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“You live here?” I asked, surprised.
“I sleep here,” he corrected. He was smiling again, showing one chipped front tooth, the kind of offhand flaw I’d always found terribly sexy. I felt my face heat up.
His bedroom was large and airy, with floor-to-ceiling steel factory windows, glossy white trim. The walls were white too, and the dresser white-stained oak in a matte finish. The king-size mattress was on an oak platform and covered in a white duvet and pillows. It was the kind of room where a lot of sex would take place, a room where children definitely were not allowed.
My garment bag was hanging on a bare rack in the middle of the room. I decided to throw on my gold blouse, not one I usually wore to work because it plunged a bit, but I was feeling, I don’t know, like being noticed. Like being looked at, by him.
When I entered the work area again it was quiet, no gaffer, no camera assistants, just the blond assistant neatly laying out makeup brushes in front of a lit-up mirror.
I took a seat and crossed my legs.
“We’ll just focus on the eyes, I think,” she said, looking at me through the mirror. “Make them pop. You don’t need much. You glow on your own.”
She was talking about me, not to me, and yet I still blushed.
“Is this blouse okay?” I asked the assistant, suddenly feeling flustered and self-conscious, like the blouse was too low, or maybe not low enough.
“It’s lovely,” she said, picking through the brushes. She didn’t seem to have a great handle on the tools of her trade, let alone the colors. I soon began to look a little garish. When she pumped the mascara tube ominously, I had to stop her.
“Look. I know photos require a bit more makeup than usual, but I am not sure this lipstick suits me.”
Her face fell. She was clearly nervous. “Normally I do my own eyes at the network,” I said. “Do you mind?”
“Yes! I mean no, by all means, I don’t mind. We just want you to feel totally comfortable and sexy.” She exhaled, utterly relieved.
“I just … want to look like myself.”
“Right, totally,” she said, backing away as I wiped off some of her enthusiastic work, reapplying it with my lighter touch.
Why would someone with Erik’s profile hire such an incompetent makeup artist? What was also weird was how quiet everything had suddenly become. I hopped off the director’s chair and poked around the partitions looking for Erik, for anybody. I found him measuring the light in front of a large green screen, onto which the newsroom and a cityscape were projected.
“There you are,” he said. “Shall we begin?”
Erik expertly positioned me where I’d appear on the billboard, my elbow resting on a block, an appropriate stand-in for Bill Rink. Erik wasn’t shy, placing his hands on my shoulders, moving me this way and that. And I was … enjoying it. I found it almost … relaxing.
“That’s good. Commanding. Yes, perfect,” he muttered into the viewfinder, clicking away. “Now arms crossed, that’s right. Shoulder to me. Nice. That’s it. Nice. Very nice. Smart. Good.”
I was posing for the camera as I had done a million times before, but I was also posing, a little bit, for Erik. He was pulling a certain kind of sexiness and daring from me.
“Lovely, Solange. Let’s try another look.”
“Yes. Let’s.”
I skipped (skipped!) back to the bedroom and threw on my red shimmering blouse, returning to position myself in front of the green screen. This all felt so girly, heady, model-y. I was having fun.
I hopped back onto the stool while Erik concentrated on placing a light just so. He stepped in front of me, awfully close, to move a lock of my hair … just … so. When he was taking pictures, looking at me through a viewfinder, I felt fine. But now, standing there looking down at me the way a man looks at a woman, his hip cocked, one hand holding his massive camera like it weighed nothing, his other hand scratching the back of his head, I became wobbly on the stool.
“You’re a natural in front of the camera. I mean, that’s evident from your work. But you’re also incredibly easy to photograph. Lovely at every angle.”
Click, click, click.
“Oh. Thanks. I guess,” I said. Was he stepping over a line? It felt like it and yet I couldn’t help but feel flattered.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Offend me? No, I’m not offended,” I said. “I think … sometimes I wrestle with compliments like that.”
“Why?”
