Braless in Wonderland

by Debbie Reed Fischer

  Toto moved, and now I could see who it was. I should have known. It was that over-freckled exoskeleton, April the Great. Her eyes were painted in Halloween green and yellow to match her eyes. Miguel was right. They weren’t ordinary eyes. They were more yellow than green. When she moved her head, their color changed with the light, like a stained-glass window. There was a hookah pipe next to her. She was posing as the rude caterpillar. How perfect.

  “How did you get booked?” she asked in this completely lifeless, bored way. She must have recognized me from the catalog casting. “You don’t look like the editorial type.”

  I cocked my head like Brynn did, in the manner of one tough biatch. “Uta said she wasn’t looking for editorial types. Like you,” I added, like it was an insult. Although I knew that editorial, fashiony-looking girls were considered a lot more prestigious than commercial types like me.

  “I get these magazine jobs all the time in New York and Paris.”

  “Well, we get them here sometimes, in between all the catalogs,” Poe said, tucking in a loose strand of April’s bun. “I’m sick of New York getting all the credit.”

  “I have to pee,” April said, climbing off the table and shuffling away with baby steps because her skirt wouldn’t let her take big ones. I saw why the skirt fit so tight. It was clipped with clothespins all along the back seam.

  “You’re not allowed to pee!” Havana yelled after her. “You’re already dressed!”

  Poe sighed dramatically. “The thing with caterpillars is, once they turn into butterflies, they still have the face of a bug.”

  “I think she looks like more of a praying mantis than a caterpillar,” I said.

  “You’re terrible, I love you. But have you seen her on film? She’s phenom.” I hated to say it, but it was true. Miguel had showed me her book online. Her photos forced you to look at her, she was that good. In person, she was a dead fish, but her pictures practically screamed off the page. It was so mysterious; it bordered on sci-fi. “When I first saw her, I thought she was too special to work a lot. Imagine that.”

  “Too special?”

  “‘Special’ is a term in the business for weird-looking, but in a good way, like Uma Thurman.”

  Havana grabbed me by the arm. “Where have you been? It’s getting late, we’re losing light. Do you have your chicken cutlets with you?” She pointed her thumb at Uta and Wolfgang, who were bent over some photos in an intense conversation. “They want mombo cleavage.”

  I nodded, rifling around in my bag. Where were they? Let’s see here—agenda book, BlackBerry, stockings, two thongs, two strapless bras, clear nail polish, breath mints, Jane Eyre, Alice in Wonderland, Rolling Stone, Post-its, hand mirror, iPod, hair spray, Luna bars, Vaseline, SAVE DARFUR T-shirt, shorts, rubber bands, Q-tips, Visine, Tums, Excedrin extra strength, lotion, headband, gum, tissues, wallet, water, tweezers, razor, nail file, talcum powder, carrot oil, sunglasses, two bandannas, flip-flops, baby wipes, hair clips. Havana had her hands on her hips. “I know they’re here, somewhere,” I said nervously. They had to be. They were on my checklist. I started pulling everything out.

  The bag was empty. They weren’t there. Oh, no. Could they have fallen out? No. Someone took them out. Someone stole my chicken cutlets! I bet it was Brynn. “We really don’t have time for this,” Havana said, tapping her foot. Think fast, Allee, think fast. I showed her my gym socks. “Will these work?”

  “That’s cute. Very funny.” She shouted to April the Great, who’d just gotten back, “Do you have chicken cutlets with you?” April said no. Havana looked ready to kill me.

  My BlackBerry went off. Saved by the vibrate. “Hello?”

  “Hey, girl.” It was Claudette. “I’m at Go-Go. Thought I’d bring some takeout and treat you for dinner, since it’s your first booking. What do you want?”

  “Thanks, Claude. What I really need are chicken cutlets.”

  “In a salad?”

  “No, in my bra. I need the other kind. Badly. It’s an emergency.”

  “I got mine on me. You want to borrow?”

  “How soon can you get here?”

