Danielle Steel - Remembrance

“Princess?” The woman in beige looked genuinely shocked.

“Yes. You can check it out. I'll give you my birthdate and all that if you want.”

“My, my.” She looked very pleased. “That ought to look very pretty on your composite … Princess Serena …” She squinted, again looking at the paper on which she wrote it, and then Serena again. “Sit up straight for a minute.” Serena did. Then she pointed to the far comer, past some other desks. “Walk over there and come back.” Gracefully, her head held high, Serena did so, and as she returned, her green eyes flashed. “Nice, very nice. I've just thought of something. I'll be right back.” She disappeared into an inner office, and it was a full five minutes before she came back. When she came back, she brought someone with her.

“This is Dorothea Kerr,” she announced simply. “The head of the agency.” It was unnecessary to explain that. Serena stood up quickly and extended her hand.

“How do you do?” But the tall spare woman with gray hair pulled sharply back and sharp spectacular cheekbones wedged in at an extraordinary angle beneath huge gray eyes said nothing to Serena. She merely looked her over, like a horse she was buying, or a very expensive car.

“Is your hair natural?”

“Yes.”

She then turned to the woman in beige. “I'd like to see her without all those clothes on, and then I think we ought to send her to Andy. Don't mess around with any of the others.” The woman in beige nodded and made a rapid note. “I want to have something on her in the next two days. Can you do that?”

“Of course.” It would mean everyone working overtime, including Serena, but if Dorothea Kerr wanted “something on her” in two days, they would move heaven and earth to see that it was done. “I'll call him right away.”

“Fine.” Dorothea nodded at Serena then and walked away quickly. The door to her office closed almost instantly, and Serena's head began to spin. A minute later, as she listened to the conversation, she realized that Andy was Andrew Morgan, the most important fashion photographer on the East Coast. An appointment was made for later that morning, and before that she had to go to the hairdresser for a trim.

“Do you know how to find it?” The anonymous woman in beige looked sympathetic and then patted Serena's hand. “You know, she really liked you. She wouldn't have wanted shots on you in two days if she didn't have something big in mind for you.” But Serena still found it all very baffling and a little hard to believe. “Are you excited?”

Serena looked at her and felt her hand tremble as she took the note with the hairdresser's address. “I think so. So much has happened in the last five minutes that I'm not sure what I feel.”

“Well, enjoy it. Not everyone gets their first shots done by Andy Morgan.” Andy Morgan? Andy? For an insane moment Serena wanted to laugh. It was almost impossible not to be overwhelmed by what was starting to happen. It couldn't be. It wasn't real. It was crazy. But she glanced at the clock and knew that she had to get moving. “Do I have to wear anything special for the photographs?” “No, Dorothea said she'd have everything sent over. She particularly liked the idea of your being a princess. I think she's going to have him play that up in the shots.” For an instant Serena felt acutely nervous, perhaps she shouldn't have told them. But it was too late to stop them now. The woman in beige explained once again all the places where she was expected, wished her luck, and then went back to the stack of composites and file cards on her desk.

She arrived at Andrew Morgan's studio at exactly eleven thirty, as she had been told. And she didn't leave it again until almost nine o'clock that night. He shot black and white and color, he did head shots, candid, high fashion, evening dresses, tennis clothes, bathing suits, ermine, chinchilla, sable, Balanciagas, Diors, Givenchys, and jewels. He did her hair up and down and her makeup subtle and heavy and wild and crazy. She had had more clothes and furs and jewels and different outfits on in nine hours with Andrew Morgan than she had worn in all of the years she had worked in San Francisco. He was a tiny elf of a man, with a wonderful smile that lit up his black eyes, horn-rimmed glasses, and a shag of silvery gray hair that fell constantly in his eyes, he wore a black turtleneck sweater and black slacks and soft kid jazz dance shoes, and he seemed to leap through the air as he took the pictures. He reminded her constantly of a dancer, and she was so totally enamored of him, that she did all that he told her to do. More than that, he seemed to cast a kind of spell as he worked. She worked tirelessly with him for hours, and it wasn't until she walked in her front door that she realized how exhausted she was. Vanessa was already asleep. She had wanted to wait up to see her mommy, but Teddy had explained that they were taking beautiful pictures of her mother, and he had told her how beautiful her mother was, and how this was something very important for her. By the time Vanessa fell asleep, he had won her over again, and he read her two stories and sang her three lullabies, and halfway through the third one she fell asleep.

Exactly two days later Dorothea Kerr called her herself and requested her to come into the office that afternoon.

When Serena arrived, her knees were almost trembling, her hands were damp, and she was feeling excessively grateful that Teddy had had another of his rare free afternoons. She had already found an agency for baby-sitters, but even they couldn't work miracles at short notice. But when she saw the photographs taken by Andy Morgan, she knew that he could. Each one was like a work of art, something to hang in a museum, and as she looked at herself she felt that she barely knew whom she was looking at. Even she had to admit that he had captured something extravagant and striking and regal, and she couldn't believe that she could look so beautiful, certainly not in real life. She looked up from the photographs and met the eyes of Dorothea Kerr, hard and gray on her own, and Dorothea leaned back in her chair and gnawed on a pair of glasses as she stared at Serena some more.

“Well, we have what we need here, Serena. What about you? Just how interested in all this are you? Very, a little? Enough to work your tail off? Do you just want a job or do you want a career? Because I want to know now before we waste our time on someone who doesn't give a damn about the job.”

“I care very much about the job.” She sounded sincere and she was, but for Dorothea it wasn't enough.

“Why? Are you in love with this business? Or with yourself?”

“No.” Serena faced her squarely. “I have a little girl.”

“And that's the only reason?”

“It's part of it. This is the only way I know to make a living, and it's a good living. I like the work.” She looked at Dorothea with a sparkle in her eyes. “To tell you the truth, I'm anxious to try my luck in New York.” Her excitement was beginning to show and the older woman smiled.

“You're divorced?”

“I'm a widow, with a small pension from the army. That's it.”

Dorothea looked intrigued. “Korea?” Serena nodded. “What about your family, don't they help?”

“They're all dead.”

“And his?”

Serena began to look unhappy, and Dorothea was quick to pick up on where not to tread. “Never mind. If you say you need it for your little girl, then obviously you need it. I just hope the kid has a big appetite, to keep you wanting to go out and work.” She gave Serena one of her very rare smiles, and then she looked serious again. “What about the title?” She sighed softly. “I did a little research on it, and I gather it's genuine, Serena. How do you feel about using it? Does it go against the grain?”