Chapter 76

Leslie Galvin, aka Cassie Charms, pulled up to the small shopping center in a green convertible sports car. Adam immediately understood what Sean had meant about just wanting to put her in your pocket. She was tiny, smaller than Allie even, with blonde hair pulled into a ponytail that was threaded through the opening of a pink L.A. Dodgers hat.

She wore a green T-shirt and khaki shorts that fit her well but not snugly. She had a natural all-over tan and wore a half-smile on her face when she popped out of the car without opening the door.

All in all, she was adorable. She saw the group of five people standing beside Adam's sedan and greeted them with a genuine full-watt grin.

"Whoa," she said with an accent that suggested she came from somewhere South and not Southern California. "You are a big 'un."

She glanced from Adam to Allie and Shelly and, if anything, her smile became wider.

"I bet you two just love to climb on this one like he's a jungle gym!" she said with a laugh. Adam had heard the laugh before, during their phone conversations. It sounded like it came from a much larger person than the diminutive Leslie Galvin.

Allie and Shelly returned the smile – and the authenticity.

"It is my favorite thing," Allie said. "I go up one side and down the other. He's got some real interesting hand holds."

Leslie laughed again and shook hands with Sarah and Karlie before turning to face Shelly.

"Hi, ya," she said. "How'd you do on the mid-term?"

"OK," Shelly answered. Leslie was eminently likeable. From what Adam had heard, she was arrogant and narcissistic. He detected none of that during their business chat and he noticed nothing of the sort in person. Then he remembered that his reputation was probably worded identically.

"Do you folks want to grab something to eat before we run off to play games?" Leslie wondered. She was greeted by quick nods from Allie, Sarah and Karlie so the group hit a chain restaurant before heading further into the valley to find entertainment. Allie rode with Leslie in her car for the five-minute trek.

"We've lost her," Sarah lamented dramatically, when the other four followed Leslie out of the lot.

"She's just happy she found someone who looks up to her," Karlie cracked. "I think Allie is a good inch taller than Leslie."

The group was still making short jokes – at the absent Allie's expense – when they pulled into another parking lot and pulled up beside the convertible.

"I'm going to get a car like this!" Allie declared. The car was small – like Allie (and like Leslie) – and it was cute – like Allie (and like Leslie). Adam could see Allie tooling around L.A. in one.

"Not dark green though," he said. "You need another color."

"It's forest green!" Sarah rejoined.

"Actually, according to the dealer, it's British Racing Green," Leslie corrected.

"I was thinking hunter green," Shelly offered.

All eyes turned to Karlie for her opinion.

"I'm a simple girl," Karlie said. "Green works for me."

Adam smiled at her and gave her a wink. Karlie had been quiet most of the day. He understood she was reflecting on her situation and where she fit in. He worried that Leslie's ebullient personality might lead her to become even less talkative.

When the group was seated, Leslie ordered enough food to feed a small nation. She ordered a wing sampler, a plate of nachos with guacamole and baked potato skins – before she ordered a fajita platter for her main course.

"I'm a growing girl," she said with a shrug.

"Outward not upward," Adam said before he could stop himself. Again, it was a reply that he had heard from his mother any number of times during his youth. He caught himself quickly. "Sorry."

Leslie just laughed.

"I work it off," she said. "But if my metabolism ever slows down, I'll be as big around as I am tall. I'll be like those old toys, you know, the Weebles. I'll wobble but I won't fall down."

Only Adam had even the slightest hint of what she was talking about, so between the two of them, they explained the joke.

"Where are you from?" Sarah wondered.

"What, no guesses?" Leslie asked. The girl had smiled for the past 20 minutes and Adam was certain her jaw muscles had to be getting tired.

"I was thinking Texas," Shelly said. "You know, in three months of sitting near you, this is the first time I've heard you speak more than two or three words."

Leslie chuckled.

"In that class, no one gets a chance to speak but Hippie Chick and Dread Locks," she said. "I swear, those two are absolutely in love with the sound of their own voice. They talk continually and never say a thing."

Shelly pursed her lips and nodded sadly.

"Another friend of mine said he thought he had an Econ class with you last semester," Adam told her. He hoped she wouldn't react badly to the news. "He said the same thing. You just went about your business and didn't talk to anyone. He said he sat behind you and he couldn't remember even saying hi to you."

Leslie's eyes narrowed slightly but her smile wavered only a little.

"He's a really sweet guy," Sarah put in. "I mean super sweet. All of Adam's friends are really supportive of us. They treat us, well, they treats us like human beings. They don't look down on us. They accept us as who we are. It's really nice because they've become our friends, too."

Allie nodded and Adam felt a little more pride in his friends. He had been extremely proud of how the group had reacted to Allie and Sarah. But to hear confirmation made him happy.

"He sat behind me?" Leslie said, narrowing her eyes in thought. "Prep School. Clean cut guy, always dresses out of J. Crew?"

"That's him." Shelly confirmed. "His name is Sean. He was Adam's roommate until we stole Adam for our own."

"He seemed cool," Leslie said, nodding. "He would smile and nod to me from time to time. I didn't get the impression he was, you know, looking to score with me or trying to get me to perform for his buddies."

"He said he wanted to put you in his pocket and carry you home," Adam said before he realized just how creepy that sounded. "I mean, you know, in a nice way. He said the same thing about Allie. He said you were just so cute and all."

Adam realized he was talking too fast, trying to cover his gaffe. The girls just laughed at him.

"I didn't get the impression that he wanted to store me in the dungeon or anything," Leslie answered, her eyes glinted with amusement. Guys like Adam were always so sure of themselves. It was endearing to see him flustered, to watch him backtrack once he realized what he said might be misconstrued.

