“To your first assignment,” she says lifting her glass to me in a toast. “Modeling is a great job but you have to be able to endure the bad times.”
I start my new job the following Sunday, and I’m delighted with the gorgeous show room all done in red velvet and lace. There are ten models in exhibit, including me, and we have two dressers who get us in and out of our gowns with amazing velocity, making me realize that I had done nothing to earn my pay when I was a dresser myself. I had spent most of my time eating, talking to the models, and very little time with their zippers and gowns, but here the pressure is tremendous.
The sense of glamour, excitement and tension in the air is palpable, and I am paralyzed by nerves, wondering how I will get the courage to come out when my times comes. The showroom is packed with clients and I see the other models parading up and down the room with a confident flair holding a label delicately between their fingers. I’m sick with anxiety, and feel perspiration beads beginning to show in my forehead.
“It’s your first time out, isn’t it?” says another model with compassion.
“Yes and I don’t think I can make it,” I respond, shaking.
“You’re suffering from stage fright,” she says pulling me to the side. “It happens to all of us. Focus on only one person and walk for that person only, and forget the fact that all eyes are on you. You’re on very briefly anyway, and as long as you don’t trip on the gown or fall making the situation really dramatic, nobody will notice that you don’t have any experience.”
She goes on before me and I line up behind her wanting to die. I’m afraid I’ll make a total fool of myself out there, and that everyone will hate me. My gown is announced and I walk out there trembling. I hold the label the way I saw the others do but my face is on fire and my knees are buckling under the pressure. I feel a sick feeling at the pit of my stomach and fear that I’m going to faint but I don’t, some mysterious force carries me through, and I finish my walk without a hitch.
“Well done,” says Carol, the model who had realized my inexperience. “The first time is always the hardest, hon, now you’ll be fine.”
And I am. I go out there again and again and feel more confident each time. It feels great to go from an aspirant model to an actual one, and I feel beautiful and desirable with everybody looking at me. It is empowering to be the center of attention for those brief minutes, and I understand at once why people get addicted to it, enduring hardship after hardship in their quest for success.
But it is hardly a lucrative profession because after this assignment ends, I’m back to zero. I talk to the other models and many are booked in advance for other assignments. Carol says she has six months of bookings ahead of her. Looking at her I’m not surprised, she has tons of brown hair and a milky-white, glowing complexion. She’s also extremely tall and thin and the clothes look great on her. The bridal gowns and veils are so gorgeous I dream of owning one for my own special day some day.
To cheer me up after my assignment ends, Mindy invites me to dinner at her house, but once I’m there we go to a French restaurant nearby and have a delicious meal, with white wine and desert. Over coffee Mindy smokes one cigarette after another and she listens to me attentively as I brag about the job and how much I had enjoyed it.
“Once you’re out there,” she says tapping her long, manicured nails on the table, for emphasis. “Under those hot lights and wearing beautiful clothes, nothing else matters. You feel beautiful and special, and everyone wants to feel that way. The fashion industry is a fascinating business, it’s never routine and it’s never boring, that’s why most of us get hooked.”
We take a cab to her apartment and run into her father, who had unexpectedly stopped by and was just leaving the building.
“What do you want,” snaps Mindy, visibly annoyed. “Didn’t I tell you to always call me first?”
“I’m sorry,” says the slim, distinguished gentleman with salt and pepper hair, wearing glasses. “I was in the neighborhood and wanted to see my daughter, that’s not a crime, is it?”
“You should have called first,” she repeats red faced. “You can’t just barge in on me whenever you feel like it.”
She ushers us in into the foyer and takes out a batch of papers from a drawer, throwing them at him insolently.
“Mindy,” he pleads. “I like to talk to you about something.”
“This is not a good time.”
“Do I have to make an appointment to see my own daughter?”
“Yes, you do, now if you don’t mind, I’ve got things to do.”
She hasn’t bothered to introduce us but he acknowledges me with a faint smile, and leaves the apartment hesitantly. I’m shocked and disappointed because the image I have of her is that a kind, wonderful person and I can’t reconcile that person to the mean and disrespectful behavior I have just witnessed.
“I’m sorry,” she says realizing my discomfort. “But I think we better call it a night, he has upset my whole evening.”
She calls for a cab and I leave dumbfounded. Her face is contorted with rage and I notice with dismay that she really seems to loathe her father. I feel a strange sense of loss because I know I’ll never feel the same way about her now. I’ve seen her dark side and it has scared me, shattering the image I had of her.
~~~
I begin looking for a new opportunity with renewed vigor and hope, but in no time at all the same endless hunt and hurtful rejection starts taking its toll on me again.
“Is it always like this?” I ask Karen, the agency’s receptionist and secretary, who has befriended me. The petite, dark haired woman, smiles at me and says that you must be prepared to go without a job sometimes for as long as six months.
“How do people survive? I mean, don’t they have bills to pay?”
“They don’t rely entirely on this business; most of them have other means of support.”
“Like what?”
“Like rich boyfriends,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. “Better get yourself a sugar daddy, honey, till you make it in this business or you are going to starve to death. The trouble is that there are too many pretty women and not enough jobs.”