  Claudette appeared in two minutes, wearing a tube top as a skirt. It didn’t quite cover the bottom of her butt cheeks. Mars was peeking out of her model bag. Some of the crew knew her. They were really busy, but they took a second to say hello. She bounced around hugging some of them, kissing on both cheeks. She even hugged Toto, who was all sweaty with no shirt on. I would have gagged, but Claudette didn’t mind. Maybe that was why she seemed so sophisticated, because nothing fazed her. She seemed…open. To everyone and everything.

  Yaya snatched the bag of takeout Claudette was holding. “No food near the props. This is going in the RV.”

  Havana was marching toward us. I chanted under my breath to Claudette, “Chicken cutlets chicken cutlets.” She pulled two dark brown silicone inserts from her model bag.

  Havana yelled, “Are you both blind?” and grabbed them. “Allee, you’re white. And the top you’ll be wearing is white. These’ll show through. You’ll look like a zebra.”

  “Um…” I said with my handy quick wit.

  “I didn’t know she was wearing white,” Claudette said, taking them back, out of Havana’s hands.

  April craned her head to see the dark cutlets. Her thin lips were actually smiling. So were Poe’s. Silent earthquakes of laughter shook his body. The whole crew thought it was hysterical. Even Toto was in on the joke. He rubbed his chest. “She gonna look-a like domino titties. Qué idiota estúpida, ha-ha-ha.”

  My face was hot. I’d never felt like a bigger dummy. How did I go from “Jane Brain” to “idiota estúpida” in a matter of weeks? This wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t Claudette’s either. How dare they call us stupid? “I’m in gifted!” I wanted to yell at them. “I’m the smart kid!”

  “Stop laughing at her,” Uta commanded, and they all stopped. I knew Uta had that teacher quality from the minute I met her. “This girl is from a small village. It’s her first booking.” Exactly! Forget what I said about gifted. I was the village idiot, I knew nothing.

  “She could have been more prepared,” Havana whined. “We told her booker to make sure she had chicken cutlets. I’m calling her agency.”

  “No!” I shouted. The idea of Dimitri or Kate or Momma telling me off filled me with dread. Or worse, they’d laugh at me like everyone here was doing.

  Havana threw her hands up. “Now the pieces won’t look right. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Use tape,” Poe said, and then he did something that stopped my breath mid-lung. He grabbed my breasts and mashed them together! Excuse me! I was a person, not po-tatas. What was with the sudden grab-and-grope? I was stunned, too paralyzed to speak or slap him or anything.

  He let go, and then Havana did the same thing! What was going on here? How dare they! Except I couldn’t honestly say they were assaulting me. It was more like they just forgot their hands were touching a human, not a couple of Nerf balls. Havana lifted them, then let go and said, “Cutlets would be better, but yeah, my tape’ll hold those.” She looked me straight in the eye and said, in a voice that chilled me to the bone, “It’ll leave a rash.”

  Havana and I went back to the hotel room, where I stripped down so she could tape me, and let’s just say, if I thought she was feeling me up before, that was nothing.

  Then she took out what I was supposed to wear.

  It was underwear. Victoria’s Secret type underwear. The really skimpy kind. The bra was white with black trim. And very thin. And lacy. At least the panties were black. That is, if you’d call two little black triangles held together at the top by a white ribbon panties. They were small. Really small. Like they could fit in a box of Tic Tacs. I’m talking small.

  “Is there a problem?” Havana asked in a tone meaning there better not be a problem.

  “Um, yeah. It’s, well…” There is no freaking way I’m letting them take pictures of me wearing this.

  “Look, All
ee, this is La Perla. This set costs more than you’re making.”

  “It’s not that, it’s just…I don’t think I can wear this.”

  “Yeah, babygirl, you can,” Claudette said, coming in. “Why so miserable, Allee? This isn’t a wet T-shirt contest. It’s not about sex. It’s about fashion, you know, avant-garde.”

  “It’s so easy for you. You’re comfortable with this stuff.”

  “Allee, my father is a minister. When he found me in bed with a guy, he handed me a check, a Bible, and Mars, and then he told me to get out.” A guy? I thought she was a lesbian.

  “And did you?” Havana asked, looking totally intrigued.

