Was it coincidence?
Was it love?
Did I love her, the way she used me, the way she looked?
“And what are you reading?” She asked, breaking my reverie.
I dumbly held up the book Leonard had given me when he drove me to the airport.
“No shit,” she said. “Perchance you are heading to Moscow to model in the PG show?”
It clicked. Paige Green.
“Well, aren’t we just Little Mister Beef Cattle?” She snickered.
I looked at her, my shock mounting and my need deepening. We had shared so much without even knowing.
She misread my look to be one of questioning and explained, “It’s this kids modelling show that I was in a long time ago. It was a county fair thing…”
“No. I know,” I managed to choke out. “I was Little Mister Beef Cattle 1984.”
It was Paige’s turn to be speechless.
It is easy to predict the future when all the bits come together. It is all about perspective. If I had the time and maturity to think of it, I could have been able to predict the future from some point in the past. If I could only have recognized the hints as they were happening.
It would be easy to say, “That’s life,” or “Small world,” or “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty,” or something as equally dismissive. That there are so many clichés dealing with this very fact means I am not the first one to notice. There was something going on. There was no coincidence, anywhere. Ever.
The critics loved Paige’s Moscow Fashion Week show. Then again, critics always liked to ‘discover’ the next up-and-comer, any unknown with a modicum of talent. I think Paige outdid both Viktor and Rolf in press coverage. She definitely outdid Carolina Herrera. There was even a full-colour, glossy picture printed in F Magazine of her at the end of her show. She was on the runway, smiling and waving, surrounded by beautiful models.
If you look in the background, you could see me in the back row, on the left.
CHAPTER 10
Baker Grade IV
The need to support and constrain breasts is the underpinning of a billion-dollar industry. We were in Las Vegas, arguably the centre of all things breast-related, to celebrate and promote them. From honorable to degrading, with its elegant and rhinestone-clad dancing girls and glamorous, low-cut evening gowns, to its burlesque history and neon titty peep shows, in Vegas breasts are the great equalizer. In the same night, they are both revered and objectified by visitors and inhabitants alike. In Vegas breasts are a tourist attraction, a civic monument.
As a man, it may be a wonder why I was involved in a shoot for Gowan Dewar, the overlord of couture brassieres. Bridges and skyscrapers didn’t have the structural integrity or attention to detail that Dewar’s bras did. They were second only to their contents as works of beauty. I was the only man in the shoot because the ladies needed something to drape over and cling to while flashbulbs strobed the hot desert night. I was an accessory.
The idea for the shoot was a post-apocalyptic, wrecking-yard lingerie party. It had me naked to the waist, smeared with dirt and oil, wearing leather cut-off short shorts and surrounded by six of the Agency’s most beautiful models sporting nothing but amazing underwear. It was the middle of the night. The wrecking yard was ringed by the yellow blaze from the natural gas flares of a refinery on the city’s outskirts.
Photographers shouted directions, their cameras clicking like a plague of desert locusts and their voices rising against the dusty diesel breeze that blew across the scrub and open flats. A lonely coyote slunk about at the edge of the light, its eyes two glowing pinpoints floating in the dark.
“Show me ennui,” shouted a photographer. “Great. Now, show me subtle resignation.”
We stood on a pile of crushed automobiles, a tangle of metal and tires. The rusting, twisted metal mountain we crawled over was a snarl of shadow and light from the spotlights and strobing camera flashes. We worked every inch of that mountain of wrecks. Dripping engine fluids, slippery break fluid, stinking gasoline and sticky fluorescent puddles of antifreeze all became sexy props. It was hell on earth and I was Max Rockatansky of Main Force Patrol. I was a desolate shell of a man in my leather short shorts, doing all I could to survive in an oil-starved future gone mad. I was sure lingerie would be at the top of everyone’s thoughts when the world ended, when the Lord Humongous roamed the wasteland with his band of crazed anarchists in search of precious gasoline.
“I want crippling domination,” shouted a photographer. “Great. Now, I want munificent tyranny.”
