TheInvisibleMan
Annette came to the agency at three, as agreed. The others were not so punctual. There were only a few people in the office. Sophie had settled on one of the boxes and was eating a croissant.
“Still eating? And you never put on weight! Instead of a modeling career, you should be selling your tapeworms.” Annette was on edge, and for some reason she had snapped at Sophie.
“And would you rather I went off to puke after lunch like everyone else, with your photo for company?”
Annette smiled. Even with her mouth full, Sophie had managed to be vicious.
A copy of Vogue from 1994 lay by one of the boxes. On the cover was Madeleine Vernet, in her early twenties, in a soaking wet shirt, with the look of someone the world owed something and who intended to collect. Looking at her always made Annette feel cold.
“She said it was five degrees Celsius at that shoot, and she caught a cold afterwards.”
Sophie kept chewing her croissant.
“I’d be sick for a week for a cover like that.”
“We all would…”
Yana appeared in the doorway. Tanned, with blond dreadlocks and a lot of tattoos, one of them on her neck, she wasn’t supposed to look like a typical model. But the expression of “you’re all shit and I’m the queen here” never left her face for a second. Annette even glanced behind her to see whether a photographer was lurking there.
“Already working as movers? Nice!”
“Long ride from the unemployment office? You still beat the others, though… Where are they, by the way?”
Sophie finally finished her croissant.
“Mai’s around somewhere. Odile went to see Madeleine, she’s on her way.”
“She actually went to the hospital, and Madeleine didn’t tell her to get lost?”
“Probably did. She doesn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her, and what can she do anyway? Six months at least under a drip. By the time she beats the cancer, we’ll all be washed up. And then the money, the treatment… Hence this.” Sophie slapped one of the boxes.
Annette looked at the box.
“I still can’t believe it. She looked so good, and then the diagnosis, the agency closing…”
Gradually the room filled with other girls. Behind the sarcastic jabs, everyone’s sadness showed, and for Annette it was definitely not about finding another agency. These people had become almost family to her, and Madeleine most of all.
At last Odile came in. Every eye turned to her.
“So how is she? Did you get in? She didn’t throw you out?”
“I barely got through. The prognosis is good, but the treatment is long and she won’t be coming back. Nobody’s going to buy an agency that brought Madeleine moral satisfaction and losses. She has no money to keep us going. So that’s that. She wishes us all luck and believes we won’t give up modeling and that it’ll all work out for us.”
“I’ll tell you how to set up an OnlyFans,” Yana said. Her joke was so bleak that for a second even her haughty expression slipped.
Annette knew she hadn’t come just to say goodbye. Some inexplicable resolve seemed to have grown in her.
“What if we tried running the agency ourselves?”
Odile raised an eyebrow.
“Us? With no money, no contacts and no skills? A million-dollar idea, truly.”
Annette wouldn’t let it go.
“We could do something together, so that at least we’d know we did what we could.”
“And what do you suggest? We go out on the street with signs saying ‘will model for food’ and take orders? Or stir up some media scandal, get our fifteen minutes, and every client blacklists us?” Odile’s skepticism was understandable.
Suddenly Mai spoke up.
“We could make a calendar. There happen to be twelve of us…”
“And what’s new about that?” Odile had clearly cast herself as the skeptic today. “When firefighters do it, it’s unexpected, but we’re models, we get photographed all the time. Just another calendar of models in lingerie. We could go fully naked, but then we’d stop being a modeling agency… And there’s no shortage of that stuff anyway.”
“We could cut our hair.” Annette’s voice sounded unsure.
“Yes, radical haircuts would get attention.” In Yana’s voice, excitement suddenly overrode contempt.
“Whoa, whoa, easy,” Colette spoke up, a platinum blonde with long hair. “We’re a modeling agency, not a circus.”
“But our act would have a subtext,” Annette’s voice was gradually growing stronger. “Madeleine’s going to have chemo, and she’ll lose her hair, and we’d make the calendar to support her, and out of solidarity we’d give up part of our hair.”
“Which part? To the shoulder, to the chin? I intend to keep working, and I’m not ready for changes that radical.” Colette stroked her hair tenderly, as if guarding it.
“A bald head would suit you. We’ll oil it up, you’ll shine like a billiard ball. You’ll turn into Eve Salvail overnight instead of Colette Blanc. You’ll walk the trendiest shows instead of standing in the background of shopping-mall ads.” Now there was venom in Yana’s voice.
“You don’t care. You’ll shave off your mop, get some jailhouse tattoo on your forehead and finally go full trash like you’ve always dreamed. But the rest of us have lives and careers.” Colette was shouting now.
“Got lots of offers, careerist? Thanks to Madeleine you landed a couple of covers. You think you’ll just keep rolling on your own? And if you don’t?”
