by Jay Manuel
Keisha glared at Broyce Miller’s presence in her spotlight. “I look forward to meeting my cast at the open call. Whenever you can get that organized, Lucie.”
In the backseat of the Escalade, Keisha was almost chirping with delight. “That went well, don’t ya think?”
“They seem like a highly professional team.”
“But you’re the only person I trust.”
“Oh, I dunno. Broyce Miller seems really dependable.”
“You can’t trust anyone in this business. Don’t let their superficial politeness fool you–it’s all fake love. You and me,” she pointed to his heart and then to hers, “we have to make sure you always directly loop me on everything, Pablo. We’re running this show. No one else.”
Pablo nodded in agreement. “You didn’t like Joe Vong. And I have a bad feeling about him.”
She looked surprised that he’d noticed. “You don’t miss a beat, do ya? He’s a real bastard.”
“How could you possibly know the EP of a cop show?”
She sighed and stretched her back, looking at her friend. “He shot the arrest of my mama on the side of the 405 in LA—with that bullshit OFFICERZ show.”
“No way.”
“Way. Probably looking to win an Emmy.”
“Shit. We gotta get rid of him. There’s no way you should have to bear that burden.”
“Clearly, he doesn’t recognize me. My brother and I were in the car.” She looked out the tinted windows.
“You were there, Keisha? How come you never told me this?”
“It’s not something I want bragging rights to. He thrust a camera in my face as I screamed and cried and had snot dripping on my shirt.”
“What a fucking scumbag.” Pablo hated Joe even more.
“My agent bought the tape of the arrest and buried it, so I could have my career. How do you think I got discovered?”
“I thought you walked into an agency when you were sixteen and they signed you.”
“That’s the official version. Unofficially, my brother and I were in the backseat sobbing as our mother was dragged away in handcuffs for stealing jewels outta the safe at the morgue where she worked. She got thirty years. You know how they do us black folk.”
“She worked in a morgue?”
“She photographed corpses.”
Pablo felt queasy. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know more. “We have to get rid of him. I don’t want you traumatized by this guy.”
“Don’t’ worry about me.” She patted his leg. “Payback’s a bitch. And I’m gonna make his life hell.”
5
CATTLE CALL
BY THE TIME Pablo and Keisha got into the souped-up Escalade—the network now provided for their star—headed for Highline Stages, they were already running late. Keisha had made sure of that. “Always be fashionably late,” she reminded her protége. “It drives Miss Thing nuts!”
“If we were any more fashionable, we’d get there tomorrow.” Pablo was trying his best not to chew his nails, but his nerves were already frayed. In the past week, he hadn’t slept more than four hours a night and eaten nothing but protein bars and almonds. To make matters worse, Keisha liked slumming it in Hell’s Kitchen and thought his apartment was really “cute.” She kept crashing in his bed, so he was stuck on the old couch, while Vinny and Keisha were doing the nasty in his bedroom. He couldn’t even bear to look at the sheets. If it wasn’t for his makeover, he would’ve looked like shit. And now they were stuck in traffic.
“What’s going on?” Keisha yelled at the driver.
“Gridlock.”
“Try another avenue.”
“Gridlocked too.”
She huffed and tapped her foot. If Keisha had one pet peeve, it was New York City traffic. It brought out the drama queen in her.
“We should walk,” Pablo said.
“I’m not walking to the open call I’m hosting!”
“Then you might wanna call a helicopter,” the driver said.
“How ‘bout I run ahead and make sure everything’s going smoothly.” Pablo stepped out of the car.
“Text me the 411,” she yelled as he hurried up Hudson Street. Pushing past pedestrians and tourists, his Gucci satchel thumping against his butt, Pablo power-walked toward the casting site. At the corner of Tenth Avenue and Fifteenth Street, he stopped cold. The line, no, the lines of young women wrapped around the block two, three, four times?
“Is this for us?” Pablo asked Luciana, who was standing by the door clipboard in hand.
“Ten thousand girls.” Luciana rolled her eyes.
