6
OK, I love my new silver dress. And it is without a doubt the best dress I have worn so far. I love it, it is definitely runway quality. And I am damn proud of it, and I most definitely will wear it to a Rho function on the arm of Carmine, and I damn well know that will thrill her to death.
Truth time. OK, my family is decently well off financially.
My father is a contract lawyer; he represents sports figures, musicians, groups, actors, and all of the rest of the high-paid world, like, for instance, a NASCAR driver, who signs extensive contracts with contractors who want the contractee’s services.
My father knows his world, does well at it, and, well, it really does pay exceptionally well.
And my mother had a really decent position.
But it is my father’s world, where we were exposed to New York and Broadway, to tickets for the Super Bowl or the World Series.
We have been to the Stanley Cup, and we three kids have been taken to the highest-end restaurants, flown first class, and all of the rest.
That was the life I grew up with. I understand big money.
I know the world of fast cars, Tiffany jewelry, designer clothes (for my mother, not for me), and all of the rest.
But Carmine. This is not her world. And I have to respect that also.
Carmine was the only child of a single mother.
It is not clear, to Carmine or myself, if Carmine’s mother’s pregnancy was intentional sex or rape.
Carmine grew up hearing both truths. The father, however, was never identified, and Carmine was told many times, including by her grandparents, that the father died within a year of her birth, a violent death.
And given the nature of the time and the place and the individuals involved, it could have been a retaliation killing.
After Carmine’s birth, her mother either came out gay or shifted her sexual orientation because of the relationship with Carmine's father, but Carmine’s mother never dated a man again.
And her grandparents were close physically, but distant emotionally and in their actual presence in Carmine's life.
Carmine's mother ended up tending bar in a gay club in Pittsburgh when she was sober or off drugs enough, actually, to tend bar.
Yes, and no one took the child away from the parent.
And that was supposed to happen. But it did not.
Perhaps if the grandparents had filed a complaint?
Who knows. But Carmine was raised in that world of growing up in the rear of a gay nightclub or bar in Pittsburgh and was well aware of every variation of human sexuality and behavior possible by the time she was five years old.
But the kid also had role models in that world; there were aunts and uncles who cared about Carmine and made sure that she was taken care of.
Not all of the alternative lifestyle world are drunks and drug abusers; a lot are really decent folk who go to these places because that is where they are safe, not just feel safe, but physically are safe.
And this culture takes care of its members.
Carmine was seen as a member of the queer community.
And she was raised right by this community, given the values that her mother lacked.
Given the support, including financial support, that her mother needed to be able to keep Carmine.
And it was these folks who guided her to a place where she graduated with honors and was able to obtain a scholarship and attend Mercer.
Not her mother, but the queer community.
Now, this does not mean that Carmine had the financial abilities or life that I did. Carmine had what she needed, not necessarily what she wanted, but what she needed. I had both.
I had what I needed, but I also had what I wanted.
And that created two different people with two different sets of experiences. I am used to new cars; Carmine’s mother usually had a car that she could barely drive to work and back. I am used to fine dining. Carmine knows bar food as basic sustenance.
I want to share my world with Carmine, but I can never forget that I have to do so in small doses. I need to make sure that she is comfortable with the world we now live in.
And so, what did I do that evening? I somehow negotiated a half-million dollars' worth of luxury sports cars, one of which I am going to give to Carmine.
And I do not know how she is going to react.
Think about this: a kid raised in a gay bar hooks up with a model who trades two weeks of her professional life for two million in cash, almost a half million in automobiles, a $200K dress, and I do not have a clue in hell what the jewelry is worth.
The set includes a massive solitaire, a three-quarter-inch-wide diamond-studded bracelet, a pair of diamond drop earrings with massive stones, and a necklace that would look appropriate on a real-life princess.
All of the jewelry appears to be in platinum.
And everything but the money part is a gift, a signing bonus.
The jewelry alone would be somewhere north of two million in Dubai.
Now, that is not New York or London prices, but what the gift represents at one of the resorts in the UAE.
