When she stepped through the doorway and into the main part of the terminal, everyone stopped to stare. It’s possible that many people didn’t even know who she was, but when a gorgeous, six-foot blonde dressed in gauzy white linen walks into a tiny room that smells like an armpit, people tend to stare. Behind her, another model who looked surprising similar to Mella—tall, blond, et cetera—came through the doorway. I remembered Cole’s words about how U Chic liked to have models that resembled each other at some of these shoots.
I hurried toward them, having to crane my neck upward to shake hands and introduce myself.
“Phew! It’s hot,” Mella said, giving me a smile. She was apparently oblivious of her audience.
The other woman introduced herself as Corrine and didn’t say much else.
They were entirely too tall for the car. It was actually embarrassing to watch Corrine trying to fold herself into the back seat.
“Can I stop and get you anything before we get to the hotel?” I asked as I cruised along the sandy road, the waves crashing only a few feet from the car.
“I’d love a Reuben,” Mella said. “Do you think I can get one around here? Or maybe a cheeseburger?” She was leaning forward, swiveling her neck to check out the island. I’d heard that she was Swedish, but she sounded as American as I did.
I remembered my mother’s story about her weight gain. She certainly didn’t look overweight in the slightest. She was emaciated, if anything. “We can look for someplace,” I said. “What about you, Corrine? Are you hungry?”
She scoffed, then stayed silent.
“She’s just pissed off because I can eat whatever I want,” Mella said.
“Is that true?” I asked. “You don’t have to watch your weight?”
“You’ve heard those stories, right? About me pigging out and getting fat?”
I nodded, failing to mention that my mother had crafted one of them.
“Well, they’re partly right. I do eat like a pig, as long as it’s before four in the afternoon.” She glanced at a delicate platinum watch on her wrist. “If I eat before four, I can chow down on whatever the hell I want and not gain weight. Reporters like to write those stories after they see me load up on pasta or something.” She looked at her wrist again. “I’ve got one hour to go. Can we find a restaurant before then?”
And so that’s how I found myself eating cheeseburgers with Mella, sitting at a red picnic table by the harbor, watching the boats bobbing against the wooden piers. Corrine sipped on a bottle of Evian and sighed heavily every few minutes, shaking her head in a disgusted fashion, as if she were waiting in line at the DMV rather than sitting in the sun on a tropical isle. Mella, on the other hand, was sunny and fun, joking with the counter boy and spilling splotches of yellow mustard on her shirtfront.
Both of them perked up when I said that Cole was waiting at the hotel for them.
“What’s he like now?” Mella asked me. “Still good-looking?”
“Yeah, he’s cute, I suppose.”
“But is he straight?” Corrine interjected.
“Yep.” I thought about Cole’s crush on Laney. Once again I wished I could race to the phone and tell her that I was having cheeseburgers in paradise with a couple of supermodels. I could almost hear Laney’s wisecracks: Make sure you cut up their food for them. Don’t let them go to the bathroom alone.
As soon as Mella and Corrine had been taken to their bungalows (the two largest on the property), I headed back to the airport one last time to pick up Sam Carraway, Cole’s editor friend. His plane was late, so I sat in the airless waiting room, sipping tepid orange juice from a box and reading People magazine. When his plane finally arrived, I stepped forward every time a single guy came through the door. I wasn’t sure what Sam looked like. In fact, I wasn’t even sure how old he was. Every man I scooted toward smiled and looked at me strangely, probably trying to determine if I was hitting on him. I was just starting to wonder if Sam had missed his plane when I heard my name being called. Loudly.
“Kelly McGraw! Kelly McGraw!”
I turned around to the Customs door and saw a man standing there. He looked about thirty-nine and had dirty-blond hair turning a little gray, a scar running along his left jawline.
“Hey!” he said, when he saw me looking at him. “You must be Kelly. Give me a hand, will you?”
I stepped forward with my hand outstretched, but instead of shaking it, he placed a big Prada shopping bag in my hand. “Presents for the crew,” he said.
“Great.” I said a silent prayer that I was included on the gift list.
