A Cage of Bones

by Jeffrey Round

  “This is your list of regular clients,” he explained. “You have a map of the city?”

  Warden nodded.

  “And a day book?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good—take these down.”

  Calvino rhymed off a short list of names and addresses of designers. Most of them meant nothing to him.

  “They are all in the book. Try to see as many as you can this afternoon, the rest you can see tomorrow. Call in at least three times a day for your appointments.” He grimaced. “Not at lunch—it’s too busy and Maura gets upset. Tomorrow when you come I will tell you where your photography appointment is. If you need to know anything else ask the other models. They will tell you.”

  Calvino stopped and frowned in a way that reminded Warden of the concierge at the desk downstairs, as though the two practised making facial expressions together.

  “You’re not staying at the American Hotel, are you?”

  “No—I’m at the Albergo Sirtori.”

  “That’s good. And remind me you need to get a haircut.”

  Calvino stood. Warden understood the interview was over. He was now among the ranks of fashion hopefuls. Calvino went to the door, opening it for him.

  “Just remember, always be polite. Improper behaviour will make you known in this business, but it won’t get you work.”

  Calvino looked him up and down and clucked his tongue.

  “Please eat, darling—and get some sun,” he admonished like a world-weary mother.

  Half the lobby seemed to be trying to get into his office at once. “One at a time!” he heard Calvino scream.

  Out in the lobby, Joe sat grinning in a chair near the door. He looked about eighteen.

  “First day?” he asked, as Warden approached.

  “Yes.”

  “It doesn’t get any better, but you’ll get used to it,” he assured.

  “Do you think so?”

  “You might even come to like it.”

  Around them, the lobby walls featured enlarged photographs of some of Maura’s models, past and present, an agency hall of fame. They stared down from the frames.

  “That’s where everybody wants to be in this place,” Joe said. “If you’re up on the wall, you know you’ve made it.”

  Warden looked over a few of the faces.

  “What’s the American Hotel?” he asked.

  “Bad news, dude. It’s where all the party animals stay. It’s one big celebration from dusk to dawn every night. Are you into drugs?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then you’re not missing a thing.”

  “Joseph!” Calvino’s voice screamed from the office.

  “Gotta go,” he said, jumping up. “Good luck.”

  Downstairs the concierge was still knitting at her desk, glaring suspiciously as if people were trying to sneak past her constant vigil.

  4

  Warden located his first appointment and found himself in the foyer of an ordinary office that looked like his father’s back home, nothing of the glamour or prestige of the fashion business suggested in its appearance. After a few minutes, a door opened and a young man much like himself came out, nodded at Warden and left.

  He was ushered into a room laid out with tables covered in the soft uncut folds of cloth. A dozen or more expensive-looking dress suits hung on large mobile racks. Warden stood quietly as his measurements were taken by a thin man making hurried markings on a card. They were watched over by a bearded man with a worried expression.

  “You are from Maura’s Models?” the bearded man asked, consulting his appointment sheet first.

  “Yes.”

  “And do you have a card, please?”

  “It was held up at customs,” Warden said, as he had been told. “I should have a new one out next week.”

  “Yes, yes—very good. Make sure I get one,” said the man, apparently satisfied. “And you have done shows before?”

  “Yes,” said Warden, remembering Calvino’s words.

  The bearded man watched intently as the thin man placed a large hat on Warden’s head, adjusting it, standing back and then adjusting it again before taking it off.

  “Write your name here for me,” the man said, pointing to the card with his measurements scrawled across it.

  He did so.

  “Thank you—grazie. That is all,” the man concluded.

  Warden thanked them and left. Two young men just like him sat where he’d been waiting, as though some mass-reproductive principle were secretly at work. Warden nodded and went out.

  At his next appointment the clients spoke a guttural Italian directing the models. Amongst themselves they spoke German or possibly Dutch. No one spoke any English. When his turn came, Warden stood before a video camera as the lights were turned on full. The entire room was soon laughing at his inability to understand what was required of him until an impatient young woman came up and physically directed his movements. First one profile, then the other. Finally a full frontal shot with a smile, which she indicated by pulling her mouth into a wide grin with her fingers.

  “Thank you,” she said, when he had finished. “Grazie.”

  Warden left, embarrassed and glad to be done.

  At his final appointment, he found himself in a long line of people winding up a flight of stairs. He heard sudden enthusiastic greetings from friends inquiring of one another where they’d been and where they were staying. He saw now what the camaraderie around the television at day’s end was about. Like him, they were transplanted from other lands with natural and social barriers all around. For this they substituted what they could of friendship as casually and quickly as it came.

  As the line moved up the stairs, Warden heard a shout from below. “What’s happenin’ here, dudes?” a voice with a heavy Texan accent inquired.

  “Gucci casting,” someone yelled back.

  “Oh, no! Not that shit again!” the voice bemoaned. Footsteps tromped back down the stairs.

  “Plenty more where that came from,” someone quipped, followed by laughter.

  The line moved quickly. They entered a long narrow room and were hurriedly arranged in rows of seven abreast. Each row walked the length of floor to a pounding beat. As one line advanced, another was already being formed to take its place. Occasionally, someone was taken aside while the others were sent on their way. A table near the door was littered with discarded composite cards.

