Crystal

by Walter Dean Myers

  The studying didn’t help very much. She hadn’t noticed herself falling behind in math. The test was on Tuesday afternoon, and she had promised Loretta she would work with Jerry the next day on a new portfolio. By the time the shooting was to start she was glad to stop thinking about math.

  “Just relax, Erika,” Loretta was saying to the new girl that Jerry was testing. “Try whatever poses you want and let the photographer do the rest.”

  “Okay,” Jerry said.

  Loretta was standing just to the side of Crystal, out of camera range, as Jerry started shooting the nervous girl.

  “Okay, lean a little forward in the chair and try to give me the expressions I ask for,” Jerry said.

  “Don’t worry if they don’t come out right,” Loretta said. “We won’t have the pictures captioned, so they won’t know what you’re trying for.”

  “Be happy!” Jerry said.

  The girl tried to look happy but was clearly too nervous.

  “Just relax,” Jerry said. “Move around.”

  Alyce Winslow leaned aginst the wall, her head to the side. Crystal saw Alyce’s face change ever so slightly as Jerry gave the commands to Erika. What Erika struggled for, Alyce did without thinking. She was good.

  Erika was tall and elegant with wide blue eyes and good bones. Her nose and mouth were attractive also, but her posture was bad. She was very round-shouldered. She was lovely, Crystal thought, but definitely not a model. Crystal looked at Loretta, who, in turn, shrugged.

  A few more awkward attempts at conveying happiness brought the young girl close to tears. Then she smiled and Crystal turned just in time to see Alyce pull her face into a comical pose.

  As Erika was putting her things in her bag, Loretta told her that she couldn’t handle her booking. The girl nodded curtly, pushed the last of her things into her bag, and left as quickly as possible.

  “Alyce, you’re no help at all,” Loretta said, smiling.

  “Oh, I thought I was trooly, trooly wonnerful,” Alyce said, pursing her lips into a small red bow.

  “She ought to be a comedian instead of a model,” Rowena said. “She’s really good at it.”

  “You still want the proofs?” Jerry asked.

  “Let’s just go straight to glossies,” Loretta said, going through her purse. “She’s a friend of a friend. So many people think because a girl is pretty she can model. Anybody got a MetroCard?”

  “Inside the desk drawer in Jerry’s office,” Rowena said.

  Loretta gave Jerry a look as Rowena went into the next room to get the card.

  “Jerry, you said you would let me take some pictures,” Alyce said. “Why don’t you set the camera up and I’ll take a roll of Crystal before she leaves. Okay, Crystal?”

  “Okay,” Crystal said.

  “Here you go,” Rowena said, returning with the MetroCard.

  “Thanks,” Loretta said. “Crystal, I’ll call you in a day or two. Meanwhile, get more sleep and give yourself a facial, you look a little dry around the eyes.”

  “Yes, boss lady!” Crystal grinned broadly.

  “Everybody’s a clown today!” Loretta said. “Time for me to leave.”

  “Alyce, the camera is set up, let’s see what you’re going to do.”

  “Oh, no,” Alyce said. “I want everybody out, so my creativity won’t be stifled.”

  “Do you know which button to push to take a picture?” Jerry asked.

  “Yes, dah-ling.”

  Jerry and Rowena left the studio with Loretta. Alyce went to where Crystal still sat on the stool and lifted Crystal’s chin up slightly.

  “You look official,” Crystal said.

  “I think I’d like to do photography one day,” Alyce said. “Perhaps when I’m old I can have a studio.”

  “Were you working today?”

  “Loretta had me doing a cat commercial,” Alyce said. “They had this other girl there—I think she was from Harlan-Stone or some other stupid agency. Anyway, she’s about nine, and she doesn’t have any boobs, but she’s trying to be sexy. She’s supposed to bring me the kitten and say, in this little cute voice, how she loves the kitten and do I think the kitten loves her.”

  “She’s doing a midget bit?”

