“Of course. Why?” I said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I look forward to seeing them,” he said. And apparently that was the state of my reputation at school. People didn’t expect much of me. They probably all thought that I was just some rich kid, who decided to go to photography school on a whim. They probably didn’t even think that I was interested in photography—that I just wanted to party in a city that was notorious for its party scene.
And how had I never noticed before? It wasn’t just the look that the instructor was giving me, but my fellow students were giving me strange looks, as if they were surprised to see me at school on time on a Monday morning. Was this really how low my reputation had sunk? Did my own friends really not expect anything of me?
One of my friends, Jackson, even came up to me and said, “No parties this weekend?”
I forced a smile. “I guess not,” I said. It was a strange feeling. I wanted everyone to think of me as the cool guy—the guy who partied hard and got laid often—but I didn’t want to be the loser. I didn’t want to be known as the guy who didn’t care about anything substantial. I didn’t want to be known as the guy who wasn’t capable of properly finishing a test or an assignment because I was always wasted or hungover, like some blubbering alcoholic. And maybe that’s how they saw me—maybe I wasn’t the cool party guy. Maybe I was just the alcoholic loser who wished he were still in high school.
“Can’t wait to see your pictures,” Jackson said.
“Eh, they aren’t great. I probably won’t put them in my exhibit or anything at the end of the year,” I said. At the end of each year, each student got a space at the exhibition hall to show off his or her best work for a night.
“Well, I still can’t wait to see them now,” he said, just as the instructor stepped up in front of the class. The lights suddenly dimmed and a projector turned on, blasting a white box against the wall above the instructor’s head.
Had I ever been to school on time on an assignment morning, I would have known that the instructors show everyone’s work and the whole class did an open critique. I usually submitted my assignments late, or via e-mail, so that I could rest up after my weekends, seeing as assignments were usually due on Mondays. I always figured that I was paying for class, so I should be able to show up whenever I wanted. Now, that philosophy was about to bite me in the ass. Now, the whole class was going to see me dressed up like a girl, posing like a sissy. I didn’t think that my instructor would recognize me, but what about my friends? Surely one of the people in that classroom would realize they were looking at me in that pool and not some model from across the road.
I sat in agony through my classmate’s photos: photo after photo after photo of models posing in front of brick walls, graffiti walls, and heritage building walls. A few students got their models on the streets, with blurry buildings in their backgrounds. None of the shots were terribly inspiring—three different students even used the same graffiti backdrop for their shoots.
And the instructor kept saying, “The photo is technically fine, but it’s missing a soul.” He said it dozens of times as he scrolled closer and closer to my collection of shots. And I sat there wondering how I could get my pictures back, so they wouldn’t be shown. Maybe a fail wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe failing would be better than being humiliated. I took those photos while I was exhausted. I broke into Jenny’s house and put on her makeup with very little sleep, and I was even more tired when it came to picking the best fifteen of the lot. What if I looked like a complete fool? What if the whole class laughed at me and never let me forget about the time I put on a woman’s bathing suit and posed for a series of photos? I never saw those photos of a big screen. Hell—I never even full-screened them on my computer screen. Maybe I didn’t look as good as I thought I looked.
“Next up, we have Frankie’s photo set,” the instructor said. And then time suddenly started moving very slowly. I watched as the instructor slowly lifted that clicker into the air. His thumb hovered over the button and then slowly came down. I heard the click, and then I watched as the last student’s photo disappeared and mine came on the screen. It was the shot of me on the inflatable flamingo. In the shot, my legs were crossed and I was looking into the camera lens. The classroom was silent, save for my pounding heart. I tried to swallow the thick lump in my throat, but it wouldn’t go down.
The instructor stared at my photo for what felt like a lifetime—and there were still fourteen more photos to get through. “Hmm,” he said. His head slowly turned to look at me, and then he looked back at the photo. A few of my classmates also turned to look at me before looking back at my shot. “This is different,” the instructor said.
I opened my mouth in an attempt to beg him to take the photos off the screen, but I wasn’t able to produce any words—not even the slightest sound.
The instructor said nothing else before clicking over to the next shot: a shot of me in the pool, with my elbows up on the deck. It was one of the shots I took on the 85mm lens, framed like a portrait. My eyes were as big as plates on the projector screen, and all of my classmates were staring forward, looking at the mascara on my eyelashes and the eyeliner that flicked out gently to the side. I sunk into my seat, waiting for them all to start laughing. But the classroom remained silent. The instructor went to the next shot: me lying on my side in front of the pool. I’d used Photoshop to remove my cock bulge, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t be enough to stop my classmates from roaring with laughter—but still, they remained silent.
“These photos are…” the instructor said. He paused as if he couldn’t think of the right word. “Perfect,” he said suddenly. “This is the soul that I was talking about. These pictures have so much soul—a word that is so hard to describe, but so easy to identify. Just look at the poses and the compositions. There’s a fluidity to every shot, as if the shoot was so effortless. The little flaws only make the shot better. I love these photos.”
