Endings.

    “Abbeybaby, can I talk to you?” Freja asked, walking out onto the deck of the opulent mansion they had been renting ever since Freja had returned from shooting the Pirelli calendar.

    “I’m kind of busy right now,” Abbey said, then went back to focusing on the task in front of her.

     Freja moved across the deck towards the long glass table Abbeybaby was sitting at the end of. Abbey was very proud of this table because it’s a giant piece of glass and she hadn’t drunkly fallen through it for all these months. It was Abbey’s special place, which probably means she would eventually fall through the table, but today wasn’t about the future, it was about the present.

    “Maybe we can discuss the bad news after lunch?” Abbey asked.

    “How do you know I have bad news?” Freja responded, feeling as transparent as the table.

    “Because you rubbed your ‘float’ tattoo when you said asked me. Anytime you rub your ‘float’ it always means bad news is coming.”

    “It’s not… bad,” Freja said, feeling vulnerable, which was weird for her. It was the one emotion she could never really capture when she posed. Freja always felt it was above her skill level to make vulnerable look beautiful. Abbeybaby could do it. Maybe that made Freja a little jealous. Maybe it didn’t.

    “So… after lunch…” Abbeybaby said, then sucked in her cheeks and went back to work. Her “work” appeared to be simply separating Skittles into different piles based on their color.

    “I wouldn’t call this lunch,” Freja scoffed.

    “Um. It is. These are Skittles. Skittles is a food. Skittles are a food?” Abbeybaby felt confused and felt temporarily cross-eyed. She quickly moved on from the confounding statement and acted as though it never happened. Another question unanswered.

    “Yeah they’re a food, but you’re just flicking them off the table at that white cat. We don’t even own a white cat.”

    “I think he followed me home,” Abbey said, looking at the kitty and then smiling at it.

   “Followed you home? You just got back from shooting in Rome.”

   “Maybe, like, he used his claws to hold onto the bottom of the plane,” Abbeybaby said, then flicked the last of the purple Skittles at the jet-setting cat.

    “I know you don’t believe that,” Freja says, still standing up, unable to sit down at Abbebaby’s table, to enter Abbey’s special place. She hadn’t been able to enter Abbeybaby’s special place for a while. Thinking about this, Freja knew this conversation couldn’t wait until Abbey finished her “lunch” because there were still all the green and yellow Skittles left to flick at the cat. In the same way everyone always eats the crappy flavors last, Abbeybaby saved the yucky Skittles for the final flicks.

    Freja took the plunge and sat down at the table. “Remember the story of the Three Little Pigs,” Freja asked.

    “Oh, yeah,” Abbeybaby said in her airey voice, “Wasn’t that the theme for that shoot with Crystal Renn, Tyra and Gemma?”

    Freja put her elbow on the table and then rested her head in the palm of her hand.

    “Do you want a Skittle?” Abbeybaby asked.

    It took all of Freja’s strength to merely lift her head out off her hand.

    Now she knows how Abbeybaby must feel all the time.

    “It’s a fairy tale, The Three Little Pigs,” Freja says, “Do you remember what the Three Little Pigs make their houses out of?”

    “Um. That gross stucco that makes your house look like it’s from Mexico?” Abbeybaby asks.

    “No. One one of the pigs built its house out of straw.”

    “How Africa chic,” Abbey said, then flicked a green Skittle at the cat who disinterestedly watched the candy skip off the edge of the deck.

    “And one of the pigs built their house out of sticks,” Freja continued.

    “I think Abe Lincoln built his house out of sticks, that’s where they got the idea for the toy,” Abbeybaby said, “I think back in Abe Lincoln times, America only had sticks to build houses with though because the Germans hadn’t invited concrete yet.”

   Freja inhaled deeply and held her breath. She wondered how she ever connected with this alien looking bleach blonde bb sitting next to her.

    “The point is the wolf came along and blew the straw house down and he blew the stick house down because they weren’t strong enough,” Freja said, rushed, as she exhaled her breath.

    “This story is longer than The Lord of The Rings,” Abbey sighed, bored like her Italian kitty.

    “You’re the straw house, you’re the stick house and I’m the wolf,” Freja says, springing out of her chair. The white iron chair fell backwards and Abbey’s heart fell into her empty stomach.

    Abbeybaby didn’t respond to this vicious wolf. She was well aware that lately she had been too weak for Freja. She had been too weak for everything.

