Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Nadine’s tone is as sweet as if trying to persuade a fussy child to eat his vegetables. “Anthony, sweetheart, this is a photo shoot, a professional photo shoot. It’s going to be in the paper. People … People are gonna actually see it. We need to get some foundation on that face of yours, at the very least.”
“Foundation? You wanna … You wanna talk foundation? You should check out the bitch of a foundation we just laid for the new big-ass wing of the Spur Inn. Damned huge, that’s what it is, shit.” He ambles over to the drink station, cutting right between Nadine and Burton’s father to help himself to a bottle, which he promptly twists open. “Fuckin’ thirsty as hell. Is anyone else balls-hot in here or is it just me?”
“Anthony,” says Nadine, nearly pleading.
He downs the water, wipes his mouth with the full length of his arm, then spots the makeup area. “Hey, Mindy. Got somethin’ for me to change into?”
Mindy shoots Nadine a tired look of her own before she says, “Yep. Over here, Anthony.”
When he passes Nadine, she scrunches up her eyes and brings the back of her hand to her nose, shielding a foul odor. “Alright then, that’s that,” she mutters, attempting to wrangle everyone’s attention well away from bad thoughts. “While he’s gettin’ spruced up, how ‘bout we go over some details and figure out what in the heck we want to accomplish today?”
Noah leaves my side and heads over to the others, notebook in hand. I watch him go for a moment, mourning the abrupt death of our conversation, feeling like there’s a hole in my chest.
This isn’t over, I insist to myself—and him—before heading over to join the others as well, ready to do whatever it is I need to do.
I figure that if we all manage to stay focused, this whole thing could be over within an hour tops. Then we can get on with our days—and I can finally have some time for a deeper and more meaningful dialogue with Noah.
As fate would have it, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Can you put your hand on Cole’s left shoulder? Your other left.” It’s Nadine who takes the role of director, positioning us just where she wants us while Noah goes to town clicking away on his camera. I keep trying to catch Noah’s gaze, but the lighting is too bright, and it’s no use when I keep being directed where to look. “No, no, Cole’s shoulder, not Dean’s. Can you come up—yes, right there—come up closer to the front, dear.” Everyone else watches from a distance, someone now and then stepping in to make an adjustment to the lighting. Noah won’t look at me. This is torture. “Give me a smile. Not so big. A more natural one, less serial killery. Yes, better.” Mindy is on standby with her kit for any emergency touchups. She keeps turning away and stifling her yawns. “Can you two trade places now? Dean’s the tallest, but I don’t want him to look like y’all’s daddy, if you get me. Look at the camera, please. Try the shot again. Turn your face. Other way.”
I greatly misjudged the amount of poses and ideas Nadine can come up with. The woman’s barrel is bottomless. It’s only been an hour and a half, but it feels like it ought to be midnight by now. This huge warehouse of a building has no windows, so there’s no telling the actual time.
And then this happens: “Hey, what if I do this?” asks Anthony, taking a step ahead of us and crouching down, framing his face with a hand and puckering his lips. “Or this?” He does yet another cringe-inducing face. “Get a shot of this. I can do these all day.” He straightens up and strikes a pose in front of us, lifting his chin. “We should throw in some swagger here and there, y’know, for the ladies. Wouldn’t kill us to look a bit more badass.”
Dean wrinkles his face, lowers his voice, and mumbles to me, “And wouldn’t have killed him to take a shower.”
Unfortunately, Anthony hears, too. “What’d you say?”
Dean faces off with him. “How about we listen to and respect Nadine’s direction? She’s the one here with all of the vision and expertise. Not you.”
Anthony is itching for a fight. “You think I smell bad?”
“I think we all do,” I throw in to try and diffuse the tension. “I am a sweaty mess under these lights. How about you guys?”
Anthony gives me a look, sizes me up from head to toe, then faces Dean again. “Don’t talk down to me, old man.”
“All I said was to listen to the woman in charge,” states Dean, unaffected by Anthony. “Nadine’s done plenty fine so far, and—”
“You’ve been lookin’ down your nose at me since I got here, old man. Is there somethin’ about me that bothers you, old man?”