I noticed a few of my classmates nodding their heads, as if they agreed, as if they thought that my photos were amazing. And I was waiting for the instructor to burst into a fit of laughter. I was waiting for him to say, ‘Just kidding!’ but he just kept going through the pictures with wide, impressed eyes. Maybe he really did like it. Maybe the pictures really were good.
His next comment caught me off guard. “And this model—she’s so beautiful. She’s mesmerizing, really. Where did you find this model?”
And now everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to answer. “Huh?” I managed to say. My heart was still pounding quickly, still making me dizzy and nauseous.
“This model—where did you find her? She’s a natural. She was born to be in front of the camera.”
“A—Are you serious?” I asked.
And everyone kept staring at me. Could they really not tell that they were staring at me in those photos? Could they not see it in my eyes now as they really stared at me? Was it not obvious? “Well?” said one of my classmates.
“I found her online—on Facebook,” I said.
“Facebook?” someone asked.
I nodded my head. “I just asked some friends if they knew any models, and someone suggested her.”
“But she is a professional model, yes?” the instructor asked.
I nodded my head. “Um, yeah, I think so.”
“What’s her name?”
I hated that my photo was still up on the screen. My identity was waiting to be revealed at any moment. It would just take one look from one curious student. That mole on my face—I should have edited it out of the photos. Why did I leave that in? How was it possible that no one had noticed it yet in the photos?
“Her name?” I said. “Um—it’s Jill. Her name was Jill. It is Jill. I can’t remember her last name.”
“Well, she’s a natural. If I were you, I would take as many pictures of her as you can before she’s famous. You know—I knew Kate Moss before she was big. I randomly booked her for a shoot when she just si
gned with her first agency. I knew she was going to be big. And this girl here, in your photos—she’s going to be big, too. I can see it.”
He kept flicking through my photos, admiring each one for an uncomfortably long period of time. I took the deepest breath of my life when he finally clicked over to the next student’s photo set: another tense model standing in front of a wall of graffiti. And I thought that would be the end of it. I thought my torment was over, but it had only just begun. As soon as class was over, two students came up to me. “Can we get a copy of your photos?” they asked. “We want to include them in our study book. You wouldn’t mind would you?”
I forced a smile. “They aren’t really finished yet. That was just what I could get done for the assignment,” I lied. The photos were done. They were going to be deleted off of my hard drive as soon as I was home from school. I never wanted to see them again. I never wanted to hear one of my instructors telling me that I made a better model than I did a photographer.
It was my dream to be a photographer. I wanted to take amazing photos of buildings and scenery. I didn’t want to put on women’s clothing and pose for the camera. I didn’t want my future great-great-grandchildren to hear that their great-great-grandfather was a famous women’s bathing suit model.
Dennis, another student rushed up to me as I was leaving. “Frankie! Wait up! I was wondering if I could get that girl’s contact info. I really want to do a shoot with her.” Dennis was an aspiring fashion photographer. He’d even managed to convince our composition instructor to let him shoot a human model for our bridge assignment. He was allowed to do it, as long as he shot his model on a bridge. He even had an Instagram page with eighty thousand followers, where he posted nothing but model photos.
“Um,” I said as I tried to think of an excuse to get this modelling mistake off of my shoulders. “She’s only in town visiting for a few days. She doesn’t live here. I think she lives in another country—maybe the States.”
“Well then I really want to shoot her before she goes. You don’t mind giving me her number, do you? I really want to shoot her. Please, Frankie?”
My stomach groaned. “I don’t have it on me,” I said. “But I’ll try to dig it up when I get home.”
And that wasn’t even the end of the attention I got after that class. I was only halfway to my next class when one of my classmates hopped in front of me. “Do you have any other shoots coming up with that girl?” she asked.
“No, I don’t—sorry,” I said.
“Well if you book one, can I be your assistant for the shoot? I really want to see how you direct your models. You got her to do so many poses that I couldn’t get my models to do. Your photos were really beautiful by the way,” she said.
“Thanks. I’ll let you know if I book anything,” I said. And then I rushed away. I wanted everyone to forget about the pictures. I felt like I was lucky—like I’d dodged a bullet. I would get my passing grade and no one would know that I got myself dolled up like a lunatic—it was a win-win situation. Now, I just had to focus on my studies for a few months, and then I could start my career as a photographer.
CHAPTER VI
When I got home that afternoon, I went straight to my computer. My plan was to delete those photos, so that I would never have to think of them again. Sure—they were good photos, but I didn’t need that reminder lingering around on my hard drive—the reminder that I whored myself out for a passing grade. But before I deleted the pictures, I decided to look through them one last time, full-screened and all alone, so I could really critique them.
The photos really were good. The compositions were clean and interesting, and the poses were all captivating. I really loved my eyes: how sharp and big and glimmering they were. It was too bad that I had to delete those photos. It was too bad that they would always remind me of horrible anxiety and a skill that I wish I didn’t have.
I selected all of the photos and was about to click the delete button when there was a loud buzzing in my hallway. I got up and walked over to my buzzer. I pressed the little communication button and said, “Who is it?”
