2

Sarah laughed and I glanced around the room. People were starting to pack up and head out.

“How about we go for a drink if you’re up for it,” I asked, framing it as less of a question and more of a suggestion.

Sarah seemed to like that as her smile widened.

“I like your style, a drink sounds nice. How about we save it until after, though.” Sarah took my hand and we headed outside. I led her to my car and had the driver take us home. Sarah rolled up the privacy window and climbed into my lap. She was quite eager to get things started and I wasn’t one to complain. By the time we reached the house she had come twice in my hand. Needless to say, we didn’t make it out to get drinks afterwards.

The following weeks after my first shoot were crazy, once the photos were released and the ads came out with my face on them, women recognized me everywhere. They threw themselves at me just as readily as Sarah did, some not even requiring any pretense beforehand.

Of course, I didn’t just sleep with every woman who smiled at me invitingly. I kept it safe and paced myself between lovers. Some women I’d have flings with for days at a time. Like Sarah; she often showed up at my place late at night, only wanting sex. Until she got bored of me, then I stopped hearing from her and seeing her altogether.

I learned that there were a few different types of women out in the world, not all wanted the hearts and flowers romance. Some just liked to keep guys at a distance. Others just wanted you for a night, and a few wouldn’t remember you in the morning. Then, of course, there were the star-struck ones, they tended to be clingy and I quickly learned not to lead those women on.

Armani liked me so much that they made a deal with me to be one of their regular models. The modeling was also not bad for Stargate; Rolling Stone, Forbes, and GQ wanted interviews with me since I was in the “public eye” and even Stargate’s pending deal with Ireland landed. The publicity brought some of Stargate’s greatest advancements in flight to the forefront and sold Ireland on us.

“Well, this modeling thing sure is working well for you, Jeff, aren’t you glad I suggested it?” Victor asked me while we were having lunch across the street from the Stargate building. There was this great deli that sold amazing Reuben sandwiches.

“Yeah, well, I’m just glad you’ve stopped laughing at me. A few pictures here and there have had more than enough benefit.” I chuckled and Victor did too, sharing a knowing smile.

“So what are you doing with the money you’re making?” Victor asked before taking a bite of his sandwich.

I shrugged dismissively.

“Giving it to a few charities and non-profits. It’s not like I need it,” I pointed out. Victor smiled at me almost like a proud older brother. We ate in comfortable silence for a few moments until Victor broke the silence with a bombshell.

“So…Vanessa and I are sleeping together.”

I choked on my sandwich and grabbed my water to chug down. I took several deep breaths and then looked at Victor head on, locking gazes with him.

“You and Vanessa are seriously a couple now?” I asked him in all seriousness. His gaze was unflinching and I saw that he really was growing feelings for her.

“Yeah, she’s…she’s amazing. Anyway, I just wanted to be upfront with you about it because I know you’re worried things could end badly. We are together and it’s serious,” Victor said plainly.

I sat back against the booth’s plush red seat.

“Alright then, just in case, Victor, let human resources know you’re in a relationship with her. I’m not saying it to be a dick, I’m just being careful.”

Victor nodded and waved his hand in both reassurance and dismissal. “Yeah, I understand, and I will. It’s no big deal.” Victor was cool with it and I allowed myself to be happy for him. A grin stretched across my face and Vic rolled his eyes at me.

“I’m sorry, but the last time you’ve been in a relationship was like two years ago. Vanessa is hot by the way, you could do a whole lot worse.”

Victor gave me a warning look. “Hey she’s mine, get your own. Anyway, with the amount of women coming after you now, when are you going to find the right one to settle down with?”

My eyes widened at the fact that he just said, settle down.

“Settle down? You’re thinking about settling down with her? Wow…Vanessa truly is magic.” Victor threw a napkin at me and I laughed. “This is amazing, I have to call Mama Galina and tell her she’s finally getting a daughter-in-law.”

Victor’s eyes widened at my joke and I laughed even harder. “Don’t you even joke about that, my mother would be on the first plane over and she’ll never leave us alone.”

I couldn’t help but laugh again at the visual.

“Alright, alright, I’m done, but I am happy for you, Vic,” I said sincerely. I couldn’t help but think that he might be right, though, in his actions. I was thirty-four and it was probably about time I started settling down. Finding the right woman, however, might prove to be difficult.

