Model Guy

by Brooke, Simon

  In the end we both get sandwiches - cheese and tomato for me and humus and alfalfa sprouts for her and she buys me a tiny shot of wheatgrass which, she explains, contains the equivalent nutrients of six tons of green vegetables or something.

  It's the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted.

  "We're still at the early stages," I tell Lauren that evening as we sit on our white settee, sipping Frascati. I'm saying this as much as to reassure myself as to explain it to her. I still don't know exactly what 2cool2btrue.com actually does but Piers and Guy keep telling me that 'it will become clear very soon' or 'all will be revealed'.

  "I think it's all very exciting, I'm so proud of you," says Lauren. Then she adds: "Like you say, even if it doesn't work out, you've given it your best shot and anyway, nothing ventured, nothing gained." Did I say that?

  "So how did your meeting with thingy go?"

  "With Peter?"

  "What's his name again?"

  "Peter Beaumont-Crowther."

  "Bit of a mouthful". She ignores my less than complimentary remark and carries on. I squeeze her arm by way of apology for belittling her fledgling TV career.

  "They want me to do some more screen tests and go on a TV presentation course."

  "Really? That's great. They're really going to invest some money in you then."

  "Yeah, but I'm worth it."

  "Isn't that a line from an ad campaign?"

  "Yeah, I was in it, remember?"

  Chapter Five

  "Hello? Keith?" says my Mum.

  "Hi mum", I say, holding the receiver under my chin as I turn down the stereo which I'm playing at full blast because Lauren is out at a meeting with Peter and the people upstairs are on holiday and the people downstairs don't count because they have a 'Nuclear Power? No Thanks!' poster on their living room windows and leave their rubbish lying around the bins.

  "Keith?" says my mum again. My mum isn't actually bonkers. I was christened Keith by my parents but Penny changed it to Charlie because she thought it sounded smarter, classier, and that it completed the whole package. (Lauren is actually Lorraine but she made the decision to change her name herself as part of her 'personal marketing proposition', as she put it at our first lunch.)

  "Hi, that's better. How are you mum?"

  The important thing to know about my mum is that she is one of those women who keeps a tissue up her sleeve.

  "Oh, okay, I just thought I'd ring and check you're all right." This is mother-speak for a) it's been three geological eras since you've rung me and b) I worry about you, you know that don't you?

  "I'm fine. I've got a new job," I add, triumphantly, hoping that this will lift the conversation a bit.

  "Oh? What, a modelling job? The lady across the road saw you in that advert for, what was it, chocolates?"

  "No, it's nothing to do with modelling. I'm the marketing director for a new internet company." I tell her as suddenly it hits me. God, I am and all! I'd better ask about getting some cards printed.

  "Oh." There is a pause. Please, please, don't drag it down mum. Please sound happy about it. Please don't irritate me and make me say something unkind and then feel guilty. Finally she mutters with a glimmer of enthusiasm: "How exciting." I'm grateful for the effort, at least.

  "Yeah, I just started this week. I'll see how it goes. If it folds I can still go back to modelling or find something else," I explain as a concession to her disapproval of my usual work.

  "They haven't asked you to put up any money then?"

  "Oh no. You're joking, I wouldn't do that," I tell her confidently.

  "Good. Very sensible. What does it do then? Haven't all the internet companies gone bankrupt?" she asks.

  "It's a second generation dotcom," I inform her, getting up and looking out of the window as I talk. "These guys have learned from the mistakes of the first lot. We're building stable business models with identifiable revenue streams." I know it's going over her head, but it doesn't really matter, besides isn't it every child's innate need to impress their parents? And to confuse them - to make it clear that the world has moved on from them and their experiences of it?

  "Oh, I don't know about these things. Just make sure you don’t give them any money."

  I laugh. " ‘Course I won't. Even I'm not that daft."

  "Mmm." Thanks, mum. "Lauren okay?"

  "She's fine. I'll send her your love. She's out tonight. She's at a meeting. She's going to become a TV presenter."

