AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I should fire him. I really should fire him. But where would I be without him? Renfield and every other man in the whole wide world, that’s my demographic. I do nothing but stand, smile, walk, and pose. Six figures to saunter—not walk, saunter—up and down a platform in a dress I didn’t design, to smile and laugh at people I don’t know.
Pout your lips to the camera.
Reach for it, let them pretend it’s their face you’re caressing, their eyes you’re staring at, their dicks you want inside you.
Look back and down over your shoulder, touch your arm.
Look up, stare, just a little longer than you should—there, you’ve got them.
Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect flower crown implying this perfume doesn’t smell just like everything else in Macy’s.
Smile, touch your hat.
Run into the surf, pretend this bathing suit isn’t going to fall off the second your boobs hit the water.
Renfield and Frederick Richman, the twentieth. It’s agonizing.
But it’s my life.
TWO
PEN
Tonight’s dinner is a necessary evil.
It’s a charity event, something some action-movie actor is doing for kids with cancer. The cast won’t be there until much later in the evening, but until they arrive and make their speeches, I’m supposed to mingle. Ren wants me to get my face out there so I can start landing some TV and movie gigs. It’s not a bad idea.
The last time I was on the big screen, it was during the era of silent movies, when the talkies were in their infancy. It’s been long enough now that I can probably start landing some TV roles again—wait long enough for all the directors, actors and producers to die and no one will recognize you a hundred years later.
So, we chat with reporters and people with cameras, let our faces be seen and appraised. Trade business cards, though that part is really Ren’s job. Flounce around in a dress I hate, shoes that hurt.
But I have to do it. Making public appearances and keeping myself in the spotlight is required if I want the work to continue. And, yeah, I want the work to continue. It’s not like I can do anything else, owing to this curse from mommy dearest.
As I face the mirror, I struggle to find anything that doesn’t need fixing. My hair is up in curls on top of my head, trailing ringlets, wreathed in flowers, and I despise it. The lipstick they gave me is way too bright—a tacky coral—but I’m lucky I get to do my own make-up in the first place. If I show up in any other color, that luck would go away; then I’d have to sit in a chair with five thousand people swarming around me like bees, pulling my hair and powdering my face until I choke, just like all the other models.
The dress isn’t my favorite, but it’s never my favorite. My favorite is a little black knee-length dress I bought from Wal-Mart, but obviously, that’s not an option. This gaudy red thing is by some French designer with a name I can’t pronounce. I realize my boobs are still hanging out of it, and I push them back in. The top is this heavily corseted flower-patterned nightmare, and the skirt is a ball-gown explosion of vaguely silky floof that’s one bad wash away from being tulle.
It’s something Mother would love.
And it’s also literally by anyone’s standards, unacceptably expensive. Just goes to show money can’t buy taste. Or talent.
I cross my arms and lay my head on the table.
I hate this. I really fucking hate this.
Bzzz.
A text from Renfield.Where the fuck are you?
Bzzz.
He texts me a picture. Old white dude, hair like salt, skin like folded paper. Smiling, holding a wine glass. Then a second later, in parentheses,(Frederick).
I glance at the clock on the wall. Tick-tick-tick-tick. Like a bomb.
Bzzz. Bzzz.
More pictures. They’re all terrible.
