On Monday evening, Sven and I saw this black bus parked at Great Pond and thought nothing of it. I remember saying to myself, what a huge camping car! Who needs such a huge camping car? Tuesday afternoon, I got my answer. I spotted the bus again, only this time at the marina. I had journeyed down for fish at Mac’s Seafood
and noticed there was something unusual going on at the pier. A man with a professional camera stood on the roof of a white van. Whatever was happening had attracted quite a few middle-aged tourists, overweight for the most part, some holding ice cream cones. People who were obviously not tourists, nor residents, milled about, acting important. The young men all seemed to have cameras around their necks. Half a dozen teenagers sat on one side of the pier, like ballplayers in a bullpen, only ballplayers don't look so extremely bored. “What’s going on?” I asked a twenty-something Asian-American.
“We’re shooting an advertisement for Gant,” he responded.
I looked at what the man on the van was busy photographing and saw four more teenagers sprawled on the pier below. I have never seen anyone choose to lie on the Wellfleet pier.
It’s not really very clean. The pose didn’t look comfortable, but I guess models are willing to do whatever they're told. When one of the men in charge started waving his arms, the teenagers broke into smiles and began to emote. “Pernilla! We need Pernilla!” someone shouted all of a sudden.
An undernourished girl with blond hair left the bullpen and walked purposely over to pinch-hit. Nearby stood a woman who looked like a salesperson, since she held half a dozen shirts on hangars in one hand. A male model came over to remove an argyle sweater and don a fancy striped shirt.
I watched a while longer but, to be honest, nothing much was happening, so I proceeded
into Mac’s. Sam Bradford was busy weighing lobsters. I waited as he finalized an order for two customers. They spent $127 on seafood, so Sam threw in a loaf of bread for free. I asked about the photo shoot.“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Is that what they were doing!? They spent $400 bucks on lunch We thought they were a Swedish rock band.”
Just another day in Wellfleet ….