I’m running out of money, time and patience and since the incident with her father I haven’t called Mindy. I picked up the phone many times to call her but always hung up before dialing her number. I am amazed that what I used to do so spontaneously now takes tremendous effort on my part. I struggle to understand my feelings wondering if I have idealized her too much and that’s why I am still hurting over the incident.
I give myself two more weeks to find a job because my financial situation is becoming desperate, and I finally find cheaper accommodations on Roosevelt Avenue and Seventy Fourth Street, a few blocks away from the subway. Leaving Teresa and Cindy is no hardship on me because I never established a relationship with them, and they receive the news with indifference. In my book of memories, they will remain the oddest people I ever met, but I also realize they served their purpose for I wouldn’t have been able to live completely on my own right after Aunt Clarissa left.
The room I rent is on the second floor with its own kitchen and a shared in bathroom down the hall. The owners are Yugoslavian immigrants who have converted their two-family home into a boarding house to make ends meet after their only son became disabled due to a car accident. I get a phone installed quickly in my room, and the landlady, Velinka, gives me a small television set to keep me company. She is a short, heavy set woman with protruding green eyes and dried, over processed blonde hair. She has a tough air about her, and her husband is very meek and quiet. The other tenants call her the “General” and warn me to keep my distance from her. The room is barely furnished with a bed, a tiny dresser and a small closet.
The clothes Mindy gave me have to go under the bed in plastic bags again, and I wonder what those world famous designers would say if they saw their clothes treated so cavalierly. Seeing the clothes gives me a funny feeling in my hea
rt, but I still can’t call Mindy, wondering if there is something wrong with me or I’m just a big ingrate.
~~~
The agency sends me to model bathing suits and the tall, slim man likes me and makes me try on three full suits, but when he calls his partner, a short, pudgy man with a big belly, he says he prefers a taller model and sends me packing. Again my height is a problem, five feet six is considered short for a model and I lose assignment after assignment because most people prefer taller models.
I come to the painful conclusion that I simply don’t have the staying power to keep hunting week after week and month after month with no pay and no change in sight. I sign up with an agency and get a job in Long Island City at the offices of Best Form, the brassiere company, as a secretary. It is a far cry from the glamorous world of modeling but it is steady pay and the work isn’t difficult. Still, the brief excitement I experienced as a runway model in that bridal show leaves me with a wistful sense of what might have been.
I find myself waking up at dawn and thinking about it, mourning the fact that I couldn’t make it, reliving the whole experience as though it had been nothing but a dream. And one day, feeling an intense yearning for the past after hearing “Spanish Eyes” on the radio, I call Mindy and leave her a long, apologetic message with her answering service. She doesn’t return the call and knowing that the relationship is over, I feel sad and upset.
My silence these past two months have told her I made a judgment on her character and she wants no part of me. I think of going to her apartment and apologizing personally for not calling her, but I’m too much of a coward to do it. Thinking of the many kindnesses she extended to me makes me feel worse and I try to put the whole thing out of my mind, but it’s not easy because every time I see soap commercials I think of her.
My room has a small window facing the front of the street where I can see the flashing neon lights of the restaurant at night. I live in a busy area, there is always a lot going on but a deep loneliness is beginning to get a hold of me, giving me a hollow, empty feeling. To make matters worse, mother writes that Laura Gianni died in Cochabamba, a few weeks ago, and that her devastated husband has moved back to La Paz with the children. The details of her death are horrific, she died in her husband’s arms begging for oxygen even though the mask was at full blast capacity, and he had helplessly watched the horror in her eyes as she slipped away, vainly struggling to breathe.
The news hit me hard and I feel tears flooding my eyes. Images of her beautiful face, bewitching smile and kindness towards my mother and me flash before my eyes and make my heart ache. I can’t believe she is gone, the glamorous woman of my childhood, the person I most wanted to emulate; mother says she was only thirty six years old and that’s barely half a life. I think about the mysteries of death all the time, and never more so than when I hear news like this. What does it all mean when it can be wiped out in a second? Do we go on building and planning our journeys while negating the inevitability of death? Is that the only way we can survive? Where is Laura now? Mother says to say a prayer for her soul and I do hoping there is an afterlife, and that she is resting comfortably in the arms of God.
~~~
I have made a new friend and I talk about everything that’s happening in my life with her. Sandy Raccio is a sweet, sensitive girl who is patient and understanding and we have become close in a short time. She is a slim brunette with brown eyes who has the grace and delicacy of a gazelle. She is American Italian but despite our different backgrounds we find that we have much in common, laughing at the same silly things and indulging in chocolate bars during our break periods. Sandy’s life is ideal on the surface, she lives in a comfortable home in Corona, her parents seem happy, and she has a brother and sister. Wanda, her warm hearted mother loves to cook big meals for the family on Sundays and I’m always invited.
I love going to her house because it gives me a sense of a real family, and Wanda is an excellent cook and hostess. Julie is the older sister and according to Sandy, her mother’s favorite, although I never see any sign of that when I’m with them, Wanda seems to treat her children equally and is a loving mother.
