Catwalk Fail

by Jason Godfrey

  Apple wrinkles up her face. “Is there a problem with the job? I thought you’d be happy.”

  This job isn’t going to help me get to Milano. It’s time to make an executive decision as a professional model. It’s time to sacrifice fun and money for my craft and family. This is dedication.

  “At this point in my career, I need to stay in HK and book magazines or print ads,” I say. “Something to strengthen my book.”

  “You don’t want to do the Mauritius job?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want it, I feel—for the greater good of my career—

  any job that helps my portfolio is a more responsible choice.”

  “Why?” Apple stares at me with her mouth dangling open. I shouldn’t have to justify myself to her. I pay her a percentage—not the other way around. Most models forget that, but I never do.

  “Getting to Milano is my priority, and right now, I don’t have a contract anywhere after HK,” I say. Apple’s mouth is still dangling open as she stares at her moronic Hello Kitty sandals making me want to blurt out that Hello Kitty isn’t even a cat.

  Then she says, “You want to trade a job at the beach worth 30,000

  USD for the chance to do some magazine bookings that might pay maximum 300 USD? And we have nothing on option for you next week except the Mauritius job. It’s unlikely you would book anything else unless there’s a last-minute cancellation.”

  The mention of 30,000 USD makes me flinch. I knew the job was high paying, but didn’t know it was this much. It takes me a second to say what I know I should say.

  “Cancel the Mauritius job and let all the clients know I’m available for shoots next week.”

  Apple stares at me.

  “I can’t.” She says. “I already signed the confirmation with the client. If I pull you off the job now, the agency will be held to a 50% penalty for cancelling the model.”

  “How could you confirm without checking with me first?”

  “Colin. Models have a problem showing too much skin or they don’t want to work for low budget bookings. I thought a job at the beach for tens of thousands of dollars would be an obvious confirmation.”

  “You thought wrong,” I say. Apple is holding her mobile so tight that the little plastic Hello Kitty’s are clinking against each other. “Take me off the job.”

  The other bookers, who were doing a shitty job of pretending they weren’t listening, are eyeballing me like I’m peddling religion at the airport. They’re all shocked that I’m turning down thirty thousand dollars. Part of me is thinking the same.

  Apple has her hand on her hip when she says, “I can cancel you, but One Models isn’t going to pay the cancellation fee because you would rather work magazines. You’d have to pay the fifteen thousand dollars.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “You’re confirmed, you can’t cancel on a whim. That’s unfair to the client.”

  The Japanese chocolate ad and all the work I’ve done in the past couple months would be wiped out. I’d be back to living hand-to-mouth and at the mercy of Apple sending me to advertise long-underwear in mainland China.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re really considering this,” Apple says. “Even if you did get some editorial shoots, a magazine shoot in Hong Kong isn’t going to put you over the top to getting a contract in Milan.”

  “It can’t hurt.”

  “If you really want to get a new agency and a contract in Milan let One Models rep you. We can place you,” she says. “Having an agency represent you to other agencies is going to do more than an editorial shoot here. No one in Europe cares much about the magazines in Asia.”

  Hong Kong doesn’t have the fashion prestige of Milano, London, Paris, and New York—that’s for sure. And my YouTube video isn’t working.

  “You don’t have any choice,” Apple keeps hammering her point home like a railroad spike into the back of my skull. “Go do the job and I’ll be here getting you an agent in Milan.”

  The promise of an agency in Milano is comforting, like those days when my hair falls perfectly into place with little to no effort, or when for whatever reason—probably dehydration—my abdominals look especially like they’re carved out of marble. Those are good days.

  “But Jasmine just casted with Maxwell Chen and he’s keen to book her,” I say.

  “Really? That’s incredible for your sister,” Apple says, predictably ignoring the red flags that should pop up whenever Maxwell’s name is mentioned in conjunction with teenage girls. “That must be the Elle shoot he has next week.”

  “But Maxwell has a reputation…” I say, biting my lip while trying to find a nice way to say degenerate pedophile.

