Chapter 13
13
Lucy
I always knew the New York City heat was bad from my sisters complaining about it when July rolls around every year, but it’s really one of those things you have to experience yourself to really understand. It’s humid, like walking-around-with-a-steaming-damp-cloth-over-my-face type of humid. I’ve been here a little over a month now, and I desperately miss the gloomy Seattle clouds.
Today, when according to my phone’s weather app, the humidity level is at an all-time high of sixty percent, is the day Kyle decided to venture down the alleys of Brooklyn to shoot an outdoor shot. My hair, sticking to my clammy skin and growing poofier and poofier with each passing hour, is tied up using the elastic tie fastened at my wrist. And now, the hair lining my forehead has started curling, making me look a lot more frazzled than I actually am.
“I want to take a nap in an ice bath after this,” Elaine mutters, fanning herself with a stack of stapled papers. Her cheeks are flushed, and she lets out a deep breath.
Elaine has stuck close to my side since day one. We discovered a lot of similarities between us. We’re the same age and both dabbled in marketing before taking the plunge into photography. It’s her first time in New York City, and while I’ve visited before, it’s a whole different experience living here. She took this internship to home in on her photography skills like me, but also to get a better grasp on advertising and the marketing approach to an ad campaign. I’m here to learn more about photography and different approaches to camerawork within commercial and fashion photography. We’re both here to learn different things, but our goals run very parallel. And aside from our similar career goals, I’ve found that our personalities match well too. We’re both fairly outgoing, open to casual conversation about our personal lives while we work, and lunchtime disputes are rare when it comes to deciding what to eat, which definitely sweetens the ropes binding our newly formed friendship.
“Or go sit in the nearest bank branch,” I counter, tugging at the front of my shirt to keep it from sticking to my chest.
“You think they’d throw us out unless we’re there to withdraw money?”
“I’ll open a new checking account. I don’t even give a shit at this point.”
“It should be illegal to make us work outside on a day like this,” Elaine adds. “And on a Saturday. For shame.”
I laugh. “At least it’s a short day. Hopefully we’ll be out of here early.”
There are four models lined up against the brick wall between two buildings. Messy graffiti and an overflowing dumpster sit at one end, and I can’t decide if the stench of garbage or the image of a penis—aggressively spewing semen—adds to the edginess of this titillating shoot, or if it’s the mixture of army print pants and black military boots.
I have my thick camera strap draped over my neck, most likely collecting sweat. After a few more shots, the models are instructed to step aside, making room for individual shots. I’m watching the three waiting for their turn, standing in the shade where a large industrial fan sits. They’re crowding around it, taking small sips of water while attempting to cool down in the heat. One of them, a male model dressed in a black tank top, army print pants, and clunky black boots, plops himself on a folding chair, leaning back while emptying the rest of his water bottle. The light beams down just enough to cover the lower half of his body in the shade, the rest of him still in the sun. And the sweat already coating his bare arms and neck gives off a shiny sheen.
“Uh, Sebastian, right?” I ask, approaching him.
“Seb.”
I smile a tight-lipped smile. “Right,” I answer. “Do you think you could sit forward? Rest your elbows on your knees?”
He does as I say, ducking his head down while leaning toward me. “Like this?”
“Yeah,” I say, lifting my camera in front of me. “And look up and sort of square your shoulders.”
He follows my instructions without hesitation, something he’s probably learned over time as a seasoned catalog model, and I take a step backward, including the colorful graffiti while making sure to leave out the phallic image painted in bright yellow. “Move your right foot about two inches forward. Yeah. Just like that.”
My camera clicks. At this angle, only his face sits in the light, but for some reason, it makes the clothes on him stand out more. “Now relax your face. Drop your eyebrows. Almost like you’re bored.”
“What are you doing?” I glance to my side, my finger never leaving the shutter button while moving around Seb. Elaine is hovering over me, her observant gaze taking in the model as his eyes track my steps.
“Just…playing around. Seeing if I can get something good. Ryan said we could before we came out here, and Kyle’s been asking us for input for each shoot, so maybe I can find something he re.”
“Seb!” All of our heads jerk toward Kyle, where his set sits sans model. I’m guessing it’s Seb’s turn because he stands from his spot and saunters over to where Kyle is.