"He might have meant that," Sarah offered. "Sean has a wild streak, I think, just dying to get loose. His girlfriend is the same way."

She proceeded to tell Leslie about the pool antics the preceding week.

"I have one of those!" Leslie said, talking about the Wally Walrus suits. "So does Bec – Rebecca, I mean. She doesn't like it when I shorten her name. The same guy sent them to us at our modeling site, hoping we'd do a custom shoot for him."

"A custom shoot?" Adam asked.

"Do a nude shoot for him," Leslie clarified. "I was like 16 at the time. I kept the suit and passed on the shoot. Rebecca did the same. They're a little out of date but they are still really hot. Mine is white. Rebecca's is tan."

"Looks like we only need to pick up two more for our next pool outing," Allie said. "Neither Karlie nor Trinity has one yet. We'll rectify that. You should have seen the guys' faces. And not just our guys, either."

"I think every guy within five miles had his babe radar go off at once," Adam told them. "There was probably a pile up on the freeway because every man from 10 to 90 lost concentration at once."

Adam noticed the girls sitting up a little straighter. It was nice to know they still appreciated his compliments.

"How did you, you know, get started in modeling?" Karlie asked.

Leslie shrugged slightly.

"You know, I'm not really certain," she admitted. "I was always in pageants and stuff when I was little. I did some photo work for one of the department stores in Knoxville. That's where I'm from, by the way. I lived about halfway between Knoxville and the North Carolina border. Are you folks familiar with that area?"

"Allie is the only Easterner," Adam replied for the group. "She is from Vermont. Karlie is from Wisconsin. Shelly is from not far from here. Sarah is from Washington State and I'm from Missouri."

"Southern Missouri, I'll bet," Leslie said. "I can hear just a teeny bit of twang in your speech. Just the way you say certain things – like Washington State."

Adam nodded.

"Well, anyway, I did some print work for a newspaper in Knoxville," Leslie said, returning to her story. "When I was about 10 or 11, I had a personal web site. I would post some pictures of me. It wasn't like FaceChat or anything. It was just a run-of-the-mill site from one of those places that gave you free space. I was getting six or seven hundred hits there a month. So I posted a whole series of photos modeling some clothes I got for my birthday. I got so many hits that the company booted my site. I was using too much of their bandwidth.

"So I started my own site. For the first year or two, my Mom or Dad took all the pictures. It wasn't anything dirty. It was just me in everyday clothes, you know. I wouldn't parade around in my underwear or anything like that. I would wear jeans and a T-shirt. There were a bunch of girls in our area doing the same sort of thing. A guy contacted my Dad and asked to buy the web site and its content from us. He wanted me to join a group of girls he already was taking pictures of. I thought about it and we agreed. We weren't really set up for professional photography. I really thought, like a bunch of people, that I would go straight from that to the runways in Paris by the time I was 14."

Adam had heard the same story from Mary about some of the other sites she'd shown him.

"It wasn't like that," Leslie continued. "First off, I'm a little on the petite side. Runway models are all like six feet tall and all legs. As the group of us got older, most of the girls realized it wasn't going to lead to anything so they moved on to normal lives. Not me, though. Honestly, my family was making a lot of money from it. I don't mean live in a mansion in Beverly Hills money but it sure helped out. My Mom and Dad both work. I have a sister who is younger than me and a brother who is two years older. Money was always a little slim at the Galvin household unless Dad or Mom got some overtime. Dad works at a lumber mill. Mom answers phones at a radio station nearby. Neither of them was rolling in the dough.

"When I was almost 16, things turned a little bit. The web site I was on closed. The guy who took the photos was being investigated for child exploitation. If he was doing that, I never saw it. He never behaved inappropriately around me or with anyone else when I was there. Well, he finally had enough and just dropped it. I was ready to go back to hosting my own site when another group contacted us to move to their site. I really wanted to do it. I was stupid enough to think it would lead to something bigger, you know, TV spots or something. We signed a contract with them. We didn't have a contract with anyone else and we should have been leery. But we looked at the contract as a safety net for us, not for them. I went from doing shoots in a one-piece bathing suit about three times a year to being in a thong bikini every other shoot.

"From there, it was a natural progression. The thong sets sold really well and I got a bigger cut of the downloads from the new group so I wasn't complaining. I wore bikinis at the pool so it didn't make much different. The photographer really didn't shoot pictures of my butt or anything. He didn't try to grope me or even really make me feel uncomfortable. The last year I was on the site was almost exclusively bra and panties. It didn't matter what I started out wearing, the last 40 shots were of me in a lacy bra and thin panties. But, like before, the money was even better so I went along with it. It was harmless. The site got a new photographer. My contract ended a few months before my 18th birthday. I had finally figured out I wasn't going to see Milan. But I thought I might be able to come out to L.A. and get some jobs.

"When my contract ended, the photographer and I started to date. He was 10 years older than me and my parents weren't real happy. But I was almost 18 so there wasn't much they could do about it. We drove out here the day I turned 18. On the drive, Terry, my boyfriend-slash-manager talked me into doing a single video. I thought it was just going to be topless modeling. Of course, he wanted to star in the video with me. It turns out that wasn't possible. Once he got on the other side of the lights, he couldn't, uh, perform."

"Limp as a noodle?" Shelly asked.

Leslie smiled again.

"Limper," she said. "Try a wet dishrag. Our first attempt failed miserably. But, OK, I'll admit it. I was intrigued. I loved the attention. I mean, I absolutely loved the limelight. I always have. So I wanted to do it anyway. I mean, Terry really couldn't complain. We had talked about how if we got into the business we'd have to work with others and so forth. I'm sure this group has had the same conversation.