“It’s Quinn—from class,” said a female voice, which I slightly recognized. “Can I come up?”
“What for?” I asked. I hardly knew Quinn, but I figured she wanted the same thing everyone else wanted: my model’s contact info, or maybe a copy of my photos.
“I just want to chat—it won’t take long. I promise!” she said. I decided to buzz her up, only because she was one of the prettier girls in the class. She was a short brunette chick with a thin body. She was always wearing black-framed glasses, even though I don’t think she had poor eyesight, and she often wore collared shirts, buttoned right up to her neck. I guess it was a hip look at the time, though I always thought she would have looked better in a short skirt and a tank top—or something low cut to show off a bit of cleavage. She was still cute, though.
While she was making her way up my elevator, I went to my computer and finished deleting those pictures. I even made sure they were deleted off of my SD card, so that there was no evidence that they ever existed. It was a bittersweet moment. I was already missing them, knowing they were some of the best shots I’d ever taken and now they didn’t exist.
There was a knock at my door. “Come in!” I called out. Quinn slipped into my apartment. She had her backpack on, as if she’d come straight from school. She looked around. “I know it’s messy—I haven’t had a chance to clean up for a few days.”
“It’s so dark in here. You should paint your walls a brighter colour.”
I watched as she wandered into my apartment without an invitation, looking around as if she was scouting it out for a potential photo-shoot location. “Can I do something for you, Quinn? I was just about to hop in the shower.”
She looked at me and paused for a moment. “I actually have the next few hours booked off. I was hoping to do a shoot. There’s a magazine contest I want to enter, and it closes tomorrow at noon.”
“So what—you need to borrow a lens or something? You should go talk to Jenny. She’s got all the gear in the world.”
“No, I want to shoot your model—Jill. I was hoping you could go get her for me. It’s a really important contest. I’ve been entering it for years, but I think my models have been holding me back.”
“Jill?” I said. My heart stuttered. “I’ll tell you what I told everyone else: I don’t really know her. I just booked her through a friend on Facebook, and she’s going back home soon. She might already be back home.”
“She is home,” she said. And I was suddenly at a loss for words. What was Quinn on about? Why was she staring at me with that grin?
It finally clicked. Quinn knew that I was Jill. She wanted me to get dolled up so she could shoot me for her magazine contest. I watched as Quinn slipped her backpack off of her back. She placed it down on the ground, unzipped it, and then she pulled out a little crochet top, a little white skirt, a pair of cute black flats, and a pair of lacy black panties. “The theme is ‘summer casual’,” she said, still with her grin.
“I don’t know what you think, Quinn—but that wasn’t me in those photos,” I said.
She laughed. “Give me a break. I’m not an idiot, Frankie. Maybe no one else noticed, but you’ve still got a bit of mascara on your lashes. Look—I’m not going to tell anyone, as long as you do the shoot for me. I’ll even join in on your little lie. I’ll tell everyone that she went back home. Where are we saying home is? I’m thinking Sweden. Jill looks like she could be Swedish. Are you a Swede, by the way?”
“This isn’t funny,” I said. I walked over to the mirror and saw that she was right—there was still a smudge of mascara on my eyelashes. I wiped it quickly with the side of my hand, but my identity was already compromised. She knew too much.
“Get dressed and let’s shoot,” she said.
I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm my pounding heart, but it didn’t help. “That’s not even enough. I don’t have a
wig or makeup.”
“Why not? Where did it go?”
“I got it at Jenny’s house,” I said.
“Isn’t she out of town?”
I sighed. “I broke in. She wouldn’t have minded though—I borrow her stuff all the time. Gear—I borrow her gear all the time.”
Quinn let a little giggle slip. “Well then let’s get over there. Doesn’t she live in a big mansion? Maybe we can use it as a shooting location. Is that where you shot your set? C’mon—let’s go. I’ll drive.” She pulled her keys out from her pocket and started towards the elevator. And I felt like I had no choice but to follow her. I hurried up behind her, praying that she would stick to her word: if I let her shoot me in her skimpy outfit, she wouldn’t tell anyone about my embarrassing secret.
CHAPTER VII
Jenny’s mansion was still empty and her code was still the same. Apparently, Quinn had never been inside. Her eyes lit up with excitement as she looked around the place. “Oh my God,” she said. “It’s a photographer’s wet dream!”
“It’s pretty nice,” I said. She started exploring freely, without even asking me for permission—not that I was in a position to give permission, but some respect would have been nice.
“Look over here!” she said. “It’s the pool where you took your shots!” She said it as if I didn’t know. But she was excited as if my shots were somehow legendary. She disappeared for a minute and then she finally reappeared from the other side of the house. She looked at me with narrowed eyes and said, “Why are you just standing there? Why aren’t you getting ready?”
“I don’t know what you want me to do,” I said.
“Just a summery look—something minimalistic, maybe with some warm hues.”
“I don’t really know what that means. I’ve never really done my makeup before.”
Quinn sighed. “Okay, show me Jenny’s makeup stuff and I’ll help you. But if we’re going to shoot together like this, you need to figure this out.”
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