Chapter2

Christina

My alarm jolted me out of a deep sleep and I floundered to turn the blaring contraption off. I really needed to get a new alarm clock, or maybe a phone so I could use that as my alarm. I couldn’t take waking up with a headache every day. I ended up knocking the clock off of my nightstand and it fell to the floor, the power plug coming out of the wall and effectively killing the annoying beeping.

I sighed and pushed the blankets back to get up and get my day started. My once optimistic outlook on moving to New York City was swiftly waning. My job search was grueling, especially as I didn’t know anyone in the city who could get me any connections for a good advertising or marketing job.

I rolled out of bed and marched across the open studio space to my bathroom for a quick shower. I dressed in a white blouse and dark blue jeans with a pair of white and gold flats. I had found a job at a modeling agency and was basically the intern assistant who got everyone coffee and food.

I did do some secretarial work, but I mostly worked on the shoots and catered to the models' and photographers’ needs. It was entry level and mind numbing, but the agency was high-end and the job paid the bills. I quickly put on a few accessories and then grabbed my purse and keys to head to work.

I lived in Brooklyn, just across the bridge from Manhattan, where the rent was marginally cheaper. It only made my commute about an hour long, and that was depending on traffic. I walked downstairs and out to the curb where my trusty Honda Civic sat waiting for me. It was nearly fifteen years old, but Ol’ Betty never missed a beat. I stopped by my favorite coffee and bagel place first for some breakfast and then headed into the city.

“There you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for you, Christina, weren’t you supposed to start at seven today?” One of the talent coordinators all but pounced on me as soon as I had my foot in the door.

“It is seven, Kristi,” I pointed out and she glanced down at her watch.

She seemed a bit confused, but also erratic and hopped up on something. Perhaps too many espresso shots. She was notorious for knocking those back.

“Oh, well, I guess I lost track of time. Anyway, we’re setting up another shoot for Armani and I need to know if you can work tomorrow night. Of course you can, because we need you. Now, there’s a ton of phone messages Jennie made a mess of earlier and she needs your help sorting them out and getting them to the right people. After that, can you go and pick up bagels and coffee from that place everyone loved on Second Avenue? Thanks Chris, you’re a lifesaver!” Kristi was like a whirlwind as she gave me orders and then hurried over to her office.

I walked over to the reception desk and Jennie smiled at me knowingly.

“I’m guessing from the shell-shocked look on your face you encountered Kristi in hyper drive.”

I laughed and then nodded.

“I’ve never seen her at that level of wired before, I’m worried about her heart.”

Jennie waved away my concern. “She’s built like an ox. This is a rare occasion; she actually hasn’t had any caffeine yet. She’s been up all night and is just naturally wired. She’s half delirious right now, it’s amazing,” Jennie said while going through the pile of messages on the desk.

“Well, let me help you with those, I don’t know if I want to see what she’s like when she’s delirious and pissed off,” Jennie snorted. I sat down behind the reception desk with her to sort out which messages went to whom. One would think that in a chic office like this, there would be a better system for receiving messages. But the boss was old fashioned and she liked to have messages handwritten and read aloud when the information was needed or called for.

Urban Plus Management was run by Marissa Fiore and she used to be the icon for modeling.

She only worked with male models, because she never had time for the “attitudes” of female models. Yet, the office was full of women who work for her. I never understood that, but she was a legend, so who was I to question it, really.

“How did all of this get so disorganized? If Marissa saw this mess she’d definitely fire someone.” Jennie sighed and I looked over at her questioningly.

“It wasn’t really my fault. Kristi, in her hyper-driven state, knocked over the message board and the tray. So now I don’t know who got their messages or who got what messages. I can’t tell old from new. We should come up with a system so this doesn’t happen again,” Jennie said in agitation.

“Yeah, instead of putting old messages in the bin, they should be marked off as well as put in the bin. Just in case it’s knocked over again,” I suggested.

“You know what, that’s a fantastic idea, Christina. Shame no one could have thought of it before this mess happened. Now, how did this mess happen?” Speak of the devil, Marissa appeared as if out of nowhere and was leaning over the reception desk, witnessing Jennie and I trying to sort through the many messages.

She seemed only a little annoyed, which was good, thankfully.

“Oh! Miss Fiore, good morning. You’re in early today!” Kristi came hurrying out of her office and Marissa’s annoyed gaze flitted over to her.