  "Gosh, really? Will we see her on the telly?" "Hope so."

  "Tell me when and I'll set the video."

  I laugh again. "You'll be invited to the party."

  There is a pause. I know what's coming next but we've got to go through it.

  "Have you heard from...?"

  "Not recently," I say briskly. "But I'll give him a call and tell him about my new job."

  "Oh, right. I'm sure he'd like to hear."

  "I'm sure....bye then."

  "Bye." We both hang on the line for a moment.

  "I love you mum...oh, don't cry...I'll come and see you very soon, I promise. Bye."

  I do feel guilty about my mum, stuck on her own in that little house now that they've sold the family home. My sister tells me not to worry about her, that she is getting better and after all it's been nearly seven years. I remember the doctor, though, when Mum and I went to see him. "It's not clinical depression," he said as if to cheer us up. "Just ordinary depression?" I said, my angry sarcasm hitting him with the impact of a paper plane against a brick wall. He was already writing out a prescription for her.

  "Er, yes," he muttered, scribbling away. Just ordinary, crushing, grinding, paralysing depression that made her burst into tears in Sainsbury’s or lie awake every night for two months till her head ached and her eyes stung all day.

  I arrive at the office at ten the next day. Piers and Guy are already in and on the phone. They nod 'Good morning'. I sit down at my desk and realise that I haven't really got anything much to do. I've flicked through all the magazines Piers gave me and put yellow post-it notes against all the advertisements and articles relating to posh or smart things that I think might be right for 2cool. In fact, of course, that is just about everything so all the magazines now have tatty, yellow fringes.

  Most of the stuff I've ordered won't be here for a couple of days although I could ring that travel agent Piers told me about - Madonna's favourite apparently (they're so smart that they're ex-directory) and chase up our Mauritian spa trips.

  "Morning, champ," says Piers when he gets off the phone. "Sorry about that - been on the phone to Hong Kong since five this morning. They're very excited. You know how they love their luxury and their labels in Honkers."

  "Was that the money men or the retailers?" I ask, trying to sound a bit more switched on today, a little less easily impressed.

  "Both really," says Piers taking aim at the bin with his Starbucks cup. He runs his hand through his thick dark hair and shuts his eyes for a moment, screwing up his face with its strong features and permanently flushed cheeks. "Investors and marketing people seem to love the whole concept." The cup hits the bin, dances around the rim a bit and finally falls in, splattering coffee dregs up the wall. Piers punches the air in a movement that turns into a stretch and a yawn. "Yep, see, that's the thing about 2cool. It has no national borders - like all labels these days but even more so because it's internet based. Anyone, anywhere in the world can be 2cool2btrue at any time of the day or night." He performs a sort of pirouette and stretches again. "At any one time around the world a broker in Manhattan, a designer in Cannes, an entrepreneur in Hong Kong, even someone in Sub Saharan Africa can be 2cool."

  "Sub Saharan Africa?"

  "Yeah, why not?"

  "Well," I say. "That's not really our market is it? I mean, wouldn't they more interested in food or something?"

  "Perhaps. However, people need more than food to live."

  "Yeah, but it's usually a good starting point - "

>   "The point about the third world, Charlie, is that they are becoming the planet's workshop. We don't actually make things in the first world anymore. Your Nike trainers, your Levis, your Apple Mac - they're manufactured in the Philippines or India or somewhere."

  "By children," I suggest but Piers is off again.

  "Do you know what we do manufacture in the first world? Brands! We make the brands and they take care of those little details like the products they go on."

  "Hi, Charlie, how are you?" says Guy as he puts the phone down. "Piers, we need to get something over to Li Ka Shing's people by midday."

  "Right you are," says Piers, diving onto his computer.

  "Got some coffee, Charlie?" asks Piers.

  "No, fine thanks," I tell him.

  "Listen," says Guy, coming round to the front of his desk and sitting on it. "We've scored a bit of a PR coup. Piers knows a journalist on the Post and she's agreed to do a piece about the site. She's coming in today to meet us and I want you to take her out to lunch and tell her about the whole concept."