  “He’s a playboy,” Apple nods, though that’s a fairly generous way to describe someone with a rampant toilet fetish. “You are worried for your sister?”

  “Of course.”

  “It is not a private test shoot,” Apple says. “This is for Elle. There will be clients and makeup artists, hairstylists and assistants. With all those people around, your sister will be fine.”

  That’s like reasoning that leaving someone in a maximum-security prison is safe because all the criminals are locked away. Logically it makes sense, but it definitely doesn’t leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling. But then thirty thousand dollars and One Models working to get me to Milano would be incredible. It’s only one short week.

  “Ok. I’ll do the Mauritius job,” I say. “But get me that Italian agency.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Colin Bryce Hamilton

  Calling a five-star bungalow on an amazing island my office for the week. #LoveMyJob

  19 people like this.

  THE BEACHCOMBER CLIENTS weren’t joking when they said they needed a guy that could do a back flip. I’m standing on the edge of a wooden dock with my back to the ocean while water as clear as glass laps up on shore. All I can hear is the faint crashing of waves on the distant reef that rings Mauritius like a coral picket fence. Well, that, and the sound of me back flopping. I had no clue how painful hitting water could be.

  “Try to swing your arms over your head so you get a full rotation,” says the photographer—a middle-aged, bald man named Marcel. Marcel’s got the sort of Parisian accent that lets me know he spends days shopping for jeans, eventually choosing the pair that best showcases his package because he thinks girls like to see that sort of thing. “If you can do an actual back flip, you won’t keep landing on your back.”

  Thanks for the guidance. I actually like slamming my back into the water. Marcel’s a jackass. He’s standing three feet below the dock in the blue water, shirtless. His white linen pants are folded up to his thighs, and he’s wearing an expression like he’s shooting in a warzone. Way to rough it, dick.

  Genevieve, the little French lady from the casting back in Hong Kong, is standing on the dock, watching me back-flop from behind a big pair of Prada sunglasses. She’s probably wishing they booked Damian. “Whenever you’re ready,” Marcel says.

  I’d be a little readier if it didn’t feel like the skin had been freshly peeled off my back.

  “Here I go,” I say before I launch myself backward into the air. As I rotate, palm trees change to wispy clouds and aqua blue sky, which should then change to a view of the horizon. But as I near the water, all I see is sky and I know I fucked up again.

  For the sixth time today, the water slaps my entire body. I sink into the ocean, tasting salt on my lips. My eyes clamped shut, my body numb and unable to move until my feet sink into the sandy bottom of the ocean.

  Marcel is trying to capture that moment right before I’m supposed to rotate, where my arms are spread wide, and I’m soaring majestically through the air before plopping into the sea like a carpet wrapped corpse.

  My entire back, the back of my arms, and the backs of my legs, sting in the warm water. I seriously hope they got that last shot.

  “You were underwater longer that time,” Marcel says, as I break the surface. �
��How was that?”

  Back-flopping from a dock is an obviously painful thing, so I don’t know why he bothers asking. Maybe he likes to rub it in, or he’s oblivious to the pain he’s inflicting. I don’t answer him as I climb out of the water.

  “Again?”

  “Yes, please,” Marcel says, with only minor interest in me, as he fiddles with his camera like we’re in the studio.

  The only thing that keeps me going is Genevieve’s assurance that this is the only shot they’ve planned that would break the Geneva Convention. Given that this is a shoot for a luxury resort, I feel safe to assume she’s telling the truth. The other evidence is that the model cast as my girlfriend is arriving tonight. From then on, this should evolve into a happy-smiling couples shoot.

  Couples shoots are a tailor-made environment for cultivating model sex. Put two beautiful people together, make them hold hands—and each other—hour after hour, day after day—and watch the sexual tension relieve itself despite significant others, zero access to birth control, and a lack of privacy. In a couples shoot set in a tropical paradise like this, picking up the female talent is as challenging as the word search on a paper placemat at Denny’s.

