When a struggling Broadway talent agent reluctantly agrees to represent a male stripper, she finds out there's more to her new client than oiled abs.
Season 1 of Strip in the City
***
Today might be the worst day of my life. I just lost my biggest c...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Hoda's photography studio was a second-floor apartment above a French brassiere restaurant off Broadway and Spring Street. Because of its unique location, her place always smelled like lunch and made me hungry for steak frites.
My stomach growled enviously as I approached the fashionably old building.
The studio doubled as a home for Hoda and her sister Sami, who was also a photographer. We'd met during our years at Columbia and became fast friends. For whatever reason, Sami and Hoda hadn't become part of my best friend crew with DeShauna and Tanushree. I think it was because they had each other, while the three of us were kinda on our own.
Hoda and Sami were both laid back and chill yet incredibly hard-working and gifted behind a camera. Now, their grid was full of viral content.
It was something we currently had in common.
I made my way up a refurbished exterior fire escape staircase that now served as the entrance to their apartment. Hoda greeted me with arms wide open and wrapped me in a rib-crushing hug.
"Maren! What the fuck is up? I've missed your ass!" Each word punctuated with a sway left and right.
"Come on, Hoda. I'm sure you've seen my ass all over social media," I joked, but I knew she heard the bitterness that bled into my tone.
Hoda let me go, readjusting her short, pixie-cut black hair underneath a gray beanie. "Dude, I wish you would've called me that night! We could've taken some amazing fucking pictures of you in that white dress. All soaking wet. Hair dripping everywhere."
She paused, toying with the gold hoop in her septum before pretending to frame a shot of me. I'd give anything to be as effortlessly cool as Hoda. "In the right light, you would've looked like a goddess. Then we coulda dropped that on the Gram."
My cheeks heated with embarrassment, and I shook my head. "Goddess? No. I don't think so. Have you started day drinking?"
"Come on, Mare! Admit it! It was hot!"
Hot? No. I certainly hadn't felt hot. Just remembering that night made me cringe. The panic of falling into the water. The way no one helped me except a total stranger who carried me across the pool deck dripping wet. "I looked like a see-through version of Lady Liberty."
Hoda set a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Maren, one day you're gonna wake up and realize you're the whole package trying to sell yourself as half a bushel." She gave me a thoughtful look before waving me in. "Now get your hot ass inside."
I laughed at her compliment as I looked around the apartment. The living room was nothing but artificial lighting and stacks of backdrop canvases. No couch. No chairs. Just photography equipment. Every horizontal surface littered with pictures and photo albums and magazines. Framed art covered the walls, along with old-fashioned cameras hanging on hooks from colorful straps.
