Chapter 2: Out of Fashion

"One minute, folks. Can we get that boom mic out of the shot, please?"

Jamie swallowed the opening line he was about to say, waiting for the crew to readjust. His final blind date for the evening sat in silence across the table. She looked away and stirred her drink.

Jamie dabbed his forehead with the back of a cocktail napkin. The TV lights had been beating down on him all night, relentless and remorseless.

The hour was getting late. Most of his would-be co-stars had already paired off or been dismissed. He had one more date to go. One last chance to make it onto this glorified thirst trap of a television show, or he could all but kiss his livelihood goodbye.

Good God, how had it come to this?

The lobby of the JFK Airport Marriott Hotel was perhaps not the ideal setting for a NYC-based model in the midst of New York Fashion Week. Jamie should have been on a catwalk at Lincoln Center or, at the very least, sipping cocktails at some soirée with the industry elite. He had returned from London last week for that express purpose—or so he had assumed when he'd received the summons from Darius, his agent.

But Darius had sent him here. An airport hotel in Queens. There could be no clearer symbol of Jamie's fall from grace.

He had said as much in his agent's office on Tuesday afternoon. "Bodies of Water? What the hell is this?"

"Emphasis on the 'Bodies,'" Darius had replied airily, as if that explained anything. "Imagine an opening montage with lots of bare skin and abs and water droplets."

Jamie hadn't yet realized at the time that his agent was serious. He still thought they were making fun of the thing. "Odd title, isn't it? Makes no sense."

"'Love Island' was taken, I believe."

Jamie shifted in his seat, squaring up the collar of his suit jacket. He was dressed in dark jeans and an ink-blue Armani blazer, with a pair of sleek black boots crossed at the ankle beneath the cocktail table. He wouldn't have looked out of place in an airline first class lounge or on the steps of a private jet: The picture of an international businessman on a layover, casually unaware of his Poseidon-like physique, cut like chiseled marble beneath his tailored shirt...

In other words, precisely what the casting director had ordered when they reached out to his agency.

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BODIES OF WATER
A new reality matchmaking experience from the executive producers of "Clothing: Optional" and "I Married a Perfect Stranger." Ten sexy singles will be paired off and castaway for a month of luxurious seclusion in paradise. Seeking 20-something, fit, international man-of-mystery to round out the cast. Open call.
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Darius had gotten him past the open call at least. Upon arrival, Jamie had been met by a producer with a clipboard. He'd been swept beyond the velvet ropes without another word, the moment he handed over his portfolio with his agency's logo at the top.

***********

Name: James (Jamie) Bowen
Home: London/New York

Age: 27
Height: 6' 2
Weight: 170 lbs
Caucasian male (he/him)

Look: Classic and refined, or rugged and tempestuous. Jamie can be anything to anyone. A true chameleon.

Talents: British accent.
**********

The screen test had gone smoothly enough. Jamie could play this part in his sleep. He could be anything to anyone, chameleon that he was. He'd been impersonating men of mystery in photoshoots for years.

The only question was, why here? Why waste his talents on this abomination of a TV show? He hadn't realized the gravity of the situation until his agent had laid it out for him on Tuesday afternoon: It was time to make a change. A new direction...

"Anything but this," he'd argued. "I don't do reality."

"You do now, my friend, or your reality will be finding a new agency to represent you."

Jamie pulled in a deep breath and expelled it slowly through his nose. He met eyes with the woman across the table in the yellow dress. He turned his head to let her see his profile.

He wasn't precisely good-looking. If there was one way in which Jamie Bowen didn't blend in with the crowd, it was his face. He had an exaggerated jaw and hollowed out cheeks, with parallel furrows bracketing his mouth. Not handsome in the movie star sense. Certainly not pretty. Striking might have been a better word. The caricature of a handsome face, drawn by an artist whose style leaned too heavily on angles and squares.

Still, Jamie credited the prominence of his cheekbones for his success thus far in life. There was nothing marketable about perfection. Too perfect, and a face became forgettable. It blended in with all the other pretty faces, aside from a different skin tone here or haircut there. Only the imperfect stood apart.

His face offered the bony architecture that captured the camera's interest. He had long since mastered how to move and hold himself, how to adjust the intensity of his stare like a torch with a dimmer switch, how to shift the tilt of his jawline and look like a completely different person.

