magnificent sepulchers.
“And it’s for a woman’s razor, right?”
“Elegante does grooming products. It’s a huge market, and they have a big chunk of it.”
“A razor.”
“Yeah, okay, a razor. But we might well be looking at other stuff. A long-term brand relationship, you know?”
“So what would I have to do?”
Diego gets a folder out of his briefcase, although he doesn’t need to. “Okay. Two days filming, max. Stills for posters and so forth to be done at the same time. By a very good agency; I’ve checked them out. Dates to suit you, so long as they’re in the next two months. And if — you have the final say in this, of course — we go on to do other things with them, we negotiate from scratch. Which means, naturally, a bigger fee.”
Otello lets out his breath slowly and turns away from the view. “I dunno, Diego. It’s not like I need the money.” He raises his hand, because his agent is about to speak. “Okay, okay, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say, as usual, that I’ve got maybe five, six more years playing at this level. That after I quit I’ll have, God willing, fifty years left to me, and if I don’t want to end up as an old bum on the street, we need to — what’s your expression? — ‘broaden my career base.’”
Diego’s smile is rueful. “I didn’t realize I’d become such a bore. I apologize. But yes, I do see it as part of my job to get you maximum exposure. Because, let’s be honest, the fate of most ex-players is obscurity. And a lot of them end up broke or a joke. Am I wrong?”
“No. I guess not.”
“No. But in fact I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to point out that half of this fee would finance your drop-in center for homeless kids up in Espirito for at least a year. And because it’s a legit charity, that makes a nice reduction on your taxes. And I’m assuming that not paying taxes to your father-in-law’s nasty government is something that would appeal to you. Am I right?”
The TV commercial is an instant, scandalous, enormous success. It is condemned by no fewer than nine bishops; it is banned by BVTV, the Catholic channel, and it outrages the Committee for Public Decency. In response to public demand, Elegante puts it on their website so that it can be downloaded onto iPods and cell phones. You’d think no one had ever seen a black man shaving a white woman’s body before. Elegante’s sales — not only of the Ladyshave Silk, but of the company’s entire range — increase by forty percent. But it’s the poster — that poster — that lingers in the popular consciousness. The morning it appears on the huge electronic billboard in the Plaza de la Independencia, drivers are so utterly transfixed by it that they fail to notice that the traffic lights are sometimes green, and as a result half of downtown is gridlocked within twenty minutes. One of the inconvenienced travelers is Nestor Brabanta. He sits fuming in the back of his chauffeur-driven limousine for almost three quarters of an hour. When the car eventually reaches Independencia, he looks up at the billboard, and the blood drains from his face.
Although the woman on the poster has her head turned away from the viewer, her light skin, the soft cataract of honey-and-tobacco-colored curls, and the tiny hummingbird tattoo on her exposed shoulder all suggest very strongly that she is Desmerelda Brabanta. (She is not, of course. She is a model, the hair is a wig, and the tattoo will be easily erased by a dab of Elegante cleanser.) Her right arm and hand cover her breasts. Her left arm is raised and bent so that the forearm rests on her golden head; the hand is clenched into a fist. Thus the viewer’s eyes are drawn to her exposed armpit, the armpit that Otello (standing slightly behind her, leaning down and forward) is, with rapt attention, de-stubbling with a turquoise plastic razor. Both he and the model are wearing only sarongs. Sarongs! Hers is black;
“And it’s for a woman’s razor, right?”
“Elegante does grooming products. It’s a huge market, and they have a big chunk of it.”
“A razor.”
“Yeah, okay, a razor. But we might well be looking at other stuff. A long-term brand relationship, you know?”
“So what would I have to do?”
Diego gets a folder out of his briefcase, although he doesn’t need to. “Okay. Two days filming, max. Stills for posters and so forth to be done at the same time. By a very good agency; I’ve checked them out. Dates to suit you, so long as they’re in the next two months. And if — you have the final say in this, of course — we go on to do other things with them, we negotiate from scratch. Which means, naturally, a bigger fee.”
Otello lets out his breath slowly and turns away from the view. “I dunno, Diego. It’s not like I need the money.” He raises his hand, because his agent is about to speak. “Okay, okay, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say, as usual, that I’ve got maybe five, six more years playing at this level. That after I quit I’ll have, God willing, fifty years left to me, and if I don’t want to end up as an old bum on the street, we need to — what’s your expression? — ‘broaden my career base.’”
Diego’s smile is rueful. “I didn’t realize I’d become such a bore. I apologize. But yes, I do see it as part of my job to get you maximum exposure. Because, let’s be honest, the fate of most ex-players is obscurity. And a lot of them end up broke or a joke. Am I wrong?”
“No. I guess not.”
“No. But in fact I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to point out that half of this fee would finance your drop-in center for homeless kids up in Espirito for at least a year. And because it’s a legit charity, that makes a nice reduction on your taxes. And I’m assuming that not paying taxes to your father-in-law’s nasty government is something that would appeal to you. Am I right?”
The TV commercial is an instant, scandalous, enormous success. It is condemned by no fewer than nine bishops; it is banned by BVTV, the Catholic channel, and it outrages the Committee for Public Decency. In response to public demand, Elegante puts it on their website so that it can be downloaded onto iPods and cell phones. You’d think no one had ever seen a black man shaving a white woman’s body before. Elegante’s sales — not only of the Ladyshave Silk, but of the company’s entire range — increase by forty percent. But it’s the poster — that poster — that lingers in the popular consciousness. The morning it appears on the huge electronic billboard in the Plaza de la Independencia, drivers are so utterly transfixed by it that they fail to notice that the traffic lights are sometimes green, and as a result half of downtown is gridlocked within twenty minutes. One of the inconvenienced travelers is Nestor Brabanta. He sits fuming in the back of his chauffeur-driven limousine for almost three quarters of an hour. When the car eventually reaches Independencia, he looks up at the billboard, and the blood drains from his face.
Although the woman on the poster has her head turned away from the viewer, her light skin, the soft cataract of honey-and-tobacco-colored curls, and the tiny hummingbird tattoo on her exposed shoulder all suggest very strongly that she is Desmerelda Brabanta. (She is not, of course. She is a model, the hair is a wig, and the tattoo will be easily erased by a dab of Elegante cleanser.) Her right arm and hand cover her breasts. Her left arm is raised and bent so that the forearm rests on her golden head; the hand is clenched into a fist. Thus the viewer’s eyes are drawn to her exposed armpit, the armpit that Otello (standing slightly behind her, leaning down and forward) is, with rapt attention, de-stubbling with a turquoise plastic razor. Both he and the model are wearing only sarongs. Sarongs! Hers is black;
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