The World of Fashion

*****

On The Job Challenge 2023

*****

With a double bachelor's degree and two master's degrees in hand, I found myself sitting next to the secretary of Olivet Malory, the CEO of Malory's Models, LLC.

My name is Jason Stillwell, and I'm still trying to figure out why I let my mother set up an interview for me with Ms. Mallory. While I have a bachelor's and master's degree in marketing, I never envisioned working for a modeling agency. I don't even know what position I'm interviewing for.

As I waited, my mind drifted to my life with my mother, Grace, and our disagreements throughout my childhood. The big one was my parent's divorce. I was ten when mother kicked my dad out and refused to let me see him. When I asked why she made Dad leave, she screamed, "Your father has a girlfriend, and that's not allowed in a marriage."

Without my father at home for advice and support, I endured a lot of bullying at school from boys and girls since I was the smallest kid in my class. Befriended by no one, I was a loner who learned to be invisible, smile politely when spoken to, and always walk fast to escape potential confrontation. These tactics didn't always work; I had the bruises to attest to that fact. Most nights until the week before I started eighth grade, I cried myself to sleep. A high school boy was shaking me down for money, and I exploded, breaking his nose with a straight right punch. The news traveled fast, and when the tale returned to me, I had hit him with a brick and stabbed him with a kitchen knife. Problem solved.

Mom never gave me an allowance, so buoyed by my newly found confidence, I wandered around the neighborhood asking store owners for a job. All I heard was a choir singing one tune; not hiring, sorry kid, or 'gid' out of here. After a week of rejections, depression set in, but there was one more business to check on, a restaurant with a help-wanted sign.

After being rejected by several employees because of my size, I pleaded with a cook taking out the trash. He listened to my promises to be on time and finish the job no matter how hard it was, shook his head, and went inside. I was so depressed I sat on a crate and sobbed.

"Hey, kid. Fill out this application and get a parent to sign on the back. You start Monday at four and work to nine."

I was ecstatic. Mom was off somewhere, so I signed her name. My job was scrubbing pots and pans on weeknights at minimum wage.

Several people checked my work that first night, but I was left alone once I proved I wasn't afraid of grease and dishpan hands.

Payday came, and the owner, Eric, asked what my home situation was like, and I told him the truth; my mother was never home, my dad was overseas, yada, yada, yada. He told me to come to the restaurant immediately after school to do my homework before starting work, and he would check it. He fed me before I went home.

A year later, when he promoted me to food prep, I discovered he was a three-star chef who wanted to cook meals that ordinary New Yorkers could afford. Besides being my only male role model, he taught me to cook.

After my seventeenth birthday on April first, I shot up four inches and added twenty pounds. I let my hair grow, and when I started my senior year, everyone thought I was a new kid, but they still ignored me. I grew an additional three inches during my senior year.

*****

When I turned eighteen, my father, Alex, called me. I was angry because he never called or wrote me. He begged for a meeting and promised to explain. We met on a Saturday and spent the day together, reconnecting. I remember everything about this meeting like it's on DVD.

"I'm sorry I didn't try to see you, but your mother threatened to send you to military school in Alaska if I tried to contact you."

"No apology necessary, Dad, and she wasn't bluffing; she hates you that much."

We danced around the elephant in the room with idle conversation before I blurted out, "Dad. Mom said you cheated on her."

"Jason, after you were born, your mother gave all of her love to you, and I began working longer hours and taking more overseas jobs. I thought bringing home a larger paycheck would bring your mother and me closer. I couldn't have been more wrong."

"Was it true? Did you have a girlfriend? Do you still see her?"

"Yes, I had a woman friend before your mother threw me out, and I still see her."

Because I knew what my mother was like, his declaration hadn't upset me.

"What kind of work do you do?"

"I do jobs overseas that most people won't touch. That's all I can say."

"Do you speak with Mother at all?"

"Every July, she takes me to court for more child support. All she had to do was ask, and our lawyers could negotiate. She knows I've never argued about paying child support."

"What about alimony?"

"I make six figures and live in a run-down hotel between jobs. You do the math."

I remember laughing out loud when he said that.

