2cool2btrue (3 page)

She stopped again and then slowly walked back towards me. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Erm.” Oh shit, what is my name? I thought, panic gripping me like an anaconda. “Charlie, Charlie Barrett,” I said at last. It sounded like I’d just made it up. That
was
right, wasn’t it? Yeah, Charlie Barrett, that’s me.

“Thing is, Charlie Barrett, I’m booked up all this week—”

“Ohrightnoproblemsureofcoursejustwonderednevermind,” I spewed elegantly.

“But I could do lunch on Wednesday.”

“Lunch?”

“Yeah, why not? You do
have
lunch, don’t you?”

“Yes, I have lunch every Wednesday,” I said. It was supposed to be a joke but I’m still not sure how it sounded.

“Give me your number and I’ll ring you in the morning to confirm where and when,” she said.

I thought, Oh I see, that’s a nice way to do it. You won’t ring, you’ll accidentally lose it and I’ll be too embarrassed to mention it if we ever meet again at a casting. Slightly despondently, I gave her my number and expected nothing.

But she did ring me. We went out to a little restaurant in Soho where she had fish and salad because she was on a high protein/low carb diet. I ordered chicken Kiev. I didn’t particularly want it but I’d been too busy talking to look at the menu, and when the waiter came it was the first thing I saw.

“You’re not doing any swimwear stuff at the moment,” she said as I gave my order.

“How do you mean?”

“Chicken Kiev, all that butter.”

“Oh right, no, no not really.”

“That’s the thing about boys, you never have to watch your diet, do you?” she said.

“No, I suppose not. I just tend to eat any old thing,” I said, laughing oafishly.

“You’re lucky, you’ve got a naturally slim build,” she said. Was there just a flicker of a smile across her face as she realised the effect that this innocent observation was having on me? I mean, it was a compliment, wasn’t it? “I bet you never put on weight, do you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean no, not really.”

She definitely smiled this time. “Do you do much sport or go to the gym?”

“Swimming. And I play football on Saturdays.” I watched her snap off a piece of bread stick. “Why are you laughing?”

She laughed more. “Because you sound like a little boy talking about your hobbies to a friend of your mum’s or something.” She laughed again. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.”

“I collect stamps too.”

She stopped smiling and looked unsure for a moment as though she felt she ought to say something polite about philately.

I let the confusion continue for a moment. Then I said, “I’m joking.” She laughed—amused by my joke or her own gullibility? Who cares? Lauren 1. Charlie 1.

I loved the way she loved being annoyed by my teasing. It was like playing along with my silly jokes made her cross but she couldn’t help it. Even if nothing had ever come of this romantically, I’d have learnt something about how to market myself as a model, how to buy an Individual Savings Account, how to negotiate with hotels to get the best room rate and how to fillet a fish.

That makes the rest of our conversation sound so tedious, but it wasn’t. Lauren was just so on the ball. About everything. Opinionated, perceptive and funny too. Everything interested her and she had strong views on every subject.

Later, having asked about my background and career, she told me about hers: she had done A-levels, two As and a B, but had decided to put off going to college because she wanted to see something of the world. She had known she had the potential to be a model, so she decided this would be a good way of earning money while she figured out what she really wanted to do with her life.

“I just couldn’t work for anyone, could you? I’ve always needed to be my own boss,” she said.

“I don’t know, never done it really,” I told her. “Work generally doesn’t, you know, do it for me.”

She stopped the expert filleting of her seabass and looked at me again. Was I being serious? I wasn’t sure. I was just giving her a provocative, enigmatic look which always works well in shots for women’s magazines, when my chicken Kiev, into which I’d just stuck my knife, spurted melted butter across the table at her. It exploded. All over this beautiful, elegant woman. In the middle of the restaurant. On our first date. Hot, liquid butter, flecked with chopped parsley, dripping down her cream linen dress. A huge, yellow smear. The restaurant seemed to go silent. Or was that just the strange hissing noise in my ears, the kind you get before you faint?

Eventually I managed to drag my eyes away from the stain and look up at her face. She was expressionless. Then she rolled her eyes (oh, God, not a good sign, surely. Why? Why me? Why now?) and suddenly smiled.

“Charlie Barrett,” she said. “You are a fuckwit.”

