Just Wanna Testify (5 page)

The models weren’t due on set until ten o’clock, but when Aretha pulled her truck up to the front entrance of King Chapel at quarter to nine, there was already a small but growing crowd of Morehouse students gathering across the street in front of the Student Center. They were trying to look casual, but it was pretty obvious that they had come to see the Too Fine Five, celebrity shorthand for the models that Aretha was there to photograph.

Dressed in everything from their best Sunday suits to their favorite oversized jeans and big white T-shirts, they were all pretending that they were there just to see what was going on, not hoping to be picked to be a part of it. The models’ appeal to the young men in the African American urban community was in some ways an anomaly, considering that there was nothing on any of the women’s bodies remotely resembling a booty, but several high-profile rappers had put them in videos that featured big yachts, expensive cars,
exclusive resort hotels, and pristine private beaches. Their job was to stand or lounge around looking bored and vaguely spectral while the sexual energy of the headliner raged around them in all-too-human form.

They didn’t really dance or even walk around very much. What they did was move to the music in a strangely arrhythmic motion that was oddly mesmerizing. Sometimes they’d slither around independently of one another, but then they’d all do the exact same gesture or movement at the exact same time, at no apparent signal, and freeze there for just a fraction of a second and then start moving again.

Across the country, boys watching the video were drawn to it in a way that made them laugh and tease one another about being under the power of those “weird skinny bitches,” but they couldn’t stop watching. Young men who had never seen these girls in a fashion photograph fantasized about having sex with them even as they realized that they probably would never have the nerve to approach one, much less all five, since one was rarely seen without the others.

“Pretty girls on an all-male campus.” The public relations director had chuckled when Regina called to let him know that Blue would be sending over some people to round out the small campus police force. “The more security the better.”

Aretha waved her thanks to the smiling campus police officer who removed the bright orange cones and let her pull right up beside the entrance to the chapel auditorium.

“Thanks, Sergeant,” Aretha said, jumping out of the truck.

“Morning, Miss Hargrove,” the smiling sergeant replied. “We got everything closed to traffic, just like you wanted. How you doin’, Miz Hamilton?”

“I’m good,” Regina said, slamming the door behind her and waiting for instructions from Aretha.

“I’m glad the weather cooperated,” the sergeant said, nodding his approval of the cloudless Atlanta sky. The previous day had been
chilly for late May and very wet. “It wouldn’t do to have rain fallin’ on these girls.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially and winked. “They’d probably just wash right on away.”

Aretha laughed, handing Regina the smallest camera case, which the sergeant immediately took from her. “I see their fans have already begun to gather in anticipation of their arrival.”

“Anticipation, nothin’,” he said, reaching up to get the larger case. “They have arrived.”

“They’re here already?”

He nodded. “Been here about an hour. Went straight downstairs.”

Aretha looked annoyed. “How many of them were there?”

“Six all together,” he said. “But only one of ’em talked.”

“That would be the whole gaggle,” she said as if they were a flock of migrating birds. “They’re an hour early!”

“Probably on Milan time,” Regina said quickly. “That means they are true professionals.”

“So what does that make me?” Aretha snapped.

“An artist,” Regina said, reaching for another case.

“Hang on, Miz Hargrove,” the sergeant said, motioning to another officer standing nearby. “Let me get somebody to help you with that stuff.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” she said, turning to Regina. “Do me a favor, will you? Go down there and make sure they’ve got everything they need, and I’ll get things going up here.”

“I’m on it,” Regina said, heading for the big glass doors of the chapel in search of models.

She took the wide staircase down to the lower level, listening to see if they sounded like birds, too, since Aretha had described them that way, but they didn’t. In fact, they didn’t seem to be making any noise at all. Countless movie scenes of fashion shoots, from
Blow-Up
to
Sex and the City
, had conditioned Regina to expect to hear loud music as the fashion fantasy took shape under the hypercritical eyes of people who knew the difference between Prada and Dior.
But when she got to the bottom of the stairs, the first thing Regina noticed was how quiet it was. No music. No laughter. If she listened closely, she thought she could hear the sound of female voices murmuring somewhere nearby, but they were so quiet, she wasn’t even sure where they were coming from. She headed in what she hoped was the right direction.

She had thought they were going to be using the small dressing rooms provided for speakers and performers, but the tiny cubicles had obviously not appealed to these women. Instead, someone had erected a kind of indoor tent for them in the large lobby space downstairs. It was constructed of diaphanous white fabric that fluttered softly in the artificial breeze coming from the building’s ventilation system. Through the gently billowing fabric, Regina could see five ghostly, back-lit figures moving around slowly. They appeared to be very tall and very thin, except for two who were shorter and quicker and appeared to be helping the others into and out of their clothes.

“Looking for someone?”

The voice came from so close beside Regina’s left shoulder, it made her jump. “You startled me!”

The woman standing in front of her didn’t blink or apologize. “Security is supposed to be keeping people out of this area.”

Regina was struck by how tall and thin this woman was, too. Her dark hair was pulled back so severely that it gave her face a stark, dramatic strangeness, and her neck was so long, it was as if her head was floating independent of her body. Regina had seen pictures of the models, but their manager—this had to be her in the flesh, what little there was of it—had been only a disembodied voice on the phone.

“I’m Regina Hamilton.”

“Then you’re looking for me,” the woman said, extending a black-gloved hand. “Serena Mayflower.”

“Welcome to Atlanta,” Regina said, wondering if black leather gloves in May was the result of a cold nature or the latest fashion
trend. “Aretha’s upstairs getting things set up. She wanted me to make sure you have everything you need.”

“We’re fine,” Serena said. “The
Essence
stylists are with them now making some final wardrobe decisions.”

Regina assumed those would be the shorter, faster silhouettes behind the veil. “Did you bring hair and makeup people from New York, too?”

“They always do their own makeup,” Serena said. “Our skin is very sensitive so we try not to be careless.”

“That’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?” Regina said, surprised.

“It’s unheard of,” Serena said, “but we know what works for us and we stick with it.”

The way she said
we
made Regina wonder if these women were related, but before she could ask, the white drapes were pushed aside and one of the models came out, looked around quickly, and then walked over to where they were standing. Regina had seen models before, but none as tall and skinny as this one. Everything on her was elongated, from her giraffelike neck to her mile-long legs. The closer she got, the taller she loomed, which made Regina think that she was going to have to tip back her head to say hello—like a little child being prompted to greet the pastor after church. She needn’t have worried. Pleasantries were the last thing on this woman’s mind.

“Look at this shit!” the model said, ignoring Regina completely and pointing one long, bony finger at her own head. “Scylla cannot be serious!”

She was wearing a pair of high-wasted pants, a tailored white shirt, and a pair of leopard-skin ankle boots with five-inch heels. Around her neck there were easily fifteen colorful beaded necklaces of various lengths. But the beautiful clothes and fanciful jewelry were not what you noticed first. It was her hair, which was dark, fuzzy, and abundant. For reasons that Regina figured were unfathomable to anyone outside the fashion world, someone had teased it out around her face in a wooly mushroom cloud that added another
four or five inches to her already overwhelming height, creating an effect as startling as a brightly colored parrot coming to rest on the branches of a magnolia tree.

Serena looked at the agitated model without any discernable change of expression. “Scylla is always serious. You know that.”

“Then she has lost her mind!”

“It’s fine,” Serena said calmly. “When you see the photos, you’ll love it.”

The model fluttered her hands unhappily around her hair without touching it and pouted her brightly painted red lips. “I will not love it. We look ridiculous.”

“You look fabulous,” Serena said. “Now stop fussing long enough to meet Regina Hamilton. Regina, this is Sasha, the baby of our group. We indulge her more than we should.”

“Tell her,” Sasha said, turning toward Regina and striking a
Vogue
-worthy pose. “Does this look like shit or not?”

It looked like nothing Regina had ever seen on a woman’s head before, but Sasha didn’t look like any woman she’d ever seen either, so the standards that normally applied were obviously useless.

“You look amazing,” Regina said, and that was true.

Sasha snorted like that much was obvious. “We always look
amazing
. I’m talking about looking ridiculous.”

A voice from the diaphanous tent joined the conversation. “Stop bitching and I’ll let you do the makeup.”

Sasha’s pout disappeared and Regina had the feeling her expression was as close to a smile as the woman was going to get.

“For real?”

“Absolutely.”

Serena paid no attention to the new voice at all. She looked bored.

“For the whole shoot?”

The curtains parted again to reveal another model. They looked enough alike in every way to be the twin daughters of some very odd-looking parents. She was wearing a gray pencil skirt and a hot-pink
silk blouse with the same stacked necklaces and the same towering poof of hair. Regina wondered in what alternate universe this could be a college professor’s classroom attire.

“For the rest of my fucking life, if you will just calm down and get back in here so we can get ready and go to work.”

Sasha looked at Serena. “You’re my witness. You heard that, right?”

“I heard it.”

Seemingly satisfied with that less-than-enthusiastic response, Sasha sashayed back over to the billowing tent and brushed past the other model, who had now fixed her gaze on Regina.

“Scylla, meet Regina Hamilton. Regina, meet our creative director and resident genius. We couldn’t do it without her.”

“Nice to meet you,” Regina said, trying not to stare. Standing among these women, she felt like a Georgia pine tree in the Sequoia National Forest trying to hold its own with the redwoods.

“Are you the agent?”

“Sort of,” Regina said, smiling.

Scylla frowned. “What the hell does that mean? Are you the one we ought to talk to about doing the new portfolio or not?”

Before Regina could respond, Sasha raised her voice from behind the curtains, where she seemed to be standing over a woman perched on a high stool.

“Susan won’t let me put the green eyeliner on her!”

“It looks stupid!” another voice cried from the inner sanctum.

Scylla sighed and glanced at Serena, then back to Regina like they had important unfinished business but she had no more time. “Does anybody around here know what the fuck they’re doing?” she said, and ducked back behind the billowing fabric without another word.