We were looking over hi-fi components when we first saw her. She belonged there amongst those binaural amplifiers and expensive tuners, for the fidelity of her own components was high enough to truly soothe our savage breast. We wanted to walk up and talk, but thought better of it. After some chit chat with a salesman, she wandered out and across the street to a soda fountain and we, naturally enough, followed. She noticed us there, which isn't too surprising since we sat on the stool right next to her and kept asking her to pass napkins, straws and such. She asked about the Leica M-3 hanging from our shoulder. What kind of camera was it, she wanted to know, and were we a photographer?
This delightful opening led to the kind of badinage you'd expect from an old veteran like ourselves: Well ... I ... uh, yes, uh...
We asked her if she was a model. She wasn't, though she had posed for a pinup picture once for the college humor magazine Flatiron, when she was a student at the University of Colorado. We remembered reading about the Colorado Flatiron a year or so ago in Life--the faculty had raised a rumpus about them printing cheesecake pictures of the coeds.
We mentioned Playboy and she said she'd never seen the magazine. We told her it was a new entertainment magazine for the sophisticated, urban man and we just happened to have a copy with us (never go anywhere without it). We asked her if she would mind our taking some photographs of her. She said she wouldn't mind at all, and we suggested we tag along and shoot whatever looked good to us.
At the record shop, we discovered a mutual interest in show music. By the time we got to the art gallery (where she had to pick up a print she'd had framed), we were discussing posing for the front cover of Playboy. The purchase of a sweater in a small woman's shop provided a chance to praise her figure and we somehow maneuvered the talk around to Playboy's Playmate of the Month.
Oh, she could never do that, she said, and besides, she'd already explained she wasn't a model. We told her that several of the most recent Playmates weren't professional posers: Miss September was a dance instructor and Miss July worked in our own subscription department. We rather preferred their untrained freshness. It was all very innocent and she would be the pin-up queen of not just Colorado, but every college campus in the country.
It would be fun, she admitted, but she couldn't, really, she couldn't...