Colette fell silent. Yana had found the gap in her armor: Colette really wasn’t sure of success, and she wanted to keep working with Madeleine.
Odile adjusted her glasses.
“I’m almost certain a stunt like this will make noise. And the more radical the haircuts, the more noise. Not everyone is ready for that, so we need a compromise.”
“Let’s each decide what we’re willing to do, and go from there.” Mai pushed back her long black hair.
“Right, I’ll shave my head and this cow will trim her ends.” Yana nodded indignantly at Colette.
Annette felt she was on a roll today.
“Let’s draw lots. Each of us writes down one haircut, according to her own idea of it, we throw the slips in a hat and draw them. If you don’t want anything radical, write something tame. If enough of us do, there’s a good chance you’ll draw something neutral.”
Everyone nodded.
Colette waved a hand.
“Fine, go ahead.”
Odile drew the line.
“We can’t waste time. I’m calling Henri now, I think he’ll help us. We do a ‘before’ photo shoot. If something falls through, we take photos from the portfolio or other work, but I don’t think it’ll come to that. After that we all sign our slips and draw them from the hat. In the morning each of us goes to a hairdresser and does what it says. Tomorrow evening we do the ‘after’ shoot. Then we send the calendar to print and start promoting it.”
“Nobody who draws a slip gets to run off with her tail between her legs. We’re all in this together.” Yana was deadly serious. “Anyone who does, I’ll pull out every hair she’s got and kick her ass.”
“I hope the rest won’t go as hardcore as you.” With that, Odile started calling Henri, and the girls went off to think up their outfits for the calendar.
* * *
It was well past midnight, and Henri sat tiredly on the sofa going through the photos. He had shot all twelve girls, honestly and for free, and was ready to do it again tomorrow. Judging by his face, he liked what he saw.
“Has everyone got her slip ready?” Yana was holding a real top hat.
One by one, hands dropped folded slips into the hat.
Yana shook it.
“Since I got the prop, I get to go first.”
She plunged her hand greedily into the hat and pulled out a slip.
She read it, and her mouth dropped open in surprise.
“Whoa!”
“What does it say? Show us!” The girls swarmed her.
“Then there won’t be a surprise tomorrow!”
“So how will we know what it said?”
“I’ll show one of you. I hope she won’t blab, but she’ll know that tomorrow I’ll do what’s on the slip. Let’s all do it that way. Sophie, look at mine.”
Yana showed her slip to Sophie. The same unfeigned surprise appeared on her face.
The girls split into pairs to show each other their slips. They began drawing. The average reaction was shock. Some laughed hysterically. Some cried.
Annette drew in a pair with Odile. She unfolded hers and read: “Croissant.” Below was a small drawing with captions. The cut was short bangs framed by sharp, pointed sideburns down to the earlobes. At the top they curved into a crescent, and together the whole thing looked like a croissant. The rest of the head was shaved.
“Oh…” Exhaling, Annette looked at Odile, who was holding out her own slip. “Flat top with a landing strip.”
“What’s a landing strip?”
“A shaved stripe down the middle of a flat top.”
“And a flat top is a military cut?”
“Yes.”
Odile took off her glasses and looked down.
Annette understood that the flat top was Yana’s doing, but the “croissant” had to be Sophie’s revenge, or her misfired joke that had happened to land on Annette. There was nothing to be done: everyone had given their word, and by tomorrow’s shoot she had to have a “croissant.”
* * *
The salon was tiny, one window, on the second floor of an old building. The stylist, Brigitte, knew Annette well. A model makes a good client for a hairdresser. But this time, instead of her usual textured bob, Annette was showing her a drawing of something unimaginable.
“And we shave the whole rest of the head?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“It’s a project, it has to be done, but I still don’t believe I’m doing this.”
“So, are we doing it?”
Annette took a breath and, on the exhale, said firmly:
“Yes!”
Brigitte pinned the strands at the front away from the rest. The parting traced a sharp crescent. She ran the tip of her comb along it once more, checking that the arc hadn’t drifted.
“This stays. Everything else goes.”
Annette nodded fearfully and looked in the mirror. Brigitte picked up the clippers and took off the guard.
The sound was like a huge bumblebee waking up next to her ear. The clippers went in at the base of her neck and crawled upward, and Annette felt coolness roll over the back of her head. The remains of her hair fell down her collar, onto her shoulders and her lap. The skin beneath turned out to be remarkably sensitive: every pass sent shivers down to her shoulder blades.
“You know,” Brigitte said without looking up from her work, “you have a beautiful head shape?”
“I never had a chance to find out.”
The clippers moved to the temples, then above the ear. Annette closed her eyes. She heard the buzzing curve around her ear and felt its tip go cold, left without its usual shade.
“Now the delicate work,” Brigitte said, and picked up a razor and a trimmer. “The croissant needs sculpting.”
