Friday, December 09, 2005

My New York Minutes - Chapter 6

Being a Fashion Model is Terribly Exciting



We went to France. In typical style, Brenda breezily set the whole thing up. We were to be represented by a French agency owned by a friend of the current director of Stewart Models. We would leave in early June. I had a number of bookings during those interim months, including some for the magazines I had so religiously studied in my pink bedroom in Delaware. Here I am in Seventeen Magazine.


On a subsequent booking, I heard that I was to be on the cover. I told everyone. When the issue came out some months later I was not on the cover. Later I heard it was because I looked so young, no one would believe I was seventeen. I was nineteen.

Also around that time, I decided I should get some formal acting training and applied at NYU's School of the Arts for the following fall semester. After a rather squeaky rendition from 'Diary of Anne Frank', I was narrowly accepted. I was in the very lucky position of having a father who could pay the tuition.

Charlie came to New York and Brenda and I cooked him dinner in my little apartment. She brought a date for me. His name was Jimmy and he was a magician. He spent the evening pulling things out of my ear. We went out after dinner for drinks. It was the first time I'd finished an entire glass of wine. We came out on the street late in the evening. The men hailed a cab for us. I squeezed Brenda's arm. I felt wonderful. Like a real person who could do things like normal people - have company for dinner and go out to a bar. It was beyond imagination. Brenda had a little sister, Caroline, who had a talking Barbie that said in a clipped British accent, "Being a fashion model is terribly exciting". Brenda would quip this line to me at various times - complete with flawless accent. She whispered it breathlessly in my ear now. I have to remind myself as I write this that she was all of 20 at the time.

We left for France the first week of June, 1977, narrowly missing the catastrophic blackout that ensued a few days later. I don't remember much about the flight - it seemed so easy and fast after flying to Tokyo. We had the name of a hotel that the French modeling agency had given us. We checked in. Even that first day, after flying all night, we had go-sees. I don't remember being scared. That first day, our main appointment was to go to the agency and meet everyone. We learned the Paris Metro. Everyone at the agency - named Catherine Harle after the owner - exclaimed over Brenda's French. We must have looked rather bedraggled. I recall we had to go back the next day and Catherine looked at me and said, "Oh MUCH better!".

Catherine was a 50-something beauty. Still luscious in a completely organic French way with a thick coil of hair worn in a chignon. She was a gourmet chef and had once owned a restaurant. She spoke perfect Bridget-Bardot English. She entertained often and we were frequently invited to parties. She offered us an apartment which she kept for visiting models. We had to pay the rent of course, but it was so much cheaper than staying in a hotel and we jumped at the chance. It was in a probably 18th century building in the 4th arrondissement near Place des Vosges and Victor Hugo's former home. 21 Rue de Turenne. It had one room, a tiny kitchen, a tiny bath with only a tub, and one bed, we discovered as soon as we put down our luggage. It was a fold-out couch. That night, as we pulled up the covers, Brenda slapped me on the ass and said something raunchy that I can't remember. We were both reading 'The Hite Report'. Two squealing virgins aghast at the sexual behavior of the average American woman. We slept not a wink. Everytime I dozed off, Brenda would turn over with an exaggerated sigh and a flounce which sent the bedsprings squeaking.

The next day we were exhausted - dragging ourselves to our go-sees. I got off the Metro around 5:00 in the evening and encounterd a weary Brenda on the stairs leaving the station. The walk home to Rue de Turenne took us past a row of small shops where later we picked up our dinner each night. Tonight we walked past these shops and there, on the sidewalk, was a bed. It was a small wooden twin bed. Perfect for our tiny apartment. I nudged Brenda. "We have to buy that", I said. Brenda asked the proprietor. It wasn't expensive but they couldn't deliver it tonight, he said. "We can carry it", I told Brenda. She agreed. Anything to avoid another night like the preceeding one. We had our modeling portfolios but we managed to put those over our shoulders and each pick up one end of the bed. We started to walk the 3 or 4 blocks to the apartment. The bed kept getting heavier.

