Thigh Highs

by Katia Rose

  I show up at the P&T building way too early, and after deciding that sitting in my car practicing a presentation I’ve already memorized is probably going to do more harm than good for my nerves, I head to the boardroom we’re using for the meeting. The door is open and I assume it’s going to be empty, but the sound of voices makes me pause a few steps away.

  “Jim, level with me. The shoot was complete shit and you know it.”

  “I don’t think we got the setting right is all. I’ve had the team whip something up that’s at least worth showing to the client.”

  I hear a sound between a snort and a bark of laughter. “Forgive me if I find that hard to believe. I saw the photos. She’s no model, Jim.”

  “Then we have to turn her into one. She’s what the client wants.” I recognize Jim Sanders’ voice. “I showed them her work from the showcase, thinking it was on brand and that we could replicate it if the client agreed. Then I got an email, several emails in fact, telling me they wanted the exact same model from the pictures or nothing at all.”

  “She’s replaceable, Jim,” says the second man, who I’m starting to suspect might be Harry. “How hard is it to find some Spanish girl who can fill out a bikini? She doesn’t even want to model. I half expected her to walk off the set and quit. I kind of hoped she would.”

  Blood starts rushing in my ears. I move closer, careful to remain out of sight behind the half open door.

  “She won’t quit. I’m leading her on with a job offer here at P&T.”

  “You’re not seriously thinking of hiring her on after this?”

  “Of course not,” Jim scoffs. “She’s hardly P&T material.”

  I almost throw the door open right then and there. It’s only the fact that my throat has gone dry and I have no idea what I’d do when I came face to face with them that holds me back.

  “Well, let’s see what the team has come up with,” Harry grumbles.

  Someone taps a few keys on a computer.

  “I told them to imitate the showcase photos as best they could,” Jim explains. “Here, I’ll put it up on the projector.

  More keys are tapped and then Harry sucks in a breath. “That’s what you’re showing to the client?”

  I can’t take it anymore. I push on the door and let it swing open, quietly enough that neither of the men notice. Their backs are to me, and both are staring at the advertisement blown up larger than life on a two meter wide projector screen.

  Despite the fact that I’m almost shaking with anger and embarrassment over the way they were talking about me, I can’t help but echo Harry’s feelings when I see the photo: that’s what the client is going to see?

  Up on the screen, I’m crouched on the wood panelled floor in some sort of weird kneeling position, hands braced on the ground in front of me. The picture was taken mid-hair-flip, while I was also trying to follow the photographer’s direction to look at him and Harry’s reminder to seem relaxed. The result is an almost eerily blank smile that does nothing to mask the panic in my eyes. The hair flip doesn’t add any sort of sex appeal; instead, I just look like I had a run-in with a bad case of static electricity.

  If I had to summarize the overall outcome, I’d say I looked like a swimsuit model that was trying and failing not to barf in the middle of a shoot.

  I’m still trying to get over how awful I look when I notice the text that’s been added to the image, and when I make out the words, my fists clench at my sides and I barge into the room, calling out Jim and Harry’s names.

  “How dare you!” I shout, striding up to them and thrusting a finger towards the projector. “You’re going to stand around saying I don’t have what it takes to work for you, and then steal my ideas to use on your own campaign?”

  In white letters along the bottom of the ad, the font almost identical to the one Aaron and I picked, is the phrase ‘#favouritebathingsuitfeeling.’

  “Well?” I demand, when neither of them offers any kind of answer.

  “I can understand why you’re upset—” Jim begins, but I cut him off.

  “Please don’t patronize me. I heard enough of that in your conversation.”

  I glance between him and Harry. I want to call them out on how appalling the things they said about me were, but screaming and shouting isn’t going to make them take me any more seriously. I force myself to keep my voice even. “I took this job on the understanding that I was being considered for a further position at P&T. I also took it with the assumption that, as an employee, I’d be spoken about with a basic level of respect and professionalism, whether or not I was in the room myself. Calling me a ‘Spanish girl who can fill out a bikini’ isn’t exactly in line with that.”

  Jim tries to jump in again but I don’t give him a chance to speak.

  “For those reasons, I won’t be able to continue with my work here. Please accept this as my resignation.”

  I give them each a hard stare and then turn to the door. I know I should leave it at that and just go, but I can’t resist taking a few more shots now that I know I have the power here. Their client wants me, and leaving means they risk losing the entire campaign.

  “By the way,” I say over my shoulder, “I’m not Spanish. I’m Portuguese. You might want to get your facts straight now that you’ll need to replace me. I’d also recommend you find someone who can come up with an original idea, instead of just copying mine. ‘#Favouritebathingsuitfeeling’ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”

  With that, I walk out of the room.

  No one bothers to chase after me and I have to at least give them credit for knowing a lost cause when they see one. I cross the P&T lobby for the last time and exit onto the sidewalk, speed-walking down to the parking lot where I left my car.

  I should feel happy right now. I just sassed Jim Sanders and Harry Bell into oblivion, and left them stranded without anything worth giving to their client. That should be payback enough. They were sexist assholes who couldn’t recognize potential if it punched them in the face, but for some reason their opinion of me did some sort of critical hit to my morale.

