Let's Fabricate [2/10]

[asbesdehyde]

The café was almost empty when we arrived, save for a few token students or lost souls that propped their shiny Macbooks up on the dull Formica tables and borrowed the free Wifi that was gratuitously advertised outside. They didn’t have very much reason to be here, internet hotspots were abundant, but I supposed that if I had to work anywhere, it would be here. Where the air smelled like coffee and there was the soft atmosphere reminiscent of a sleeping baby’s bedroom. Nobody wanted to disturb anyone else, and even a clinked cup against a plate earned a few glances for disturbing this artificial silence. It was obvious to see why Shane liked it; the place oozed with creative vibes that ‘Artists’ like himself would crave and demand. We sat at a booth by the window, where Shane squeezed in beside me and Ryan sat opposite. “It’s nice here.” He offered. I nodded my head politely and picked up a menu.
This wasn’t awkward at all.
“The pancakes are excellent. You should both get pancakes.” Shane turned the page of the menu for me and pointed at the list of options.
“Ryan?” he asked “What are you having?”
“Oh. I’ll just get a coffee.”
Shane looked like Ryan had just kicked his cat. “But the pancakes here are-“
“No. Really. I already ate.”
Shane, crestfallen, turned back to me. “So what are you having?”
I realised that I hadn’t even looked at the menu. I stabbed my finger at the first thing on the list “Blueberry. Yeah. Blueberry.” I slid the menu across to Shane, who immediately started humming and hahing over which he should have. I looked up at Ryan, who was staring down at the table. Poor guy. I probably would have curled up and died with embarrassment if I were in his shoes. I almost felt like curling up and dying for him. Still, he should learn to be more professional.
“Can I see your portfolio?” I asked. His head rose up slowly like he was unsure that it was him I was talking to. Hello, you’re the only other model here.
“Uh…Alright.” He picked it up off of the seat beside him and slid it across the table.
It was thicker than mine, I noticed immediately. I thought he’d only been working a few months. The first page was the usual cover letter detailing his skills, abilities and work ethic. I didn’t even bother to read it, they were all the same.
            His first picture was a headshot from the shoulders up. He was looking slightly to the left, like an old-style portrait. The light caught his face beautifully, and I hadn’t realised quite how defined his cheekbones were before, or how full his lips were, either. The picture looked like any other headshot, but his eyes were lowered and he had a soft smile.  Like he knew something that the rest of us didn’t.
Urgh. What a hipster.
His second was a standard full-body shot, no creativity in it at all, He was simply standing with one hand behind his back and the other holding a top hat. The angle was strange, though. Like it’d been shot from below as opposed to dead on.
“Why is the angle like this?” I asked and turned the portfolio around. He looked up with a ghost of a smile and said
“The tripod broke. The guy had to rest the camera on his knees.”
“His…Didn’t he have a spare tripod?”
“Those pictures were shot in a garage in San Francisco with a buddy’s camera.” He smirked and turned a few pages to the portfolio and turned it around toward me again. “That one, See the grimy alley-way backdrop?” The photograph was him with his hands pressed against a dark, gritty wall with his back to the camera. He was shirtless, and I could see the vertebrae of his spine.
“Yeah?”
“Nope. Real grimy alleyway.”
“Bullshit.” I peered more closely at the image. The wall did look genuine, even down to the flecks of moss between the bricks. I cringed at the thought; I’d rather pose in a public toilet than have to put my hands on that wall.
“No, seriously.”
“That’s going a long way for a shot…”
“Didn’t really have much choice.”
“How do you mean?”
“I wasn’t exactly on the affluent side when these photographs were taken.” He shrugged. We both fell oddly silent. He wasn’t doing it for the grungy, indie appeal then. I felt a little guilty. I forgot, sometimes that not all of us had the advantage of having magazine pages to put in our portfolios. That was probably why his was thicker than mine, too. Not just because of the number of photographs, but because the paper that mine were printed on was so much thinner. The waitress materialised to break the silence. We ordered, Ryan still having just coffee. I wondered if he was counting calories. Not that he needed to, I thought, looking down at the photograph, he was already slim enough.
