AREA 47

SECTION 89:

COURTNEY, Chapter 43

The Courty-caravan of FF Femme-hired Mercedes limousines glided from the Nice Airport, along the coast road to Mot Juste for photography, followed by a honking car-train of Courty wannabes (half-haired & decked-out & shrieking like sorority girls on speed).  The Cote d’Azur skies, at the caprice of the weather, sprinkled the windshields with sunny raindrops, or moments later, the sun might disappear into the gray cathedral clouds while the rainfall ceased.

Courtney couldn’t quite seem to arrive in Europe.  She was walking around in a poem.  Courty had mentioned in a couple of interviews that she was a poet, and——ZOOM, ZING, ZAP——Michael’s office filled up with letters from publishers faster than she could say Marvel Comics.

Most of them wanted an autobiography, not poetry.  But one hardback house contacted Michael and offered her $50,000.00 as an advance for a book of her poems!  Of course, they wanted poetry from Courty the model, and as such, Courtney realized now that every critic in the known universe would dump on her, automatically condemn her, lines unread; they would power up the word processors, gleefully stay up late and burn the higher-octane midnight gasoline to sabotage her work.  She had discussed the problem with Reed, but he just said: Screw ’em.

The night Reed left her in NYC, she had locked herself in her bedroom (bodyguard out in the hall) with her typewriter and a pot of coffee drip-brewed to caffeine perfection.  She sipped herself into a state of grace: TIME TO DO SOME WORDS!

(Reed had given her a going-away present: Wang computer with Tom-North-enhanced word processing software and a LaserJet printer.  Everything was still in the boxes.  The idea.  Use a computer?  To capture the will-o’-the-wisp chimera of poetry?  She wouldn’t trade her dearly beloved old manual Brother typewriter for all the PCs in Pixel-land.)

From the first line of her epic poem, it was a magical Muse-inspired marriage of language.  The words were pleasing to the ear; the multi-leveled meaning, a delight to the mind, and dense with truth.  It mastered chaos; a deification of reality, bounced back off the astronauts’ moon, uniting pleasure and truth.  It was Frostian poetry, the stuff that gets lost in translation; and Faustian poetry, a Guggenheim ghost subletting the soul for a crack at the Big Writer’s Grant: fame & glory & royalty payments.  With an impish delight, and her skin bristling with inadvisable rapture, Courty tried to capture the colors of the wind for history’s eyes, so that readers everywhere could taste and swallow the harmony of music: hear what Beethoven heard, see what Homer saw, know what Einstein could only say with numbers.

Compulsively, relentlessly, she devoted more and more of her non-modeling time to the poem.  It grew, in length and in depth.  She refused to write laughable drivel in the little slices of her spare time in taxis or between shootings; no more fluctuated hype, whacked out during girlie gossip, no more fiddledeedee phraseology, no more acrostic pantomime, no more rebus-rebates to lure the readers.

When Michael’s sweeping tour of Europe came along the time-line, Courtney almost couldn’t be bothered.  She was working double-shifts, and loving every second of it.  Modeling during the day, writing at night; and she even flipped her sleep schedule around to take advantage of her priceless, explode-out-of-bed early-morning alertness.  She slept during New York’s prime-time party-time, getting her seven-and-a-half minimum from 7pm-2:3Oam; then she would BOUNCE out of bed, DART to her desk, and TESSELLATE AT THE TYPEWRITER.  Screw her social life.  Who needs it?  Her modeling was her social life.  And it was a big So What?  When Michael informed her that he had upped her rates again, above Julie Dayton’s, which made Courty the highest paid model in the world, Courty had shrugged.  “If you can get away with it, fine.”  “But Courty, you’re the Number One Model in the World!”  “How is Kathy’s career coming along?”

