Stacia went out to the front room as girls came in to audition for the model call. Trihn came in shortly afterward and pretended to sign in with Stacia.
Trihn observed the girls and even made friends with one gorgeous redhead. Trihn had gone to dozens of model calls before being selected to model for Gucci. She could pick out the bitchy girls, the divas, and the high-maintenance girls who wouldn’t listen to anyone’s critiques. It was cut-and-dry and made her life so much easier once they got into the interviews.
The looks on the girls’ faces when they saw that Trihn was interviewing with Bryna was priceless. Modeling was so competitive that everyone should be on their best behavior at all times.
By the time they had gone through most of the girls, Trihn and Bryna were both in pissy moods. These girls just were not up to the caliber she had been hoping for.
The redhead was the last girl to come through. Trihn had high hopes for her, and even though she didn’t ace the interview like Trihn had hoped, she sent the girl through to the photo shoot anyway.
Jasper returned after the final model had finished and laid out all the images in front of Trihn. After selecting the girls to move on to round two, she realized it wasn’t that many. She would need at least twenty girls for her line, and of the nearly hundred who had come today, she had sent through only twenty-three to the next round.
“Shit,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” Bryna agreed.
“Guess you’ll have to use us after all!” Stacia cheered.
“Excuse me. Is your open call over?” a woman with a thick South African accent said from behind them.
Trihn hadn’t even heard anyone come into the room.
“Yes, sorry, we’re done. We finished promptly at eight,” she said without looking up.
“Well, what a pity.”
“Trihn,” Bryna said, nudging her, “I think we should open the call back up.”
“What? Why would we—” The words died on her lips as she turned around to see the woman standing before her. “Francesca!”
Trihn ran across the room and pulled her friend into her arms. She and Francesca had modeled for Gucci the summer after her junior year of high school. They’d worked together on a few more campaigns before Trihn had decided to quit the work to go to college.
“What are you doing here?” Trihn asked.
“Well, you messaged me, and I’m in between jobs. We wrapped up the new line earlier this week. I thought I would come help out a friend.” She flipped her stick-straight blonde hair to one side. “And I brought in some reinforcements.”
Standing in the entrance to the design studio were nine other gorgeous models, all girls who Trihn had worked with at some point in her time as a model.
“Thank you so much for coming. I can’t pay you though.”
Bryna cleared her throat. “That’s not exactly true.”
“You cannot pay for this!”
Bryna shrugged. “I can do what I want.”
“Well, that’s not necessary,” Francesca said. “We’re doing this for fun. I just wish I could have gotten a few more people together for you.”
“No, this is perfect. I just have to pick another ten then,” Trihn said in wonder and bewilderment.
“Oh, let me take a look,” Francesca said. She leaned over the images they had been sorting through before she’d shown up. “Hmm…”
With ease, she went through them and picked out nine. After a minute, she selected the redhead as their last model.
“That’s who I would go with. They seem to fit the Trihn I know. And we can work with them in the meantime,” Francesca said. “It’ll be like a three-week mini vacation.”
“This is going to be amazing,” Trihn said, feeling more excitement than ever for this project. For the first time, she really thought that she could do this.
Trihn reached for her phone that she hadn’t looked at in hours with all the interviews they had done. She had missed a few texts and a video message from Damon. She clicked on the message and was transported to LA where he was standing in what looked like the midst of a recording studio.
“Hey, love. I just got into the recording studio. Chloe wanted to show me around. Here’s Chloe. Say hi, Chloe.”
The camera veered over to Chloe with her dark hair piled up into a ponytail on the top of her head. She was in dark jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. She waved at the camera. “Hey, Trihn!”
Damon flipped his phone back to face him. “We have to work bright and early tomorrow morning at eight a.m. I have no clue what I’m going to do with myself that early in the morning. All I know is that I’m missing you like crazy, and I hope that your model call went well. Call me back when you get this message.”
The message ended, and before she could even sigh or smile, Francesca leaned over and looked at her with wide eyes. “Was that Chloe Avana?”
Trihn laughed. “Yeah.”
“And Damon Stone?”
“You mean, her hot rock-star boyfriend?” Bryna said with a wink.
“Girl, we have a lot to catch up on,” Francesca said.
“I guess we do,” Trihn said.