“So.” Shane tapped the table a few times “What do you think, Brendon?”
“Of?”
“Of Ryan.” He laughed like that had been the most obvious thing he’d ever said. I honestly had no idea. He seemed like he was exactly the kind of pretentious dick that I hated by default, but he was talented, and he was damn beautiful, too. I watched his hands twisting over one another on the table as he knotted his fingers together, waiting for a response from me; Brendon Urie- seasoned model and professional at being coerced into getting naked on camera. I looked up at Shane and nodded a few times “I like the pictures.” I reasoned “And I think he has a lot of potential.”
Shane looked down at the menu again with an amused expression that had me twitching in the same way that Pete had. Ryan sat back heavily in his seat. Relief?
Judging by his expression, disappointment was more likely. He was staring at his portfolio and chewing the inside of his lip. “Well. I really appreciate the implied ‘but’.”
I frowned deeply and snapped the portfolio closed. Who the hell did he think he was? Reading into what I said like I was just as two-faced as the rest of them. This guy didn’t know me from a hole in the ground. “Look; if I had something to say about your modelling, I would just say it. I’m not going to bullshit or dance around your feelings.”
He looked at me like I’d just picked up his portfolio and slapped him across the face with it.
“You know…I’m just going to go to the bathroom…” Shane coughed and slid out of the booth. I only just heard him. I was too busy not taking my eyes off the weedy hipster who thought he could get one over on me. Well, no. I wasn’t going to just roll over and take his sardonic crap. If I was going to work with him, I would put him in his place first. I should have just kicked him sharply under the table. But, for one thing, I was worried he might break. No, I had to just play my trump card. I pulled my portfolio out of my satchel and slid it across the table. “You’ve had my opinion. Let me hear yours.”
He looked like he would really rather not take it. “I’ve-I’ve seen-“
“No, Ryan,” I pushed it further toward him until he had no choice but to take it “really. I want your honest opinion.”
He opened it like it might bite him if he handled it wrong. Good. At least he was a little shaken, now.
            He actually sat and read the cover letter. I felt like slapping him in the face.
“You play violin?” He asked.
“Well. It says that, doesn’t it?” I rolled my eyes and sat back. His mouth twitched at the corners like he was trying not to laugh
“I didn’t know that.”
No shit, really? “Probably because we only met about an hour ago.” I said. It came out an awful lot snippier than I’d meant.
“Yes but-” He blinked like he was rethinking what he was about to say and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing “Yeah. I suppose that’s true.”
He turned the page and came to the first photograph. A headshot, like his own, except that where his eyes had been closed, mine were as open and wide as I could have made them without looking surprised or cross-eyed. I liked that picture especially because my eyes looked amber. Not entirely amber, but like there was potentially a hint of a recessive gene in me somewhere. He nodded “Your eyes look good in this one.” He flipped he page, it was a high-fashion photo that I’d done about a year ago, just a portrait photo, but quite dramatic. The left side of my face was painted black, the right was painted white- They’d been very liberal with the paint, and that stuff had tasted awful. I’d had a headache for days after that shoot. The eye on the right half of my face had a black contact lens that completely blacked out my entire eye, and vice-versa for the left. The effect was quite striking. The product had been a new brand of watch called Balance. Ryan was staring quite hard at the picture. “What?”
“Nothing…It’s just…This picture was on a billboard.” He laughed and looked up at me from the portfolio. “It’s just crazy, you know? I’m sitting here with a guy from a billboard.” Well. That's generally what happened when you got a job. Your face got put in places you'd never have even imagined possible. Not that this guy would know that, though. "Yeah. That's probably my favourite picture." I shrugged. He flipped through a few more pages, skimming really. I was tempted to spit that he should probably pay more attention, and possibly take notes, but he looked up "Your Givenchy photos..."
