The Passion Agency

by Rebecca Lee

  “I think the way to answer that question is let’s us keep talking,” Peter said. “Trust me. I mean I am not going anywhere fast. Look at me. It may not be fast but I am actually going.”

  Just then, a black Cadillac, probably a model from the mid-2000s pulled up. It had tinted windows. No one emerged from the car to help Peter in any way. When he saw the car veer off Manchester to the curbside he immediately broke route and shuffled his way there.

  “OK, this is where we say goodbye,” Peter said kindly and with a clear understanding that she wasn’t invited to help him to the car.”I have this friend you should visit. There’s a plastic surgery clinic in Compton. Ask around and you’ll get the details about it. Go there. You’ll get a big time business education fast.

  Remember it’s always about the big idea and then marketing it some how, some way. The messenger is critical. I am betting you’ve already been told you are a heck of a messenger. Whoever said it, I agree. I don’t know what your idea is and it doesn’t much matter. Go to the clinic. Don’t mention me or anything. Just go there. Bring that same open mind that brought you here today. See yah Donna. Until we meet again.”

  Donna noticed she was totally alone as the sun sank down the horizon to the west and slightly south. There were other walkers in sight.

  Suddenly the air and the realization of the level of work this climb to prosperity would be, seemed very cold.

  …

  “We aren’t getting any market edge here,” Andrew Symington said to his exhausted agency reps. “Where are the supermodels? The game changing talents like we used to find and get. If we are getting that lazy just getting by on our big name and Beverly Hills address, than we’re finished. Here’s the thing, I won’t let that happen without a fight. I’ll lop off heads here first. Get some people in here with hunger and vision. My God people. We used to define beauty and then everyone followed.”

  With that, he calmly and with determined self-assurance got up and walked out the door leaving eight suddenly very fearful people there to talk it out.

  This was becoming a more and more typical scene.In fact, it was happening weekly, if not more frequently at Symington International Models. The 80s and 90s saw the agency represent the face for no fewer than 10 worldwide corporate brands as well as bring the lead face down the catwalk at a majority of the shows for the major fashion designers of the world every year, In a business where tastes and trends shifted in mid-season, the Symington monicker represented a true steady giant in the industry.

  Then the new millenium and a thing called the internet changed everything.

  “We keep signing talent,” Marika Flint, head scout for North America, “Just fewer and fewer people are interested. It means more to have obnoxious cows with no talent like Kim whatshername plugging your clothing or product than it does, some rare beauty. I don’t know what the answers are. The problem has been steadily building for years. Maybe the whole thing is like the newspaper industry.”

  “We need to adjust what we consider beautiful and be on the forefront of that,” Kristy Travis, the account executive with the least seniority chimed in. “The internet is the internet. It’s widened our definition of beauty. We need to be more pop conscious now. I know we have this name and we’re in Beverly Hills, but if we can’t sell like we used to, we need to find a way to start. If the old ways aren’t working, do some fresh things. Maybe some strategies we never would have done back when Christie and Beverly ruled the modeling world. The traditional models can’t lead and define beauty any more. The public is too savvy. We’re trying to sell them a horse and carriage and they know about the car.”

  “Go on Kristy,” Marika said.

  “Well what if we made natural beautiful and went against the idea that you have to have make-up,” Kristy said. “We could align ourselves with social media and underground products that use the natural beauty model. Even get on the other side of the growing rumblings about the beauty myth. Remake ourselves into the future. The “natural agency”.

  Everyone took notes furiously with their heads down as Kristy spoke. A big idea was being hatched. An idea that needed a messenger to introduce it.

  But ultimately ended up being idea that never left the room that day at the Symington Agency of Beverly Hills. Gone. Like Kristy Travis. Although she managed to hang to her job another week.

  How did she make it that long? No one knew.

  ...

  Across the country, a 16 year-old girl living in the southern reaches of Columbus, Ohio, named Rachel Evans was picking up ten thousand new hits a day every day on her videos showing the cartoonish transformation of women when they had make-up applied professionally. Her fan base was expanding from every corner of the world. She already had her own podcast where she talked about the pressures on young and old women to look like what the celebrities didn’t actually look like themselves.The Channel on the video site was called BeautyLies.

