Like Me

by Hayley Phelan

  How to Attract a Leo Man:

  Stand out from the crowd but only have eyes for him.

  Tease him but remain direct.

  Be natural and a little sensible when in private.

  Get rid of your complexes and be ready for games.

  Be there when he opens up about his emotions.

  I imagined celebrating Benoit’s birthday, him, Gemma, and me, the three of us all together. Maybe we’d even go away somewhere for the weekend, or else I could help host a party, maybe even at The Rising, which we still hadn’t been able to go to; Joe said the manager was being lame about it and we weren’t about to try if we didn’t already know we were on the list. But it was frustrating. Gemma had been going every Thursday and I hadn’t even been inside. I went to the club’s Instagram page. The bio read Local watering hole. Dance floor. Rec center. All about community. The last post featured an artful black-and-white photo of a black person and white person hugging, naked, their bodies pressed together. Love is love is love. Together we stand. #solidarity #speakup #justiceforEricGarner, the caption read, though it was unclear what it was actually saying or how it related to the image. It was the kind of thing brands had started posting recently, as if they were moral entities instead of capitalist enterprises, as if they had values beyond customer retention and profit margin. We’d come to expect this from them—they were now our legislators, our educators, and, most importantly, our friends. As people began to think of themselves more and more as brands, brands started to feel more and more like people. The next image in the grid showed Gigi and Bella Hadid at the JOY Magazine party hosted a few days before. I swiped through the carousel clocking the celebrities: Christina Aguilera, Mark Ronson, Sasha Velour, Kylie Jackson (who was suddenly everywhere, even though she was still only fifteen), Pharrell Williams, DJ Khaled. Blake began an Instagram Live video, as part of her Thirty Days of Abundance meditation practice. I tuned in briefly, to show support, and sent her a hands-clapping emoji. She was wearing the same Forever 21 Tie-Dye Crop Top—the knockoff of Outdoor Voices—that I had. São Paulo had issued a shelter-in-place order for residents, trying to quell the spread of the disease, which the press had dubbed the Brazilian Flu even though it wasn’t technically a flu. A model I’d worked with two years ago, once, had made spaghetti for her boyfriend. She was now a licensed nutritionist and, from what I could tell from her photos, still anorexic. Two of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse victims had asked the judge to deny the billionaire bail. Protests had erupted outside the Justice Department, railing against the ruling in the Eric Garner case. Madewell wanted me to buy something from their new summer collection. Julia texted me: Sup slut?

  She came over later that night. I checked, for the ten thousandth time, to see if Gemma had started Following me yet. She hadn’t. I wondered if she knew that Benoit was shooting me, and if she didn’t, whether I should tell her about it or not.

  “Meh,” said Julia, after we’d had a few shots of vodka and I’d felt it increasingly difficult not to say anything about it. “Who cares?” She was hunched over my puny kitchen island, hands clasped together, her cleavage like an axe cut, sucking on an edamame pod. She pushed the tinfoil container in my direction but I waved it away, terrified of accidentally ingesting trace amounts of garlic or onion.

  “It just seems weird because I met them together, you know?” I had told Julia and Blake about the bookstore run-in, omitting the part about how I’d followed her in there and making it sound completely coincidental. “And when I DMed them, it was to both of them,” I added, defensively. “But then when Benoit messaged me, it was just to me.”

  “He probably wants to fuck you.”

  “No way. They’re insanely in love.”

  “Insanely codependent, more like it.”

  “They do things apart. I think she’s on vacation right now without him.” In fact, I knew Gemma was on vacation. She’d put up a photo of herself in a terry-cloth robe, sipping tea, her feet in those plastic sandals that spas give you. Our society programs us to just go-go-go, non-stop, she wrote in the caption. But we aren’t robots. It’s important to take time to really just BREATHE and BE. Have the courage to just STOP. This is NOT a luxury. It is a vital part of maintaining a healthy mind and a healthy heart.

  “Interesting she’s on vacation,” said Julia, tossing the eviscerated edamame onto a pile of its fallen brothers.

