Lily flew over the stairs and into the offices of R. Kirby and Associates where she would receive indication for next model assignment. She was late again. Well she was always late. In fact her friends joked that she would be late for her own funeral.
It's not that Lily consciously started things late or overslept or things like that. On the contrary, she always tried very hard not to be late, but things conspired against her.
For instance today: her appointment was at four in the afternoon. She arrived from her classes at one, prepared a lunch and decided to get one hour sleep, so she adjusted the alarm clock for three. With fifteen minutes by bus between her small walk-up apartment and the agency, she had plenty of time. The alarm clock worked perfectly, she brushed her teeth, took a pee, applied light make-up and three twenty she was on the street waiting for the bus. When she fished for the change to give the driver she discovered that she forgot her wallet.
She ran back to her apartment and when she fished for her keys in her oversized bag she remembered clearly that she left the keys on the table and clicked her doors shut with its auto-locking device. Not being this the first time she locked herself out of the apartment — she kept saying to herself to change the lock to a normal manual lock — she looked under a flower pot where she kept her spare. Of course the keys weren't to be found. It flashed through her mind that yesterday she was so pressed for pee that she ran into the bathroom with the spares in her hand and left them on the floor near the toilet and never remembered to return them to the flower pot.
Well, nothing to it. She looked at her watch: it was three forty. The time seemed to fly when you had an appointment. She ran down the stairs and banged on the door of her landlady, the old Mrs. Baggs. Of course Mrs. Baggs wasn't home.
So at ten minutes to six Lily was flying up the stairs and into the offices of R. Kirby and Associates. Her friend and pal Tammy had already gone home so she had to face the old hag Mrs. Kirby herself.
"Late again Lily." Mrs. Kirby was flashing her crooked teeth. "I'm sorry but I handed your assignment to Vanessa. She is such a nice hard working girl and is always on time." Her words clearly implicated that Lily wasn't nice, didn't work hard and was always late. Well, the last part of it certainly was true.
"But I need the job..." whined Lily. It was true, she was late with rent and after her latest shopping spree where she purchased an outfit she simply had to have, she had maxed her remaining credit card. She wasn't exactly broke because she had a small cache of 150 dollars, but a well paying assignment was a must.
Lily was paying her college tuition with the modeling jobs but due to her habit of coming late the only agency that still considered her was Kirby's. Lily was pretty and articulate and knew how to pose. She also did a few small movie appearances. Most of those were for nude shots. She didn't mind exposing her well made body but she draw the line at sex and porno. She was a twenty one year old virgin and determined to remain so until her wedding day with the man of her dreams who didn't appear yet, but who certainly would. In the mean time she had to survive.
"Mrs. Kirby, please..." Lily used her best begging voice and the smile that normally made people doing what she asked for.
"Well, Lily, I have this possibility, it arrived late today. They need an urgent replacement for a small part in a movie. It's for tomorrow exactly at noon. Can you be on time?"
"Oh yes, Mrs. Kirby, thank you!" Then she frowned. "It isn't a porno?" Kirby's agency did provide starlets who didn't mind to have sex in front of a camera, but Mrs. Kirby knew that Lily didn't do that.
"Well, I never heard about this producer." Mrs. Kirby used her reading glasses to look at the summary sheet on the front of the folder which hold the script. "Lupus movies. It's the first time they ask us for a model. Small, not talking part. One afternoon shooting inside. Nudity involved. No sex required. Part is of a maid who together with her mistress and another maid are to be punished in a town square. Period piece. They accept our normal fare. I didn't read the script. I have to inform them now if you want it or not. If you accept don't you dare not to be there or you won't be working with me ever again, is it clear Lily?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, do you accept?" She pushed the folder under Lily's nose. "Read the script. If you don't like it or there's something wrong, you call them and me first thing tomorrow morning." She picked up the phone. "If you don't call, they will be expecting you at twelve sharp. Be there!"
"Yes ma'am," repeated Lily and escaped the agency with the folder tightly held against her breasts. On the street she unclipped the summary sheet which had the producers' details like phone number and the location address and guarded it carefully in one of her purse's zippered pockets. Lily fully intended to read the script immediately, but she had a happy hour meeting with three of her best friends at six thirty and it was already fifteen minutes past, so she rushed and met the girls only forty minutes late.
The evening progressed merrily and three hours later, thirty dollars poorer and with a pleasant buzz in her head, Lily opened the door of her walk up. After attending to the much needed pee and a shower, she warmed left-overs in the microwave and clad only in a comfortable oversized T-shirt and panties, settled to read the script. She opened the folder and looked at... nothing. Somehow and somewhere she lost the script. The four or five double spaced typed pages which she glanced at and which she waved to her friends during the happy hour disappeared.
Nothing to it. It wasn't a talking part, right? Some nudity was involved, but she had no problem with it. And fortunately she had the address, right? She would be there tomorrow on time and would play by the ear.
Next day of course she was late. Not her fault once again. The insufferable professor Hill held her for fifteen minutes after the class berating her because of her late paper. So, after using her best actress skills, batting her eye-lashes, smiling her winning smile and dropping a tear or two, she got an extension and went flying to her assignment. She managed to get there only forty five minutes late.
She was met by a nice lady in power mini-skirted suit who could be pretty if she wasn't looking so harassed. She greeted Lily with open arms exclaiming, "You must be our substitute Lily. Thank God you came. The director is having a fit and our main actress is on verge of nervous breakdown. Tell me you're Lily."
"Yes, I'm Lily, sorry for being late, but there was an unexpected..."
"Yes, I know, I called your agency and a person called Tammy told me that you should be in any moment." Lily thanked silently the gods for Tammy being on telephone and not Mrs. Kirby. "I'm the casting director Kathy. John, the director was ready to fly my skin off if you didn't turn up in the next five minutes. Come with me." She grabbed Lily by her hand and dragged into a large dressing area. There was a small chaos there. Two other girls were already dressed for the movie. One in a kind of maid's long grey dress, a white pinafore and a white cap held with ribbons over a crow-black hair. Her long gown was covering her from her neck to her ankles. She was barefooted. The other girl, a beautiful blonde was dressed in rich red brocade and used high heeled red boots. Both girls were standing near a kind of oversized wooden barrow with one axel and two large wheels. The blonde spotted Kathy dragging Lily and shouted:
