That was when someone came up behind me and put their hands over my eyes.
“Guess who?” a sexy voice whispered in my ear.
“Hannah?” I asked.
“When are you going to give it up?” Adrienne moaned.
“Hey, a guy can dream,” I shot back.
I was let go and found a pissed-off Halle.
“Oh, hey, baby,” I said a little sheepishly.
“Who’s Hannah?” she demanded.
“Just a girl I met once. I asked her to Prom last year and she turned me down repeatedly,” I confessed.
“Okay, show me a picture of Hannah. I need to know who my competition is,” Halle ordered.
I quickly grabbed my cell phone and went to the folder where I had my Hannah Minacci pictures. They were from when she surprised me on my flight to New York. The first one was her sitting next to me, vamping for the camera as I tried to sleep. Then she kissed me. I showed Halle how she could start the slideshow. It even had music.
Everyone chuckled when Marvin Gaye started singing Let’s Get It On. I was swaying to the music as Halle looked at me incredulously.
“I don’t suppose you have any pictures of me?” she accused me.
I took my phone back and opened her folder. I hit the slideshow and Bruno Mars sang Just The Way You Are. Halle teared up and then put me into a death grip as she kissed me.
“Aawwwww,” Gina said in a singsong voice.
“What brings you to New York?” I asked.
“Kendal told me where you were going to be this weekend. She got me in touch with Tyler so I could surprise you. Surprise!”
I found out the restaurant was just waiting for Halle to get here to seat us. I was relieved they weren’t treating Adrienne badly. Yes, my sarcasm meter really did go that high.
WHEN WE ARRIVED AT the nightclub, we were escorted to the VIP section. They were smart in that they had rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the dance floor. The rooms were climate-controlled, so if the club got hot you could take a break and cool off. The other feature I loved was you could turn down the music so you could hear yourself talk. All the girls went with Chuck to the dance floor and left Halle and me alone.
“How goes the movie?” I asked.
“Good, Jessup’s ahead of schedule. I do have one piece of news for you, though,” she said, getting a mischievous look on her face. “Remember when you were having everyone teach you how to dance?”
“Yes.”
“The cameras were running and they put together a short of you dancing. It’s very funny,” she told me.
I just closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I could just imagine me doing some of the goofier moves. They had blackmail material on me for years to come.
“What’s it going to cost me to keep it from going public?” I asked.
“Not a chance in hell, Buddy. The marketing people love it. Dancing Stryker will be used in the ad campaign.”
She giggled when she saw the look of horror on my face. She patted my hand.
“Don’t worry, you may look like a special-needs dancer, but it comes off as funny. Everyone who’s seen it has about peed their pants. It makes you more human and approachable. When my mom saw it, she said you’re going to be a star someday.”
This just got worse the more she talked. What’s that prayer? Just deal with what you have control of? This was out of my control. I could either choose to get upset, or embrace it. I decided to embrace it. I grabbed her hand, took her out on the dance floor, and showed her some of my goofier moves. I had Halle in stitches. I pulled out the Carlton dance from a show I’d seen in reruns, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. They had a character named Carlton who thought he could dance. I had his hopping from foot to foot and the weird arm-swing down pat. All I needed was the Tom Jones song to be playing. Halle threatened to quit dancing with me if I kept it up.
We had a great time. Halle and I were becoming good friends. I don’t think either of us felt there was a future there, at least not right now. She and Adrienne hit it off as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if Adrienne signed her to do some modeling. It seemed like they were thick as thieves whenever I was out dancing with one of my other friends.
At the end of the night I grabbed a cab so the others could continue to have fun. I dropped Halle off at the Gramercy Park Hotel. She had an early flight back to Vancouver. I was impressed she’d fly across the country just to spend a few hours with me.
Saturday February 7
I GOT UP EARLY AND went down to the apartment to collect Kendal. I found Olivia and Courtney trying to wake up.
“Where can I get a good bagel?” I asked them.
“There’s a place just around the corner that makes them fresh. How about we grab some clothes and you buy us breakfast?” Courtney offered.
“That sounds good to me.”
They hurried off to change as Kendal came out. Her hair was still damp. I wasn’t surprised when Gina and Kara joined us. Olivia taught Gina the finer points of eating a bagel. They still thought Kendal was a barbarian when she loaded hers up with cream cheese. They’d taught me you only did a schmear when you put the cream cheese on. Their smoked salmon was mouthwatering. New York knows how to do bagels.
We met Tyler, Chuck and Adrienne in the lobby and took a car to the shoot. On the ride over Chuck gave me a hard time about going out without him. I think he just wanted a bagel. Kendal had brought one for him, and when she produced it he stopped whining.
Dakora was in the garment district and we were going to do the shoot there. They had a place off the design area set up for us. Tyler and Adrienne met with their management while Kendal and I went to find makeup and wardrobe.
Ever been somewhere where you get a bad vibe? I had one, almost immediately. There were four other male models there for the shoot. I’d seen them in previous ads for Dakora when I researched the brand for the shoot. What I noticed was they all seemed uncomfortable. There was just something about their body language that was off-putting.
I’ll give Dakora credit. Their clothes were hip and trendy. Any guy with some fashion sense would want to be seen in their clothes. It was mainly geared to younger, upwardly mobile playboys. Their claim to fame was their sport jackets and suits because they weren’t afraid of color. I had on a lime-green suit which surprisingly looked good. Of course, I would never be caught dead in it, but I could see a confident man could pull it off and actually stand out.
I came out of wardrobe and Kendal put her hand over her mouth. Tyler rolled her eyes and Adrienne gave me a big grin.
“What do you think?” I asked them with mock seriousness.
“You look very metrosexual,” Adrienne said as she straightened my collar.
Tyler caught my look.
“It’s a good thing. You look handsome,” she reassured me.
It felt like a compliment my mom would have made when she didn’t know what else to say. I looked at Kendal and she wouldn’t meet my eye. My shoulders slumped in defeat as I walked to the set. I could hear them all giggle at my expense. I found I didn’t have the worst outfit on: one of the guys had on pink.
During the shoot, I figured out what was wrong; two things, actually. The first was the other models were worried I would take their gigs from them. I had no control over that, so I didn’t worry about it. It was what it was. Models lost jobs all the time.
The second was a little more elusive. It was an attitude which seemed to go through the whole company. It was the big-city-elitist-looking-down-on-the-world-with-contempt attitude. They were all very careful to be politically correct, but you just felt they thought I was a hayseed from the backwoods. I think if I’d pointed it out to them, they would have been horrified anyone would label them as such. The more I was in contact with any of their people, the more I disliked them.