For years, the fashion houses had paid handsomely to capture that striking look. He could be relied upon to produce the kind of image they coveted—the kind that made a commuter glance up at a billboard overhead and notice the man in the photo in a certain brand of tie.

But sadly, the cameras seemed to love him less and less these days. For the first time in his career, Jamie Bowen found himself out of fashion.

The time had come for him to "pivot," as his agent had intoned. Time to move away from fashion runways and photo spreads, and apply his striking looks to wooing strangers beneath the TV lights.

"The horror, the horror," he muttered under his breath. Some famous last words seemed appropriate. But the woman across the table only stared back at him blankly. She didn't get the reference. But then, no one ever did.

Jamie smiled at her to show his teeth. The woman smoothed her hair.

"Don't fuss with it too much," he advised her. "It looks natural that way." He reached across to adjust a stray lock with his fingertip. "May I?" The back of his knuckle grazed her cheek, and he thought he detected a faint flush of color where he made contact.

A good sign. He breathed a little easier.

"Thanks." She met his eyes through a veil of lashes. Real eyelashes, Jamie noted. Not the glued-on kind. Her honey-colored hair splashed around her shoulders in pleasing disarray. She had a roundness to her face that a makeup artist would have corrected with contouring, but he was glad she hadn't. It would have hidden the downy texture of her cheeks, flecked with a fine spray of freckles, the color of natural linen before it's dyed or bleached.

"I have no idea what I'm doing here," she said with a small laugh. "In case it isn't obvious."

Jamie leaned forward and dropped his voice. "Glaringly obvious," he assured her. "In the best possible way."

She shot him a wry look. Bemused but not bestirred. A schoolteacher warning a cheeky pupil not to step too far out of line. She didn't say another word, but a wisp of curiosity unfurled itself inside him.

No, Jamie thought. She had no business here. No business with the likes of him. She was quality, this one. And she knew it.

His chances of being cast with her were less than nil, of course. An amateur, plucked from the walk-on line? Good luck with that. He should have grafted harder with the first two options who'd graced the other side of this cocktail table: the Instagram model and the budding TikTok star. That had been his chance. The producers had stacked the deck with the most attractive auction lots up front.

It wasn't that he'd found them unattractive. Dull, perhaps. But Jamie found everybody dull, himself most of all. Maybe that was the problem. He simply couldn't summon the energy to listen to himself drone on.

His third mini-date, to his dismay, had turned out not to be a blind date at all. He should have known he'd run into someone he'd slept with before. Statistically speaking. A year or two had passed since he'd last seen Nadia, but she looked the same as ever. Voluptuous and languid. All curves where he was angles, with the kind of feline grace that best belonged in a painting. Or on a yacht off the coast of Ibiza. Or in a painting of said yacht.

Not a card-carrying member of the Jamie Bowen fan club, as it turned out. He couldn't recall the details, whether her ire was well-deserved or not. But it didn't matter. Thankfully, she'd had the good grace to disqualify herself. She'd taken one look at him and walked straight off the set, with a hair flip and a few choice words over her shoulder. "You couldn't pay me enough."

It had put him off his game. Not the snub itself, but the pathetic pang of jealousy he felt upon hearing her words. Couldn't pay her enough. That must be nice. This show could pay him anything. Literally. He hadn't bothered reading the terms of the contract Darius sent over. He'd signed and sent it back. The fine print made no difference.

He needed to book this show. End of story. He couldn't allow himself to think about what would happen if he failed. To be dropped now by his agency would be nothing short of catastrophic.

But he sensed his prospects dwindling with each successive speed-date. He was swirling around at the bottom of the teacup with the dregs. Ten minutes ago, a PA had told him to collect his things. He had to plead with the producer to pull him one more prospective match out of the  walk-on line. The walk-on line, for heaven's sake!

They could have chosen far worse, he supposed. Her yellow dress suited her, cut in a low V. He had a weakness for that particular neckline. An arrow offering subliminal suggestions. He resisted the urge to let his eyes obey.

The jewel of the walk-on line picked up her drink as if to take a sip, then reconsidered and set it down again. She must have sensed his gaze. She eyed him skeptically. Like a good schoolboy, he sat up straight.

Ready?" Jamie mouthed to her.

"Ready," she mouthed back.

At the movement of her lips, something stirred in him again. There was something there. Some energy between them. All hope was not yet lost. He might still make this work.

But it was going to take the performance of his life.

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