Waiters fluttered around. The owner’s wife was consulted. Napkins were produced. Advice was given. We finally ate, although on my part every mouthful was torture. As we ordered coffee and I emptied her sachet of sugar as well as my own into my cappuccino, it occurred to me that not only could she carry off almost any situation—anything that life, figuratively speaking, or me, literally speaking, could ever throw at her—but I’d never be lost or bored with this woman. I was right. Lauren has an inbuilt compass so she always knows exactly where she is going, and at that moment I decided I wanted to tag along.

As we walked through the restaurant she had an even greater effect on our fellow customers than she had had in the casting. The butter stain looked, at a cursory glance, like a pattern on the dress and she gave the impression that she really didn’t care at all about it. Garlic butter appliqué? Oh, it’s very in this season, didn’t you know?

I held the door open for her and she swept out, putting on her sunglasses as she did so.

“Are you around next week?” I asked her, assuming she’d give me a polite, polished brush off, the kind of thing a girl as stunning as her would have to say to men about two or three times a day. Especially to one who has just covered her with the contents of a chicken Kiev.

But she didn’t.

“Actually, we could do something tomorrow,” she said.

“Oh, right, I thought you were busy all…” What the fuck was I doing? Trying to put her off?

“Yes, I was,” she said. “But I’ve decided to cancel.”

I
arrive at the job early, with a selection of trendy young businessman’s clothes as instructed. I’ve brought a navy blue suit, a long-sleeved polo shirt, a black T-shirt, a cream button-down collar shirt and a French cuffed navy blue number with matching cufflinks. One thing about this job is that you need a large wardrobe—although mirrors on it aren’t compulsory. Oh, God, those mirrors. It happened again last night. Perhaps we can’t do it without the use of mirrors any more. We don’t smoke, natch, but we do use mirrors to create an illusion.

Lauren, needless to say, has put her wardrobe together with military precision over the years she’s been modelling. Her side of the hanging space contains suits, skirts, blouses and casual clothes to fit every occasion: busy executive, young mother, seductive girl in bed, sensible woman in the kitchen. All perfectly appropriate for her colouring and build, all tax deductible. Lauren does her own accountancy. She also does mine, now.

I, needless to say, have chosen my work clothing with absolutely no thought or skill whatsoever. Most of it is stuff I wear anyway, stuff I’ve rushed out and bought the day before a job, stuff I’ve borrowed from friends and sort of forgotten to return, stuff I got cheap at Primark because I know I need it, plus a couple of things I’ve nicked from fashion shoots: “Where
is
that grey T-shirt?” one harassed stylist asked me after a job. I shrugged my shoulders. “Dunno, search me,” I said, knowing that if she did she’d find the missing item in my bag. Oh, shut up! They’ve got thousands of them. On the other hand, I’ve also been chased down the road by a stylist to return a pair of socks that I’d forgotten to take off. It’s tit for tat.

But this is a suit job. Smart, confident and on the ball. Huh, I wonder what that feels like. It’s the job from the casting the other day, the dotcom job.

“Clever boy,” said Karyn when she rang to tell me I’d got it. “I knew you looked like a dotcommer.”

“What? You mean broke, washed up and desperate.”

“What’s the matter with you? What happened to your get-up-and-go?”

“It got up and went.”

“Oh, Charlie. Don’t be so cynical.”

Perhaps it’s beginning to show.

“Sorry, Karyn. I’m delighted. How much is it again?” I know that will encourage me, even minus agency commission.

“Fifteen hundred, and you’re worth every penny of it.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

We’re shooting it at a massive loft apartment overlooking the river in Battersea. Sun is flooding in, the clothes they have brought for me, having spurned my own motley collection, are actually really cool—lots of Prada, Ermenegildo Zegna and Dries Van Noten. They’ve even managed to get the right sizes in some cases. It often amazes me that although all my sizes are clearly printed on my card in UK and European versions and we confirm them before the job, the stylists always manage to get the wrong ones. It must be on their list of things to do: 1) Bring iron. 2) Polish up shoes. 3) Make sure model’s clothes don’t fit.

Moan, moan. Sorry.

Piers bursts in, late again, just as we’re going through the wardrobe and the photographer’s assistant, a fat guy called Benny with Buddy Holly specs, is putting up the lights.

