LUCIA

 

Calvin was having some kind of coughing fit—or maybe a heart attack?

“You okay?” I asked, stepping forward to pat him on the back. He stepped back, shaking his head.

“Totally,” he finally managed to say. “Just…swallowed wrong is all.”

“You seem to do that a lot around me,” I said, biting my lip to keep from smiling. He was cute when he was jumpy.

I leaned my arms against the railing, sipping my red wine and staring out into the woods. I felt the breeze in my hair, the back of my legs warm from the flames of the fire pit crackling softly behind us. The rain was holding off and the air held that delicious just-about-to-rain smell I forgot I loved.

After a moment, Cal joined me. If I slid six inches to the left, our arms would have touched.

“So you started modeling when you were only fifteen?” He asked, returning to our earlier conversation.

“Yep,” I said. “Fifteen. And it was only through the sheer force of my will that we didn’t start doing it earlier.” I paused. “My parents are in the business.”

“Modeling?”

“No…” I said, shaking my head, “it’s a Hollywood term. The Business, with a capital B. Film. She’s a famous movie director. He used to be an actor but is now a producer. When I was eleven I first started to get noticed and they were ecstatic.”

“They didn’t want you in school?” he asked.

“School is not important to them. They’ve both worked with child actors who have to take classes while on set, so they know all about minimum-schooling, believe me. But they love being famous.”

“They wanted a famous daughter,” Cal finished.

I sipped my wine and nodded. I turned to face him, liking it when he did the same. “My parents really wanted me to start when I was fourteen, but I just wanted to be a regular high schooler.”

I watched him grimace. “It’s…I’m sorry, but I guess I always think of modeling as being…” he paused, looking for the word.

“Sexual?” I chimed in.

“Ye—yeah, I guess. Or selling something at least. Something about having a fourteen-year-old use her body to sell something feels totally wrong to me.”

“Same,” I said, laughing. He laughed too, but looked surprised. “It’s okay,” I said. “I didn’t do it. I’m pretty fucking stubborn and I had my teachers write letters to my parents about why it was important for someone going through puberty to have a normal childhood experience.”

Cal looked impressed.

“I’m determined when I want something,” I said and he nodded, bringing his beer to his lips but holding my gaze.

“I can see that,” he said.

I swallowed, suddenly hot. “Anyway, fifteen isn’t much better. But it could have been a lot worse. I did have to kind of drop out of traditional school. I still graduated high school,” I said hurriedly, because I was suddenly nervous standing in front of someone who was clearly brilliant. “I’m not like…that dumb,” I said, something I was used to joking about.

Cal tilted his head. “You don’t seem even a little bit dumb to me,” he said and I smiled.

I leaned a little closer, the wine and the trees and Cal’s sudden penchant for eye contact making me a bit woozy. I looked around, confirming we were out of earshot. “I actually was on track to be our school’s valedictorian.”

Cal visibly brightened. He reached forward, like he wanted to touch me, but then pulled back. “I uh…well, me too actually. I mean, I was our school’s valedictorian.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, throwing my head back and laughing. Hurt crossed his face but he hid it. “No, I’m sorry,” I said, laying my hand on his arm. “I meant that as a compliment. I actually think you might be the smartest person I ever met.”

“Don’t let the glasses fool you,” he said, lips half-quirking up.

“Not a lot of people can do computer programming and run a small business. It’s impressive.” I sipped my wine. “Very impressive, actually.”

We were silent for a moment before Cal said, “Wait…but you weren’t valedictorian? In the end?”

“Oh, god no,” I said. “I ended up having to get my GED instead. I missed graduation, I missed prom, I missed…well, a lot of things.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, sympathy lacing his voice. But actual sympathy.

I shook it off. “Don’t be,” I said. “I grew up in a privileged world and my life has been nothing but. Being a model at a young age was sometimes…difficult,” I said, blocking a handful of memories before I went too deep, “But I basically get paid a tremendous amount of money to look pretty.” I shrugged. “Much worse things happening in this world.”

