“So, just to make it completely clear,” Jenna announced. “I don’t think it’s fair that all of you have seen Leah naked, but I haven’t.”
"Hey,” I said. “You’re looking at it the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You’re special. Unique. Among the few, the proud, right?”
“Wait a minute,” Jenna objected. “I see what you’re trying to do.”
“What’s that?” I asked, innocently.
“You’re trying to get out of letting me see you naked,” she retorted.
“That was never actually on the table,” I said.
“Spoilsport!” Jenna complained, sticking out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout.
“Quid pro quo, babe,” Andy said, sipping his drink.
“What, me show her mine and she shows me hers?” Jenna asked.
“Hey- it worked for me,” Andy said. “And Emmy, too, I’m guessing.”
Jenna had no real response for that, so she just shut up and finished off her glass of wine.
Emmy took the momentary silence as her opportunity to sing another song, something about ‘If I strip for you, would you strip for me?’, which lightened the mood some.
Jenna gave up on hounding me, and instead patted Angela’s thigh. “Well, at least Angela here is still pretty much naked,” she said with some degree of satisfaction.
During a lull in the conversation, Emmy went and found a permanent marker, and brought the football and jersey for Andy to sign.
“I should order another jersey for you to autograph,” I said. “I’ll put it up in my office.”
“That’s cool,” Andy said. “I’d love to sign as many as you want.”
“Do you get the money when one of your jerseys sells?” Angela asked, watching Andy sign on the number below the name ‘Temple’.
“Not directly,” Andy said, capping the pen. “All the player-specific merchandise money goes into a pot, and it gets divided up among all the players in the league. So I get just as much money when someone buys a Patriots Brady jersey as I did when Leah bought this for Emmy.”
“So the superstars subsidize the unknowns?” Jenna asked.
“Yeah, pretty much. I mean, like, maybe ten players account for half of the jersey sales or something like that, right? A lot of players in the NFL have never had a jersey with their name on it sold- guys like backup kickers and whatnot that nobody knows, and who might not ever actually play a snap, but they’re on the roster. Those guys get just as much of that money as your Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, or J.J. Watt does,” Andy explained.
“That seems fair,” Emmy said. “I have heard that the biggest stars make many millions a year, but the average player makes far, far less.”
“Well, yeah. Look, Jared, our QB, is making something like eighteen million dollars this year, his rookie season, same as mine, but I’m making a million bucks this year and doing better than a lot of other guys on the team.”
“The struggle is real!” Jenna said, sipping her wine.
“A million dollars a year is still a lot of money,” Angela said.
“Yeah, it is, but if I really kick ass the next couple of seasons I’ll be able to renegotiate for a lot more.”
Hearing this made Angela’s face fall. I’d noticed that she wore her emotions very openly in her expressions- she’d be a terrible poker player.
“I lost one of my sponsors today,” she said.
“Was it from Antonio’s arrest?” Emmy asked, setting aside her guitar and leaning forward.
“Yeah, they said they didn’t want the negative publicity,” Angela explained. “I can understand it, I guess, but still, it sucks.”
“Which one?” Emmy asked.
“The energy drink. They said they get enough grief about their formulas containing bodybuilding supplements that they don’t want any hint of connection to a guy who’s been busted for selling oxandralone, and I guess that makes sense…”
“Oxandralone? Hey, I bet some of my teammates were his buyers,” Andy joked, but it fell flat, and Jenna elbowed him in the ribs to shut up.
“They have asked me to go back and delete all my old posts featuring their products, too,” Angela said.
“Wow- right down the memory hole,” Andy said, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s sorta, I dunno, despicable seeming.”
“It is public relations,” Emmy said. “Public relations people are mostly despicable.”
“Harsh!” Andy said, chuckling. “But not wrong.”
Later, after Andy and Jenna left and Emmy went to bed, Angela helped me clean up.
“Losing your sponsor like that- do you think the other two will follow?” I asked.
“No, I’ve talked to both of them, and they say that as long as I’m not being investigated they don’t have anything to do with Antonio’s problems. I explained the situation, and both of my clothing companies will continue to sponsor me.”
“Well, that’s good. It’d be a real bummer to lose your fiancée and your income at the same time for something that you had nothing to do with.”
Angela set aside the wine glass she was washing and said, “Leah, I want you to know that I am super grateful that you and Emmy are letting me stay here. I promise that I’ll find a place to stay soon- I’m sorry I haven’t started looking, but the last two days have been…”
“No need to rush,” I said, leaning back against the counter. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as it takes to get back on your feet. I’m serious. Just think of this as your home for as long as you need it.”
“I’ll start paying rent,” Angela offered.
