Page 21 of Dirty Like Dylan
As Susanna forced herself to acknowledge me, I was pretty sure we both felt Dylan Cope’s gaze lingering on the curves of my body in my long dress.
“And she’s talented as hell,” he added.
“How nice.” Susanna offered me a limp, cool handshake, as I wondered what he was basing that compliment on. The one photo I’d shown him in his dressing room? Or had Liv described me like that?
Had he looked me up?
“Speaking of photography,” he went on, casually, “would be great to get some shots of the house, now that it’s finished, don’t you think?”
At that, Susanna lit right up. Probably thinking this meant more money for her when she used said photos to advertise the house and make a sale—and help Dylan Cope into yet another extravagant property. “I’ll send you the portfolios of the top three real estate photographers in the Vancouver area,” she told him, steering him away from me, clearly dismissing both me and my camera.
As they headed from the room, Ashley’s gaze crashed into mine. He said nothing.
I followed Dylan and Susanna out.
Ashley didn’t.
The house was three levels, if you included the walk-out basement—which was empty except for a gym area on one side and a massive drum kit on the other—with four bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, and three wood-burning fireplaces. As we strolled through, Susanna elucidated on the incredibleness of everything. “The vaulted ceilings!” “The maple hardwood floors!” “The granite countertops!” According to her, the house was designed by one the “premier” architects on the northwest coast. It was new, had only been built this year, and had been customized to Dylan’s—“Brilliant!”—specifications.
Clearly, she’d sold him the property and was bent on kissing his ass for more of his business—and probably, a place in his bed.
But honestly, I was far more curious about her features than the house’s. I’d always been mildly intrigued by women like Susanna/Honey, the same way I was intrigued by exotic creatures from faraway lands that I’d only glimpsed in magazines.
She wore immaculate designer clothes—I recognized the symbol on the gold buckle of her Gucci belt—with (very) high heels, diamond earrings that glittered when she laughed, and heavy but flawless makeup that could’ve been airbrushed on, not a pore in sight. She had extreme highlights in her perfectly round-brush-blow-dried hair (did she come straight from the salon?), blinding-white, perfect teeth, and an industrial-strength gel manicure. Her gym-toned body was overly tanned for October above the 49th parallel. Her lips were collagen-plumped, her forehead unnaturally smoothed in a way that suggested Botox.
And, rather predictably, she had breast implants.
Even the world’s best pushup bra couldn’t give you cleavage like that. Especially when you weren’t wearing one.
By way of contrast—not that I was comparing, per se—everything on my body, other than my underwear, was second-hand, from the cardigan I’d picked up at a thrift store in Montreal to the dress I’d found at a clothing swap, and my sandals couldn’t have been flatter if they were made of paper. I was fairly certain I owned a bottle of foundation purchased maybe seven years ago, before I went on my first overseas trip, which had dried up somewhere, maybe in Liv’s guest bathroom? My hair was air-dried and finger-tussled. My teeth were, you know, teeth-colored, and my eyeteeth were sort of fangy when I smiled. (A couple of guys had told me, over the years, that they were sexy. I chose to believe it.) I hadn’t worn nail polish since I was twelve. I had unsightly tan lines from my bikini. I was also pretty sure I was getting permanent squinty lines from always having one eye closed while looking through a camera, and I’d one day have very lopsided wrinkles.
As for my boobs, I was rocking a naturally conservative B-cup. My breasts were round but kinda flat, so the bra was actually optional depending on the top I was wearing. But no one was ever gonna accuse me of having implants.
In summary, Susanna/Honey belonged in Dylan Cope’s expensive, custom-designed luxury home.
I did not.
I felt weirdly naked standing next to her in the enormous, gleaming kitchen, even though she was showing much more skin than I was in her slit skirt and plunging camisole-that-barely-passed-as-an-actual-shirt.
As we came full-circle to the living room and stood before the huge wall of windows overlooking the back deck, she seemed perturbed by my lack of enthusiasm, as if I was being rude in my silence. There was an awkward pause when she finished babbling about the hardwood deck, as she seemed to be waiting for me to say something.
Finally, I looked at Dylan and managed, “Um… congratulations on all your money?”
It was kind of like saying to a beautiful person, Congratulations on your face. Like what was I supposed to do? Weep with admiration because he was grossly rich?
Dylan grinned.
Susanna looked revolted, like I’d said something vulgar. But I really wasn’t dissing Dylan Cope or his house. I was pretty sure it would be awesome to be rich, just like it would be awesome to be as staggeringly beautiful as he was.
But here was the thing: I’d just spent the last year traveling around South America, where I’d become sensitized to an altogether different kind of richness, a different kind of beauty. As I looked around Dylan’s home, all I saw was the kind of beauty I had no idea what to do with, other than, maybe, take photos of it.
Surface beauty.
I’d become much more accustomed to seeking out the deeper beauty in things with my camera. Subtler beauty. Meaningful beauty. Beauty that moved you. Beauty that, sometimes, you had to work for. When you looked at my best work, I hoped you’d feel what was going on inside the image, or just beyond the frame. Each photo told a larger story, or hinted at a story. It attempted to engage you.
What it didn’t do was smack you in the face with its walk-through closets and floor-to-ceiling windows and exorbitant fireplaces… Or its washboard abs and dazzling chestnut-red-gold hair.
Well, unless it was a photo of Dylan Cope.