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Rakell: I’m thinking about plastic surgery…Send
Ana: Don’t touch your face! If anything, you could do Invisalign…Send
Rakell: Huh?...Send
Ana: It’s not a big deal, but you are competing with perfect teeth models. Americans get braces…Send
Rakell: Okay, so I am competing with perfect Generica. Dying to fit in…delete
Rakell: I’ll look into it…Send
Turning, she saw Jake in the kitchen chopping yellow heirloom tomatoes, a colander of green leafy lettuce, a cucumber, and an avocado on the counter next to the cutting board. It was almost as if he were busying himself so he didn’t have to engage with her, purposefully giving her space. She watched the small muscles in his broad shoulders flex as he chopped, the thin heather crew T-shirt stretched across his back, taking in his muscular Levi-covered ass and legs. His hair looked disheveled, like he’d run his fingers through it several times, his hips shifting ever so slightly when he reached for a cut crystal glass with a single large ice cube immersed in deep orange liquid.
She set her phone back on the counter. “That whiskey looks good. It's an exquisite match for garden veggies, probably helps extract that farm-to-fork taste this area is known for,” she said as if reporting, trying to change the current hanging around them, the tension she’d escorted in with her reactions.
Jake twisted, facing her, knife in hand. “Hey,” he said, his eyebrows rising up in question when she ignored her phone, emanating the familiar song. “You should get that.”
“No, I’ll take a whiskey, though.” It was probably Ana with more details, and she didn’t have the emotional strength to fake a conversation about the next opportunity. “I’ll call Ana tomorrow.”
“Answer it,” he pushed, stepping toward it, still a few feet away. “It’s Matt. Get it and I’ll pour you a whiskey.”
Jake picked up her phone and handed it to her. “Huh,” she said to herself. How the hell did he know it was Matt? Her phone rang again.
Jake opened the cupboard, grabbing another crystal glass as she heard him mumble. “Get it. You need him right now.”
“Matt, hi. I was going to reach out tomorrow, but, um, I’m glad you called. Well, because…” she said, her eyes moving to Jake, her vision beginning to blur from the tears welling in her eyes. “Jake, I’m going to step outside. I just need to…” The tears started dripping down her face again as she began recanting Ana’s words to Matt in a flurry. “So yes, he said impressive, and I guess I jumped too quickly in my head thinking I had it, but then they said I was too big. I mean, more specifically, I looked like I could be a mom…whatever the fuck that means….”
She heard Matt breathing calmly on the phone as she kept spitting out the stuff in her head. “I always feel like I’m never going to be thin enough or, I mean, I’ve lost weight and just maintaining this is hard. I just don’t know…” She wrapped an arm around her waist to stave off the chilled air.
“Hey, Princess, I’m not going to address the weight issue because you know how I feel about that. You being healthy is more important to me than…”
“Matt, it’s what they said; I didn’t make this stuff up. Honestly, they said matronly, and I’m twenty-five.” Even repeating it sounded maddening to her. “It’s fucking crazy. I don’t know how women survive it, the constant criticism.” As those words came out, an image of her mom flashed in her head. Her mom had been a model when she was young, and she’d been so critical of her own body, which bled into her criticism of Rakell’s.
Matt listened, then gave her the same pep talk he always did: this was her dream, but she had options that would not be predicated by her body. In the end, he said, “I’m never watching another Bernardo film again.”
They both chuckled, and then she added, “Yeah, Matt, that will show him. Let’s boycott Bernardo!”
From behind her, she heard, “I agree.” She turned to see Jake grinning, while handing her a large sweatshirt. “It’s getting cold, put this on. Sactown’s temps drop almost twenty degrees when the sun goes down.”
“Matt, I’m going to hop off. Jake’s here, okay?...I love you, too.” She ended the call, grabbed the sweatshirt, and wrestled into it. It hung halfway down her thighs, and she took in the familiar scents of pine and the gym, as though Jake’s essence had been woven into the fabric. She sniffed the soft, worn material. Jake joked that it was clean and handed her the glass of whiskey. She sipped it, looking over the glass. “Thanks. Did you post a picture of us? Ana saw it.”
“Yeah, you look beautiful in it.” He tilted his chin. “Was I supposed to ask you or your agent first?” He smirked.
She could feel they were both grasping for some humor after the tumultuous afternoon. “No need. Ana is a Jake Skyler fan. She says that being your girlfriend will help my career.” She elevated her voice to encompass the sarcasm.
“Really?” He sipped from his glass; his eyes steadied on her face as if trying to figure out whether that was good or bad. “So you know I don’t think…”
She stepped forward and nuzzled into him. “I know, it’s actually sort of ridiculous for her to say. I wouldn’t date someone because they could help my career. I mean, then I might as well stay with my old profession. That was easier and definitely more straightforward. Your body’s for pleasure…period.” One of her earlier client’s words…body built for pleasure…hung in the back of her mind.
She saw his face clench like he was trying to control the shock that had jolted through him. “I suppose…I, um…”
“Jake, I’m just saying what I’m doing with you is real. I don’t get in bed for payment or some expectations for my career, I spend time with you because I like being with you, not because it will get me somewhere. I want to get there on my own.”
His features took on the boyish quality she’d seen before, that truly grateful wide smile that pushed up his cheeks, highlighting the spark in his piercing blue eyes, as if he'd gotten something he’d been thinking about for a long time. She wrapped her free hand around his waist, letting herself fall into his side. They didn’t talk about the audition anymore that night. She sipped her drink, picked at a salad, then drank another whiskey. When they went to bed, she pretended to be asleep, her mind wrought with Ana’s words, her mother’s comments, the directions from photographers posing her, their whispers to each other about her hips, her breasts. She’d learned years ago to let the opinions of men about her body move past her, but this audition had her brain spinning.
The first client I had entertained after my year serving as the prince’s girlfriend, firmly planted the seed of resentment. “MARIETTA? MARIETTA? CHAMPAGNE?” I heard Jacques’s voice somewhere in the distance, abruptly yanking me back from my daydream. At twenty, after two years of working as an escort, I got used to my professional name, Marietta Adams. Lazily, I opened my eyes and turned to see the butler handing Jacques a glass of Champagne. I flipped over, holding the cups of my bikini top to my breasts. I was lying on my stomach, letting the Mediterranean rays warm my skin. Jacques must have untied the top while I’d been lost in sleep.
Jacques stood beside the chaise lounge on the deck of his family’s yacht in Monte Carlo with a glass of rosé Champagne extended toward me. “Sit up and sip.” Cupping the bikini top tightly to my breasts, keenly aware of the butler standing beside Jacques, I’d sat up.
