Debbie Silver, president and executive director of BIGMODELS, Incorporated, glanced at Aisha, then tried to catch Pammie’s eye. But the receptionist and Holly were bent over the appointment calendar smiling and chatting. Miss Silver, a former professional model whose weight problems had forced her to stop modeling, asked Aisha, “Have you been helped?”
Aisha, nervous and excited, blurted out, “Oh, snap, you the one from the commercial! Phat!” When she stood, she didn’t even reach Miss Silver’s shoulder.
Miss Silver’s feeling about this girl went from disapproval to dislike. Loud and unpolished. She cut a look at Pammie, who had finished with Holly and was watching the scene.
Pammie read her boss’s face and reacted. “Debbie, this is Asha—A-eye-sha, excuse me—Ingram—”
“It’s A-eee-sha,” corrected Aisha, “eee like pee.”
The receptionist ignored Aisha and continued, “—who saw our commercial and wants to model.” She averted her eyes and flipped pages of a magazine, barely smothering the giggle building in her throat. These girls were too much, she thought, thinking they could traipse in there and become big models just because they were fat, as if that were enough. This one had a pretty face, but the hair, the clothes, those beat-up shoes—plus she was a midget by model standards. And “eee like pee”? How rude! She flipped more pages.
Debbie Silver straightened her back, asked for “Miss Aisha Ingram’s folder,” and told Aisha to follow her. Aisha took in the president’s office while Miss Silver skimmed the application and waiver form and scrutinized the Polaroids.
The walls were plastered with black-and-white headshots and full-length color photos, some autographed, of glamorous women dressed in luxurious clothing. On the desk, turned so that both she and her clients had a full view, was a gold-framed photograph of a younger Debbie Silver, skeletal in a tight, fuchsia sequined gown. The shot had been taken at the height of her career and had run in all the major magazines.
Aisha heard Keeba’s voice in her head: “Go on in there and git yours! Don’t lay back.” She smoothed down her bang and went for hers. “So Miss Silver, people say I’m nice-looking, and you can see I’m big, so that’s why I’m here, to be a big model and get some money to take care of my family. I could model oversize jeans or do food commercials or be a thong girl in a music video …”
The BIGMODELS founder held in a smile. The kid was clueless—charming in a street sort of way, but definitely clueless. Not exactly representative of the audience their clients were trying to reach. A Brooklyn native herself, Debbie Silver had grown up in a neighborhood that changed during her teenage years from Jewish middle class to black and underclass. She recognized Aisha’s look: project girl. She watched Aisha, saying nothing. Not much fashion potential. But the kid had gotten the fee together, God knew how, and had come in to try her luck. That showed heart—a trait she respected.
“Tell me about your background, Miss Ingram—schooling, work experience. You said you’re supporting a family?”
Aisha’s eyes brightened. “Yeah, I got two kids, Starlett Whitney who just turned four—”
“Don’t tell me, she’s named for Whitney Houston, correct?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?! What, you one of them 1-800 fortune-tellers too?”
“No, no, far from it. I’d have won Lotto by now. Just a feeling,” said Debbie. It seemed like every day she was getting a call or a letter from a Whitney this or Whitney that. “Please, go on.” She was beginning to like the kid.
“And the other one’s Ty, who’s two. All right, Miss 1-800, who he named after?”
Debbie laughed. “I have absolutely no idea, but to humor you, I’ll hazard a wild guess—Mike Tyson?”
“Ugh, no! Not him. Ty-rese. The singer. Now he love women, he don’t beat on them, and he fine too. So I’m staying with my moms for the moment until I find …”
Aisha’s voice trailed off as the worry over welfare filled her again. Miss Silver’s eyes on her gave her a sad feeling, but she chased it away. “As for school, I probably be going back.”
“To college?”
“High school. To finish up. Gotta take a couple more classes.”
“Umm-hmm.” A high school dropout with little children and still living at home, thought Debbie. That’s a tough one. The girl has guts, coming in with nothing going for her but hope. Still, she wasn’t running a charity. Few of her clients would be interested in … Better tell the kid up front, refund her money. It was only fair.
