Cheap Diamonds

by Norris Church Mailer

  I sinfully coveted her small feet as I leaned against the corner of the fried-dough booth and watched her across the cow lot. She looked really bored, gazing at the prize FFA calf, smoking a cigarette, and eating a candied apple. Or rather, let me say, she was holding a candied apple. I never actually saw her take a bite, but the deep alizarin-crimson color of the apple looked really good against the cadmium-orange dress (painters always think in paint colors; it’s a habit of mine), and she stood with one toe pointed out like she was waiting for someone to take her picture.

  Finally, I got up the nerve to go say hi to Mrs. Hartman, who was happy to see me, and proudly introduced me as one of her favorite former students.

  “Susan, this is Cherry Marshall, the one who wore your dress in the play.”

  “Suzan, mother.”

  She looked me up and down and didn’t smile or say a word to me, not “nice to meet you,” or “kiss my foot,” or anything. I felt like a moron and mumbled something about going for another ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

  Still, as rude and cold as Suzan was, seeing that face I had only known in magazines right there in the flesh at the Sweet Valley fairgrounds made being a model seem like it really could happen. After all, Helen Gurley Brown, the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, the bible for all us girls, was also from Arkansas! Arkansas girls didn’t necessarily have to stay down on the farm. That’s why God invented cheekbones and airplanes.

  Even so, I was sure there were hundreds of other girls thinking the same thing, and for years I didn’t dare tell Mama and Daddy I even dreamed about it since we were staunch members of the First Apostolic Holiness Church of God, and I knew they, especially Daddy, would be horrified by the sinfulness of it all. They would have preferred me to be a nurse or something helpful to humanity with a steady paycheck, but the smell of hospitals makes me gag and I fainted once when I tried to give blood. The only thing I was really good at was painting and drawing, so they finally agreed to let me study art if I would become a teacher. Teaching art isn’t healing the sick, but I think it is nearly as important. Think how beige life would be without it. Art is the icing on the cupcake of life. Well, that sounds stupid, but you know what I mean. While I was doing my practice teaching last semester at St. Juniper’s, my supervising teacher, Father Leo, who was not at all like you’d think priests were, took a few pretty good pictures of me. I also met Cassie Culver, whose boyfriend—or unhappily, ex-boyfriend—a cute guy named Lale Hardcastle, had actually run off to New York and to everyone’s astonishment became a big male model.

  One of the pictures Father Leo took of me got printed in the Log Cabin Democrat, which gave a boost to my dream, and my entire outlook changed. Instead of applying for teaching jobs after I graduated in May, I worked all summer as a salesgirl at the Family Hand, a great head shop in Sweet Valley where Baby and I had once painted murals on the walls, and I saved my money for New York. I know it’s shallow to want to live a glamorous life and have your picture in magazines, and it isn’t even helping humanity as much as teaching art, but I just had to try. I would always wonder, like Mama, if I would have made it and regret it if I didn’t go.

  I had no illusions that Suzan would remember me from the fair, and frankly hoped she wouldn’t, but I got her address from Mrs. Hartman and sent her copies of Father Leo’s pictures. She sent me back what looked like a form letter saying that I could come in for an interview and gave the times they saw new girls and a phone number to call for an appointment, but she didn’t send me an airplane ticket or give me any encouragement or indicate that she knew I had been the favorite student of her mother. In fact, I doubt she even read the letter or looked at the pictures herself. It was probably some secretary. Well, she wasn’t the only agent in town. If she said no, I would try all of them.

  I was so nervous I could hardly breathe when I went into the agency Monday morning at ten. The waiting room was painted a sophisticated dark gray with lighter-gray carpet and plastic (but good plastic) molded chairs lined around the wall. Track lighting focused a beam on each of Suzan’s framed covers, and there were enough to stretch all around the room.