Oh god. Was that literally my staple now? Was that everything that anyone expected of me? Yes, Mr Urie, I recognise you from that magazine where you took all your clothes off and swung a bottle of aftershave around. That was a great shoot, Mr Urie. You looked great in those pictures, Mr Urie. Have my fucking babies Mr Urie, so that they can be beautiful. Just. Like. You.
"Aren't in there." I sniffed. Typical that he would notice those ones missing.
"Shame. That was a great photoshoot."
"So I've been told."
"Why didn't you put-"
"Because, contrary to popular belief, I do actually have lots of photos that are equally as good, if not better than the ones where I got naked, okay? There are a lot of shoots that aren't in there, not that you would be able to tell which ones." I sat back in my seat, mentally slapping myself that I should learn to control my temper. The waitress arrived back at the table, and placed the plates down on the table. We thanked her, but she didn't go away.
"I'm sorry, but...Are you that model from that...uh, that designer? Aftershave or something..."
Well, I'd managed to last, what, half an hour without being asked. That must be a new record.
"I'm very sorry. I think you have the wrong person."
Her face flushed red and she apologised quickly and hurried away. I was expecting a sarcastic comment from Ryan, but he was simply pouring sugar into his coffee with one hand and flicking through the pages of my portfolio with the other. He stirred his coffee briefly and sat back in his chair.
"Swatch watches, Likotine cards, the Christian Louboutin's Winter last year, the Armani summer from two years ago. No, wait." he flicked through the pages again "Oh, sorry. Armani's in here. Your Yves Saint-Laurent ones aren't though..."
That was most of the other shoots that weren't in my portfolio. Lucky guess.
"How did you know?"
"I told you I'd followed you for a while."
"Yves Saint-Laurent was four years ago."
"A long while, then." he smirked into his cup. I didn't really know what to say. Shane came back to the table, evidently lured by the smell of pancakes and the lull in conversation.
"Sorry I took so long. Ooh, pancakes."
        We left our empty dishes on the table, along with the bill and the tip. The waitress waved goodbye as we left. I felt like crap, not a single word had passed directly between Ryan and I for the remainder of the meal. I answered Shane's questions and got involved in the conversation, but I didn't say anything to Ryan at all. It was a pretty cruel thing for me to do, too. He was obviously a fan and I had just blanked him completely. Shane ushered us back into his car, promising to drive us back to the studio to pick up our respective cars. Ryan was sheet-white and had an expression like he'd been slapped in the face. My stomach curled as I slid into the front seat of Shane's car. I had really messed him up, hadn't I?
            Shane seemed to have noticed our discomfort. “Are you two alright?”
“I’m fine.” I nodded. My hands folded across my lap. Ryan just jerked his head stiffly. We fell silent again. Luckily the drive between the café and the studio was barely five minutes.
            Shane parked up. “See you guys later. I’ll call you both when we need you again.”
“How many sessions do you think we’ll need?” Ryan asked, unclipping his seatbelt. I had forgotten what his voice sounded like.
“Oh, six at the most, I reckon. It’s a six-page spread so if we can get one or two perfect shots each day without any more, uh, blunders, I think we’ll be done in about three weeks.” Ryan nodded his approval and opened his door. I thanked Shane for the ride and unclipped my own seatbelt. He caught my arm as I turned to step out of the cab, though. “Please, Brendon.” He started “Try to be nice to the guy. He’s had it rough trying to get here.”
“I’ll be perfectly civil.” I said. Nice was slightly out of the question. Shane rolled his eyes, muttered something about ‘bitchy models’ and let me go. I stepped out of the car and watched as Shane pulled away from the lot. Home, then. To put my feet up and forget about the mini-model fanboy that was going to drag my reputation through a grille of cheesewire.  I unlocked my car from across the lot.
“Brendon! Wait!” Speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the handle of my satchel as I turned to face him. He looked as though he’d rather be anywhere but here. The feeling was mutual.
