Chapter Los Angeles
Los Angeles
The next morning Luisa crept out of Bel’s room early without waking her.
She didn’t see Bel again before she left.
She couldn't quite say why, given how great their chemistry had been throughout the shoot, but it just didn't feel like her and Bel were the type to wake up together, get breakfast together, do anything approaching romance.
They were friends, they were colleagues, and they fucked with an insane connection and chemistry.
.. she felt like that was the limit of it, and it turned out over the years to follow that she was right, that Bel thought the same.
Getting back to Mexico City a few days later, Luisa felt content. She had purpose, she understood herself, and she knew that Bel hadn't been a one-off... she was in a good place.
Luisa didn't have to wait anywhere near as long to encounter Bel again, four months later finding herself working with her on a swimwear shoot in the Bahamas.
The warm, relaxed tropical nights were the perfect backdrop to their reunion, and they didn't wait until the last night like they had in Tulum or Montana.
.. the shoot was due to last three nights, and they made the most of every single one of them, the fateful words, "Come to bed.
.." uttered by one or the other with a faint smile each night, a smile knowingly reciprocated by the other, and they crept back to one or other of their rooms to enjoy their time together.
That was the pattern that established itself for the next five years, right up until Luisa met Amy, Luisa living a life that was packaged into discrete bundles, each kept apart from the other.
On the one hand Bel... the thrill of seeing her name on the call sheet, maybe two or three times a year, knowing now with certainty that when they were together they would be inseparable, knowing that she'd say yes to Bel every time even though the question was never asked, and that Bel would always say yes to her.
Then on the other hand, back home in Mexico City, was Carlos.
Her patient, understanding source of stability, keeping her grounded between her escapades elsewhere, explicitly understanding of the demands of her profession and her dalliances with others, and she of his.
She was as much his rock during that time as he was hers, although they didn't last long after she moved to LA when she was twenty-four.
And then, also, her professional entanglements.
The men and women with power in the industry.
.. the people where she made a cool headed appraisal of the benefits versus the costs, and got involved with them either as one night stands or as something more when she, and she alone, determined that the net benefits were good and also, crucially, that the chemistry was there to make it enjoyable.
Each bundle she kept separate from the others, never letting them overlap.
.. if the contract to be the summer face of a particular brand or take part in a particular campaign was contingent on Luisa going for dinner with the wealthy owner or creative director, and if it so happened that he or she was also charming, charismatic and good looking, well.
.. it worked for her, and the other parts of her life didn't need to know, none of them were exclusive.
When Luisa had realised that she needed to move to LA to take the next step in her career, it had continued.
It was in LA that she met Julian. Not a photographer or agent or anyone else directly involved in booking her for jobs, but a production company executive who specialized in high-end commercial shoots.
They'd met at an industry event, introduced by mutual connections, and something about his straightforward approach had attracted Luisa at once.
Julian was fifteen years her senior, divorced, established in his career, and refreshingly transparent. On their third date, he'd laid out exactly what he was looking for.
"I'm not interested in marriage or living together," he'd told her over dinner at a restaurant in Silver Lake.
"I travel too much, work too much. But I enjoy your company, and I enjoy supporting people with talent.
I could introduce you to the right people, help you to navigate this town.
You'd have your own life, I'd have mine, but we'd enjoy the time we spend together. "
The proposition should have offended her, perhaps.
A younger version of herself might have seen it as another exploitative industry arrangement.
But Julian's honesty had the opposite effect.
Here was someone saying exactly what he wanted, what he could offer, with no manipulation or coercion.
He wasn't promising to make her career or threatening to break it.
He was simply offering a mutually beneficial relationship between adults.
"And if I say no?" she'd asked, testing.
"Then we finish this excellent wine, I call you a taxi, and we say goodnight as friends who had a nice dinner.
" He'd shrugged, completely at ease. "Your career will do just fine without me.
" Then he'd added, with the same directness, "And I should be clear.
.. I see other people. Mostly casually, sometimes models, sometimes not. I'm not looking for exclusivity."
Luisa had appreciated his candour. In an industry built on illusions and unspoken arrangements, his transparency was refreshing. She knew exactly what she was agreeing to.
She'd accepted his proposition, and for the next year and a half, they had exactly the relationship he'd described.
Julian kept his word... he introduced her to influential industry figures, invited her to events where she made valuable connections, occasionally gave her guidance on LA's complex social hierarchies.
But he never directed her career, never tried to control her choices, never acted entitled to her time or body.
He gave her expensive gifts, a beautiful bracelet that she occasionally wore in particular was from him, but they were offered with no strings attached.
Luisa was under no illusions about Julian's other relationships.
She would occasionally spot him at industry events with other women, sometimes younger models just establishing themselves in LA.
Rather than jealousy, she felt a certain solidarity with these women.
They were all trying to make their way in the same system, making their choices with open eyes.
Julian was, in his way, one of the more honest players in a dishonest game, and he was good to her.
He became, to Luisa, her 'not-boyfriend'.
The challenge was, though, that eight years into her career, eight years since Tulum and everything that followed, she hadn’t had a normal relationship in all that time.
Eight years. Every emotional or romantic entanglement during that time had been with a professional angle to it, and her longer term relationships, whether Bel, Carlos or Julian, weren't relationships in the normal sense.
None of them were someone she was going to move in with, to marry, to grow old with.
Professionally life was good. A constant stream of high profile work, the face of Cimarron and her investment in that… Luisa was doing well.
But Luisa was coming to the realisation that in her personal life she need more. She just wasn't sure, though, if she knew how to go about it.