Model Citizens:
Riding for a Fall
by
Henry Pepper
A Sense of Place Publishing 2013.
Copyright © 2013 by Henry Pepper
Henry Pepper asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1968-8
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Model Citizens: Riding for a Fall is a work of fiction.
All the characters depicted in Model Citizens: Riding for a Fall are the products of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance they may bear to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The corporations and events depicted in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe their actual conduct.
For Anita.
THE KODAK
And lo the darkness fell upon Los Angeles.
On the coast, the blood red sun sank beneath a hazy Pacific horizon.
Downtown a cold wind pushed its way through the concrete canyons, stirring the few Christmas decorations remaining on shop fronts.
Uptown the closer drivers got to the Hollywood Hills, the more detours and police security checkpoints they encountered that Friday night.
From the corner of the North Highland and Hollywood Boulevards, hundreds of stretch limousines were backed up from the Kodak Theatre.
Inside the brightly shining Kodak, visibly excited A-listers, dressed as if winter had not yet arrived in the United States of America, hurried through the Theatre’s tiered interior in search of their seats.
Out the front of the Kodak lobby, dozens of television cameras, hundreds of news and entertainment photographers and the fleet of glistening limousines combined to create the illusion that anything was possible.
Paparazzi photographers cat-called the Who’s Who of World Fashion as clusters of the famous and infamous alighted onto the plush red carpet.
Intricately dressed fashion designers from London, Milan, New York, LA, Paris, Tokyo, San Francisco and beyond. Hundreds of picture-perfect models and their lovers. Fashion agents. Actors. Hollywood film producers. Celebrities. Bloggers. Journalists. Executives. Wannabes.
Every 90 seconds, like clockwork, limousine doors swung open and another cluster of photographers’ flashes exploded.
The very air they breathed was loaded with great expectations. The beautiful people posed for the cameras, creating a glamorous logjam if they lingered too long in front of their favourite photographers.
Beyond the cameras and shouting journalists, stood a small crowd of cold, windswept onlookers, genuine fans, neither slim nor beautiful, who waved at their favourite celebrities from a cordoned off viewing area.
Inside the Kodak, the world famous auditorium echoed with a thousand conversations. Giant video screens, sandwiched between Estee Lauder logos and a sky blue backdrop, adorned the glittering rectangular stage.
As the audience slowly found their seats, a collage of fashion clips played on the screens, priming the audience for American network television’s live coverage of the 2009 Estee Lauder International Modelling Awards.
The repeating films highlighted the 12 models who had made it into the finals, pouting and touting, in a cascading fast-edit style that accentuated the cut, look and fit of designer fashion.
Depeche Mode’s Question of Time rocked the theatre:
“I’ve got to get to you first
Before they do
It’s just a question of time.”
It was almost show time!
The audience murmured expectantly as the film loop finished, the music faded, the Estee Lauder logo came up on the big screens and the house lights dimmed.
Bathed in a lilac spotlight, the Master of Ceremonies, dressed in a single-breasted black Armani suit, crisply pressed white Jean Paul Gaultier shirt, a black bow tie and two-tone Spectator shoes, looked like an escapee from a 1970s James Bond film. He emerged from behind the curtains at the rear of the stage in a puff of pink smoke.
The primed audience roared with approval.
The M/C, known universally in the business only by his first name, Branson, glided past a floating steel cage suspended from the ceiling that contained two adolescent white tigers.
The muscular cats growled as Branson passed. The audience, as instructed during the warm up, gasped as the house cameras zoomed in to show a close up of their teeth.
Branson took a startled step backwards, clutched at his chest in mock shock, then smiled and bowed at the elegant cats. He skipped into a walk and headed for centre stage.
All eyes were on Branson for all the wrong reasons. There had been some snide comments in LA gossip columns over the years about his profound love of martinis, but it was only recently that his drinking issues had become a big deal.
Earlier that very Friday, a nasty Los Angeles Times gossip columnist had reported that Branson had made a booking at the Betty Ford Clinic for the day after the Awards.
Branson’s publicist had, during a morning of mild hysteria, put out an angry denial, only for an enterprising Good Morning America reporter doing a stint inside Betty Ford to confirm half an hour later that Branson had indeed made a booking.
The broadcast makeup team had done an award-winning job of powdering over the tell-tale facial signs that he had fulfilled his pledge to attend every single pre-Awards party held over the festive season.
Stopping at the Estee Lauder-branded podium, Branson smiled, opened his arms wide and tapped the microphone theatrically.
“Hello everyone and welcome to the magnificent Kodak Theatre here in Los Angeles. We have a truly-special event to share with you tonight, the 10th Estee Lauder International Modelling Awards.”
The extroverted Californian audience, responding to prearranged signals, once more roared with delight.
Images of famous models “bigging it up” on the catwalks of Milan, New York, Paris and Tokyo filled the screens.
Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence thumped the air:
“All I Ever Wanted
All I Ever Needed
Is Here
In My Arms.”
Branson pivoted on his heels, hoping that the endorphins generated by his morning session at the Hollywood Gym were beginning to kick in.
And with that, the live show began. The 12 Estee Lauder contestants strutted out onto the Kodak runway - one by one - flaunting impossibly skimpy designer lingerie.
Right from the start, the Kodak crowd was getting involved, clapping along with the sound track as the models delivered their best moves in outlandishly expensive undergarments.
From above the catwalk, a diffusion cloud of Breise Focus