“Yes, of course I am! I was here before any of you were arranging for two of our men to be on the cover of Vogue. Now, I’d like for you, Kristi, to tell me how this mess happened?”

Oh shit, Marissa was onto Kristi like a blood hound to bacon. Kristi was definitely going to get chewed for this, I thought.

“Um…I, uh…” Both Jennie and I flinched at this painful moment. Poor Kristi, I just hoped Marissa didn’t fire the woman.

“You made the mess, Kristi, then you told Jennie to take the blame for you if I asked, on top of making her and Christina clean it up for you. You know how I like organization, and look at you. All hyped and disheveled. You can take the messages and clean up the mess yourself, after which you can go home. I don’t want to see you until you pull yourself together. Wednesday the earliest.”

With that, Marissa turned on her heel and stalked across the room and into her office.

We all sat in stunned silence for a beat and then Kristi silently gathered the messages and went into her office to organize them.

“I feel bad,” I whispered to Jennie.

She nodded woodenly, her eyes still wide.

“I know, me too. But you should probably go and get that coffee before Marissa comes back to chew you out for not having her breakfast here,” Jennie reminded me and I grabbed my keys, all but running from the industrial warehouse office.

The building had a lot of fashion firms and modeling agencies inside. Each floor was a separate office that had an open floor plan. When you walked into our office from the elevator, you were immediately met by reception and a spacious seating area.

Then, past that, there were two long tables with six desk setups for the various assistants and surrounding it were six offices for the managers and coordinators, and of course, Marissa. They were all pretty much glass enclosed, but there were blinds that could be drawn for privacy.

I needed to get from Seventh Avenue to Second and back quickly, no one liked a hard bagel or cold coffee. I was able to make it back with soft warm bagels and hot coffee, thankfully.

“Wow, that was fast, girl, you’re lucky Marissa hasn’t come out of her office for coffee yet. But a teary eyed Kristi just left for home.”

I shook my head sadly and shared a sympathetic look with Jennie. I went to place the bagels and coffee on the food table next to the water cooler and then headed to my desk to take a small breather. Sometimes working at Urban Plus was a head spin, but that’s mostly because I was basically an intern and had to do grunt work and be everywhere at once.

The rest of the day proved to be fast paced as Marissa took on three new guys in the agency and was setting up shoots left and right for them. I was making appointments with Jennie, taking messages, running errands, and I even had to switch out the heavy jug for the water cooler. By the time I got home at nine, I was ridiculously tired, what was worst of all was that I had to wake up at five to do it all over again.

I collapsed on my couch when I got in from work and realized that I really needed to put some more time into my job search. If I got lazy with it I’d never find the job I knew I deserved. Going to Penn State had to stand for something. Once I found the job, then I could actually start my life in the city. I could make friends and not be so frazzled and stressed all the time. I sighed and sent my resume out to several other marketing firms and advertising companies in the city.

After that, I forced myself to take a shower so I could have a few extra minutes to sleep in the morning. I was too tired to have dinner and simply collapsed into bed when I got out of the shower.

My alarm clock woke me up with the usual headache and I made a mental note to go and buy a freaking cell phone after work today, or maybe on my lunch break. When I was at work, they provided a work phone, but I had to turn it in at the end of the day. It was another one of Marissa’s odd rules. After I showered and was heading down to my car, I remembered that I had to work late that night. I sighed and then groaned out loud. I so needed to be rid of this job.

The drive to work was unusually quick and I found myself arriving at work early, just as Marissa was getting in. She actually smiled at me on the elevator ride up to the office.

“Well, Christina, it’s nice to see someone on the ball around here. I’m glad you’ll be at the Armani shoot today, we could use ten of you, honestly,” she said with a cordial smile.

Marissa was a tall and handsome woman, she was in her early fifties and had thick black hair and prominent cheekbones which were her staple back in her modeling days.

Her olive skin tone came from her undeniable Mediterranean background, as did her black irises. Her gaze was piercing when she wanted it to be, but she was very beautiful and a smile always lightened up her face.

“Thank you, Marissa, I always do my best.”

Her smile almost widened; wow, she was in a good mood today. I wondered if one of her new models had a private meeting with her the night before. It was rumored around the office that she only handled male models because she wanted them for more than “management” purposes.