"What's so funny, Jason?"

"I guess you'll be living in roach motels until you die because there's nobody else crazy enough to marry my mother."

My dad backhanded me and almost knocked me off my feet. Eric's the only person I told the truth about the bruise on my cheek and jaw. I lied to everyone else to keep my dad out of trouble.

"Don't you ever disrespect your mother again, Jason. She may not have been a good wife, but she's done an excellent job raising you."

When he helped me steady myself, I apologized with a caveat, "Sorry for offending you, Dad, but I have to disagree with you about Mother."

"Excuse me?"

"She constantly ran you down starting the day you left, made up stories about how you were a poor husband and an even worse father. Well, I knew what kind of father you were before you left, and if she lied about that, I figured everything she said about you was a lie."

"You've grown up to be a fine young man. Your mother must've influenced you in some way."

"The excellent job raising Jason was done by, ta-da, Jason! Eric Walsh, owner and head chef of the 5^th Avenue Grill, mentored me throughout high school and taught me how to cook. At home, I did all the grocery shopping, washed my clothes, cooked for myself, cleaned the house, and studied. I've been at the top of my class since I was eleven. That's when she became involved with flashy grand openings, politics, and saving the environment. While she was cutting ribbons, rubbing elbows with who's who, and chairing fundraisers for local politicians, I was studying, surviving, and hating her for deserting me."

"I'm sorry, son. I never knew. That's not the woman I fell in love with."

He asked me what colleges I applied to, and I named a few but told him I really wanted to go to Princeton.

"Let me know when you get accepted at Princeton."

My Dad said when not if, and I didn't disappoint him.

*****

Graduation day arrived, and Mother was cutting the ribbon at the grand opening of a new city dog park on East Broadway and couldn't miss that super event to see me receive my diploma. But my father was there cheering me on, and after the ceremony, he hugged me and gave me a paid-in-full receipt for four years at Princeton, including room and board. When I asked him where he came up with the money, his reply and facial expression scared the shit out of me.

"You don't need to know what I did to make this happen for you."

It must have been from those overseas jobs he wouldn't talk about.

After arriving at Princeton, I was determined to lose my virginity. Two weeks after classes started, I attended my first sorority party, and a pledge met me at the door and danced with me for ten minutes before leading me to a bedroom. I spent the night with her and used all three condoms I had brought in my wallet. Whenever I had free time during the next two years, there were several girls there I hooked up with who didn't want commitments.

I moved into a townhouse with a senior girl who needed a roommate to pay half the rent. Our relationship was platonic until a thunderstorm knocked out the power for six hours one muggy October evening, bringing her screaming into my bed. What can I say; lightning scared her.

After that, we slept together until she graduated and got engaged. We were pretty vanilla together, with no kissing or oral, just plain old fucking. She liked being on top, was on the pill, and I never complained.

I rented a studio apartment that Eric steered me toward before my senior year started, and I still lived there. It was cheap.

When I graduated from Princeton with a double major in Psychology and Marketing, mother was at a fundraiser for a senatorial candidate somewhere in the country. Still, my father was there for me, even though he had to fly nineteen hours from Japan. Eric came, and after the ceremony, I introduced him to Dad.

In the next twenty months, I worked tirelessly to get a master's degree in psychology and a second master's in marketing. I paid for both with student loans and planned to pay them off in three years.

After receiving my second master's, I was ready to enter the world of academia and teach, but my mother had other plans for me. She decided I would interview for a job with a successful businesswoman my age, Olivet Mallory, CEO of Mallory Models.

"Her mother and I were sorority sisters in college, and she owes me a favor."

After I told my father about her plans, I added, "I'm having lunch with her tomorrow. I'm going to tell her I refuse to be manipulated and will accept the teaching position at Princeton."

"Son, I need to speak to you in person about that. Invite me to dinner tonight, and after we eat, we can talk."

"Dad, what's up? You've always wanted me to teach and be happy. Now you sound different."

"I'll bring a good bottle of wine and be there at 7 PM," and he hung up.

