2. Schmoozing

It was a slow day at the studio, so I sat by the phone, hoping for some calls to set up some appointments—to make some money—while I played around with the photos on my laptop. It was important to have an up-to-date portfolio at all times, and I was constantly tweaking pictures to look their absolute best—that way, when a potential client looked at the pictures, they could see what I was capable of and hire me.

Instead of productively Photoshopping my masterpieces, though, I sat there staring at the pictures of Ryan Kesler I had taken about a month ago. It was hard not to. Once I had edited the pictures, I sent them to Tom at Firstar, and then the matter was out of my hands. I got paid to take the pictures and nothing else; they decided which of them they would use or not. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t keep a copy of every single picture that I took of him, and there were a few of them that I couldn’t help but drool over.

The entire shoot could be chronicled through the pictures I had taken: the early pictures were of him looking straight-faced and serious. The next series were of Ryan smiling, but nervously or unsurely. Then, the last set of pictures looked really good because he looked natural and relaxed.

My favorites were the boxer pictures. He looked amazing in them, drop dead gorgeous. I liked the ones in which I told him to stretch, because between that and his made-up bed-head, he looked like he had rolled out of bed. It was hot, because I imagined that that’s what he looked like the morning after an all-night sex romp between the sheets. And I liked the ones in which he looked like he was about to take his shirt off, because, well, any girl would love to imagine Ryan Kesler taking off his shirt for them. Looking at any one of those pictures for too long made me need to change my panties. Hot damn.

But I also liked the picture that they chose to advertise for their line. He was minus the shirt and just in those boxers—the boxers named Illegal Curve. How appropriate, because those those boxer briefs should be made illegal, especially on someone with a physique like that. I couldn’t understand why he was so shy when he looked that good. But the best part was the smile on his face.

I touched the screen instinctively, wondering what it would feel like to touch a body like that. His abs had such definition, and his developed chest had just the right amount of hair—enough to see it, but not enough to get in the way. And the thin happy trail bisecting the swimmer’s V peeking out of the waist band. I wanted to touch all that. And I liked that he was so unassuming about his body; so many models worked hard to look good because that’s what they got paid to do, looking good, but Ryan was oblivious to all that. If there’s anything better than a good looking man, it’s a man who doesn’t know he’s good looking.

Even though it had been a while since that photo shoot, I still thought about it. In fact, I was wearing the blue women’s lace front jersey tee that Tom gave me from the set. It was really comfortable, and I thought that the blue looked nice on me.

Doug walked in, disrupting my reverie, so I clicked out of that picture and tried to turn my wavering attention to my portfolio.

“Amanda, why are the lights off?” he asked me.

“I’m saving electricity,” I told him very matter-of-factly. While the Firstar account had padded my wallet a little bit, I was trying to refrain from spending money unless I had to.

“Oh, whatever. Here’s the mail.” He handed me a few things, most of which was junk. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know. There’s not much for you to do. No appointments today, and everything’s stocked.” I sighed. I hated slow days, because everything felt like such a waste of time. “You can go home, if you want. I’ll still sign off that you got your full hours this week for your internship.” I liked having an intern because it was free help. I wouldn’t have been able to afford to pay someone, and it was valuable experience that I wished I would have had in college. “Unless you want to stay, and then I guess you can just man the phones.”

He shrugged, not exactly enthused by the idea of sticking around just to answer phones but feeling like he should just for the sake of honestly putting in his time. “I mean, I don’t have anything else to do right now.”

I slid my finger underneath the flap of an envelope addressed to me personally through the studio from an address I didn’t recognize. “Huh.”

“What is it?”

“An invitation to the RK17 Official Ryan Kesler Apparel by Firstar release party or something.”

“Oh, when is it?”

I found the date. “Ew, it’s next week. They must have forgotten about me and mailed this last minute.”

“Are you gonna go?” Doug asked me, leaning over the desk and reading the invitation upside down.

“I don’t know. What would be the point of going? I’d have to get dressed up probably, and I wouldn’t know anyone there—”

“You could take me.” He was looking at me and trying to make big puppy dog eyes to convince me.

“Wouldn’t you rather spend your Friday night doing something else? It’s just rubbing elbows and networking with people. It’s not like it would be any fun.”

