| CHALLENGE PART 4 _________________________________________________________________________________________ The phone woke me at 9am. I rolled over and snatched the phone off the hook, mumbling an incoherent “Hello”. “I hope your arm is feeling better,” a male voice said, then a sinister laugh and the caller hung up. I lay in bed trying to decipher the obvious hidden meaning of the call. If the hospital called they would have identified themselves first, and no one at work knew about the cut. I decided to continue my thoughts in the shower. When I got out I was no closer to an explanation and pushed it to the back burner as I had lots to do today. I got dressed in what I had determined were my comfy clothes – one nice thing about my job was that I didn’t have to be “presentable”, I was artistic. I left the apartment wearing a short black tank dress with a shirt over it 80s style off the shoulder that said “One by one the Penguins steal my sanity”, large-holed fishnets, and my pair of well-worn doc martens with purple laces barely tied. My hair was sloppily but tastefully pulled into a mass on top of my head and my makeup was leaning towards extreme. Putting on the makeup was a very familiar thing – I must have done it often. I clomped down the stairs and got in the car. Half way to the office I started wondering what everyone would think – I had been dressing fairly normal for what clothing I had in my suitcase. Even last night I had kept it to a simple black skirt and black shirt; today I looked like Tank Girl gone goth. I stopped and picked up the proofs and grabbed some breakfast. Nikki pulled up in the lot just as I was opening the office door, she parked beside my car next to the building. She had Nathaniel and Zane with her. I had managed to get the door open when I heard “Oh…my...gawd…” that was Zane and “Girl look at you” that was Nikki. I looked around for Nathaniel expecting a comment from him next, I found him crawling on his hands and knees towards me, like he had done on stage last night. When he got to me he wrapped an arm around one of my legs and looked up at me. “Will you marry me?” “You know all the rights things to say don’t you?” I said smiling down at him, noticing for the first time the spectacular color of his eyes, they were violet. He got up and brushed himself off and then proceeded to start taking things out of my hands. “I’ll carry this for you.” We all made it upstairs to the studio were I ate my breakfast while Nikki laid out the pictures in front of me. Nathaniel and Zane were sitting on a prop couch looking at the extra set, making suggestive comments to each other about each print. An hour later after careful consideration and focusing of the lights we were ready to shoot. Jacqueline had laid out a pile of clothes that she wanted modeled and the boys dug through them like kids at Christmas deciding what they wanted to wear. When Zane came out of the dressing room he was wearing a pair of long lack suede pants that looked buttery soft and a black chiffon shirt. “What about Nathaniel?” I asked, ready to get to work. “He’s still looking at himself in the mirror. I think you’re going to have to pry that outfit off his cold dead body – he loves it.” he replied smiling. I walked into the large dressing room - camera in hand – to find the auburn-haired beauty posing in front of the mirror. He was wearing a pair of vinyl shorts that barely covered his ass with straps that crisscrossed over his upper body and a pair of knee-high boots with metal shin guards. I lifted the camera to my eye and began shooting. He knew I was there, but he just kept playing in the mirror as if he were alone. The best pictures are usually ones that are done with the subject in a natural environment being themselves. I stopped at the thought. Weird tidbits like that would come back to me every once in a while; it always caught me off guard. Nathaniel stopped and looked at me in the mirror. “What?” “Nothing. Just remembered some piece of photo knowledge.” He turned to me, “Remembering is good.” He struck a pose for me with his back pressed against the mirror. “You ready to get started?” “It started when I walked in here. These will be usable, but let’s get some of you and Zane together.” Two hours passed by quickly and the boys started complaining that they were hungry. Nothing like fussy models to make on declare break time. Nikki ordered pizza and I started getting things ready for the next set of models. I reset lights, reloaded cameras, and moved some props around. “Pizza’s here!” The boys yelled simultaneously. I looked at Nikki in confusion, as there had been no buzzer indicating the pizza’s arrival. #Buzz# Nikki pushed the button to unlock the lower door. “How’d they do that?” She just tapped the side of her nose. I inhaled and could faintly smell the pizza – weird – it was all the way downstairs. Jason came bounding through the door carrying two large pizzas and followed by Stephen and who I was assuming was the girl named Cherry that the boys had been telling me about all morning. Zane and Nathaniel practically pounced on Jason, each grabbing a box. I looked at Nikki. “So much for lunch.” I said sarcastically. She just laughed and pointed behind me. I turned to find Nathaniel holding up a pizza box. “Share with me? _________________________________________________________________________________________ PART 5 INDEX |