“Where’s Mario Testino?” I asked Dimitri, as I peeled off the stockings for the last time. “Mathias said maybe he would be photographing me today?”

Dimitri and the redhead looked at each other and laughed.

“Who you think you are?” the woman said, speaking English for the first time. “’eidi Klum? You think I could get ’eidi Klum for one hundred euros? Bah!” She laughed again, now lighting up a cigarette. With her free hand, she gave Dimitri an envelope, through which I could see several currency notes. He shoved it into his pocket, helped me gather the crumpled heap of clothes on the floor, shook the redhead’s hand again, and escorted me out. She completely ignored me, with not so much as a “merci.”

On the landing outside, Dimitri took out ten euros from the envelope, put it into his wallet, and handed me the rest.

“It is not much, but it is a good start for your new career,” he said. “Maybe next time, I can get you more. But you will be able to see these pictures, and to tell your friends. They are for this company’s catalog on its Web site. It will reach many people, and then we will see what other good jobs will come our way.”

“That’s it?!” Juliette exclaimed when I got home and told her about my afternoon. “So much time and fuss for a hundred euros? I told you not to go with this guy. I told you to hold out for something better.”

“I am new to this,” I said sheepishly. “It is fine as a place to begin.”

“Well I can assure you that when Naomi Campbell was first starting out, she didn’t have to subject herself to such humiliation. Pictures on a Web site for some line of clothing in Sentier that nobody has ever heard of? What was Dimitri thinking? This is your reputation! These are things you can never take back! When you become famous, it will haunt you!”

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” I said.

When Dimitri called the next morning to tell me about another job he had lined up for me, Juliette answered the phone.

“Tanaya is doing no such thing,” she said, resolutely. “I am in the fashion business, and I will not permit her to degrade herself this way. She is too beautiful and unique to end up in the awful ads you are finding for her. If you don’t get her something good soon, I will insist that she terminate her contract with you and find a more superior agency.” With that, I heard Juliette slamming the phone down, and I quietly said farewell to my newfound modeling career.

Dimitri didn’t call for a week after that, and I suspected I would never hear from him again. But then he came by the café, just as I was ringing up a takeaway purchase of an Artois and a goat-cheese salad. I felt embarrassed to see him, a little ashamed of the way Juliette had spoken to him. He was a boss to me, although Juliette wasted no time in telling me that it was, actually, he who worked for me.

“One day,” he said, approaching my little corner of the café, “you will not have to rely on this job anymore. One day, I promise you, you will have enough to buy this place if you wanted.”

“It’s OK, Dimitri,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to make all these promises to me. Unlike you, I don’t expect miracles. I am trying to be happy as I am.”

“Well,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Things are about to change, so prepare yourself.”

If Allah was still a witness to my life, I would say that what happened next was a blessing from him. But given that-if I believed my nana-our Almighty was no longer a part of my existence, I had no choice but to concede that what then transpired was mere coincidence, nothing more than me being in the right place at the right time.

Viva, the clothing line that I had modeled for on my first assignment with Dimitri, was apparently up for sale. Dimitri became more and more excited as he began to tell me the news: that although Viva looked like some slipshod operation, it actually sold millions of dollars’ worth of clothes every year, that it was in all the stores and appealed to ordinary women and was a huge moneymaker. That the red-haired woman with the protruding teeth was actually considered one of the smartest people in the business, pinching pennies wherever she could and selling a fortune in clothes.

A fashion tycoon who was interested in acquiring Viva had gone onto its Web site. And there, just days after I had those photographs taken, were pictures of me, smiling nervously into the camera, wearing those sheer knee-high stockings and flat black shoes.

“It seems that he really liked what he saw,” Dimitri said. “He thought that the quality of the pictures was awful, and the clothes selected could have been better. But he liked the look of you,” Dimitri said quietly, rummaging through his breast pocket for his cigarette case. “If they go ahead and buy Viva, they want to make it a very multicultural label, and he thinks you represent that look well. He called me earlier today. He wants to meet with you tonight.”

Karla loaned me a red dress with a V-neck and a ruffle at the hem, Juliette styled my hair into a loose knot, and Teresa strapped some high-heeled shoes onto my feet. Then the three of them came in a taxi with me to the Hôtel Costes, which they had told me was the trendiest hotel in Paris.

“I can’t believe you are meeting with one of the key people from Groupe Montaigne,” Juliette said knowledge-ably. “They own everything. You know that brand Gilles Montaigne? Well, that was their first. And then came the beauty brand Lulu Cosmetiques and the shoe line Casanova, and a chain of spas around Europe… it is endless. I am surprised they want to buy Viva, but perhaps I shouldn’t be. After all, if it is a moneymaker…” Her voice trailed off as I stopped listening. None of this meant anything to me, and I found it very hard to get excited about something I had no connection with. It was a bunch of names, as foreign-sounding now as they might have been when I first got to Paris. But Juliette had given me her approval and agreed that I could grant Dimitri a second chance.

My roommates waved good-bye to me as I stepped out of the taxi and into the hotel, which I found strangely dark for a place where people went if they wanted to be seen. Dimitri said he would meet me at seven, along with the man who could potentially be my new boss.

Fifteen minutes after the appointed hour, I was still waiting.

I took a table in a corner and asked for a glass of orange juice, as everyone else around me sipped pink liquids and ice-filled golden nectars from V-shaped glasses. Compared to them, dressed in their own clothes, conversing animatedly with one another, perfectly at ease in this world, I felt something of an imposter. I glanced around the room nervously, wishing I had brought something to read, then realized that I would also have required a miniature flashlight had I done so.

Opposite me, I noticed that I was being stared at. A beautiful Asian woman, dressed in black, was drinking champagne, smiling my way. I genially smiled back before reaching for a plate of stuffed olives in front of me.

Twenty-five minutes later, I was still waiting and had decided that I would give them five more minutes and then leave. The Asian woman slowly got up from the couch, straightened her long black dress, and glided over to me.

“Bonsoir,” she said, extending her hand. “Je m’appelle Claudine. Et vous êtes?”

“Sorry, not so good at French,” I said, swallowing a piece of pimento.

“Oh, not a local, then?” she asked in perfect, untainted English. “In that case, my name is Claire. Claudine just sounds better in these parts when you’re dealing with these people. May I sit?”

She slid into the chair next to me and placed her beaded handbag onto the table. In the candlelit darkness of the room, her skin looked incandescent.