“Angela, look at me. I’m being serious here,” I said. “You just lost a third of your income, and if I’m guessing right, you weren’t making enough to live in this building on your own, anyhow, right? I’m not saying this to be mean or anything, but I think you’d be better off keeping that money and saving it.”
“I have money,” Angela objected, but I raised my hand to stop her.
“I’m sure you do,” I said. “If I did the math right when you were explaining the influencing thing to Andy and Jenna, it sounded like you make what, a hundred and fifty to two hundred K a year?”
“A hundred and seventy-eight thousand last year,” Angela admitted.
“Which is much better than the median here in the Los Angeles area,” I said. “And I’m assuming that it’s been getting better every year, right?”
“Yeah, it has,” Angela agreed.
“So, from what you were saying, you’re selling a certain image with your social media posts, right? A certain, let’s call it, um, ‘aspirational’ image, right?"
“Yes, exactly,” Angela said.
“So your gym shots, the gym needs to look like a place people would wish they could work out, right? Like the gym downstairs and not some big chain place like, well, LA Fitness?” I asked.
“Exactly,” Angela agreed, but her face told me she didn’t know where I was going with this.
“So look around this apartment. This is pretty aspirational, right? Feel free to take all the pics you want using this place as your backdrop. I guess what I’m saying is that I’d prefer it if you looked at this as an opportunity, sort of. Emmy and I are fine with you living here for a while, as long as you need, and if being here helps your work, then absolutely take advantage.”
“Are you sure I can’t pay you guys rent?” Angela asked.
“Two things,” I said, holding up a couple of fingers. Pulling the first one down, I said, “I pay twenty-five grand a month for this place. Yeah, we’re just renting for now. So, a third of that would be over eight thousand bucks a month. Rounding down, since you’ve got the smaller room, let’s say five grand a month. There’s no way I’d hit you up for that kind of money, especially since that room has been sitting empty since we moved in.”
Pulling down my second finger, I said, “And anyway, I earn enough money that whatever rent you might actually pay makes no difference anyhow.”
Angela resumed washing the wine glasses, lost in thought. When we had everything straightened up, I said good night and joined Emmy in bed.
“I had a nice night,” Emmy murmured as she snuggled up against me.
“Yeah, me too,” I said, kissing the top of her head.
Although my classes at UCLA Anderson didn’t start until the following week, I’d planned on taking that Thursday off anyhow. I wanted to visit the campus and figure out where my classes would be, find the best parking lot, and of course, make sure I had everything I was going to need as far as books and things like that. Now, the first week was going to be an all-day intensive, but after that it was going to be Tuesday and Thursday nights from six to ten. I’d told everybody at the office to not expect me those two days- maybe I’d come in for a few hours in the morning, but that was a solid maybe at best. I wanted the flexibility to do my schoolwork those days, whatever that might entail, and not be pressed for time.
In other words, I didn’t really need to get up early to work out, but did it out of habit. Apparently, so did Angela. I certainly would never do my makeup before heading to the gym, but then, her job, such as it was, was very different from mine. She was made up nicely, and dressed in her butt-exaggerating leggings. She had on an oversized T shirt, but I knew that was going to come off when she started her workout.
I don’t want to make it seem as if her workouts were nothing but posing for selfies in her sexy gym clothes- far from it. You just don’t get a physique like hers without really putting in a lot of effort. It’s just that a lot of her income derived from those sexy gym selfies, so that was always her first order of business at the start of every morning’s session. She’d do her posed selfies, then once that was taken care of, get down to business. She’d told me she put in twenty hours a week in the gym, and I certainly found that believable.
On the elevator ride down, Angela said, “I thought about what you said last night, and-”
Interrupted by a middle-aged couple with suitcases entering the elevator, Angela didn’t finish her thought. We got off on the second floor, while the middle-aged couple continued on, presumably to the lobby and their ride to the airport.
“Talk later?” Angela asked as we entered the gym.
“I’ll be home most of the day,” I confirmed as we split up to do our very different workouts.
I’d just finished my run on the treadmill when Josh came over to talk to me.
“Leah,” he said, glancing around to make sure nobody else could hear. “It’s about, um, Angela over there,” he said, tilting his head slightly in the direction of where she was working out.
“Yeah?” I asked, toweling off my face.
“Word came down from management that she’s no longer listed as resident, so she shouldn’t be working out here any more, but I saw you guys walking in together. I’ve noticed that you two know each other, so I figured I’d ask you what’s going on.”
“I appreciate you not making a big deal about it, Josh,” I said. “It’s a long story, but it boils down to her boyfriend got arrested on drug charges and she’s locked out of their unit by the police. She’s not under investigation or anything, but suddenly had no place to live, so she moved in with us for the next few months. So I guess this means I need to talk to the front desk and add her to our unit to get her resident privileges reinstated?”
