I couldn’t stop thinking about Lucia.
She was so…strange. One second whining about lattes or Snapchat. The next, impressing me with her knowledge of Mary Oliver or 1950s Beat poets. The photo shoot today was the definition of surreal: being in the same room as a famous model slowly stripped her clothing off. I worked hard to keep my eyes off her, picking up Rilke again and trying to lose myself in the poems, attempting to ignore her. And I hadn’t wanted to stare, didn’t want her to feel like I was the pervy guy in the corner, watching her like she was an object. Already the day had shades of high school—the nerd, quietly reading in the corner while the cool kids made out before fifth period.
But at some point, I made the critical mistake of looking up for a split second: daisies in her hair and luminous blue eyes. The soft muscles of her stomach, her perfect breasts. Lucia was flirtatious and a little outrageous and the nerd in me was drawn to that like a moth to a flame. She seemed to like that I was looking—maybe it was the performer in her. She’d held my gaze as she worked her body over Taylor’s, posing for the camera.
Posing for me.
In the closeness of the hallway, I’d had to fight down something primal that roared up at her proximity. My hand on her delicate wrist. Breathing in her scent as she spoke so reverently about a poet she loved. I’d had a brief fantasy—of twisting that wrist behind her back and pinning her against those shelves. I’d liked thinking about dominating a woman who was such a force of nature.
Now, alone in the store and tipsy, I chastised myself, like I always did when my sexual fantasies turned dark and aggressive. I’d never had sex like that before and I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to.
And there wasn’t a single universe where I’d be having that kind of sex with Lucia Fucking Bell.
I flipped the pages, finding the poem that she’d mentioned loving: ‘An Exercise in Love.’ It was beautiful—short, but powerful. I grabbed a highlighter from behind the cash register and highlighted my favorite passage, the last part:
My friend walks soft as a weaving on the wind/
He backlights my dreams
I stuck a small post-it note inside: Thank you for reminding me that this poem exists. It is perfect. -Cal
I walked toward her darkened cabin, finding my way down the trail through memory alone. Some part of me that existed beneath the layer of alcohol fizzing through my bloodstream knew I’d be embarrassed that next morning—that leaving a poem for Lucia on her doorstep was too romantic; that’d she laugh when she opened it and I’d remember why shy nerds never get the girl.
But the stars were bold and big and the ocean was roaring against the shore and I felt, so clearly, the rightness of the universe.
◊
LUCIA
The last time I’d read ‘An Exercise in Love,’ I was in eighth grade and had just been approached by a modeling agent while at the mall, who asked me if I’d ever considered modeling.
From the tender age of eleven my parents had already been considering it for me.
That year, my mother had had a huge movie premiere—some action blockbuster—and we’d walked the red carpet as a family. The media loved my parents’ love story—my mother was a Hollywood director who had fallen in love with—and married—the star of her first movie, my father. She was also ten years his senior.
The red carpet was terrifying—the constant flash, people screaming, a steady stream of celebrities I recognized and wanted to faint over. It was old news for my parents, but I didn’t know how to stand. Where to hold my arms, how to tilt my chin.
I just smiled for the camera—beamed, really, like a dorky eleven-year-old does when someone points a lens in their face and says ‘smile.’ Later, looking at the photos in People magazine, it was obvious my parents had training—they were smiling, but it was attractive. They were happy, but not too happy.
Underneath the caption, the magazine had written: Lauren Paley posing with her husband, Mark Bell and their daughter, Lucia.
We looked like the perfect Hollywood Family. Afterwards, I’d been featured in a couple of those articles: “Mark Bell’s daughter…a stunner already at eleven!” My mother had showed that to me, asking me how I felt about it.
“About what?” I’d asked, sinking lower in the passenger seat. It was Saturday and on Saturdays I begged my parents to take me downtown so I could walk to my favorite bookstores. Sometimes I wouldn’t call for a ride until nightfall, having spent the entire day reading.
“Well, about that magazine saying you were pretty. More than pretty, a stunner. Did you like that?”