  "Yeah, sure." I say, hoping I sound more confident than I feel. I can probably manage the overall concept, the big picture - it's the details that I'm not so hot on. At this rate we'll have run out of things to talk about before we've even ordered. I hope she's been somewhere nice on holiday recently otherwise we'll have absolutely nothing to say to each other.

  "You know what we're all about here."

  "I think so Guy. I just wondered, you're, er, you're not coming along as well then?"

  "No, matey, this is your territory. She's arriving here at quarter to one. Just take her out and talk to her. Scarlett's already booked a table for you both at one o'clock at Dekonstruktion. Oh, nearly forgot, here's your 2cool credit card." He grabs an envelope off his desk and slides out some pieces of paper along with a Mastercard. It has 'Charlie Barrett, 2cool2btrue.com' embossed on it.

  I run my finger over the lettering appreciatively but then a thought strikes me:

  "Charlie's not my real name, it's actually Keith, Keith Barrett."

  "Is it?" Guy seems unconcerned.

  "Charlie is – was - just my modelling name."

  "Oh, don't worry about that, it's the 2cool bit that counts. We'll have our own cards soon - none of this tacky Mastercard shit. What kind of a logo is that? About as smart as Doritos."

  The journalist arrives ten minutes late. I'm on the phone organising some plants for the office from a company that rents them out. Piers has given me certain varieties that are very '2cool' and the woman is making a note of them and pointing out that they are very expensive as well as being difficult to maintain. She asks for a large deposit which I decide to allow Scarlett to sort out.

  When I put the phone down Guy introduces us. I notice that Piers has double kissed her and so I assume they know each other.

  "Nora, this is Charlie our marketing director," says Guy. We shake hands.

  "Nora Benthall," says the girl, smiling.

  "Hi Nora," I say. "Good to meet you." I smile too - about 750 watts, which is friendly but not too obviously designed to impress. She is a bit younger than me, late twenties perhaps. She has dark red hair, pale skin, a small mouth and big brown eyes behind a pair of black framed glasses. But what is she wearing? It looks like she has raided an Oxfam shop: baggy purple satin trousers, big Army boots, a sort of New Romantic shirt that looks like it came from a jumble sale and a loud checked brown and yellow coat.

  Has no one else noticed? Perhaps they're just a bit more subtle than I am and have not checked her out so obviously. Hearing Scarlett's voice in the phone reminds me that this is getting to be a habit.

  "Do you want to have a quick look at the site Nora, before you and Charlie go off?" says Piers.

  "Love to," says Nora, looking up at him expectantly. I thought so - there is a definitely a subtle American accent there. She spins round to check out the software bit of the office and her coat catches something on Scarlett's desk. Scarlett grabs it and looks daggers at her but she is oblivious to it.

  Zac, who has arrived by now, sighs like this whole thing is a total pain in the arse and taps at his keyboard. The big Mac that we are all peering at bursts into life. 2cool2btrue seems to grow from nothing in the distance and then comes forward until we are overtaken by one of the 'o's of 'cool'. There are images of groovy young people in bars, shots of signs saying "Fifth Avenue", "Bond Street" and "Via Veneto" interspersed with pictures of Madonna, Hugh Grant, Lady Helen Windsor and Martin Luther King. Then there are shots of beautiful people in what looks like the Art Deco area of Miami before we're transported to a modern airport lounge in some part of Scandinavia where a pale skinned girl with long blond hair gives us a curious, lingering stare. Suddenly there is newsreel footage of Woodstock and the riots at Penn State and then a rave in Ibiza. There are catwalk shows and finally stills of some tosser relaxing in a huge loft apartment overlooking a river and working on his laptop as he reclines on a Charles Eames chair.

  "Hey, that's you," says Nora, prodding me. Quite hard, actually.

  "Oh, yeah," I mutter. I hate seeing myself in pictures, even in such august company.

  "That's really cool," says Nora when it has finished.

