Of course, if you’re not interested in a modeling career, this is no hindrance at all. Miss Barbara Kingsley, on the other hand, is hell-bent on landing the cover of Vogue, and if this world were a just world she should, because those headshots aren’t just out of sight, they’re practically out of the whole goddamn universe. The best test shots we’ve ever taken. But this world is not a just world, and Barbara happens to be a Negro. So after a while Herbert sets down the photograph and sits back in his chair to smoke.

“Shame,” he says.

“You just watch. I’m going to make her a sensation, I tell you, if I have to sleep with every ad man and magazine editor in town.”

“America isn’t ready for a girl like that.”

“I’m counting on it. I say we use it to our advantage. She’ll be a surprise—she’ll be a scandal. The publicity, Herbert. Nothing ever got publicity because it was the same as what came before.” I reach over his desk and pluck back the photograph. “Besides, she’s drop-dead gorgeous. She’s got a look, Herbert. What was the first thing you taught me? The look is everything. The next look, not the same old. She’s the next look. She’s the face of the future.”

I’ll say this for Herbert, he’s no bigot—at least no more than we human animals can help, having bigotry bred into our blood, it seems. Certainly, he isn’t against a Negro model on principle, and the professional in him would have to be blind not to see Barbara Kingsley’s potential. But he doesn’t want the trouble, not at his age. And he doesn’t want me to have the trouble because he loves me.

“Besides, she needs this,” I continue, knowing Herbert to be kind of soft in the region of his heart. “She’s got a sick mother, comes from nothing. She’ll work hard and keep herself clean. She knows what’s at stake, she knows she’ll have to be better and smarter and cleaner than any other girl in the shop, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes. We’ve got a chance to make a real difference for her, Herbert.”

“Shit,” he says.

“Good. That’s settled. I’ll get the prints made and start working the phones today. And now I’ve got a question for you.”

Herbert makes a resigned gesture of his good arm.

“What’s your opinion of this McCarthy fellow?”

“McCarthy?”

“You know who I mean. The senator with the bee in his bonnet about the Communists, holds all the hearings. The Hollywood blacklist. Him.”

Herbert makes a noise of disgust.