Spring Collection (22 page)

And it was ideal that April was the first model to escape Frankie’s supervision, Maude thought. She had picked April for the winner of the Lombardi contract from the start, she’d been rooting for her from the moment they’d all met at the airport. April simply outclassed either of the others. April had deep,
deep
class, she personified the kind of beauty that was internationally recognized as the outer sign of breeding, quality and social standing.

Maude Callender came from an old Rhode Island family, rich in civic background and philanthropic tradition as well as in worldly possessions. Her private income was more than enough for her to live on handsomely; her work gave her that necessary position on the ladder of fame that is essential for any single woman who intends to be part of the New York City social world. Maude had always quietly maintained her belief in the importance of class, that politically incorrect concept she subversively upheld in today’s world. It would be an interesting challenge, she thought, to find out more about April. The girl’s bone structure was responsible for the regal look that was her second nature, but it told her no more about April’s inner life than what you could guess about Garbo from seeing her in the movies.

She would give the girl a glimpse of the Left Bank,
Maude decided. All any of the girls had seen so far had been a few places devoted to retail luxury, this overblown hotel and those clubs they went to. No, Frankie would have nothing to bitch about, try though she would.

In less than a half hour Maude and April were settled snugly in a tiny, cozy Russian restaurant, La Chaika, hidden on the Rue de l’Abbé de l’Epée, a tiny winding street deep in the Left Bank. Maude threw her dark green double-breasted coachman’s coat, with its rows of polished buttons, high collar and wide swinging skirt, over an empty chair. She wore a suit of black broadcloth, its tightly fitted jacket worn over a green brocade waistcoat which provided a rich background for the starched ruffles of her white cotton shirt with its high-tied ascot. Her short blond hair was brushed forward in shaggy bangs that reached all the way to her eyebrows, and she looked like a wise, witty and wealthy don at Oxford sometime in the early nineteenth century. Only the way her gold watch chain stretched over her swelling breasts, and the eye makeup she used so cleverly, indicated that she was a woman and a most appealing woman at that. April sat tall and grave in her pale pink cashmere sweater, her single string of pearls her only ornament, her hair slipping straight forward over her breasts like twin scarves of gold silk. Exquisitely proper and perfectly groomed, she looked as if she were bursting with a grievance.

“What’s going on?” Maude asked mildly.

“It’s so unfair!” April exploded. “I didn’t say before where Jordan was but she’s with Necker, can you believe it? He called her this morning and invited her to visit Versailles. Only her! Just because she knows something about French furniture she gets a beautiful opportunity to work her way into Necker’s good graces … that’s favoritism if I ever saw it.” Her powerful anger was only slightly mingled with relief at being able to speak her mind.

“That shouldn’t affect your chances unless this
whole contract contest is a charade, and I don’t see how it could be considering the trouble they’ve gone to and money they’re spending,” Maude assured her.

“How can you possibly say that? Necker owns the House of Lombardi. All he has to do is give Jordan thumbs up.”

“That won’t happen because you’re the best for the job, April,” Maude said calmly and with utter sincerity. “You’re absolutely and clearly outstanding. I’ve told Mike that I’m concentrating heavily on you in my article—you’re going to be the star of my piece—and I warned him that he’d better have great single shots of you to go with the article. That’s one of the points of having my job. I get to shape the material from my personal point of view—it’s not true that a picture is worth a thousand words, you know, not when the writer is calling the tune.”

“The best! Oh, Maude, thank you! I only wish I thought you were right.”

How naively American April’s voice was, Maude thought, so uninflected, so little-girl, high and sweet, almost like the voice of a choir boy.

“I known I’m right,” she told April. “I was there yesterday and I watched the way you showed that sweater, remember? Jordan didn’t have half your zip, her walk wasn’t sexy at all, and poor Tinker was a hopeless nonstarter. It’s lucky I bumped into you today—you can fill me in on your background while we’re here. Is this food all right for you?”

“Oh, it’s great, it’s so … bohemian? I didn’t know they had Russian places in Paris. I’ve never had two kinds of herring in dill before. I’m trying to save room for the chicken pie I ordered.”