  The receptionist barely looked up, checked my name off a list, and told me to take a seat. There were several other nervous girls sitting around, all of us with manila envelopes on our laps. While I waited, girls and guys came in and out, not even glancing our way, heading back somewhere down the hallway, all of them beautiful, all of them relaxed and laughing and joking around, like the in-crowd in high school. They were the anointed ones. They had been taken. They had their pictures in magazines. All of them carried expensive-looking leather portfolios, and I recognized quite a few faces, although most didn’t have on much makeup and tried to give the impression they had just rolled out of bed. But they made even blue jeans and a sweatshirt look chic by adding an armload of bracelets or a concha belt slung low, a scarf tied around their heads like Ali MacGraw or threaded through their belt loops. I felt really out of place, like 1966, in my mint-green miniskirt with matching tights and too much makeup.

  The secretary called my name and I went through the door.

  I guessed Suzan was pushing forty by now, but still so gorgeous it made you ache to look at her: a thin, delicate blonde with big blue eyes. She hadn’t changed much from my first impression of her, though. Underneath all that delicacy those eyes were chipped out of the heart of an iceberg. She was a chain-smoker, and wielded her cigarette as a weapon when she talked. Her office was hazy with smoke; she had one in her hand and one burning in the ashtray.

  Some people are surprised when they see me for the first time, but most try to not be so obviously shocked. Suzan didn’t even try. I guess she never saw the pictures I sent or remembered me from the county fair.

  “My, you’re a big one!” she said, as she looked up from her desk, her eyes practically bugging out. “How tall are you? Five-eleven?”

  “Closer to five-twelve.”

  “That may be too tall for us.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but Veruschka is over six feet, I think.” Her eyes narrowed as she pulled more smoke out of the cigarette.

  “Hmm. Yes, she is. What do you have for me?” I handed her my manila envelope with my few little photos, which she flipped through in three seconds and tossed on the desk. That stung. I was proud of them. Father Leo had a reputation as a real artist and even had shows of his pictures. One of these had won an award. It was of me standing in a woodsy brook in the early-morning mist, wearing a white net bathing suit. I looked like Venus on the clamshell rising from the water, with my river-bottom green eyes glowing, as a beam from the morning sun cast a light on them.

  “These are totally wrong. You need to get some real pictures made, not bad artworks. They’re not even in focus.” I felt like I’d swallowed a small rock.

  Then she stood up and walked around her desk, checking me over like I was a horse or something. I waited for her to pry my mouth open and look at my teeth. She was on the smaller end of the model chart—maybe five-seven, maybe a hair under—and had to look up at me, which I don’t think she liked.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “That’s old. You should have started in your teens. You’ve lost several valuable years, and it might already be too late. We don’t even take girls older than twenty-three.”

  It was too late to lie. I had skipped from feeling like a child with my parents to feeling like I was already over the hill.

  “Well, I only turned twenty-two in July. I was in college and graduated this year.”

  “A college girl.” She made a noise deep in her throat, which could have meant she wasn’t impressed, or was impressed, or was trying to dislodge phlegm. “Where are you from? You have quite an accent.” She had totally lost her own accent, but I could see a little flash of surprise and recognition when she first heard my voice.

  “Same place you are. Sweet Valley, Arkansas. Your mother was my sixth-grade teacher. I met you once down there
when y’all were at the county fair.”

  “Really? How interesting. You need to lose the accent, the first thing being ‘y’all.’ It is going to hold you back. I can recommend someone to give you speech lessons.” She scribbled a name and number down on a piece of paper and handed it to me. That, at least, gave me a ray of hope.

  “Thank you. I’ll try.”

  I really kind of liked the word y’all. It was handy. What would I replace it with? “You guys”? “All of you”? My grandmother used to say “you’uns,” but I somehow doubted Suzan would think that was better.

  “Why do you bleach your hair white like that? It’s all wrong with the dark brows. Although it really is a perfect job.” She reached up and pawed through it with her red lacquered fingernails, like a chimpanzee checking for lice. “I can’t see any roots at all. You must have had it done this morning. But we’ll have to tone it down. Maybe a deep shade of gold. Lighten the brows. They look like they were stenciled on. Too fifties. And you have to get rid of the perm.”