“I’ll be honest with you, Miss—”
“Can I just say something, Miss Silver? You look a hundred times better now than on that picture!” interrupted Aisha, pointing to the picture frame. “When I first looked at it, I was like, ‘Damn, Miss Silver need a big plate of macaroni and cheese, barbecue ribs, and collard greens.’ I’d buy a outfit I saw on you before I’d want anything swinging off her bones.”
Debbie Silver listened, this time not hiding her smile. Scores of aspiring and actual models had sat in that same chair and enthused about her “gorgeous” photo. She played along, when in truth it was there to remind her—and them—of how unhealthy it all was, the not eating, the throwing up, the mad quest to look skinny. A young woman’s body was not intended to look like a twelve-year-old’s . A simple fact of nature.
She examined Aisha again, the slicked hair, chipped bangle earrings, and bursting blouse. Her style was hopeless, but she was a natural beauty. There might be something. It would be a very long shot, but hell, it might pay off—for them both.
Aisha could’ve smacked herself. Everything was going good until she ragged on the picture. Why she always had to talk out her neck, say things that got on people’s last nerve? She rubbed her nose and did a fake cough. “Umm … I hope you not … I wasn’t trying to …”
Debbie shrugged. “No problem, Aisha, I appreciate honesty. I can call you by your first name?”
“Uh-huh,” nodded Aisha, “everybody do. Debbie.”
“Debbie can work. You’re right. I was one of the walking dead at that shoot and for much of my short career, and you’re one of the few to call it as she sees it. In return, I’m going to be honest with you. Your look is not what our institutional clients typically require in models of any size. Your hair, your clothes, your height, your weight—all wrong. But you’re a beauty.”
Aisha said, “Whatever.” Debbie smiled.
“Oh yes, and the attitude. Wrong. But I said typically. We also work niche markets for smaller companies. They wouldn’t use you to sell snacks to teens in Casper, Wyoming. They’d get a five-foot-eight blond, outdoorsy type. You’d be tapped by the client targeting a hipper, more urban audience. Madison Avenue knows that beauty depends on community. The toothpick look they’ve sold so well to white girls has less appeal among ethnic whites and no appeal to blacks, where attractive means ‘baby got back:’”
“Ahhh—ha, ha—” sputtered Aisha, gasping. “You too funny! I mean … how somebody white know about back!”
“It’s part of my job to know trends in clothes, hair, and even expressions. And when you live with a sixteen-year-old who blasts Sir Mix-A-Lot as soon as she gets into the house, you learn more than you ever wanted to know about the beauty of big butts.”
Aisha was fascinated. She was in a fancy office in Manhattan talking with a white lady about rap and big butts. What a trip! The conversation switched to business matters such as fine-tuning Aisha’s look, what goes on at go-see interviews and photo shoots, and pay scales for television, catalog, and runway work. Aisha knew better than to let herself get all juiced, but all sorts of fantasies were spinning in her head.
The two of them walked out of the president’s office like buddies.
“Pammie, Aisha’s going to need a fresh book—you’ll find a couple of extras in the cabinet behind you—and she needs new photos.” She gave Aisha a playful nudge. “Polaroids might’ve been good enough for Warhol but not for real girls.”
Aisha had no idea who o
r what she was talking about, so she just said, “Word.”
“Squeeze her in with Sam for sometime after lunch, say about two.”
“But Miss Silver, she only paid for—”
“It’s fine. Oh yes, I have a two-thirty with Gap and a four o’clock with the Ann Taylor people, which’ll probably go late, so I won’t be back in today. And Pammie, refund Aisha’s fee. This one’s on me.”
“But Miss Silver, the policy says—”
“I made the policy, and in this instance I’m changing it.” Debbie Silver grabbed Aisha’s hand. “It’s been a pleasure. I’ll be in touch if I can shake anything loose.”
“Thank you, Debbie.” Aisha grinned.
“Debbie?” mumbled the receptionist under her breath.
Eleven
The noontime streets swarmed with people buying food, eating food, carrying food in bags. As “all wrong” as Miss Silver had said she was, Aisha felt very right at that moment bumping her way through the throngs. Matter of fact, she felt fly. Supa dupa fly, as Aisha’s favorite hip-hop star Missy Elliott would say. She coulda swore that every boy’s eye she caught had a special glint in it, and that all the girls she outstared looked jealous.