    How was she going to be strong enough to handle her heart being shattered?

    When Couture season arrived, Abbey didn’t walk for Chanel.

________________________________________________________________

Beginnings.

    Stephen kissed Freja on the cheek when she arrived on set. It was just before Christmas, but Freja felt incapable of mustering the cheer that seemed to be contagiously traveling around lately. Maybe she’d go back to Denmark for the holiday she thought. Maybe. Maybe. Everything seemed exhausting. Boarding another plane sounded downright disgusting at this point. A day earlier, when she was walking through the airport to catch her flight to Italy, she saw some asshole in a Santa hat and Freja had to restrain herself from punching through the mans sternum, ripping out his still beating heart and depositing the fat clogged organ inside the obnoxious hat.

    Freja was with Stephen to shoot the cover of Vogue Italia for January 2011. The shoot was set in a hotel or an apartment building or… somewhere. Freja didn’t care. The only moment she acknowledged her surroundings was when she craned her neck, surveyed the scene and then asked a lighting boy, “Is there a bar in here?”

    The lighting boy shook his head No. Freja wasn’t sure if he knew English, she was hoping he didn’t, because it increased the chances of this much needed bar existing. The other girls were still getting their makeup done and Freja had time to kill so she lit a cigarette and held it between her dark lips, never really sealing them around the filter because she didn’t want to ruin her lipstick.

    Everyone looked so white. Not in the Taylor Swift concert type way, but in the physical white powder-cake makeup type way.

    Someone on the crew mentioned the name of the shoot was going to be, “The Power of Glamor” and Freja audibly laughed. What a shitty name for a shoot.

    The Power of Glamor.

    One of the other girls who Freja would be sharing the cover with looked over at Freja after her outburst.

    Then.

    Time.

    Stopped.

    It was like the Santa hat guy’s assault playing in reverse. A heart was being placed back into a chest cavity. That cavity was Freja’s, that heart beat frantic, that moment buzzed electric.

    The girl didn’t scowl at Freja for being a bitch, instead, she smiled.

    A long second hanged in the air; Freja and this girl stared at each other, both absolutely taken by the perfection before them.

   The girl made a move. She got up. She was coming over to Freja.

   Realizing she was holding a cigarette that stopped burning minutes ago, Freja flicked the butt into the corner and then immediately began to regret doing this. What if the girl found this gesture sloppy or threatening? Freja wanted to seem available, she wanted to see interested, she wanted to seem interesting, she wanted to seem like a woman who was digging her manicure into her palm, desperate to feel the warm glow of love.

    Freja consumed this girl’s image as she made her way closer. The mystery model had her hair pinned back in the left side of her head and a dense, foot long muss of hair had been combed across her head, covering her right eye. This obstruction didn’t neutralize the electricity that their unified gaze sparked with, if anything, it enhanced it. The red shirt with black polkadots on this mystery model had a large dark red collar that completely covered the girl’s neck. Freja yearned to see this girls flesh. It was a need. It was a requirement from Freja to continue to exist beyond this moment. Freja was ready to ruin a garment that probably cost as much as a compact car just to expose this girl’s flesh.

    Closer. Closer. Closer. The mystery model’s heels made their way across the carpet and they reached the distance that people usually speak to each other at, then they took another step closer.

    It was an intimate moment, Freja and the mystery model could almost feel each other’s breath.

    “I’m new,” the girl said to Freja.

   Yes, new.

   The girl looked new.

   Freja felt new.

   “The Power of Glamour” as a statement, seemed new.

   “And you’re Freja,” the girl said.

    The mystery model knew of Freja without being introduced. This should not be an incredible feat, but to be known by this rare creature surpassed the notion of fame and arrived squarely at the abstract thought that there are souls traveling this earth that always know each other, even when separated.

   Freja did not go home to Denmark for Christmas.

   She spent the holidays in Arizona.

____________________________________________________________

Story by T. James Reagan. I am an unrepresented fiction author who has completed eight full length manuscripts.

All of my manuscripts available upon request. Please contact Tjamesreagan@gmail.com if you are a publisher or agent who is interested in reviewing my work.

If you want to know what happens after Freja and Arizona meet, follow http://frejarizona.tumblr.com  a blog that I share with HBGWHEM 40,  Jillian .