“What’s up?”
“Can I walk you to your car? I’m waiting for a cab, anyways.”
I nodded and started walking again. He quickly caught up “I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
“Oh. Don’t worry about it. Everyone fucks up when they’re…Inexperienced.” Bitchy, I’ll admit, but I wasn’t here to play families with him.
“I…I was actually talking about the whole being a fan, thing. I was worried I might have upset you. But thanks for your encouragement.”
Another punch in the stomach for Brendon. I wasn’t mean, really. I was snippy and sarcastic, but I wasn’t mean. And here he was genuinely giving a fuck about my feelings while I was so ready to shoot him down. Good going, Urie; you’re proving that people really shouldn’t ever meet their heroes. “Oh. Right. Well, it’s really nothing to apologise for. It’s flattering, really.” We stopped at my car. “Look, I’m sorry too. I haven’t been especially polite to you today. I’m really not like this, I swear.”
“I’d barely noticed.” He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that said ‘I forgive you’ and not ‘the sun still shines out of your butt.’ Maybe Shane had a point. I was too quick to judge. I gritted my teeth. It was time to suck it up, and show him how to be a professional about this. “Let me give you a lift,” I gestured toward the car with my keys “It’s the least I can do.”
“No, really, It’s fine. We might live in completely opposite directions.” He lifted his hand, but I made a big show of pouting.
“Please? I don’t mind.”
He sighed, and looked toward the main road, evidently calculating his chances of getting a taxi versus the supreme awkwardness that would no doubt be ever-present if he drove with me. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” No but, seriously, I mentally begged him to please not mention this to anyone. The last thing I wanted was for people to believe that I appreciated working with this kid. I opened the driver’s side door and threw my bag into the back seat. He was already clicking his seatbelt closed and adjusting his shirt over his jeans. Well, someone was eager. I dropped into the seat and turned on the engine. “Where to?”
He told me his address and he was right in saying opposite directions. I just nodded and smiled and switched on the radio. It was the same song as earlier, the one that I’d enjoyed tapping away to on the drive to the studio. I vaguely remembered the tune, so I started to hum along.
“You seriously like this?” Ryan asked. I looked toward him.
“I’ve literally heard this song once before in my life. I’ll admit, the chick that sings it’s a little annoying, what’s her name-“
“Justin.” He interrupted solemnly.
“That’s a guy?”
He looked completely astonished “Do you live under a rock? He’s like, the ‘hottest’ thing in teeny-pop music.”
No way. I had no interest in music, but this was a whole new level of bad. “But he’s a girl…Did all the teenage girls turn lesbian in the time I’ve lived under this metaphorical rock?”
Ryan laughed, “No. But all of the ones aged between ten and thirteen are bisexual now.”
My brow furrowed “Fuck off.”
“Seriously. Being gay’s a big fashion statement now.” He sighed. “Which is fucking shit.”
I was suddenly very glad that I didn’t get involved in popular culture. I was happy enough living completely out of contact with reality. “Well that’s bullshit.” My hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“It must be a bit of a kick in the face for people who are actually gay, yeah.” Ryan sighed. I leaned over and switched station. I didn’t really feel like listening to that any more. “May I?” he asked and gestured toward the radio. I nodded, prompting him to reach into his bag to pull out an ipod and what looked like a USB cable.  He slipped the cable into a port I had never noticed on the dash before and stated scrolling through his songs. “Is this where I see the real Ryan Ross?” I asked. He smiled and shrugged his ambiguity.
“Ah. Here we go.” He clicked it on: jangly guitars were what I immediately noticed.
“Oh come on!” I huffed “I know who The fucking Beatles are. I haven’t lived under a rock my entire life.”
He looked at me like I’d just proposed. “But this isn’t a single…Most people only know the singles.”
I raised an eyebrow. Hip. Ster.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a Beatles expert, but I know more than the bog-standard Hey Jude and Strawberry Fields.”