“I’ll be sure to make a point of your hearty appetite,” Maude said, laughing at the wholehearted way April ate. She’d been right about the Chaika, it was like a little nest, with its feminine, comforting atmosphere. She’d always found it a good place to talk, without hovering waiters.

“I’m lucky about calories, I can eat just about
anything, but the food I grew up on was so basically boring that this is an adventure.”

“Tell me a little bit about the Nyquist family, April. What does your father do?”

“My dad? He’s a sweetie, a banker, but his work is basically boring too. My mother is the perennial golf champion of the local country club and she’s involved with Planned Parenthood and some local charities. Of course we all ski and sail and play tennis … the usual, you know. They’re great parents,” April said, dismissing them.

“Brothers and sisters?”

“One of each, both terrific. Yawn, right? I wish I could be more exotic but we’re a typical upper-middle-class family according to my sociology textbook. It may be an endangered species but that doesn’t mean it’s thrilling. It certainly won’t give you anything to write about.”

“Yet your parents let you go to New York to model. Isn’t that unusual?”

“Ha! They couldn’t even
try
to stop me. Naturally they would have preferred that I go to college but I’ve been modeling locally for years, earning pretty good money. They
had
to accept the fact that once I was eighteen I’d try for the big time.”

Maude was fascinated at the way April’s face changed when she imagined her parents’ opposition. There was passion there, and contained power and a ferocity that turned the rather aloof impassivity she normally projected into the raw material of high drama.

“Were you always the most beautiful girl in school?” Maude asked, suddenly blunt.

“Well.…”

“April, this isn’t a test of your modesty. I’m interested in the forces that formed you.”

“I guess I always knew I was … oh, Lord, I hate to say ‘beautiful’ but I want to make something of myself and I can’t
not
know about my looks. I’m terribly ambitious, Maude, even if I try hard not to give
that impression. I want to get
somewhere
! I want to be
somebody
!”

“Don’t we all? I know exactly how you feel.”

“What kills me is that I don’t get as much work as lots of other girls who aren’t as good-looking as I am,” April brooded. “Not by objective standards anyway. It’s a problem of range. I’m no chameleon like Tinker who can look any way she wants by lifting an eyebrow. At least that’s what Justine and Frankie have analyzed as my problem. What can you do if you don’t fit into any look but your own?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t look at it in a negative way, but as a challenge. Frankly I wonder why you haven’t tried to experiment with your look, bend it in other directions—makeup and clothes can do just about anything you want them to, after all. You can’t change your body type or bone structure, April, but that’s just about all you can’t change … I’m beginning to wonder if Loring Model Management is really the right agency for you, not that I know that much about the business. But maybe, just maybe they haven’t tried hard enough, maybe they’ve settled for your strong primary look without developing all your other possibilities. Did you ever think of that?”

“But they’ve been so wonderful to me!” April protested, shocked. “I was thrilled when Justine signed me.”

“Wonderful isn’t always the best thing for a career. Still, I could be wrong,” Maude said, shrugging. “Tell me, why do you think that Gabrielle d’Angelle picked you for the contest if you have such a small range?”

“On, no question about it, my runway walk, my secret weapon. There’s a nice little contrast going with the boringly pure way I look and the way I swing my hips … I’m lucky I can pull that off.”

“April, yesterday, when you hid your hair, what made you decide to do that?”

“I felt I had to try something a little different. Sometimes I just
can’t stand
being so conventional-looking. Usually I use my Nordic blond thing to the max since it’s my strong point, but every once in a
while the devil gets into me. You know a model called Kristen McMenamy? No? Well she’s this powerful, weird-looking girl with strong features, almost like a great-looking guy. She wasn’t getting anywhere until she shaved her eyebrows off completely and started wearing bizarre white makeup and changed her attitude to a tough ‘fuck-you and the horse you rode in on’ look—she became an overnight sensation. Nobody’s ever seen her smile. Now she’s a supermodel—she’s invented a whole new kind of beauty—and everybody fights over her for runway. Big deal, she’s androgynous! Not only that, she’s married and has a kid. How am I going to compete with that?”