Aisha swayed and sashayed her hips as she approached the hot dog stand. “Lemme get two franks with everything, a pretzel with extra mustard, and a root beer—” A thought cut short her sentence. “No, make that a diet root beer.” Better shed a few pounds. But not too many, ’cause Miss Silver was dead right about girls needing meat on they bones.
She squeezed onto the end of a crowded bench in City Hall Park and balanced the cardboard tray on her knees. Soon she was washing down the last of her lunch with big gulps of soda. Workers returned to their jobs, and Aisha slid to the middle of the bench into a warm shaft of sunlight. The fantasies returned. I’ma be a model. I’ma be a model. She burped and loosened the drawstring on her leggings.
A parade of cars curled onto the Brooklyn Bridge. On the other side of the river were the projects, where she was born. She squinted at the tall, uniform buildings so far off. No, there would be no workfare for Aisha Ingram. No scrub brushes and dirty water, no heavy brooms or pointy trash pickup poles, and definitely no getting her butt kicked hassling folks on no subway patrol. She was about to blow up. No bout a-doubt it. Big. Big respect, big shoutouts, and big benjamins was all coming her way. Across the street, shoppers flowed in and out of the revolving doors of J & R Music World. If she had the cash, she’d be in there too, buying Whitney’s greatest and Brandy’s latest and Janet’s newest. Well, she did have her fifty dollars. The double clang of a church chime jolted her. Sam! He betta be cute. Across the park she ran, bouncing and jiggling, and bustled down Broadway.
Mornings at the agency were usually calm, the appointments for intakes and interviews carefully spaced. Afternoons were tumultuous, with girls waiting to be photographed, primping for go-sees, returning from shoots, and excitedly trading tales.
“Omigod, she was like, ‘Stacey, you are sooo going on the Waikiki shoot’—I almost fainted …”
“ … so I says to him, ‘Excuuuuse-me, this was a call for big models—am I right or am I wrong?—and now you telling me I gotta lose ten pounds? I don’t think so.’”
“Swear to God on a mountain of Bibles, Viv, he walked in the studio wearing nothing but his cameras, and he had all this gross, red hair—ugh, it was disgusting …”
“I’m okay. I guess. But that was my eleventh go-see. Girls are getting work their first time out, but people look at me like ‘Vanish from my world!’ One of these days I’m going to just stick my naked behind in an art director’s face and scream, ‘Here’s where you can put your go-see. Go to hell! See?’”
The boasting, complaining, and moaning were in full blast when the door banged open and in lunged Aisha, instantly silencing all talk. Sweat beaded her brow and darkened the armpits of her blouse, which had finally popped open under the strain. Her carefully smashed-down bang had been blown upward from her run and was sticking out like the brim of a cap.
“Where Sam at?!” she panted. Whispers rose.
Pammie’s face registered the disdain she hadn’t dared show in front of her boss. She pulled out Aisha’s file, looked inside, then dropped it on the desk.
“You were scheduled for two o’clock, not ten after. Sam is very busy and cannot be kept waiting. I already sent another girl. Have a seat. Modeling is so about punctually keeping appointments.”
A few girls nodded in agreement. A project girl dissed is a force of nature. A plume of heat climbed Aisha’s spine, fanned through her back, gathered in her neck, and spread to her ears and face. Her eyes sparked, and a tremor shot through her body that seemed to be felt by the whole group. “Uh-oh,” whispered a voice. As though their sky had grown suddenly dark, the models filled the office with anxious murmurs and edgy movements like forest animals sensing danger.
“No, you didn’t give away my appointment that was for about two o‘clock, or I’ma be so about punctually kicking your stank butt!” A couple of girls eased out the door.
Pammie, a proud Long Islander, was not about to take that from Brooklyn trash. She said out loud to no one in particular, “These ghetto girls are so mouthy, it’s not even funny! They get their fee refunded and a free book for their photos, then they have the gall to come in late for a shoot they haven’t even paid for! I swear, some people are always looking for a freebie like somebody owes them. This isn’t the frigging welfare, it’s a model agency.”
She got up from her desk. “Look, honey, you’re late. So take a seat and wait your turn like everybody else. Nobody gets special treatment around here.”