“So what’s your favourite?”
“Well, you might get mad. It was a single.”
“Let me guess…Lucy In The Sky?”
“Do I look like a drug addict? No…My favourite song’s Penny Lane.”
“That’s a great song.” He nodded and reached toward his iPod, he scrolled through until he found Penny Lane and put his iPod back down.
“You aren’t judging me for being so mainstream?” I laughed and stopped at a traffic light. He laughed with me, just as brightly. I really liked his laugh, it lit up the entire car and made my stomach twist again.
He turned to face me, “You must think I’m such a music snob. My favourite Beatles song is Yellow Submarine, dude. You don’t get much more mainstream than that.”
“That song is fantastic.” I agreed and turned the volume up on the stereo. The song was just kicking into the chorus.

I was genuinely enjoying this car ride, and I felt awful about it. Ryan was a nice guy; he was funny and clever and he wasn’t boring. He kept up a conversation even when it was about something he knew little or nothing about, occasionally asking questions, but mostly he listened. And I had never seen anyone listen quite like him. He hung onto every single word I said with such honest enthusiasm that I felt I could just keep talking. And that made me feel like a horrible person. I’d been so ready to jump on him for being new that I had totally overlooked the fact that he really had worked to be here. Just like every single one of us who had ever made it as a model. We all suffered casting calls and go-sees and bitter stings of rejection and rare but wonderful, intense joy when we were booked for a job. Ryan, with his stupid long hair and his stupidly pretty face was no different. “Am I going the right way?” I asked. He looked out of the window
“You’re going the right way, but this is the long way…We could have saved twenty minutes…”
“Oh. Well, never mind. I’m still cheaper than a cab.”
He snorted “Yeah. Right. I’ve seen how much you get paid for a campaign.”
I shot him a look “Well then, you’re very fucking lucky that I’m expending my precious-as-gold time on driving you home.”
“Very.” He agreed. But then his face turned crimson and he quickly turned his head to look out of the window. My phone buzzed on the back seat. I cursed and leaned over with one arm to get it, while still trying to look out of the windshield and not crash into the guy in front of me.
“Let me-“ Ryan turned around behind him and with his long limbs effortlessly reached the bag. He tossed it into my lap, and I dug around the bottom for my ringing phone. Dallon, probably wondering where I was.
“Hello?”
“Hey. It’s me.”
“Yeah. I know. Caller ID.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. How did your thing go?”
“I got the job.” I looked over at Ryan “Competition was really stiff, though.”
He turned to me with such an intense look of mortification that I genuinely thought he was ready to die. Well, fuck if I wasn’t about to torture him with three weeks of boner jokes.
“That’s good. Well done. So when’ll you be home?”
“I’m just dropping Ryan off at his house, and then I’m heading back.”
He paused for a few seconds and I worried for a moment that the line had gone dead.
“Who’s Ryan?”
“The guy I’m working with. It’s a paired shoot.”
“I see. So how long?”
“Well, another twenty minutes or so ‘til I drop Ryan off and then about forty-five minutes for me to get back. Why?”
“Just wondering. Love you.”
“You too. See you in a bit.” I replied and hung up. I turned the stereo back up and waited for Ryan to speak.
“Did I get you in trouble?” he asked, a hint of smugness in his tone.
“No, Ryan. Unlike some; I don’t actually have a bedtime.”
“Excuse me. I’m older than you.” He rolled his eyes. “You looked mad.”
“Mad?”
“When you were on the phone, you looked mad. Like a kid does when they’re getting into trouble. That’s why I asked.”
I glanced away from the road to look at him. He’d started to nervously chew on his thumbnail like he’d said something wrong. I almost felt sorry for him; he clearly had no concept of what was okay to say to me and what wasn’t. Fan Syndrome.
“It was just my better half being concerned for my whereabouts.” I shrugged.
“Ah.” He nodded, still biting his thumb “Nice to be concerned for, I suppose. And now at least your girlfriend’ll know where you are if I happen to be an axe murderer-type fan.”
