Chapter 3
Billie made coffee for both of them the next morning when she got up.
There were three mugs and a few mismatched plates in the kitchen cabinet and nothing in the fridge.
Mickie showed up in the kitchen before her go-see, drank a cup of coffee, and put her portfolio in the tote bag she used for work.
Billie could see the bag was Chanel from the double C’s embossed in the leather.
Mickie was wearing a white silk Chanel jacket, jeans, and high heels.
She looked elegant and demure in her daytime persona.
It was dizzying how fast she could switch from one style to another.
This was her daytime look going to modeling go-sees, and at night she looked like a hooker at the bar, but she didn’t behave like one.
Billie was impressed by how different she could look.
“What are you trying out for today?” Billie asked her, as they both drank their coffee.
Billie felt like she was supposed to take care of her sister again, the way she had after their mother died.
But Mickie wasn’t fourteen anymore. She was every bit a woman, and she knew what she was doing, much more so than her older sister, who felt newborn next to her and was na?ve.
“They told me to dress conservatively. It’s for a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.
He’s running an ad campaign. He moved here from Palm Beach a couple of years ago, and he’s opening a fancy beauty clinic.
He picked eight girls out of a hundred, and he wants to see us today.
Then he’ll reduce it to one for his ads. ”
“That sounds pretty brutal,” Billie said.
“It’s how it works,” Mickie said, as she set the empty cup down. “He uses all non-invasive procedures. It’s a revolutionary process.” She was convinced of its success even before she’d met him.
“Have you seen him?” Billie asked, observing her younger sister. Her beauty was flawless.
“I’m meeting him today. Good luck at the agency,” Mickie said, and flew out the door with her portfolio.
Billie was surprised that she was actually enjoying being with her.
Mickie lived in a world that was completely unfamiliar to Billie.
A world of appearances where one was constantly judged on how one looked, and daily rejection was part of it.
Just the idea sounded exhausting. Mickie had to claw her way up, start from scratch at every go-see and audition, and then work hard as a waitress all night to pay her rent.
It seemed much harder than getting a job because of one’s knowledge and intelligence.
Billie was wearing a crisp white blouse, black jeans, and her one pair of high heels, with her hair pulled back.
She thought about wearing lipstick and decided not to.
She didn’t want to look frivolous. She wanted to look serious and professional.
She arrived at the first agency on time, filled out all the forms, met with an older woman, and answered all her questions.
They were impressed that she had gone to MIT.
At the second agency, they sent her on an interview for a temporary job at Cedars-Sinai’s pathology lab.
She would be replacing a lab technician going on maternity leave.
It was a very basic job, and Billie was capable of a great deal more than that, but she needed the money and had said she would take anything.
Two other young women were interviewed for the same job and the interviewer said they’d let her know.
It was a huge hospital, and Billie walked around afterward and then went back to the apartment.
She wondered how Mickie’s go-see had gone.
It had felt good to be in a hospital setting.
It was a world she understood, and where she felt safe and competent.
She would have hated being judged by her looks every day.
It seemed exhausting. But Mickie was excited and energetic when she got home.
She said the go-see with the plastic surgeon had been fantastic.
He was setting up a whole beauty center in a fabulous house in Bel Air.
“His techniques are revolutionary,” she said to Billie, as she sprawled on the couch and took her Chanel jacket off.
“They sent me on two more go-sees after that. And I’m booked at a trade show at the Fairplex in Pomona this weekend.
I think it’s the boat show. I have to show up for work in a bikini.
It’s for two days, so the rent will get paid this month.
The doctor is a really fancy guy. Alexander Addison the Fourth.
He practiced in Palm Beach, moved to L.A.
, and is opening his beauty center in a week or two.
They’re shooting his ads next week. It’s a three- or four-day job.
They’ll use me for the ‘after’ photos,” she said.
“After what?” Billie asked her.
“After his miracle treatments,” Mickie said vaguely.
