I find the pictures online and hand him my phone while I revert to the paper cards in front of me. Juliet asks me to keep an eye on her cards for her while she runs for refills.
“These are…you’re fucking gorgeous, Lou. These are art.”
“Thank you.” The heat rises on my cheeks again. A foreign feeling. My days working are filled with such praise, I can’t understand why it’s different coming from him.
“How did you even get your body to do this?” He holds my phone where I can see the photo of me in an exaggerated pose.
“With practice and a great photographer.”
“Amazing.” The word is pillowed with awe, sending more strange sensations through me. “This one should be in a museum or something.”
“I21.”
I scan and dab before I look back at my phone. It’s a picture from a different shoot, not the one with the albino boa. Only now, do I realize I handed him my phone with my full name in the search bar. A tightness in my chest makes me grab my drink, sucking whatever melted ice there is at the bottom of the glass.
The picture was taken by Pierre. Nothing on the screen indicates that. Grady wouldn’t know.
It’s me in a black gown that covers me from toe to neck, with long, oversized puffed up sleeves. Under the dress, unseen, my legs are stretched as far I could manage, standing on my tippy toes as we tried to portray the idea that I was about to float away. My hair was slicked back with a shiny oily paste and allowed to artfully drip down my face.
“It’s beautiful in its simplicity,” I say, swallowing hard.
The shoot was amazing. What happened after wasn’t.
“What’s wrong?” Grady’s hand gently rubs my shoulder. Whatever it is about him, it makes me want to tell him. He makes me feel safe enough to.
“There was another model on that shoot. The collection had every design in both black and white. I wore all black, she wore all white. Symbiotic, the designer called it. Anyway, the photographer was my boyfriend,” I say, then pause. “Ex-boyfriend. When we were done and I went to wash the paste out of my hair, he went to the other dressing room to fuck her. I walked in on it, confirming suspicions I’d had for months.”
“Jesus, Lou, I’m sorry. How did he react?”
“He didn’t stop, and I didn’t try to stop them,” I say, ashamed of myself. “The look on his face said it all.You’ll let me do this and still go home with me.He was right.”
“It’s not that simple, though,” he says with understanding.
“It never is.”
Eleven
Lou
“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.”
Phyllis Diller
I’m happy you finally emailed me back. There are several offers on the table that should be discussed. One for Harper’s, possibly a cover. Lewis has requested you for a spread in Elle. Pierre has three separate shoots he’s waiting on you for.
Call me and we’ll get something set up.
Regards,
Carolyn
This bitch.
“You ever feel like the world is against you?”
“A time or two,” Juliet says as I refill my coffee.
We’re moving slowly this morning after staying at the bar until they closed down bingo. I won a gift card to the hardware store, which Sam teased was useless since I’d already bought them out of paint. Jules won a coupon for a free pizza.
