While she was reading Sam’s, her inbox lit up with a new-message indicator. When she saw the “from” line, it made her heart race. The subject line couldn’t have been clearer:
The photographs you sent me.
Dearest Anna,
Received and reviewed photos of Champagne. She is truly lovely and exactly the kind of fresh face we need to launch Principessa. I plan to be in Los Angeles for your fashion show, and perhaps I can meet her in person beforehand. I just saw your dear mother in Milan last week. She’s the patron of a new young artist. His work is dashing and so is he, but I’m sure she told you all about it. Look forward to seeing you, and to meeting the glorious Champagne. Thank you for thinking of me first. Please say hello to your father for me. With your permission, I’ll have my assistant telephone you to make arrangements for the night of the show.
Cheers, Lizbette
“O
kay, okay. Listen up!”
Cammie assembled her so-called models—four other girls suggested by Mrs. Vanderleer from the New Visions at-risk program. Including Champagne, Anna, and Cammie herself, there would be seven women modeling at the fashion show, plus five guys from the Firehouse.
It was Monday afternoon, which meant the event itself was only two days away. They were in a dance studio in Santa Monica that Mrs. Vanderleer had rented for this rehearsal. The walls were mirrored, and the floor had been taped with the outline of the T-shape of a catwalk, indicating the correct width and length on which they’d be working. The girls wouldn’t face an actual catwalk until they were on it, but Cammie had to make do with what she had. What she had to do was train rank amateurs of all sizes, shapes, and social strata in how to avoid falling on their asses during the fashion show.
What she needed was four months. What she had was four hours.
Cammie felt pretty confident, however, about her own ability to walk these girls through the art of the catwalk. She’d done a fair amount of runway work herself back in junior high school, when she was among the tallest of the girls she knew. Alas, after she topped out at five-foot five, a serious runway career was almost impossible. Stunning as she was in person, she wasn’t all that interested in print work.
In prep for the session, Cammie had asked for a TV monitor and combination DVD/VCR, so she could show the girls some video of professional models doing their professional modeling thing. She had also finagled some video equipment so that the girls could be filmed and then get a chance to review themselves. She wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Vanderleer came through with everything she’d asked for.
Her models were identified by name badges. Exquisite and Mai both hailed from the Bellflower section of Los Angeles. Each was striking. Exquisite was taller, with close-cropped dark hair and startling green eyes. Mai was shorter, but with a perfect figure much like Dee’s.
The other two girls were from East Los Angeles. Daisy was quite tall—close to five-ten. While she was far too voluptuous to be a runway model, easily a size twelve or maybe even a fourteen, and had a serious gap-toothed look, she wore the jet-black Escada knockoff dress she’d chosen for the rehearsal exceptionally well. Her friend Consuela was more boyish and athletic, with beautiful lips and thick, glossy hair.
“Listen up.” Cammie strode to the taped catwalk area. “First, everyone got measured and fitted this morning, right? And they took your shoe sizes? If anyone didn’t get measured, see me when we’re done. “Your shoes should be ready tomorrow. I’ve asked for them all to have scratched soles.” Exquisite waved a hand.
“Yes?”
“Why scratched-up soles? Won’t that make the shoes look worse on the catwalk?” Cammie smiled. “Smart question, Exquisite. The scratching is for your protection—to give you traction. New shoes are slippery. Which leads me right into the not-falling-on-your-ass thing. I’ve done it. Every model has done it. It isn’t pretty.” Champagne had a question. “Do we get to keep the shoes?” Cammie smiled to herself. She’d spoken with Mrs. Vanderleer about exactly this, and had extracted a promise from the organizer that the girls could indeed keep their shoes.
“Definitely. The shoes are yours.”
The grins from the girls were as brilliant as the sun. Cammie actually felt her heart squeeze. She couldn’t even remember a time when the acquisition of a single pair of shoes mattered to her.
“Okay, let’s talk posture.” She put one palm flat against her stomach, the other on her lower back. “Stomachs tucked in, shoulders back. An invisible string from your toes to the ceiling. Take a look at Anna. Wave, Anna.” Anna, who stood at the rear of the throng, raised one shy hand.