I tried to look tough but it was difficult because all the women were taller than me and I was busy trying not to cut any of my exposed bits while crawling over rusty cars. Forget the broken cubes of windshield glass and the nauseating smell of oil and gasoline, I didn’t want to shear off a nipple or anything.
“Give me contumacious servility,” shouted a photographer. “Great. Now, give me libidinous masochism.”
Give me a dictionary, I thought.
One of the models, a slender brunette beauty named Donna Wanna, swore when she snagged her shoulder on a jagged muffler. A bead of blood, black in the night, formed from the cut.
“Fuck this,” Donna yelled through a snarl.
“Beautiful, that’s perfect. Such emotion.” A voice marvelled from below.
“I’m out of here. You bastards can suck it.”
Donna scrambled down the pyramid of crushed cars as daintily as any lady wearing stilettos, cheekies and a bandeau could. The tirade continued. She waved her hands violently every chance she got, punching the air and giving lewd gestures. She became a force of nature, a fast and intense downpour flash-flooding dusty arroyos, eroding ancient cliffs and moving sediment for miles.
“You fuckers ain’t paying me enough for this shit. I have better things to do than crawl around here contusing myself.”
Donna did that, used pseudo-words. She told me she had heard in an audiobook that people instamatically respect people with a hunormous vocabulary.
Her voice rose from yelling to high-pitched screaming as she carried on.
“Look at this. I’m fucking bleeding everywhere and you pricks keep fucking blinding me with your fucking flashbulbs. Stop it now and help me get the fuck out of this shithole. I’m bleedin’ all over the fucking place.” Then there was a long, amorphous noise that could best be described as sheer animal fury.
“Don’t get any on the strap.” Gowan Dewar rushed to meet her when she reached the ground. “Christ, that’s a seventy-five thousand dollar creation you’re bleeding all over. Take it off before you ruin it.”
Give me my paycheque and get me the hell off this crushed AMC Pacer, I thought as I pulled slimy leather from between my sweaty butt cheeks. Give me strength to endure these chafing leather shorts.
“Give me a martini. Vodka, olives, straight up,” I told the bartender at the breast cancer fundraiser after-shoot soirée.
We had taken a limo from the junkyard to the MGM Grand. On the way, Donna peeled off her lingerie and slid into a stunning Valentino dress.
We whirled from the limo, through a crowd of staggering tourists and into the lobby of the Grand. The creamy marble floor reflected the thousand lights overhead, making the whole room feel like a departure gate of some futuristic spaceport and the spinning night seem even more surreal. A golden lion statue sat in the centre of the room, caged by bars of light. People alternately bustled confusedly around and stood gaping at shiny lights, shiny things and their shiny reflections. Our caveman minds were still in there and capable of mystification.
Donna grabbed my hand and dragged me through the crowd. She pulled me to a sign on a gold easel listing events and locations. My eyes wandered as she bent at the waist to get a better look in the pale amber glow of the room. She used a finger to poke at different events. There was a gathering of realtors, a poker tournament and some firefighter’s conference: Gary Jan Fairway presiding over a session titled “Nozzles, Hoses and Re
els.”
“Richard,” came a call from my left.
It was Leonard, walking toward me with his arm outstretched. We clasped hands, bumped chests and thumped shoulders. Rachel followed a few steps behind. We hugged and kissed cheeks.
“Donna, this is Leonard and Rachel. They’re both journalists with the Times,” I said.
Donna looked at me, awaiting an explanation of why this was important. She held out a limp hand, palm down, to Leonard who dutifully brought it to his lips.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Leonard said.
“Yes,” Donna agreed.
She glanced at Rachel, as if she were a stain, and then looked expectantly at me again.
“Yes, well,” I said. “Rachel writes for the style section and Leonard is an obituarist.”
“Style and obituaries, how… eclectical,” Donna said.
Leonard raised an eyebrow to Rachel who bit her lip but failed to stifle a snort.
“Richard,” Donna tapped my chest with a playful finger. “We’re in the Garden Arena. Let’s go.”
“I’ll be there in a minute. I want to catch up with Leonard and Rachel first.”
