Okay, so, this story may not appeal to everyone. It will later touch upon things like drug use and abuse, and diseases that may be acquired from unsafe use. Sadly, I didn't create this storyline, it is based off the tragicly true HBO biopic of one America's Supermodel Gia Carangi.
I apologize in advance if it is bad, but I hope you stick with it at least until the end of the chapter.
This story will be told in the words of those closest to her. They will also be referring to the past keep that in mind.
Miami , FL. Early 1980s.
Back then, everybody was tall, thin, and blonde. Everybody posed. Everybody gave their all. But Callie was different. She was the only one who moved. They all try to do it now, give attitude. But Callie, she was the first. She followed her instincts, no matter where they took her. It was probably the best and worst thing about her. It was all about the sex for Callie. Every move, every look, every minute, every day, sex. Or so those who were and still are jealous of her would say. But those who knew her knew differently. Sure she was flirty and came on to everyone but it was all innocent. No one was really offended by it. Because it really wasn't about the sex. Even when she was sleeping around sex wasn't the goal, not really. Sex wasn't the issue with Callie, it was the drugs.
Every model has their moment, the ones who make it, anyway. And being of the moment is everything in the fashion world.
It all happened fairly quickly for Callie. All of a sudden her face was everywhere. On every magazine. Everyone wanted her. Everyone wanted to take her picture. But I don't think she liked to take pictures, not the way the other models did.
Mark's POV:
I saw her many times before I actually met her. She was so beautiful and honestly, a little scary. She worked at a little diner on 103rd street. One day, I finally decided to go in and talk to her.
She he had her hair spiked at the top of her head, red; the rest of her hair hanging down was black. She wore a grey wife beater without a bra, tattoo on her left arm showing, and an apron. I found her intimidating I mean, she's gorgeous and badass and I only looked cool without my glasses. Before I even made it to the counter I was nervous. She was shouting out orders and walked around so carefree. I saw her before she saw me and I asked, "Is your name Gia?" She nodded affirmative and asked me for a light. While fumbling in my pockets for my lighter I continued to ramble on nervously about nothing.
She laughs at me and asks, "Am I making you nervous?" I tell her yes and she says, "Good, cause that's the idea." I ask what she means by that and she tells me, "You scare the shit outta people, and then they don't see how scared you are," while she does a cute little trick with the cigarette between her lips.
"You're scared of me?" I ask. Instead of answering verbally she jumps at me causing me to jump back, essentially scaring me. I laugh at her antics. She hops onto the counter and sits I front of me. I accept the smoke she puts to my lips as she asks me my name. I tell her, "Mark Sloan."
She hums to herself and says, "Mark and Callie? I like it! Come on." She pulls me by my shirt collar out of the diner after she throws an, "I'm leaving," over her shoulder to someone behind the counter. Their shouts for her to come back fade as the door closes behind us.
We end up strolling down the strips, where the normal vendors have lined up their stations, and she tries to drag me into one with a sign reading, "Tattoos." I follow her inside only to run out laughing when she tries to tattoo me herself. She runs our teasing me but no amount of teasing will make me let her put ink to my skin. She pulls a joint out from who knows where and sticks it to my mouth; and I take a long pull from it.
I start to feel the effects when she asks, "Can I tattoo you now?" This chick is wild. I think I love her.
Somehow I end up pushed against the wall with Callie drawing on my face. I don't understand the power she has over me already. All I could think was, aleast it's paint and not ink. All of a sudden she pauses defacing my face and turns her head to ask someone, "So who are you looking at? Him or me?" I turn my head to see her addressing a couple who are a few years older than us. The couple approaches us and the man, named Derek Shepard I think, says that Callie belongs behind a camera and he would love to take her picture. Of course my little free-spirit agreed to let him take pictures of her.
We go to Derek's studio, which was not far from here, and he puts her in front of a camera. Or he tried to put her in front of it. Callie was like a little firecracker, she just wouldn't stay still. I remember him having to physically sit her on the chair and pose her. But as soon as he returned to his camera she was back up, twirling and dancing around. She even dragged me over to dance with her. Dancing, that turned into kissing. Which turned into Derek being drug over and him and I sandwiching her, both of us kissing on her; no one taking pictures anymore. At some point Callie wasn't even in the middle anymore, subsequently making Derek and I kiss each other. I vaguely remember seeing her go over to where Meredith was sitting nursing a drink, and straddle her from behind. It was a crazy experience. I had only known this girl for not even twenty-four hours and she was already pulling me out of my shell.
Miami was not ready for Callie, but maybe New York was.