  When Warden’s turn came he marched in step across the room. The boy beside him was asked to walk again and then taken aside to try on a jacket. No one asked Warden his name, nor did they ask him for his card. He hadn’t seen anybody walk like a balloon either, he mused.

  Outside, he headed back toward the albergo. It was already 4 o’clock. He felt weary and tense with the excitement. This was a whole other and amazingly active world he’d just entered. He’d had enough adventure and newness for one day and wanted to rest.

  As he walked up a narrow one-way street, a white sports car slowed and stopped. The driver rolled down his window. The man wore sunglasses and a white cap. His mouth formed a practiced smile as he offered his hand.

  “Ciao!” he said. “I am Mario.”

  “Ciao, Mario. How’s it going?” Warden asked, taking the hand.

  One of the assistants at the Gucci casting had been named Mario. He wondered if this were the man. Still shaking his hand, the driver motioned for Warden to get in the car.

  “No, thanks, I’m just going around the corner.”

  “Would you like a cigarette?”

  Traffic began to pile up behind him. A horn beeped.

  “Thanks, I don’t smoke.”

  Warden tried to pull his hand free but the man hung on tightly. “Your eyes are the colour of the sea,” he said. Three more horns joined in the chorus protesting the slowdown. “I love you,” Mario said, inexplicably.

  Warden tugged his hand free of the grasp.

  “Ciao, Mario—gotta go!” he said, and ran in
the opposite direction.

  The flood abated. Warden’s blood was pounding by the time he reached the albergo.

  Warden joined Jimmy at a neighbourhood trattoria that evening. He told him about his experience with the driver of the sports car. Jimmy laughed.

  “It doesn’t mean a thing,” he said. “He was just saying he likes you. Things like that happen every day. Everyone’s a little crazy in Italy. ‘Poco loco’ as they say. Once you’ve been here a while nothing seems too far out any more.”

  Jimmy ordered for Warden in broken Italian when the owner came to the table.

  “You don’t always know what you’re getting, but the food here is awesome,” Jimmy said.

  “‘Awesome.’ That’s American for ‘good’, isn’t it?” he joked.

  “Awesome means it’s pretty great,” Jimmy agreed. He smiled. “Where are you from, Ward?”

  “Toronto.”

  “That’s a city, isn’t it?”

  Warden laughed. He’d heard of the geocentric attitude of Americans. “It’s trying to be,” he answered.

  “Isn’t that where the Blue Jays are from?”

  “There’s a little more to it than baseball, but you’re right. How about you?”

  “Marion, Indiana,” he said. “It’s a great place to be from, if you know what I mean. You know the scene—small town America with a main street, a movie theatre, a couple of schools and a few churches for democratic choice. All the kids hang out after school practising their rim shots on the basketball court and everyone grows up to marry his childhood sweetheart and work at the same plant as his dad.”

  “I get the picture.”

  “At the age of ten I was rescued when my family moved to New Jersey. That’s home now, I guess.”

  “Jimmy from Jersey.”

  “That’s me. Haven’t seen it for a while, though.”

  “When was the last time you were home?”

  Jimmy looked regretful. “I was home for two days at Christmas. Not for a while before that. If you get caught up in this business it keeps you pretty busy. I’m planning to go back for the whole month of August, if I make it.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “I miss it like crazy when I have the time to stop and think about it. And that’s one thing you should never let yourself do because then you miss it too much.”

  Jimmy had a girlfriend, Corrine, who was also a model, Warden learned. They’d met on a shoot the previous summer, but hadn’t seen each other since December because of conflicting schedules. It was just occurring to Warden that people lived this sort of life for months on end. Friends greeted one another on the steps of client offices or during chance meetings in studio and agency lobbies, while lovers met on the fly between location sets.

  After supper they walked down Corso Buenos Aires, a wide main strip with a centre meridian. The air was cool. Shop doors were closing as lights came on in the dusk.

  “Now what do we do?”

  “Now we’re free till morning. There’s a movie house where they show films in English. If you want a drink there’s Bar Magenta. It’s a model hang-out.”

  They turned down a side alley where the buildings appeared drenched in the glowing darkness. The city seemed suffused with a quiet vitality. The streets were narrow, the pace slow, as though life was lived here on a more intimate scale than the broad spectrum of North America.

  Outside the albergo, Jimmy took out his cigarettes and offered one to Warden.

  “I guess you really have to enjoy this life to keep it up for so long,” Warden said, shaking his head at the offer.

  A match flared. “I used to think I liked it,” Jimmy mused, lighting his cigarette. “But it’s true what they say—it chews you up and spits you out when it’s done with you. I’ve seen it. And there’ll be no one there to wave goodbye when you leave. Remember that, if you remember anything.”

  They leaned against the building. Others passed in and out through the door as they stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  “You’re lucky to be starting out so early,” Jimmy said. “I’ve been at it for two years now. I figure I’m good for another four at most. By then I’ll be thirty and ready to go home, settle down and forget this crazy existence. You’ve got a few solid years ahead. Make the most of the time you’ve got, Ward. You won’t be able to later on.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Warden that he might be doing this beyond the summer he was spending here on what seemed like a lark and had never thought of in any way seriously. Upstairs, they passed the lobby where a crowd had already gathered around the TV screen like a bedtime ritual.

  “Hey! What’s happenin’, dudes?” a voice rang out.

  There were new faces in the room. They’d flown, bussed or taken trains from various other places and sat trading stories of jobs, countries and personal encounters—the lingua franca of fellow travellers spoken brusquely in a world of hurried effects and blurred edges.

  According to Jimmy, the season’s migration had yet to begin in earnest. When it did, the faces changed daily in a shuffleboard game of fashion shows and hotel rooms. Little wonder it was no big deal when he arrived. New faces were routine—you met and forgot them as quickly as they came and left again. There was always a retinue of suitcases and bags at the door. It would amount to a great deal to be enthusiastic about every new face that came and went through it.

  In the morning, Warden watched the others skidding in and out of the shower wrapped in towels as he waited his turn. They had the flawless faces and bodies to match the ideals of the ancients. He felt like a pretender, a fraud who’d passed in unnoticed and was holding his breath lest someone spot him and point out his illegitimacy to their rank. He let the cool water splash over his head, waking him and tingling on his skin.

  Back in the room, Jimmy watched him struggle with his hair, trying to coax it into place.

  “Here—try this,” he said, tossing him a tube of gel.

  “‘Natural style support,’” Warden read from the label. He squeezed some onto his hands.

  “Just think of it as a bra for your hair,” Jimmy said, pulling on a sweater.

  Warden grinned. “Thanks—I think. If you have any more tips, pass them along. I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

  “Nothing to it. Study the magazines. Check out the poses. Take the ones you like and reproduce them for the clients. You’ll catch on. You’ve got what it takes, so don’t worry. The rest you can fake.”

  “That’s what everybody keeps telling me.”

  “You’ll learn. It’s a crazy business and we’re in one of the craziest agencies around. They don’t call it ‘Maura’s Noodles’ for nothing. Just keep your head on straight and you’ll be okay.”

  Jimmy picked up his portfolio. “Ciao,” he said. “Catch you later.”

  Warden dressed and walked to the agency. The lobby was nearly empty. Calvino was in his office and waved Warden inside. He looked him over and frowned, squinting at his hair in a vaguely disapproving manner. He waved a list of items in one hand.

  “I have set up your appointment with the hair dresser at 10 o’clock and for the photographer at 2 o’clock. In between, you can go to the other addresses you didn’t go to yesterday,” Calvino said. “The hairdresser is first because we want you to look good for the photographs.” Another squint at his hair. “Don’t say anything to her. Just let her cut it how she wants. When you see the photographer, don’t worry about clothes. He will have what you need. Everything comes out of your pay cheque at the end of the month so you don’t need to pay anything now.”

  Calvino handed him the list with both addresses. It was all pre-arranged, sight unseen.

  “How was Sr. Ferré?”

  “Who?”

  “Gianfranco Ferré—the big bearded man I sent you to see yesterday. Didn’t you see him?” Calvino asked suspiciously. He was constantly cross-examining his models to make sure they followed orders.

  “Oh, him. Yeah, I saw him—he didn’t
say much.”

  Calvino looked at him with his best look of astonishment.

  “Darling, you were in the presence of fashion royalty. Don’t you know who is Gianfranco Ferré? What have I brought over from Canada? I send Ferré only my very best. Don’t disappoint me. Didn’t he say anything at all?”

  “He took my measurements and asked me to write my name down. Oh—and they made me try on a hat.”

  Calvino looked reassured. “That’s good. Now go to your appointments.”

  He looked up as Warden reached the door.

  “Get some sun!” he growled.

  The hairdresser turned out to be an unsmiling young woman whose features suggested much rumination on unfulfilled desires. She took him in at once. While she cut his hair she expressed her opinions on a wide range of topics. Americans she liked very much, she said, assuming him to be one. She had once visited Manhattan with her sister and there had been no end to the flowers arriving at their hotel suite. The English, though, were quite another story. She disliked them because they were cold. No emotions. No passion. Perhaps they hadn’t sent enough flowers to assuage her disappointed desires. In any case, she didn’t like them.

  She cut quickly as she spoke, her thoughts lending speed to her fingers. Suddenly she whirled him around to face the mirror. “You like, yes?” she asked, not leaving him the option of an alternative opinion.

  It was a good cut, despite its duration. He looked refined compared to the scruffy, unkempt style he usually sported.

  “Yes—it’s very nice,” he agreed, remembering Calvino’s admonitions.

  The cutting session over and opinions spent, she whirled him back again. Warden thanked the sombre young woman with her preference for Americans and left. He spent the next two hours in a line-up waiting for a single casting only to have the search cut off right in front of him.

  He grabbed a coffee and panino on the run before meeting with the photographer. He caught a streetcar and rode a very long way. The address turned out to be one in a series of row houses. A concierge let him in when he pronounced the photographer’s name.

  “Tre piano,” said the old man, pointing to a stairwell.