Sasha Berenson came stumbling up the sidewalk. “I know I’m fucking late, but I had to walk all the way from Fifth Avenue.” She leaned on Pablo’s shoulder and took off one of her high heels. “God, how did I wear these twelve hours a day? Give me Uggs or give me death.”
“Where’s Keisha?” Luciana asked.
“Coming from a meeting just around the corner,” Pablo lied, while quickly texting his boss.
Pablo TEXT: Utter chaos! Traffic is because of our casting.
Just then, the Channel 5 News van pulled up outside the front entrance.
“Looks like we’re gonna make News at Noon,” Luciana said, clearly enjoying the chaos Keisha’s request for an open call had caused.
Right behind the news van, Miss Thing exited his Uber wearing a crisp white shirt, skinny black tie and monstrous black tulle skirt with a six-foot train. He power stalked a beeline for Pablo. “Oh, HELL no. Miss Thing is not sitting here all day looking for a gold tooth in this mouth full of decay–no, ma’am.”
Manic Mason stepped out of the building and tapped his watch. “There is no way we are going to get through all these girls in one day. I have a shoot in four hours. I was told this was simply a press op and I did not have to do anything but show up. This looks like work here.”
The judges looked at Pablo expectantly. Luciana raised a single eyebrow.
“What time is Joe Vong getting here?” Pablo asked.
“Not coming.”
“What’s more important than a new show?”
“He has a doctor’s appointment.”
“A testicle lift?” Miss Thing asked. The men looked at him in horror. “It’s new plasma technology, tightens the scrotum.”
“I am going to be sick,” Mason blurted.
He did look a little queer.
What the fuck. Pablo almost blurted in desperation. The EP/Showrunner wasn’t going to help oversee the first stage of the show? “We should have our cameras shooting this, not just the news networks. Where are our PR people?” Pablo was pissed. He didn’t even know what or if he was on salary, and now the on-camera talent was looking at him to put out the fire. They didn’t call him Mr. Fix-It for nothing, though. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “We’ll have to divide up,” Pablo told his colleagues. “Luciana, divide the girls into alphabetical groups of 100 each. The girls will carry numbers as they walk across the stage. We each get to pick twenty.”
“That’s one hundred,” Miss Thing squeaked.
“It’s less than ten thousand.”
“So, you can do math,” Miss Thing sniped back. “Who the hell has time to look at that many girls?”
“You do!” Pablo barked. “You signed on for this gig, not me. The twenty girls we all choose will come back and give us their life stories and headshots. Everybody gets seen. We don’t go home until we’re done. Mason, you’ll have to postpone your shoot.”
“You sound like an EP,” Luciana said.
“I’m not paid like one.”
At that moment, Keisha’s blacked-out Escalade pulled up alongside the curb. Her driver got out and opened her door.
“There’s Keisha Kash,” rippled over the heads of the crowd.
“Oooooo. Upstaged again,” Miss Thing muttered.
A news reporter made a mad dash across the sidewalk, microphone in hand. “Keisha, Keisha! Did you know that all of lower Manhattan is in gridlock because of this audition for your show?”
Keisha looked at the chubby blonde with baby doll cheeks. “That’s what happens when you use my name.” She smiled and waved to the girls standing ten deep in line. “Now, let’s find my models.” Girls screamed and waved. Miss Thing swept in beside Keisha, matching her stride step for step—he hadn’t taught her how to walk for nothing.
Sasha sighed, but rather than following ten paces, she looped her arm into Pablo’s and said, “What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?”
Behind them, Mason was using his most posh, British prep school accent as he argued on his phone. “I have absolutely no idea when we shall finish here. Bloody hell, it’s a fashion show, what do you think?” He paused and held the phone away from his ear. “You’re putting up with? My old nanny could handle this better than you are. Just make it work.” He turned and sighed dramatically. “The problem with Americans is that no one has a butler in this country.”
“As if you ever did.” Miss Thing snorted and tossed his train in the air, as he swished away.
