‘Test shots,’ Brandon said. ‘God. What, did you get a little too much wind between your ears riding around on the back of that scrub’s scooter?’
I bristled. ‘For your information, Gabriel Luna is a very hard-working singer-songwriter, and not a scrub… unlike some people I could mention.’
Brandon stuck out his chin. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘For your information, I’ve got several production deals in the works right now… not to mention I’m recording my own album.’
Yeah, I wanted to snarl. With your dad’s money. But I didn’t dare, with his father standing right there. Checking his emails on his — non-Stark-brand — Blackberry, but still. He could have been listening.
Knowing what I knew about Nikki’s computer, I didn’t doubt he was.
‘No bickering, children,’ Rebecca called from the darkness beyond the desk. ‘And Raoul will tell you when you can relax, Nikki.’
And that’s when I began to realize why Lulu had laughed at me when I’d said modelling was easy.
There is nothing easy about it.
Unless you think it’s easy trying to look dewy and think lovely thoughts while twisting your body into the most uncomfortable position possible at the same time you’re trying not to mess up your make-up or expose a nipple while wearing five-inch heel shoes and trying not to notice how incredibly hot your jerk of an ex-boyfriend is.
Because allow me to assure you, it’s not.
Especially when you’re doing it for the first time, and in somebody else’s body.
Eighteen
It was nearly two hours later before Raoul got enough shots he thought he could use. I had to do a bunch more different poses. Some of them involved me biting into a big red apple. That was fake. And tasted like dirt.
Another pose I had to do involved hanging off Brandon Stark’s shoulders like I was one of those baby rhesus monkeys, clinging to their mothers. I said I thought that pose was kind of misogynistic, because it implied that women are helpless and need a big strong man to support them.
I mostly just said that because draping myself over Brandon that way reminded me of how fun kissing him had been, and made me want to kiss him again, which, considering how mad he was at me about Gabriel — and the fact that I’m crushing on someone else entirely — didn’t seem like it would be the best idea.
Raoul didn’t take my advice anyway though. And Rebecca took me aside and asked if I had a fever.
‘Because normally you know better than to criticize an art director’s vision,’ she said.
I pointed out to her that the media is notorious for infantilizing women in their images of us, and asked if it didn’t bother her, as a feminist, that she was partly contributing to that.
She looked at me and went, ‘Are you taking any kind of medication for your head injury? Because if so they need to up the dosage.’
I could sort of see her point. I mean, if I didn’t do the pose, they’d just hire some other model to do it.
Still, it was totally embarrassing having to smush my boobs up against Brandon like that. Not that he seemed to mind…
That was the problem. My embarrassment aside, I didn’t mind much either.
And I think Brandon started to get over his being mad at me about the whole riding-on-the-back-of-Gabriel- Luna’s-Vespa thing, because after about half an hour of my smushing my boobs into his back, he whispered, ‘Hey What are you doing after this?’
I was caught totally caught off guard, and asked, ‘Who? Me?’
‘No,’ Brandon said very sarcastically. ‘I’m talking to Pete, the lighting guy. Of course you.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. I guess I’m just going back to the loft. Why?’
‘Cool,’ Brandon said. ‘Maybe I’ll stop by.’
I felt myself starting to blush. I didn’t know a whole lot about guys, but I knew what Maybe I’ll stop by meant. Or at least, I was pretty sure I did. Considering where my boobs were.
I had a good idea where they’d be later too. I was positive I wasn’t going to be able to stop them from being there. Not if I knew Nikki. Or at least, how she got when guys started kissing her. They tossed the word wanton around a lot in those romance novels Frida — and, OK, I have to admit, I — liked to read.
Well, wanton pretty much summed up how Nikki got whenever a guy stuck his tongue in her mouth.
OK. My mouth.
But what about Christopher? I mean, he was the one I really loved, and I’d never even once managed to get within kissing distance of him…
Oh God. This was all so confusing.
I tried to think up some excuse as to why Brandon shouldn’t stop by the loft later, and finally seized upon a perfect one.
‘The thing is,’ I whispered, ‘I’m going to bed early. I’ve got school in the morning.’
Brandon made a face — until Gwen, the photographer, asked him to please stop. ‘School? You’re kidding me, right?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Tribeca Alternative High School. My first day. I want to be nice and well rested. And, well, you know. What with the accident, and all—’
‘I thought the school thing was just a PR stunt,’ Brandon said.
I jerked my boobs off him in shock. ‘A PR stunt? Who said that?’
‘Nikki,’ Gwen called, ‘don’t move, please! Pete’s just adjusting the lighting —’
‘Well,’ Brandon said, ‘that’s what people are saying—’
‘Education is necessary for anyone to grow as an individual,’ I said.
‘I’m going to school so I can go to college some day, not as a PR stunt.’ And not just so I can check up on my best friend, who I happen to be crushing on, and make sure he hasn’t found some other girl, either.
‘Kelly!’ Gwen yelled.
‘Nikki,’ Kelly called to me, ‘could you get back in your place, please?’
I got back in my place, draped over Brandon’s back. But I wasn’t happy about it. People were saying Nikki Howard was going to high school as a PR stunt? That was terrible! And so untrue! I could see I needed to speak to Brandon’s father, now more than ever. He couldn’t keep the truth about what had really happened to Nikki to himself now. He just couldn’t. It wasn’t fair.
But it was really hard to get Mr Stark’s attention, because every time he wasn’t posing for the cameras, he was on his (non-Stark-brand) cellphone yelling at someone, or telling one of the many people in the room to get him someone else’s phone number, or an espresso. Finally, after what seemed like another five hours — my feet were throbbing, and my mouth muscles twitching from smiling so much — Raoul said, ‘That’s a wrap, people! You can all go home!’
And Mr Stark said, ‘Thank God,’ and started taking out his cufflinks. I was sitting right on the desk in front of him, so I just went, ‘Mr Stark? Can I talk to you a minute?’
And he looked down at me, and went, ‘No.’
Seriously! Just like that!
But I’m not a straight-A student — and haven’t gotten to level fortyfive in Journeyquest — for nothing. I mean, I’m no quitter.
And not even a billionaire corporate executive who also runs an underground brain-transplant clinic is going to thwart me.
‘It’s just… ’ I said in a low voice as everyone around us was gathering up power cords and taking down the blackout curtains. ‘Don’t you think what you’re doing is wrong? I mean, about Nikki.’
He looked right at me. His eyes, I noticed, were brown, with tiny ruby glints in them. Or maybe that was just the way they looked in the klieg lights, which were being turned off, one by one.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I went on quickly. ‘I’m totally grateful for what Doctor Holcombe did for me. And I am totally willing to go through with my end of the contract. But don’t you think Nikki’s friends — her family — deserve to know the truth? So they can mourn her properly? I mean, some people even think she was in rehab last month.
