She said, “You know we’ve never been a cut-and-dry agency. We care about the models we represent. But some of these models have taken advantage of that relationship. They overextend themselves in their personal lives, and then start asking us for advances on work to come and all kinds of stuff. And you know we’re not an exclusive firm, but they start offering exclusivity and everything, just to try and figure out how they can get the most out of us.”

I didn’t see that as a bad deal, actually. Exclusive firms had the option to pay advances based on how much work they figured a model would get in a year or over the life of an extended contract. That was normal policy. Of course, advances were usually only guaranteed to heavily booked models from topflight agencies, and those agencies rarely went out of their way for models of color.

“Anyway, I don’t want to boggle you down with my struggles,” Kim told me. “It’s all good with you.”

She was right. I was in a good place in my career. I didn’t need advances or exclusivity. I had so many good connections to people in the industry that I didn’t even need a manager. Managers and agents could get in the way sometimes. Then again, depending on the immaturity or eccentricities of each individual model, managers and agents actually helped to maintain more and better business.

I said, “Yeah, I’m looking forward to being back out in Chicago.”

Three nights in Chi-Town, I told myself. I didn’t want to harp on it, but I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if I would bump into Andrea while I was there. I wondered if she even kept up with my career. It’s not likely that she had stopped reading magazines—that would have been extreme. Andrea loved everything about magazines, even the printed smell, especially when they included perfume and cologne samples.

Kim brought me back to our phone conversation. “And I’ll talk to you about that other thing when you arrive, too.”

I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to her again in detail since I first called her.

“Oh, yeah, we’ll talk about it,” I told her. I wasn’t concerned anymore. Whatever it was, I figured I would handle it with Kim face-to-face once I arrived in Chicago.

When I hung up the phone with her, I took a breather. I had worked out pretty good that day to get my body up to par for plenty of photos in white tees. Wearing white may be clean and pure, but it showed everything.

After my short rest, I started picking out my clothes for the trip, which I hadn’t bothered to do yet. But as soon as I did I got another phone call. I needed at least two good, meet-and-greet outfits, and something more upscale for the banquet. I read the caller ID on my phone and saw that it was Judi.

“Hello,” I answered.

“So, you’re just about ready for your trip to Chicago tomorrow?” she asked me.