Sabina wrinkled her nose at Cliff.
“None of us are famous,” said Lucky. “Anyway, back to the story. The night before the shoot, I go to bed early, determined to wake up on time. But I was living in a model apartment in Shibuya that was pretty much one degree removed from a brothel. So I’m lying there in bed, trying to be good, when a troop of girls storm in and are, like, ‘There’s an opening ceremony party in Harajuku, that crazy hot actor who played the cowboy astronaut whatever in last year’s Oscar winner is there, one of us has to fuck him, put your shoes on, we’re going out.’ And, I don’t know, I have no willpower, so I go, I swear to God, to have only one drink.”
Lucky paused to down the remainder of her beer, then turned to signal the server to bring another.
“So what happened?” asked Cliff. “Please tell me you got fired.”
Lucky emitted a satisfied burp, then grinned.
“Worse. I party all night—”
“And the actor?” asked Sabina.
“Snapped up by a Russian.”
Sabina sniffed.
“Typical.”
“I wake up the next morning and, of course, I have missed the call time by an hour. Have you ever overslept for a job?”
“I almost missed my SATs because my mom didn’t wake me up in time,” said Riley seriously.
Lucky nodded.
“Then you know the feeling.”
She decided to leave out the fact she was also coming down off a combination of ecstasy, angel dust, and cocaine, all of which were notoriously hard to procure in Japan. Of course, Lucky, who was like a truffle pig for party drugs, had managed it.
“My agent had already called me like fifteen times by the time I woke up,” she continued. “I call her back and she’s demanding to know where I am, why I didn’t answer. In a flash, I tell her I’ve woken up with conjunctivitis. I didn’t answer the phone because I couldn’t see anything. Idiotic, I know, but I wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.”
Cliff scoffed.
“Did she believe you?”
“Of course not. She told me I needed to get a letter from a doctor confirming I had an infection or the agency would drop me, and I’d have to go back to New York. I mean, fuck that! But, yeah, I was panicking. I decided there is only one thing to do: give myself conjunctivitis, then go see the doctor.”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Sabina. “What is this conjunctivitis? You get it from sex?”
Riley, who had been taking a sip of his drink, quietly choked.
“Only if the guy misses,” said Cliff.
Lucky swatted him across the table and tapped her eyes to show Sabina what she meant.
“Ah, conjonctivite!” said Sabina. “Je comprends.”
“You couldn’t make that leap?” said Cliff. “They’re like the same word.”
“Shhh,” said Sabina. “Stop flirting with me.”
“So,” Lucky said, “my plan was to touch every dirty thing I could see and then touch my eye. Of course, since Tokyo is notoriously clean, this was no easy feat. Luckily, I was living with twelve absolutely disgusting models. The greasy kitchen counter? Great. The toilet seat? Perfect! One of their ugly tiny dogs’ butts? Okay, let me give it a pat.”
“Gross!” yelled Riley, clearly delighted.
“I get to the doctor and my eyes are, as you can imagine, pretty red from all this activity. The doctor barely even looks at me. ‘What do you need?’ I tell him I need a note for my job. He hands me a slip of paper and I’m on my way. So easy. I call my agent to tell her I have the note. ‘That’s great,’ she says. ‘But I always knew you were lying so I told the client you were traveling and your flight got delayed. They said you can come in tomorrow.’ So, a happy ending, right? That night I go to bed on time. I wake up bright and early and…I have an eye infection.”
“Mais non!” squealed Sabina.
“Mais oui, motherfucker!” yelled Lucky.
A table of two middle-aged Frenchwomen looked over at her and frowned. Lucky waved at them cheerily.
“So basically,” said Cliff, “you’re fucked.”
“Exactly. My eyes are totally red and swollen. I miss the shoot. I lose the client.”
“Did your agency drop you?” asked Riley.
“Almost.” Lucky nodded. “They put me on probation. But a few weeks later, I ran into the editor of Vogue Japan at a party. You know he has the best sense of humor, so I told him the story. He loved it so much he ended up booking me a few weeks later. It kind of launched my editorial career.”
“You’re fucking lucky,” said Cliff, shaking his head.
“Lucky’s like a cat,” said Sabina. “She has nine lives.”
“Your parents obviously knew what they were doing when they named you,” said Riley.
“My parents didn’t know shit,” said Lucky and lit another cigarette. “Still don’t.”
