Model Guy (6 page)

 
"Oh, do tell,"
I say, aware that we've been talking about me for the last half an hour.

 
"We-e-e-ell, you
remember that audition tape I did for the shopping channel?"

 
"Oh, yeah, did you
get it?"

 
"Not that particular
one but I'm actually quite glad. That is a bit naff, I think. But anyway, they showed
it to this other producer and he thought it was great. He thought I had real screen
presence."

 
"Oh, that's brilliant,"
I say, coming round from the other side of the work top where we are both cooking,
well where Lauren is cooking up dinner and I'm cocking it up.

 
"He said I was, oh,
what was it? 'Warm but authoritative'."

 
"That's you."
I say, turning her round from the chopping board and putting my arms around her.

 
"Don't take the piss,
Charlie, this is serious," she says crossly, slapping my shoulder.

 
"I am being serious
- that is you. You are friendly but authoritative."

 
"Warm but authoritative."

 
"Yeah, whatever.
Exactly," I say, kissing her neck.

 
"Well, don't you
think that's good?"

 
"Yeah, I do. So what's
next?"

 
"Well he wants me
to go in and discuss some programme ideas with him and some of his colleagues later
this week."

 
"That's great. So
what kind of programme ideas? Who for?"

 
"We don't know yet
but they'll probably be lifestyle or property related. Perhaps something like Changing
Rooms or Ready Steady Cook, but with a new twist."

 
"Brilliant. You mean
for the BBC or Channel Four or something?"

 
"Well, it would probably
start off on cable but then it could transfer to terrestrial at a later date."
she says, letting the jargon roll off her tongue.

 
"Hey, you could do
something for 2cool."

 
"A tie in? It might
work, mightn't it? I'll suggest it." We both chop and stir in silence for a
moment then she says: "So you're going to do this thing then?"

 
"Yeah." I say,
realising that I've already made up my mind. "Yeah, I am. What have I got to
lose? They're going to pay £35,000 a year and if the whole thing crashes I'll just
go back to modelling, like you say. Or I might even set up my own website."

 
"Mmm," she says.
Dinner is actually ready now - grilled organic chicken, penne with homemade tomato
sauce and salad of rocket, cherry tomatoes, shaved parmesan and balsamic vinegar
dressing. But somehow we're not ready to eat yet, too lost in thought and excited
by the prospects of our future career plans stretching out before us.

 
"I think we should
do it, both of us," says Lauren looking across at me. "I think it's time
we made a career change."

 
"OK. Here's to new
careers," I say, holding up my glass.

I only got into modelling because a friend of mine from university
wanted to do it. Paul was very good looking with his wavy, dark hair and Tom Cruise
eyes and he knew it. He was planning to take a year off after we graduated and he
had decided to try and earn some money as a model. He suggested I have a go too.
I wasn't that bothered, in fact I didn't really fancy the idea very much, but I
told him I'd come with him. So we both got some pictures taken by a photographer
he'd had recommended to him and we took them to a few agencies. Obviously we didn't
tell anyone.

 
We started at the top
and not surprisingly were told that we both had a great look but it wasn't quite
right for them at the moment.

 
"Never mind,"
I said, assuming we'd knock it on the head and go and work in a bar or photocopying
in an office like most of our friends. But Paul wanted to try some other agencies,
so one hot afternoon in July, AtoZ and Travelcard in hand, feeling like a complete
burk, I followed him from one address to another. On one occasion just as we were
leaving a girl called to us: "Sorry, excuse me a minute".

 
Paul froze. This was it,
at last, a break - someone had seen what the others had missed, someone ready to
take a punt, trust an instinct. The girl looked closely at him and said: "Can
you leave this at reception on your way out", as she handed him a large envelope.
Whether it was simply economy of effort on a hot day or just casual sadism, I don't
know, but, either way, I was already pretty sick of this.

 
Then, after I had been
so keen to leave yet another large, sun flooded room full of beautiful people talking
on the phone and surrounded by photographs of even more beautiful people, and had
walked into the stationary cupboard instead of out onto the landing, still saying
'OK, thanks anyway, g'bye. No problem, thanks," I secretly decided I'd do just
one more of these and then leave Paul to it.

 
So, finally, we visited
a woman called Penny who was based in an attic in a street just off the Kings Road
in Chelsea. She was on her own apart from a very pretty looking Oriental bloke in
a black polo neck and a rather jolly hockey sticks girl in a faded denim jacket.
Cig in mouth, she flicked through Paul's cards at 90 miles an hour as the others
had done and said they were really great but they weren't quite right for her at
the moment. Then she looked at mine.

 
But this time she did
it at 30 miles per hour and then showed them to the Oriental bloke. He looked through
as well, looked up at me, raised his eyebrows at her and nodded and then handed
them back. Then she called over to the girl to get a portfolio. She began to slide
them into it, taking a moment to choose the best order for them.

 
"Okay, lovey, you'll
have to get some more done and we'll need to talk about a card," she said as
she pushed my stupid, naff, amateur pictures down into the plastic wallet of each
page of the black, shiny book with JET in big red letters over the front. Still
with the cig in her mouth, its ash wilting precariously now, she showed me a contract
and told me to sign at the bottom which I did in a slight daze with the pen the
girl gave me as I opened my mouth to ask for one. Paul looked on as we both realised
that weirdly enough, at the end of this long hot, exhausting day, our faces glazed
with perspiration and pollution, I had done it. I had entered the world of modelling
- even though I wasn't really sure I wanted to.

 
Afterwards Paul was dismissive.

 
"Never mind, mate,
thanks for coming along with me," he said over a very welcome cold beer in
the Chelsea Potter in the King's Road.