Her friends who thought she was being brain-damaged by fame, or turning into a demented hermit . . . she laughed it off and didn’t even have the time to try to convince them she was really sane as a road map, and down-to-street-level (well, maybe the mezzanine).  She had found her voice.  After three or four hours of writing, she was mentally burnt out, and a little ditzy, slathering on her make-up, going to modeling appointments dazed, acting like an airhead.  Sleep-walking around, going through the robotic motions, as her hourly wage and pay-per-pose piece-work fees skyrocketed off orbiting Jupiter’s moons, and movie-offers offered to make her a millionaire before taxes, and perfume companies presumed to drench her with their dividends, and suddenly:

BAM.  ET CETERA.  Courty in Paris, France.

But it was an unwanted distraction.  Calliope was calling, and Courty had no extra energy for these easy going elitists who could give Los Angeles lessons in laid-back.  She dared not stop writing, or the poem would die unfinished, so she had to guard her writing hours.  She could not pause to reflect, to observe, to soak up the European culture; she was doomed to double-shifts, opening her eyes only for the camera or the poetic page.

Courty was lost in a world of her own.  As the cars coasted along the Promenade des Anglais, the yacht-infested Baie des Anges on the right, Courty’s eyes were closed, she looked as though she might be asleep.

Her Discwoman CD player had the new Byron Reed compact disc in it, earphones 100 decibels into her ears.  It just got better and better, every time she heard it.  A faint smile was on Courty’s face.

Silent chauffeur up front, brooding Michael next to Courty, and the unpontifical Pope Jones riding backwards.  Pope Jones was a craggy reformed cracksman, on the SoundSync payroll as an audio consultant.  Courty’s main bodyguard.  He was all hard muscle, 6’4”, with a cold abused face, almost unblinking eyes.  Courtney liked him.  Any bodyguard who wrote itsy little Brautigans about her was an OK guy.

Courtney did not like Michael anymore.  Michael had received a copy of her rape videotape.  He acted like a completely different person, treated her like a completely different person.  Michael somehow thought that it was her fault.  At first he even refused to believe that she had been raped; Michael thought she was acting for the camera.

She felt like a postcolloquial whore, just by the way he looked at her.  Michael’s transatlantic DREAM of managing the decade’s hottest, highest-flying, outer-space fab-deb model, of charging other-worldly wages for his astronaut ET-discovery . . . had died.  Redesignation.  Courty was now just another cosmonaughtie headed for a crash.

The first Mercedes limousine dropped back, behind Courty’s and the third one.  It began slowing and weaving behind them to block traffic.  The front two limos split up at an intersection, Courty’s car going straight, the other turning left.  The chauffeur was talking on the carphone.  “They’re ready,” he reported.  “Here we go.”

The stretch-Mercedes cut sharp and unexpectedly left into a narrow alley with a fit so tight they chinked a rear bumper exiting onto Rue de France and quickly they arrived at the edge of the traffic-barred town center.

The Queen of Modeling climbed out into Nice, the Queen of the Riviera.  FF Femme magazine had provided two bodyguards for her also.  And a whole video-camera and sound-team to record the event.  They were already thrusting the camera close for a focus, and hanging a boom-microphone over her head.  Courty smiled dutifully for the camera, but showing only a hint of teeth.  Three still photographers were also in evidence, aiming and popping off, working their instruments at the speed of film.  Courty laughed.  It just got sillier and sillier.  Satellite relay would beam this moment to this evening’s newscasts all over the European hemisphere.  The Courty phenomenon plugged into electric-reality, her image extended into the moving TV media, reproduced aurally and visually millions of times.  What a joke.

Michael was urging her to ignore the imploring reporters, Pope Jones was growling as he scanned the crowded streets with his eagle eyes, but Courty gave them all a sound-check level, striking a mischievous pose, and calling loudly, “Strange as it seems, my life is based on a true story!”

Namby-pamby laughter.  As an American comic in Nice, she was somewhere between cat urp and dog poop.

Two photojournalists shouted a barrage of questions at her, but Michael forbade her to stop and speak.  Courty silently zipped her lips shut with her fingers and shrugged.