“Yeah, okay, maybe not, but it would be a good way to plug your studio! They’ll probably have catalogs or whatever with the pictures in it, and you could pass out business cards. Word of mouth is the best way to drum up business, Amanda.”

“Doug, you’re a genius! I don’t have business cards, but I bet I could get some printed before then, right?” When he nodded, I mirrored the gesture. “It couldn’t hurt. You’re absolutely right, I should go. This is a great opportunity.”

“I know. You need to go.” He paused and smiled at me strategically. “And I can totally go and help you out.”

“So that’s how you’re going to weasel your way into going,” I laughed. He had such a pleading, almost desperate look in his eyes that I didn’t want to deny him the experience. As an intern at my small studio, he wasn’t getting a ton of experience because I didn’t have a lot of appointments, but he was certainly getting to be hands on and very involved with every aspect of the process. This would be a nice extra for him, to go to the party. “I guess you earned it since you helped on the set. All right you can come with me next Friday.”

“Yes! Do you think we’ll get more free stuff?”

“I don’t know. Do me a favor and stay by the phone. And while you’re at it, look up somewhere who will make business cards,” I sighed. “I probably should have done that months ago.”

“So what are you going to do while I’m doing all this?” he asked, starting to type into the search engine.

“I’m going upstairs. I wonder if Carla will have anything that I can wear.”

I left Doug behind as I trudged up the back staircase to the second floor. I rented the whole building, and Carla and I shared the one-bedroom apartment above the studio. We were college roommates, and after graduation it made sense to keep living together. It was cheaper to rent the upstairs, too, than it would be to rent the studio and a separate apartment—but it was still pretty expensive, more money than I could afford by myself. Carla had the only bedroom while I used a curtain to divide a corner of the living room into my bedroom. It was a pretty crappy living arrangement—for me—but Carla’s rent was the only guaranteed steady income I had.

She was mulling around, enjoying her day off, when I joined her in the kitchen. “Hey, Carla, I got a question for you. I got this invitation in the mail today. Do you think you have anything I could borrow to wear?”

Carla finished off the container of yogurt she was eating and thought for a moment. “Yeah, I probably have something. But don’t you have a dress you can wear?”

“No, not really,” I sighed. “Most of my clothes are jeans and shirts, something I can work in. Dresses aren’t really practical for me, and I don’t really have the money to go out to spend on a new outfit for one random night of schmoozing.”
_______________________________________________

“Tom. Tom!” I called out, chasing after the Firstar representative. It was too late now, but I thought that I at least deserved some answers. Tom stopped and turned around to face me. “That picture wasn’t supposed to see the light of day. I thought you just wanted to take it to ‘see what it’ll look like’ or whatever.”

“I did,” he replied smoothly. Stupid marketing people, always thinking they knew best. “And it was the best picture of the bunch. Sorry, Kes, but we had to use it.”

“But... I’m practically naked,” I stammered. I waved my hand toward one of the big blow-ups of the pictures taken weeks ago, on display for the big party. “My junk’s right there, for everyone to see! Can’t you at take it down, at least? Something?”

“Sorry, man, but we’ve made our decision, and that picture’s staying there.” He quieted his voice and leaned toward me. “What’s the big deal anyway? It’s a great picture, great for the line, and it’s not like it’s a bad picture of you.”

“But....” How could I explain it so that Tom could understand? I knew I wasn’t unattractive and that I was in shape, but it was a whole nother thing to openly show off like that. I was a private person, a homebody, and low-key despite what the guys thought about me on the ice. That’s one of the reasons why I was cutting back on the chirping and agitating on the ice; well, that and that the coaches and management decided that we needed to play more disciplined as a team in order to obtain the ultimate goal. So I was not the kind of guy who felt comfortable with this kind of publicity. It felt weird enough having my picture taken wearing sweatshirts or a uniform, let alone like that.

Tom placed his hand on my shoulder reassuringly in a very paternal-feeling gesture. “Don’t worry about it so much, Kes, okay? It’s only a big deal if you make it one.”

I wanted to tell him to tell that to my teammates—they were the ones who were going to ride me relentlessly once they saw this. It was a recipe for disaster; I had already gotten a bunch of text messages, mostly asking me how much they had to airbrush it to make it look like I had abs, or to make my dick look bigger than a pencil in those boxer briefs.