I glanced at my mother. I didn’t know if I was pretty, but I thought she was. Even though she was behind-the-scenes, her wealth and status kept her focused on image just like other famous people. Botox, yoga, facials, crystal meditation, juice cleanses, kale smoothies…at 44, she looked ten years younger, a combination of health, good genes, science and a ton of fucking chemicals.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Hey, later, can we get ice cream?” I asked, because I was eleven, and too young to realize that my mother saw an opportunity.
I was smart for my age and a voracious reader—at ten, I’d finished Catcher in the Rye and I was in the middle of reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. I didn’t have the emotional maturity to understand those novels fully at the time, but the words had a powerful effect on me.
At the age of twelve, I’d gone rollerblading with my father down Venice and the paparazzi had snapped a photo of us. Lucia Bell: all grown up and looking hot! My mom had shown me the caption on the photo and I grimaced.
“Ew,” I said, because even at twelve that seemed gross.
“Not what I would have said, true,” she replied, tapping her finger against the photo. “But it’s interesting, don’t you think? I mean, you’re already a little famous without even trying.”
I crinkled my nose, mostly grossed out and just wanting to go back to what I’d been doing before she’d knocked on my door—writing.
The summer before I’d begged my parents to send me to a creative writing camp, since the only time I felt happier than when I was reading was when I had a pen in my hand. Those four weeks were the best of my life. So much uninterrupted time to just write. The camp was set in a beautiful nature refuge, and we were encouraged to walk and hike and sit in gorgeous meadows, taking in sights and textures. The different birdsongs, the way the grass swayed in the wind, the peculiar shape of a dandelion.
Away from the image-obsessed pressure of L.A., and my mother’s constant pushing, I felt lighter somehow. Free. The camp was filled with writers my age and they were weird and cool and dorky and I fucking loved it.
“You have the soul of a poet,” our instructor, Gloria, had said, smiling as she read the small collection of poems I’d written by the end of the four weeks. My heart felt like it was going to burst. When I got home, I told my parents all about the camp, talking a mile a minute, flushed with excitement. I wanted them to read my poems.
“And when I grow up, I’m going to be a writer!” I declared, with all the sweet naivete of a twelve-year-old. I spun around the kitchen, laughing.
“Oh, sweetheart,” my mother said calmly, in between barking at someone on the phone, “Writing’s not a real job. Not poetry, anyway.”
Just a year later, at thirteen, my picture was appearing at least semi-regularly in celebrity magazines—my mother was pushing my father to take me everywhere. I never suspected a thing, but it had been part of her grand plan.
She’d show me the pictures, and I’d scoff. But I was a new teenager, an intense mixture of huge ego and horrifically low self-esteem. The comments in the magazine were complimentary.
So I found myself becoming a little more curious.
When I was fourteen, my mom and I were back-to-school shopping at a downtown mall. A scout approached us as I was looking at jeans. In my hands was a collection of Beat poetry I’d just bought at the bookstore nearby. As the woman chatted wit
h me, examining my bone structure and complimenting my smile, my mother was sharp-eyed and hawkish. The grand plan was coming to fruition: a director, a movie star, and a model—the trifecta of fame.
I’d glanced at my mother for an answer when the scout asked if I’d like to come down and do some portrait shots. She had nodded coolly, the epitome of aloof.
I did it, and it was easy, and it taken so little time I was still able to meet my friends at the movies that night. I hadn’t seen the big deal, but I’d heard the murmurs of people in the studio. After the first shot the photographer paused, looking at it. Called a few folks over who made similar serious faces. I thought I’d done a bad job. But they’d taken a few more, my head tilted eighteen different ways, and when it was over the agent asked me if anyone else had seriously approached me for modeling.
“Oh…no,” I said, laughing nervously. “Can I go now?” A boy I had a crush on was going to be at the movies with us.
“Yes,” she’d said slowly, “you can go. And, um, Lucia, just so you know, I’m going to give your parents a call.” She paused. “Immediately.”