A moment later, she and Michael and Pope Jones climbed into the second of five waiting electric golf carts, and the first three high-speed things took off like jack-rabbits.  The first one carried the camera crew (shooting in motion) and bodyguards (bodyguarding in parallel), the other golf cart tried to run up their rear and aim the shotgun-microphone and hang the boom-mic close to Courty’s cart, in case pearls of wisdom happened to drop from her lips.  (Gawd.)  There was no doubt that Courty was making an impression: the dynamic Nicois seemed dumbstruck; tourists paused along the paved patios and the winding alleyways and stared at her, rich foreigners breakfasting late in flower-decked gardens gaped at the passing entourage.

Courty laughed at the early-morning pedestrian crowd, that quickly forced them down to a traffic-jam first-gear crawl, as irritated Europeans squinched their faces in disapproval of the offensive golf carts.

“Goodness, Michael!  The city’s packed!”

Michael shrugged for the camera.

One of the sound-men yelled an answer: “The Mardi Gras carnival begins in a few days.”

“Oh, thank you!” Courty called, in return for the explanation.  She looked at her Ladies Rolex with rubies, that Reed had given her.  “The really good thing about being late like this is that we don’t have to hurry anymore.  We can just relax.”

A wild peal of little girl adrenaline-charged hero-worship to the left, alerted them: some of the Courty groupies had found them.

“Oops,” Courty peeped.  “Spoken too soon.”

Fortunately, they were almost at Mot Juste.  They abandoned the useless golf carts, and Pope Jones muscled a wedge in the crowd for Courty and Michael.  They barricaded themselves inside the glittering boutique, which was shut down for the morning’s shooting of Courty in some Mot Juste dresses.

It was a power-spend glamour place, crowded flamboyance, a surfeit of the idiotically expensive gowns were suspended from all edges of the high ceiling by the tiniest of wires.  The dresses were terrif, no foreplay, but strictly yacht-class: if you have to ask how much they cost, you can’t afford one.  Mot Juste was staffed with freshly Courty-cut girls retro-fashioned in miniskirts.

They hello-ed each other to the limits of social whiplash.

The FF Femme camera crews were anything but inconspicuous, and still photographers from various magazines and newspapers were jammed in wall-to-wall in a special area, surprisingly obedient and hassle-free.

Judy Safian, the woman photographer who was going to take the FF Femme pictures was there, short and stout, and energetic.  Her cameras were carried in an aluminum case by a male assistant.  Judy seemed the only female non-Courty-cut in the place.  Thank God somebody had some sense.

The arrival of the phenomenon had upped the level of the pandemonium, but Courty could still hear loudspeakers playing Aquamarine Dream.  New Age 40-Winks Music.

“Could you please play some Byron Reed?” Courty asked.  She offered 3 CDs: his new solo album and two of his Krane-&-Reed albums.

Michael motioned Courty aside, and all others were sufficiently awed to grant them a moment of privacy.  “Before you get started,” Michael whispered into Courty’s ear, “Kirfbahn Pictures has upped their offer to $1.4 million.  They telephoned me last night.”

“Michael.”

“And they’ve cut back the shooting time for your part to six weeks.  They just signed Estelle Moreau and Jim Jerome to the movie.  Your part is specially written just for you, in a new Estelle Moreau movie, so it’s bound to do well at the box office.  Moreau is going to play the female lead.  She’s requested that you play the supporting role.  It’s a good part, Courty.”

Courty turned and stared at Michael.

He said, his voice carefully quiet, “I might even be able to get you half a point in it.  Because if you don’t agree, Moreau says she doesn’t want to do the movie.  But, shit, Courty.  $1.4 million for six weeks work!  It doesn’t make good business sense to say no.”

“Michael.  I can’t believe that Estelle Moreau wants me in her movie.  That I cannot believe.”  She shook her head.

“That’s what Sheppard said on the phone.  They’re even reasonably flexible on the schedule.  You can start anytime in the next two months.”

“That woman,” Courty quietly said, “I don’t know what she’s trying to do . . . or rather, I do know, but I don’t see . . . Michael, it’s just ridiculous.  Forget it.”

“Courty.  Do the math on it.  That’s almost $6000 dollars an hour!”