Derek must have sent Callie's pictures to some big name modeling agency in New York because a few weeks later Callie called me and asked me to accompany her on a free trip to New York. She said she had an appointment with a woman named Miranda of Bailey's Models Inc.
I went with her, of course. I saw the nerves rolling off of her in waves when we arrived; even though she tried to cover them up with her usual badass persona. I talked her down, of course, though I don't think she listened to a word I said.
We stood outside the door to the office just looking in for who knows how long before Callie finally said, "Alright, let's do this."
I told her, "We're going to go in there and you're going to be nice. Who knows, they might actually like you. You're a very likable girl." I couldn't keep the grin off my face as I found my sarcasm funny.
"Fuck you," she says and slaps my stomach, apparently not finding my words funny. She then proceeds to take the gum out of her mouth, at least knowing that chewing gum during an interview was a no-no, and sticks it to the glass door before walking in. I shake my head and follow her in. There are all these thin, blonde girls in the waiting area waiting, hoping to be seen by Miranda. We walk to the front desk and I lean on it while Callie speaks to the receptionist. "Hi, I'm here to see Miranda Bailey,' Callie says in what is probably the most polite voice I've even heard her speak in.
The receptionist looks up from the desk phone and gives Callie a once over. She raises her eyebrows at Callie's appearance, which is a plain t-shirt covered by a leather jacket, boot cut denims, topped off with a vintage pair of Chuck Taylor's. Her hair, now all black, barely passed her shoulders, seemingly unkempt but I think she tries extra hard to make it look like that. The receptionist looks bored with Cal and says, "So is the rest of the world and they are way ahead of you, Honey. Take a seat," before she goes back to talking on the phone.
Cal looks at me and I nod my head encouraging at her, willing her not to snap at this poor uninformed woman behind the desk. "But I have an appointment," Callie tells her.
This catches the rude receptionist's attention and she hangs up the phone, "Of course you do," she says to Callie in a mocking tone.
Callie looks like she is getting really upset with this woman, "Eleven o'clock, Calliope Iphegenia Torres," she tells the woman her name and appointment time.
"Ca- what?" the lady says laughing.
Callie reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out her long skinny pocket knife. She shows it to the receptionist before she proceeds to stab the area where the receptionist's hand are, narrowly missing the woman's fingers, and carves her name into the wooden desk.
"C-A-L-L-I-E. Fuck the rest of it, call me Callie, do you think you can remember that, Sweetie?" she asked in an aggravated tone while sporting an sickeningly sweet smile.
The secretary, now freighted by Callie, nodded her head.
"Good," Cal says, and puts away the knife. "Now go tell the bitch I'm here."
...
We're sitting in Miranda's office in silence for a few minutes while Bailey herself looks at the pictures of Callie. She tosses them on the desk with the other hundreds of photos of other models and says, "I already saw the pictures, Derek sent them over. I just wanted to see the real thing," while she appraises Cal.
"Welp, this is it," Cal says.
"It certainly is. You practically gave my receptionist a coronary."
"Yea, well, look. This was a free trip to New York, and if I knew you were looking for Marsha fucking Brady, I would have stayed my ass home."
"How do you know what I'm looking for?" Bailey asked.
Cal ponders the question before shrugging, "Fucking look at me," she said. As if to say, 'Whatever you are looking for, it obviously isn't me.'
"I am looking," Bailey said, while the short woman circled the chair Callie was occupying. "You know, dressing like a motorcycle tramp is somewhat, interesting, for a seventeen year old girl. Talking like one, is not. In fact, talking at all is not required or even encouraged in this profession. Anything you might have to say, you say it to the camera, the image, and hopefully the product. Any words out of your mouth are simply irrelevant. Understood?" Bailey asks, perched on the edge of her desk in front of Callie.
"Yes, Sir," Callie said with a smirk. Oh gosh.
"This is your career, this is your future, this is your life, if you want it." This lady is good. I can tell she likes Callie too.
"Does that mean you can get me a job?" Callie asks, sounding genuinely interested in doing this.
"No, I get you the interviews. You, get the job," she says and uses her hand to tilt Cal's head this way and that, envisioning something. "And I believe you will," Miranda says to Callie with a smile.
...
Everything that follows happened quickly. Callie had photoshoots with L'Oreal, Young and Rubecam, Jimmy Moore, Bob Stone, and so on.
