Everything stops.
Everyone looks.
And then Elise is pulling me up and shoving me towards the stairs as Antoine and several other people pull Billy and Ronin apart.
"I fucking told you portraits, Antoine! What the fuck is going on here?"
"Go upstairs and wait for Ronin, Rook," Elise says sternly, like this is somehow my fault.
I start walking, watching them fight.
What just happened?
I get to Ronin's apartment but the door is locked, so I go back and sit on the top step because I can't even remember my birthday right now, let alone his security code. I just sit there and listen to them all argue inside Antoine's office. The door is closed, I can tell by the muffled voices, but it's not sound-proof.
The yelling gets louder and then the door opens because the voices are like right there, echoing off the massive walls of the studio. Almost everyone has cleared out now, and then I watch Ronin as he takes the stairs three at a time. When he gets to me he stops.
Just stops. There are no hurried words or fast actions. He is just still.
"I'm sorry, I told Antoine what I wanted, but he forgot to tell Roger. It was a mistake. I'm sorry."
"What was a mistake?"
"That shoot with fucking Billy!"
He says it like he can't believe I had to ask, so I just nod. "Right, OK."
He takes my hand and leads me towards his apartment, then he must spy my bare feet. "Where're your shoes?"
"The dressing room, with my clothes."
"OK," he says, pushing me through the apartment door, "I'll get them, you stay here."
I stand in the middle of the room, watching the empty space where he just was.
This whole thing is getting weird. I might need to go back to the shelter. This thought makes me swallow down a giant lump in my throat because I really do not want to go back there.
Ronin takes forever, so I just take a seat on the couch and wait. Still, he does not come back. I lie down and close my eyes. I have to admit, even after all I've been through in the past few months, this has been one of the longest and most confusing days of my entire life.
Chapter Twenty-Three - ROOK
I wake abruptly as Ronin adjusts my body so my head is resting in his lap. "What?"
"Sorry," he says. "You fell asleep and I just wanted to sit with you. Rook, I am so sorry about earlier. Antoine said he was going to do the shoot himself, I asked him to keep an eye on you. It shouldn't have happened."
I sit up, the make-up from earlier making my face feel caked with filth, and I'm almost positive that it's totally streaked all over my face. I have like a ton of goop in my eyes and it's taking every ounce of self-control not to rub them red. "What
was
supposed to happen?"
"Just some portrait pics, that's all. I told him."
"Well, that Roger guy did take a bunch of those. I know that for sure. Then he said I was dressed for an artistic shoot with Billy and—"
"Yeah, fucking Roger knows better. We don't stick new girls with Billy."
I take a deep breath and turn to look at him. "Ronin, why don't you tell me exactly what you guys do here? Is it porn, or what?"
"No," he says quickly. "It's not porn, it's… erotic art."
"Uh-huh. Erotic art. So what exactly do you guys want me for? Just so we're clear."
"Pictures."
"Of me naked?"
"No… I mean… well, somewhat naked, yes. We're not doing cock shots or shit like that, Rook. It's tasteful nudes and stuff."
I laugh as I stand up. "OK, I'm probably gonna have to leave. I mean, I'm not against doing some pictures, even some racy ones, but I need to think about it and see how much money it pays and I'm not comfortable doing that here. So I'm gonna go back to the shelter for a while and you guys call me if—"
"Absolutely not, Rook! You're not going to a fucking homeless shelter. We're having dinner with Antoine and Elise in an hour to sort it all out, you can't leave before you at least get all the details."
I hesitate because I don't want to go back to the shelter, I mean, I would almost rather sleep anywhere else but there, so I hesitate.
"Just go take a shower, put on your own clothes, and let's have dinner, OK?"
I am seriously starving and my rumbling stomach wins the night. I can at least hear them out. "OK." He sighs with relief. "I would like to take a shower, actually."
His eyes light up. "That's the best news I've heard all day. Follow me, I'll introduce you to the beast."
I follow him into the bathroom off the hallway and he's not kidding. The shower is a beast. It's a massive work of tiled art with more knobs and shower heads than I can even imagine are necessary.
He sees me eyeing them suspiciously. "Don't even ask, Rook. I have no idea what they all do. But if you press this button here"—he points to something that looks like a security system control panel—"then they all come on at once and I'll just warn you now, that shit is better than sex."
"Oh," I moan, "that's too bad. I totally thought the only way I'd feel better tonight was if I could just get me some sex, but now that I have this here shower, I guess I'm good."
"You're OK, then?" He takes my joking as a good sign, but honestly, it's my default setting. When I get nervous and I'm not in danger of getting my face punched in, I tend to turn into a smart-ass.
"I'm really not, but I'm trying real hard, Ronin."
He walks over to me, doesn't touch me, but gets close enough so that we don't need to touch to understand what's going on. I can feel his presence, like his body has an electric field around it and I've suddenly found myself inside. I have to look up at him because now that we're standing right up next to each other I realize how tall he is. At least five inches taller than me and I'm five nine.
"Just give us a chance, OK? If you don't want the job I'll understand. But this day should not have happened this way."
He watches me intently but I'm not capable of talking about this right now. I need some space. "Can you go get me some clothes from the apartment? I'll even let you pick them."
"Yeah, sure. I'll just turn on the shower for you." He messes with the control panel and water starts spraying out in all directions. I smile a thank you and he leaves, closing the door behind him.