“Um, yeah, O.K.,” Josh said. “Thanks for clearing that up.”
“No, thank you for bringing that to my attention and being discreet about it. The whole thing has hit her pretty hard, and the management rubbing her face in it wouldn’t help her in any way.”
“Glad I could help,” Josh said. Then, as an afterthought, he asked, “Hey, did you ever check out that fight gym?”
“Yeah, I did. Thanks for that tip. I’m going to start workouts there tomorrow, actually.”
“Cool, cool. Let me know how it goes!” Josh said as he left me to continue my workout.
I thought about stopping by the front desk on my way back upstairs, but decided that I should do it when dressed nicely, not in sweaty gym clothes. Emmy was still asleep when I returned, so I quietly slipped into the shower to clean off, trying to not disturb her. Reaching for my towel after shutting off the water, Emmy’s voice startled me.
“I could watch that all day,” she said, her voice husky.
Turning around, I saw her leaning against the side of the doorway, still in her cami and PJ shorts, watching me in the glass-walled shower.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, toweling off my hair, making sure to stand straight and roll my shoulders back.
“I was perfectly happy just to watch you bathe,” Emmy said. “I did think of joining you, but watching you like that was its own reward.”
“I’m glad you still find me sexy,” I said, leaning in for a kiss. “After all the years we’ve been married.”
This earned me one of her musical laughs and another kiss. “Yes, all of these long, long years.” She leaned back a bit and laid the back of her hand on her forehead, assuming a long-suffering expression. “I have given you the best years of my life,” she moaned.
“And I, for one, am very glad you have,” I said, taking her in my arms for a damp hug.
We stayed like that, just holding each other, for a while. I enjoyed the feeling of Emmy in my arms, and she seemed to enjoy holding me, so neither of us were in any hurry to let go.
Eventually, though, we parted, Emmy asking, “What are your plans for the day?”
“I’m going to head over to campus this morning and scope out where my classes are, stop by the bookstore to get my books, that sort of thing, but then my day is open. How about you?”
“Jackson and I are going to Lee’s house to work on some songs. We are supposed to get there around nine. We will probably be there all day.”
“So, no chance for having lunch together?” I asked.
“If you would like to come out to Pasadena, I would love to see you for lunch. But if it is too far, I can understand that, too.”
“Maybe,” I said, noncommittally. “It depends a lot on how long it takes at UCLA.”
“Let me know if you think you will be able to make it,” Emmy said.
I made breakfast for the two of us while Emmy showered and dressed for the day. For her, it was a cup of coffee and a piece of avocado toast. I’d long since stopped trying to get her to eat more, figuring that although Emmy was very slender, she didn’t seem unhealthy, so it was fine. After we’d reconnected back in freshman year at Stanford she had been too skinny, and it hurt to see her like that. Now, she was lean, but in a good way, not bony at all.
Still, I’d probably die if I ate as little as she did… But then, I was literally nearly twice her size. O.K., one hundred and seventy per cent her size, but close enough.
We both left at the same time, Emmy in a little summer dress and Doc Marten boots, carrying her guitar case, me in an office-casual outfit with my briefcase. We kissed goodbye in the garage and got into our respective BMWs, and as I pulled out I looked at the Aston in our third designated spot. It occurred to me that Angela probably needed that allotted parking spot now, so I should park the Aston at the new house, if there was someplace safe to store it.
Through good planning back when we moved to Los Angeles, it was an easy fifteen minute drive to the north end of the UCLA campus. I considered the possibility of getting in a little run to and from school, but nixed the idea after a moment’s thought. Sure, it’d be an easy enough half hour or so, but then I’d get to school sweaty, unless I showered and changed clothes, which meant more to carry back and forth. Running wearing a backpack seemed like a real pain, too…
I found the parking structure easily enough and spent an hour or so just walking around the complex of a half-dozen buildings, getting a feel for the layout.
I was sitting down on a bench looking at my phone, trying to figure out where to get coffee, when a voice interrupted my Googling.
“You look lost,” the voice said. “You an incoming student?”
I looked up at the speaker, a good-looking well-dressed guy maybe a couple of years older than me.
“Yeah, I start next week,” I said.
“Femba?”
“Yeah, the Tuesday and Thursday evening schedule,” I confirmed. “I was just trying to find a place to get coffee before classes.”
“Well, here’s where the Femba students get shafted,” he said with an easy grin. "There’s a nice little cafe right up there,” he said, pointing to a top floor balcony I could see on one of the buildings that surrounded the central plaza. “But it closes at five, so we,” he said, pointing at me and then himself, “Are S.O.L. on class nights. There’s an even better little cafe a little ways over there,” he said pointing off to the north-east. “But, yes,” he said with a smile. “It, too, closes at five. So we could go to either one right now, or I could show you the way to the only option at six in the evening, which is a bit of a walk in that direction,” he said, pointing south.