  "It needs some tweaking and we want to make it all completely interactive of course," says Piers.

  "Everyone who logs on will be able to customise the site to fit in with their own interests and requirements," says Guy.

  "And aspirations," adds Piers.

  "After you've logged on a few times the site will be able to identify your own personal, individual interests together with your activity and retail patterns and actually offer you things that it thinks you'll be interested in or that you probably need to know about," Guy tells her, eyes wide with excitement.

  I feel I should be making notes.

  "OK, thanks Zac," says Piers.

  Zac makes a tiny movement with his head to acknowledge their belated gratitude as he races the mouse around its pad and hits a couple of keys.

  "That's some site," says Nora as we make our way down the street to the restaurant.

  "Well, I think it's the whole concept that's so exciting," I hear myself saying.

  "Kids'll love it," she says, as if she isn't one of them of course.

  "It's very much of its time, I think, you know, after all the dotcom hysteria that surrounded the first generation of internet entrepreneurs."

  "Wasn't all that business just crazy?"

  "Absurd."

  Scarlett has got us a nice quiet, corner table at Dekonstruktion, this week's scorchingly hip restaurant. After we have ordered tuna Carpaccio followed by Steak and Kidney pudding for her and smoked wild boar on a bed of Pak Choi and then Alaskan cod tagine for me, she says the one thing that I really don't want to hear above all else:

  "So, you used to be a male model."

  "Model," I correct her. "I used to be a model. Unless, that is, you're a lady journalist."

  She is unembarrassed: "Oh, I'm no lady".

  I decide not to wait for the standard 'Do you shave your chest?' line (to which the answer is no, never) and change tack: "Is that an American accent, you've got there?"

  "Does it still show? When I go back to the States all my friends say I talk like the Queen."

  "I thought I heard it," I smile, trying to smooth over the male model faux pas and also, I have to admit, to avoid discussing 2cool in case she guesses that I haven't really got a clue about what I'm talking about.

  "My father's American and I grew up mostly in New York but then I came to London to work after I left journalism school about ten years ago."

  "Do you like it at the Post?"

  "Uh huh, it's pretty cool. I mostly get to do things like 'Which of these women is most likely to suffer from cellulite in five years time?' and 'Men who spend more on beauty products than their wives do.' You know, the big issues". She gesticulates with the fork she has picked up and inadvertently stabs a passing waiter in the arm. He tuts p
rissily but Nora continues regardless, clearly unaware of what she has done. "Plus a few celebrity interviews."

  "Really? Like who?"

  "Oh, Debbie Harry the other week."

  "What was she like?"

  "Big head."

  "Oh, I bet a lot of these people are really conceited."

  Nora looks at me.

  "No, she has a big head." She spreads her hands around her face to make the point.

  "Oh, right." That communication thing again.

  "They mainly employ me to take the piss." Nora is saying. "But this is quite a fun story by comparison. I think it'll be pretty big."

  "If it all works out," I say, consciously lowering expectations a bit.

  "Sure, but even if you all fall on your asses, it'll still be interesting."

  I smile.

  "You'll still get a story."

  "Sure. A better one in a way."

  I try to work out whether she is being deliberately provocative or whether she simply doesn't appreciate how annoying that sounds, but her innocent smile gives nothing away.

  "You know Piers already?"

  "Piers? Er, yeah, we've known each other for a long time. He's quite a guy - never stops."

  "A real ideas man."

  "Always."

  Our food arrives and I'm quite relieved to have something to concentrate on.

  "So why'd you give up the male, I mean, the modelling?"

  "This seemed like an interesting project. They asked me. I'd been modelling for eight years or so - it seemed like the right time to change careers".

  "What experience do you have in internet entrepreneurship?"

  "None," I tell her confidently, deciding that I'd better make a virtue of it. "That's the point in a way, I've come to it fresh, no preconceptions, no baggage. Like I said, we're a second generation dotcom, we've drawn a line in the sand after the first wave and learned from their mistakes." Way to go Charlie! I almost believe me.