He told them about the agency, its trajectory and reputation. He said that they operated in partnership with other publicity agencies. That they handled important brands. That now they needed people for a specific campaign, but that they were always looking for new faces. He talked nonstop, eloquently and naturally, about a ton of things Simona didn’t entirely understand but pretended to follow, nodding her head just like her father did.

The man paused and smiled. “Now,” he went on, and his excited tone switched to a more reserved one. “We need photographs of people so we can show them to the company. They’re the ones who give the green light in the end,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and showing his palms, as though to say “I am innocent, see ye to it.” “The photos,” he went on, “are for what’s called a portfolio. Everyone in this business needs one, and if a person doesn’t have one, we make it for them. The photography session has a cost, obviously, which is fifteen thousand pesos. You can also have it done at another studio.” He paused and raised his hands. “Of course, our prices, considering that in general we end up working with the people we photograph, are much more convenient.” The man waited for an answer with a smile. “What do you say?” he insisted, when the father didn’t answer.

“Good, good, it all sounds good. No problem, let’s do that portfolio . . . It’s just that really, I’m a little nervous because I’ve never done anything like this and . . .”

Suddenly a bell sounded. Practically the first noise they’d heard since they’d entered the house.

“Can you give me a second?” asked the man with a smile. He stood up, went to the door, and opened it a crack. A feminine voice—they didn’t turn to look—murmured something that the man replied to, also in an undertone. Then he closed the door.

“Sure, sure,” he said as he went back to his desk. “It’s the first time. I can tell. But you don’t have to worry, your daughters are lovely. The brands are going to love them. They have . . . they have just the look we need.”

“My daughters?” asked the father.

“Sure. It can’t be the first time you’ve heard that.”

Simona turned her head toward her father and bit her tongue. She saw him sink a few inches into the chair, his face red and his mouth agape. She saw him narrow his eyes as if to focus them better. He was just as surprised as she was, bitterly surprised, and Simona felt her heart shrinking, and the big room around them also began to shrink. Like those torture chambers in Indiana Jones movies, where walls with knives close in menacingly, trapping the protagonists.