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“I’m O.K. with walking,” I said, standing up. And while I didn’t quite tower over the guy, I was a good four inches taller than him, which I could tell put him on his back foot.
“My name is Leah,” I said, offering my hand.
“My friends call me Sammy,” the guy said, shaking my hand.
“What do your parents call you?” I asked, jokingly.
“Mostly ‘Hey, you’, or sometimes ‘Son’,” he said with a laugh. “It depends on their mood, or what they are mad at me for.”
“Fair enough,” I replied, smiling. “Hey, I like your accent,” I said as we walked. “Where are you from?”
“I was born in Ethiopia, but my family is Eritrean. We moved here to California when I was ten,” he explained.
On the way to the cafe I told him where I was from, and we talked about our undergrad schools (he’d gone to Cal State Fullerton, basically across town). He was about to start his third year of the program, so he had a lot of practical advice on parking, traffic, and what to bring and what to not bother with. Sammy was a good conversationalist, and took the hint when I completely failed to respond to his flirtation. We talked for a couple of hours, and after we left the coffee shop he showed me the way to the school book store.
“You can get all of your books on Amazon,” he said on the way. “And often much, much cheaper. Most people don’t bother with the book store any more.”
“I’d like to get them today, and I’m going to be giving UCLA seventy grand this year anyway, what's a few more, right?” I replied.
“That is a very cavalier attitude,” Sammy said. “I admire that.”
After I got the three books required for the onboarding and the two classes I’d be taking fall term, the two of us walked back to Anderson.
“I appreciate you taking the time to hold a newbie’s hand like this,” I said.
“It’s my pleasure,” Sammy said. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll both end up working together at some point.”
“Are you in the real estate field at all?” I asked.
“No, I work for Raytheon. I’m a radar systems engineer,” he said.
“Then we probably won’t ever work together, I’m sorry to say,” I told him. “But if you ever have a great idea for a startup, pitch it to me first- I also do V.C. investing. First and second round.”
“Give me your contact information,” Sammy said, holding up his phone. “There is something I have been thinking about with a fellow engineer at Raytheon.”
“You know that any ideas you come up with in the line of work belong to Raytheon, right? Don’t plan on any new business with an idea they can sue you over,” I cautioned. I’d seen a few tech would-be startups killed by the big boys for just this sort of reason.
“No, no, not related to my work there at all, really. It’s an idea for drone control systems,” he said.
“Drone like ‘shoots missiles at people in the Middle East’ drone, or drone like ‘remote-controlled flying toy’ drone?” I asked.
“Flying toy,” Sammy replied with a laugh. “I get too much of the ‘shoots missiles’ kind at work.”
“Well, O.K., then,” I said. “I have no experience with funding military contract stuff.”
“You’ve done a lot of V.C. funding?” Sammy asked, interested.
“Yeah, I have an office up in San Jose,” I said. “I’m going to set one up here in Los Angeles in the next few months.”
“Really,” Sammy said, a bit doubtfully.
“You know that video sharing app that just had its IPO? I was second-round on that. I cashed that one out at eighty-two million.”
“That would explain why you didn’t care about saving money on the textbooks,” Sammy said wryly.
“Part of it, all right,” I agreed.
“If I may ask, if you’re doing so well, why would you even bother with getting your MBA?” Sammy asked.
“That’s what my wife asked, too,” I said. I was about to explain my rationale, but the look on Sammy’s face told me the conversation had just come to a sudden halt.
“Yes, I’m married. To another woman,” I said. “Is that a problem?”
“It is your soul that will suffer eternally,” he said, backing up.
I sighed, and said, “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. I was hoping we could be friends.”
“I will wish you well with school and in business, Leah,” Sammy said. “But I cannot overlook your sin.”
“I guess that’s that, then. Still, if you change your mind on that, feel free to look me up. And thanks for being my tour guide today.”
We parted ways, Sammy fleeing the heathen sinner, and me wondering how a guy that seemed so sophisticated and intelligent could be stuck with that sort of mentality. ‘Oh, well, his loss,’ I told myself as I headed to my car.
Back at the apartment building, I stopped off at the front desk and confirmed Angela as our new roommate, and made sure that her resident privileges remained uninterrupted. I also said that I was going to move my third car and give her the parking spot. They said that she could continue leaving her car in the spot associated with Antonio’s unit, since nobody else was going to use it, but I said that it might be better for her to separate herself from him as much as possible, and they understood.
When I got back up to the apartment Angela had her laptop open on the kitchen counter and was busy with a video chat. She waved for me to come over, so I did as she suggested and stood behind her and to her left to get in the field of view of her laptop’s camera.