So the signing bonus was worth more than the contract, and this is for two weeks of my time.
How does Carmine relate to this world? I did not seek any of this out.
I never asked to model. I never asked to work with Byron.
I never asked to do a shoot in the UAE. Wherever they send me, I was told that it would be on location at a resort, and that is enough for now.
I stumbled into this world, and I am well aware of it.
But back to that truth, the cars should be there in Mercer within two weeks.
I received the call this morning from a dealer in New York when I was in hair, stating that the cars are in New York, and they did have one that is gold tone and one that is silver tone, but they are different models.
Mine, the silver-toned one, is a higher-performance version, and the gold 911 is a more luxury version of the same car.
So they basically look the same, but they do not drive the same.
And in about two weeks, I am putting Carmine in a $200K automobile.
And I have yet to tell her.
And then Byron dropped Lowri off. And Byron made a distinct point of letting everyone know exactly who she was, why she was there, and how they were to treat her.
That Lowri was to be seen as an extension of KK, and that part of her responsibility is to ensure that I do not walk off the job because of how I was being treated.
Now, I didn’t think I was being treated all that badly, but what do I know?
It is not like I really know what I am doing or what to expect.
And I thought, hell, I am being treated nicely.
But no. Byron has other ideas. For Byron, I am the franchise; Byron is putting the future of KK Brands in my hands, and he is trusting me to do what needs to be done to elevate his vision of this company that I am beginning to understand.
The type of relationship that I am building with Byron is typical of what a supermodel or top model builds with the clients who use them.
Byron is simply thrilled that he got to me first and does not intend to lose me.
Remember, I did the New York shoot and the Key West location work.
Byron’s art department has had a chance to see the results and to begin the process of creating the campaigns around the images. So I am a known quantity at this time.
Imagine that. I, boy Shannon, just six months ago, about to start the University, suddenly became a supermodel that a major, and I mean seriously major, fashion house is designing the next three to five years of existence around. My face. My body. My future.
So Lowri and I do Tuesday, and it is a copy of Monday, only on Tuesday I am in makeup at 7 a.m., hair by 8, and the dressers had me well before shooting was due to start at 9.
And with Lowri, I had someone to talk to, someone to get me coffee, someone just to be there.
It is far different finishing a morning’s work when you are overwhelmed and have thirty minutes for lunch and are left alone, because well, models are not staff at these shoots, really, we are not.
Staff are the folks who do the work of the shoot; they work together every day.
Models are clothes horses, brought in to look pretty and do exactly what they are told.
Here today, and permanently gone tomorrow.
Now, this studio shoots a lot of KK, but when I come back in a month?
We will be on location, shooting the same lines, the same items of clothing, but we will be somewhere warm where we can shoot outside.
This is the studio half of this job. In a month?
Different crew, different photographer. The art director and project people will be the same, but the laborers, hair and makeup, the dressers?
They are site-specific. And unless I return here, I will never see them again.
Lowri is my anchor, my grounding in that chaos.
And I had no clue, absolutely zero clue, how badly I needed her.
Lowri does know the industry; she was raised adjacent to fashion and is interested in fashion, much to the dismay of her other parent.
But she is aware of what this world is about.
Not the specifics of modeling; in that arena, I do know more.
But Lowri knows the names, terms, and words.
She understands the lingo of the industry from her uncles.
I am learning the language. But every country, every city, every studio has its own variations of what terms and words actually do mean.
For London, I now have Lowri, and she has no bloody fear of tackling any issue I have head-on.
That, she was informed this morning, is exactly what is expected of her.
I don’t know what her uncle is paying her, but I think I will add a nice bonus. Maybe a 911 if Carmine freaks too much?
Anyway, we finished about fifteen minutes early, and that meant that I was able to change and have Walter bring me to the apartment that I was assigned.
And as this is a strange situation, there are restaurants at the bottom of the tower I now reside in, I can order room service from the restaurants and can relax when I finish.
However… I have two phone calls to make.