“Anna stands like this like this all the time without even thinking about it,” Cammie pointed out. “It’s natural to her. Watch her and learn. But first, do what I’m doing now.” All around the room, hands obediently went to tummies and lower backs. This was good. The girls were taking this seriously.
“You guys, you should stand like this all day and night between now and Wednesday night,” Champagne advised. “You’ll want to look great for the guys.” “When will we meet them?” Daisy asked excitedly. “They’re firemen, right?” “Wednesday night, at the show,” Cammie reported. “Please. Stay focused on what we’re doing here. This is important.” Cammie, Anna, and Champagne were publicly sticking with the myth that the guys were actual firemen who did a little calendar work on the side. If Mrs. Vanderleer found out the truth, she’d possibly cancel the whole show, lest models from the Firehouse somehow negatively impact the reputation of her foundation. Champagne had relayed the firemen story to her cousin Bryson, and he had schooled his buff-bodied friends.
As the girls worked on their posture, Cammie circulated through them, pushing a hip here, moving a shoulder there. She was pleased to see that Champagne got it naturally. “Now, for the all-important walk. One foot goes directly in front of the other, eyes straight ahead to an invisible horizon line. Like this. You’ve seen it on TV. Pretend you’re Gisele.” She moved to the DVD player and started a disc of top models on the runway, then put one hand on her hip and did the walk herself, executing a perfect 360-degree turn at the point of the T.
“Can we all try that walk?”
All around the room, the girls tried it. Most of them failed miserably. Consuela nearly twisted an ankle in her heels.
“It’s not easy,” Cammie warned. “Consuela, get right up and do it again. Remember, the heel of the front foot has to come to the toe of the other foot on every step. Shoulders back, stomachs in, butts tucked—everyone practice and I’ll come around and help you. Anna, come help me, please.” Anna cut through the crowd and then whispered to her hastily. “Me? I’ve never done this before in my life!” “Yeah, but you’ve got that ballet posture thing going on, and you’ve already picked it up, so help,” Cammie implored.
“Fine, but I’m modeling under false pretenses.” Still, she went to help the other girls, some of whom were still teetering like half-cut trees in a winter gale.
“If you swing the back leg out before you bring it around to the front, it will help. And look straight out,” Cammie advised Champagne. “Never down at your own feet.” “Right, straight out,” she echoed, walking with such focus and such intensity that some of the other girls followed in her wake, copying her movements.
An hour later, Cammie began videotaping each girl in turn on the mock catwalk. And fifteen minutes after that, they sat down to watch the tapes.
The girls were self-conscious and very self-critical when they saw themselves on tape. But interestingly enough, they were also extremely supportive of one another, offering suggestions and acting as more than cheering sections.
Then Champagne’s tape came on.
She never changed her expression, but stayed cool, calm, and collected. She kept her head completely still and let her body move beneath her. At the far end of the runway, she did a little shift with her hips that turned her to the left, and then another that took her back to where she’d begun.
Cammie flicked off the monitor. The studio was silent, until Exquisite broke the quiet. “Was that your first time doing that, Champagne?” “Please. I’ve done it
thousands
of times,” Champagne replied loftily. Then a sad smile crept onto her lips. “In my mind. In the last week. Thanks to Cammie.” The girls laughed and hooted.
“Go, Cammie!” Daisy exclaimed. “You’re our leader!”
Cammie didn’t know much about any of them, except for Champagne. But if they were in an at-risk program, they had to be facing challenges far bigger than whether to wear Chloé or Alaïa. They were from neighborhoods that Cammie never ventured into, even with a driver, and had family incomes that probably didn’t equal in a year what her father earned in three days. Yet here they were, giving it their all, excited because they’d get to be in an actual fashion show and take home a single new pair of designer shoes.
In another time and place, she would have been contemptuous. Now, though, Cammie just felt good. They were having fun. She even suspected that she might have something to do with it. “Guys, there’s nothing I can tell you except this: What Champagne just did, you can all do. Bye-bye, Giselle, Kate, Tyra, and Heidi. Here are Champagne, Consuela, Mai, Daisy, and Exquisite!”
I’m going back to the same club twice in two weeks,
Cammie realized as she opened the front door to Trieste. I must be slipping.