“Kate, this is Leah, Leah, this is Kate. Kate runs the social media marketing for a company that might sponsor me. I was just telling her about what’s happened the last few days, and explaining that my home life is stable despite everything. I told her who you guys are, and how I’ll be your roommate for the next few months,” Angela said.
“Leah,” Kate said from the computer. “We’d been talking about taking Angela on for a while now, but then this whole thing with her fiancée getting arrested, well, to be honest, it put a bit of a dark cloud over things. But now, we’ve seen how forthcoming Angela has been, really staying ahead of the storm on the socials, and to be honest, we’ve been impressed.”
“Yeah, she’s doing really well, bouncing back from this, um, shock,” I said.
“Angela tells me that your wife is Emmy Lascaux, right?” Kate asked.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I agreed.
“I looked, and Emmy has no social presence other than the Facebook page for The Downfall,” Kate said. “And I couldn’t find one for you, either.”
“I have Facebook and Instagram accounts, but never post anything,” I admitted. “I just don’t really see the point.”
“If Angela posts a picture with either of you in it, it might potentially be used for advertising purposes. Would you be O.K. with that?” Kate asked, and I started to see where she was going with her questions.
“That’s a good question,” I said, hedging. “I think that’s something I’d have to talk to Emmy about.” Thinking for a moment, I asked, “Um, Kate, not to be rude, but does my answer have any influence on your decision to sign Angela?”
Kate was sharp, and could tell what I was thinking. “No, the decision will be based on Angela’s track record and marketability, and hers alone,” she assured me, but I wasn’t too convinced.
“All right, that’s good to hear,” I said. “So I’ll talk to Emmy about it, and we’ll have Angela let you know our feelings on the subject.”
“Looking forward to it,” Kate said, so we said our goodbyes and I went to get changed into casual clothes.
When I came back to the kitchen, Angela said, “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize that she thought that she could use Emmy’s fame like that.”
I grabbed a can of sparkling water and plopped down on the couch, putting my feet up. “I guess I could have seen it coming, in a way. I have conflicting thoughts about it, honestly.”
“What do you mean?” Angela asked as she joined me in the living room.
“Look, your job, basically, is advertising, right? That’s what the whole ‘influencer’ thing is all about, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, one hundred per cent,” Angela agreed.
“And as you said, you are trying to present an aspirational vision, an image of a lifestyle that anybody can have if they work out enough, or whatever. And of course, people who live that lifestyle will naturally wear the clothing brands you do, and the swimwear you do, and drink the energy drink you do, right?” I asked.
“I’ve never heard it put quite that way, but yes, that’s pretty much it,” Angela agreed.
“Well, as I said, you can use this apartment as a backdrop all you want, along those same lines. I mean, of course, the lifestyle you lead would naturally mean that you’d have a nice place like this, right?” I said, warming up to my subject. “The obvious next step is that somebody leading your lifestyle would of course have famous friends. I told Kate that I never post to Instagram or Facebook, and that’s true, but I did log into both to see your recent posts. I saw where you explained all that had happened, and that you were living with some friends. Believe me, I noticed that you didn’t mention our names, and I’m pretty sure that was intentional.”
“Of course,” Angela said. “I would never post any information about you guys without clearing it with you first.”
“I’d hoped it was something like that. Which is why Kate asked, right? She thinks that your value as an influencer goes up if you start posting pics, like, ‘Here’s me with Emmy, the famous rock star and BFF of mine,’ or, ‘Just hanging out with Emmy, like we do’, and so on. If the contract gives her company rights to any picture you tag with them, then suddenly they can assume ownership of pictures that have Emmy in them, right?”
“Yes… I can see that happening,” Angela said. “So I’ll just tell them no.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s the right answer, either,” I said. "Emmy and I, we want to help you out. You’re a friend, after all.”
“Why?" Angela suddenly asked.
“Why what?”
“Why are you helping me? Letting me stay here rent-free? You hardly even know me.”
“I guess that’s true, we do hardly even know you, but we’re getting to know you more every day, right? And nothing I’ve seen so far makes me regret giving you a helping hand,” I said. “So, anyway, back to the social thing. If a company sponsors you as an influencer, you are the one who controls your posts, right? They might get upset and dump you, but they don’t have any real say other than that?”
“Yeah, mostly,” Angela said. “They can stipulate things like ‘no politics’ or ‘no smoking’ or whatever, but they don’t get to approve my posts before they go up- they'd just fire me if they don’t like what I post.”
“Fair enough- like the energy drink company firing you for something you had nothing to do with, but might possibly bring them bad publicity.”
“Exactly like that,” Angela agreed.
