My Funny Valentina Read Free

look – magnified ten-fold by her bi-focaled lenses – following after her all the way down the hallway as she’d flown out the door of Stash’s office to the elevator. 
    L eaving my sweet baby behind.  
    Bu t she’d gone there with every good intention of talking to Stash alone first.  Valentina rationalized her defense in her head as though preparing to face a condemning judge.  Gone with the hopes of explaining to him each and every one of the very tough decisions she’d made over the last twelve months.  But when he’d not been there, she knew she couldn’t miss the photo shoot and take the chance of someone else being called in to replace her. 
    I need this job ; Valentina fretted, just stopping herself from biting off the freshly applied gloss.  Needed the hefty paycheck this modeling gig would provide.  Desperately!  If Stash refused to help, if he callously ignored her pleas, it was the only way she could possibly hope to pay for –
    ‘ Val, for crissakes, would ya stop with the frowning – I know it’s been awhile since you’ve done a photo shoot, but you’re acting like you just got off the bus from Hoboken yesterday.  Smile and show me those pearly whites!’
    ‘ Sorry, Lars,’ Valentina apologized to the mega-talented photographer who’d taken the photos at her very first modeling job ten years ago, ‘just tell me what you need from me and you’ve got it.’ 
    S ummoning all her poise, exhibiting the versatility – and a lingering hint of the smoldering vulnerability she’d been known for when she’d first arrived on the scene, that had made her a favorite of photographers and designers alike, she forced her mind clear of all troubled thoughts. Made her face a blank canvas with whatever emotion requested painted upon it.  That part of modeling had always come to her easily.  Hadn’t she’d learned to do the same thing in her personal life at a painfully early age?
    ‘ Beautiful, doll – now that’s more like it.  That’s the smile that’ll sell a million swimsuits,’ he applauded, his camera beginning to click like a demented grasshopper, snapping photo after photo. 
    ‘ I hope so, Lars.’
    ‘ No doubt about it!  I’m glad we managed to track you down in L.A., Val,’ Lars muttered from behind the lens, ‘– you seemed to almost fall off the map when you left Chicago a year ago,’ his native-bred, nasally intonation making it sound like Chi-caaah-go.  ‘ But you’re absolutely perfect for this shoot.  Pre-Raphaelite angel with a little Jenny from the Block mixed in!  Now wet those kewpie-doll lips, widen those bottle-glass green eyes of yours – shake that glorious mane of titian hair and show me the look of raw, undiluted lust you were famous for. Grab onto Mario’s ass if that’ll help get you into the Valentine’s Day mood.’
    Th e spray-tanned hunk in a zebra-striped Speedo she was leaning against in an air of languorous, post-coital lethargy, smiled widely as she gingerly placed a hand on one of his freakishly over-muscled, oiled-up thighs.  ‘Sorry, Mario –’ Valentina whispered an apology, ‘nothing personal.’
    ‘ Ees all right,’ Mario whispered back in a thick Italian accent, having only recently come to America hoping to find fortune and fame through his sculpted face and body, ‘my boyfriend – he will not mind as long as you leave no feenger- prints, sì. ’
    They shared a muffled laugh and both being true professionals, kept their carefully arranged poses until they broke them a moment later, heads craning over their shoulders.  Startled by the sudden commotion they could hear taking place at the studio door.
    Lars twisted too, nearly falling off the ladder he was perched atop set up among a tangle of simulated swinging jungle vines.  ‘Dammit, that racket completely blew my money shot.  What the heck is going on out there, Kandi?’
    ‘ There’s a... man... here – he’s demanding to come in!’ The stylist gulped an