“It was okay, I guess.” I kept my voice light as my mind searched through all the possible answers I could give. “He was nice and took me home, and that was about it.”
“Nothing happened?” She turned her head to me. “Not even a kiss?” Her surprise reflected in the soft line on her forehead, but her tone remained unchanged. She had no reason to doubt me, so lying to her came easy.
I shook my head. “I kept feeling sick. Guess I had too much of Gina’s favorite cocktail.”
At least the first part was true.
Now was the time to ask about Gina, but for some reason I couldn’t. Thalia had been such a good friend and she had helped me get a job. I couldn’t afford to piss her off by accusing her friend of spiking my drink. What if hers had been spiked, too, and she knew about it all along? Instead of bringing that up, I recounted my interview with Grayson and his request that I posed nude.
“Where do you get your confidence from?” I asked when the lights changed and she hit the accelerator.
“It’s really about doing what you believe in,” Thalia said. “For me, confidence doesn’t come with natural beauty. You can be beautiful but still not feel sexy and, hence, have no confidence. Confidence comes when you feel good about yourself and whatever you’re doing. For me, that’s when my hair’s curled and I wear red, waterproof lipstick.” She turned briefly to me and laughed out loud. “Your problem isn’t that you aren’t confident or sexy, Jenna. Your problem is that you try too hard to be like others. When you blend in, you become one of many and so you don’t allow yourself to be unique. Maybe you should care less about what people say and do, and focus more on becoming the real you.”
She grimaced and changed the radio station until she was happy with the music. Her fingers began to tap to the new rhythm almost instantly, and then she continued, “It’s the only way you should be: simply you. Knowing that there’s just one of you in the world, you should be proud of posing nude. Naturally, me being me is what gives me confidence.”
The car slowed as we took a narrow left turn, and then Thalia hit the accelerator with so much force I held onto my seat for support.
I swallowed the bile in my throat as I was briefly reminded of Jett’s driving. He was a maniac in that department, as in so many others. He lived hard and loved harder. Relationships with men like him always come with an expiry date. It was just too bad I had to learn it the hard way.
Half an hour later, we arrived at Grayson’s. Thalia locked up the car and we headed up to the studio, which, according to Thalia, had been rented out for a gallery event for the night. The guests hadn’t arrived yet, which left us enough time to look around and get changed on time.
The bare walls of the studio had been transformed. Paintings and pictures in black and green hung on the walls, and tables with champagne and delicious appetizers lined the far left side, near the tall windows. I had been assured that the job would be simple. Gina, Thalia and I were instructed to dress up, then pose behind a glass wall like mannequins, and the rest of the girls had to talk and entertain guests.
I didn’t mind that my green lace dress was so short that others could see all the way up to Alaska. I also didn’t mind that Grayson expected me to sit still on a plush chair, with my legs on each side, so they would look longer. He had come up with the idea to cover up the fact that I was shorter than the other girls.
Wearing Thalia’s black, China-doll wig, I did as instructed, keeping perfectly still. All my emotions—the good, the bad, and the worse—were hidden behind the glass, even though I felt like a mammoth stuffed in a glass house inside a museum.
By the time drinks were served, all the other models had arrived, buzzing around with excitement at the prospect of meeting new clients.
All but Gina.
I scanned the room, taking in the changes in the interior design and the unfamiliar faces, but there was no sign of her.
“Where’s Gina?” I asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Thalia said, glancing at her watch. “She’s probably running late. It wouldn’t be her first time.”
As it turned out, Gina didn’t arrive later either. A half-hour into the event, a girl with blonde curls, looking like the youngest of them all, joined us as Gina’s replacement. I shot Thalia a questioning look, but there was no time for an introduction, because the actual event had started and guests were piling in.
The gallery quickly filled with people. With constant new arrivals and free-flowing champagne, laughter and chatter echoed through the open space. I had never before attended a gallery event, so I had always assumed it would be a boring, apathetic experience—certainly not something full of vibrancy and life. From my heightened position, I stared at the guests, who were far less interested in the frames hanging on the walls than in socializing with the other visitors. Only a few turned their head toward the models standing behind the glass wall, paying any attention to our perfected poses. Most seemed taken in by the generous buffet, and that didn’t surprise me; it looked so delicious that my stomach growled.