“All right, so getting back to pictures of Emmy and me, and maybe anybody else we introduce you to. How about we set this rule? Any picture you post that has me, Emmy, Andy, pretty much any of our friends, you don’t tag with any of your sponsors. Like the other night, that pic with Andy- you tagged your clothing company, right?”
“Yes…” Angela replied, thinking about it.
“So, in theory, the clothing company could assume implied consent and use that photo in their advertising. I guess, in reality, they already have, right?” I asked.
“I see what you mean,” Angela said.
“So here’s the rule, and it protects everybody’s privacy at the same time as it benefits you, and thereby your sponsors, but indirectly. Any picture you post containing anybody but just yourself, you make sure you tell the others in the photo it’s going up, and get their O.K. The second part of the rule, no sponsor tags on any of those photos,” I stipulated. “As far as I’m concerned, you can leverage Emmy’s fame all you want. Heck, take pictures with my cars, too, if you’d like, whatever. Use this situation to your advantage- your personal advantage. This will help you get more followers, right? It’ll help present more of that aspirational lifestyle image if you post a pic like, ‘here’s me and Emmy and Beyoncé’, after all.”
“You guys know Beyoncé?” Angela asked, her eyes wide.
“Met her at a party, can’t really say I know her,” I said with a shrug. “But don’t get sidetracked. So does this rule make sense?”
“I can take pictures and post them with you guys,” Angela said.
“With anybody,” I said, interrupting. “This is a good rule in general.”
“I can take pictures with anybody, but I have to clear it with them whether I can post it up on social, and,” she said with extra emphasis, “No sponsor tags on any photo that has anybody not sponsored by that company.”
“Yeah, that’s a little bit better fine-tuning of the rule,” I agreed. “That way, if you're posing with another influencer for the same sponsor, you’re obviously good to go.”
“I can live with that,” Angela said. “Especially if you introduce me to Beyoncé. Or Rihanna.”
“Never met Rihanna,” I said. “But who knows? It could happen.”
“And I can use the apartment, your cars, your yacht, whatever for my pictures?”
“We don’t have a yacht,” I said with a laugh. “And it’d be best if maybe you don’t spell out that it’s my car, or Emmy’s apartment, right? I mean, you want to sell the idea it’s your place, your car, your yacht.”
“I thought you said you don’t have a yacht?”
“We don’t. I was just seeing if you were paying attention.”
“Meano,” Angela said, sticking her tongue out at me.
“Hey, missy, be careful. That looks like an invitation to a big, bad lesbian like me,” I said, joking.
That got a laugh out of Angela, whose face turned thoughtful. As I’d mentioned, her emotions showed very plainly on her face.
“Are you or Emmy good at taking pictures?” she asked.
“For your posts?”
“Yeah,” Angela confirmed. “Antonio always took my posed photos. I can’t really do those by myself.”
“Yeah, I guess not,” I said, thinking about it. “I don’t really know the first thing about photography,” I admitted. “And I’m not sure Emmy does, either. At least, I’ve never seen any signs, and it’s not like either of us even own a nice camera.”
“Here, I want to show you some things,” Angela said, getting up and rushing off to her room. I took the opportunity to send a quick text to Emmy, apologizing for not making it for lunch.
“Here's my camera,” Angela said, sitting down next to me on the couch, and handing me her Nikon digital SLR. “It’s pretty much all automatic, all you really need to do is frame the picture right and click the shutter. Like this,” she said, reaching over and turning it on, aiming it at the record player and pressing the button.
“Now look at the image on the screen on the back. Is it framed right? If it is, you’re pretty much done. If it’s not, retake the picture. It’s that simple.”
I held the camera up and looked through the viewfinder, aiming at the record player. I played a little bit with the zoom until I got what I thought seemed O.K., then pressed the button and got that classic clicking noise, which I assumed was a fake sound effect. I mean, it didn’t use film, right?
“Now let’s look at the picture you just took,” Angela said, reaching over and angling the camera so we could both see the last shot on the screen on the back. “All right, I hate to say it, but that’s a pretty terrible shot,” she said. “You have the stereo smack in the middle of the picture zoomed in so we can’t really see anything else. That’s great if you want somebody to see the details of your stereo, but crummy if you want anybody to get a feel for anything. Now check this out,” she said, taking the camera from my hands and snapping a pic of the sound system.
“Look- I’ve zoomed out a bit, so now you can see the speakers as well, and it’s off-center, to give you a better feel for the space the stereo occupies, right?” Angela said.
“I guess,” I replied, but I wasn’t really too clear on what she was getting at.
“Hmm. O.K. Look at these,” Angela said, flipping open her laptop and opening up a folder with a bunch of photos. To my surprise, they were all still-lifes of one sort or another. I’d expected selfies, to be honest, or at least modeling pictures.
