Crystal Read Online Free PDF

sidewalk outside of Tiffany’s. The blouse she would be wearing hung on a padded hanger. Frankie looked at her face a long while and then put shadow on her cheeks.
    “You have a marvelous face,” he said, leaning close to her. “If you stay away from sugar, you’ll never need anything except touch-ups for years. Maybe a little highlighter around the eyes. You should pluck your brows, though.”
    “They’re not very heavy,” Crystal said. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Susan sipping coffee.
    “They don’t have to be heavy,” Frankie said. “You can always add in this business. It’s the taking away that’s hard. There. You’re beautiful.”
    “Do you know the photographer?”
    “He’s not bad,” Frankie said. “I don’t think he’s that good, either. He’s a poser. He goes around striking poses and thinks he’s wonderful. When they get tired of his photos, his posing won’t do a bit of good.”
    “He’s hot. Anything he does they love,” Susan said. “When you’re hot, you don’t have to be good.”
    The photographer ignored Crystal as the wardrobe lady and designer adjusted the blouse she would be wearing over the slim black pants. Crystal looked at herself in the mirror. She looked good.
    “They’re going to shoot you in front of the steel doors,” Susan said. “Later, they’re going to digitally add the perfume into the picture.”
    Frankie waited until all of Crystal’s wardrobe was in place before putting the final touches on her hair. He brushed it up from the back and put a small circular comb in the center of the back, and then combed the hair out from it.
    “It’ll look fuller this way,” he said.
    “I feel like my scalp is being shrunk or something,” Crystal said.
    “Don’t pay too much attention to what this guy says,” Susan said. “He’s very insulting. He’s already called me a few names, and he’s insulted everybody else, too. Just ignore everything except his directions.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “C-r-o-c-e,” Frankie said, with an effeminate flourish of the hand. “It rhymes with okay.”
    The photographer’s assistant took a light-reading, with Crystal in front of the doors. Then the photographer came over.
    For a while, Giovanni Croce just stood in front of Crystal, looking at her. Crystal stood looking back.
    “Just try not to look too Black,” he said, finally. Then he went back to his camera.
    “Just look at the camera,” the assistant called to Crystal.
    Crystal stood, feeling angry from Croce’s remark about her not looking “too Black” and awkward with the lack of direction, as the short, thinnish photographer shot several pictures. Then he turned away, and the assistant said that he had finished.
    “I told you he was a pain in the rear end!” Susan Hirsch said. “He treats everyone like dirt, but he gets into all of the big magazines in Europe.”
    “Can you get the comb out of my hair?” Crystal asked.
    Susan took the comb out.
    “Hold it!” The assistant put his hand on Susan’s shoulder and directed her away from Crystal.
    “Just don’t smile.” Giovanni began to take more pictures of Crystal. He moved in front of her quickly, taking pictures from a lower angle than he had before.
    Susan Hirsch looked behind Crystal and saw the sun breaking through the clouds over the distant buildings. In another moment, Giovanni had stopped and had merely walked away, leaving Crystal standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
    Crystal saw that Giovanni had given his assistant his camera and had gone into his own limousine. She saw Susan speak to him and then come over to her.
    “The guy’s a real creep,” Susan said. “I asked him how it went, and you know what he said?”
    “I was too Black?” Crystal asked.
    “He asked me why I would care!”
    “It went strangely,” Crystal said. The wardrobe people took the blouse, and Frankie brought her coat to her.
    “You’re very beautiful,” the wardrobe lady said.
    “Thank