This time, though, there was no velvet rope, no doorman, and no line of would-be club kids stretching down toward Hollywood Boulevard. Just a small black-lettered sign on the door that read, TRIESTE MONDAY, 9 TO 11, $10 COVER, CASH ONLY. And then, in red marker scrawled underneath, in case anyone didn’t know what they were getting themselves into, were these words:
NO DANCING, NO ROCKING, TALK HARD.
She’d spoken with Ben late in the afternoon, just to see how he was. Okay, she admitted to herself, she’d really phoned him because she couldn’t bring herself to call Adam again—she didn’t want to appear the least bit needy or desperate. To her surprise, Ben had invited her to the club that night to check out this new thing he’d been organizing called Trieste Monday. “Dress casual,” he’d warned. “It’s different.” Cammie scoffed at “dress casual.” Like she
ever
dressed the way people told her to dress. She wore Earl jeans rolled to the knees with skintight patent leather Gaultier boots and a snug little white BCBG top, all the better for a summer night. She pinned her Raymond-styled strawberry blond curls half up and half down, the better to show off her new Jacob the Jeweler chandelier earrings made of an intricate pattern of tiny, diamond-studded palm trees.
Though there was no doorman, there was someone stationed just inside the front door. A burly guy with a beard, thick glasses, and a ready smile was taking cash in a shoe box. Ben had said she’d be on the guest list, and the guy checked her name off when Cammie gave it to him. “Cammie Sheppard? Ben said you can find him in the play room.” “The playroom?” Cammie repeated.
“The play room. Where they’re doing plays. It’s the first room you’ll come to—you can’t miss it.” “Ah. You mean the army hospital room.” The burly guy laughed. “Not tonight.”
He was right. As she made her way into the club, Cammie saw that the glitzy lights had been turned off and all the props removed from what had been one of the hottest, most elite dance floors in the city. Instead of a mock army mobile hospital, rows of simple steel folding chairs had been erected, and a crowd of sixty or seventy people was intently watching three actors performing a scene.
“Thank you to our great Trieste Monday audience!” A familiar voice boomed over the club PA system ten minutes later, when the scene ended.
Whoa
. Cammie grinned. Ben. “And thanks to our fine volunteer cast performing the ten-minute play
No Pain, No Gain
by Stephen Greene. Next performance will be back here in twenty minutes, featuring new actors and a new script. Please visit our jazz and art rooms! Thanks for being here on Trieste Monday.” The enthusiastic crowd clapped again. Most everyone stood, either to stretch their legs or to check out one of the other attractions. A moment later, Cammie felt a tap on her shoulder.
“You came.”
She turned. There was Ben, in black trousers and a black T-shirt imprinted with the club logo. He was giving her that delicious, irresistible Ben smile. “Yeah, I caught most of it. I liked it.” He looked pleased. “The writer does a lot of TV. He’s brilliant. But he really wants to write for the stage.”
“Funny how no one seems to want what they’ve got. Does he have any idea how many playwrights would kill to write for TV? Just ask my father.” “No doubt. You want a drink?” She pursed her lips. “I thought there was no partying here tonight.” “Follow me. I’ve got special privileges.” He took her hand and led her through a door behind the makeshift stage and then down a narrow, ill-lit corridor to a small office at the far end. To her surprise, the office was remarkably elegant, with a buttery brown leather sofa, a small bar, a sound system, and a desk tidier than Cammie had thought humanly possible. The only giveaway that they were in a nightclub back office was the bank of ten security monitors. If the customers didn’t know they were being watched, they should.
“Whose is this?” She settled into the delicious folds of the sofa.
“My boss’s. But on Monday night, it’s mine. Pick your poison.” “Champagne?” Ben smiled. “Definitely.” There was a fridge under the bar. Down went Ben. Out came a bottle of 1995 Clos du Mesnil, plus a pair of chilled champagne flutes.
“Your boss keeps
that
in his fridge?”
“Nope. You said you’d stop by, so I stocked up. Is this still your favorite champagne?” If only Anna could see her now.
“Yeah.”
Pop went the cork. Out came the bubbly. There was nothing like Clos du Mesnil and no year like 1995.
She raised her glass to his. “To Ben Birnbaum, for his exquisite preparation and wonderful taste in friends.” They clinked, and Cammie took a long sip. Liquid bliss slid down her throat. Too bad Adam didn’t indulge. Some people had no idea how good it was to be bad.