She went through the pictures one by one, explaining the composition and lighting, and why she took that particular photo. A few of them were really beautiful, and I told her so.
“These are great,” I said. “I mean, I’d pay money in a gallery for a print of a photo like this.”
“Thanks,” Angela said. “It’s a hobby of mine.”
“Well, you’re really good at it,” I said, admiring a photo of a sand dollar half buried at the beach.
“Thanks, but we’re getting off track. Do you see what I mean by interesting composition?” Angela asked.
“Um, maybe?”
“All right, if you’re going to take my posed photos, we need to look at some of those, too,” Angela said as she closed the folder of still lifes and clicked on another. She opened a gallery, and it was nothing but bikini shots.
“O.K., now look at this series,” Angela instructed. “The real point of the picture is the can of soda, right? I mean, as you said, it’s an ad, right? But look, it needs to be a tiny bit, um, subtle, too. So the can is down about midway between the vertical center and the bottom- three quarters of the way down, and about the same to the left. But me, I’m taking up the bulk of the frame just to the right of center. What’s the thing that catches your eye immediately upon looking at the photo?” Angela asked.
“Um, your belly? Your abs and belly button?”
“Then what?”
“Honestly, for me, it’s the space below your belly button. There’s like, an acre of skin before you finally get to the top of your bikini bottom. Seriously, if it were any lower, we’d see the top of your, um…”
“That bikini doesn’t naturally rest that low,” Angela admitted. “I have to, like, pull it down in front and up in back to get it that low.”
“Well, it got my attention,” I confessed.
“So then what do you see?” Angela asked.
“Well, then my eyes start wandering, right? I see your muscular thighs, and your boobs, and your smile, then I wonder what it is you’re looking at, and where you are. It looks like some kind of dock, maybe?” I said.
“In other words, the photo has captured your attention, even if it’s just for a moment. You haven’t even mentioned the can of soda.”
“No, I mean, I see it, but it just looks like you set it down for a moment while you, I don’t know, waved to some people in a boat of something?”
“That picture was totally staged and posed, but that look of, um, spontaneity, is exactly what I was going for. Like with that picture with Jenna and Andy, right? Did you see how much posing it took to get that unposed look just right?”
Thinking back to how much work it had been to look natural for Luisa’s nude painting of me, I nodded.
“That’s the trick. You have to set the picture up so that it looks spontaneous and natural, but even more spontaneous and natural than real life could ever be,” Angela said.
“You’re making it sound like a whole lot of work,” I said, meaning it as a compliment.
“It’s how you can tell the amateur influencers from the pros,” Angela boasted. “Here, look at these,” she said, and opened up Instagram on her laptop (which was, in fact, on her lap).
“Look at this account,” she said, opening up another account’s gallery. “See, she’s pretty, but look. Her poses are stiff, fake-looking.”
Clicking through the posts, I could see what Angela meant.
“Look at the way she’s standing in this one,” Angela commanded. “Her pose is stiff, she’s looking straight at the camera, which feels awkward. Not that looking at the camera is necessarily wrong, but the way she’s doing it looks like one of those jail photos.”
“Mug shots? Yeah, I can kinda see that,” I agreed.
“Is there anything about this photo that makes you think, ‘I really like that dress?’ or is it just something to skip over on the way to the next actually interesting post?”
“O.K., point made,” I conceded.
“So, now that you understand what I’m looking for, let’s try to take a few photos, all right? Let me go get ready.”
While Angela went to her room to get dressed for the shoot, I played with the camera a bit, looking back at the pictures of the stereo. I thought I had at least a little bit of an idea what she was looking for now, so I thought we could maybe make this work.
Looking at the photos on the little screen on the back of the camera, I accidentally scrolled past the last one of the living room and onto an old photo of Angela, posing on a boat on the water somewhere. I really tried to look at the picture the way she’d broken down that one post of hers, trying to identify what caught my eye first, then second. I thought about the story the photo tried to project, too. After a minute or so, I scrolled farther and saw that it was virtually the same picture, just ever so slightly different. Same session, obviously, so I kept scrolling.
My scrolling came to a halt with a shot of Angela lying on her belly on a towel on the back deck of the boat, her upper body propped up on her near elbow while she pulled her hair back with her far hand. Of course, the detail that caught my eye first was that she was completely nude. No bikini anywhere in sight. The shot was sexy as hell, but it wasn’t pornographic at all. The angle was low, so you got to see the swell of her naked butt cheeks, but more from the side than the back. You got good side-boob, but her arm was in the way so no nipple showed. She was smiling and looking at the camera as if she was greeting a friend, or maybe lover.