  Chapter 11--Perceptions

  That night, Donna Casteel figured it was time to do something, anything really. She didn’t look to get over to Compton despite Peter's suggestion. She never even thought about.

  She returned home after what could only be described as a truly amazing day. When she got into the house, the fear crept in. She was again worried about money. As well she should have been. She didn’t have any coming in.

  Her daughter said she had a job but that could mean anything for any amount. There wasn’t any sort of definite amount Donna could count on.

  So she did what she didn’t think she would do while she was walking and talking with Peter. She picked up her cell phone and placed a call to Malcolm, the overweight unhealthy white skinned lawyer who had made a move on her after her interview for the legal assistant’s job a few hours earlier.

  “Yeah hi,” he said when she called. “I live out in Palos Verdes. Why don’t you stop out, see the place, we’ll have a drink? Talk about the job.”

  Donna was proud of herself, but understood the sexual dynamic in the work place. She looked at it as reality.

  This was an opportunity she was getting, which she could take or leave.

  She didn’t have to be asked again or enticed any further.

  She hopped in the shower and put on her best form fitting jeans and and white dress shirt with a black tank top underneath. She threw on some black boots and put her hair up. In a near record time she was off to Palos Verdes.

  Malcom Bradley's home was nestled back in the hills rising up off the ocean. It was an area generally inhabited by lots of Laker players in their day. Most of the real estate in the neighborhood was in the $2 million range to start out.

  Bradley's place was on the lower end in size and scale, but still quite nice. It had a Spanish mission style look with orange/brown tile roof, a three car garage, and well-manicured desert style landscaping.

  Donna drove up in her early 2000s Ford Focus and felt out of place.

  She relaxed a bit when the thought popped into her head “This is the house I thought I would be getting when I started going out with Chris.”

  The walkway went up a few steps to the front door which was solid hardwood and at least twelve foot tall. It seemed overly grandiose for a smaller one-story home.

  Before Donna could knock, she heard a voice from behind it.

  “Hold on Ms. Casteel,” he called out. “I am coming. Gimme a second.”

  The door unhinged and it sounded like he was disengaging multiple locks. It swung open to reveal the balding and still mostly unattractive Malcolm Bradley.

  But thinking back, which Donna would do from time to time, Darry was no great looker either. Donna made a baby with him and was fully convinced it would be only them together forever.

  This guy though, there was something sort of seedy about him. That’s the way she always perceived lawyers. She had been around them enough, including her friend of a friend Carl, to know that they ultimately didn’t create anything but mayhem and in many cases misery.

/>   She had an immediate feeling pop into her head questioning why she was here. It wasn’t that she felt any danger or that she couldn’t handle herself physically with this man.

  It was a feeling that she gave up too early.

  The Compton thing Peter brought up seemed like so much non-sense. A plastic surgery clinic?

  “Hi,” she said uncharacteristically shyly. “I appreciate the invite.”

  “Come in,” he said without much feel of romance in the cadence, but decidedly less formal than when they met at the office earlier in the day. “I was surprised to hear from you.”

  “Oh no,” Donna thought to herself. “Even this creep thought I had more on the ball than to actually go through with whoring myself to a total stranger. I couldn’t feel more weak right now.”

  Donna only smiled and said: “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, we only just met,” Bradley said. “Plus you are so lovely, I figured some man had scooped you up already. I am so glad that’s not the case.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder and guided her into the main room. The place was gorgeous and decorated in a much more minimalist fashion than what she had anticipated. There were rich tiles everywhere. There was also some beautiful tasteful art that Donna vaguely recognized from a class she had attended one weekend at a local community college when she had thoughts of maybe going into museum work.

  “If you want my opinion, I think you are way over-qualified for the job,” he said leading her to the large couch in his small TV room.

  There was a desk immediately behind the couch. Both were facing the TV directly.

  “I wanted to see if you agreed. I have the deciding vote. You wouldn’t be working with me, but I thought you could be the best candidate. What would you like to drink?” he asked.

  Donna was listening. It was all making her feel low and stupid. It was making her feel like a poor person who would always stay poor because she never had more to give than physical pleasures to a man with money.

  All in the name of grabbing whatever table scraps were available.

  Suddenly, she shot up to her feet. The words of Paul the bum were bouncing around in her head. The words were actually causing her some sort of physical pain the more they did.

