Sheldon Ferguson likes this.
MY ALARM GOES off and I spring awake, reaching instinctively for the bowl of tuna next to the bed so I can scarf it down and go back to sleep. Often, I’ll set my alarm every three hours during the night to wake up and eat protein to keep my metabolism going. I heard Hugh Jackman did something similar whenever he played Wolverine and he’s crazy diesel in those films. Veins bursting out of everywhere, like his whole body is a painfully erect penis. It’s awesome. My hand fumbles on the dresser, but there’s no bowl of tuna. Then I remember, I didn’t leave one out.
My iPhone goes off again. I rub my eyes awake and see that it’s not an alarm, it’s Damian calling me.
It’s fucking 4:02 in the morning. He has to be partying and must be completely fucked up to call me now. I don’t feel like fielding a drunken phone call. I hit cancel and lay back down. My phone stops flashing and I shut my eyes. No more than three seconds later, my phone rings again. Nothing is more persistent than a drunk idiot. I’m going to have to answer his shitty call.
“It’s four in the morning,” I say. “I’m sleeping.”
On the other end, there is a metallic clang in the background and a moment of silence.
“Yeah, sorry bru,” Damian says, his voice echoing like he’s calling from a toilet. “I need a favour.”
Fuck, this better be a favour I can do while in REM sleep. “Can you lend me five thousand Hong Kong dollars?”
“What?”
“It’s just, there’s no one else I can call, bru,” he says. “Right now? What do you need it for?”
“I’ll pay you back right away,” he says, making me wonder what he’s buying for five thousand dollars at four in the morning. I doubt he’s had the sudden urge to donate a lump sum to the Children’s Hospital.
“I’m not giving this to a drug dealer, am I?” If it’s for coke, I’m hanging the fuck up.
“No, bru,” he says. “I’m in jail.”
It’s great to be a fun, drunken, party guy like Damian but you have to know where to draw the line. He’s out every night, and now he pulls this shit—it was a Monday night for fucks sakes.
A police officer leads me into the holding cell where Damian is the lone prisoner. He’s sitting in his underwear with his hands shackled to his feet. His hair is sticking up like he touched one of those electrostatic spheres at the science center. What shocks me more are the deep dark circles underneath his eyes and how pasty and pale his complexion is. Damian should really use some sort of cream before sleeping. I do. Specifically, Givenchy Man Anti-Aging Force. It’s not a traditional beauty care brand, but I trust a fashion label to let enough wrinkling happen to look sophisticated, but not enough to look haggard. That’s how you do anti-aging right. “Thanks for coming, bru.” Damian’s face lights up and he hobbles over to the bars.
“What happened?” I say, noting that, save for his bad skin, in the harsh incandescent lighting of the cell, stripped down to his bikini briefs, his limbs shackled, and his hair all over, he looks good. Very cinematic. I make note to suggest this sort of treatment to a photographer so I can get some similar shots for my portfolio. “Why are you in your underwear?”
“That’s why I told you to bring jeans and a shirt. You brought them, right?” I hold up a plastic bag with the clothes. Damian sighs with relief.
“It’s all screwed up,” he says, as his eyes dart to the guards. “I did another job for Angela.”
Vogue Bitch. He texted me about this but I ignored him. After what happened with Boyd, I’m officially done entertaining the idea of sex for career gains.
“Started at her place and whatever, you know. I ended up with a friend of hers in a hotel room on Lockhart. We were pretty loud in the room, fucking around, being stupid. She had a bunch of cocaine. Someone must have thought we were killing each other and complained. The music was up so loud I didn’t even hear the knocking—or the police, when they came into the room.”
“What did they arrest you for?”
“That’s the thing, bru,” he says. “They got me for possession, but on the way out, Marcy—Angela’s dumb ass friend—fucking sunk the boat. She was getting cuffed and wailing up a storm, crying and shit. They were dragging her out and she was going on about how she was paying me, how she never does this kind of thing, that she felt terrible, her husband was going to divorce her, and all this shit.”
