One Hit Wonder (12 page)

Though Matt and Tyler disapproved of the new living arrangements, they were Audrey and John’s biggest supporters. It would also be nice for them to have a place of their own, where no woman would be telling them to pick up after themselves as she did sometimes. The four of them looked at apartments together. Audrey suspected Matt and Tyler had hoped to find two available apartments in the same building complex, and so did she. After looking in North Hollywood, Silver Lake, and Brentwood, she and John settled for a small bungalow in Pasadena; then Matt and Tyler rented a loft a few miles away.

The Spanish-style bungalow reminded her of the farm house in Brazil, with stained alabaster stucco exterior, red terra-cotta tile roof and a matching color front door. Sunny orange California poppies framed the sides of the stone steps leading to the graceful arched-opening porch. The sun-drenched backyard was landscaped with purple sage, lavender, and more California poppies.

During the next weeks she and John made the bungalow their own, like a corny television couple who had just moved to their first house. They painted together and ate pizza sitting on the floor in an empty living room.

“Are you sure about this?” John asked her as he rolled deep burgundy streaks of a color called Vin Rouge on the wall of their master bedroom.

“It will look good against the white crown moldings and some black and white photography.” She pointed at the walls and described to John where the art would go.

They bought a few practical pieces of furniture at IKEA: a dinette table with chairs, bar stools for the kitchen counter, a geometric-print futon, pots and pans and a few other essentials. For the rest of the house, they would look for pieces that spoke to them.

On Saturday mornings, they looked for garage sales and visited antiquaries. The first piece of art they bought for their house, was a sixteen-by-twelve inch vintage illustration of a coffee cup with the words “coffee” and “bottomless cup” at the top and bottom of the image, and a five-cent sign at the bottom right corner. It cost three dollars, but she felt shamelessly happy. It was different from purchasing a futon, pots or pans; they’d bought something with no practical purpose whatsoever, a real indication of their commitment in building their home — their life together.

• • •

Kevin had been the biggest rupture to the living organism they had created since she joined the band on tour. He was quickly swept away by the shining lights of Hollywood. He was the first to rent his own place. He knew everybody, went to all the parties, and slept with all the models. Matt and Tyler were able to get a free ride on his wild train for a while, but they couldn’t keep up. Even Tyler, the notorious womanizer, didn’t keep a scoreboard like Kevin’s.

A few months later, their CD was released and another track did well on the charts. While Atlantis put together a national tour, they’d started to perform locally, with gigs almost weekly. The spotlight shone back on Kevin, whose wild voice, dirty blonde locks, and charismatic personality always caused an enthusiastic uproar on stage. As Bill predicted, a second hit had cast a shadow on “North Stars’s” incidental focus on their love life and John resumed his role as the guitarist. He seemed relieved to be detached from center stage as there were less and less requests for him to sing “North Star.”

If for the world Kevin was the band’s heart, in reality, John was its liver: filtering the junk into useful stuff for the band and, most importantly, creating the songs which made it all possible.

“I love your raspy voice. It’s sexy.” She refilled his glass of wine and watched his face change colors, his shyness never ceased to amuse her.

“I could never do it.” He sipped his wine and flipped over the chicken breasts on the grill. “I like to sing, but what Kevin does is much more than that, it’s a performance. Like acting.”

“You did great, though.”

“For one song yes, but imagine an entire concert. I’m sure the audience would get tired of me closing my eyes or staring at nowhere. Kevin engages the audience and more they give him more he gives back.”

“True. He thrives on attention.”

The job was not as bad as Edward had told her. Sure, there was plenty of heavy lifting, but she could do much more. Photography at Edward’s level had nothing to do with what she’d seen in college, and working in his studio was like being on the set of The Devil Wears Prada: she’d never seen so many wonderful and unwearable clothes. The models seemed like creatures from another planet; incredibly tall — even next to her five-eight — emaciated to the point of tears, and very pale. They would arrive at the studio wearing no make-up, with their hair pulled in high ponytails, holding bottles of water, and talking on their cell phones.