"I have to stop", Brenda said. We rested. A small Frenchman in a beret came up to us and motioned for us to pick up the bed again. We did and he stood between us and grasped the middle part of the bed and the three of us proceeded wordlessly to Rue de Turenne. I made a big deal about thanking him with many merci's. "He made it worse", Brenda said. She was right. He was so much shorter than we were that he made us stoop to walk along with him and the bed.

Our apartment was on the first floor, but that was up a flight of about 8 stairs from the entrance at street level. The stairs went around a curve and ended on a small landing in front of our apartment door. Brenda eyed these stairs dubiously. "It'll never fit", she said.

It had to. We tried angling the bed in many directions but it was solid wood and it would not go around the curve. "Go up to the landing and I'll lift and you pull," I told her. So Brenda went up to the landing. I stood in the entrance and somehow managed to heft this bed lengthwise up to where she could grasp it. I can't remember ever trying that hard to lift something that heavy. I was convinced she wasn't lifting her end at all. "Are you pulling?", I gasped.

From up on the landing came a clipped British accent. "Being a fashion model is terribly exciting!"

Just as we had appeared Japanese in our pictures in Japan, we noticed we were looking a bit French in our Paris photos. The 1.69 is Brenda's metric height - not her price tag.




I worked a lot in Paris. There are 2 kinds of models, 'high-fashion' and 'junior'. I was junior, Brenda was high-fashion. Typically, the high-fashion models are the ones you hear about, the ones who get very successful. But the French photographers seemed to love my baby-face looks. One photographer, David Hamilton, tracked me down after seeing my photo somewhere. He was an American who took pictures of pubescent girls nude. I'm glad I didn't work for him. The agency would have made a lot of money but they left the decision up to me. I could tell Catherine was relieved when I promptly turned him down.

There are too many stories to tell and this is too long already. We had such a good time. Brenda seemed to be quite knowledgeable about art and we went to all the museums. My favorite was the Jeu de Paume where I was completely undone by a small Delacroix and went back every week. We walked the Tuileries. I met a young Frenchman at a party at Catherine's. Pierre Henri. He was so cute with black hair and dark eyes. I told Brenda he was cute. Next thing I know he's asking me out in broken English. Brenda had arranged it in French without my knowing. We hung out with Pierre Henri and his roommates - 2 other Frenchman and one Englishman. They took us out to the country one day. We sped through a row of trees in Pierre Henri's Renault. I felt like I was zipping through a Manet painting. We had wine with lunch and dinner but I never remember feeling tired. Charlie came to Paris of course and took Brenda to Maxims every night. It was all aglow. That entire summer. Daylight lasts until 11:00 PM in the Parisian summer. Of course I had to keep the laws of Shabbos and Kosher but I didn't mind. Brenda didn't believe in sex before marriage. It was part of her commitment to traditonal Judaism. She had me convinced and I was waiting for The One. That seemed to drive the Frenchmen all the more crazy. We sat at the same table on the Champs Elysees. I was so happy. Once Brenda remarked to me, "I wish I could be like you, Becky." I was so flattered - no one like her had ever wanted to be like me.

I found myself understanding snippets of French. I felt like I belonged there. More than I had felt that way anywhere else in my life. More than Delaware, more than New York. "Why don't you stay?", Catherine asked me. I wanted to. But the tuition had already been paid at NYU. I had to go back. We flew home.

3 comments:

Dan said...

"..too long already"? Not half!

How come your brother had to be the gay one? I was hoping for you and Brenda to have a pillow fight on that one bed. Feathers everywhere, and two young models...

Or am I giving away chapter 7?

Don Cummings said...

C'est incryoble, ca. La belle juife, toi comme enfante, Paris.

Continue! Plus vite!

Beaucoup plus!

Anonymous said...

And here she is...

"http://www.theohzone.net/images/barbietalkingstaceyinbox.jpg"

Thank you again for the tale, Rebecca. The pastel photos are gorgeous!