  “Whatever. I just don’t want her to think that I approached him.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

  “So you don’t think I should, like, message her or something?” If Julia had seen my face, she would have seen that my eyes had grown wide and shiny, like a puppy begging for food. But she was looking at her phone, sliding her finger rhythmically up and down its glassy surface.

  “Nah, I wouldn’t,” she said, her eyes still fixed on the screen. “Anyway, it’s better if she doesn’t know. She might be jealous.”

  I shut her down, loudly and emphatically. Completely ridiculous, I said. Gemma could not possibly see me as a threat.

  Secretly, though, the idea thrilled me. And after Julia left, my heart was still thudding so loudly in my throat that, even though I’d sworn I would not drink too much the night before the shoot, I poured myself another few shots of vodka, mixing them with lukewarm tap water. An agent, the one I’d had before Jason, had told me once that vodka soda was the only thing I should ever drink. I was seventeen at the time. She said, “It’s like drinking skinny. I never touch anything else.” I thought it tasted like nail polish remover. But soon, inevitably, I was guzzling it down just like the rest of the girls, while the men drank beers or whiskey sours, things that actually tasted like something, filled the glass with color, weight. Vodka soda no longer tasted like nail polish remover to me—it tasted like nothing, looked like nothing, and smelled like the void. Drinking it was like drinking emptiness. How many did I inhale over the years? Millions, it felt like. Gallons of emptiness.

  I drank down the last shot in one gulp, then turned off the lights.

  * * *

  —

  Benoit’s studio was housed on the third and top floors of a small converted warehouse in Bushwick. Even now, I can still picture it exactly. Cement floors. Big windows. Fifteen-foot ceilings. It had been divided up by a series of temporary walls that stopped a foot from the exposed ceiling, so that you entered into a long, blank hallway with identical, flimsy-looking doors and cheap gold doorknobs. The moon spends the day in your spirit sector, dear Aquarius, encouraging you to seek new ideas or approaches. I was wearing Reformation Cynthia High Relaxed Jeans, an Urban Outfitters Mesh Ruched Cami in Snakeskin, Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Sneakers in Black, Farrow Sandra Semi-Hoop Earrings in Brown Tortoise, and New York Magazine Tote Bag in Natural Canvas. Three protestors had been arrested at the Eric Garner demonstrations. Brazilian President Makes Statement on New “Flu”: “It’s Not Serious.” Miley Cyrus kissed another girl.

  Kiki met me at the door. She was petite and skinny, with ropy arms covered in black-and-white tattoos. Her features were small and ferrety, and her sharp eyes scanned my body and face with the practiced precision of a high-powered machine.

  “This way,” she said, pressing her lips into a thin line that I realized, a little too late, was a smile. I knew from her Instagram that she didn’t shave her armpits, and as I followed her down the narrow hallway, I noticed the dark, fecund patch of hair hidden like a shadow in the crevice of her white skin.

  The room she ushered me into was small but well lit, with large, warehouse-style windows that were flooded with light. Jack, the hair guy, and Sylvie, the makeup girl, introduced themselves to me. The stylist, Andy, stopped furiously unzipping a limp garment bag to look over his shoulder and nod. It was hot and smelled like hairspray. A steamer hissed in the corner, billowing mist. House music bounced softly over the speaker
s. Really, it was nothing special. But I recognized it anyway, from her pictures. I recognized the radiators, which were covered in dust, and the metal grid of the windows. I recognized the skyline: a patchwork of industrial-looking buildings and gray water towers. So this is where it happens, I thought. Surreptitiously, I ran my hand along the white wall, the white wall that Gemma and all the other models had posed in front of. Benoit lived in the apartment directly below. I had figured that out from Instagram, too, but even if I hadn’t, the buzzers were labeled.

  One of the doors opened and Benoit strode in. “See?” he said. “We’re very informal here.”