In the mornings, Edward would huddle with the assistants and talk about the assignment they were about to work on. Then they would set up the lights and backdrop according to his specifications, along with the cameras, lenses, filters, and computers. By the time the shooting was about to start, the studio looked like Grand Central Station at rush hour with makeup artists, stylists, magazine editors, models, caterers systematically moving through a chaotic pattern.

Edward taught her about lighting, temperature, white balance and many other singularities of digital photography, such as RAW files. She listened to him as if her life depended on it, and in a way it did. It was the first time she had a chance to learn from a real photographer, and it was Edward McCalman nonetheless. He was coveted by the largest magazines in print, anything from fashion, music, and travel. Other than Annie Leibovitz, one of her favorite contemporary photographers, he was the most popular photographer in fashion, at least on the West Coast. He often worked on locations, and surprisingly the cinematographic work he did with the band’s music video was not the bulk of his business.

“I have this dinosaur here if you want to play.” He led her into a storage room in the back of the studio and opened a bag with a Zenza Bronica inside.

“Oh my goodness — the same medium-format camera they had at school. They are great.”

“Indeed. I quite enjoyed it, but it’s unrealistic for commercial work now. I don’t even have a darkroom anymore. You can rent one; I know an excellent place down Sunset.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure, no problem. I have to go check my schedule with Janine, but feel free to browse here. I’m sure I still have unused film somewhere and I think its tripod is over there.” He pointed to a cluttered corner of the room and left.

Her voice dropped paradoxically low to the intensity of her awe. “All right.”

For once, she wasn’t swimming against the current. Immediately, she thought of her mother and wondered if this was what she meant by “let God govern your life,” because she felt none of what was happening in her life could possibly be by her own doing.

She rummaged through the room and was able to put together a kit for the Bronica: lens, light meter, film, filters, and tripod. She thought about what Edward had said, and the key word was — commercial. Her education was in Art History, she wasn’t sure she was cut for commercial photography. The frantic rhythm of Edward’s studio put her in a whirl, and she didn’t want feel like that for the rest of her life. Working with film gave her a sense of control and she hoped to eventually find her way.

• • •

“Hi, mate.” Charlie, an expatriate from Ireland and Edward’s main assistant, greeted her when arriving at the studio after-hours. Because of Edward’s assignments in different parts of the country and abroad to which he took one of his real assistants, she was able to use his studio to take her own photographs, in an attempt to unveil the secret of photography — light.

“Hi. Are you going to use the studio too?” Audrey said, kind of embarrassed. Charlie was an excellent photographer, very hip and with a subtle Irving Penn sensibility for gritty, high-contrast photographs.

“Nope. I’ve just finished a session with Jeremy Renner for Men’s Health.”

“How was it?”

“Great. He’s very grounded, none of the ‘I’m-a-movie-star’ bullshit.”

“Did you go alone?” She ended up assisting him more than she assisted Edward, who was like one of the great painters of the Renaissance whose apprentices labored over the majority of the work and the master validated it by swiping its final brushstroke.

“Yeh, it was at his house, very laid back. He invited me to the L.A. premiere of his new movie.”

“You’re on fire, Charlie. I know pretty soon I’m going to see you in front of the cameras instead of behind them.” He was known to enjoy sharing many pints with a new wave of young actors, and his thick accent, flamed hair, and wild temper preceded him. He was even credited with a few famous portraits of rising movie stars whom he’d befriended in L.A.’s night scene.

“Acting?” He snorted. “No way, but I wouldn’t mind directing a motion picture some day. Anyways, I’m on my way to a drawing session at the Getty Center, just stopped by to get my stuff. Wanna come?”

“Drawing?”

“Yeh, I have a friend who works there and a group of employees gather in a studio to draw from a live model after work.”

“Sure, sounds cool.” She knew John was coming home late because the band was rehearsing for their upcoming tour.

• • •

The Getty Center was an impressive construction. It must be what Mount Olympus would look like: a white castle surrounded by gardens and clouds on the top of a mountain.