“Michael.”

Michael hissed, “A hundred dollars a minute!  What do you fucking want!”

“Michael, I don’t have the time.  I’m going to need three or four months to finish the poem.”  She knew that Michael thought that her “poetry” was an abysmal waste of time indulged in by a whacky airhead with delusions of verse.

But he whispered, “You can stop modeling while you shoot the movie.  I’ll arrange everything.  People want you enough so that they’ll wait for you, rather than go with someone else.  I’ll have you booked up solid again as soon as the shooting is completed.  Or take a week off, if you want.”

Courty’s eyes glazed over for five seconds of new math.  “Assuming a 55 hour week, 6 weeks, it’s $4242 an hour.  It’s absurd.  I don’t know what Estelle’s trying to pull, but Forget It.”

Michael’s face was red with anger as he furiously whispered, “Courty, don’t be such a cunt!”

“Forget it!  I don’t trust Estelle.  She’s even more of a snake than you are!”

Courty disappeared inside a dressing room at the back of the store.  The FF Femme make up girl went with her.  A minute later one of the Mot Juste girls followed, carrying a daring dress with unconventional curves.

Wannabes laid siege to the shop; jet-setting junior-trendies, the fashion goon squad.  A deft hybrid of hero worship and playing hooky.  Outside, one of them was ragging the ear of a reporter, her Courty-cut hairstyle faultless, arranged with almost psychotic perfection.  “Well, she’s so rad, and younger y’know, and her hair’s so reet, She’s Got My Look, and like she’s not just a face, y’know?  Like catch the spirit, man!  She does poetry!  She’s a poet too!  An’ . . . I don’ know.  I jus’ . . . Hey, she could be President!”

“President of . . . ?”

“America, man!  Hey, are you on a leash?  Courty could end wars, ’n’ stuff!  She’s great!”

A Nice Gendarme called for reinforcements, as the little Xeroxed-Courtys put lipstick-graffiti tribal totems on the windowpanes between the sash bars, somnambulistically worshiping their Duchess of Def.

Inside, Courty came out of the dressing room, and click, click, click, Judy Safian went to work, directing Courty here and there——more a suggestion than a direction——as Courty pretended to be an infinity of possibilities.  Her formal dress——a blindingly bright, phenosafranine fantasy——crazed crinoline, crashing and crescendoing down from the big, front bow, into the sassiest, flirtiest taffeta, all tucked, ruched & buoyed by poufs of tulle.

The way Courty posed made every woman want to get one, dress up & wear-it-once, dance & float in a heavenly-party, then lay the dress carefully aside in her memory room; made every man want to get her, feel her up & remove her dress at once, chance & force some heavy-petting, then lay the girl crudely down in any forgotten room.

Judy had never worked with Courty before.  Each time she would try to begin to direct her, Courty was already somewhere else.  It was intensely frustrating, because Judy Safian had very definite, preconceived ideas that she and her art director were trying to bring to life two-dimensionally.  Courty was uncooperative.  She ignored direction.  Improvisation was all very fine and well, but FIRST Safian wanted to get the theme photographs locked in solid.  She started miffed, and then, a minute later, was genuinely mad.  She, Judy Safian, was being directed and diverted by that airbrain twit!

“Just a moment, Courty,” Safian said, stopping things, stepping up to the model, and giving her two or three pieces of her mind, explaining exactly the effects she wanted, what the feel was supposed to be for these dresses, what . . .

Courtney looked at the woman’s mouth, watched it move, and listened to Byron Reed’s singing in the background.  When the mouth stopped moving, Courtney said, “Yes, of course.”

Safian sharply nodded with satisfaction, stepped back to focus distance, and started anew.  I really put her in her place.  Now we’ll see some proper action.  “OK, Courty,” she said, putting a special bite into her voice, “look down the nose a little, give us that cool, little rich girl’s look.”

Courty was a klutzy, rookie high-school history teacher at the prom, trying to restrain the post-baby-boomers, helplessly and accidentally picture perfect lovely.

Damn!