  “Right.” Alyce was looking into the camera. “She’s supposed to be about five and she looks about five, but she thinks, if we can use that word, that she’s about seventeen and hot stuff. So it took us four hours to shoot a commercial that should have taken us fifteen minutes.”

  “And the director let it go?”

  “I think he’s sleeping with the tot’s mom or something,” Alyce said. “Smile.”

  Crystal smiled. The camera clicked and the motor whirred as the film was automatically advanced.

  “You’re very beautiful,” Alyce said.

  “Thank you,” Crystal said. “So are you.”

  “I think Rowena’s a hag.” Alyce looked up from the viewer. “Could you turn your head a little to the left?”

  “I think she’s okay,” Crystal said. She turned her head. The camera clicked.

  “I saw the pictures Jerry took of you,” Alyce said. “They’re really special.”

  “Oh? He didn’t mention them to me.”

  “Rowena took the finals over to Everby,” Alyce said. “Or at least that’s what she said. I just saw the proofs when I was looking for shots of me. I have this one picture in my portfolio I thought was just great, now I hate it. That ever happen to you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Look into the camera and smile, but try not to show your teeth, because too much of your gum shows when you smile,” Alyce said.

  “Jerry doesn’t think so,” Crystal said, defensively.

  “I see he had you posing in fur,” Alyce said. “I thought they were saving you for the wholesome stuff. Turn to the right.”

  Crystal caught her breath.

  “You’re not smiling, dear,” Alyce said. “I mean if you want to do that kind of posing it’s okay with me.”

  “If you have a nice body,” Crystal said, trying to regain her composure, “you can show it off. If you develop a little, you can show more of yourself, too. And anyway, the pictures weren’t nudies or anything.”

  “They aren’t exactly classy, either,” Alyce said. “But of course you knew that, didn’t you? Smile.”

  “You’re just jealous,” Crystal said.

  “The one with that cute little pout. Everby can put that on the wall of his penthouse.”

  “Where did you say you saw the pictures?” Crystal asked.

  Alyce glanced toward the door, then went to the file cabinet. She opened one of the sliding drawers and took out some pictures.

  Crystal came over and looked at the pictures as Alyce laid them out, one by one, on the top of the cabinet. Crystal had to look at them closely to make sure they were really of her.

  “They’re really something,” Alyce said. “And the ones La Femme doesn’t use, you can always save for Grind.”

  “Isn’t that where your mother got her start?” Crystal asked, walking away from the pictures.

  “I really have to go now,” Alyce said, turning away. “I’m working this afternoon on another boring cat food commercial.”

  “Do you get to eat out of a bowl?” Crystal asked as Alyce left.

  When Alyce had gone, Crystal went back to the pictures and looked at them. They made her look as sexy as Jerry said she was. One of them, with the coat open more than the others, made her look as if she were nude under the coat. Jerry must have airbrushed the swimsuit out!

  They seemed to be more than pictures. They seemed to have a life of their own. The tears came stinging to her eyes.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” It was Rowena.

  “Looking at the pictures Jerry took,” Crystal said.

  “I think they’re great!” Rowena said.

  “Did he show them to…anyone?”

  “He just sent a set over to La Femme,” Rowena said.
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  “They’re terrible!”

  “Crystal, they’re not. They’re a little sexy, but they’re not that bad.”

  “Then why does it seem like…”

  “Hey, Crystal, it’s cool.” Rowena put her arm around Crystal. “It really is. I took some pictures once that were a lot worse than these. Jerry’s got a set.”

  “Jerry took them?”

  “Yeah, that’s why it’s cool,” Rowena said. “Jerry and I are tight, and we respect each other. But they all take them. Jerry says that some photographers sell them privately. But they’ll never get shown. Jerry wouldn’t do anything like that. He’s real cool. Honest.”

  “Can I see your pictures?”

  Rowena looked at Crystal. Her face moved, almost as if she were trying to smile but couldn’t. “Sure.”

