“Coco,” a voice called from somewhere down the hall. The door was open and a moment later Tom stood in her doorway looking just as beautiful as he had at the restaurant. “What’re you doing?” A half smile touched his perfect lips.

  “I’m watching the city.” Coco turned her eyes back to the window.

  “When you’re done watching the city I want to take you to dinner.” Tom laughed and leaned up against the doorjamb to watch her. “Just you and me.”

  “Okay.” Coco smiled up at him. “Just you and me.”

  Tom was far older than she could have guessed. He was thirty-four, which made him even older than Rob. He was also shrewd in a way Rob had failed to be.

  “You look like you’re about eighteen, am I right?”

  “Yes,” Coco nodded, while they walked together past store fronts and restaurants.

  “That’s old to start modeling. You’re lucky your mom was a super model.”

  “How old are models usually?”

  “They’ll say they’re fifteen, sixteen but some lie. Some are as young as twelve or thirteen.”

  “That’s way too young.”

  “That’s the business. You have never been to New York before have you?”

  “How can you tell?” Coco laughed.

  “It’s the way you keep looking at everything. It’s different, isn’t it? The city, I mean. I came here from Ohio. I had been to Chicago a dozen times, but when I came to New York I knew I would never want to live anywhere else.”

  “I’m feeling that way right now.” They had just walked into a Vietnamese restaurant and the scent of hot soup was heavenly. “So, what else can you tell about me?” Coco asked, happy with the booth they picked because it gave her a view of the street.

  “Well,” Tom gave her a shrewd look, his eyes narrowing theatrically. “You sew your own clothes, you have good taste, and you have been violently in love.”

  “No, that’s not fair,” Coco laughed, caught by the absurdity of the insight. “The first is obvious, the second is just flattery, and the last is cliché. Every eighteen-year-old has been violently in love, it goes with the territory. Try again.”

  “Not in love like you have been. No… I’m right.” He grinned smugly and then lifted his eyebrows, daring her to disagree a second time.

  Coco shrugged. “Okay, I admit it. I though he was the one. We were going to make a life together. I guess most teenagers don’t usually think along those lines.”

  “Your turn.” Tom looked at Coco with a more serious expression.

  “What?”

  “Come on, tell me about me in one glance. No one ever can. I’m a mystery.”

  “And I’m easy!” Coco made the statement with a playful pout.

  “Oh, are you? It’s nice to know these things up front. It saves a man a lot of time and money.”

  “Yeah, ha ha,” she laughed. “I mean, how did you know I had been in love?”

  “Sizing people up is my gift.” Tom spoke with complete confidence.

  Coco shrugged but decided to see if she could discern anything about him. His eyes were gray and large and very calculating. He had an aquiline nose and blond curly hair. She decided to go with the most obvious guess first.

  “Mediterranean,” she stated.

  “Easy, go on.”

  “You’re naturally… bitter,” she guessed. He didn’t tell her she was wrong. “I can see it in the way you look at things,” she added. “You like people more to study than to interact with them,” Coco played this guess off what he had already told her about himself, “and even when you’re in a crowd you are still alone. You’re not a joiner.”

  “Very good,” he grinned, “very, very good. I’ve been too busy to have my heart broken, and I spend more time collecting people to watch than I do actually interacting with them. Even when I’m talking with them I don’t pay them any attention because they’ve usually already disappointed me.”

  “How do they disappoint?”

  “They’re whiny or they sell out or they’re just cheap and easy. You interest me, though. You’re the first person I’ve seen who did not fall all over herself to get on Blackwell’s good side. I don’t think you’ll disappoint. God, I loved the way you talked to him at the restaurant. Thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  “So, what are your obligations? Do they walk on two feet or four?”

  “That’s an odd question.” Coco drew back, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.

  “Well, people these days think as much of their dogs as they do their kids.”

  “No comment,” Coco answered firmly.

