ Lucy removed the magnum from its ice bucket and poured. ‘It’s the ultimate narcissism, right? If they can’t do themselves, they might as well do someone equally as gorgeous.’
Calida smiled. Lucy’s candy-blonde, Southern-Comfort demeanour meant it was sometimes easy to forget there lay a sharp mind beneath. Looking around, she saw that Lucy was right. The models were shamelessly touchy-feely. Six-feet frames lolled over each other, a leg stroked here, a kiss planted there …
Calida downed her champagne.
Over the next few hours, despite the A-list factor in the room, it seemed that she was the person to be seen with. As she got progressively tipsy and Lucy got progressively trashed, a stream of names approached her for a photo, or just to introduce themselves. See, Tess Geddes? You’re not the only one who’s good at this.
At two a.m., the party piled into a chain of waiting cars.
‘I’ve got a shoot in four hours,’ said Calida, hailing her own cab.
‘Bullshit you have!’ Winona Glazer crowed, grabbing her. ‘We’re just getting warmed up. Brett’s renting this sick place out in Glen Cove. You have to come!’
The mansion was an hour’s drive out of NYC. Winona insisted on Calida and Lucy sharing her ride and wasted no time in producing a heap of cocaine.
‘This is the best birthday ever!’ Winona slurred. ‘D’you know why? Because of this woman right here.’ The limo turned and Winona’s body slammed into hers, her hand squeezing Calida’s knee. ‘Cal Santiago,’ she whispered, before erupting in giggles. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you. My fucking boyfriend dumped me like two hours ago and do you know what? I don’t even care! I’m invincible. Alex Dalton can go screw himself because I’m hotter than him, I’m hotter than everyone, I’m hotter than the fucking sun and it’s all thanks to you!’ Winona kissed her. Lucy sat opposite, flirting with a TV actor with badly dyed hair.
As Winona had vouched, the Long Island pad was unbelievable. It couldn’t be smaller than the White House. Moonlight gleamed off landscaped lawns as the party of fifteen—Winona’s proclaimed ‘core set’—piled inside. Cal
ida was amazed at the endless corridors and huge, polished rooms. Who lived here? It was a palace.
‘Brett’s renting it off some Italian dude,’ said Winona. ‘He’s super-rich.’
‘No kidding,’ said Calida. A wall of photographs in the vestibule boasted a suited, dark-haired European mixing with the glitterati. The Italian was attractive but pristine: his teeth too white, his hair too oiled, his hands too smooth. Her thoughts wandered to Daniel Cabrera in his dusty T-shirt and worn blue jeans. Don’t. It hurts.
Lucy was the first to jump in the pool. Her silk slip became transparent as she frolicked and splashed in the water, and soon the rest were joining in, peeling off their clothes and diving into the blue. Brett located the bar and the first shots were served.
‘This is wild!’ Lucy cried, playfully spattering the TV actor. He responded by grabbing her and kissing her. In a rush the silk slip came off and her breasts crushed against his chest. Calida decided she had seen enough. She headed inside.
The grounds were spinning. She’d drunk too much. Locating the kitchen, she drank two glasses of water and sobered up. By the time she went back outside, the pool was deserted, just several bundles of clothes lining the perimeter. Voices and music emanated from a hexagonal pool house; she crossed to it and opened the door.
Inside, it was lavishly upholstered. On the central table a collection of powder-filled bags promised the party would continue until dawn. Everyone was naked and touching each other. The word orgy spun in Calida’s liquor-soaked brain.
She searched for Lucy. ‘Hey, Cal, c’mere,’ drawled Winona. The model was reclining against Brett’s chest and smoking a thin cigarette. Her nipples were tight and small, light pink, and the narrow strip of hair between her legs burned amber. Keeping her eyes on Calida’s, she began to touch herself, parting her thighs so Calida caught a glimpse of a silky pink flower, so similar yet so different to her own. Winona opened wider, sinking her finger and raising her hips. Brett’s hands appeared from behind, lightly squeezing her breasts. People were taking their cue from Winona and kissing and fondling each other, the floor and upholstery a mass of limbs and bumps and swellings, the pink of skin and clumps of hair reaching and swaying like coral on the ocean floor. It was impossible, in places, to see where one body ended and another began; some were connected not to one other but to three or four, by hand, mouth or lower. Soft moans rose from the melee. An alarm sounded faintly in Calida’s head.