When I looking the bathroom mirror I was right about the make-up—it is totally smeared under my eyes. The beastly shower feels better than ever right now. My body is tired and not eating right is not helping. I hope they are having something good for dinner because if it's some French shit, I might scream and throw a fit until they feed me a burger or take me to the baseball stadium for a hot dog.
When I'm done I wrap the towel around me and open the door cautiously, I can hear Ronin talking on the phone. I listen for a few seconds, but it's all in French and I only catch the name Clare. There's a small pile of clothes on the floor in front of the bathroom and I grab them and disappear back inside. He picked me out a very sweet white bra and panty set, some pink capris, a pink tank top, and a white cotton button-up sweater. I slip on my beat-up old Converse because they're all I have. When I look in the mirror my long black hair contrasts with the cute outfit and I suddenly feel like biker Gidget.
He was so right last night—I'm no Gidget. I'm definitely a tragic if ever there was one.
Ronin is sitting on his couch watching sports when I come back out.
"Feel better?"
I nod. "Yeah, I do."
He gets up, takes my hand, and then we walk down the hallway towards the stairs. It's so quiet compared to earlier I almost don't recognize the studio as we walk past and continue down the hall. Ronin punches in a code, opens the door and waves me in first.
Antoine and Elise are nowhere to be found, so I take a moment to study the apartment. It's like stepping back into the Roaring Twenties. The whole inside looks like something off
The Great Gatsby
movie set, it's all curves and contrasts—art deco from top to bottom. The furniture is ultra-modern but old and stylish at the same time. The chairs and couches have high curved backs, and the black piping on the cushions perfectly sets off the white fabric.
The far side of the room is one giant circular window that has pocket glass doors to allow access to the terrace. This is where the voices are coming from and Ronin leads me through the portal-like door. Exiting onto the terrace is like stepping into another world. There are twinkling white lights strung everywhere and the terrace itself is massive. Like bigger than the first floor of the house I lived in back in Chicago. It's furnished like the inside, except with weatherproof fabrics.
Ronin calls out a, "Hey." And both Antoine and Elise pull apart from an embrace like two school kids caught necking in the hallways.
Did I just use the word necking?
The Gidget outfit is getting to me, I think.
"I hope you like kebabs," Ronin says. "Antoine makes some of the best kebabs ever."
"If it's meat, I'll eat it," I reply, my stomach growling like mad with the smell that wafts off the grill and teases my senses.
"You wanna beer?"
"Sure." This is already turning out to be way better than I imagined, so why not relax a little. In my head dinner with the Chaputs involved a white tablecloth, crystal glassware, and eating snails drowning in butter with tiny little forks.
Ronin grabs a Corona from a box filled with ice and twists off the cap, then hands it to me and takes one for himself. He grabs two lime wedges from a little silver bucket in the ice, and shoves down the neck of each beer. I enjoy the smell of a fizzy lime-infused beer and then take a long gulp.
Elise walks over to us. "How old are you, Rook?"
"Twenty-one."
"Really?"
"Shut up, Elise, like you waited until you were twenty-one to drink. Leave her alone, she's here to relax."
Elise narrows her eyes at Ronin and then looks over to me. "I wasn't asking because of the beer, I just need to know for our contracts. Are you really twenty-one?"
"No, I'm nineteen," I say, a little ashamed as I try and hand the beer back to Ronin. He shakes his head at me and I keep the beer.
"I'm not interested in policing your alcohol habits, Rook. This is a working dinner, sweetie, and it involves contracts so I just want to make sure you are legal to sign them. We need to get some things straight and we need to know what you will and won't be doing for us while you're working here."
I swallow. Boy, she really gets to the point.
"Because while we feel what we do here is art, not everyone agrees and you need to know what it means for you to agree to model for us. OK?"
I nod.
"So Ronin, why don't you go keep Antoine company while Rook and I go over the particulars."
"You OK with this, Rook?" he asks.
"Yeah, sure. It's business."
He smiles and walks over to Antoine, who has switched the conversation to French. I can hear Ronin say, "English, you ape," as he approaches.
"Have a seat, Rook." I look back to Elise, who is all business right now. Gone is that little fairy woman who took pity on me as I cried on the stairs and I'm sorta sorry she got to see me in such a weak position, it puts me behind right now. Like she knows I'm not strong so she automatically gets the upper hand.
I sit like I'm told and wait for it.
"OK, I'm not going to sugarcoat it because I'm hungry and I try and treat everyone the same, and I don't sugarcoat it for any of the other models, so you are no different just because Ronin wants to keep you."
"What?"
"He likes you, Rook, I think we can both agree that is true. So what I want you to know up front is that we are an erotic photography studio, we supply photos,
tasteful photos
," she enunciates, "to companies like publishers, producers, large marketing firms and the like. They typically come in an order that asks for something specific, but if we have images we can't use, leftovers and such, we sell them to stock art companies. Do you know what that is, Rook? Stock art?"
I shake my head.
"It's a database of photos on a large website that allows anyone to buy the images for a fee and use them as they see fit for projects, with certain restrictions regarding print production. So this means, should you sign our model release form, your body could end up pretty much anywhere. On the cover of a book, in an advertisement, a CD cover, things like that. Do you understand this?"
"Yes, I understand."
"Good. So here's the deal. You don't have to do nudes. We have some work for you that is straight portrait and fashion, a bit of glamour stuff every now and then like Clare does. You'll make twenty dollars an hour and that's it. You work by the hour and the work for these types of shots is not steady, but since Ronin seems compelled to take care of you, you hardly need the money."