“Thanks, Seb!” I call after him. He gives a small bow along with a flirty smile before he approaches Kyle. Kyle, on the other hand, keeps his eyes on me where I was playing around with Seb’s look and the makeshift set in front of me. He takes a few moments before he leaves his camera sitting on a tripod and walks over to me.
“Did you get some shots of Seb in?” he asks brusquely.
“Uh, yes,” I answer. “Ryan said we can experiment with some shoot ideas as long as the models aren’t tied up with you.”
“Can I see them?”
I glance quickly at Elaine, whose eyes are wide and just as nervous looking as mine. I remove the strap from my neck and hand my camera over to Kyle. He stares down at the small display screen, his thumb pressing the buttons to scroll through my most recent images.
He doesn’t say anything. Not even a nod of approval or a disparaging scowl. Instead, the stone-like expression on his face remains the same, emotionless and uninterested. He gets to the last of the pictures, where he accidentally clicks too far ahead and lands on a picture of Jeremy sleeping, and hands my camera back to me. I, of course, cringe from embarrassment. Did he really have to see the picture of Jeremy cuddling my Winnie the Pooh sock?
“Hmm,” he mumbles with that flat effect on his face, making him look bored. “Have those edited by Monday morning and send them to me.”
“Sure.”
He gives a curt nod and walks back to his camera. He starts positioning Seb how he wants, a hand against the brick wall, his head thrown back toward the sky, but it almost feels like I’m watching it happen from another dimension .
“He just asked you to send him your pictures,” Elaine whispers.
“I know,” I respond softly.
“And he didn’t tell you they look like an ad for Lipitor in The American Journal of Medicine .”
I shoot a look of confusion in Elaine’s direction.
She shrugs. “My parents have high cholesterol.” I laugh, but Elaine’s face doesn’t change. “Lucy! This is huge!”
“Shh,” I hiss, peering around at the other interns and staff members. “He just wants me to edit them. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Still,” she urges. “He hasn’t asked to see a single one of my pictures. And I took plenty last week when we were shooting the neon line. I really thought he was going to give me some feedback on the purple blazers, but he didn’t even give me the time of day.”
I smile apologetically, placing a gentle hand on her forearm. “Maybe you can get some pictures today and he’ll take a look at them. He seems to be in a giving mood.”
She ignores my optimism, as placatory as it is, and grabs my hand. “Come on,” she urges, glancing at the dwindling staff as we approach our lunch break. “It’s almost lunchtime, and we need to celebrate this new development.”
“Are we finally going to try those chocolate cupcakes across the street?”
“I literally cannot think of a better excuse to get chocolate wasted on our lunch break.”
I giggle. “Let’s go.”
My fingers clutch a plastic container holding my extra chocolate cupcake while I practically skip home. I’m still on a high from today after Kyle sternly reminded me to have my edited pictures to him first thing Monday morning. Normally, I would panic or hyperventilate or have some sort of palpitation-inducing reaction but today, all I did was tack on an extra cheesy grin when I responded with a cringe-worthy “alrighty” to Kyle’s bemused expression. I think I even added some finger guns, but who cares?
The sun is slowly gliding across the clear blue sky, and the humid heat is finally cooling a bit. When I enter my building, the air feels much stuffier than outside, and I suddenly remember the small AC unit in my apartment may not be functioning at its full capacity, much like the toaster oven that doesn’t go above three hundred degrees or the broken hinge of the closet door.
I sigh. Only two more months.
Once on the landing to the second floor, I peer around the corner to the hallway leading up to my apartment. The last thing I expect is for the light to be streaming into the hallway from my door.
Did I leave my door open? My heart drops into my stomach. When I rush to my apartment, I’m greeted with a zombie apocalypse level of damage. I wish I was being dramatic. Like someone would jump out of the armoire—which is surprisingly still standing—telling me to calm my tits, and I’d simply laugh the whole situation off. And maybe when I look back at this moment in five years, I’ll realize that comparing my trashed apartment, with my dirtied clothes scattered on the floor and furniture knocked over as if a tornado ran through it, to a post-apocalyptic world is pretty dramatic. But I don’t have that kind of logic at this moment. Instead, I feel like the cloud I floated home in has evaporated and I’ve fallen into the biggest pile of rubbish my life has ever created.