Sean DeSilva called me on Tuesday, “I’ve got a spot for you.”
“What does that mean?”
I hear his tongue click the roof of his mouth. “A commercial. I’ve got a commercial for you.”
“Really?” The flight in my heart soars. “That’s fantastic. When? Where?”
“Thursday. Meet me in my office at eight, and we’ll go to the studio together. You’ll need an introduction.”
The flight in my chest plummets. “I have to work on Thursday.” My mind runs through options. “I’ll call in sick,” I say as soon as the solution presented itself in my head.
“Look, Ali. I told you I can get you work, but you have to want it. Things happen quickly in this industry and you have to be ready to jump and run.”
“I understand.”
“You need to get rid of that job. It’s not going to do a thing for you.”
I nod. He told me the same thing when I had to arrange for time off for the fall Look Book. “I know. I’ll let them know.”
“I need you available. I mean, if you want to do something else, that’s fine, but I have twenty girls lined up behind you wanting this gig.”
“No. I want this.” I swallow hard. “I’ll tell them tomorrow.”
“You’re gonna be busy. Swimsuit shoot will happen in December, and that’s about a week-long shoot in Rosarito. I need to know I can count on you. I’m gonna make you a lot of money. You have to be a hundred percent on board. You have to want this.”
“I do. I want this. I’ll see you Thursday.”
“Eight. Don’t be late.”
When Sean said the industry moved quickly, what he meant was that it moved at warp speed. I quit my job at the hospital on Wednesday, and on Thursday I met him at his office and rode with him to a warehouse in the south side of the city. I walked with him through the mostly deserted parking lot and then through a metal door at the end of the building.
“Sean DeSilva, for Dom Devlin.”
The receptionist looks up from her desk, as if she hadn’t heard us come in, and presses a button on her phone, shouldering it.
“Mr. Devlin?” she says. Her voice is high and childlike, although she must be well into her thirties. “I have Mr. DeSilva here. He’s brought the talent.” She glances at me, offering a small compression of her lips that might be a smile.
“Right through these doors to Studio C. Mr. Devlin is waiting.” She reaches under her desk, and the door behind swings open. I follow Sean, my stomach flipping. It’s one thing to pose for pictures, but it’s something else to speak.
Studio C has a white sofa on white plush carpet and a white backdrop. The lights spark and flash as the photographer checks the heat.
“Dom!” Sean says, reaching out to the man who is walking around the darkened edge of the set. He is tall with thinning hair swept over as camouflage. His deep-set eyes are bright blue above high, chiseled cheekbones. While he is shaking hands with Sean, his eyes are traveling over me with an intensity that makes me blush. It’s not that he is looking at me sexually; he is looking at me like a product—and it unnerves me.
“Ms. Hayes,” he says, “it’s a pleasure.” He lifts my hand and presses a small kiss to the back of it. I glance at Sean, but he is looking over the wardrobe.
“It’s all mine,” I say, pulling my wits to me. “Thank you so much for the opportunity.”
“Well, let’s see how it goes, shall we?”
I nod, and he leads me over to the wardrobe rack and starts lifting dresses out, holding them up to my body before putting them back. Half of the clothes are pale and the others are dark. “We have scripts for two spots today. One will run through the fall and pick back up after the holidays; the other will hit for Christmas.”
“Great.”
“Well, let’s see how you do. Not every pretty face can do a spot.”
I nod, and he pats me on the back, leaving me and Sean to look through the clothes.
“He said two?” I ask Sean.
“If the first one is good.”
A woman comes to join us, dressed in jeans and a button-down, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail. Small dots from an adolescent battle warred against acne pits her skin.
“I’m Staci. I’m your wardrobe and makeup.”
Sean leaves me with Staci, who repeats the process of holding dresses up to my body and replacing them. She decides on three—two dark and two light—and motions for me to follow her. We walk the edge of the set to a back corner of the studio. A small room, with walls that don’t go to the ceiling, is open to us. I try on the dresses, and Staci makes the decisions, choosing the the v-neck black instead of the scoop-neck and the cream rather than white. My mother always loved cream tops. They set off her hair and complexion, and looking in the mirror, I am startled to see her looking out at me.
“That’s a good color for you. Let’s take it off. Put this on.” She hands me a robe, and I slip it over my shoulders. She has me sit in the chair, my reflection looking back at me, and she starts working through my hair, rolling it into hot rollers.
A tap on the door and it opens, with Dom’s angled face leaning through. “Script,” he says, handing her the pages. “What did we decide?” He looks at the four dresses we brought with us.
She hands me the script and points to the cream and the black.
“Good,” he says, leaning out of the doorway.
I read through the script, mouthing the words.
“Go ahead, you can practice,” Staci says.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I whisper, and she looks at me like she doesn’t understand.
“Why not? It’s just a commercial.” This is her world, and probably has been for years.
“I know.”
I look back at the script, just a small paragraph of words, and start saying them aloud, adjusting the inflection, trying to find the balance of what it needs to be.
“Try it like this . . .” She reads the script, and I see what they are going for.
“Why are you not doing this?” I ask after her poised, eloquent reading. She sounded sophisticated and moneyed.
“Because, Talent, I don’t look like you.”