  Rowena went to the side of the file cabinet and took some keys that were on a hook. She opened a drawer and took out a small leather portfolio. She put it on the desk in front of Crystal.

  Crystal opened the portfolio. Rowena was posing in high boots with her hands on her hips. The black-and-white photos made her skin look whiter. The low angle made her forehead higher, too. She looked tougher than Crystal knew her to be.

  “I think they’re dynamite,” Rowena was saying. “They make me look like a real actress. I’m being, like, dominant with that wardrobe, right?”

  “When did you take these?” Crystal asked. She turned to a picture of Rowena with her leg over the back of a chair.

  “About six months ago. I had just lost the perfume account and I needed to do some work. This was different; it took me out of my mood. I think they’re really dynamite.”

  “Who was the client?” Crystal looked at Rowena. The older girl kept her eyes on the pictures.

  “I don’t remember,” Rowena said. “It was a job.”

  “You want to go to Manhattan with me?” Crystal asked, abruptly.

  “Manhattan? You want me to?”

  “I don’t think I can deal with school today.”

  “You want to get made up?”

  “For what?”

  “We can just do it for kicks,” Rowena said. “We can make each other up like crazy, you know, a little far out. Then we’ll go into Manhattan, and everybody will look at us and try to figure out who we are. I like that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then I can be anybody I want to be. I just don’t have to be me.”

  “Is just being you that bad?”

  “Sometimes it is.” Rowena shrugged. “You want to?”

  “Sure.”

  Crystal made up Rowena first. She brushed on eyeliner because she was too nervous to use a pencil and then started putting on mascara. “Why do you think we’ll be better friends because we have pictures?” she asked.

  “Because we know more about each other,” Rowena said. “If you only get to look at a person one way, you only get to know them one way.”

  “The pictures aren’t real,” Crystal said. She put beige lipstick on Rowena with a slightly lighter liner.

  “How do I look?”

  “One minute.” Crystal added highlighter along Rowena’s nose. “There, you’re beautiful.”

  Rowena looked in the mirror and liked what she saw. “You’re good,” she said. “I look better like this than when Frankie or somebody like that makes me up. Especially with the eyes, the way you’ve done them. But I’m not special like this. I’m not pretty enough to be just me, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, you are,” Crystal said.

  “Sit down,” Rowena said. “I’ll show you what pretty is.”

  She put a mixture of liquid pink and beige foundation on Crystal.

  “You’ve got really nice skin,” she said. “I’m not putting any contour on your cheeks. I like them a little round. That makes you look young and that’s good. Alyce has an old face. She’s younger than both of us, but she could be thirty if she wanted. Especially if she uses a lot of shadow over her eyes.”

  “I don’t like her at all,” Crystal said.

  “Alyce? She’s okay,” Rowena said. “She can’t be a friend or anything like that, but she’s okay. She just doesn’t know about hurting people yet.”

  “You like her?”

  “I think she’s okay. You don’t have to like me to get me to like you,” Rowena said. “I like a lot of people who don’t like me.”

  She finished doing Crystal’s face, stepped back, and gave her friend the thumbs-up sign.

  Crystal looked at herself in the mirror. “Girl, I didn’t know I was that good looking!” she said.

  “I did,” Rowena answered, picking up her jacket.

  “We ready?” Crystal asked.

  “Let’s get into the city and do it.”

  Rowena had money, and they took a cab from Brooklyn to Manhattan. The cab driver asked if they were models, and Rowena said no, that they were in films.

  “Oh, have I seen any of your movies?” the driver asked, looking into his rearview mirror.

  “Mostly we’ve been doing things in Italy,” Rowena said.

  “And now you’re going to be making movies in this country?”

  “How did you know?” Crystal put on her shocked look.

  “Look, we get lots of people in these cabs,” the driver said. “You pick up little things here, little things there. After a while you begin to know a lot. We’d be the best spies in the world.”

  “Well, we hope you keep this to yourself,” Rowena said, nudging Crystal with her elbow as the cab pulled up outside of Bergdorf’s.