“God, great weather,” he said, as we walked across the gravel parking lot to the car, the sun beaming down on us. “How’s Cole holding up?”
“Well, I think.”
“Not nervous, then?”
“I don’t think so.” The thought of Cole being nervous struck me as odd, but then this guy had known Cole a lot longer than I had. As we stowed his bags in the tiny trunk I asked him exactly how long they’d been friends.
“Oh, a decade at least. We met when I was just starting in the magazine business and Cole was building up his book.”
We got in the car, and I pulled away from the airport, on my now-familiar route back to the hotel.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I said, “but you don’t seem like you’d be friends.”
“Why do you say that?”
I sneaked a sidelong look at him while Sam took off his sweater, revealing a navy-blue T-shirt over an obviously in-shape chest. His forearms were tanned, an expensive-looking tank watch on his wrist. He had a rough-and-tumble look about him, and yet the Prada shopping bag, along with the obvious quality of his basic blue T-shirt and the tank watch spoke of money. “You just seem like the East Coast type, and Cole…”
“Cole what?”
“Well, Cole doesn’t.”
Sam laughed, a big booming laugh that filled the little car. “You can say that again. How’s it going for you, working with him? He can be an asshole when he’s in a mood.”
“I’ve learned that, but I think we’ve reached an understanding.”
“You must have because he’s been raving about you.”
I’d slowed for a stop sign, and I turned to look at Sam. “He has?”
Sam nodded. “He said you’re the best assistant he’s ever had.”
“Wow.” I stepped on the gas again and drove through the intersection, feeling a distinct pride, but again that burst of guilt hit. No matter how good an assistant I was, I would be quitting soon.
That night, Sam took the whole crew to dinner on Peter Island, a small private isle about forty minutes across the water from Tortola. As we neared the shore, I could see that the center was forested and mountainous, the perimeter a circle of sandy beach. The elegant restaurant-bar, just a short walk from the dock, was painted a warm ochre hue, with waves crashing just beyond the candlelit stone walls.
The eight of us were seated at a long rectangular table, Chad, the stylist, on my right, Mella on my left. During drinks and appetizers, Chad and I talked about his boyfriend back in Chicago, a “compulsive cheater,” as he called him. After listening to Chad’s complaints and his self-portrait as a long-suffering companion, I finally asked him why he put up with such crap.
“Oh,” he said. “I’ve got someone on the side as well, so I can’t really bitch too much.”
I was left pondering a response to that when Mella tapped me on the shoulder. She was wearing a beaded black shell over a teal miniskirt, her hair gorgeously tousled and wavy from the humidity.
“Check it out,” she said under her breath. Holding her hand under the table, she jabbed a finger toward Cole, who was seated at the end, Corrine to one side. Corrine was leaning across the corner of the table, practically in his lap; Cole wore the look of a trapped animal.
“She’s going to be so mad if she can’t score with him,” Mella said, a little laugh in her voice. “She’s such a star-fucker.”
“But he’s not really a star anymore, is he?”
“Actually, he’s got this legendary status now that he’s stayed out of New York for so long. Everyone’s dying to figure out why, and all these people are forever claiming they just ran into him. You should hear the stories. Some people say he was snared in a porn ring, others swear he was arrested for fraudulent billing.”
“Hmm,” I said noncommittally, happy to hear that none of the rumors sounded close to the truth. I decided to change the subject. “So, speaking of rumors, are you part Swedish? I could have sworn I heard that.”
Mella rolled her eyes and took a sip of her vodka drink. I noticed that she hadn’t even nibbled on her food, probably because it was after four. “I have one Swedish ancestor but most of my family is Polish. The whole Swedish thing was made up by my first manager, along with my name.”
“Your name isn’t Mella?”
She shook her head. “Mandy Schpitske.”
“Mandy Schpitske?” I coughed. If she knew what my mother would do with that information, she’d rue the day she’d told me.
“Uh-oh,” Mella said, her eyes directed across the table again.
Cole was pushing his chair back and shaking his head in Corrine’s direction. He got up from the table, leaving her with an embarrassed, stern expression on her face.