That night, she strongly urged my parents to take me out of formal schooling and have me sign with her modeling agency.
“High fashion,” my mother had said, perching on the edge of my bed with barely concealed excitement. I had been sitting there, surrounded by the remnants of my Algebra homework, texting my friends on my flip phone. “Runway in Milan and Paris. Vogue covers. This could be your life, Lucia.”
I remembered laughing, since the models I saw on runways were grown-ups and I was definitely not a grown-up.
“There’s a short timeline for modeling,” my mother pressed. “Most of them retire in their mid-twenties, so we’re not talking forever here. We don’t have a lot of time to make this decision before you get too old.”
“Can I still go to school?” I’d asked, thinking about English class, my favorite. It was how I could be a secret bookworm without the popular kids finding out I was a big nerd. “And back to writing camp?”
She’d shaken her head, but didn’t seem upset by that.
“Aren’t parents supposed to want their children to stay in school?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. My natural sarcasm had really started to kick in that year.
“You’d still get an education, Lucia,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “Just not the typical one. Like the kids who are in my movies. You’d have an on-set tutor. After high school, you’d test for your GED. It’s the same as a high school diploma.”
“But it’s not the same as going to actual high school.” I’d said, sitting up straighter and disturbing the delicate balance of my Algebra homework. Papers spilled to the floor. “I thought…I don’t know, I thought I could do like, fun modeling. Like be on the cover of a magazine for the downtown mall. Or a pageant or, I don’t know, easy stuff. The girl who lives down the street does it and she never has to miss school. She just makes extra money and gets her photo taken.”
Which sounded like a good deal to me: feed this newly-wakened desire for attention while still getting to go to English class and prom and football games. At fourteen, I’d just had my first kiss. Who would I kiss on a photo shoot?
“High school is nothing,” she said, smoothing her hand down my hair. “I know this doesn’t make sense now, but you’ll forget about high school as soon as you’re in your twenties. It won’t matter. What will matter is you’ll be famous,” she said. “Lucia, that agent sees something in you, something she took very seriously. She saw, in you, an amazing amount of raw potential. She told me she hasn’t been this excited about a new talent in a very long time. You could be famous.”
“Like Kate Moss?” I’d asked, trying to understand. It was a big concept.
Her eyes gleamed. “Yes. That’s what I’m telling you. There’s no guarantee, but if you work hard and meet the right people and get the right jobs…your life could look very different in a couple years.
I swallowed, wondering how we could be having this conversation surrounded by calculators and homework and my friends texting me winky-emoticons. Some part of me recognized this as “not normal,” but I’d grown up in Hollywood and everyone I knew was image-obsessed and desperate for fame. Why couldn’t I be a part of that?
After she’d left me to “think about some things” I’d pulled out that collection of Beat poetry, reading Diane’s words obsessively, trying to find some meaning. Because even though my dream had been dismissed earlier, I still wanted to go to college for creative writing.
Be a writer.
A lost dream now.
◊
This morning, I’d woken at sunrise again, flinging open my cabin door for a glimpse of the rocky coastline. It had rained hard last night—the beginning of a storm—and the waves seemed angry. There, right on the front step, was a collection of Diane di Prima’s poems. When I flipped it open, ‘An Exercise in Love’ was marked with a post-it and a handwritten note. Cal’s handwriting was neat and orderly, and he’d highlighted the last lines.
They were my favorite too. My friend walks soft as a weaving on the wind. I clutched the book to my chest, perching on one of the rocks overlooking the beach.
Soft as a weaving on the wind. I read the line, over and over. It was the dual w-words, the hard ‘v’ sound in ‘weaving’. The contrast of the word ‘soft’ against the harder consonants.
I sat like that for a long time, reading it over and over. When I finally stood up, brushing rocks from my legs, I was startled to find my cheeks wet with tears, although I hadn’t realized I’d been crying. Which used to happen to me all the time when I read poetry.
