She has shit taste in men, though.
She’s been dating some dangerous French guy called Louis Duval for the last few weeks. Every time I went home, he was there, and I don’t like the look in his eyes. Rose always laughed at my worries and said that he’s harmless for girls like us. There’s that whole implication that he’s not harmless to other people, and I should have said something about it.
But I didn’t. I stuck my head in the sand and went on with my life. And that, it turns out, was a lie. All of Louis Duval’s words were lies.
Being a hand (and occasionally foot) model is all about hustling and taking small and strange jobs as they come in. Can I hold this banana for six hours while someone does a time-lapse photo shoot? Sure. Can I get a pedicure on camera for an instructional video? Sure. It’s bizarre work but it’s interesting, and it pays the bills. Rose does traditional modeling—runway, print work, you name it. She parties with high-end people and lives a faster lifestyle than me.
I just hold a banana for six hours and try not to twitch.
The truth is I’m in this gig because of Rose. It’s not like banana holding was my dream career. I do it because it pays money and Rose lines up jobs for me with ease. Rose is always there to make stuff easier for me, and I do my part to make life easier for her. Since I’m not a runway model, I’m the unofficial “den mother” to all these models who are, for the most part, focused on their next job and forget to eat (although that may be on purpose), sleep, and live on cigarettes and rice cakes. Someone needs to buy them tampons, keep track of their schedules, and make sure the apartment’s stocked up on coffee and salad.
I enjoy doing that—almost more than I enjoy holding a piece of fruit or rubbing lotion on my hands for five hours.
So Rose and I, we’re a matched set, friends despite our differences. Polar opposites, yes, but we get along great. Always have, always will. It doesn’t matter that Rose is glamorous and I’m a shut-in. We work, we go to clubs together, we share shoes, accessories, and nail polish. We’re closer than sisters. Closer than family.
A week ago, though, Rose’s lifestyle caught up with her. I came home to find that Rose wasn’t in the apartment. In fact, she wasn’t anywhere. Her boyfriend Duval was waiting for me, and he’d taken Rose away.
Turns out he’s not a businessman, or at least not a legitimate one, because what legitimate businessman makes a girl courier information? His smooth-talking ways are a lie, and he’s a drug runner who’s hit a rough patch . . . and he needs help.
Because this time? He’s not running drugs, and it seems he’s in way over his head.
This is where I come in, he tells me.
My task unfolds. I’m to arrive in Lima at a small, unassuming hotel in the Miraflores District. There, I’m going to meet men. Several men.
My job? Well, I’m going to be a hand model of sorts. I’m going to Vanna White it up around the city. I’ll be given a purse full of information that I’m to show the buyers. I’m to chat with them and show them samples of the goods that Duval has for sale. We’re going to meet in coffee shops and have a drink like it’s no big deal, and then I’m going to walk away, head back to my hotel, and wait for the next buyer.
Once the sale is completed, Rose will be released. We’ll be free.
And if I don’t do what he says, he’s going to kill Rose.
I don’t believe him at first. Who would? He’s bluffing. Rose is his girlfriend. He wouldn’t hurt her.
He must have anticipated my disbelief, because he holds his phone out to me. Puzzled, I take it and swipe my finger over the screen, unlocking it. A photo of Rose, bound and gagged and blindfolded and tied to a bed meets my gaze. I swipe over, horrified, and there are more pictures of her. Her body’s covered in bruises, her hands cuffed behind her back.
“She thinks it’s love play,” he murmurs. “It can change so quickly. You should ask my last girlfriend.”
And he nods at the phone again.
A sick roiling in my stomach, I go to the photo albums. I notice the one with Rose is flagged as “yesterday,” which makes me sick. Yesterday, I was holding a shoe for a photo shoot and Rose didn’t come home. I’d thought she was out partying with some of her runway companions after her last shoot.
I’m a horrible friend.
In a photo album from last month, there are pictures of another girl. Bound. Gagged. Pretty and blond, like Rose.
Then, there are more pictures . . . of her death. Of her sucking on the barrel of a gun and licking a knife. Then, of men doing things to her with the weapons. I suck in a breath, fighting the urge to vomit, and hand the phone back.
I don’t want to see any more.
“What do you need me to do?” I tell him, and I’m in. Just like that.
He tells me not to worry. That if we’re both “good girls,” we’ll be set free.