“That is better to say than trying to do your best. I like that about you. You know, if I were to fire Kristi, you could easily take her place. But I’m afraid the girl is pregnant now and I’d be faced with a lawsuit if I did,” Marissa said with thinly veiled disgust.

I hid my reaction at her obvious lack of concern for poor Kristi. No wonder she was so frazzled yesterday.

“Anyways, since you’re still the assistant, I’d appreciate it if you could bring me my coffee and breakfast early,” Marissa clicked into her office and shut the door before I could respond.

I went to pick up my assigned phone and then headed out to get the bagels and coffee. The day started out slow as the line at the bagel shop was exponentially long and the wait for coffee was just as painful. Marissa was going to kill me. Instead of having her breakfast thirty minutes early, I had it in the same time it normally took me.

“Christina, you’re back, thank goodness. Two of the models who were supposed to do the Armani shoot tonight caught food poisoning at some restaurant they were at and Marissa is freaking out trying to replace them. Grab a few model profiles and start calling,” Jennie said, handing me a stack of contacts and I went to put out breakfast before sitting at my desk with the other frazzled assistants calling away.

The first name on my stack was a Jeffrey Bates, the number was to his assistant, though, and not Jeffrey himself. That was weird. I wondered if he was that high up in the modeling world that he had to have an assistant talk to his modeling agency.

I managed to book Jeffrey for the shoot and another model who fit the description Armani was after. Marissa came striding out of her office and told me again how she wished Kristi wasn’t pregnant. I thought that was her way of thanking me. The rest of the day, though, went by just the same as all the others. I was a glorified errand girl. With Kristi out and Marissa thinking I should have her job,

she gave me all of Kristi’s work to do on top of everything else. Yet, I was still being paid the same damn salary. Intermittently throughout the day, I found myself also wishing Kristi wasn’t pregnant.

“Alright Christina, are you ready to go? I know you had a tough workload today. Don’t worry, I plan to give you a much needed bonus for it.” Marissa stepped out of her office with her bag and keys. I stood up from my desk, not completely sure if she said she’d give me “a much needed bonus.”

“Maybe then you can afford to buy yourself a cell phone for Christ’s sake,” she mumbled and a wide grin spread across my face. Well, maybe I actually was getting somewhere with the job…maybe. I followed Marissa to the shoot and she ordered me to freshen my makeup before we went in.

I sat in my car and studied my features as I touched up my mascara, lipstick and powdered my nose. I was pretty enough. Marissa had high standards and would certainly not hire anyone less than “model worthy themselves”, or so she said.

I really didn’t see it. Yeah, I had a nice bone structure, feminine with nice cheekbones, I had dimples and a nice smile. My nose wasn’t overpowering on my face. My lips were full and my chocolate brown skin smooth from my Caribbean roots. I had nice eyes, though, they were a caramel color, framed by thick lashes and my eyebrows had a natural arch to them. I seldom had to get my eyebrows done. I was also blessed with manageable curly black hair, so I didn’t have many of the problems other girls with my skin tone had with their hair.

Thinking about hair made me remember my mom. She grew up in Jamaica and came to the USA for school and that’s when she met my father, who was also Jamaican, and they had me. She swore up and down that I was adopted because my hair was so different from hers.

Of course, she was joking and made sure I knew I was theirs. She had pictures all over the house of me when I was a baby, of her in the hospital with me just having been born. A tear sneaked down my face and I quickly dabbed it away. I couldn’t get lost in thoughts of my parents, not now.

I pulled myself together and met Marissa at the front of the hotel where the Armani people were shooting. Marissa gave me a once over and nodded in approval. “You have good genes; you could go into modeling, you know. Perhaps not on such a grand scale as Armani or Vogue, but your face could be seen in Targets everywhere.” I looked over at Marissa and wondered if she was serious. She made eye contact with me and I saw that she was and meant what she said as some sort of compliment.

“Um…thank you, but I’m not one for modeling, I’m too shy.” Marissa shrugged her shoulder dismissively as if it made no difference to her. I discreetly shook my head and we went into the Waldorf Astoria and headed back to the private bar that was reserved for the shoot.

“There are my beautiful men. Where’s Stephan? Why haven’t we started yet?” It was really weird, but Marissa went truly soft when it came to her “beautiful men.” She almost coddled them and made sure they were well taken care of.