“You getting ready, Lu?” I glanced back to see Josie and Ray, packing up their supplies for the day. I wiped my face hurriedly.
It was barely seven in the morning. I needed to sit in makeup and hair for at least three hours and then we’d be filming until dark. Suddenly, I longed to be back at that creative writing camp, letting my pen move across the paper.
“Born ready,” I lied, slipping the book into my back pocket. “What’s on the docket today?”
“Calvin’s taking us to the woods,” Josie said excitedly.
“Calvin’s coming?” I asked, perking up. Someone has a crush.
And suddenly the day looked a little brighter.
◊
As soon as we met up with Calvin on the trail, I wanted to thank him for the poem, for how perfect it was this morning, that specific moment. But he was standing there, looking kind of cute in his flannel, his ever-present scruff, and I got a teeny-tiny bit nervous.
Just a little. But it was there.
He avoided me though, chatting with Ray about the set-up. I wasn’t sure why I needed Cal’s attention so much. That morning, getting ready in the cabin, I caught my reflection: makeup-less, hair a giant tangle. I was wearing an old sleeping shirt that was stained and fraying at the bottom.
I crinkled my nose, feeling gross and unglamorous—a by-product of being on these shoots. You spend all day having experts make you look like a perfect human specimen, so when you see yourself without fake lashes and airbrushed makeup, your self-esteem plummets.
Instinctively, I’d picked up my phone, opening Snapchat. It was the kind of thing I would have posted about—taken a #wokeuplikethis selfie and waited for the compliments to roll in.
Even just two days without those interactions had left me feeling weird. Adrift. I hadn’t realized how much I craved it. Wondered, briefly, if my parents had known how much this job would turn me into a fame monster.
But then we turned the corner and the beauty of the natural landscape stunned me into silence.
“Wow,” Taylor said, beside me. I heard Josie suck in a breath.
I walked up ahead to where Calvin was standing. “What is this place?” I asked.
We were in a forest of mostly redwoods, towering over our heads. And evergreens, ripe with the scent of Christmas. Colorful wildflowers dotted the forest floor and the
air was alive with birdsong. And in the middle?
“My grandfather’s campsite,” Calvin said, grinning. I smiled back at him, and for a second we were the only two people in the entire world.
“Fucking cool, man,” Taylor said, pushing past us towards the fire ring. Josie was already setting up a makeshift hair-and-makeup set and Ray was scouting location ideas. Joanna was with wardrobe, unpacking outfits they’d wheeled out in huge suitcases.
I perched on a log and, to my great surprise, Calvin sat next to me. Our thighs brushed and I turned, about to make a snarky comment. But he noticed, immediately sliding a foot away from me. With one finger, he slid his glasses up his nose, his other rubbed the back of his neck.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—” he mumbled.
“I don’t bite. Unless you want me to,” I said, trying to save him. He started to cough uncontrollably and I gave him three hard whacks on the back. “Did you swallow a bug or something?”
He shook his head, coughing a few times more before clearing his throat. “Thanks, uh, and sorry.”
“Calvin, you can sit next to me. And I was totally joking about that biting thing,” I said, giving him an easy smile. He returned it, and then I said, “Or…was I?”
He laughed, which was the point, and seemed to visibly relax. Now would have been a good time to bring up the poem, but we were surrounded by people. I kind of liked that it was a secret. Our secret.
“So this is it, huh?” Ray asked, indicating the space in front of us. Josie joined us, interested. Ray had wanted a background on this campsite to “inform the narrative” of the shoot.
Which I’d rolled my eyes at, since Taylor and I could be semi-naked and groping each other, with expensive clothing on, literally anywhere. No narrative needed.
But this was Shay Fucking Miller, as Ray had reminded me.
“Yeah, so…as I was telling you all before, my grandfather hosted tons of writers, famous and non-famous, at the bookstore regularly. Some did readings or held workshops. Others were ‘in-residence’ and would spend their days on a permanent retreat, writing in the cabins and drinking whiskey with my grandfather in the evening.”
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