This is so very fucked up. Damian gets as close to the bars as he can and motions for me to get closer. With my ear inches from his mouth, he says, “Right now, it’s just possession, I don’t want to stick around and get charged with prostitution too. Imagine that shit?”
I look at him and find it very easy to imagine.
“Did you pay the bail?” He says, with a crazy look in his eyes.
“Yeah, they’re sorting out the paper work now,” I take a step away from him. “They should be releasing you any minute.”
“That’s good,” Damian nods, his eyes darting around. “Cause I’m pulling a runner and getting out of Hong Kong.”
The train to Hong Kong International Airport doesn’t start running until 5:50 am. It’s only twenty to six and Damian and I are already in the empty station. It occurs to me that this is the first time a pair of models has been this early for anything. Ever.
Damian has his back to me as he punches his pin into the ATM. His hastily packed duffel bag rests on the floor beside him. After bailing him out of lock up, we went to his model apartment. He snuck in and, without waking his roommate, grabbed the vitals: passport, MacBook, handful of shirts and a couple pairs of jeans. He left a lot of clothes behind. He said he didn’t care and that the rest of the models in the apartment would have a good time divvying it up. Models do love free stuff—too bad for them that Damian dresses like shit.
“Here, bru,” he says, turning from the ATM and flicking through a stack of Hong Kong bills. “Told you I’d pay you back.”
I almost thank him but stop. Since I bailed him out of jail for man-whoring, I don’t think I need to thank him.
“Where are you going?” I pocket the money and follow him toward a row of empty seats in front of a customer service desk.
“My contract in Milan starts soon,” he shrugs. “I’ll get the cheapest ticket to Europe and kill a week before heading to Italy.”
No question, Damian’s a major league fuck up. But he’s still got his shit sorted in Milano and I’m staying right here. I stare at the grime-covered floor.
“I gotta make some shit up to my agency here. Maybe I’ll email them and tell them I had a family emergency and had to leave.”
He pauses to bite at his thumbnail.
“Fuck. You think they’ll send me the money they owe me? I’m breaking contract technically.”
Models under contract can’t leave the country without their agency’s permission. He’s clearly going to breach that. But most agencies also have a clause stating that models must not do anything to tarnish the reputation of the agency. It’s a safety clause to cover excessively debaucherous behaviour, like getting loaded and running through Central naked. But I imagine it covers prostitution too. Damian is probably in breach in a few places.
“I guess if they want to be assholes, they won’t pay you,” I say. “I don’t know.”
“Shit,” he says. “All I’ve got is like a couple thousand bucks in my account. I didn’t even get the cash off Marcy.”
Hearing how Damian didn’t even have the sense to get money upfront while prostituting himself is yet another reason models shouldn’t run their own business.
“Why’d you do it?” I say. “You’ve got your Milano contract all lined up, what was the point of partying with those ladies?”
I can’t bring myself to say fucking for money.
“Needed cash, why does anyone do it? Not because they enjoy it,” he says, breaking out his perfect catalogue grin that doesn’t match his man whoring eye bags and flat shitty hair. Damian looks like the life’s been sucked
out of him. “Though, it wasn’t so bad.”
I ignore that Damian just called sex with seniors not so bad.
“But you’ve been working well in Hong Kong.”
“It’s all fashion shows and editorials, and they pay shit. I got a couple decent paying bookings but nothing like what you landed. I wasn’t gonna pocket much. I don’t have to tell you Milan is expensive. Having a contract there doesn’t mean I’m gonna work.”
I didn’t think Damian was still living hand-to-mouth like so many of the younger models. I assumed he’d saved or made enough to be semi-stable. Instability in modelling is always a jobless month away.
“That’s the difference between you and me, bru,” he says. “You always used to book the good commercial jobs. That’s where the money is. Me, I scrape by on the fashion shit. But after you model as long as we have. What else are you gonna do?”
The train glides into the station and hisses to a stop. Damian leans back in the seat and shuts his eyes. When he opens them, he exhales a long-exhausted breath like he’s run twenty kilometres and has another twenty to go.