  Tom watched her for a moment, his eyes studying every inch of her face. “Okay, have it your way. But if I were to guess I would say two.”

  “Guess away,” Coco retorted before she picked up her menu and ignored him.

  “I’m shooting you tomorrow,” he said after a momentary silence, his eyes coming over the top of her menu.

  “What with?” She met his eyes and laughed.

  “A Canon,” he grinned back, enjoying the old joke.

  “Ouch!” Coco cutely pouted.

  “It’ll only hurt if you fall off the set.”

  “So, you’re the photographer as well as the talent wrangler?”

  “Yes, and an agent, spokesperson, and sometimes model; you name it, I do it. Once you sign with Blackwell, he owns you. You will learn every inch of the business, and he’ll work you till you drop.”

  Coco studied Tom in silence before glancing back at her menu. She didn’t want to sign with anyone, not when she was seeing the field for the first time. Besides, there was that certain something about Ryan Blackwell that she instinctively disliked. Just thinking about him gave her the shivers.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The shoot the following day had only one purpose – to build a portfolio that Blackwell could begin showing to potential clients. After sitting for the makeup artist and hairdresser Coco walked onto the dreaded set and earnestly prayed she wouldn’t fall.

  “Steady now,” Tom called, watching her. “No falling.”

  “Quiet down you,” Coco teased, standing before him in skin-tight black leather pants, stacked stilettos, and a push-up bra, her hair piled in a bouffant on top of her head.

  There were twenty wardrobe changes that day and no catering at all. By late afternoon Coco was starved and exhausted.

  “I’m worn out. I think I’ll get some takeout and go home,” Coco looked up at Tom, who wore a green fitted T-shirt with his leather satchel slung across his chiseled chest.

  “Can’t. There’s a party tonight. I have to take you out and show you off.”

  “No,” Coco whined, but his glare silenced her.

  “Be a good model or you won’t get your face in any of those glossy magazines,” he warned in a surprisingly effeminate way.

  “You’re gay, aren’t you?” Coco spoke before she could catch herself.

  “Sometimes,” he winked, and then running his hand all the way down her backside, he added, “and sometimes… I’m not.”

  Coco swatted at his hand and laughed.

  At that evening’s party, Coco was introduced as N.V. Rodriguez. It was Blackwell’s idea. He liked the way N.V. sounded like envy, and he wanted everyone to envy him for finding her first. Coco walked into the party towering a foot above Tom in her stilettos and a black tutu of a cocktail dress that was really just a bustier and a frilly micro skirt that didn’t even reach mid-thigh. Coco felt ridiculous, but the outfit was also Blackwell’s idea, so Coco wore it along with that morning’s painfully backcombed bouffant hairstyle.

  “If I sit down in this,” she whispered to Tom, with a perfect smile plastered across her lips, “my bottom will be in direct contact with the upholstery.”

  “Umm… yes,” he sighed happily, “and then every man in this room will be rushing to sit exactly where you sat. It’ll be the closest any of them can ever hope to get to that most desirable of locations.”

  “OMG!” Coco giggled, feeling every bit a seven-foot-tall drag queen when she mimicked little Ryan’s favorite exclamation.

  But to Coco’s horror she found it was true. Only they weren’t content to just sit were she sat; they also wanted to stand where she stood, sometimes when she was still standing there. Well, to be fair, most of the people were very well-behaved with the exception of three very odd businessmen who repeatedly gave her their cards and couldn’t be coaxed to move more than four feet from her.

  “Why do those men keep giving me their cards?” Coco asked.

  “Well, you’re the new dish, Coco, and everyone wants a taste. Some models are what you might call courtesans. They sell their look but also their feel. When Ryan said your possibilities were endless he wasn’t lying. You could make a fortune as a professional girlfriend.”

  “Interesting.” Coco continued smiling but made a mental note to toss the numbers as soon as she got home. “Parties and prostitution? Is this normal for a Blackwell girl?”

