"I'm Nelson Pavlak ...”
Well, she supposed she was lucky to have gotten off as easily as she did. "Janey," Comstock had said. He actually had the nerve to stop by her house the next afternoon on his way back to the city as she was packing up her things. "Nothing has to change just because I'm getting married. We can continue. Morgan knows me. She knows that I'm not going to be faithful to her. She just doesn't want it in her face.”
“Why would anyone marry a man who they knew was going to cheat?" Janey said viciously. "She must be pretty desperate.”
"She's European," he said, unwrapping a cigar. And then: "Christ, Janey. Don't be so conventional. It's such a bore.”
"Do you fuck her up the butt too?" Janey asked, folding towels.
"Actually, I don't. We're trying to get pregnant...”
“ ... I'm Nancy McKnight. And I've always wanted to be a real estate agent ... !”
"... Everybody knows why he's marrying her,”
Allison had said. "And if s not love. She's got money. And status. I'll give her that. But doesn't she understand that he's using her? Someone should warn her.
Christ on a cross. She must be forty-five. She's already been married twice. You'd think by now she'd know better.”
"She's what he wants," Janey had said. She was surprised at how little she felt, considering she'd thought she was madly in love with him.
"Of course," Allison said, pouring herself the last of Janey's wine. "Think about it. No matter how much money he has, or success, or power—I mean, who cares if he is the head of a movie company and hangs out with actors—the one thing he couldn't get was Fifth Avenue. What co-op board," she asked, "would let him in?”
"Now they all will," Janey said. She imagined Comstock in the lobby of a glossy Fifth Avenue apartment building. His suit would be wrinkled and he'd be sweating, handing out twenty-dollar tips to the doormen....
"... And what about you?" the instructor said, nodding at Janey.
Janey jumped.
"I'm ... Janey Wilcox. The model," she said. "Or anyway, I used to be a model. I'm ... trying to change my life. So I thought I should probably change my career as well ...”
"We have lots of people who change from another career into real estate. But how much education do you have? There's a lot of math involved in real estate.”
"Well," Janey said. "I have a year and a half of college ... and I think I used to be good at math when I was a kid.”
Everyone laughed.
"Very good, Janey," the instructor said, pulling at his mustache. "If you need any extra help, I'm available.”
Oh God.
Janey walked home. It was September, still warm and still light. She swung her books in a Gucci satchel Harold had bought her. He was trying to make it as enticing as possible, but in the end, she knew it wouldn't make any difference. Her days would stretch before her. There would be a certain blandness to them, but after all, wasn't that what most people's lives were like? Most people got up every morning and went to a job. They dated ordinary people and went to the movies. They didn't go to black-tie events. They didn't model in fashion shows. They didn't date best-selling authors or billionaires or movie moguls. They didn't have their names in the gossip columns, good or bad, and they especially didn't have summer houses in the Hamptons. And they survived.
Hell, they were probably happy.
She would never be happy that way. She knew she wouldn't, just as she knew she would never finish the screenplay. She would never turn up in Comstock's office and throw the finished manuscript down on his desk and say, "Read that, you asshole!" Write what you know, everybody said. And maybe it was stupid and maybe she was a loser, but that was what she knew. She could still remember the first time she'd come to New York, when she was sixteen, to become a model. Her mother had actually let her take the Amtrak train from Springfield to New York City with her brother, and had actually paid for them to stay overnight in a hotel. Which was such a weird thing for her mother to do, because she never did anything for Janey. Before or after. But that one time she had said yes, and Janey and her brother, Pete, had taken the train to Penn Station, passing the grungy little towns and cities along the way, the scenery becoming browner and more crowded and more industrial and more frightening (but Janey had loved it), until they passed through a long tunnel and arrived in New York City. It smelled of urine back then. It wasn't safe. They stayed at the Howard Johnson's on Eighth Avenue, and the horns and the clatter and the cars and the shouts kept them up all night, but Janey didn't mind a bit.
The next morning, she had taken her first taxi to the Ford Models Agency. It was on East Sixtieth Street then, in a narrow red town house. She walked up the steps. She pushed open the door. The room had industrial gray carpeting and posters of magazine covers on the wall.
She waited.
Then Eileen Ford herself came out. She was a small woman with curly gray hair, but Janey knew she was Eileen Ford by the commanding way she held herself. She was wearing brown shoes with a one-inch heel.
She scanned the room. There were four other girls. She looked at Janey. "You," she said. "Come with me.”
Janey followed her to her office.
"How tall are you?" Eileen Ford asked. "Five-ten," she said.
"Age?”
"Sixteen," Janey whispered.
"I want you to come back on Monday at noon. Can you do that?”
"Yes," Janey said breathlessly.
"Give me your phone number. I'll need to get your parents' permission.”
"Am I going to be a model?”
"Yes," Eileen Ford nodded. "I think you are.”
Janey walked out of the office. She was shaking.
"I'm going to be a model," she wanted to shout. She wanted to run and skip and jump. "A model! A model! A model!" And then, as she was leaving, a beautiful girl walked in, a girl whose face Janey recognized from the cover of magazines and glossy advertisements. Janey sucked in her breath, watching her. The girl was wearing an ornately beaded jacket with jeans. She had on suede Gucci loafers and was carrying a Louis Vuitton valise. Janey had never seen such a glamorous creature.
"Hello, Bea," the girl said to the receptionist. She had long blond hair that fell in perfect waves down her back. "I've come to pick up my check.”
It was Friday.
"Going away this weekend?" Bea, the receptionist asked, handing her an envelope.
"The Hamptons. I'm catching the eleven-fifteen Jitney.”
"Have a good one," Bea said.
"You too," the girl said. She waved.
The Hamptons! Janey said the words over and over again in her head. She'd never heard of them. But surely, they must be the most magical place in the world.
When she got home from the class, her phone was ringing. It was probably Harold. He'd promised to call, to find out how "school" went. She picked it up.
"Janey!" It was her booker at the modeling agency. "I've been trying to get you all evening. This just came in. Victoria's Secret. They called. Asked specifically for you. They've got a new campaign. They want you to audition to be one of their girls.”
“That’s nice," Janey said.
"Get this. They want women. They said women. No skinny little girls. So act your age. And Janey," he said warningly. "Don't blow it. Blow this, and I promise you, your career is over.”
Janey laughed.
"Janey Wilcox?" the woman asked, holding out her hand. "I'm Mariah. I'm the head of corporate for Victoria's Secret.”
"Nice to meet you," Janey said. They shook hands. Mariah had long dark hair. She was pretty, about thirty-five. Her handshake was firm. There were hundreds of women like this in the industry. They weren't quite attractive enough to be models themselves, but they wanted to do something "glamorous," and they took themselves a little too seriously.