  “I have to go,” she said abruptly. “I do appreciate the offer and the interview but I have to go. I am also withdrawing my name for consideration for the job. It’s not what I want to do with myself. It’s not my dream.”

  She walked out the door and into the cool night wondering just she would get some income going.

  …

  Donna negotiated her way down the winding roads of Bradley’s neighborhood toward the Pacific Coast Highway feeling a great deal more nervous than she did after confronting Chris and Brea in her bedroom.

  The easy move and the one that would have gotten her back in the work force would have been to sleep with the man and get it over with. Something wouldn’t let her and she hoped it was the same something both Paul and Peter talked about.

  She flipped on the radio and began letting it scroll on it’s own to find something to listen to. Not because she didn’t have favorites pre-programmed but because she was too busy thinking and trying not to crash into a car or driveway on these winding neighborhood streets in the dark.

  “Her name is Rachel Evans and the website is…” the woman’s voice said tailing off.

  The giggle of a young girl could be heard.

  “Well I don’t actually have a website,” the girl said with a squeaky voice that made Donna think she was no more than like ten. “I have something more worthwhile. I have lots and lots of followers and I think they are all seeing the truth. We don’t have to buy into male fantasy beauty because reality beauty is real beauty.”

  “We gotta run Rachel,” the hostess interjected.

  “It’s Beauty Lies channel on YouTube,” she said. “That’s the only place you can find me.”

  The channel slipped off. Apparently the talk radio station signal weakened as Donna turned right onto the PCH headed back toward Inglewood and home.

  She thought for a moment about Brea and wondered how she was making money for real. She hoped she taught her well enough not to do anything illegal or wrong. But she wouldn’t turn away the money if Brea brought it.

  She also thought of how understatedly beautiful Brea was never wearing cosmetics of any kind.

  She would jump on the computer as soon as she got home and take a closer look at what

  Rachel Evans was doing on her video site. It would all go down better with one of those Coors Lights.

  …

  “You can’t ever know how it will end up.”

  Those were the words of Sergeant Michael Raburn, United States Marine Corps as he bid farewell to his Vietnamese Mistress, Lo Dha Ling.

  She was only sixteen and clueless about things like love. The American had professed his devotion for her. He came often and they did adult things. She loved him she thought. He bought her nice clothes and he brought her family food.

  Then one day he was gone. The North Vietnamese were rolling down in their direction through the tattered South Vietnamese army.

  He told her he had to go and that he had a wife and kids back home. He told her that If she could make it to the US, somehow, they would be together. Her family was poor city folks but her dad was an adjunct for the government to help round up Communist sympathizers.

  The North Vietnamese and their guerillas had informers everywhere. Everyone would be trying to get in good with the new men in power by turning in someone. Lo's dad was a marked man.

  He sent Lo south to the coast with his great uncle who was fleeing the city.

  He would stay behind and join them later.

  “I will catch up with you as soon as I get our affairs squared away with the new government,” he promised her. “They will be buy my property and I will take the money and we’ll start a new life. But you need to go.”

  “But why Papa?” The young girl cried. “It makes no sense. We should all go now. Together.”

  “Your mother and I will find you in California in America,” he said without any apparent fear or doubt.

  Her great Uncle was a quiet man. She thought she could trust him. When they stopped off for her to go to the side of the road in the trees to relieve herself, he came to her.

  She was too frightened to yell or cry. Afraid that they would leave her behind.

  He did it every time they pulled off to the side.

  Eventually, she learned to hold it in.

  They got the coast and wasted no time. The country was in full collapse. She hopped a small motorboat in the South China Sea. There were thirteen of them at the beginning. When they met up with an Indonesian freighter, 9 days later, Lo was the last person alive. She was weak and sickly, but begging for the opportunity to go to America.

  One of the ship captains on the Indonesian commercial ship took a liking to her. He offered her trade to an American bound ship if she would lie down with him. When she refused, he raped her.

  She took the pain and learned to say yes until she arrived in the US. A couple weeks later, her boat entered the LA Ship Channel and a new life.

  She was pregnant and she knew the American father was here somewhere. He said they could be together, so she set out to find him.

  The baby was a girl and she grew up beautiful. She did nails and hair in Westminster. She looked sort of American. Taller than many of her Asian friends, but not overly tall. Proud and hardworking. She learned the language pretty well. Her name was Phong.