“I never pictured myself being like this,” he says, staring at the train. “One day you look at yourself in the mirror and realize you’re getting further and further from the person you wanted to be. And you have no idea how to stop it. Sometimes you don’t know until it’s too late, you know?”
I stare at him. His eyes are focused on nothing before blinking out of it. Then he gives me a tired grin. “And bru, I know you thought I was trying to hook up with your sister.”
“What—?” I say. “Nah—”
“Hey, I know a protective brother when I see one,” he says. “And you should be, she’s beautiful. But I’d never hook up with your sister. You’re my bru.”
He stands and shoulders his bag. The train is waiting. Damian holds out his fist.
I bump it.
“Good seeing you again,” he says. “Nice to hang with somebody from the old days—you know—a real friend.”
This makes me choke a little inside. If I’m a real friend to Damian, he’s got the world’s shittiest friends. Then I realize he may be the closest thing I’ve got to a real friend right now too, and this makes me want to push my face into the rapidly spinning spokes of a motorbike.
The train starts a high-pitched beeping to signal that the doors are about to close.
“Gotta go, bru,” Damian says, as he turns and steps through the gate, leaving me standing on the other side. “I’ll see you in Milan!”
CHAPTER 30
Colin Bryce Hamilton
I’ve got 992 friends, right?
2 people like this.
MODELLING ALL OVER the world has given me five years where no two days have been the same. In any six-month period, I’d travel to half of the continents, meet hundreds of people, sleep with the hot ones, and make money doing it.
I have hundreds of selfies in front of waterfalls, million-dollar homes, iconic monuments, and tropical paradises but in every single one, it’s me. Alone.
Even in the photos of me partying, I’m alone. Surrounded by people whose names I forget, or never knew in the first place. My arms around gorgeous smiling girls I haven’t seen since, and will never see again. It’s easy to make friends while partying but even easier for those friends to drift away. I never gave much thought to the solitary life models live, to the solitary life I live. Damian was right. We might as well have been best friends by default.
There’s only one other person I might be able to call a friend but I’ve always been hesitant to do that, and I don’t know why.
Sheldon sits at a table in the Starbucks in IFC mall, blowing into a steaming mug. When he spots me walking towards him, he doesn’t break out that rabbit-like grin I’ve grown used to. He just sips his coffee, watching me with an indifferent look. “Hey, Sheldon,” I say, taking a seat across from him. “Thanks for coming.”
“My girlfriend has a casting in one of the shops here.” He puts the coffee down. He looks uncomfortably bony under his white V-neck shirt. “She’ll be back pretty soon.”
I briefly wonder what casting it is and why I don’t have it. I have to focus.
“That’s cool. How’s Valina doing?” I made sure to check Instagram before I left to look up his girlfriend’s name, and even after doing that, I still wanted to call her Vladivostok for some reason.
“She’s good.”
Sheldon’s acne doesn’t look like the inside of a fresh cut chorizo sausage today. Maybe he found a new hobby that entertains him more than picking at his face like a giant dried scab. Or maybe Valina used electro shock therapy to make him kick the habit—since Svetlana, I don’t put anything past a Russian girl.
“And you two are ok?” I say.
“Yeah, we are.” Sheldon smiles for the first time since I got there. “She’s going home soon and wants me to go with her to meet her parents and everything.”
I have visions of Sheldon walking into a muddy little village straight out of the 18th century, and being surrounded by peasants in scarves and wool coats marveling at his Ray Bans and acne with equal amounts of reverence and revulsion.
Sheldon’s staring past me, and I realize unless I say something we’ll sit in silence until Valina arrives. The tables have turned. For years he’s been the one asking me questions and being interested, and I’ve sat back. He’s always put in the effort to stay in touch with me and I didn’t care. It’s my turn to put in some effort.
“Yeah, her parents,” I say. “They must be pretty old. Old Russians, I guess.”
He stares at me. I suck at this.
“I don’t know. They’re parents.” He shrugs.