He knocked on my door at 7:02 as I took dinner off the stove. I let him in, and we ate, barely speaking. After dinner, he poured two more glasses of wine and waved me into MY living room. "Clean up later, Jason. Join me on your sofa," so I followed and waited.

We didn't talk. Dad talked, and I listened. I won't bore you with his nine-minute speech, just the last line, "Son, you'd be doing a good friend of mine a big favor by going to this interview; for now, that's all I can say."

"This is so unlike you, Dad, but you've always given good advice; I wish I knew more."

"Soon, all will be revealed."

Reluctantly, I turned down the job at Princeton.

*****

Ms. Mallory's office door flew open, and I returned to reality. A beautiful woman, whom I presumed to be Ms. Mallory, strutted across the room, wearing a designer dress and 5-inch heels. She was barking out commands to an older woman who meekly followed her and was dressed more modestly in loose-fitting slacks and a long-sleeved jacket buttoned up to her neck.

I looked at the secretary behind the desk as they passed through the outer office where I was seated. As they headed toward the elevators, she shrugged and gave me a weak smile, which I took to mean, 'Sorry you had to wait to be ignored.'

When the elevator door closed, I stood up to leave, intending to inform my overbearing mother that I no longer wished for assistance finding employment. I was quite surprised when the elevator door reopened, and Ms. Mallory's voice, echoing from inside the elevator, addressed me, "If you're here about the job, you're hired, so hurry up and get in here."

As the doors closed, I squeezed into the elevator, and Ms. Mallory gave me further instructions: "Stay three feet behind me, keep up, don't speak unless you're spoken to, and confine any response to, yes, Ms. Mallory."

And that's how my first day on the job went; being wholly ignored while following Ms. Mallory and her PA, listening to her humiliate and yell at employees. She was a dynamo all day long, only stopping briefly for lunch. I did notice that at every full-length mirror we walked by, she stopped and inspected her makeup, swirled her hips, and glanced at me.

At 5 o'clock, Ms. Mallory told her PA, "I'm leaving. He's all yours now, so keep the boy away from me. I only agreed to take him on as a favor to you, so he won't get fired if you keep him away from me."

She walked away, and I began to write out my letter of resignation in my head when the older woman turned toward me with a sad look on her face and spoke softly to me, "I'm so sorry you had to suffer through that, Jason. My daughter is overly impressed with herself and loves to make everyone feel small. Please, join me in my apartment, and we can talk while I make dinner. You're hungry, aren't you?"

"How do you know my name?"

"I've known your parents for years, and when your mother asked me if I would get you an interview, I set everything up, although I didn't expect Ollie would make you wait two hours."

We rode on the elevator to the fortieth floor and exited into a small room with a door to the left labeled 'ROOF' and one to the right. The woman I now presumed to be Olivet's mother opened the door on the right by punching a code on a pad.

I was speechless. Calling this magnificent space an apartment is like calling a penthouse on Park Place a condo.

It had a very open concept, with the living room, dining room, and kitchen overlapping, surrounded by windows covering over half of the room. To the left of the entry door was a double doorway that I assumed led to her bedroom. To the right was a single door I would later discover opened to a large office with two desks and a loveseat.

There was a third, single door farther down.

We were standing in her kitchen when she introduced herself.

"If you haven't figured it out, I'm Amelia Mallory, but I prefer you call me Melia. I apologize for my daughter's rude behavior. She knew you were waiting and deliberately made you wait. Ollie has been like this since her thirteenth birthday."

I struggled to keep from snickering.

"However, she has done a remarkable job running the agency after my husband's death, something I cannot do myself because of a particular affliction. Before you ask, Ollie is the name my daughter wanted me to use when she was four. She hates it now, and I call her that to pluck her last nerve. It's not like she can fire me; I own more of the agency than she does."

While she spoke, I studied her face and figure. Because I researched her history, I knew Ms. Mallory was two years older than me, so I guessed Melia was about fifty.

I gave her the horny single guy once over.

'Haircut's vintage Doris Day, no facial wrinkles. Lips, kissable and soft. Pink lipstick, yowser. K-mart clothes hide the rest of her. Score TBA.'