  “I don’t bleach my hair or perm it. That’s just the way it is. It’s natural.” A lot of people, when they first meet me, think I might be an albino, although I am not—their eyes are pink and mine are green—because my hair is stone white and is also so curly that it looks like a bunch of corkscrews exploded out of my head. I have done everything including ironing to make it long and straight like Cher’s, but ever since a year ago, when Lucille, my cousin I mentioned earlier, who was in beauty school at the time, tried to chemically straighten it and most of it broke off, I’ve given up and just let it go natural. My brows and lashes, ironically, are dyed. My mother started dying them with sable-brown Dark Eyes when I started school in the first grade, because they were white, too, and made me look rabbity. I’ve kept it up ever since. I hadn’t seen the real color in so long I wouldn’t know what it looked like, but I don’t think it would be too attractive.

  “Natural?” she said, her voice rising. “It’s freakish. With that white hair and skin you look like you have been dipped in bleach. You need some color. It has to be blond. And we’ll have to do something about the curl. It will just be too hard to work with.”

  My heart rose at her talking about “we,” then sank. I went through too much the last time it was straightened, and I didn’t want to dye my hair. Freakish though it might be, I was used to my white hair and really sort of liked it. As much as I complained about it, it was different. It was me.

  As I was trying to figure out a way to nicely say I didn’t want to dye my hair, a man walked into the office. He was tall and thin and his skin was the color of ash. He looked like a peaked version of Jimmy Stewart, only his face was not as nice. He also had a cigarette in his hand. The air in the office was beginning to make me woozy.

  “Freddy, don’t you agree that…what is your name?”

  “Cherry.”

  “Cherry…nice name…should dye that hair and straighten it out? No one has hair like that in the business.”

  Freddy looked me up and down.

  “No one in the business looks like this girl. And that is not necessarily a bad thing, Susan.”

  “Suzan, Freddy.” She bit the words with her sharp white teeth.

  “Suzan.” He bowed his head, heavily accenting the last syllable, mocking her. She ignored it.

  “I don’t know. I’m not so sure she will sell.”

  “Blondes always sell, and she is more than a blonde. She’s an über-blonde. Look at those legs. They’re a mile long.”

  “She’s too exotic.”

  “So is Veruschka. So is Pat McGuire. My God, Diana Vreeland is mad for exotic. There isn’t one editorial outfit in Vogue this month that a secretary could wear. They’re not into reality. They’re into fantasy.”

  “But the California look is going to be the next big thing. The new ones coming up are more wholesome. More girl-next-door. Like Cheryl Tiegs. This one is just…just…” She couldn’t think of a word for me. “Strange.” She’d thought of one.

  “Put her on the testing board and let’s see. You never know.”

  He was smiling at me, in sort of a creepy way. His gray eyes looked liquid, like there might have been a few drinks sloshing in there behind them. He had on an odd aftershave I couldn’t identify, sharp and sweetish, and I knew them all. I had a feeling it might be gin. She examined the pictures again, this time with a little magnifying glass, took another drag on her cigarette, and exhaled.

  “All right, Cherry,” she said at last, putting the pictures back into the envelope. “We’ll give it a try. We’ll put you on the testing board. You need some pictures. Go back and meet with Gina. She’ll do the paperwork and give you to a booker, who will make some appointments with photographers who test new girls. And tell her to get Lana to show you how to put on makeup. You have a good blank canvas, but you don’t know how to use paint.” That was ironic, since I was a painter, but it was clear she wasn’t into hearing my life story.

  She handed the envelope of pictures to me, turned her back, put out the cigarette she was holding, and picked up the other one. Freddy leaned against the door frame, watching me, blowing more smoke into the air. My eyes were beginning to water.

  “Thank you so much, Miss Hartman, Mr….”

  “Collins. But you can call me Freddy. I’m Mr. Hartman.” He pointed to Suzan and winked.

  “Um, thank you, too, Mr. Collins, uh, Freddy. I’m really excited you’re giving me a chance.”