“Will he perform them on you?” Billie looked worried. Mickie was so perfectly beautiful that the idea of anyone playing with her face was frightening.
“No, they do the photos with technology,” Mickie said blithely.
“What kind of technology?”
“You know, Photoshop. The photographer does it. They don’t touch me.” That sounded even worse to Billie. It sounded like a scam to her.
“Does the agency check the doctor out?”
“Of course. He went to Harvard. He’s a big deal in the East. He wanted to bring his talents out here. Several major actresses are already his clients.”
“Just be careful,” Billie warned her, skeptical about Dr. Alexander Addison IV. “Don’t let anyone push you into something you don’t want to do, or feel uncomfortable about.”
“He’s going to pay me a fortune, Billie, if I get the job.
And I’m very comfortable about that.” Mickie grinned at her older sister.
This was how big careers were made, and a lot of money, which was what Mickie was after.
She had grown up poor and hated it. She was convinced that she was born to be rich, and she was willing to do whatever she had to do to get there.
Dr. Alex Addison looked like a golden ticket to the moon to her.
She just hoped she’d get the job. She had met him and he was a good-looking, successful rich guy.
That was good enough for her, no matter what Billie said.
They worked at the restaurant that night, and the manager let Billie wait on tables. She made a healthy amount on tips, and Mickie made four times as much. Men loved even just talking to her. They always had, even when she was a teenager.
“I’m going shopping with this wad tomorrow,” Mickie said with a grin in the Uber on the way home.
It had been a long, busy night, but it was well worth it.
Billie was just glad to have some money to add to her dwindling savings, and she was praying she’d get the path lab job at Cedars-Sinai.
She wasn’t going to set the world on fire with it, but maybe she’d learn something from the practical experience.
It was a steady income, and she wouldn’t have to wait on tables half naked, looking like a chorus girl in Vegas.
She missed talking to Tom at times like this.
He always saw the humor in things, and would make her laugh about it.
Instead, she was well out of her comfort zone, and living with the sister who had been the bane of her existence for most of her childhood and adolescence.
The irony of it was amusing, but Billie just wanted to retreat into her safe, familiar world, out of sight, using her brain and everything she had studied for four years.
She wondered about what Mickie was getting herself into.
She had looked up Alexander Addison online and found several articles by him in respectable publications.
The guy was either a genius or a brilliant charlatan, and Billie always favored the cynical, conservative point of view.
She would be suspicious of him until proven wrong.
But medical treatments that were related to beauty were foreign to her, and Mickie knew a lot more about them.
Billie knew chemistry and science, and had won the physics prize in high school.
Dr. Addison’s particular brand of voodoo and witchcraft sounded like science fiction to her, but clearly his magic had worked on some people who had written rave reviews, so more power to him.
They both got lucky the next day. Mickie got the call first from her agency.
She had gotten the shoot for Dr. Addison’s ads.
He had stretched it to four or five days.
They were starting on Monday. They wanted her to bring some of her designer wardrobe, and he would provide the rest and fill in any gaps.
They would be shooting at his beauty center in Bel Air, which he was calling Bellissima.
It was still in the process of being decorated.
They were putting the finishing touches on it.
Addison was paying Mickie top dollar, and she ran around the apartment screaming and jumped up and down on the sagging couch like a little girl, while Billie grinned.
The poised, sophisticated mask had slipped for a minute, and Mickie looked like a kid as she squealed and hugged her sister.
“Good job, sis,” Billie said, genuinely happy for her.
It was the first really big job she had landed since coming to L.A.
, and the agency was pleased. It would push her up to the next level of the jobs they would send her to.
Success was beckoning and the doors were slowly opening, and Mickie couldn’t wait to walk through them. This was what she had come to L.A. for.
She had to go to the agency a few hours later to sign extensive confidentiality agreements that the doctor was requiring since the ads were about medical treatments. Mickie would have signed whatever he wanted.