Lissa

Saturday, July 30 (After Chapter 4 of Triptych)

LISSA: Guess it's my turn to face the music.

aroslav: Come in Miss Grant. Thank you for agreeing to talk to me.

LISSA: Is this about a job?

aroslav: No. We'd just like to know a little more about you.

LISSA: I don't do modeling anymore if that's what you're hoping. Either fashion or art. Well, mostly...

aroslav: Hmm?

LISSA: I still model for Tony. And Melody. And Kate. But those are private sessions. I won't be modeling for classes anymore. That served its purpose.

aroslav: What was its purpose.

LISSA: [giggles] To get a certain someone to notice me as more than a competitor.

aroslav: That seems to have worked.

LISSA: I like the results.

aroslav: Could we start with some of the basic statistical information?

LISSA: 5'10". 34C-23-34. 125 pounds. Blonde hair, blue eyes.

aroslav: Thank you, but I was going to ask your full name, age, and birthday.

LISSA: That's a new one. 27 on August 2nd.

aroslav: That's just a couple days. Happy birthday.

LISSA: Thank you.

aroslav: Full name.

LISSA: I haven't used it in years.

aroslav: Just for the record.

LISSA: Allison Steele Grant.

aroslav: Your name is Allison?

LISSA: I shortened it to Lissa when I started modeling at age 12.

aroslav: Does that create any challenges with being confused with another certain Allison that we know?

LISSA: I've never shared my full name with either Tony or Melody, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't either. The only time I was ever worried was when Tony and Allison were alone together. I was afraid he might call her Lissa and I'd have had trouble with that. But he tagged her with the nickname Ally and that's so different from who I see myself as that it helped separate us. But it is kind of funny that we have the same name, we're close to the same size, but she's got bigger boobs, and I'm told she kisses a lot like me. If that's true, I guess I'm pretty good.

aroslav: Tell me about your parents.

LISSA: Alice Steele and Damon Grant. Sadly, I have only a few clear memories of them. They were good to me. I felt loved. I still get sad sometimes, but Jane and Jack stepped in and were so kind to me that they ... well, Jack, really ... were an instant replacement.

aroslav: What happened?

LISSA: A drunk driver entered the freeway the wrong way on an exit ramp. My parents happened to be in the first car he came to. Then about a year later, Aunt Jane got uterine cancer and died. It was so fast neither Jack nor I had a chance to adjust from one to the other. Suddenly Jack was everything to me.

aroslav: Jack is quite a bit older than you are. How did he move from being your guardian to being your husband?

LISSA: He's 32 years older than me and I didn't and still don't care. He and Aunt Jane never had children. Well, we found out later why she couldn't. Her ovaries were non-functioning long before they discovered the cancer. But she and Jack were my legal guardians. We talked about whether I wanted them to adopt me, but we all thought it was too soon after mother and father passed away. Then Jane was gone and there was never a question about Jack being able to adopt me. He continued as my guardian and also as my agent.

Jack worked in the industry as a representative for a long time and got me my first modeling job while my parents were still alive. He was very protective. My mother, he says, sat him down before that first gig and told him that she held him personally responsible for my safety and if anything ever happened to me she would hunt him down and eviscerate him. I looked the word up when I was 15 and Jack first told me about it. My mother was very protective.

aroslav: So in addition to having guardianship, he was also your agent?

LISSA: I don't think he ever collected a fee on my work, though. He insisted on giving me a financial report of my net worth every six months with an accounting of our travel expenses and living expenses. He had half a dozen other models that he rep'ed over the years and a couple of them were in far more demand than I was. I had a pretty good nest-egg when I retired.

aroslav: So how did it happen that he progressed from the agent-guardian relationship to husband.

LISSA: We were traveling nine or ten months a year—living out of hotel rooms and makeup trailers. Jack hated to go back to his house in Seattle after Jane was gone. Usually, he tried to arrange two rooms with a connecting door. He said I was a young lady and needed my privacy. But he always kept his side of the connecting door unlocked in case of emergency. I kept my side unlocked, too, but he never once came through that door.

I developed all the usual hormones and there were a lot of opportunities for short-term relationships to develop. It's not that unusual for models to develop an attraction to another model. We spend half our time getting dressed and undressed in front of each other on sets. There's not much modesty backstage at a runway show. I had a couple of affairs with girls when I was 17 and then was afraid that I was turning into a lesbian. In spite of all the information available, and even Jack's assurances that it was natural to be attracted to such beautiful people and for them to be attracted to me, I set out to prove I wasn't a lesbian.

After I turned 18, I started going through the door between our rooms. Jack was reluctant, but not to the point of pushing me away. I was 18, beautiful, and willing. No, actually, I was more than willing. I let my love for him change, and by Christmas that year, we were only booking one room when we traveled. We were in Paris a year later when I told Jack I was pregnant. Marriage in France requires residency for at least 40 days, so we rented a cottage at Deauville and proceeded to get all our papers in order. We were married on the Ides of March by the mayor, who as far as I can tell has no other duties. Jack insisted on a prenuptial agreement that kept my trust separate from our joint estate. Damon was born in July and has dual citizenship. We returned to the U.S. in the fall and I started taking classes. I still did an occasional local modeling job, but I lost interest in it pretty quickly. It was too hard with a child and school.

aroslav: Did you complete your degree?

LISSA: I got an associates' degree in Fashion Merchandising just after Drew was born. I'd already been working part-time for Forever Lilly, and they made me a buyer after I started full-time.

aroslav: When did you become involved in racquetball?

LISSA: When I was trying to get my figure back after Damon was born. Jack insisted. He said that I would regret it if I didn't lose the birth weight because I'd grown to identify so strongly with my body image as a model. I did the usual workouts at a gym and even had a trainer, but they were boring. So I asked what I could do that was fun. My trainer suggested tennis, but I found that too slow. Racquetball, though, is so much faster. It's exciting. I got pretty good at it. I started competing three years ago.