Surrounded by a bunch of life-sized pictures of me at the party venue, I tried to ignore them all. Since I was dressed in a suit, it was easier to feel comfortable under all those layers of clothes. Or at least more comfortable.

The press releases had been issued that day, so the media had already gushed out stories about Firstar and the RK17 line, and my name was pumped out all over the Internet and newspapers more than, I’d imagine, if I would ever score a hattie. I didn’t think I’d ever understand this weird fascination with when athletes came out with clothing lines. Crosby’s done it. Ovechkin’s done it. Zetterberg did, too, and probably a bunch of other guys too who I wasn’t thinking about.

Things went pretty smoothly, and I was drinking a beer and eating whatever hors d’œuvres were being carried around. I mingled around like I was told to do by Tom and by my agent, talking to people and trying to be friendly—but my mind was really thinking about heading home and relaxing in sweats and watching a movie in bed so I could rest up for tomorrow’s game.

I had my back turned to the boxer brief picture the whole time so I didn’t have to look at it and also didn’t have to see anyone else looking at it. It surprised me how many people were interested in this stuff. I noticed a woman staring at one of the pictures of me, the one in which I was wearing the bowling shirt. I recognized her as the photographer, even though she looked different all dressed up. Her hair was down and mostly straight, with a few little curls throughout instead of pulled back. And she was wearing a strapless, knee-length black dress with flats and not the functional clothes I had first seen her in. I wasn’t talking with anyone at that moment when I noticed her, so I decided to go say hi.

“Hey,” I greeted simply and only a little awkwardly, stepping beside her.

“Ryan, hi,” she replied, smiling at me before turning back to the picture. “I’m just admiring my work.”

I didn’t know what else to say, but she kept talking so I didn’t have to worry about figuring out how to respond. “This one is my favorite, I think.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not the best angle, I think it’s too low, but it’s the best of you, I think.”

“Better than the underwear one,” I sighed quietly, rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet.

“Hmm, well, I had nothing to do with that.” It’s like she knew how much I hated it. “I just take the pictures.”

“Well, yeah.” I couldn’t help but think that if she hadn’t have taken the picture in the first place, it wouldn’t exist—but it wasn’t her fault. It was Tom’s. “I guess that’s your job.”

“Oh, yeah, here,” she mumbled, suddenly shifting her focus from the picture to the tiny little clutch in her hand. She fished out a business card and passed it to me.

“Foster Photography,” I read aloud, looking from the card to her.

She properly introduced herself, “Amanda Foster, at your service.”

“Nice to meet you, Amanda.” I slipped her card into my pocket, knowing I’d probably never look at it again. “These pictures turned out good, you did a great job.”

“Thanks.” She smiled prettily, and I could see her brain working behind her eyes as she tried to search for a compliment to pay me in return. “Your line is really nice. I actually got one of the shirts from the set. It’s really comfy, I like it a lot.”

“Oh, thanks.” I nodded at her. “So, you work out of Vancouver?”

“Yeah. I’m a BC girl through and through. My studio’s only about a ten minute drive from the rink. You ever need pictures for anything, don’t be afraid to call. I’ll give you a Canuck discount. Seventeen percent off,” she laughed, joking around with me.

Our conversation was the most fun I was having all night, even though we were just engaging in small talk and not talking about anything in particular. Never before had it been so easy to talk about nothing.

But it didn’t last for long. She locked eyes with a guy across the room, the guy I also was able to recognize. He was her assistant from the shoot. They exchanged a couple of wordless messages through their glances. “It was nice seeing you again, Ry,” Amanda said, giving me a small wave of her hand as she took a step back. Then she sighed. “But I’ve got some more cards to pass out. See you around. And good luck with your season.”

“Thanks. And good luck to you,” I replied, trying to return the favor, “with your pictures.” With your pictures? What was I thinking?

She giggled but didn’t say anything else. I didn’t have much time to think about it, though, because Tom came over and introduced me to someone else from Firstar that I needed to talk to. I finished off my beer and shook hands with him. Tom kept me pretty occupied throughout the night, and the only people who left after me were the catering staff and janitors.