‘This is the implied nude stuff she told Jenna made her a lot of money,’ I thought as I clicked to the next one. Again, same scene, slightly different pose. And the next, and so on for maybe a dozen shots.
Then, I got to the pictures that were not implied at all. The first one was still on the towel, but viewed from down near her feet, straight up her body, with a very clear view between her legs. A bit embarrassed to have stumbled across Angela’s private photos, I scrolled away to the next one, which was even more, well, explicit. In this one, Angela was lifting her butt up off the towel while keeping her upper body down, sort of like an extended puppy yoga pose. The center of the view was, well, her most intimate parts.
I’ll admit, I didn’t scroll away as fast as I should have, but when I heard Angela’s door open, I hurriedly got back to the shots of the stereo. As she walked into the room, I took a few photos of her crossing in front of the sliding glass doors of the balcony, trying to get an interesting silhouette shot.
“Ready?” Angela asked. “Let’s figure out the shot we want to take.O.K.?”
“What do you mean?”I asked.
“Well, we’ll do a series, and pick out the best. Since we’re shooting here in the condo, we want it to seem casual, but highlighting the outfit at the same time. Let’s look through some of my older posts and see if we can find a good example to follow.”
Sitting down beside me on the couch, she opened up the laptop again and clicked on a different folder, this time opening up a gallery of casual clothed photos. She selected one and opened it up.
“This should work,” Angela said. “Casual clothes to wear out for a day shopping at Whole Foods or Gelson's, maybe running errands, right? So for the pose, we want an image that says, ‘I can’t be bothered to get all dressed up, so this is my messy-sexy look’.” Setting aside the laptop, Angela wandered into the kitchen.
“Maybe leaning against the counter? Let’s take a couple and look to see what we’ve got. Stand over there,” she instructed.
I stood where Angela indicated as she posed, her hip against the granite countertop as if she was talking to someone off-camera. I snapped a few like that, then we reviewed the pictures.
“Hmm,” Angela said, disappointed. "The lighting's fine and the framing is all right, but you’re too tall,” she said. “The angle is wrong. Try taking the same picture, but from a height of about here,” she said, holding her hand up at her own eye level.
I did what she instructed, snapping a few pics as she modified her pose slightly each time.
“That’s much better,” Angela said, looking at the new batch. "I’ll look through and pick the best one later on. Now let’s do some by the fridge.”
We shot a bunch more pictures with her holding the refrigerator door, looking into the open fridge, grabbing something, and so on. Angela seemed satisfied with the results, so we stopped for a little bit while she uploaded them on her computer.
“Are you doing alright?" Angela asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m taking up all of your time for this, and I know you have other things you could be doing,” she said.
“Nah, it’s fine. Today is basically a day off for me, and this is kinda fun. It’s different, at least,” I said.
“How do you feel- um, never mind,” Angela said.
“What?” I asked, curious.
Before Angela could explain, my phone rang, Seeing it was Emmy, I answered.
“I missed you for lunch today,” Emmy said. “I had been hoping you could join us.”
“It took a lot longer at school than I’d expected,” I said by way of apology. “I met a third-year student and he gave me a tour and everything.”
“Did you make a new friend?” Emmy asked.
“Well, at first I thought so, but then, no, not so much. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when you get home.”
“I might be a bit late,” Emmy said. “Would you mind if I stayed and worked with Lee and Jackson for longer?”
“Will you be home for dinner?” I asked.
“If you do not mind, I will probably be here until maybe ten?”
“Sure, that’s fine,” I said. “Things going good?”
“Excellent! We had a very important breakthrough today!” Emmy replied, her enthusiasm clear.
“That’s great, babe,” I said, happy to hear her so fired up. “I’m happy to hear it.”
“Are you home now?” Emmy asked.
“Yeah, I’m here with Angela. She’s teaching me to take pictures for her social media stuff.”
“I am glad you are not home alone,” Emmy said. "I will see you later tonight. I love you!”
“Love you, too,” I replied as we ended the call.
Turning back to Angela, I said, “So, what were you going to ask?”
“It’s too much. I’m, uh, overstepping,” she replied, looking embarrassed.
“Well, you can always ask, and if I think you’re overstepping I’ll say so.”
“You said I could use the apartment for, um, backdrops, right? My room is too full of stuff…”
“Ah, I got it. You want to shoot some photos that look like your bedroom, but your actual bedroom is too full because of all the stuff you had to bring up from your condo. I guess I’m O.K. with the idea,” I said. “The maids cleaned the room up so it should look good for the pictures.”
“Seriously? You’re alright with that?”
“I said you could use the place to help your career out, didn’t I?”
“Alright!” Angela said, excited. “Let me get ready. I’ll… Hmmm…” she said as she headed off for another wardrobe change.