  “Yeah, I walked out of the house that day and moved in with my grandmother.” Claudette shrugged. “Daddy and I still keep in touch. He sends me money sometimes, but my morals are nothing like his. I think it’s moral to love yourself, love your body.” She wagged her index finger at me. “There’s more than one way to be a woman, and I’m doing it my way.” Then she blew me a kiss, waved bye-bye, and strutted out, saying, “Have a good time with it. I would.”

  Havana was still holding up the lingerie for me to put on. “Maybe Uta could use Claudette for this shot,” I joked, stalling.

  “Let me give you some advice,” Havana said. “You’re not some moneymaker with a great track record, like April. You’re a brand-new model who hasn’t done squat. Now, if you ever want to get booked again on anything, cut the crap and get this on already. You’ve wasted enough time.”

  “The agency told me I didn’t have to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with.”

  “Oh, really? Wake-up call, you’re a model. You do what the client tells you to do. If they tell you to pose naked, standing on your head with cheese sticks up your nose, you do it. I once did a job like that when I was a model.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. The copy read, ‘Do you know how to get your calcium properly?’ Anything goes for editorial. Anyway, you’ve already accepted this booking. A booking, I might add, that every model and every agency was foaming at the mouth to land. Do you have any idea what these tear sheets will do for you? This is Uta Scholes. Be professional. Don’t screw it up.” She pursed her lips, held out the lingerie. “Now, you can call your agency and complain, but they saw the storyboards. They’ll either yell at you or replace you. Or you can just do your job, which is to get this on and look pretty. Your choice.”

  It didn’t sound like I had a choice. With dread, I let Havana help me get “dressed.” Because of the tape, my cleavage hoisted up and exploded out of this bra, like two mushy rockets poised for takeoff. My shoes were like saddle oxfords, except they had four-inch spiky heels.

  As Havana and I walked through the lobby, some doofuses in University of Miami baseball hats leered and took pictures with their cell phones. This was so humiliating. At least Havana was behind me, so the doofs couldn’t see my butt, which, believe me, was hanging out in all its big school-bus glory.

  When I got to the set, I stopped in my tracks. April the Great was wearing the same skirt and long earrings. But the bikini top was gone. She was leaning on her hand, with her other hand and arm covering the front of her small, bare breasts. Yaya was spraying her skin with something so it gleamed. The crew around her was doing their jobs. No one was leering or saying a word about it. She was chatting with them like this was perfectly normal. And it hit me that in this environment, it was. Bare breasts were just no big deal.

  Kind of put a different spin on things.

  Wolfgang saw me and said cheerfully, “Well, aren’t you a tasty cornflake?”

  Toto looked me up and down and said, “Bellissima. Everything look very good.” But the way he said it didn’t gross me out, not like the college boys had. He said it the way my dad told a waiter at Fuglies Barbeque that everything looked good when they brought out the ribs. It kinda lightened my mood, almost made me want to laugh. Almost. If I laughed, the tape might dislodge and then the rockets would take off.

  I walked over to where April was, near the table. Her yellow-green eyes took in every inch of me, but she didn’t say a word. Uta put her hand on my shoulder. “We’re going to pose you lying in the grass, looking up at this caterpillar here.” She smiled at April. “I want you to look something like frightened, you’re not sure what is happening with this caterpillar, ya? Remember when I asked you to look scared at the casting?” I nodded. “That’s the expression I want.” She studied my face. “What’s the matter?”

  I’m not used to being practically naked in front of a bunch of people I’ve only known a few hours, and I think my nipples are showing through this bra, that’s what’s the matter. “Nothing’s the matter. Really, I’m fine.” I was determined to be professional, like Havana said.

  “No one will see this in your village, if that’s what you’re worried about. Dietra has a European circulation.”

  “That’s good, because people in my village don’t take pictures like this.”

  She chuckled. “You look perfect, exactly the right mix of naive and sexy. It’s a strong image, you showing skin. Like Alice shedding her innocence, you see.”

  I’d gotten so much advice lately. You’re booty-licious. Flaunt it…. Step out of your comfort zone…. Show your fabulosity…. Let yourself go freaky deaky…. Drop your inhibitions. Be brave…. Until you believe you’re beautiful, you’re not going to be comfortable with your body…. Be that beautiful girl in your head….