Donna looked at me like I made a bad smell, “Well, enjoy your conflagration.” She stormed off.
Leonard watched her go. “She is quite a vocabularian.”
“Yes, she is,” I agreed.
“Do you think she meant confabulation?” Rachel asked.
“Likely,” I said and shifted my attention back to my companions. “I didn’t know the two of you were going to be here.”
“Ever check your emails or voice messages?” Leonard asked.
I didn’t.
“Well, Rachel is covering a bra guy…”
“Gowan Dewar,” Rachel added.
“…and it was seen fit that I attend the Second International Obituary Writers’ Conference.”
“Get out, at the Grand?” I asked and then thought for a second. “Get out, Obituary Writers’ Conference?”
“Yes, there is such a thing and no, not at the Grand. We’re at Thomas and Mack. UNLV is hosting. I figured I would visit Rachel and see how the other half lives,” Leonard said. “The paper sent me here because I wrote that Howard Goldfarb, a great pioneer of professional poker, had died. I wrote,” Leonard held out a hand to frame invisible text, “this legend worked to make poker every part the legitimate sport curling is.”
“So?” I asked.
“Goldfarb didn’t die,” Rachel said.
“Not so much. In fact, he’s supposed to be here tonight.” Leonard grimaced. “I had to do a retraction and it apparently caused Goldfarb quite a bit of grief, explaining that he wasn’t dead to all of his friends and family and the folks at the World Series of Poker. So, the paper thought I needed a bit of education and here I am.”
“We should go,” Rachel said looking at her watch. “The show starts in twenty minutes. You coming?” She asked me.
“I’ll meet you two later for beer?” Leonard called as we disbanded.
Rachel and I parted ways once we got to the Grand Garden Arena. I looked around and saw shadows mingling in the twinkling pinpoints of light on the concourse overhead. Some leaned on the railing, looking down at the sunken arena basin which had been converted into a catwalk for the show. The seats were already starting to fill.
I was trying to figure out what exactly was wrong about Gowan Dewar holding the launch of his new bra line under the pretense of a breast cancer fundraiser when Donna swooped out of the crowd, grabbed me by the arm and hauled me toward the bar through the glittering masses in the twinkling cavern that was the Garden Arena. Her strapless Valentino was made a little less glamorous by the thick bandage taped to her shoulder. The dress did serve to remind me that she made four times my pay on every shoot.
If I was going to survive the runway show and Donna’s drunken fuming over the junkyard shoot, I was going to need liquor. At the best of times, Donna was socially maladroit. That didn’t matter though; to most in the Garden Arena, her assets were solely of the visual variety.
“Can you believe that junkyard shit? It’s ironical, us modelling his trash in a junkyard. And now I barely have time to get a drink before I have to get up onstage in Dewar’s next piece-of-shit contraption.” Donna pulled a tube of Rectolone hemorrhoid cream from her clutch and smeared some under her eyes. Steroids constrict vessels, lessening puffiness.
“Get this,” she continued. “I’m going to be in a fucking prehysteric huntress get-up. Chester told me five minutes ago and now I have this fucking shoulder-gash I have to somehow make look sexy. And how exactly can I make a shoulder-gash sexy? Do I look like one of those cave women who hunt dinosaurs? The ones I’ve seen in pictures were all hideous, with bones in their hair and…”
“Give me a martini. Vodka, olives, straight up,” I said when the bartender pointed a gun-finger at me.
Vermouth, Vodka, chilled martini glass, olives.
“Reverend Mordant Toehold,” Donna barked.
Lemon vodka, rye, melon liqueur, Chambord, orange juice, pineapple juice, dash of sweet and sour, splash of grenadine, egg whites, ice, blend, fishbowl glass, pink umbrella, melon ball and a curly straw.
“Mint julep.” Chester sidled up to the bar next to Donna.
Bruised mint sprigs, bourbon, sugar syrup, water, Collins glass.
“Karkadé,” came a deeper and wholly intriguing voice from the woman beside Chester.
