Ricky's mobile phone vibrated urgently in his trouser pocket and he pulled it out quickly. 'It's time, Ricky,' came Stephanie's voice. He hung up and, taking a deep breath, opened the doors to the street slowly, one, then the other. The line of girls snaking along the boulevard seemed startled to see him. After six hours of waiting, gossiping and pouting, they had almost forgotten why they were there. Their voices, their breathing, hesitated, clicked in their throats on sentences unfinished. Those closest to him looked at him and then around him, trying to see what wasn't there. He paused and then said 'The first 100 of you are to come inside, arrange yourselves around the courtyard. Madame V's assistant will consider you and those of you she touches on the shoulder will leave. I will then come outside and call in the next 100. And so it will go on.' He saw girls' mouths twist in a myriad of expressions -- as well as hope, he saw hesitation, fear and defiance. Well, he thought, this is what you all want so you can now have it.
He counted the first batch through the door and then shut it firmly behind them. Slowly, hesitantly, they wandered through the cool passageway and out into the sunshine of the open courtyard. Stephanie was already waiting for them. She held only a small leather crop in her hand. The girls seeing the look on her face quickly took their places, jostling a little, one dropping her bag, another tripping on the uneven cobblestones. Finally they were ready. Stephanie was quicker than them -- before the last girl had found her place, she had already made up her mind and was flicking a number of them back towards the door they had just come through. By the time she'd finished, only 22 girls were left standing in the courtyard.
Ricky let the failures out enmasse and returned with 100 more. Stephanie carried out the same process again, and then again. Finally she went back over the remaining girls, the seemingly lucky ones, discounting, until of the 672 girls who had waited for up to 6 hours in the hope of being seen by Madame V, only 47 remained in the hot courtyard.
Stephanie walked over to a corner of the yard and spoke rapidly into her mobile. She then put the phone away in the pocket of her jacket and walked over to the door of the house. Ricky stood by the entrance to the passageway which led to the street outside. Silence reigned now where before there had been the tiny shuffles, snuffles and whispers of young women waiting for their possibly one shot at fame. Even the birds had stopped singing it seemed. The noise from the street seemed held back in place by the solid brick walls of the building and time was suspended, encapsulated in this microcosm of humanity.
With a tiny creak, the impossibly shiny black door of the house opened, and Madame V stepped forth.
She stood for a moment, looking at the girls arranged around the courtyard like mannequins in a storeroom. Her dark sunglasses, black rimmed and dark glassed, made it impossible to see her eyes. Only by the tiny turn of her head could one verify where she was possibly looking. She looked over at Stephanie and smiled at her, giving a tiny nod of appreciation. Stephanie thought, looking at her employer dressed in regulation tight black skirt, fitted jacket, stockings with a tiny pattern and high patent heels, she could be a model herself. If pint sized models were ever to grace the catwalk, V would be top of the sought after list. Still, V herself never accepted anyone under 5 ft 8inches. Modelling agencies never looked at anyone below that height and she had learned that the hard way. No matter how beautiful she was, her height and even her body shape went against her. She was too large breasted for a model and too short -- at only 5 ft 3 inches and with a D cup breast she was the epitome of a failed would be model. A would be if she could be.....
She had been left with no option other than to thumb her nose at the establishment and make her name in another but similar way -- discovering and mentoring those beauties who would go on to become world supermodels. Along that route, she had been careful to build up a non picture of inscrutability. It was no mistake that she cultivated the essence of an enigma. She didn't make friends easily so there were never any 'sources' whom the newspapers and magazines could get to. In short, so little was known about her that even finding out about her childhood or school years was full of obfuscation. She trusted few people - Stephanie and Ricky were the exceptions. Her models always made it to the top and she worked very hard with them -- they were the best in the world, highly regarded and highly sought after. No amount of pumping would make them reveal anything about her. That was part of the deal. She could make them but she could also break them. She illustrated this very nicely with the story of the only model who had ever tried to make extra money by talking to the papers. V had used her own contacts to contaminate the girl -- ensuring that her supermodelling career was over almost before it began. No-one wanted to hire a model who was deemed unreliable, used drugs to such an extent that only cosmetic surgery had helped save her beauty, and with poor work ethics to boot. Everyone knew the Evangalista famous line of not getting out of bed for less than £10,000, but it was accepted that if a model was really, really good, that meant her work practice was good too. They may not work often but they did work hard. It was amazing how much could be made of so little and that little was all made up. It was enough of a cautionary tale to make all models who followed after her very, very careful about who they spoke to.
Slowly, like a cat creeping towards a mouse held in a trap, V swayed over to the front of the lineup. She gave a seemingly cursory, almost off hand look at the girls, sweeping her eyes along the line. Then she started at the beginning, tapping the shoulder of a girl here or a girl there, the line whittling down, the unwanted running the emotional gamut from tears to defiance, breathlessness, nausea, theatrics which never sat well with V. She dismissed all except two young women. The first was very beautiful, smooth perfect skin, long dark swinging hair, the long lithe body of a superstar. She held herself in the well known models' louche, one hand on her hip which was thrust out in front. Her bone structure from her face to feet gave the looker the instant sense of being in the midst of a chosen one. The other girl, on the other hand, was merely pretty. Next to the brunette amazon, she barely raised an eyebrow but Madame V had asked her to stop there. Ricky and Stephanie were both surprised. Perhaps V had decided to mentor two would- be models simultaneously. But in their experienced eyes, the first girl, taller, darker, with beautiful bone structure was the obvious choice. What was V thinking?
As Ricky let the last thread of girls out of the courtyard, he thought about the cold beer which awaited him in the kitchen. Thank God these turgid days came only once every three years. He watched as Stephanie led the two women into the house. He thought about the tough six months or so ahead for them both but the world was waiting to see them and it would be their oyster for a very long time. He was curious though -- V had never selected more than one girl at a time before. What did she want with the blonde?
He shrugged to himself, locked the iron doors and walked across the courtyard, the image of an icy cold beer drawing him over the hot cobblestones and into the cool of the house.
----0---
Angelina sat on the edge of the pale blue loveseat in the gorgeous Rococo styled room with its high ceilings and gilt mirrors, elaborate ceiling plaster work and enormous fireplace. She wondered at the expense and then at the colour and that led her to think of the gorgeous Madame V. She wondered why she had worn the black suit on such a hot day. Angelina herself had worn white, a broiderie anglaise dress with a tiny bolero in white organza and gold sandals on her feet. She'd painted her toes fuschia at the last minute. She had wanted to be understated, not to appear too desperate, but she was very interested to note that the other girl who had disappeared into the house had also been understated in her appearance. While other girls had dressed to impress, they had both behaved like wallflowers -- was that the secret? she wondered. All through the 'slave trade', as she called it to herself, she had been acutely aware that she felt more like an observer than a participant. It was a huge surprise to her when Madame had asked her to stand with her assistant who had seemed as surprised as she was.
