Just North of Whoville Turiskylie, Joyce (smart books to read .TXT) 📖

York modeling agency”. Not that I was interested in modeling or fashion, but it was a job sort-of in the industry. It was a start.

Celia was so excited about the news you’d think I’d won a Tony Award. My parents, on the other hand, quietly mumbled that it didn’t seem like much money for a New York City job and asked about insurance, benefits, 401ks, etc.----none of which were offered.

“Well, we’re happy if you are, dear,” was my mother’s final response.

In my heart, I knew my parents were right. But it could be a steppingstone to something. I was determined from my first day on the job to make myself an indispensible employee. I’m a hard worker that way. But after five months of diligent labor, I was never given a raise or even the promised title of “Administrative Assistant.”

“This is Dorrie. She’s the temp,” was my regular introduction. But by then I’d picked up on their nefarious business practices and had no desire to move up the corporate ladder. I figured that if the shit ever hit the fan, law enforcement would take one look at me and say, “She’s okay. She’s just the temp.”

So when a model came in to complain about feeling cheated or swindled, I was able to shoot them an understanding look and say, “I’m sorry. I’m just the temp.”

I said that a lot.

But it was getting harder to justify. I tried to think of it as office experience that would look good on a resume; and tried to get as many resumes out for better jobs as I could before we turned up on the nightly news as “Swindle of the Week”.

I’d be screwed then. Who’s going to hire The Reluctant Shill?

Luckily, models aren’t all as dumb as everyone thinks. Most of them came in for an interview, quickly picked up on the scam and walked out without getting their pockets picked.

“The good ones are out of here in a few weeks,” Deb, Jamie’s business partner explained. “They’re pretty enough to get real representation and don’t need us. But there aren’t too many of those,” she added smugly as she tugged at her girdle. Deb claimed to have had a career as a Plus Size model. But I’d never seen any photos of her modeling days. So maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. I never asked to see her portfolio.

While Jamie was Ms. Business and played up the brassy agent angle, Deb knew how to manipulate on a purely personal level. She could mother you into handing over your dough.

She’d obviously been a nice person at one point. And that scared me. Because I’m a nice person; and if I wasn’t careful, I might wind up there, too.

“We’ve got a few people who’ve been with us for a year or two,” Deb indoctrinated me my first day on the job. “They’re sweet, god love ‘em. They spend a lot of money, so we try to send them out when we can. But they’re not very good. If they were,” Deb lowered her voice, “they wouldn’t be here.”

A huge hunk of my job involved calling models for fake auditions. That morning, I’d been instructed to call models without teleprompter or ear prompter experience for a spokesmodel job. Then they wouldn’t get the job because they didn’t have teleprompter or earprompter experience.

A week after the fake audition, they would get an email informing them that while they came very close to securing the job, it was their lack of teleprompter and earprompter experience that held them back. However, for the low cost of two hundred dollars, they could gain the skills they need to get the job. One night only. Hurry! Class will fill up soon.

We’d recently signed a lot of new suckers. It was time to call the new marks in for an “audition”. I felt sick to my stomach that morning as I started writing out the list of names. My latest victims. I repeated a mantra over and over in my head as I poured over their prompter-lacking resumes, “I have to quit this job. As god is my witness, I will get out of this shithole.”

My desk, in the receptionist area, was testament to another of my duties---that of receptionist. Most aspiring models knew the industry rule---“No Drop-Ins”. It was rare that anyone besides building management or the bottled water guy dropped by unannounced. However, if you spent enough money on classes, photos, training and career consultation with ABC You Shine, the courtesy of being allowed to drop-in was extended. One of the chosen few was Timmy Daly.

“Hi! Just wondering if Deb was in today?” Timmy’s voice practically sang as he popped his head in the door.

Little Timmy Daly was probably the most unlikely candidate for a fashion model ever. The only model-like quality he had was the big head. But while most wanna-be models came in appearing either shy or cultivated blasé, Timmy came to modeling with a level of enthusiasm only matched by the amount of his acne, which he worked very hard at concealing.

He freely admitted to being a dreamer, but showed his realistic side by acknowledging in his interview with Deb that at five-foot six-inches tall, he most likely wouldn’t get called in for a lot of runway work. Most likely. But that was okay because his heart was really in print work. This skinny, pasty-pale, blond, spiky-haired little boy of nineteen had left West Virginia and moved to New York City to pursue his dream. And neither his acne, his height, nor the fact that he looked like a cross between E.T. and an albino pixie would stop him.

But his charm made up for his lack of photogenic qualities. For Halloween, he’d dropped off a plastic pumpkin full of candy and a card wishing us all a “Boo-tiful Halloween!” And any audition he was sent on,