“Rejected, the poor girl,” Mella said, and she did sound sorry for Corrine.
“Oh, he rejects everyone,” I said, thinking of the other beautiful models I had seen him turn down.
“Ten bucks says Corrine goes for Sam next.”
Sure enough, Corrine had her elbows on the table and was eyeing Sam a few chairs down, the way a hit man eyes his mark. I couldn’t blame her.
“What’s his story?” I asked Mella. My sea bass had just been delivered, and I took a bite of the flaky fish, which had a hint of Caribbean spice to it. I was grateful for the food, since I was feeling the effects of my three piña coladas. It was my last hurrah, after all.
“Cute, isn’t he?”
I glanced at Sam again and nodded. He was wearing a tan linen shirt, the cuffs rolled haphazardly up his tanned arms. His blond, wavy hair was rakish and messed, and he was laughing at something Francie had said. I usually didn’t go for older guys, but there was no denying his deliciousness. Plus I liked his taste. He’d given everyone, including me, Prada wallets before we left the hotel bar tonight. I had turned mine around and around in my hand like it was the Holy Grail. I’d never thought that my job with Cole would get me Old Navy, much less Prada.
“He’s from some wealthy family,” Mella said, “and he never takes their money, but from what I hear he may soon have to. He’s apparently getting cleaned out by a nasty divorce—custody battle, the works.”
“He seems so happy, though.” I thought of Sam’s cheerful attitude when I’d met him at the airport and the way he’d seemed so pleased to give everyone the Prada wallets tonight.
“He’s always like that. He seems to be able to laugh everything off.”
My sister, Dee, had been exactly the same way. Even during my mother’s divorce from Danny and our subsequent moves from place to place, Dee was never angry or cranky like me, never seemed to mind a bit. The thought of Dee made me feel strangely lonely, especially here in a foreign place with a group of people, most of whom I’d known only a few hours.
I excused myself to go to the bathroom, but instead walked out of the restaurant and up a winding road lit by ankle-high lights, following signs that read Deadman’s Beach. I needed a moment’s peace, a little respite from group activity.
The road curved at the top and descended to the left until it reached a swath of sand. I stepped out of my sandals and walked into the water, standing in the darkness for a few minutes, letting the cool waves lap against my shins. It should have been serene, yet it wasn’t. Or maybe I wasn’t. I felt a vague fear somewhere deep inside me.
A particularly large wave rushed onto the beach then, splashing my legs and the hem of my sundress. I backed away from the water and turned toward the restaurant, but I was unable to shake that fear. It felt familiar, and the more I focused on it, the more I retreated inside myself, into the hole of dread in the pit of my stomach. The piña coladas, I thought vaguely. I should get back to the table and drink some water. My feet kept moving, and yet, in my head, I seemed to shrink more and more away from my surroundings, my mind a mass of swirling thoughts I could barely make out. I was mildly aware that I was nearing the restaurant, my feet continuing to trudge as if on a well-known path.
I rounded a corner of the building and, as I did so, stopped and stared through a window at the group of people I was with: Corrine, trying her hand again with Cole; Sam, regaling the rest of the group with some story; Mella, sipping at her vodka. Go inside, I told myself, but now my feet wouldn’t move at all. There was only a tingling numbness at the bottom of my legs.
After a moment or two, I stopped seeing the group inside, and instead my own reflection in the glass became clearer and clearer. At first I noticed the dangling silver earrings I’d worn tonight and the slash of lipstick I’d applied in the bathroom. Yet the longer I gazed at myself, the more the picture changed. My hair was no longer pulled back, but rather hung lankly around my face, the bangs overgrown and pushed aside. The earrings disappeared, as did the lipstick. In fact, I seemed to be wearing no makeup at all, and my eyes were hollow, empty.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a logical voice told me to stop, to just ignore that girl in the glass, but I was paralyzed on my numb feet. I stared at myself, at what I was beginning to realize was the person I’d been over the summer. I didn’t have an actual memory of a distinct day, but I gradually became aware of a vague recollection that I used to walk the streets at night, peering into restaurant windows, staring at the golden, gleeful patrons inside. I was struck by how sad this was, this feeling of being on the outside looking in, and the longer I stood there, the more frightened I grew. It felt like the old Kelly, the one from this summer, was trying to take over again.