Cal looked thoughtful for a second, almost like he wanted to ask another question. But stopped. “We’re so different,” he said, finally. “I’m not super into celebrity culture or anything, but like all people, especially growing up in California, I’m aware of it and that it exists. I have no concept of what that would be like. You know, before coming up here my work days were like, I don’t know…” he blushed, thinking. “Something like: hit the snooze alarm. Get dressed in my tiny, cramped apartment, sit in traffic, totally zoned out. Um…be at my desk for nine hours staring at numbers on a screen. Meetings, annoying coworkers. A kind of constant, unending sense of bleakness,” he deadpanned.

I half-spit my wine out, laughing. “Calvin,” I said, squeezing his arm and for a second I couldn’t tell if I was fake flirting or real flirting. “It couldn’t have been that bad. This is going to sound like such a stereotype, but usually on my tenth straight hour of holding some ridiculous pose, half-naked and with, like, a lion cub in my lap or something,” I said, delighted when Cal grinned, “I’d wonder: what would it be like to just work in an office? You know, gather around the water cooler and talk about HBO shows. Sit in staff meetings. Say things like thank god it’s hump day to my coworkers.”

We were leaning closer and closer together, the night sky and the smell of the forest doing strange things to my sense of balance.

“Question,” he started. “Why the fuck are you always holding a lion cub?” Cal was relaxing, some of his natural shyness dissipating. I liked the way he said the word fuck. I liked his body heat.

“Oh, who the hell knows,” I said. “Creative directors love sticking wild, deadly animals with models. Something about ferocity and taming beasts and a little bit of the scare factor. I’ve modeled with cobras, pythons…once a tarantula.”

“Dear god, why?”

“It was for leg waxing.” I said and Cal burst into laughter. Deep and joyous.

“Have you laughed much since your grandfather died?” I asked, the wine totally going to my head now.

Cal looked briefly startled, and then thoughtful. “I mean, yes, definitely. But I don’t have a ton of company up here. Gabe is hilarious and I spend a couple nights a week at the bar with him, hanging out with some locals. And my grandfather had a real wry sense of humor and he filled his journals with that. I’ll definitely burst out laughing while reading them. Which is nice…for a second he feels very alive again.”

I bit my lip. “I’m sorry he died. I didn’t know him…also I don’t really know you but, still. I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t quite make out his expression. “Thank you, I…well, um, I miss him. A whole hell of a lot actually. It’s hard living here because he’s everywhere. And he died suddenly so there was so much regular life stuff still around when I moved in. Like, on his nightstand was the book he was in the middle of reading.”

“Which was?”

“On the Road. Again. His annual re-read. Jack Kerouac meant a lot to him. I mean, Kerouac’s life mirrored my grandfather’s in that Kerouac didn’t give a fuck about following the rules, or living within society’s random pressures. Obviously, they were different too.”

“Kerouac lived life way harder than your grandfather. Your grandfather also didn’t, you know, help his friend bury a dead body. Or drink himself to death.”

A small smile from Calvin. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. How do you…”

“The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles, exploding like spiders across the stars.’” I shrugged. “That’s the rest of the quote, from the other day. You couldn’t remember the end.”

Cal’s eyes bored into mine, and I thought about the woods. That look on his face.

I held his gaze, my thoughts drifting to his lips. Did he take his glasses off when he kissed someone?

“You read a lot, don’t you?” he finally asked.

Yes, I wanted to say, desperately. Although the real answer was I used to.

I started to say more—what was in this wine? —but Cal’s friend Gabe showed up, and it was clear it was time for me to go. I waved goodbye to Cal, whose expression was completely unreadable.

 

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I couldn’t stop thinking about the fucking woods.

And I’d drunk too much. Not, like, too-too much, but I felt lighter and sillier and more honest than usual. And something about that patio…it had worked some kind of magic on me.

I’d shared a lot with Calvin—except for Josie, no one in my current life knew about my desire to stay in school, or my failed attempt at becoming our school’s valedictorian. LA, in its image-obsessed glory, could give a fuck about a high school diploma. And it could give a fuck if you were the smartest kid in your school, the hardest worker, the most intellectual.

I had a role to play and a reputation to keep. Sure, I sometimes got snarkier and more sarcastic than my handlers would like. But in general, I’d spent the last decade being the goddamn best at my job. Holding poses the longest, wearing the most outrageous outfits, the tallest heels, working the most bizarre shoots with fucking ease.

I never purposefully played the role of dumb, vapid, model. It didn’t suit me.