  P&T never wanted me at all; their client did, and only because of how I looked in some photographs. I know they were never the kind of firm I wanted to work for in the first place, but their dismissal still makes me feel like I’m losing something, like I’ve been pushing a boulder up a hill just to have it kicked all the way back down right after reaching the top.

  I head home and find myself in the same position I’ve been in a lot these days: lying on my bed, feeling angsty and sad. I can’t call Aaron, and I don’t really want to call Alice, but there is someone else I can talk to, someone who’s been there for me way longer than either of them.

  I flip to the screen on my phone that shows the time in Portugal. My parents will probably have just gotten back from the walk on the beach they take every evening. I send a request to video chat with my dad.

  “Amorzinho! Que surpresa!”

  As usual, my dad has his face held way too close to the camera and I can’t help but smile.

  “A little farther back, Papai. I can’t see you.”

  He stretches his phone out in front of him. “This is good, my rock star?”

  I nod. “How are you, Papai?”

  “Muito bom. But I see even now that you are not, my dear. What happened?”

  I shift on my bed and sigh. “A lot, Papai. Too much. You know the job I told you about, with the really big firm? It turns out it wasn’t the kind of job I thought it was. I thought they cared about my ideas, that they wanted me for the company, but they were using me all along. I just...I feel so stupid, Papai. I should have seen it coming, but I wanted to believe I’d made it, that I’d done something right.”

  “Minha filha.” He makes a tut-tut noise and shakes his head. “You have already made it. You know this, yes? Sometimes we forget the today when we are looking at the yesterday, or for you, my dear, the tomorrow. You have climbed many of the...the...how do you say monta
nha?”

  “Mountains, Papai.”

  “Yes! You have climbed many of these mountains already. You must not forget.”

  He draws several triangles in the air with his finger that I think are supposed to represent all my mountainous achievements. My eyes almost well up at the pride beaming in his face as he does.

  “There’s just so many more mountains to go,” I admit, my voice small.

  “Well, minha filha, the AC/DC has something to say about that.”

  He draws in a breath and I know one of his impersonations is about to begin.

  “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll!”

  This is followed by a vocal rendition of the song’s guitar solo that has me laughing hard enough to forget there’s something else I wanted to tell him. He knows me too well to miss it though, and asks me what else is wrong.

  “It’s kind of stupid, but you know that guy I told you about, the one I had to do my showcase project with?”

  “O idiota?”

  “Sim,” I answer. I don’t know if the memory of how pissed I was to find out Aaron was my partner makes me want to smile or cry. “It turns out he wasn’t such an idiota after all. I couldn’t have done the project without him. He’s very smart, and he always knows what to say when I’m stressed. He just makes everything feel...fun, you know?”

  “You like this boy, amorzinho?” His tone is cautious; I forgot that he can get a little Traditional Portuguese Father when it comes to guys.

  “I do. I did. I don’t know, Papai. He also makes me want to scream and throw things at him.”

  “Sometimes love and hate are very close, my dear.”

  He nods and strokes the scruff on his chin. I think back on Alice telling me almost the exact same thing and wonder if I ever really hated Aaron at all.

  “It doesn’t matter, though,” I say, as much to my dad as to myself. “He still loves someone else. He doesn’t want to, and I believe that, but he’s not ready to let her go yet.”

  My dad gives a huff. “Then this boy is an idiota, if he can love anyone but my rock star.”

  “You’re very nice to say that.”

  He shakes his head, like I’m not taking him seriously enough. “Put him on the phone. I will tell him this myself.”

  “Not happening, Papai,” I laugh.

  We fall into silence for a moment and then I sigh.

  “I feel like I just need a break, a chance to step away from all this for a bit. I’ve made so much of my life about advertising, but maybe that was a mistake. I don’t even know what to do with myself right now.”

  He looks at me with concern, and I can tell he wishes as much as I do that we were together right now. Suddenly, his eyes light up.

  “I am catching a thought, my dear.” I smile at his adorable struggle with English. “Come to Portugal. Come to stay with me and Mamãe. You can go to the ocean every day and eat as many pastel de nata as you want. It will be a good break for you.”

  For a moment I’m pulled under the tide of my memories. I haven’t been back to Portugal since I was eighteen. School or jobs have always kept me too busy, but I can still smell the sharp salt of the sea and the warm, sweet scent of Mamãe’s baking drifting from the kitchen to my bedroom upstairs.

  I wasn’t born in Portugal, but we used to go back for a few weeks every summer, staying with my uncle and aunt. Strolling along the cobblestoned streets and wandering the rocky seaside cliffs sounds like exactly what I need right now, but I know it’s just a fantasy, a relaxing though too out of reach to make real.

  “That sounds amazing, Papai, but with school and everything, I don’t think I have the money. I start my summer classes in less than three weeks, too.”

  “Three weeks is the perfect break time,” he responds, “and do not worry about the money, my dear. I always keep enough money to bring minha filha to come and see me, just in case.”

  I shake my head. “Papai, no. It’s way too much.”