“Morning, gang,” Piers sings at us, his fruity voice filling the whole cathedral-like void of the apartment. There is no way any of us can match his enthusiasm so our responses sound decidedly downbeat. “What have we got for our cool young businessman to wear?”

He dives into the neatly laid-out wardrobe and starts throwing the things around, much to the annoyance of the stylist, Hilary, a tall, willowy girl who is frightfully posh and has just been telling me about working on the latest Joseph Fiennes movie. “He’s like such a total sweetie, yeah?” I feel I should apologise for being just a nondescript model doing some crappy advertising shoot.

“This is great,” says Piers, pulling out a black Prada shirt and holding it up. “This is very ‘2cool.’ Guy! Very ‘2cool,’ don’t you think?”

Guy, who is talking intently to the photographer, looks over and nods.

“I haven’t ironed that yet,” says Hilary, snatching it back.

“You need a dark suit too, like this,” Piers informs me, ignoring Hilary and grabbing a jacket off the rack. “Yep, perfect.”

“He can’t wear all that black, he’ll just disappear in the picture,” says Hilary, failing to catch the trousers as they slide off the hanger.

“Excellent,” says Piers, dumping the whole lot on her and marching over to Guy and the photographer, presumably to cock things up there too.

Hilary runs her hands through her hair and says quietly, “Just keep that twat away from me, will you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I tell her, picking up the trousers.

I always get on well with stylists and makeup artists, even though makeup takes thirty seconds for boys—just a bit of powder to stop us shining, and something to cover up any spots and shaving cuts that have chosen to appear that morning. Remember those unwelcome but very noticeable visitors on the day of a teenage party? Well, the bigger the modelling job the more likely they are to pop up—literally.

Perhaps because this isn’t exactly a massive job, there are none of the little buggers in evidence, which means I spend even less time with the makeup artist, an Eastern European girl with a round, pale face whose name I don’t catch.

The only time I’ve ever lost my temper with a wardrobe person was when I was doing a show for Paul Costello. My dresser rabbited on endlessly about the new apartment she was buying with her boyfriend, and I only just had time to let her rip off one set of clothes and help me put a suit on ready to go out again. I did my stuff, sauntering down the catwalk (or runway as we call it in the biz, just to make it clear that we are
in
the biz) and came back ready to change into the next outfit on the rail. It was only when I reached down to take off my trousers that I realised she had sent me off there and back without my fly done up.

“Oh, fuck,” I hissed. “How embarrassing. How could you do that?”

“Look, mate,” she said, thrusting a jacket at me, “there are some places where only
your
hands go.”

The thing about these shoots is that as a model you have almost nothing to do all day until the very last minute when the photographer, art director, client and God knows who else who feels like a day out of the office decides that they are ready for you. So you sit around and chat with strangers. By the end of the day you sometimes find that you know almost all there is to know about someone you had never met before that morning and might never meet again.

This shoot is relatively painless. They only need three different pictures, apparently. It still manages to take all day, of course. I talk to Piers and Guy quite a bit in between shots. They’re actually nice guys. They’re interested in what it’s like to be a model and I ask a bit about their new venture.

“I thought dotcoms were all finished,” I say, smiling to show I’m being deliberately provocative.

“The first generation certainly are,” says Piers. “It’s all about timing. Those guys thundered in without thinking and everybody—banks, investment houses, venture capitalists—just poured money at them in a sort of blind panic, but if you looked at the business plans very often there were no obvious revenue streams.”

Guy says, “We’re about building stable business models—”

“With carefully targeted audiences and correct market positioning,” jumps in Piers.

“We’re looking to create market synergies with appropriate trading partners,” says Guy, looking at me intensely as if he’s willing me to challenge him or ask him to elaborate.

Instead I say, “That seems very sensible.”

Lunch is a vast selection of sandwiches, cold chicken and salads. It’s one of the best lunches I’ve ever had on a job. There are fruit juices and a kind of mineral water I haven’t seen before. According to the label it comes from newly melted snows and glaciers at the tip of the Andes. The rain from which this snow was made fell before the industrial revolution and so it is exceptionally pure, it says. Glacial Purity. What does that mean? I hold it up to the light. Glacial Purity. I like the sound of that. Mind you, when I see the menu and the receipts for the food and notice that it’s six pounds a bottle, I’d have to really like it.