But Safian was moved to click off a series of special moments that would have been perfect for anybody else’s dresses.  Click, click, click.

Damn!

One of the Mot Juste girls moved quickly to Courty, adjusted the fluff of the dress, and stepped back.

Safian said, “Fine, Courty, now try it this way.  You’ve escaped to Nice for the weekend, you’re the younger sister of the Earl . . .”

Courty was a Yuppie businesswoman on a formal computer-date, wondering what bit-brained mainframe had paired her with the battered truck driver in tennis shoes and T-shirt.

Damn!  Click, click, click.

Wonder if he brought along a six-pack of condoms.  Hummmmm.

Damn!  Click, click, click, click.

You’re taking me out to eat at McDonald’s??

Damn!  Click, click.  This is embarrassing.  She’s not even listening to me!  I can use some of these, but . . .

No, I don’t know who’s playing the Super Bowl.  Is that volleyball or basketball?

Damn!  God damn you, Courty!  Click, click, click.

“Courty, try sitting up on the counter, I’ll shoot from a down position while you project Old World elegance . . .”

Courty got horizontal, played kissy-face with the carpeting, and looked up, licking her lips, a nymphet dumb bunny about to strip it off and expose it all for any men’s magazine.

Click, click, click, click, click, click.  Bitch!  Click, click, click.  Ooooh, that was good.  Click, click.

Courty was through warming up.  She got serious.  BAM!  No warning.  She was Fortune 500 as she arose on her high heels.  Like spontaneous combustion, haut monde TNT, she instantly emanated aristocracy incarnate; Courty was killer cream-of-the-crop, gliding over to the pedestaled Mot Juste motto, appearing behind it, and then embroidering it for the camera with a genteel bow and touch of her bosom (as Mot Juste girls rushed to fix the fluff on her dress).

Safian worked her 250-exposure bulk-film-loaded Canon SLR camera at the speed of fully-automatic motordrive: 4.5 frames per second.

With a wave of her whip hand, Empress Courty took jurisdiction of the shop, she touched the hem of a Mot Juste dress hanging in the window, conferring upon it a knighthood of excellence by association.

ClickClickClickClickClickClick . . .

Queen Courty strolled with majestic ease, away from Safian, toward the dressing room, pausing every third step, looking back: she tossed off a dozen or so throw-away looks over her shoulder for her lover, the camera.

A Princess peek, blue-blooded & bossy!

. . . ClickClickClickClickClickClick . . .

Fifth-generation First Family female, simmered down but in the glandular mode and ready for spank action!

. . . ClickClickClickClickClickClick . . .

Marquise of Quiberon Bay, not playing by Marquess of Queensberry rules, as she revealed the pedigree of her lingerie.

. . . ClickClickClickClickClickClick . . .

Baroness Courty, high birth & beau monde, low desires & beau-watching, licking her lips: ‘Babe, let me look at the ceiling over your shoulder!’

. . . ClickClickClickClickCli——

Judy Safian exhausted the first bulk-role of 250 exposures, which was just as well, because as Courty disappeared back into the changing room——to a spontaneous BURST of applause——her last look was an Annie Oakley freebie, an honest & intelligent Courtney-Foulke-Ryan evaluation of the dress she happened to be modeling first: You’ve GOT To Be Kidding.

Judy Safian allowed herself to blink.  She had gotten pictures better than her wildest imaginations.  Courty had thrown a class-act at the camera.  Everything Safian had asked for, and more.  Better, hotter, more aesthetic, more emotional.  And the time!  Only Seven Minutes!  Seven minutes to get the first dress down, to perfection.  Safian had never photographed a dress that quickly before.

The applause of the reporters and photographers was only beginning to die down!

Safian reloaded another bulk cartridge into her motor drive SLR.

What they said about Courty really was true.

She was the best.  No one could touch her.  No one else even came close.

Safian didn’t like Courty one bit, but one thing was undeniable: Courty was the Queen of Modeling.

It Was Just Too EASY!

COURTNEY, Chapter 44
 

Copyright 2005 Area 47