“She’s my best friend,” Jane explained, tipping her head at Ariel. “We give each other a lot of shit, but it’s all in love. Plus, it makes anything nasty these designers or photographers say about us seem like positive affirmations in comparison.”
“Is that why you came home and bawled after your last photo shoot and the photographer said you looked like you’d been stuffed with cottage cheese the day you were created?”
“Oh, please. Kind of like the day you came home ugly-crying because a designer said you walked the runway like a methed-out drag queen?”
Again, I stayed quiet. It seemed like the safest option.
“Clearly we’re in need of extensive psychological help,” Jane said when she noticed me kind of gaping at them. “But this industry is all rejection for the most part. You have to grow a thick skin and make some good friends to kick you in the ass every now and again when you need it. I’d have given up years ago if it wasn’t for Ariel reminding me why I got into modeling, and that a rejection from a designer didn’t mean I needed to reject myself.” Jane motioned at her own frame. “Because I’m a glorious beast, darling.” She instantly lifted her pointer finger at Ariel. “And don’t you go adding nothing about having the beast part right at least.”
Ariel shifted on her puce beanbag, checking the trippy clock on the wall. “What agency are you with?”
“K&M,” I answered.
They both gave an impressed look.
“I used to be with K&M until I started photographing too ‘old.’” Ariel stuck out her tongue. “Now I’m with a different agency.”
“One that specializes in the special needs of our senior citizens.” Jane dodged Ariel’s elbow just in time.
“Who’s your agent?” Ariel asked.
“Mr. Lawson,” I said, not knowing his first name. I had yet to meet him, since I’d signed on with the scout who’d discovered me.
Ariel’s and Jane’s heads twisted my way, their eyes scanning me in a new light.
“Ellis Lawson is your agent?” Jane said.
“Yeah?”
“Holy shit.” Jane reached across Ariel to grab my arm. “Ellis Lawson is a god. The Modeling God.”
My nose wrinkled. I knew he was one of the partners of the agency, but I’d only recently found out he’d be my agent. “He is?”
“You want to know how a model becomes a supermodel?” When my shoulder lifted, Jane added, “Ellis Lawson. That’s how. Dude, he’s responsible for churning out more supermodels than any other agent out there.”
“He’s also known for doing more supermodels than any other man alive.”
Jane rolled her eyes at Ariel before giving me a serious look. “That’s his other reputation. He’s a bit of a ladies’ man.”
“And by ‘a bit,’ she means the toilet seats inside the public restrooms at Grand Central don’t get as much ass as Ellis Lawson.”
My face drew up. “Wow. Could have done without that vivid mental gem.”
“If he decided to be your agent, you’re going to be big. Huge.” Jane shifted her beanbag so we were in more of a circle than a line. “Hey, we should swap phone numbers. You’re new in town, probably looking to make some new friends.” She pulled her phone out of her clutch. “We’re the best type of friends you can find in this city.”
“And she doesn’t only say that because we have connections to get into the hippest clubs in the city,” Ariel added.
“I mean because we keep it real.” Jane punched a few things into her phone. “In an industry full of phonies and fakes, you need friends who tell it like it is. We’re really good at telling it like it is.”
I returned Jane’s smile. “I noticed that.”
“So? What are your digits?”
“Actually, I don’t have a phone yet. I plan on getting one, but I am currently digit-less.”
Jane and Ariel gaped at me.
“No phone?” Ariel sounded as though I’d just told her I had a month to live.
When I shrugged, Jane pulled an old gum wrapper from her purse, along with a pen, and wrote down some numbers. “Well, here’s my number. Once you get one of those phone things, you know how to reach me.” She winked as she dropped the wrapper into my palm. “Us small-town girls need to stick together.”
“How do you know—”
“It’s that wholesome thing you have going on.” Jane’s finger circled my face.
Ariel huffed. “If wholesome’s the definition of ‘small town,’ you sure as hell weren’t born and raised in one.”
Jane’s hand dropped to her curvy hip. “Just because I like entertaining gentlemen in my bed on a regular basis doesn’t mean I’m not wholesome.”
“My bad. I thought it meant you were a promiscuous lush.”
Jane was ready to fire something back when the studio door burst open and a blinding mass of color and movement whisked toward us.
“Your Highness.” The girl behind the desk came rushing out, automatically holding her arms out to take the woman’s coat and purse.
Zelda Zhou, aka Her Highness, screamed to a stop in front of the three of us situated on the beanbags. She was barely pushing five foot, but I felt like she was towering above me. She was dressed to blind. And shock. And wow. She looked like she’d just come from Mardi Gras and was on her way to Carnival.
Her finger lifted. “Too top-heavy,” she said of Jane, moving on to Ariel. “Too old.” When her finger landed on me, she paused. I resisted the instinct to cower and expose my throat. “How old are you?”
Instead of flinching from her terse voice, I sat up straighter. “Nineteen.”
Jane and Ariel were already moving toward the door, but they waved bye before leaving.
“How tall?”
“Five eleven and a half,” I answered, standing when she motioned me up with a flick of her wrist.
She scanned me up and down. “Measurements?”
“Thirty-four twenty-five thirty-four.”
The corners of her mouth sank even lower as her appraisal paused at my midsection. I’d never been as self-conscious about that part of my body as I became right then.
“Your waist is too big for the dress I have in mind for you.” Her eyes lifted to meet mine. “Can you lose two inches off your waist by next week?”
“Maybe if I don’t eat,” I answered with a smile, joking.
She nodded, like she assumed I was being serious about starving myself for a week to lose two inches off an already small waist.
“Probably not,” I added, holding out my portfolio for her.
She didn’t take it. She just turned and marched away, her clothes causing a racket as she moved. “Okay, come back and see me when you have an actual model’s waist that will fit into an actual sample-size couture gown.”