22
A shrill scream sounded in my head. Again and again. I raised my hands to my temples, massaging them, but it wouldn’t stop.
Slowly, I opened one eye. The thought of opening both seemed impossible. The one eye searched the hazy room, fixating on the old-fashioned black phone on the nightstand. I concentrated all my efforts on extracting an arm from the sheets. I raised the receiver to my ear and finally, blissfully, ended the screaming.
“Good morning,” said a pleasant, singsongy Caribbean voice. “This is your wake-up call.”
“Grfff,” I mumbled by way of thanks, and hung up.
I staggered to the shower, rubbing my temples. After that run-in with my former self in the window last night, I’d finally wrenched myself away and gone back to the table without a word to anyone. I’d applied myself wholeheartedly to the craft of ordering cocktails, hoping to chase away the old Kelly. For all my talk of embracing the different parts of me, the different women I used to be, I was afraid that I would revert wholly back to the depressed Kelly of the past summer. Cole had come round to my side of the table at one point, gesturing to what was probably my thirty-third drink and saying, “You’ll be ready tomorrow morning, yeah?”
I’d given him a haughty look, snapped, “Of course,” and kept drinking.
So now I had to make good on that promise. The hard spray of the shower felt like little pellets stinging my back, but I was glad I could feel at all. Not bothering to dry my hair, I threw on my straw hat, a pair of white shorts and a light blue tank top, and headed for the lobby.
Cole was already seated in a wicker chair near the front desk, four black cases at his feet. “You okay?” he said. His face had a slightly sarcastic, questioning look, but his voice was soft.
“Just a headache.” Headache seemed a particularly mild word for the jackhammering that was going on in my skull. “I’m fine. What do you want me to carry?”
He stood up and put h
is hands on his hips, studying me. “It’s a big day.”
“I know. I’m ready, and I’m excited about it.”
“Do I need to be worried about you?” Somehow I knew that he meant more than just the hangover.
I looked up at him, the subject of my memory loss hanging between us. I thought about confiding in him about that image I’d seen in the glass last night, how close I’d felt to my old self, but it seemed too amorphous to explain properly. “Nope. No need to be worried.”
“Just say something if…you know. If you want to…”
I put a hand on his arm. “I know. Thanks.”
Cole stopped at a roadside deli and plied me with eggs, sausage and passion fruit before we drove the rest of the way around the island to the beach where we’d be shooting. The next day we would move to the Baths on Virgin Gorda, and after that there’d be one more day on St. John’s.
As soon as we got to the beach, Cole and I began setting up, and the combination of the food, the work and Cole’s surprisingly caring and understanding attitude made me feel much better, clearing some of that bullet-to-the-brain sensation. It also pulled me away from the image in the window, allowing me to let her fade away, to decide that I’d imagined it; it was just a figment of Caribbean rum.
Sam arrived in the hotel van with the rest of the crew a few hours later. The first shoot that day involved both Mella and Corrine, one wearing a black bikini, the other white. Chad fussed around them for what seemed like hours, trying on one necklace after another. He and Sam finally agreed on chokers made of rough brown cord, three tiny shells dangling from each.
The shoot went remarkably well right from the start. Cole was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him, immediately developing a joking rapport with the models. If Corrine was still upset after getting shot down by Cole the night before, she didn’t show it. Maybe she’d ended up with Sam.
“Mel,” Cole called out, “step closer to Corey.”
Neither woman seemed annoyed at these nicknames he’d bestowed on them. Mella took a step to her left, her jutting hip nearly touching Corrine’s as they stood with the glittery water behind them. Since the sun wasn’t that high yet, I was kneeling below them, holding a giant reflector so we could light their faces properly. The alcohol was beginning to flush itself out of my system by way of my sweat glands, causing rivulets to run down my back, and my tank top to cling to me. But I didn’t dare complain or move. I knew how important this shoot was to Cole.
A Clean Slate Page 22