  Despite the heat, he was wearing a navy sweatshirt, and matching navy sweatpants cuffed at the ankle, revealing a braided anklet above his Gucci loafers. Astonishingly, he also wore a light cotton utility jacket, navy too, with large pockets. I hadn’t seen him without his aviators before—he was never photographed without them. And now I knew why. His eyes had a hard and dull look about them, making him appear almost stupid. I smiled, and he kissed me on the cheek, and I thought he smelled me, too, sniffed near my mouth and neck, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Welcome, darling,” he said warmly. “Don’t you look peachy.” Benoit liked to use anachronistic expressions like this. I never figured out if it was an affected quirk, or because he’d grown up in Soviet-era Bulgaria where Western culture was stuck in a time warp.

  “Are you wearing any makeup?” he asked, holding me by the shoulders.

  I shook my head no. For someone as vain as I was, I wore surprisingly little.

  “Swell,” he said. “I hate makeup.” He leaned away from me and whispered something quickly into Jack’s ear. To me, he said: “If I had my way, I’d shoot you just as you are, like this. But, the camera, she loves makeup. You see? So we do just very minimal. Just a little here, here.” He touched me gingerly on the lips, by my temples. “We fluff the hair a little. But it’s still you. Okay!” He clapped his hands suddenly, signaling he was done with me. “See you soon.”

  Jack led me gently by the arm and put me in front of a mirror and a long countertop. His tools were laid out on a white towel. I liked the way Jack looked at me. Like he couldn’t wait to touch me, rake his fingers through my hair. Though it wasn’t in a creepy, sexual way. You could tell at a glance that Jack was gay.

  “Hi, beautiful,” he said, not smiling and not taking his eyes off me in the mirror either. He kept up a steady chatter while he operated on my head, brushing my hair and slicing it into sections with a skinny comb that looked more like a knife. He had tiny hands, smooth and brown, a compact frame, something altogether childish about him: an innocent eagerness to his face, like if you slapped him, he’d just blink really hard, surprised but not broken, still willing to trust. I thought you’d either have to be very green or very good to keep that face in this business, and for a second I worried that Jack was going to do something really bad, like scorch my hair and completely fuck me for the shoot. But I learned, as Jack’s life story unspooled while he clipped and coiled my hair, that he was actually thirty-seven and had been doing hair for nearly two decades.

  “It’s those gaysian genes. I still look like I’m twenty, right?” he asked.

  “Lucky you,” I said, meaning it.

  I leaned back in my chair and relaxed. It had been a long time since I’d worked with someone who was proud of what they did. I felt a rushing sensation inside of me. Something kicking to life at the pit of my stomach. Nervousness, but without the sharp metallic sting that usually accompanied it. What was this? Happiness? I watched as the girl in the mirror smiled. Jack installed curls with a gleaming rod that radiated heat against my skin. Occasionally he would stop, make a low, guttural noise, almost carnal, and sigh, “Such gorgeous hair.” I smiled, looked down modestly. It felt good to be admired in parts like that.

  “So where you from, hon?” he asked.

  “California.”

  “I used to live in LA!” he said, as if this were the world’s greatest coincidence. “Man, I miss that place. I mean, the weather, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You miss it?”

  I nodded.

  “Your family still there?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “There many of ’em?”

  “Three sisters, but one of them is my twin.”

  “Oh my god, you’re a twin!”

  I laughed. “Yeah, we’re not identical or anything.”

  “I always wanted a twin.”

  “It was nice, growing up. Like a built-in best friend, you know, someone who is always just there.”

  “You must miss her.”

  “I do,” I said. “Very much.”

  When Jack finished with me, my head was exploded in tightly coiled curls.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll go down,” he said. “We set it now, and comb it out after the face. Then it’ll be perfect, I promise.”

  I closed my eyes and let Jack douse me in hairspray.

  “Don’t breathe for a sec,” he said, unleashing a fresh torrent across my face. But it was too late and I’d already inhaled a mouthful of the tacky, powdery stuff, making everything taste slightly tainted for the rest of the day.

  Sylvie scraped a stool over. She took my face in her tender, capable hands, exuding the kind of professional warmth characteristic of nurses. She sprinkled pale-blue water onto a puffy white cotton ball, caressed my face with it. Purifying me like the holy water at my father’s church the few times he dragged me along, probably (it occurs to me now) following some particularly slimy episode in his life. I was never christened. My parents had planned to do it, but they’d just never gotten around to it. That happened a lot with them. They meant well and then they got distracted.