It was mayhem inside. Almost. Pablo could tell by the way Luciana was pacing back and forth that she must’ve been as shocked by the turn out as he was. He also guessed that she’d hoped the open call would backfire on Keisha and no one would show up. Her plan had backfired on everyone but Keisha. The Supermodel goddess sat through the first hour of casting before excusing herself with a wink and a nod. “I’ll be back when you’ve gotten through the slush pile,” she whispered in Pablo’s ear.
“Am I getting paid for this?” he asked.
Miss Thing and Mason snuck out soon after. Sasha happily nursed her bottle of water, dutifully picking two girls per every thousand that came in. Though by the second hour Pablo feared she was doing eeny, meeny, miny, moe. When he suggested a coffee break, she toddled off to the ladies’ room and he took a swig from her bottle—straight vodka. At least she was there.
Standing outside for a breath of fresh-ish air, Pablo saw the news anchor interviewing a sobbing contestant. “It was awful. I stood in line all night and by the time I got inside I didn’t have any makeup on, my clothes were wrinkled and I had to walk past the judges with like a million other girls—the ones who got chosen were ugly nobodies. It was terrible. I was Miss Jersey Shore last year. I haven’t seen this many young girls line up since my junior high went to an R. Kelly concert.”
“R. Kelly?” the reporter asked.
“Yeah, but at least there I got one-on-one time with Kells!”
“You heard it here first, from WNYW, I’m Bonnie Pruitt at the Highline Stages casting call for TN Network’s new TV show, Model Muse, the brainchild of Supermodel Keisha Kash.”
Pablo had a feeling that he was watching a hurricane hurl itself toward the coastline at 200mph and only he and Keisha were in the eye of the storm, sweeping everything and everyone out of the way. She’d been right—the show was going to blow up.
By eight o’clock that evening, Luciana and Pablo alone finished winnowing through the finalists, listening to sob stories and picking one hundred headshots that they could submit to Keisha and Broyce.
Luciana leaned back in her chair. “I need a drink.”
“I need two.”
“You buying?”
“The network is. Dinner too.” He stood up and held out his hand to the handsomely beautiful and fatigued Latina.
“I love a good expense account.” She looped her arm around his. “Remind me next time I try to bring Keisha down to size that she really is huge—literally and figuratively.”
Pablo had to laugh.
Late that night, he dropped Luciana off at her apartment and Ubered back downtown to Keisha’s flat with the headshots of one hundred girls, and their stories stapled on the back. It was going to be an ice cream orgy and, after the long day, Pablo was ready to match Keisha pint for pint. He started with Green Tea. She had Coffee Almond Crunch. They both needed caffeine.
Luciana and Pablo had organized the images over dinner, arranging them by ethnicity. Keisha flipped through the black girls first, placing her first glance choices to one side. Then Pablo held up the image and read the story out loud.
“Oh, gimme a break. There’s no way she was a homeless teenager. Borderline personality disorder, maybe,” she would blurt, or “Boring!” or “Come to Mama.” Those were all the categories Keisha had. By three in the morning, they had twelve sob stories, six former beauty or prom queens, four rags to hopeful riches, and three borings but too pretty to ignore.
* * *
With the twenty-five semi-finalists finally chosen, Model Muse was ready to begin filming its first casting special. Broyce Miller had the brilliant idea of filming the reveal of the thirteen finalists live at Silvercup Studios. In an effort to capitalize on the explosive national news cycle calling attention to the new show, this one-time live event was expected to garner massive media attention and cement Model Muse for the network’s fall lineup. It had been a smart move on Broyce’s part, feeding Keisha’s own flair for live drama.
The warm-up comedian had finished with the audience, and the people in the studio bleachers quieted for a moment, as an anonymous voice announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the live broadcast of TN Network’s Casting Special for our new model competition show. So, give a big round of applause for our judging panel, Miss Thing.”
From behind the curtain, Miss Thing did his signature walk, while waving and tossing kisses to the crowd, wearing a gown with green crinoline and lace.