When Melia finished talking, I started to tell her about myself, but she cut me off, "I know everything about you and your parents." She looked pensive as she stared through me, so I took her hand, led her to a stool by the island, and poured her a glass of wine. "Please, sit, and let me make dinner, Melia."

I made stroganoff using ingredients in her freezer and pantry while sneaking peeks at Melia, sipping a glass of red wine.

'So sad. Still mourning her husband?'

When dinner was ready, I made two plates and sat across from her to eat. While we ate, Melia spoke about the agency and the building.

"When this building was in the planning stage, in 1955, the money man pulled out before they broke ground, so Maurice Mallory, my father-in-law, somehow secured funding, made a deal with the developer, and put this building up with a vision he had. While the building was going up, Maurice was renting space to businesses and individuals."

'Keep her talking so I can stare.'

"His selling point was location, location, location, and he had that with an address on a cross street between 5^th Avenue and the Diamond District. Another factor is privacy which he achieved because there are two elevators, one for all the leased floors with the agency's floors locked out and the other for the Mallory Agency with the leased floors locked. Only a few of my employees have access to the rented floors."

"Wow, Mr. Mallory was a visionary. I've lived in the city all my life. Why haven't I heard about him?"

'Mother dresses better than Melia.'

"Maurice was a very private person. He never gave interviews and rarely attended any city functions. Anyway, he bought a struggling modeling agency while construction was ongoing and moved it into the first eight floors and, later, the top five. He dedicated the rest of his life to learning the business and making the agency successful."

"What kind of tenants do you have?"

'Like I care. Still, she has such sad, lonely eyes.'

Melia seemed pleased that I asked this question and smiled before continuing, "The 9th through the 25th floors are leased to businesses. The larger ones include three major law firms, four top cosmetic surgery practices with fully equipped operating rooms, and offices for three major banks."

"That's impressive; who else has offices here?"

I inhaled deeply through my nostrils.

'Opium, my favorite fragrance.'

"Business managers, jewelers, a watchmaker, modeling agents, private investigators, and various medical professionals like optometrists, doctors, and dentists, all willing to pay top dollar to have an office in this building. One floor contains nothing but delivery-only fast-food restaurants. Complimenting them is the largest bicycle delivery service in Manhattan, which provides service to this building and ten blocks in any direction."

"Impressive."

'Oh lord, look at those lips move. Shit! Getting a hard-on.'

"Three of the floors have a three-star restaurant leasing one side of the building and on the other side, a nightclub rated in the top fifteen by the New Yorker magazine. The next ten floors were converted into luxury condos and leased out."

"I'm excited now, and perhaps I'll stay on if you'll have me. What exactly goes on in a modeling agency?"

'Please let me have you.'

"Well, my dear, the first eight floors have everything needed to take a young new face, male or female, from a stumbling beginner to a sophisticated and chic international runway model. The Mallory agency is one of the more successful runway model rental companies for the top four fashion weeks in New York, London, Paris, and Milan. Other venues that use our models are New York Bridal and Paris Haute Couture weeks and dozens of smaller shows throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. Our newer models are used for catalog...."

Melia stood up, her crotch was four feet away, and I fell into Jason's imaginary world with a semi-naked Melia in my arms. Time didn't matter there, and I gazed at her, touched her until she spoke.

"Jason. Jason, did you fall asleep?"

"I'm sorry, this has been a long day. Please continue."

"Our photographers also do a brisk business creating portfolio books for anyone who walks in the door. The standard package is five hundred, but they run up to two thousand."

'She wants me. Dick's stuck, oww, zipper.'

My face looked impressed, but my mind was short-circuiting. For the first time, I wanted to fall on my knees and bury my face between a woman's legs, something I'd never done before.

'Deep breaths. Look down. Calm.'

"The top five floors also belong to the agency. The 36th floor has hotel-like suites as temporary housing for visitors and employees who have late-night sessions, and the 37^th floor is where the agency has all of our office space, including the executive offices. There is an employee cafeteria on the 38^th floor, the 39^th is for future use, and my humble home is on the 40^th."

'Humble, my ass. I bet your closet could hold my efficiency.'