  I stared at Sylvie’s peaceful, nun-like face, inches from my own. Her long black hair was pushed back with a thick black band that resembled a habit, and even though she was large, she still had incredible bone structure and perfect cheekbones. She sort of looked like a chubbier Naomi Campbell. Her fingers were long and delicate, the nails unpolished. She poured out a quarter-sized amount of foundation on the back of her hand, a circle of pearlized skin, and began spreading it over my face with a soft triangle sponge. Unlike Jack, she worked in almost total silence, a beatific look on her face, completely absorbed in her work, opening her mouth only to whisper directives in hushed, maternal tones: Close your eyes, dear. Smile, dear. Other than that, it was like I wasn’t even there. Just my skin was.

  “Wooow,” said Jack, when Sylvie had finished with me. “Look at Ms. Pretty.”

  “Beautiful,” said Sylvie, earnestly.

  Jack combed out my hair roughly with his fingers. “See? Didn’t I promise?”

  They spun me around so I could see myself in the mirror, and the fireflies swarmed around the edges of my eyes and I thought I might faint and the first thing I thought when I saw my reflection was: Gemma. I tried to hide my excitement, but I laughed, lightly, in spite of myself. When I saw my teeth, gray and even and utterly pedestrian, I closed my mouth quickly, not wanting to ruin the effect. Gemma, my heartbeat seemed to thud, Gemma.

  “Do you like it?” asked Jack.

  I nodded vigorously, smiling a closed-lip smile. “Very much so.”

  I had to resist the urge to run to the bathroom and study my face in private, as if I couldn’t fully possess it until I was alone. My skin was luminous, my mouth looked just kissed. Jack had been right: the waves had mellowed into a soft, golden cascade as natural-looking as Gemma’s signature curls. My eyebrows had been lightened like hers, too, using skin-colored pressed powder, so that they nearly vanished into my forehead. Without them, my eyes had that childish, naked look that made Gemma so penetrative in photos. Sylvie had lined my eyes in soft brown, not black, and painted a hint of blush on my cheeks. It all looked so natural, and yet so utterly unlike me. I found that when I mo
ved my head quickly, the effect was even stronger, like it really was Gemma in the mirror. That made me feel powerful and unstable at the same time, like I was up somewhere really high and looking down.

  “Gemma,” I whispered, though it seemed to come out louder than I’d intended.

  Jack, still beaming at me in the mirror, called over his shoulder: “Andy, she’s ready!”

  I thought Sylvie looked uncomfortable then, and I couldn’t understand why.

  “You did such a good job,” I said, trying to put her at ease.

  She thanked me but she looked embarrassed. Then she said she had to go outside to call her daughter.

  Andy undressed me quickly and efficiently. When I was naked he slid a bag over my head. He began dressing me again. The bag was there to protect the clothes from the makeup painted on my face. It was loose and easy to breathe under, but still I sucked in air greedily, feeling giddy. It’s really happening, I thought. Benoit is really going to shoot me. I tried to picture what it would be like, what I might be like on set, but I could only see a blond woman with an indistinct face, and arms and legs that looked a little like mine.

  At some point, without me realizing, Andy had floated away.

  “Can I take this off now?” I asked, to no one in particular, touching the top of my bag. There was no answer so I just stood there, swaying, listening to my heart beat. I was smiling under that bag, like an idiot. Just so happy to be there.

  Eventually I felt Andy come back to me. He laughed.

  “Oh, sweetie, you can take that off now.”

  He lifted the bag slowly and carefully from my head so it didn’t mess up my hair. I was wearing full-bottom silk panties in pale lavender (ERES), and a thin white wifebeater that scooped low towards my breasts (James Perse). Andy had me brace myself against his back while he helped me into a pair of white socks, which he folded down around my ankles. I’d forgotten about this: how people stopped expecting you to complete basic tasks like putting socks on by yourself once you entered set as a model. I pretended I was a queen, being dressed by her servants.