When people aren’t amazed by your good looks and aren’t captivated by hearing you talk about your profession, it’s quite challenging to keep a conversation going.
“Meeting Valina’s parents,” I’m really trying here. “Are you nervous?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“I’m sure you’ll make a good impression.” I decide to leave it at that. I don’t want to bring up his family having money.
“Well, it’s more complicated,” Sheldon says. “Valina doesn’t like people to know this, but her father is Pyotr Viakhiev.”
That sounds like something you get from drinking un-boiled water in Siberia. I shrug.
“You haven’t heard of him? The Russian billionaire? He owns an oil company and he just bought a football team in the UK,” Sheldon says. Then he gets a big smile on his gaunt face. “He makes my father look like a potato farmer.”
For a second I wonder if I’ve lost my ability to comprehend language. Valina is richer than Sheldon? The blonde Russian bombshell and her C-cup breasts are choosing to be with scrawny, acne-scarred Sheldon just for the sake of being with him? I feel like typing Sheldon, Valina, WTF in a Google search.
As if to punctuate the reality of this shit stopping revelation, Valina strides into Starbucks looking like she stepped off a runway. She’s wearing a black dress from Ferragamo and two-inch Manolo Blahnik heels. She towers over us and takes her sunglasses off.
“Hi, V.” Sheldon grins. Valina bends way over to kiss him.
“Hi, babe,” the blonde says. Every time I look at her legs I can’t help thinking of powerful long-legged racehorses. “You want to stay here or should we go?”
Valina looks at Sheldon with this dewy softness in her eyes before she caresses his face, and I know love is not only blind, it lacks fine tactile sensation. I can feel Sheldon’s acne and I’m only looking at him. Though what really bothers me is Valina looking at him the way she does. It makes me think of Taylor.
“Yeah, we’re pretty much done,” Sheldon nods. We both stand up. Valina reaches a long slender hand for Sheldon’s bony knuckled one. They hold hands as they start to walk away.
Sheldon is my friend, maybe the only friend I’ve got left, and I can’t find it in myself to be happy for him though I should be. This goofy little nerd, with his love of M
MO’s and ridiculous insecurities, has somehow scored a blonde Amazon model with a billionaire father. Most guys wouldn’t dare fantasize about a girl this perfect and Sheldon’s got her. He’s the Little Engine That Could, and I’m the Big Good-Looking Engine That Doubted Him. What’s wrong with me? Am I that shallow that all I do is make judgements based on appearance?
I know the answer to this and it doesn’t make me feel good. “Hey, dude,” I call and they both turn. “Can I have a second?”
Sheldon gives Valina a nod and leaves her looking beautifully out of place in the centre of the mall.
“What?” he says, approaching me.
“Uh… this is… the thing…” Fuck me. This is harder than ab super sets. “You’ve always been a good friend to me, and I’ve been pretty shitty to you.”
Sheldon squints at me like he can’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. My palms are sweaty and I can hear my heart thumping in my ears when I say, “I can be an asshole. Sorry dude. I’m happy for you and Valina. I really am. You’re a lucky guy.”
He nods and stares at me for a second. Then he gives me a big crooked-toothed grin and, God help me, I can’t understand why he never got his teeth fixed.
“Thanks, mate,” Sheldon says, and shakes my hand. I watch him returning to Valina and realize I’ve been holding my breath.
Hand in hand with Valina, Sheldon looks like he’s leading The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman into Hong Kong. Then he turns, juts his chin at me and says, “And Colin, I made that call.”
“What?”
“My friend at Gucci. The managing director.” He smirks. “Break a leg, mate.” It’s only when the agency door buzzes open and I walk into the One Models office that I realize I haven’t spoken to Apple since she called me a pain in the ass. That’s a pretty good indicator of how shitty things have been going that my booker accidentally complaining about me—to me—slipped my mind.
“It’s about time you got here!” Jasmine says, almost skipping toward me with Apple following like a mother hen. “Guess what?”
I start guessing, and a thousand things that could go wrong run through my head. I stop guessing.
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