Sometimes I think Sandy has imagined the whole thing due to the fact that she has a speech impediment that years of speech therapy haven’t been able to alleviate, and that Julie is her opposite in looks and temperament. Tremendously shy and self conscious, Sandy focuses on the impediment which is hardly perceptible and only becomes more pronounced when she gets nervous or upset.
I’m enjoying my work as a junior secretary, but find that I have no use for the designer clothes now that the modeling stint is over. Sandy suggests selling them to a second hand boutique in the city and we take a trip there together, splitting the cab fare due to her generosity, and making it a full day to visit the city afterwards. It’s a beautiful hot day in June and as Sandy and I take a long walk in Central Park, a familiar voice behind me calls my name, startling me. I turn around and see Anne Smith, the model I met during the Met assignment who had warned me against going into the business. She is walking her two small poodles, and looks relaxed and beautiful, with her hair still extremely short, but her face and body look fuller, giving her a more wholesome appearance. We talk for a while, and I ask about Mindy.
“I saw her a few times when I was still modeling but I left the business a while ago,” she says flashing a huge diamond. “I got married and I’m concentrating on starting a family now.”
We walk for a while and unable to stop myself I tell her about Mindy and her father and how sorry I was I stopped calling her afterwards.
“That’s a very complicated relationship,” she says growing serious. “She treats him badly because he’s done her a lot of harm when she was a child.”
“What did he do to her?”
“You don’t see her anymore?”
“No, she stopped returning my calls.”
“She is a very troubled lady, she was molested by him as a child and she was in therapy for a long time, but hasn’t been able to work it out yet, perhaps she never will.”
“Oh, my God,” I say, feeling worse.
“If you ever see her again, don’t tell her I told you. She tells everyone so it’s no big secret, but I guess she wanted you to believe her life was as charmed as you thought it was.”
I say goodbye to her, stunned. I can’t imagine anything worse than being molested by your own father, and that the classy, distinguished gentleman I had felt so sorry for was a child molester. I tell Sandy the whole story and she says:
“There is nothing you can do about it now, let it go because it would never be the same between you.” I know she is right but I feel awful nonetheless. She had been wonderful to me and now I will never have the chance to acknowledge her kindness properly.
“Next time don’t judge anybody,” says Sandy. “Your relationship with her was one thing; her relationship with her father was another. It was really none of your business how she treated him and you see? She had powerful reasons.”
“Perhaps I should write her a letter,” I say, anxious to make things right.
“And say what? That you ran into Anne and now understand everything? Let it go, it’s too late for that.”
I send the money from the dress sale to mother and try to use the experience as a catharsis, hoping to acquire a new maturity, but Mindy’s memory is now a sad one and I have to fight the impulse to call her again, to tell her how grateful I’ll always be to her and how sorry I am to have disappointed her. Getting rid of the clothes represents a big change in my life, and it brings about a new awareness, teaching me the value of not dwelling on losses and helping me to finally let go of the dream.
~~~
Mom tells me that Nicolás Guillén, the great Cuban poet, wrote a beautiful poem about Che Guevara and I read it with affection, realizing that her fascination with the fallen guerrilla leader shows no sign of abating. I write her back that I love it, and that I’m glad to see that her passion for po
etry is still alive and well.
~~~
Three months later I receive good news from Bolivia; the government is giving subsidized housing to poor people in El Alto, one of the cheapest neighborhoods in La Paz, provided the applicants help with the construction, and mother has grabbed an axe and hammer in hand, and she is working from dawn to dusk to secure a lot for our family. She sounds strong and confident; it is going to be a ranch home with three bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. She has seen the plans and can’t wait for the house to be finished in three months to take full possession of it. She has already chosen a bedroom for me and is counting the days to see me there.
Mother hates the fact that I’m all alone in America, and will never get over the treachery of Uncle Jorge who has allowed this to happen. She describes the whole experience of working out there like a field hand with all kinds of people in awful, inclement weather. She says her hands get raw and frozen from the cold, and she has developed calluses in her palms and fingers but the thought of having her own home at last makes it all worthwhile, and she doesn’t regret it for a minute. Oscar and Angel are helping every step of the way and even little Daisy, now a rambunctious toddler is carrying water.
It is so gratifying to think that mother will have her own home at last, that tears cloud my eyes. It’s going to be a long time till I fix my visa situation and can go there to see her, but in the meantime she’ll have her own home, something she has always dreamed about. I’m filled with admiration at her courage and stamina to get up early every morning and help build her dream house in all kinds of inclement weather, in that unyielding, windy part of the country.
Mother worries constantly about me living alone, but I tell her my life feels like a ship in choppy waters which has come to anchor in a small inlet, but it is my inlet and I’ve taken control of the ship. She says make sure you guide the ship upstream and not let it capsize because it’s a huge responsibility for young girl, but I reassure her I’m up to the challenge. I cook for myself because it’s cheaper than eating out, and I always have a stack of books stashed under my bed reading till my eyes tend to fall out of my head. How can I explain to her that for the first time in my life I feel really free? That sometimes I embrace the loneliness that assails me because it teaches me so much about myself?
Beyond the Snows of the Andes Page 40