It was all decided. I wondered now why Papa Munsch sensed what the girl had right away, while I didn’t. I think it was because I saw her first in the flesh, if that’s the right word.
At the time I just felt faint.
‘Who is she?’ he asked.
‘One of my new models,’ I tried to make it casual.
‘Bring her out tomorrow morning,’ he told me. ‘And your stuff. We’ll photograph her here. I want to show you.’
‘Here, don’t look so sick,’ he added. ‘Have some beer.’
Well I went away telling myself it was just a fluke, so that she’d probably blow it tomorrow with her inexperience and so on.
Just the same, when I reverently laid my next stack of pix on Mr. Fitch, of Lovelybelt’s, rose-coloured blotter, I had hers on top.
Mr. Fitch went through the motions of being an art critic. He leaned over backward, squinted his eyes, waved his long fingers, and said, ‘Hmm. What do you think, Miss Willow? Here, in this light. Of course the photograph doesn’t show the bias cut. And perhaps we should use the Lovelybelt Imp instead of the Angel. Still, the girl… Come over here, Binns.’ More finger-waving. ‘I want a married man’s reaction.’
He couldn’t hide the fact that he was hooked.
Exactly the same thing happened at Buford’s Pool and Playground, except that Da Costa didn’t need a married man’s say-so.
‘Hot stuff,’ he said, sucking his lips. ‘Oh boy, you photographers!’
I hot-footed it back to the office and grabbed up the card I’d given her to put down her name and address.
It was blank.
I don’t mind telling you that the next five days were about the worst I ever went through, in an ordinary way. When next morning rolled around and I still hadn’t got hold of her, I had to start stalling.
‘She’s sick,’ I told Papa Munsch over the phone.
‘She at a hospital?’ he asked me.
‘Nothing that serious,’ I told him.
‘Get her out here then. What’s a little headache?’
‘Sorry, I can’t.’
Papa Munsch got suspicious. ‘You really got this girl?’
‘Of course I have.’
‘Well, I don’t know, I’d think it was some New York model, except I recognized your lousy photography.’
I laughed.
‘Well look, you get her here tomorrow morning, you hear?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Try nothing. You get her out here.’
He didn’t know half of what I tried. I went around to all the model and employment agencies. I did some slick detective work at the photographic and art studios. I used up some of my last dimes putting advertisements in all three papers. I looked at high school yearbooks and at employee photos in local house organs. I went to restaurants and drugstores, looking at waitresses, and to dime stores and department stores, looking at clerks. I watched the crowds coming out of movie theatres. I roamed the streets.
Evenings I spent quite a bit of time along Pick-up Row. Somehow that seemed the right place.
The fifth afternoon I knew I was licked. Papa Munsch’s deadline—he’d given me several, but this was it—was due to run out at six o’clock. Mr. Fitch had already cancelled.
I was at the studio window, looking out at Ardleigh Park.
She walked in.
I’d gone over this moment so often in my mind that I had no trouble putting on my act. Even the faint dizzy feeling didn’t throw me off.
‘Hello,’ I said, hardly looking at her.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Not discouraged yet?’
‘No.’ It didn’t sound uneasy or defiant. It was just a statement.
I snapped a look at my watch, got up and said curtly, ‘Look here, I’m going to give you a chance. There’s a client of mine looking for a girl your general type. If you do a real good job you may break into the modelling business.
‘We can see him this afternoon if we hurry,’ I said. I picked up my stuff. ‘Come on. And next time if you expect favours, don’t forget to leave your phone number.’
‘Uh, uh,’ she said, not moving.
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘I’m not going out to see any client of yours.’
‘The hell you aren’t,’ I said. ‘You little nut, I’m giving you a break.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘You’re not fooling me, baby, you’re not fooling me at all. They want me.’ And she gave me the second smile.
At the time I thought she must have seen my newspaper ad. Now I’m not so sure.
‘And now I’ll tell you how we’re going to work,’ she went on. ‘You aren’t going to have my name or address or phone number. Nobody is. And we’re going to do all the pictures right here. Just you and me.’
You can imagine the roar I raised at that. I was everything—angry, sarcastic, patiently explanatory, off my nut, threatening, pleading.
I would have slapped her face off, except it was photographic capital.
In the end all I could do was phone Papa Munsch and tell him her conditions. I know I didn’t have a chance, but I had to take it.
He gave me a really angry bawling out, said ‘no’ several times and hung up.
It didn’t faze her. ‘We’ll start shooting at ten o’clock tomorrow,’ she said.
It was just like her, using that corny line from the movie magazines.
About midnight Papa Munsch called me up.
‘I don’t know what insane asylum you’re renting this girl from,’ he said, ‘but I’ll take her. Come around tomorrow morning and I’ll try to get it through your head just how I want the pictures. And I’m glad I got you out of bed!’
After that it was a breeze. Even Mr. Fitch reconsidered and after taking two days to tell me it was quite impossible he accepted the conditions too.
Of course you’re all under the spell of the Girl, so you can’t understand how much self-sacrifice it represented on Mr. Fitch’s part when he agreed to forgo supervising the photography of my model in the Lovelybelt Imp or Vixen or whatever it was we finally used.
Next morning she turned up on time according to her schedule, and we went to work. I’ll say one thing for her, she never got tired and she never kicked at the way I fussed over shots. I got along okay except I still had that feeling of something being shoved away gently. Maybe you’ve felt it just a little, looking at her picture.
When we finished I found out there were still more rules. It was about the middle of the afternoon. I started down with her to get a sandwich and coffee.
‘Uh uh,’ she said,’ I’m going down alone. And look, baby, if you ever try to follow me, if you ever so much as stick your head out that window when I go, you can hire yourself another model.’
You can imagine how all this crazy stuff strained my temper—and my imagination. I remember opening the window after she was gone—I waited a few minutes first—and standing there getting some fresh air and trying to figure out what could be back of it, whether she was hiding from the police, or was somebody’s ruined daughter, or maybe had got the idea it was smart to be temperamental, or more likely Papa Munsch was right and she was partly nuts.
But I had my pix to finish up.
Looking back it’s amazing to think how fast her magic began to take hold of the city after that. Remembering what came after, I’m frightened of what’s happening to the whole country—and maybe the world. Yesterday I read something in Time about the Girl’s picture turning up on billboards in Egypt.
The rest of my story will help show you why I’m frightened in that big general way. But I have a theory, too, that helps explain, though it’s one of those things that’s beyond that ‘certain point.’ It’s about the Girl. I’ll give it to you in a few words.
You know how modern advertising gets everybody’s mind set in the same direction, wanting the same things, imagining the same things. And you know the psychologists aren’t so sceptical of telepathy as they used to be.