  Getting tickets even months in advance is expensive. Buying them last minute like this will be way more than he should even consider spending.

  “Hush, my dear. I will call the travel agent now.”

  I let out a snort. “You’re one of the only people I know who still gets their tickets through a travel agent.”

  “I do not trust this web on the internet. It is sending me too many emails.”

  I want to remind him that it’s because he signs up for every email newsletter he sees a pop-up for, but we’ve been over that a few times before.

  “Are you sure?” I ask, trying not to sound too hopeful that he’ll say yes. Now that I’ve got the idea in my head, there’s nothing I want to do more than go visit, but I’m still hesitant to let him spend that much. “It’s a lot of money.”

  “Do not speak of it, my dear. Mamãe will be tão animado when I tell her. She will be starting the cooking already.”

  He bobs his head in excitement and I finally give in, knowing that even though it’s a lot, he’ll consider it money well spent.

  “Thank you, Papai,” I say, putting as much gratitude into the words as I can.

  “Minha filha,” he states, his voice turning serious, “do not speak of it.”

  The next day, I get an email from the travel agent my dad always uses, forwarding me the flight details. I leave in three days.

  Too bad P&T didn’t let me keep the bikini, I think, already starting a packing list in my head.

  Part Four

  Aaron

  16

  A Thousand Words

  Maybe it’s wrong. Maybe it’s weird. I know for sure it’s not mentally sound, but whenever things go wrong, I like to come and talk to Tiff.

  “Hey, Tiffster.” I drop down on the grass, stretching my legs out in front of me before opening the takeout bag I’ve brought. “Remember when we used to get burritos every Monday?”

  I unwrap the top end of the tin foil around my giant burrito and take a bite. Tiff doesn’t answer. She never answers.

  “You always said Monday was the least exciting day of the week, and that we should have a reason to look forward to it. You always needed something to be excited about, didn’t you, Tiff?”

  I pluck a blade of grass from the ground with my free hand. Last summer you could still see the outline of the grave; the plants didn’t have time to catch up and cover the freshly turned earth before fall came. Now the only things to prove she hasn’t been here long are the fresh flowers her mom still replaces every week—proof that this grave hasn’t been abandoned, forgotten, as so many others seem to be— and the immaculate black marble headstone, still shining as bright as the day they put it here.

  Not that I’d know. I didn’t go to the funeral.

  “I’m sorry they put you here, Tiff. I know you told me if it ever happened, you wanted your ashes to get sprinkled from a zip line, or launched off a waterfall. Something adventurous for my little daredevil, huh?”

  I laugh but it catches in my throat, coming out like more of a sob.

  I used to think that’s why she ended up here, in the cemetery. I thought maybe if she’d led a safer life, hadn’t been on that constant quest for the next adrenaline high, she wouldn’t be under the ground now.

  Without that thirst for adventure, that need to get the most she possibly could out of life, she wouldn’t have been Tiff, though. I might still have her beside me, but she wouldn’t be the girl I loved, the girl who’d brave rapids for fun, climb in a shark tank to win a bet, or jump off a cliff just to feel the wind in her hair. She was my daredevil, always after the next big thrill, and if I’d tried to change that about her I would have been asking her to be someone else.

  “And I wouldn’t have wanted that,” I say to her. “Besides, no one could tell you what to do. I knew that from the first day I met you.”

  I still remember it. The day a girl like Tiffany Goodall moves in next door isn’t something you forget.

  It was the summer before my junior
year. I was an absolute little shit for most of high school, way more of a douchebag than the one I started acting like to shut people out after losing Tiff. Me and my crew of asshole friends roamed the hallways in leather jackets, thinking we were some kind of cross between rock stars and thugs. We gave all our teachers a hard time, cut class to smoke, and broke every heart who fell for the bad boy persona.

  Tiff didn’t fall for it. Not one bit. That day her family’s moving van pulled up, I walked over to watch her hauling boxes around in high tops, a tank top, and those teeny tiny denim shorts that could stop a guy’s heart. She saw me standing there with a cigarette between my teeth and told me I looked like a child predator and to please fuck off and take my disgusting habits with me.

  I suddenly wanted to quit smoking right then and there.

  Living so close meant we saw a lot of each other, whether she wanted to or not, and somehow over the course of that summer we ended up becoming best friends. My own friends thought I was crazy for never making a move on her, but I couldn’t see her the way I saw other girls at the time: as a form of entertainment and the occasional chance to cup a feel. Tiff was different. Even then, she had a boldness to her that left me in awe. She always wanted more out of life and she had the guts to go and get it.

  She pushed me to do the same. I’d only discovered photography a few months before meeting her, and when she accidentally found my camera gear, she wouldn’t let it go. I wouldn’t have ended up going to photography school if it wasn’t for her.

  She was a year younger than me, and during the times I visited while she was still stuck in high school something between us changed, or maybe something that was already there came to light. We became a long distance couple until she graduated, and then she spent a few weeks every season living with me, and the rest out thrill seeking as a ski instructor in the winter, a rafting guide in the summer—anything extreme enough to keep her entertained while paying the bills.