The agency also set her up with a studio apartment in New York which I helped her move into and stayed in with her for a few months. I looked after her and took care of her, made sure she didn't miss any interviews, made sure she was eating. After all of this I still didn't know where I stood with her. Was I a friend? Or her boyfriend? It didn't matter because after a few months of sharing a bed but not actually sharing a bed, I grew tired of the not knowing and the teasing and decided to head back to Miami.
One morning, after I'd decided to head back home, I'm in only my briefs gathering all my belongings that have accumulated since I've been here while Callie is sitting ass out in the open window in a wife beater and panties.
Why does she have to walk around the apartment like that anyway? "Where are you going?" she asks me.
"I have to go," I tell her.
"What, back to Miami?" she says mockingly. "For what?"
"I, I got, stuff to.. Look, I have to go," I stutter out, struggling to come up with a good lie instead of the pathetic truth; that I need more from her, more than she was willing to give.
"Well somebody has to take care of me. I'm just a kid," she says.
"Bullshit," I tell her what I thought of her reason for me to stay.
She comes over to where I am and starts to kiss and nibble on my ear and neck and asks, "What's in Miami that's more important than me huh?"
She starts to run her hands all over me, getting me excited and I tell her, "Stop preparing me to do something you're not going to do."
"What am I not gonna do?" she challenges.
I stop packing and look in her eyes. I press my lips to hers and she immediately responds. I push to deepen our kiss and she obliges and says, "What else?" I trail my kisses down her jaw to her neck and start to lick and suck on it. "What else? she says again. I bring my hand around to kneed her breasts. Those luscious breasts. I moved her towards the bed and laid her down, hovering over her. I grind my junk into her subconsciously and that's when she starts to laugh. And I mean a full belly laugh. I go to pull away when she flips us over and gets on top, still giggling, trying to kiss me. It's safe to say the mood has been ruined. I try not to take her laughter to heart and flip us back over and ask her, "Have you ever had sex with a man?"
She says, "Yea, once," and runs her fingers through my hair.
"And, how was it?" I ask.
"...I could have done that with a dog." Well damn..
...
Arizona's POV:
When I first met Callie, she was like a puppy. Like, 'love me love me love me'. And I did. I did right away.
I'm getting out the cab outside of the building the photo shoot is being held and I see a few of the models walking ahead of me. All blonde, all the same, no individuality. At least one has a heart, I think as I see one put some change in a woman's cup sitting on the ground in front of the building. I briefly smile at her as I walk in following the models thinking to myself the woman looks familiar.
I am a make-up artist, by the way.
I put my make-up kit on at my station and turn on my mirror lights as I wait for my model for today to show. She's late. I hear the director, April Kepner's annoying voice and turn to see who she is talking about.
"Excuse me, may I help you?" April says to the woman I saw sitting in front of the building that the model gave change to. She must have thought the woman was homeless.
The woman dumps the change out of her cup and says, "Yea, I could use some more coffee, please."
I get a better glimpse of her face and I recognize her instantly. "Are you Callie?" I ask, pretty sure she is, her face is hard to confuse or not recognize.
"Yea, I am," she answers and walks over.
"You're late," I say matter of factly, "go and wash your face." I turn back and grab my energy drink to get a little boost while my model went to wash her face, or so I thought.
"I already did, and it's nice to meet you too," she says, suddenly right in my face making me struggle to open the can.
I can't surpress the laugh that bubbles up, she is such an enigma. I look her over, still struggling to pop open the can of my drink, and say, "What the hell am I gonna do with you?"
She grabs the can from my hands and I chuckle at her boldness. She sits it on my station and pulls out this pocket knife and stabs the can at the spot and it opens for her. "I don't know, I'm just some dumb girl from Miami," she smirks at me before she hands my back my drink.
I smile and say my thanks as she sits in my chair. I look at her through the mirror and pull the hood from her hoodie off of her head, revealing a carefully wild mane. I giggle at the reflection looking back at me, I guess I'm a fit of giggles around her.
"What?" she asks subconsciously.
"Nothing, it's, wonderful," I say genuinely, and to to reassure her by passing my hands over her shoulders.
I go around the chair to get a closer look at her face. Once she turns from the mirror to see me in her personal space she backs up a little and raises her eyebrows as if to say, 'what the hell are you so close for?'. "I'm checking to see if you are tweezed," I answer the unasked question, referring to her perfectly manicured eyebrows.
"I'm tweezed," she says, with a bit of attitude.
"I'm Arizona," I say with as much fake attitude I could muster, and hold out my hand for her to shake, all while still in her face.
She smiles this amazing mega watt smile and shakes my hand, "Nice to meet you Arizona."
AN: I know, it was all over and fast. It'll get better once I get into it.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.