  I could do this.

  Uta offered me a water bottle with a straw in it. “Take a drink before we start. Use the straw so you don’t ruin your lipstick.” I hesitated. “Go on.” Panic was rising in my chest. This could have been just like the drink that Alice in Wonderland took, the one with the sign that said DRINK ME.

  After she drank it, she changed.

  And so did I.

  chapter 16

  April was right. I wasn’t a fashion type. Dietra was the only fashion editorial booking I ever did. But things started to happen after that shoot. It could have been Uta’s layout that created a buzz around me, or the commercial castings that suddenly came around. It could have been that I wasn’t weighed down with papers and tests and grades for the first time in my life. (I’d decided to take incompletes for my online classes. My teachers said I could finish them in the summer.) It could have been the acting workshop, or just plain luck.

  I thought it was me. Something started to change in me after that Dietra job. I began to let go, let myself out of the heavy box I’d created my whole life, full of responsibilities and academic pressure. I started wearing my new clothes, putting on makeup more often. Some days I looked like a total girly-girl, the kind of girl I’d always ridiculed.

  I was starting to look a lot like The Fluff. But I was feeling more and more like Alice.

  March was turning out to be a busy month. I got booked on two small nonunion commercials, a spot for Pollo Tropical restaurants, and a small part in a local car dealership spot where I had to wave my keys from the driver’s seat of a Ford Focus and shout, “Thanks, Dad!” I did a print job for a Mexican furniture company’s online catalog for $350 where all I had to do was sit on a canopy bed in a nightgown and pretend to read.

  Momma made me get a head shot and résumé, which led to Summer and me getting to be featured extras in a Mark Wahlberg movie. Now, before you ask if the glamour would never end, let me tell you, that job sucked. We stood for twelve hours on a hot sidewalk, and guess who the second assistant director yelled at? Yours Truly. First for looking directly at the camera and then for the bigger sin of looking directly at a principal actor. I couldn’t help it. Mark was way, way shorter than I thought.

  So I had a few commercials under my belt, and Momma said I might even book a Big One this season, a national. Things were looking up. Money was trickling in. Yale was really going to happen if things kept going in this direction.

  It was eleven-fifteen. I could hear my roommates through the door.

  Sum
mer: “The Brazilian pills work. I ain’t been hungry at all lately. Y’all want one?”

  Brynn: “No, they make my heart race and give me headaches.”

  Claudette: “That happened to me when I was juice fasting.”

  Brynn: “You don’t even need those pills, Summer. You eat pizza every day and never gain a friggin’ pound. I hate you.”

  It was the same mind-rotting hour of babble every night—fat grams, calories, carbs, diet tricks. Honestly, this industry really did hurt women. None of us ate right; Brynn ate practically nothing and used laxatives all the time. I was lucky because I was a commercial type and didn’t have to look skeletal like Brynn, but I was always weighing myself now, like the others. Women shouldn’t have to abuse their bodies for any job. But we did.

  I was tuning out most of it, in the bathroom, door locked, staring at my reflection, trying to remember I’d never celebrated my birthday and I should have been going out; trying to remember I’d made a little money now and even though every penny should have gone to the Yale fund, I was long overdue to go out; trying, most of all, not to call myself a hypocrite, because it wasn’t exactly a feminist staring back at me in the mirror.

  It was Alice. Hell-o, Alice. “You are looking good tonight,” I whispered to that girl in the mirror. Tight, short dress, no bra, high heels, curled hair, big hoop J.Lo earrings, glossed lips, false lashes. I hugged myself, whirling around to check out the backless part of me in this dress. It made me almost giddy. I loved it. It was beyond my control. And no one had told me it felt this good to look this hot. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever walk around without a bra like Hillary High Beams, but here I was, braless and whatever-no-big-deal about it.

  The sound of a motorcycle roared, then chugged outside the window. “Luca’s here. Meet you guys there,” Brynn said. I heard the door creaking open. “Your names are on the list. Don’t forget your VIP passes. Doors open at eleven forty-five.” Slam.