  Tom seemed not to hear her – instead he offered her more champagne.

  Early the next morning the first contract arrived. It was a boldly obligatory document brought to her room by little Ryan. Like Blackwell, he desperately wanted to see Coco sign as a Blackwell girl. But this first contract asked for too long a commitment. The second draft arrived after lunch. The length of the time commitment was less but it contained a much higher agent fee than the first draft. Each new contract brought up new concerns and all of them demanded that she lose ten pounds off her already thin frame and maintain that specified weight throughout her career. The longer Coco remained under Blackwell’s roof, the more she wanted to leave.

  Coco might have signed the third contract if it weren’t for Tom’s careful advice. Without his help she wouldn’t have known that she had a right to continue negotiations.

  The days passed in a flurry of champagne luncheons where the champagne was lunch and champagne dinners with light low-fat appetizers. Before Coco knew it the first week was over and she was five pounds lighter. She had promised Tia she would eat well and only be gone a week, but every time she asked Blackwell about work he was evasive.

  “I don’t want to waste you on little labels. We need to be patient. More importantly you need to sign with me before I can represent you.” So Coco continued to go to parties, shake hands, sip champagne to fill her empty stomach, and make small talk between reviewing each new draft of Blackwell’s binding contract.

  “I’ll tell you what Blackwell is thinking,” Tom explained one evening, trying to soothe Coco’s growing agitation. “Your mother left a big hole in this industry when she died; under a strong contract Blackwell is hoping he’ll be able to slip you into that hole.”

  Coco went still beside him, her face losing its mask of gaiety. She stood on a yacht in New York Harbor; music played in the background while people danced and drank under a darkly clouded night sky. Coco could feel the late fall wind cutting her to the bone, bringing back memories of the night she had lost Rob. She would never forget the way the wind had torn at her, grasping and cruel. She tried not to think about Rob when she tightly clutched the same floor-length black fur she had worn that night over the white cocktail gown she now wore.

  Turning to Tom she asked, “What do you mean, slip me into my mother’s hole?”

  Tom began to laugh at the lewd joke he thought Coco was making but stopped when he saw her face. “Coco, it’s an instant in.”

  His words were meant to erase the anger from her eyes but they had no effect. “I’m not riding my mother’s coattails. I either do this on my own or not at all.”

  “You don’t have a choice if you want to work in fashion,” Tom said frankly. “You are her daughter. She was their icon.”

  “I don’t want this.” Coco grabbed the icy railing and gazed out on the sparkling city. It all looks so beautiful, she thought, looking out on the picture-perfect skyline. “I don’t want this, Tom. I should be home; I would never have left if it weren’t for the money. Yet here I am –”

  “Yet, here you are, on a yacht in New York Harbor with one hell of a future. What do you have to complain about? With the right contract, you’re set for life.”

  “I told you I have other obligations,” Coco shot back, heartsick at the mess she had gotten herself into. She was N.V. now, not Coco. She already had met with one journalist whose prying questions had upset her. Once her story went global, all her peaceful privacy would disappear along with her sole guardianship of James. His birth was a matter of public record, and she knew Rob wasn’t the sort of man to stay away from a child once he found out he had one.

  “I have commitments that most girls don’t have,” Coco confided. “You can’t understand how hard it is for me to be here. If life had been different, I would be overjoyed… but I’m not going to make the same mistake my mom made.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m not going to leave my children for all this.” Coco swept her arm at the city. “I’m not going to sell them out so I can live everyone else’s idea of the perfect life. I was happy before she died, before probate and poverty.”

  Tom stared off thoughtfully, his arm leaning elegantly on the railing. A couple danced quietly behind the glass wall of the cabin moments before the music ended.

  “Two legs – I was right!” Tom laughed after a while. “Are these the kids of the violent love affair?”

  “My little son, James,” Coco nodded. “He’s his son, but Rob doesn’t know about him. Bebe calls me Mama, but she’s actually my sister; I’m the only mother she knows.”