“Why would you want to look so strange?” Maude asked, fascinated with April’s knowing self-analysis that must be based on years and years of looking at magazines and comparing herself to the girls in the fashion photos.

“Because I’m cursed with an
expected
look, the all-American-girl sort of Ralph Lauren look, which is fine if Polo is all you want out of life. It’s hideously boring! I look cold, I look like an ice maiden, and, what’s worse than cold, Maude, I’m
uncool
. Do you know what that means? Today it’s like the kiss of death. I haven’t got a speck of funk! Kate Moss in those Obsession ads? Now that’s funk. She gets out of bed naked, undoubtedly with a vile hangover and bad breath, she yawns, ugh!, her boyfriend shoots a candid and she becomes an immediate funk princess. Worse, she cleans up beautifully so she can do great runway stuff, glamour cover shots and the Calvin Klein all-American girl thing too. She damn hear convinces you that she’s an American blue blood instead of a too-short English girl with dishwater-brown hair.” The bitter envy in April’s voice rang out clearly.

“April, it’s not just about funk or unconventionality,” Maude protested. “That’s
your
obsession, kiddo. You
analyze
your looks like an outsider and yet you end up underrating their value, in the insecure way only a professional beauty can. I’ve never known one
who wasn’t down on herself, who wouldn’t pick out her only flaw and magnify it. You’ve gotten into the habit of seeing yourself in terms of the competition, instead of giving yourself the credit for being
unique
. You’re a rare and special type, and you will be for the entire rest of your life. You’ve got true
classic
beauty to fall back on, you’ll have it when Kristen McMenamy is forgotten, when Kate Moss isn’t hot any longer, you’re an American Catherine Deneuve, for heaven’s sake.”

“I’m not even sure who she is,” April said, brightening at Maude’s assessment. It wasn’t as if Maude hadn’t been around.

“She’s the greatest film star in France and has been practically forever, the whole country worships her, she’s Yves Saint-Laurent’s friend and years ago she used to be what they call his ‘muse,’ his inspiration—you must know what she looks like.”

“Oh, of course I know,” April said. “I missed
Indochine
, but I saw the ads … please, let’s not talk about my looks anymore, Maude. I’ve gone on too much about them.”

“Done.” Maude looked around the restaurant. April was obviously completely unaware of the other customers who had been darting fascinated looks at her since she sat down. The girl was so used to homage, Maude thought, that it had long ago become invisible, as normal a climate as air.

“Tell me about boyfriends,” she said, as the fastest possible change of subject.

“That’s my second least favorite thing to talk about.” April made an apologetic grimace. “But I knew you’d have to ask.”

“How so? Men must be falling all over you.”

April smiled her wide, unexpectedly off-center smile. Maude was so much more fun than she’d ever expected her to be. There was nothing intimidating about her when she was one-on-one, and the knowledge that she was going to be the focus of the
Zing
article was such a totally unexpected and thrilling piece
of news that April had to prevent herself from thinking about it until she was alone.

Right now she was having too much fun talking grown-up girlfriend talk the way she couldn’t with Jordan or Tinker because she didn’t want them to know much about her. The three of them had been thrown together in an artificial way, and they had all realized it was good to keep up the impression of buddy-buddy giggling girlfriends, but down deep she couldn’t trust them and they couldn’t trust her because they each wanted the Lombardi contract and only one of them would win it.

“If I say something ‘off the record’ will you keep it that way,” April asked warily, “or is that just an expression you hear in movies that isn’t true in real life?”

“Anything off the record remains absolutely secret, strictly between us,” Maude told April honestly. She hadn’t reached her position in magazine journalism by trashing or betraying her subjects. People would talk to her who refused to be interviewed by those writers who trafficked in the rape-and-pillage articles so many publications had demanded for years.

“Remember the other day when you were asking if we were virgins and Frankie butted in and stopped us? Well … I would never had admitted this in front of the others anyway, because they’d have laughed. I look uncool enough as it is, so at least I want them to think I have a sex life. But—oh, you might as well know since I’ve told you this much, and it’s off the record. I don’t.”