She couldn’t land a modeling job
at this warehouse of Japanese artifice,
photo studio of metamorphic rooms,
chilly sets of furniture, appliances,
bed linens, seamless photo paper,
each elaborately draped with Nordic models six feet tall,
with unshorn blond hair, Arctic eyes,
noses straight as scalpels.
She, perhaps too ordinary,
too warm and monochromatic to a panoramic lens
to prevent someone from just turning the ad page.
Idle chit-chat in the waiting room,
wised account execs to her dean’s list skills,
but also skills to mix Manhattans, Martinis, Mimosas,
play pool and deal cards.
With holidays nearing, one exec observed,
“You’re a girl men can talk to.”
“Report to this address on Thursday night,”
she was told. “But wear a short skirt, lots of lipstick.”
Throughout December, she tended bar
at the studio’s weekly condo parties,
annual holiday thank yous to favored clients;
Ad agency and department store art directors,
twelve men each Thursday, ushered in for drinks,
buffets of filet mignon, chicken teriyaki, flaming desserts.
“There are no other women?” she asked.
“They’ll drop by later,” the Japanese/American host chuckled.
“Until then, keep these boys entertained and oiled.”
She mixed and served and smiled and made small talk and told them
of college, games of chance and carting a portfolio, seeking her fortune,
and listened to stories of products, parody and paternity suits.
“Where’d you learn to mix such a wicked Margarita?
You’re probably not old enough to drink yourself,” one said.
He was right, she was only 19, and gave thanks to her stepdaddy,
a man who worked prohibition taverns on Blue Island Avenue
and taught her the bar trade while other kids toyed
with chemistry sets, Easy-Bake ovens.
Dinner was over, doors swept open,
three women in gowns and fur coats
which she could never afford,
whirled in from the outdoor freeze.
She was ushered off to a corner pool table with three clients,
the small bar where she stood, now transformed to narrow stage
for each of the wintery women,
who peeled wooly after filmy layer from their supple bodies.
Perpendicular, the bartendress hit isosceles and parallograms
to opponents’ dizzying chagrin,
players drank shots for every bumper she smacked.
While nine other chaps leapt for g-strings
from cinemascopic strippers,
her small, captive circle took careful cues
as if each deft stroke and movement were action shots
the photo studio couldn’t replicate;
Though yet to make it in the modeling biz,
she was hailed as Straight Shooter of the Sloe Gin Fizz.
Writer: Cynthia Gallaher
Artist: Priyanshi Borad
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