  “You can call me Suzan,” she said briskly. “And you can thank me by succeeding and making me lots of money.”

  “Great. I will. I won’t let you down, Suzan. By the way, your mother said to tell you hi—I called her before I left, and she was really happy I was seeing you.”

  “That’s nice. Now do me a favor. Let’s don’t get all mushy about Arkansas. We’re not two little girls from Little Rock. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Got it.”

  “And drop the ‘ma’am.’ Besides being insulting to anybody under eighty, that’s a dead giveaway. Nearly as bad as ‘y’all.’”

  “Right. Okay.” I clutched my envelope and went out to meet Gina, who had an office down that hallway where all the glorious anointed were going. I was going to be a model, just like they were! If I could have, I would have jumped in the air and clicked my heels.

  Gina was plump and on the edge of middle age, at least in her late thirties. She had a pretty face and I wondered if she had been a model when she was younger. She gave me a smile, and after Freddy and Suzan, it was a relief to see someone who was friendly. And not smoking.

  “Welcome to Suzan Hartman, Cherry,” she said, shaking my hand. “Sit down and talk to me.” I sat. “For starters, let’s fill out a card with your sizes and measurements. Do you know your measurements?” I knew some of them, but not glove size or head size, so she took out her tape and measured me. I was really ashamed to write eleven down for shoe size, but that’s what it was.

  “Well, shoes are probably out. The standard is nine. Bras, you won’t be doing—the customary size is thirty-four B—but that’s all right. Don’t think your hands will make it—your fingers are too long and bony and you’d have to get nails—but you have great long legs. Good shape. Probably do well with hosiery ads. You’re a size six, which is perfect, and with that lanky height you’ll make out like a bandit on the runway. We’re just starting the runway division here, and we’ll put you in class to teach you how to walk. Love your coloring. It’s natural, isn’t it? Pretty face. Good teeth. You could slice bread with those cheekbones. Did Suzan say anything about your makeup?”

  I told her about Lana.

  “I don’t think she’s here now. I’ll let her know, and you can meet with her later this week. We’ll put it on your schedule. Your booker will make up a list of photographers for you to go see tomorrow. I think we’ll give you to Liz. She’ll set up appointments, and you’ll call her every day to get your schedule. Or call her if you have problems or questions. C
all her a lot. She’ll be your mother superior. If you have nothing else to do, hang around here. You never know when a job will come in, and if she can’t reach you, someone else will go for it. You can learn a lot from talking with the other models. You are going to be testing until you get enough pictures to fill your book and get your card, but you might luck out and get a job. You have a special look that someone might latch on to. I think you’ll do well. Any questions?”

  I was so ignorant I didn’t even know what questions to ask. Frankly, my head was kind of foggy. I had never been dissected like that, so matter-of-factly, like I was a prime cow at an auction. I didn’t know what a card was or how I got one or anything, but I figured I would learn it all in time. Then a question occurred to me.

  “Just one. Do you know if there is a male model by the name of Lale Hardcastle here? He’s from Arkansas, too, and I was just wondering.”

  “Not that I know of. He might have changed his name, though. A lot of models do. You have a unique name already, no Cherrys working that I know of. Although you’ll have to drop the Marshall professionally. There’s a model-turned-agent in England named Cherry Marshall, and we wouldn’t want there to be any confusion.”

  “Are you serious? Really? Another Cherry Marshall? That’s amazing!” I couldn’t imagine there would be two Cherry Marshalls in the world, but England was far away, and whatever she looked like, I bet it wouldn’t be like me. “All right,” I said after considering it for two seconds. “In that case, I’ll be just Cherry.” I would probably have said yes if she wanted me to call myself Esmeralda McGonagall.

  So I joined the ranks of one-name models. I hoped I could still use my last name on my driver’s license and things. My real name was Cheryl Ann, but I had been called Cherry ever since I could remember, unless my parents wanted to emphasize something to get my attention, like, “Cheryl Ann, what’s the matter with you, thinking you can go to New York and be a highfalutin fashion model? You’re gettin’ above your raisin’, girl!”