“Terrance Mitchell.”

They looked on the guest list and found me.

“Hey, you’re the model guy, right?” one of the bouncers asked me. He was a beefcake white guy with close to a bald head, wearing all black.

I nodded to him as we headed toward the entrance doors.

“Yeah.”

He looked like an aspiring model himself, for sportswear, bodybuilding, vitamins, and workout spas.

As soon as Judi and I walked in, the eyes all swung in our direction. Everyone wanted to see which celebrities would walk in next. I wasn’t tripping on that. I was no celebrity. I was just a good-looking guy, paid well to model, who knew the right people. Nevertheless, I looked good enough with Judi on my arm to keep the crowd’s attention for a minute.

“These people need to get a life,” she commented, louder than a whisper. Some of the folks who were near us overheard her. But her bold tongue only made them more curious. Celebrities were prone to dissing locals. And whenever I frequented celebrity-attended events, the locals would eat up their every word, move, or spite, in L.A. and Miami in particular. Snobbish attitudes didn’t fly so well in New York, D.C., and Chicago. But Miami and L.A. pampered the stars.

I looked around and surveyed the ratio of nationality in the place. Latinos and whites ruled the numbers. Even my DJ and promoter friends were Latin.

“Hey, Mr. T. How you like it? You lovin’ it, or what?”

Mario Rome faced me with two Latin mommies under his arms—one dark-haired, one light-haired, both gorgeous.

“And the night has just begun,” I told him with a smile and a nod.

“You’re the model, right?” his light-haired girlfriend asked me. “You think I got what it takes?”

She was right on my case. But she was a little too short and round for fashion modeling. She was more in line for hip-hop videos and swimsuit posters. But she was perfect as a significant other. She was what normal guys would go crazy for, including me.

I said, “I wouldn’t worry about modeling if I were you. Instead, I would fly straight out to Hollywood and do some acting. The moving cameras would love you.”

She stared at me for a second as if she were in a trance. I was used to that. The gene gods had blessed me.

Judi spoke up and said, “You’re gonna need more height and less curves for real modeling jobs, Maria. That’s just how it goes.”

No one responded to Judi’s comments.

I asked her, “What if her name’s not Maria?” I was just trying to lighten things back up. Judi was taking it too seriously.

“It’s not,” the light-haired Latina told us. “It’s Candace.”

“Let me go tell Vinny Blues to give you a shout out,” Mario Rome told me. I guess he wanted to get out of Dodge.

I was ready to tell him not to bother. I didn’t need all that extra attention, but he was already gone, leaving his two girlfriends with us.