Cici is just closing the door to the condo when I pull into the Annabelle parking lot. I park my car and dance across the blacktop until I catch up to her as she heads toward her car.
“Where you going?”
“Meeting Amber.” She cocks an eyebrow, “Why are you so happy? Get laid?”
“No. I had my interview.”
Remembrance spreads across her face. “Did you get it?”
“I’ll know Friday. I think it went well. They have to do a background check.” I widen my eyes at her, and she opens the door to her gray Rabbit.
“Cool. Good luck. John called for you.”
“Oh. Great.” I nod.
“What are you doing with John?” There is irritation in her voice.
“Nothing, I mean we did some test shots, you know. He thinks he might be able to use me in some print work.”
Cici nods, but her eyes are closed-off and distant. “That’s cool.”
“What’s wrong?” I demand, annoyed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she snaps. “I thought we were friends.”
“We are! I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Ceece! Come on. I still don’t know that anything will come of it.” She looks vulnerable somehow, and I don’t understand why. She doesn’t tell me everything either. I could be jealous that she is going to meet Amber and didn’t invite me.
She nods and gets in the car, closing the door, waving to me, but not speaking another word. I watch her drive out of the parking lot and try to figure out what she wants from me. She did introduce me to John, so maybe I should have told her. She does her own thing, like now, but apparently she doesn’t like it when other people do the same thing. She’s a mess. I shake my head and turn back to the empty condo.
The message is on the counter beside the phone. “Meet John at the Elephant Bar at 6.” John is underlined four times in dark, hard-pressed lines, and I see Cici taking the message in my mind, keeping her voice steady, holding up a bantering conversation while her eyes lock down and her soul seethes. I shake my head. She doesn’t own me.
I have to call John to find out which Elephant Bar I’m meeting him at, and at five thirty I head out, dressed in jeans and a pale-blue, button-down shirt. I cuff the sleeves because it’s still hot, but I didn’t want to wear a t-shirt.
The Elephant Bar is packed, and I am part of a group of four walking through the door. They are taken to a table, and I stand looking around the dining room to find John, telling the hostess “I’m meeting somebody.” She nods and points toward a table in the back, under a great plastic elephant head coming from the wall. The whole place is designed to be like a jungle, with several other plastic animals erupting from the walls.
John stands up and waves me over. He is not alone. A man sits across from him, looking down at the menu, not noticing me until I get close. He has shoulder-length hair and pushes a piece of it behind his ear when he looks up at me. He rakes his eyes down my body and back to my face. He reaches out a hand and moves to stand up.
“This is Sean DeSilva. He runs the Dillard’s campaign,” John says, and Sean shakes my hand before settling back into his seat, studying my face from across the table. John holds a seat out for me to sit in, and I’m relieved because I wasn’t sure where I should sit. He slips around the back of my chair, his hand resting momentarily on my shoulder, and he settles back into his seat.
“Great to meet you,” I say.
“You’re a little short,” Sean says, and I glance at John, feeling reprimanded. “I like my girls to be at least five-six.”
“She has good proportions. She photographs tall,” John says. “I think she’s got a lot of potential.”
“She done any modeling before?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
I sit back, watching them talk about me like I’m not here. I cross my arms over my chest, waiting.
Sean looks across at me, studying my face, the way I used to do when I was working up a sketch. “She does have good bones.”
“She’s comfortable in front of the camera, too.” John pulls out a folder where he has placed my contact sheets, as well as several other sheets with a single image printed on them. Three are headshots and four are full-length shots.
“Can I see those?” I ask, after Sean has flipped through them, nodding his head. He hands them to me.
“You’ll need to drop a few pounds,” he says.
“Really?”
“Yeah, you’re short, so you need to be lean. It will make you look taller,” he explains, and John nods.
“Okay. I can do that.” I’m still a little heavy, I know. “I started running with my roommate.”
“Cici runs?” John asks, incredulous.
“No, a different roommate.” I flip through the images and hand them back to John, raising my eyebrows at him, excited. This may really happen.
“You know she’d be good for the other thing, though,” Sean cocks an eyebrow at John, sounding conspiratorial.
John gives me a long, appraising look. “That’s an international campaign.”
“They’re looking for an unknown.”
“She’s definitely that.”
“Not for long,” Sean says.
They laugh and tilt their water glasses at each other in mock salute.