  “Of course,” the driver said. “And what did you say your names were again?”

  “Elizabeth Harmon,” Crystal said. “And of course, this is Vadrika.”

  “Yeah, of course.” The driver nodded. He offered them the change for the twenty, but they were already walking down Fifth Avenue.

  They went into almost every store from Fifty-seventh to the French Building on Forty-fifth on the east side of Fifth Avenue, then crossed and did the same coming up Fifth on the west side of New York’s most glamorous thoroughfare. They didn’t buy anything, but Rowena kept asking the sales-clerks if they would have the things she looked at until that weekend.

  “You going to buy that stuff this weekend?” Crystal asked.

  “No,” Rowena said. “But they don’t know that.”

  They bought hot dogs from a vendor near Barnes & Noble and ate them in front of a construction site. The construction workers, mostly young men with hard, flat bellies, whistled and called to them. Older men, with bellies that hung over their belts, looked on.

  “This is what I like to do,” Rowena said.

  “Turn on all the guys and then walk away?” Crystal asked.

  “Walk away with a friend,” Rowena said.

  They walked a little way down Fifty-seventh, looking and being looked at. “I hate the pictures,” Crystal said, suddenly.

  “It’s okay,” Rowena said. “We’ve got each other. You and me and Alyce. Right?”

  “Right!” Crystal said, taking Rowena’s arm.

  “Yo, mama!” A tall, skinny messenger, wearing tight, black biking pants over a gray sweat suit, stopped his bike in front of Crystal and Rowena as they made their way through traffic across Fifty-seventh street. “Y’all look good enough to eat!”

  Rowena and Crystal looked straight ahead.

  “I know I’m disgusting to you pretty ladies,” the messenger called after them. “But what you want from a high school dropout?”

  They walked for another hour, stopping on the corners long enough to attract attention, occasionally stopping in front of store windows so that passersby could notice their reflections, stopping in Barnes & Noble so that a middle-aged Black clerk could show them outrageously priced prints.

  The weather grew cooler. They talked less. They struck fewer casual poses. They grew tired. After a while, as the evening rush hour began, they were hardly noticed.

  “I just think I need a vac
ation, that’s all!” Crystal pushed a piece of cubed cantaloupe around the edge of her plate. “Anyway, my grades are really falling. I’m just so far behind in everything.”

  “What are you talking about?” Carol Brown leaned against the refrigerator. “What are you talking about? We’ve worked so hard for this, and now you just want to give it up?”

  “I can still be a model. I just want to rest for a while,” Crystal protested.

  “Rest? Now that you’re on top of things? This is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for!”

  “I don’t like what I’m doing. I don’t like the pictures I’m in, I don’t like the people, I don’t like the magazines…”

  “Crystal, please, don’t start whining!”

  “I’m not—Mom, what’s so important about this, anyway?”

  “It’s important not to throw away your chance when it’s in your lap!” The vein in Carol’s neck bulged as she spoke.

  “The chance to have my picture taken for a dirty old man?”

  “Grow up!” her mother screamed. “You have the chance to live as well as you please, to take what you want from life instead of standing on the sidelines, hoping a few crumbs fall your way. I know what it’s like waiting for the crumbs. I’ve been waiting for them for the last fifteen years!”

  “Mama, don’t say that!”

  “Why not? Every day I have to walk around the garbage in the streets to get to our building. Every day I hold my breath so I don’t have to smell everybody’s life as I pass through these hallways. Every day I dream of what life could have, should have, would have been if I had known anything. Anything!”

  “I don’t want to throw anything away,” Crystal said. “I just thought…you said I didn’t have to do the modeling if I wasn’t happy with it.”

  “Oh, Crystal, baby, you’re right.” Carol Brown slumped into a chair. “That’s what I said. And you don’t have to. You don’t, really. Sometimes I just get to thinking about what life is about, what it’s really about, and I look around here and I just don’t think this is it. I want so much for you, baby.”