Aisha walked slowly around the desk and stood nose to bosom with the tall, athletic receptionist. Not a girl remained in the room. In the hallway, urgent voices called, “Sam! Sam!”
“What you mean by ghetto girls? Why you gotta go there when you know ya mama’s the one who be ghetto! What, you wanna piece of me?” challenged Aisha, ready to fight.
Their bodies pressed hard on one another as if each were trying to walk right through the other.
Aisha was defiant despite being outmatched physically. “And I ain’tcha honey! Do I look like some white girl’s honey?! Now back up off me!” She pushed forward, attitude made flesh. “Back up off me, I said.”
“You back up, homegirl, all the way outta here, before I call the cops!” Pammie planted herself firmly against Aisha, a solid mass of former college basketball star.
“Call ’em, g’head! My sister a cop! And you wrong about nobody gettin’ special treatment ’cause you ’bout to get treated right now!”
Aisha gave the receptionist a hard shove, throwing her backward against the wall. Pammie gripped Aisha’s forehead like she was palming a basketball and held her at arm’s length. Aisha swung wildly with serious determination, but her arms were just too short to land a single punch.
That didn’t stop her though from shouting as if she were really beating Pammie down. “Yeah, uh-huh, how ya like me now?! I told you to back up, but you had to be all that.” Pammie’s large hand was gripping Aisha’s whole face, but the lips kept moving. “That’s all you got?! You ain’t nothin’. Now who’s all that, Miss Telephone Girl?! Who’s all that now?!”
Pammie glared. “It sure isn’t you, chubby. Just what are you supposed to be doing? You’re the one who’s nothing!”
Using her upper-body strength and still holding Aisha by the face, she pushed her toward the door. Aisha spun around, breaking Pammie’s grip, ducked, and lunged. Both girls went crashing to the floor, Aisha banging away at Pammie’s brick-hard abdominals as though she were pounding her way out of a life closing in on her. All of a sudden forceful hands grabbed Aisha under the armpits and yanked her backward.
“What in the name of—are you crazy?! Get off her! Somebody get a cop up here!” Samantha was a powerfully built woman with a river of silky black hair and a gifted eye for photography. She’d been shooting Debbie Silv
er’s big models for a year. But this was a first! Sam pulled Aisha off the receptionist, who was panting more from surprise than anything else.
“You okay, Pammie?! What’s going on in here?!”
The models had returned and were huddled in the doorway.
“Stacey, help me get her inside to Debbie’s couch. Viv, bring wet paper towels from the ladies’ room!”
Pammie leaped to her feet. “I’m fine, Sam, really! That wuss can’t even punch.” She moved toward Aisha. “You didn’t hurt me, dough girl, you’re too soft to hurt anything. That’s why you got your fat face palmed! Try me again, and I’ll dunk you!”
“Oh, you gon’ dunk me?! Step to me then, donkey, step to me!”
Sam jumped between the fighters and held them apart. “Someone please call 911! Now!”
Aisha snatched her file from the desk and ran as fast as she could.
Twelve
The Brooklyn Bridge—its cooling air, project views, and solid walkway—calmed her as it carried her back home. The timepiece on the famous Clock Building said three o‘clock. She remembered how that had been her favorite time of day, when school was about to let out and freedom was so close she felt it in her body. Her legs would get to jumping as if the double-dutch rope were already flying, holding her in its magical whirl. Raven would get the three o’clock bug too, and soon their teacher’d be hollering, “Aisha! Raven! Sit still.” Or Aisha would jerk back and forth in her seat, ducking in her imagination the dodgeball always aimed at her legs. At those times, the teacher’d give her a girls’ room pass without even asking if she had to go. Once in the hall, she’d tear through school, drumming on classroom doors, and leaping down steps three at a time.
It was true, thought Aisha, that she busted out a lot of energy, but she never wanted nothing much more than to have fun. If anyone had told her then where she’d be at nineteen, she wouldn’ta believed it. She had really wanted to lock down a modeling job, but she screwed it up. Why hadn’t she just dealt with it like whatever and acted cool? She coulda met the girls, maybe made friends, got her book together. Why’d she always have to get in a fight like a hoodlum? Pammie had dissed her in front of everybody, but so what? Had she put her hands on her? No. And s’pose the cops had busted her and locked her up? What about Star and Ty?
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