  Normally, I’m salivating to see my fake girlfriend on these shoots, but my achy groin makes me listless. This is what a neutered dog feels like.

  “Jump anytime,” Marcel says.

  It takes me a few seconds to convince the nerve endings in my back that heaving myself off the dock again is a good idea. Throwing my arms over my head like I’m tossing the world’s biggest bouquet at a wedding, I hurtle backwards into the air. I see trees, then sky, and then gorgeous horizon, then trees again for the briefest of moments! Then my feet make a painless entry into the water.

  Holy shit! I did it! My back applauds.

  I break the surface expecting to hear the roar of the crowd, but there’s only the clamour of waves on the faraway reef. Marcel is hunched over, staring at the LCD screen on the back of his camera.

  “I did it,” I say, dripping salt water as I climb onto the dock.

  “Yes, you did,” he says, still staring at his camera. “You’re going to kill me—but can you land on your back again?”

  Either Marcel’s joking or he’s a sadistic ass. Just the idea of back flopping again makes my back ripple with residual pain.

  “Why?” I say. “I figured out how to do the back flip. With my arms over my head I can…”

  “That’s the thing. It looks like shit in the shot,” he says. “It’s better when your arms are spread in a V shape.”

  Genevieve is staring at me with Nazi-like indifference to human suffering. I would love to shoulder-check her flailing off the dock but there are thirty thousand reasons to chuck myself backwards into the water. So that’s what I do. Again.

  When I pull my smarting back from the ocean, for what I hope is the last time, Marcel grins at me and says, “We got that. Let’s call it a day.”

  I spit water from my mouth following him to shore. My back feels like I got locked overnight in a tanning machine. “We only did this one shot, that’s it?”

  “Hey, if you want to work more you can, but I’m hitting the beach.” Nothing on Marcel’s face says he’s messing with me. “We booked a week for this shoot for a reason. Let’s enjoy!”

  Marcel pretends he’s about to slap me on the back, and then stops and grins. I’m not sure if this makes him more or less of a prick.

  My villa at the Paradis Resort costs two thousand Euros a night. There’s a ground floor balcony with a sea view, a king-size in the bedroom, an L-shape couch in front of a 65-inch LCD screen in the main room, and a Jacuzzi in a washroom that’s bigger than my entire guesthouse in Hong Kong. There’s a note on my night table that says room service for my stay is complimentary. It’s hard to believe a few days ago, Apple was threatening to castrate me to get me to come here.

  In the main room, there’s an adjoining door to the next villa that I open to reveal an inner door, but it’s locked. I put my ear to the locked door and hear nothing, so I knock lightly. I don’t know why I knock. Part of it is out of curiosity to see if their suite is infinitely better or worse than mine, but mostly it’s childish fantasy. I never got to open the adjoining door. Behind that door could be anything—adventure, mystery, intrigue. Anything but a mirror image of my own stale-cigarette smelling room.

  When no one answers, I’m not surprised. I walk to the balcony and watch the sun burning on the horizon of the Indian Ocean. My back is still hot with pain, but the view numbs it like a handful of Tylenols. A couple rowboats anchored just off shore sway gently in the tide. This is what I needed.

  For the first time since Britney treated my groin like a trampoline, I’m thinking clearly. Away from Hong Kong, maybe I can forget about castings, competing with Damian, and worrying about Milano. Even the fear of my sister falling prey to any number of douchebags seems far-fetched in only a week. Best of all, I don’t have to worry about running into Taylor— whose irrational fascination with everything but me—is doing nothing for my confidence. This booking is going to be my time to regain my focus, so I can return to modelling stronger than ever.

  The sun is torching the clouds on the horizon, and I lean on the balcony railing as a warm breeze blows into the villa. An Instagram selfie from this balcony with something like: looking forward to sleeping under a big African moon tonight, is too awesome to miss. I pull out my iPhone snap a shot of me and the sunset and start typing when I hear three faint knocks.