 
"No problem,"
I, said, just wishing we could swap places. He obviously wanted it so much and I
just wasn't really that bothered.

Penny's agency grew, moved to bigger offices, took on more people
and my career has sort of taken off with it over the past eight years. My current
booker, Karyn, joined three years ago and we speak almost every day. We sometimes
go out for a drink and I was the first person she rang after she split up with her
boyfriend. She came over for dinner, which should have been fun but she and Lauren
didn't seem to get on with each other, so I don't mention one to the other now.

 
Am I good looking? Well,
I must have something, although I'm never quite sure what it is. When I first started
working, one girl said to me thoughtfully: 'You've got the kind of face I'd like
to see if I was lost in a foreign railway station and I didn't speak the language."

 
I think that's a compliment.

Having waved modelling goodbye - perhaps, only temporarily, of
course - my first day in my new job, on the first floor of a building in Soho, drags
a bit because there is so little for me to do. The office itself has maroon walls
and all the desks are heavy constructions in dark wood which contrast beautifully
with our white and clear Perspex state-of-the-art Apple Macs, I notice. That, somehow,
can't be a coincidence. There is a sort of fresco painted on the ceiling. Piers
has already explained that the room is intended to look cool but understated and
cost effective to make it clear to our investors and trading partners that all their
money is going into the product. Whatever that is.

 
He shows me 'my desk'.

 
'My desk'.

 
What my parents always
wanted. Okay, I'm not wearing a suit but I've still got a desk with a phone on it.
Their reaction when I told them that I was going to start modelling was every bit
as joyous as if I'd said I was going to join a monastery or become a Bangkok ladyboy.
I kept trying to explain that I was just going to do it for a while until I worked
out what I wanted in the way of a career. Their sad, anxious looks every time the
subject was raised drove me bonkers with irritation.

 
"What shall we tell
our friends when they ask what you're doing now?" said my mum as if this was
the final, clinching argument against this whole daft idea.

 
"Just tell them I'm
dead," I shouted as I headed upstairs to my room, now more determined than
ever to do it - and to succeed at it just to spite them. What better driving force
for a career could you hope for than revenge on your parents?

 
They relented slightly
when they saw that I was making a living and enjoying it - that being the order
of importance to them. I just worry sometimes that my career decision is what made
my Dad turn out the way he did.

 
I haven't actually told
the agency about my new job. You know, just in case. Well, I told Karyn and she
said she couldn't believe it and she was very sad but she wished me all the luck
in the world. In the end we agreed that I wouldn't go to castings, unless they were
'requests' - in other words the client has specifically asked to see me - but if
jobs came up she would definitely pass them on and I'd take a day off to do them.

I sign another form about being a director and then get introduced
to a guy called Zac who is the technical wiz, as Piers puts it. Zac sits in a corner
surrounded by two giant computer screens, a number of key boards, a computer graphics
drawing board, some CPUs, I think they're called, and an explosive spaghetti of
wires and cables.

 
He avoids my gaze shyly
as we shake hands and says in an American accent:

 
"Welcome aboard,
bud."

 
"Thanks. This all
looks pretty impressive," I say, less out of interest and more by way of conversation.

 
"It is," Zac
tells me. He strokes the giant Apple Mac between us. "It's some of the most
sophisticated software packages ever devised running on state-of-the-art equipment
and we're using it all to create the most beautiful images and the most exciting
experience ever on the internet."

 
Stunned by this visionary
speech, I let his words sink for a moment.

 
"We're all on a journey
here at 2cool," says Piers quietly from over my shoulder.

 
I consider this thought,
too.

 
How right, he was. If
only I'd known it at the time.

Our secretary is Scarlett. She has bright pink dreadlocks and
is wearing a yellow angora cardigan, a tartan mini-skirt and jelly sandals. I find
myself looking her up and down but she doesn't seem offended - I suppose if you
dress like that you must be used to people giving you a stunned once-over whenever
they meet you.

 
"Hi Charlie,"
she says over a firm handshake. "Welcome on board."

 
"Thank you,"
I smile, trying to make up for my discourteous gawping. "So what's your background
then Scarlett?" It turns out that she used to work in film post-production,
but has decided that the internet will take over from conventional movie production
and marketing very soon as the principal creative medium of the future.

 
I'm about to ask 'Won't
people still want to go to the cinema together?' but it seems churlish and besides
Piers has thrown a pile of glossy magazines on my new desk and is asking me to find
products and services that 2cool would have 'a natural market affinity with'.

 
I start to look through
them but almost immediately he gives me a list of things we 'need' for the office,
such as a new stereo system, a visiting masseuse, laptops for him and Guy, and a
couple of company cars because apparently we won't look good arriving at potential
affinity partners' offices in a battered old cab. He also asks me to find out about
trips to Mauritius and some spas in East Asia. "We're going to have to get
away from here, all of us, at some point, and brainstorm. You know, get some distance
from this office so that we can see the wood for the trees."

 
I like the idea of brainstorming
and seeing wood rather than trees while two babes give me a simultaneous massage
in a bamboo hut set on stilts above the rippling, azure waters of a secluded lagoon
but I'm not quite sure how to arrange it - or the stereo and the laptops.

 
Piers looks slightly surprised
and annoyed.

 
"Just ring them up,
get them to send the stuff over and tell them bill us."

 
"Oh, okay."

 
"It's standard purchasing
procedure, Charlie."

 
Nervously, I call a few
of the luxury goods suppliers on the list Pier's has given me. Amazingly they agree,
promising the goods within the next four working days or sooner. Soon clothes, more
office furniture, sophisticated computers, even a couple of watches to replace my
Swatch jobbie, are on their way over to us.