“Jeez,” she said to one alleged photographer, whose card, with a little icon of an old large-format camera like you might see in a museum, offered the name Mark Schott, “haven’t heard that one.”
Schott said, “I’m prepared to offer foolproof testamentary material to prove that I am who I say I am. I’m an industry professional with more clients than I can handle. You will know me by the clouds of acclaim that billow about me. I am also — because I need to be in my line of work — a patient man.”
Vienna Roberts, however, was not particularly patient. She went directly home that night, and instead of doing calculus, she checked up on the Mark Schott web gallery, which numbered in the hundreds upon hundreds of images, and which included some major accounts in the Rio Blanco area, Iguana Juana’s, e.g., which employed her flaky boyfriend, Jean-Paul Koo; the Sonoran International Light Rail Corporation; the Air Force of the United States of America. Vienna, after perusing these photographs, which were often salacious, obvious, even shameless, but not quite sexually explicit, was inclined to favor Mark Schott’s attentions. For the money. She told him as much when he again came looking for her down near the bus station.
In fact, that day, her parents were leading a protest out on the square by the bus station. The municipal fountains had not operated there for almost ten years. The number of OxyPlus inhalers changing hands, at the bus station, in dollar value, exceeded the gross national product of several Central Asian fiefdoms. She could hear, out beyond the store, the earnest cries demanding wholesale prices for staple items such as milk and cereal and cheese. The lack of health care in the Southwest! The absence of air-conditioning in the shelter system, which was no shelter system at all, as she had often heard her mother remark, with tears in her eyes. There were sirens too, which meant that the riot police were taking very seriously the idea of the Union of Homeless Citizens. The number of homeless persons in Rio Blanco was enough that a union thereof could challenge the housed residents of the city. Or so her mother said, chewing on the end of a gray braid.
The door to the leather goods store opened, and in walked the somewhat flamboyant Mark Schott. He was in search of new and unusual garbs in which to array the bruised and tattered nymphets of his oeuvre. And yet his mission had a double purpose, true, because here he was again, working his persuasions on Vienna Roberts, as though charm were like instrumental excellence on the sitar, something that you had to practice.
“Well, there you are,” he said.
“Here I am,” she said.
“Have you considered the work? Have you had a look at it?”
“I have considered. But I don’t understand why me, and—”
“I have no motive, really, except that I like to see new faces in my photographs, and when I see a face that I find interesting, I proceed with energy to include that face.”
“How is that any different from—”
“It’s enough for me to work in the garden that I work in; in picking the flowers there, you never get to see them again.”
“That’s a nice way of—”
“And what if I have a job in the planning stages for which you might be perfect?”
“I’m considering, Mr. Schott, just like I have maybe considered various other options in my life, except that I’m considering this one a little more seriously. It’s getting daily consideration.”
“You haven’t even asked what the assignment is.”
Vienna Roberts absently hooked and unhooked a bustier on a mannequin beside the counter. Men of dubious occupation emerged from the aisles in various hooded garments, pining for someone for whom they could buy these hides. Their sense of purpose depended on their failure. In places of low light, meager expectations.
“Again,” Schott continued, “you can rely on the ethics of the person who is offering you this opportunity. This is the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, because you have seen my work, and I can put you in touch with people of discernment.” All of this would turn out to be true, but what made the difference for Vienna Roberts was the thatch of ear hair that Mark Schott sported, far in excess of what should have been possible for a man in his early forties. He was kind of fat too, especially around the hips. She could outrun him. Additionally, it was really unclear if he was straight or queer, and queerness was exalted in her pantheon of human pursuits. He reminded her of her instructor in language arts, Mr. McKinley.
“What’s the project, then?” she asked in a way that she hoped would be perceived as casual.
In this way was her commitment secured. What a mistake.
Oh, the words with which to describe her boredom at the Indigenous Ventures photo shoot. Such a momentous day, and yet such boredom. Any model will tell you, Vienna Roberts told friends later, that a photo shoot is a place of almost incalculable boredom. Any model will tell you that the models are dog meat, and a very small portion of dog meat, most of the time. Well, except in the case of the vogue for models who were overfed, especially in countries where hunger was a problem, which is to say most countries (excepting China and India). Models were meant to stand there, and, in the case of the Indigenous Ventures shoot, lick the face of another girl, nibble on her earlobe, and between camera setups these professional models bantered between themselves, Vienna and the other girl, they would say, “How bad is your flow? Like on day one, for example?” “Oh, man, you wouldn’t believe it; it’s like Old Faithful or something.” “And do you have violent mood swings, and do you remind the people around you that these are really due to their behavior?” “I don’t notice that I hate men any more on the first day than I do any other time. And by the way, I don’t think it’s right to talk about violent mood swings because these are concepts designed by patriarchy.”
And so: the shoot was not terribly interesting to Vienna Roberts, was a disappointment. But it kept her out of school, which she mostly ignored except for Mr. McKinley’s language arts class, where she compiled a list of interesting terms, such as sockdolager, and anaclitic, which she knew was going to be a good word, and what about fegaries, and nixies? It was what happened after the shoot that was of interest to her. During the shoot, Mark Schott, with his excessive ear hair and pear-shaped physique, was everywhere but behind the camera. He was standing in front of the girls, exhorting them with hands that were like birds, swooping and feinting, and he was upbraiding the costumers, and he was hopping up and down crying out for new veneers of pale foundation. He was Vienna’s one ally. But at the end of the shoot, when it was time to settle up, he was suddenly unavailable. Vienna had been assured she was going to be paid, or perhaps, in retrospect when she thought about it, maybe she had not been assured that she was going to be paid. Maybe she had just forgotten to negotiate this point, and this was a reflection of how being related to a pair of political agitators, and living in a tumbledown shack across from the heavily fortified high school, did not result in good instincts where money was concerned. Mark Schott, at the end of the shoot, attempted neglect in the matter of paying up, it seemed, and when she understood what this meant, how she had been shanghaied by Schott and his sunglasses, she found the other girl, who was standing and absently throwing dice across the felt, and she said, “Did you think you were going to get paid?”