Read Online The Rake by William F. Buckley - Free Book Online Page B

sat still for a moment. Then she moved her chair two inches to the left, so that she could look squarely into the mirror.
    She didn’t like to look at herself at an angle, even at the very slight angle that permitted her to cradle the telephone in her dressing room. Angles create distortions, more distortions than the ones she had no alternative but to submit to: fourteen years of aging, not entirely hidden by cosmetics and surgery. That was distortion enough—she moved her head back a bit, and looked into the mirror. But then, quickly, she lowered her chin. If the head is back too far, the nostrils are exposed to unflattering attention. She remembered her coach, back in Denver. “ Never permit the camera to look into your nose!” Amos made his point: “Icky things happen in your nostrils. Ava Gardner’s nostrils flare down, so there isn’t anything there anybody can look at, except a nose. You don’t have a nose built that way, Prissy. So don’t expose it.
    â€œOh, yes,” Amos had gone on. “And work with your boobs. I don’t mean shove them in everybody’s face. Just watch how you dress. Then they’ll claim the right attention without any more help. And remember, everything has to be there for thecamera to look at. It’s the composite picture. That’s the word, composite.”
    Amos. He was a character, but he knew about fashion and fashion photography—and about beauty contests. They were a sideline, but his name had been associated with the winners of statewide contests in eight of the ten years before Priscilla Avery met him. Always he had hoped for the big prize, the great prize, the only prize. Miss America. Well, she had given him that. Priscilla didn’t spend much time saying thanks, but she did have a pleasant thought about Amos.
    Bert Whitman, full-time publicist for the state of Colorado, spent half his life in Los Angeles, and that’s where he ran into Hank Blokofski, who told him about Amos. Bert was at the Beverly Hills Health Club, up from a swim, lying face down for a massage. Hank Blokofski was doing the same, off to one side. He had concluded a distribution deal after a long, sweaty afternoon session, and had gone over to his health club to relax.
    Blokofski had nominally retired from the movie business, but he was a library of knowledge about everything that touched on commercial glamour. In 1970 he had served as a judge in the Miss America contest in Atlantic City. He liked to remember the expression on the face of Nancy Gutierrez when she was transubstantiated from Miss Texas to Miss America. “She seemed such a tender, innocent Texas lady,” he reported to friends and associates, and he said it now to Bert, in from Denver. “In fact, Nancy was tougher than a hand iron. But when I spotted her I said to myself, Go, go, Bloky—go, go, go , and pretty soon I had the majority of the judges with me.”
    â€œWhat kind of thing do the winners have to do? I mean, other than be beautiful and all that stuff. And maybe screw the judges.”
    Blokofski ignored the gibe. “There are lots of things. But the A-number-one thing is never to have a bad photo, never. And that takes a personal coach. A real expert who coaches professional models and knows the ropes.”
    â€œYou know some of these…specialists?”
    â€œOh, sure. For instance, I know Amos Cohen, from your neck of the woods. He narrowly missed in 1968, with a gal from New Mexico. But he’s a real pro.”
    Whitman, with his eye out for the commerce he was professionally engaged in stimulating, moved quickly. As soon as he returned to Denver he requisitioned photos of the contestants for Miss Colorado. He picked out Priscilla Avery. He telephoned her, and liked what he heard. He even found pleasing her hint of a southern accent, left over, she told him, from her childhood in Alabama. Then he called Amos Cohen and invited him to his