Sudanese hibiscus tea. Dried hibiscus sabdariffa flower, boiling water, ceramic cup.
Believed to normalize blood sugar, uric acid and cholesterol.
Believed to reduce food cravings, wrinkles and even out skin tone.
Believed to be a folk remedy for cancer.
This tall, regal and vaguely familiar woman gave us a sidelong glance.
“Donna,” Chester said with a sly grin. “Dewar’s looking for his Wilma Flintstone. They need you backstage for fitting.”
Donna gave Chester a black stare until the bartender placed the fishbowl glass on the counter. Donna took a long pull from her Toehold, the fishbowl glass looking ridiculously large in her dainty hands, before storming off.
“Thanks, Chester,” I said around a sip of martini. “She’s a handful, a bundle of foul words and poison.” I paused for a thought. “In fact, I have never met anyone so disagreeable. Truly, I can’t stand her.”
Chester had become a father to me. At the age of nineteen, I finally found a mature male relationship from which I could glean a much-needed passive guidance. Chester wasn’t critical. He didn’t judge. He didn’t lecture or chide, he quietly guided. He wanted the best for me.
“She is a repugnant little vixen but one heck of a model. That fiery hellcat attitude comes through in every shoot and every show she’s in. She exudes ‘man-eating harpy’ which is the edge a lot of designers want.” Chester chuckled and looked into his julep to find what to say next. “How’s that whole relationship thing going between you two? How long have you been together? A year now?”
“It’s okay, I guess. I can’t help but feel that something’s missing though, some kind… any kind of depth or connection,” I said.
The sex was amazing though. The kind that’s in porno movies.
Chester nodded and smiled as if reading my thoughts. “Well, you’ll know what to do. You have so much going for you. You’re a good kid and you’ll sort it out.”
The tall, regal, slightly familiar woman with the Sudanese hibiscus tea had been watching us. She cleared her throat.
Chester raised an eyebrow and looked over his shoulder.
“Apologies, my dear,” he said. “Richard, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing you to one of the most amazing women I have ever met. I’m sure, with time, you’ll be liable to agree. This is Stella Supernova.”
That was where I knew her from, the picture hanging on Chester’s wall back at the Agency’s offices. She was the legend he told me about. I had been modelling for two years and had
n’t gone a week without hearing some mention of Ms. Supernova. In an industry with a standard for badmouthing and backstabbing, the references were always positive.
There she was, offering me a hand and a smile. She was amazing. Her face was not classically, or modernly, beautiful, but there was such character and otherworldly grace in her features. Physically, she was equally impressive, a relative giant compared to most of the models I had worked with, full in stature and voluptuous in form where the others were skin-draped skeletons. She stood a head taller than Chester and me, broad-shouldered with well-toned arms, one of which, I was reminded, was held out to me in greeting.
“Stop staring and say hello, Richard,” Chester said.
I stuttered out a greeting that didn’t contain words, only sounds.
“Charmed.” Her voice was as rare as her look. “Chester has told me so much.”
“Now, Richard,” Chester said with a glance at the stage. “I have to go make sure this show doesn’t have any hiccups. Can I trust you to keep Stella company, as a gentleman would?” He emphasized the last four words to impress upon me that Stella was higher up our cladogram. Although Stella boasted no pretense, it was obvious to me that she shared most of the genetic makeup as the rest of the people in the Grand Garden Arena in the same manner that humans and chimpanzees share most of their genes.
Chester was off. Moments later, the speakers blared. Stella took a sip of tea and watched the first models strut down the catwalk over the rim of the teacup. I popped an olive in my mouth as an excuse not to say anything, anything stupid at any rate. Stella watched the lingerie, the bodies. I chewed olive pulp very slowly, turning tapenade into paste and paste into consommé.
Finally, Stella spoke, shouted really, over the beat. “This doesn’t hold much interest for me anymore. It makes me sad and a little disappointed.”
I swallowed and nodded.
“Come.” She smiled and linked her arm through mine with effortless grace. She guided me from the arena, very unlike the way Donna had dragged me through the lobby earlier.
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