  As I creep through the living room, I wonder if I heard right. Then there’s another bout of weak knocking—not from the front entrance, but from the adjoining door to the next room.

  I grab the handle, and hesitate. It couldn’t have been a knock, and even if it was, it can’t be for me. Somebody probably scraped their luggage against the door, or worse. I don’t want to open the door on a middle-aged couple reinvigorating their marriage against my wall. But the lure of knowing what’s behind the door is too much. If the knock isn’t for me, the inner door will be locked shut anyway.

  I open it.

  Shock smacks me like an abusive parent disciplining their kid in a WalMart parking lot. Not only because the inside door is open, but because standing in front of me is Taylor.

  CHAPTER 13

  Colin Bryce Hamilton

  Looking forward to sleeping under a big African

  5 people like this.

  Damian Bruckman

  Good luck with that, bru!

  3 people like this.

  TAYLOR IS STANDING in my villa in Mauritius. I don’t rule out the possibility that I have a tumour the size of a grapefruit in my head and her sudden appearance is the last misfiring of neurons before I collapse twitching to the floor.

  “Holy crap,” she says, looking as shocked as I am. That probably means she’s not caused by a fruit sized growth in my brain. Oddly, this doesn’t make me feel better. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist knocking. I didn’t hear anyone next door, so I figured it was safe.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Same thing as you. I booked the Beachcomber job,” she says. “But you didn’t even cast for this job.”

  She shrugs. “They saw me at the casting with you and Damian, found me on the Origin Models website and requested my card. Next thing I knew I was flying to Africa.”

  “I don’t believe this,” I say, shaking my head. Taylor crossed two continents and countless time zones to torment me in paradise. Fate has a penchant for the cruel and unusual. “How could this happen?”

  “Sorry. We can close the door,” She frowns. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

  “Fine.”

  She probably can’t wait to get back on Snapchat to check if Damian’s sent her any new dick picks. This makes me wonder if he puts little horns on it, or edits in a cruddy rainbow spouting from the tip, and this makes me feel sick to my stomach.

  “Oh, Genevieve told me if I saw you, to mention that
everyone is having dinner at the resort restaurant in half an hour.” She gives me a forced smile. “See you there. I guess.”

  “Yeah, sure.” I shut the door and lock it.

  Dinner with Taylor at a posh restaurant on an exotic island. Something is definitely fucked up because right now that sounds as appealing as taking a Taser-fired electrified dart to my left eye.

  I’ve concluded that Taylor winking at me during the Hugo Boss show was a tease, like when the most popular girl in school winks at the geekiest reject kid because she knows it’s going to work him into a masturbation frenzy at home. It’s cruel but funny—until you’re the reject.

  The resort restaurant is low-lit by kerosene torches fastened to bamboo poles. Our table is on a veranda with a view of the moon reflecting off the ocean. I busy myself eating a palm heart salad while Taylor sits next to me listening to Marcel tell some story about when he was in the Navy. Marcel was in the Navy. What a fucking jerk.

  “Wow, what a life you’ve had,” Taylor says, when Marcel finishes speaking. Marcel sits there looking proud to be French. I wish I wasn’t sitting next to Taylor listening to his obvious attempts to impress, but it was unavoidable. Clients always sit the models together at meals. It’s the same logic behind the kiddie table at Thanksgiving dinner. They keep the models together in case all the adult talk gets too intensive for our stagnant brains to process. This way we can keep each other entertained, and they avoid tantrums and incessant whining.“You two make a really cute couple,” Marcel says. “I can see why Genevieve picked you guys.”

  I know this is part of Marcel’s game, but when Taylor glances at me, I feel my face flush. I make a show of dabbing my forehead with my napkin like it’s too hot.

  “You know each other, no?” Genevieve says, inexplicably wearing sunglasses to block the moonlight.

  “A little bit,” Taylor says, her big green eyes catching the torchlight when she glances at me. I wish she didn’t always look like she just fell out of a Guess campaign.