She lathered the skin with foam, cold and smelling of mint. The trimmer ran along the boundary, taking off the last millimeters, and Annette saw the line begin to make sense: on her forehead lay a short, thick, sharply cut edge of bangs, and from it, framing her temples, two dark points ran down. Brigitte worked them slowly, checking against the drawing, correcting now on the left, now on the right, so that the tips would stop exactly at the earlobes.
“Now just the shape. It has to be perfect.”
She went over it once more with the razor, then took the scissors and trimmed the bangs several times, giving them a crisp, sculpted edge. Tiny hairs fell on Annette’s cheeks, and Brigitte brushed them away with a soft brush.
Then she wiped the skin with a warm towel, took off the cape and stepped back.
“Well?”
Annette looked in the mirror. A girl with huge eyes, a bare neck and cheekbones sat before her. The bangs lay across her forehead like a hard crescent, the points curved down to her earlobes, and the whole construction looked not funny but bold, even beautiful. She lifted a hand and ran her palm over the back of her head: smooth, silky skin.
“Brigitte, with my hair color, don’t you think our croissant came out burnt?” Annette laughed a little.
“It’s a chocolate croissant!”
* * *
On the way to the shoot, the wind tickled the back of Annette’s head, and her ears were a little cold.
As the girls gathered for the shoot, Annette’s astonishment grew. She and Odile weren’t the only ones with extreme cuts. There were all sorts of shaved undercuts, and Chelsea cuts, and a high bowl cut that looked like Joan of Arc in the movies. Mai’s long black hair had become a geometric bob with the nape shaved very high. Sophie’s fiery red mane now literally burned: she looked around nervously, wearing a mohawk styled to mimic flames. Poor Julie had actually gone with a bright green tonsure…
Odile was looking at Annette. Her flat top was split down the middle by a shaved path.
“So, you get it? What did you write?”
“A long pixie.”
“And I wrote a short bob. Do you see any of those here? She swapped the slips!”
Annette went over to Yana. Her perfectly smooth head shone under the lights, and her face wore an expression of total satisfaction.
“And where did you get a hat like that?”
“It’s my dad’s. He’s a magician. It suits you.” Yana nodded at Annette’s cut.
“Don’t you think that was low?”
“Oh, come on, Annette, you know yourself this is what works. With your pixie-bixies the calendar wouldn’t be worth the paper. It’s too late to make a scene, it’s done, and now we have to work the set properly. Honestly, it’s amazing that everyone went through with it. We really are a family. Look…”
Colette came in, glancing around warily, still wearing yesterday’s white fur coat. Furrows showed through her long white hair at the temples and the crown. Gritting her teeth, she had gone for the reverse mohawk after all.
* * *
The hospital corridor was clean and empty. Annette carried a flat package pressed to her chest like a shield. A passing nurse smiled at her.
Madeleine lay by the window. Her head was bald, her face badly drawn: dark circles under her eyes, hollow cheeks, cheekbones standing out even sharper than before. And still she was beautiful. Worn down by cancer in her fifties, she could have put on a gothic dress and been ready for a shoot.
She had been trying to read, but it was clear it cost her effort.
“Oh, Annette,” she said, and put the book down. “You’ve made quite a stir.”
Annette stopped by the bed.
“How are you?”
“The doctors say it keeps getting better and better, and every time they go on stuffing me with some muck. It took me ten minutes to read the last page, my eyes won’t focus. But it’s temporary. The lawyer says you’ve moved back into the office?”
“Yes, the calendar took off. We’ve got a whole trainload of projects. Enough for the next six months, at least. We’ll wait for you.”
“Well done.” Madeleine took Annette’s hand.
“We had someone to look up to.” Annette broke into a smile. “The only problem is that there’s demand for both the old looks and the new ones.”
She stroked the back of her head. Where the smooth skin had been, there was now velvety stubble.
“Some keep the cut up, some are growing it out.”
Madeleine chuckled and winced with pain.
“Yes, our agency was a bit more conservative.”
“What would you advise me? They even asked me to shave my head again for a TV ad.”
“You’ll choose right. An image sticks in the memory. When they bring me breakfast, I always think of you.”
Annette laughed.
“But don’t get cocky.” Madeleine’s voice turned stern. “Breakfast makes me sick these days. And tell the others not to come. After all your hype, people remembered me. I’m already answering journalists every day about how I’m doing.”
“Thank you for not throwing me out. I was a little afraid you might. I’ll tell the others, we’ll be waiting for you. And for now, I’ll leave this.”
She took the calendar out of the package and laid it on the nightstand. Madeleine picked it up and opened it to October, to Annette.
“Next year’s calendar. It’ll be current by the time I’m back. I’ll hang it in my office.”
“I’ll hammer a nail into the wall today!”
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