Page 51 of Thigh Highs
Brand Representative
“Hi.I’m Christina Dominguez. I have an interview with JimSanders.”
I approach the woman behind the P&T reception desk, the clack of my heels echoing in the sizeable lobby. I wore the same outfit I bought for the showcase: a fitted pantsuit and stripedblouse.
“With Jim Sanders?” repeats the secretary, as she stares at her computer screen with a puzzled look. “Are yousure?”
“It should be at two,” Ianswer.
She squints at the screen for another moment and then understanding lights up her eyes. “Oh! Are you here for theaudition?”
“I mean, if it’s at two with Jim Sanders, then yes, I probablyam.”
Audition is a weird choice of words, but I brush it off as corporate semantics. The secretary gives me directions to a suite, and I ride the elevator up to the ninthfloor.
When I walk inside the suite, I find what looks like a waiting room, lined with chairs occupied by about a half dozen girls in their twenties. A small hallway leads to a door, and as I’m wondering if I should check the suite number to make sure I’m in the right place, a brisk looking young man in a suit and headset opens it and walks up tome.
“Name?” he asks, looking down at the clipboard he’sholding.
“Yeah, um, I’m here for an interview with Jim Sanders. Is this the rightplace?”
“Mr. Sanders is overseeing the auditions, yes.Name?”
“Ch-Christina. Christina Dominguez,” I stutter, more than a littleconfused.
“I’ll tell them you’rehere.”
Without another word, he heads back through the door. I take a seat and glance around at the girls in the room. They’re all gorgeous and wearing much more casual clothes than me. None of them seem to share my confusion; every pair of eyes is either glued to a cell phone or one of the magazines available on the coffee table in the middle of the room. I sit there, drumming my fingers against myarms.
Maybe Jim is busy today and had to schedule me in the middle of whatever thisis.
I try to let the thought boost my rapidly diminishing confidence. I walked into this building feeling like a badass boss ready to take on the world, and I grasp at the image again, straightening up in my seat and letting my hands lie still in mylap.
A few minutes pass, and then a girl steps out of the doorway, followed by the clipboardguy.
“You,” he says, eyes focused on me. “They’ll see younow.”
They?
I swallow and stand up, ignoring the death glares the other girls are shooting at me now that I seem to have jumped the queue. I follow clipboard guy into a large room where three men are seated along one side of a table. There’s a chair in the middle of the room, and one corner has been set up with a photography backdrop and a few reflector umbrellas. A guy with a camera is lounging on another chair besidethem.
“MissDominguez!”
Jim Sanders stands up from the table and approaches me, hand outstretched. I give him the firm, doing-business-handshake I’ve practiced enough that it comes automatically, even when I’m feelinguncertain.
Which I definitely am rightnow.
“Mr. Sanders,” I greet. “Good to see youagain.”
“Good to see you too.” He gives my hand a final squeeze and sits back down at the table, motioning for me to take the chair in the middle of theroom.
“These are two of the team leaders I have working on the campaign, Leon Schultz and Harry Bell.” I exchange nods with the two men, who look like slightly modified carbon copies of Jim. “I was just telling them about your work at theshowcase.”
“We like the sound of you,” says the one named Leon. “This isn’t a typical modelling job. We’d like someone who can work with a bit of autonomy when it comes to branding. We were intrigued to hear you’ve received some advertising training in addition to your work as amodel.”
I look back and forth between them, and it all starts to fall intoplace.
“Jim showed us some of your shots. You have exactly the aesthetic our client is going for,” adds the man third man, his eyes raking over mybody.