We finish just before five.

“We’re wrapped, guys, well done,” says the photographer, a small, dapper man in black with a cap of salt-and-pepper grey hair.

“We’re wrapped everyone,” echoes Piers.

“Thank you, Piers,” says Hilary, venomously folding clothes.

I take off my suit, put it back on the rack and then start to put on my own clothes.

“Can I have a word, Charlie?” says Guy.

“Sure,” I say, assuming that he and Piers are going to ask me to do some more work for them without the agency—freelance, you might say. I’m not particularly averse to it; Penny has done very well out of me. Besides, it happens. Everyone does it.

Sure enough, he guides me to one corner of the huge, open-plan living room and says quietly, “We wondered if you’d be interested in working for us.”

“Mmm, could be.” Play it cool, see what they want and what kind of rates they’ll pay. What would Lauren ask?

“We think you’re the kind of guy we’re looking for for our venture, you know, just from talking to you today,” says Piers. “You’ve got the right look, the right manner.”

“So, you want to do something without the agency?” I ask, as if suddenly I’m not so sure about this and will need to be convinced—and remunerated adequately.

They exchange glances.

“Yeah,” says Guy, laughing gently. “We’d like you to help with our marketing.”

I let it sink in for a moment. “Really? You mean
not
modelling.” I’m not handing out flyers, that’s for sure.

They laugh a bit more this time.

“No, full-time marketing,” says Piers, his dark brown eyes fixing me. “I get the feeling you’re pretty bored with this game, aren’t you?”

“New challenge?” suggests Guy, raising his eyebrows.

“You’ve got a degree you haven’t used yet,” says Piers.

I think about it for a moment. This is a proper job they’re talking about. I’m about to ask whether I’ll have to wear a suit, then realise that I should probably find out about something a little more serious such as private health insurance or noncontributory pension schemes or something. Instead I just say, “Ummm.”

“Well, think it over,” says Guy, handing me a card.

“It does sound very interesting,” I say, trying not to sound like a complete dingbat. “It’s just that I haven’t done any marketing for, well, since I was at university.”

“Oh, you’ve got the basics,” says Piers. “This thing can really market itself.”

“Anyway, the important thing,” says Guy, “is that you’ve got the personality and the look. We’ve done the hard work, what we need is someone to charm the investors and customers, schmooze the media a bit. We’ll brief you on the company and what we’re doing. We’d like you to be the face of 2cool2btrue dot com.”

“2cool2btrue?”

“Dot com,” adds Guy, helpfully.

“It’s a second-generation Internet venture, learning from the mistakes of the first,” says Piers.

“Yeah, you said. But what does it do, exactly?”

“Have you got a moment now to talk about it? Shall we go for a drink somewhere?” says Guy.

We find a quiet pub across the road and Piers buys three Cokes while Guy begins their presentation. By this time, I’m over the initial shock, a bit more switched on. I decide to play devil’s advocate a bit.

“So what’s different about 2cool2btrue? I mean, what’s your unique selling point?” I ask.

“I thought you’d forgotten all your marketing stuff,” says Piers, setting down the drinks. “USPs already, I’m impressed.”

Guy ignores him and pauses for thought for a moment. “Image is everything these days, isn’t it?” he begins, putting his hands together as if in prayer. “Labels, market positioning, brands are what counts. No one, well hardly anyone, buys things today because they
need
them or because they’re the cheapest or whatever. They buy a product because of what it says about them. Look at advertising in the fifties and sixties and even the seventies—it was all about things working better than their competitors—”

“Or being cheaper,” interjects Piers.

“Exactly, or being cheaper, but no one really cares about that nowadays.”

“Mmm,” I say. It all makes sense to me, but I decide to keep looking sceptical.

“Now it’s the label. You buy Armani, Mercedes, Nike or Apple Mac or Smeg cookers or whatever not because they’re better put together or they fit you, and certainly not because they’re cheaper, but because you want to be seen with them.”

“Take your sneakers,” says Piers.

I look down quickly at them.

“What make are they?”

“Nike,” I say, pretending to have to look.