“Fiancé, actually.” I leaned over him to open the glove box and pull out the chain that I kept inside it whenever I went for shoots; it was thin and silver and at the end was a plain white-gold band with ‘Yours’ etched inside it. I dangled it in front of him and he blinked at it a few times. “Actually, congratulations. You’re the first almost-stranger that I’ve told.”
“She’s a lucky girl.”
“I’m the luckier one, actually.” I shrugged and dropped the chain around my neck.  He watched it settle on top of my shirt. I really hated wearing it on a chain; it made me feel like Frodo Baggins or something. The sooner Dallon let me announce the engagement the better. Though, that did mean coming out to the whole world, which admittedly was a little daunting. Dallon was right to have his reservations, though. I could effectively end my career. Not that in my career gay men were rare, but they tended to keep it relatively hushed.
“Well, congratulations.” He said slowly, like he was considering what he said very carefully. “When’s the big day?”
Probably not in my lifetime, I thought sullenly. Dallon was not known to be a mover and a shaker when it came to anything we did. It took not-so-gentle prodding to get him to so much as open a joint bank account with me.
“Oh. We haven’t decided.”
“Well, good luck with that. I’m sure she’s wonderful.” Ah. She. Yes. She. I felt terrible about lying to him, though I’d only known him for an afternoon. Then again, from what I could gather, he wasn’t exactly straight himself.
“Yes. He’s great.”
His head whipped around faster than I’d ever seen anybody move “He?”
“Yes. Sorry, are you surprised?”
“Well, I never knew that you were, well, gay.”
Really? I wondered how this total stranger could possibly not know a detail about my personal life. “Yeah. I am.”
“Oh.” He said and dropped his hands away from his mouth and into his lap. “Oh.”
“Does that, I don’t know. Bother you? You have to shoot with me after all and I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“No. No, not at all, I’m…I’m gay too.”
“Oh. No worries, then.” I gave him a smile and elbowed him lightly in the ribs. “Hey. I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“I won’t. Honestly. I swear.” I believed him, too. Why shouldn’t I?
“I appreciate that.”
We sit in a soft kind of silence for a while, I found it very difficult to focus on driving, though. There was an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. Guilt. I felt guilty. What did I feel guilty for?
            The song switched on the radio from Blackbird to Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. I loved this song, I couldn’t really believe that I’d forgotten it. It was the kind of song that made you feel like you were on LSD, even if you weren’t. Ryan stated to tap his hands on his knees to the slow melody “It kinda makes sense, you know. You being gay.”
“How so?”
“Men don’t have engagement rings, for one thing.”
“That’s true.” I was starting to wish I hadn't said anything at all. I didn't mind that he knew; i just wasn't looking to have a deep and meaningful conversation about it. "It's this turn off here, right?"
He nodded, "You can just stop here, my house is literally across the street, and it saves you driving up and around again."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, positive."
"Alright." I pulled the car up into the closest lay-by. He pulled his iPod and the connector out and stuffed them into his bag. I watched him adjust his shirt slightly and unbuckle his seatbelt. "See you later, then" I said when he stepped out of the car.
He leaned through the open door; "Thanks so much for the ride."
"Anytime." We exchanged a quick smile, but then his expression sobered almost immediately.
"Right. See you later."
He closed the door and lifted his hand in a farewell wave before I had a chance to say anything else. Odd. He’d at least been friendly before, but that was just cold. I pulled out of his street and back onto the main road. My stomach still felt twisted and queasy. Still guilty. I looked down into the central compartment between the driver's seat and the passenger's for gum or mints or something to take my mind off this sensation. Nothing. There was nothing in the glove box or the change pocket in the dashboard either. Damn it. Who has a car with no candy? I turned my attention back to the road; but the nausea was still the same. I wiped my mouth with the side of my hand and my wrist brushed against something cold; my chain. I took a deep breath and tucked the ring under my shirt.