“The highest paid Supermodel of the world, Sasha Berenson.”
Sasha had done something new to her face, but at least it was symmetrical now. She looked like a silver slinky slithering across the stage, gorgeous as ever.
“And famed fashion photographer, Mason Hughes.”
Mason was the only one not wearing a dress. His suit was shimmer blue and his eyes were ice. He held his hands up as he walked to his seat, mock shooting the audience.
“And now, the star of our show, Keisha Kash.”
Strutting across the Silvercup soundstage on a custom-built, fuchsia pink, glitter runway, the multi-million-dollar model’s muse swept onto the set. The audience went wild, cheering. She swirled and sparkled in a form-fitting, nude illusion, flesh-toned gown, encrusted with thousands of Swarovski crystals. She tossed a three-foot-long ponytail over her shoulder, so it cascaded past her butt, and gazed at her fans through black glittering smoky eyes. Pablo watched from the sideline in awe. She was amazing, and he was proud to be part of her dream.
“I’m Keisha Kash, and welcome to Model Muse.” She held out her arms as if to embrace the world. There were whistles and cheers. “Thank you! Oh, wow! Thank you.” She touched her heart dramatically. Her eyes glistened with tears. Rachel gestured to the PAs to wrap it up. The PA gestured to the audience for quiet. Keisha smiled sweetly.
“You’ve met our judges, but now you have to meet our creative director, Pablo Michaels, my right-hand man.” She gestured across the stage to where Pablo was standing and beckoned for him to join her. The cameraman swung the long telescopic jib in Pablo’s direction. His grey eyes lit up as he ran out on stage to join his BFF. She beamed at him. He beamed back. “Thank you, Keisha.”
From where he was standing, everything looked different—the crowd was a group of dark, faceless bobbleheads behind the bright lights beaming down on him.
“Every week, Pablo’s gonna shepherd our models through the tasks they need to master to become Supermodels. He’ll coach them in the fierce photoshoots he’s created and help them become the best they can be.”
Joe Vong was fuming and texting. Broyce had stepped into a nearby wing, no doubt about to call the network about Pablo’s sudden inclusion in the show.
“So, Pablo, w
hy don’t you call our semi-finalists out so we can meet them. Let the judging begin.” She clapped her hands, and the audience cheered.
Pablo had the eeriest feeling that he was suddenly in a real-life The Hunger Games, without the murder, yet. He ran over to the curtain and pulled it back. Music blared and a herd of scrawny young women pranced like giraffes into their future as reality TV fodder.
“That’s a commercial break. Back in three minutes,” the AD shouted.
“Reset camera 2 for cue #105,” Rachel called.
Joe Vong ran over to where Keisha was leaning back in her Director’s chair. “What are you doing?”
“Getting my makeup touched up.” De La Renta puffed on his brush so powder floated in Joe Vong’s face.
“You can’t have Pablo on the show. He didn’t do a screen test.”
“This is his screen test. They love him.”
“He doesn’t have a fucking on camera contract!”
“Are you fucking on camera?” Keisha asked Pablo.
“I’d need to be paid more.”
“You know what I mean,” Joe screamed.
“You’d better get him a contract then.”
“We don’t have a budget for him.”
“Oh, you don’t have to pay him,” Keisha laughed. “He’ll do it for me.”
Pablo was close enough to hear his bargain-basement price. “Keisha, I can’t work for free.”
She shrugged. “Broyce will figure it out.”
“You did this on purpose.” Joe was hysterical.
Her amber eyes took one long look at Joe Vong. “You bet I did.” She stood up and walked away from the showrunner.
“Kash: one. Vong: zero,” Pablo whispered as he followed behind her.
“We’re back in five,” the Assistant Director shouted, “four.” He held up his fingers for silence: three, two, one. Cameras rolled as the votes were tallied onscreen. It was quick and painful—thirteen contestants, like the apostles, were selected out of the original ten thousand hopefuls, and twenty-five semi-finalists. The chosen girls leaped up and down and hugged each other, celebrating their good fortune.