“How long have you been coming here?” Audrey asked him while riding the tram up the mountain to the museum. The five minute ride was beautiful as long as she concentrated on one side of the view; the other side displayed traffic on Interstate 405, which epitomized one of L.A.’s biggest nightmares.

“I dunno. Four months maybe.”

She flipped the pages of his sketchbook. “You’re really good.”

“Thanks. I wanted to be a painter.”

“Really?” Audrey looked at him in surprise. He was such a good photographer she would never had guessed it wasn’t what he wanted to do all along.

“Sure. I began working with photography to make ends meet. Since I couldn’t find a respectful gallery to represent me.”

“You seem to be doing really well.”

“No shite. Go figure.”

“But you like what you do, right?”

“Yeah, love it. I don’t think I’d ever give up photography now, even if my paintings would save the world from being obliterated by a blazing asteroid. The exchange yeh have when photographing people and the rhythm of a fashion photo shoot pumps me up,” Charlie mused, his accent rising in intensity as he grew more excited. No wonder he was so popular, she thought. He was so lively, it must be hilarious to hang out with him at a bar.

“That’s great. You know, doing what you love and excelling at it.”

“I reckon if yeh do what yeh love, chances are yeh’ll be good at it.”

“And when you are good, people start to knead you up for money like a chunk of clay until you don’t even know what you looked like before.”

“Is that what is happening with the band?” Charlie asked.

• • •

The studio where the drawing session took place was underground and there were a gathering of interesting people who drew while listening to blues and drinking wine. Every fifteen minutes when the model had a break to stretch, she would put her robe on and walk around looking at the drawings. She was a petite and fair-skinned brunette named Megan who reminded Audrey of Carey Mulligan in
An Education
.

Audrey covered her sketch book and warned Megan, “I haven’t drawn from life in a long, long time.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m used to the strangest depictions of me; it’s what I like most about modeling.” Megan smiled and Audrey uncovered her sketchbook. “It’s good. It reminds me of an Egon Schiele.”

“Yeah?” Audrey looked back at the drawing. “That is not a weenie, by the way. It’s just a messed-up line; I don’t have an eraser.”

When the drawing session was over, she learned Megan had been in Brazil during a summer in high-school with a mission group from her hometown church, and had recently moved to L.A. from Tampa to get her MBA at USC. She told Megan about her new photographic endeavors and Megan offered to pose for her, should she ever need it. Audrey never thought of having models, it seemed so far-off from what she was seeing at Edward’s studio — even though they worked with models all day, but in Edward’s case, the work was so purposeful. Even before he turned on his camera, he’d already had the whole session mapped out: outfits lined out, makeup applied, light tested.

There must be a way she could put Megan’s talents to good use, Audrey thought. Photo-essay? Pin-up style portraits? Whatever it was, she would have been crazy to dismiss her offer.

• • •

Audrey’s first photographs with the medium-format camera were black and white long exposures in downtown L.A. The images created the atmospheric ambiance of a town populated by ghosts — blurred shadows of people across an unidentifiable cityscape. She had done similar work while in school using a Holga, the twenty-bucks-worth plastic camera gave her extraordinary results and, by accident, she learned the effects of photographing at night. Now with Edward’s fancy Bronica, she could use filters to achieve the same effect at daytime.

“That’s interesting.” Edward was looking at her first batch of prints.

“Really?” she asked shyly.

“Absolutely, I like this one with the rain, it’s really moody. But what I like most is it doesn’t even look like L.A, and I can’t tell where it could be.”

“I tried to remove all landmarks. I wanted to create a quintessential urban landscape where these forms floated aimlessly.”

“Uh.” Edward looked intently into the pictures, rubbing his temple with one hand.

“I-I mean…this is kind of how I feel here.”

He put the photographs down and pulled out his cell. Audrey didn’t know what else to say; she was starting to feel self-conscious. Edward dialed a number.

“Hey Ben. It’s Edward … How’s it going, mate? … I’m doing great, quite busy actually … Oh, yeah? … I’m going to Nice for Louis Vuitton next month … I know, I’m looking forward to it. Hey, I’m sending you an artist I want you to meet.”