And yet, when I was younger, I found it a lot easier to not actively fight against that label. I got the impression that my millions of fans followed me for a glimpse into the glamorous life of a supermodel. Not because I offered some interesting perspective on the world. Or because two-thirds of the time I just wanted to post photos of the books I wanted to read.

Or the poems I felt desperate to write.

But tonight, with Calvin, I was compelled to show him a different side of myself. I didn’t know him well but he seemed so incredibly smart. Worldly and knowledgeable—writing code while simultaneously reading Margaret Atwood.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about the fucking woods.

Calvin had been watching me…leaning up against that tree like a nerdier James Dean. The look on his face was so intensely sexual I wondered if he was even aware of it. It lit me up inside. I performed for it. Was greedy for it. Wanted to spend the entire day being photographed while Calvin watched.

It was unsettling.

And unexpected. I’d been chalking it up to boredom, hormones, and the fact that I was probably just a little horny.

But…he had left me a poem.

A poem.

Blame it on the alcohol, but between the moment in the woods, and this party, and our run-in in the hallway, Calvin was becoming more and more intriguing.

Maybe I was developing a crush.

Which was crazy since I was Lucia Fucking Bell. I could literally have any man on the planet, and I was (lightly) crushing on someone who spent most of his time ignoring me. And was definitely smarter than me.

But the alcohol had made me brave. So after the party died down and I’d tried, and failed, to fall asleep, I snuck into the bookstore. Cal had told me he left it unlocked a lot of the time, and tonight was no exception.

I’d had a poem in mind as I walked through the path in the forest, spellbound by the trees at night, that intoxicating sound of wilderness in the dark. I felt everything—the brush of branches against my skin. The slight squish of mud beneath my shoes. The full moon, lighting my way: pale and enchanting. The entire walk was one long, glorious poem and my notebook was still packed away, unopened and not here for me to capture it.

When I snuck inside, I found the poetry room, my heart expanding at the presence of so many of my favorite poems. And this one, the one I would leave for Calvin, was one of the best.

I pulled the collection out, finding it quickly. I grabbed a post-it note from behind the desk and pen.

Your grandfather’s campsite had a profound effect on me. The entire time I kept thinking about this poem. Do you know it? -Lu

P.S. Diane di Prima is a goddess. Thank you for the gift of her words.

I grabbed a pencil and circled my favorite lines:

To live in this world/you must be able to do three things:/to love what is mortal/to hold it/against your bones knowing/your own life depends on it/and, when the times comes to let it go/to let it go.

I crept down the hallway towards his bedroom, alive with the knowledge he was sleeping behind that door. I loved men in bed, sleep making them sexy and vulnerable. I wondered what he wore, if anything. I wondered what he’d do if I crept in, crawled into bed, the covers warm from his body heat, the sheets smelling like him: woodsy and masculine.

I was turned on. A little drunk. And holding a poem for a computer programmer who, after tomorrow, I would never see again.

I felt more alive than I had in months. I left it, propped up against his bedroom door.

And as I walked home, grinning uncontrollably, my phone buzzed with an international text: an odd time for me to get a smattering of cell service. I stopped, holding my cell up, attempting to keep the signal.

It was Sabine, “just checking in.” She’d seen the first photos of the shoot and was thrilled about it. There is so much good buzz around you right now, it’s ridiculous, she’d written. I didn’t think Lucia Bell could become even more famous, but between Shay Miller and this new contract, you’re going to be unstoppable, ma cheri. Do you have time for a phone call in a couple days? I have mock-ups for you.

I stopped, sighing. Yanked back down to Earth.

I read the message again, re-read it, until the attention-seeking beast that lived inside me roared back to life.

I didn’t think Lucia Bell could become even more famous.

Which is what I wanted, desperately. Because 26-year old models had a short shelf life. I’d be lucky to book shoots like this much longer, and Paris offered a new world of fame.

My wifi icon winked open—I had about a half a bar, suddenly, and I used it to open Instagram. My notifications flared up instantly, but I only cared about one thing.

894 new followers. Not bad for a few days where I’d posted basically nothing. Those 22 Instagram followers could suck it!

I did a little, semi-drunk dance in the woods, grateful that no one could see me. I lost my internet and cell connection as soon as I’d gained it, but it had given me a glimmer of hope.

Fuck Big Sur. Fuck the wilderness.

I was back on top.   

 

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