  “Your sister?” Tom asked with sudden interest.

  “Yes,” Coco laughed, “she’s Magdalena’s too. Neither of us has a father we can name. I didn’t even know she was my sister till she was almost a year old. Before that she was just a baby dropped at my door.”

  Tom was quiet for a long time. When he did speak his voice was low but comforting.

  “Don’t sign with Blackwell. He’s an abusive fuck and he’ll work you till you drop. You won’t have a hope in hell of seeing those kids for more than a few days at a time if you’re his. He’ll work you and he’ll starve you and when you get too hungry he’ll tell you to shoot heroin between your toes so you don’t notice the pain.”

  “Oh, my God, I had no idea he did stuff like that!”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know.” Tom stared out at the water, a bitter expression marring his perfect features.

  “Tom,” Coco broke the silence, “I need money. I have no way of knowing the state of Magdalena’s finances. She could be leaving me nothing but debt. I need to earn money and I need it soon or my kids will starve.”

  “Try not to worry. I know people. You don’t need Blackwell, not if you’ll trust me. I can do what he does, only on a non-soul-owning level.”

  “Tom, you’re the closest thing I have to a friend in this business. If I can’t trust you then I’ve already lost. Just remember, I need money and I need it soon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When they returned to Blackwell’s building a few hours before dawn Coco was surprised to see Ryan Blackwell sitting in the lobby, a crystal glass in one hand, the Wall Street Journal in the other.

  “Coco,” he called waving her over, “just the girl I wanted to see.” Coco walked to where he sat, taking the faded leather chair he offered. Her fur slid open to reveal the little white cocktail gown she wore. “Thanks, Tom, for keeping an eye on our Coco,” Blackwell nodded in a way that dismissed Tom from their conversation.

  Coco was suddenly glad she had told Tom everything. If Blackwell pressed her for a commitment she could answer him with a confident no. As Tom walked off down the hall, Coco turned to face her host.

  “This is an awfully late hour for you.” Coco offered Blackwell her sweetest smile.

  The calculating glint in Blackwell’s eyes did not soften. In the low lighting, he looked almost sinister. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Not when I’m being taken advantage of. I’ve housed you and sheltered you, offered you my connections, flown you here, and never asked for anything but your trust. Even with all I’ve done, you still flatly refuse to sign my contracts. Why, Coco, when I’ve been so generous? Why do you refuse to sign? A contract is standard, without one we cannot do business.”

  “I can’t see that much business has been done as it is. I’ve gone to your parties, met people, shaken hands, and sipped champagne. You said you’d provide work and money yet the only photo shoot I’ve done was with Tom?”

  “I told you, I can’t represent you without a contract.”

  “And I told you I need paying work, scheduled shoots, and a contract that doesn’t make me your slave. You ask for years of my life, you want to own my name, my image, and you demand outrageous representation fees. It’s your fault not mine that we haven’t come to an agreement. I was clear with you when we first met. I have commitments and because of your inability to compromise I’m in no way closer to having a career that will pay the bills.”

  “That goes to show you how very little you know about this business; I’ve already devoted myself to setting a stage for your great unveiling. Most of what I do is behind the scenes. All I’ve asked of you is that you go out, make a good presentation, and sign a contract that will allow me to represent you. That’s my job. I represent models.”

  “Your contracts are too binding. I’m not ready to make the level of commitment you’re asking for. Come up with something that’s flexible and we’ll talk.”

  “I’ve been about as flexible as I can afford to be,” Blackwell countered. “Do you think this building pays for itself?”

  “I’m not interested in your finances,” Coco interrupted. “As I’ve said, come up with a contract that allows me more freedom and we’ll talk.” Coco rose to leave but Blackwell was suddenly there, looming over her.

  “I don’t think you’re aware of who you’re dealing with. No one turns down one of my contracts. There will be no new terms, not if you want me to represent you.”

 

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