We-Write #5
“I said drama, darling, give me drama!” shouted the photographer. His model squinted even more and tilted her head in front of the sheer white backdrop. Alexa watched with hesitant fascination from the catering table. The model had on what looked like an explosion of peacock feathers and six inch stilettos, which made Alexa grateful for her more manageable sandals. It was quite the walk across the studio space from the dressing room, which posed a surprisingly difficult task in the long, fur dress she’d been put in.
“I’d avoid anything with sauce,” advised a model joining her at the table. Alexa had maintained a steady stream of mini-quiches to sate her nerves, and was reaching for the shrimp. “Unless you want to see the bill for that dress, that is.” The girl gestured her long nails to Alexa’s outfit before clawing a nearby strawberry.
“Oh, uh, thank you,” Alexa pulled her hand from the food. “My name’s Alexa, I’m new.”
“I can tell,” the model raised one of her chiseled eyebrows and smiled. “Genevieve. You might have seen me in last month’s Vogue? Page 22.”
“Oh, yeah,” Alexa nodded her head. She didn’t have the courage to confess to not reading it or any fashion magazine, really. She had read that this gig paid better than her usual work for commercials.
“Be the peacock! You are a beautiful bird, now fly!” The photographer was now flapping his arms between shots, his calls echoing through the studio. The avian model still looked intensely blasé in expression.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Alexa ventured. Genevieve flipped her hair over her shoulder and looked into Alexa’s eyes.
“Shoot.”
“How is it over here? I’ve only been in several commercials and my agent said this would be a step up for me.”
Genevieve slightly nodded several times with the visible appreciation of the situation.
“Well, I don’t want to scare you, girl, but at the same time, I don’t want you to build air castles in your head about this industry. Agencies do not have model’s best interest in heart cuz if they did they probably wouldn’t make as much money. As for the job itself - there is nothing comfortable about multiple people touching your face and your body all day long. I remember one show where I had to walk some sort of tight braid, like cornrows, and I almost cried cuz for two hours that man was pulling my hair. When a photographer comes to you and moves you around like you are a manikin, picks up your arm and positions it,” Genevieve flapped with her palms mocking the photographer’s attempt to portray a flying bird ” when they move your hands, shoulders, your chin, it feels incredibly insulting, especially if you are nude.” She winked at Alexa, and shuddered: “just don’t touch me!”
“Peacock! Where is peacock?” the photographer tone was irritant, “Ah, she’s at the table again. You should be flying; flying, my dear, and I see you pecking all the time like some chicken.”
Genevieve immediately changed her expression to a mysterious and impenetrable.
“More flair, more fantasy, sweetheart! You are a beautiful bird. You are flying.” He waved his hands again imitating the movement that he envisioned in his mind.
‘Peacocks don’t fly’ Alexa thought and placed her left hand on her mouth to suppress a giggle.
When Genevieve came to the catering table after this take, she rolled her eyes, but in a conspiratorial way, so only Alexa could see it.
“A lot of male photographers ascend in their careers caz they are charming and good looking and so… enduring a conversation with them often is uncomfortable because of a lot of flirtation that is going on but also sort of like diminishment. And it’s extremely challenging to live in that environment when you supposed to be accommodating, placating, pleasing to idiots who are just chipping away at what you might value about yourself”.
Alexa and Genevieve now looked at another girl at the backdrop. She was in a costume of a snake and the photographer coached her as to what she was supposed to do, think and express.
“I was at this one shoot” Genevieve continued, “and this guy came over to me to kind of rearrange my hair or something, and tried to kiss me. I pushed him off and said “What are you doing? This is not ok with me” Of course, my heart was racing. And I am thinking “How can I get out of there?” And I did. I grabbed the robe, walked out, put my clothes on and was thinking, “Did I do something to provoke this? Did I do something for him to think that it was ok?” ”
Genevieve lowered her head and looked Alexa straight in the eyes. Now, she didn’t look mysterious or impenetrable, but deeply troubled.
“And you know what the most troubling thing about our profession is?”
Alexa wrinkled her forehead waved off the lock of hair from her forehead
“Dieting?”
“That’s indeed tough. Sometimes I don’t eat or drink for twelve hours before the shoot, but I didn’t mean that. That is bearable. Dieting, exercising…What do you for exercise?”
“Kickboxing” Alexa placed her hands in the punching position.
“I am running, rollerblading and do some weight training. That’s also tough, but I didn’t mean that”.
Alexa didn’t respond and only continued looking at Genevieve inquisitively
“You know, It’s easy to fake happiness. Lighting is on, the camera is on and you look like the happiest person on earth. You can lie to the World, but you cannot lie to yourself. At the end of the day, you have to see reality. When you come home, you realize that something weird is happening in your heart. It’s a sense of emptiness. It’s a sense of “I don’t know what I am doing?” You have fame and money, and you even mingle with celebrities, and yet you are not happy. Something happens in your heart – a sense of emptiness. You are trying to fill this void with lots of other things. You go shopping, you are excited, you bring home the bags, but you look at what you have bought, it’s just stuff and the feeling is coming back. You go party, and you travel, and your family is happy caz you send them money. And you still cannot fill this emptiness. It makes you feel weird. Like a void in the heart, it’s stabbing, it hurts. But you cannot explain it because life is good. People say you are lucky. And yet, why am I not happy?”
The girl in s snake costume coiled hissed and tried to look mesmerizing into the camera. “Just look at her” Genevieve smirked and continued…
“And you asked yourself – those pictures in magazines…is that why people ruin their life? They have everything and yet they do crazy things. Trying to cope with life, but are miserable inside. Because see, people see it as a big accomplishment and in a way, it is, caz you need to get there, on top. But once you're there all you do is stand in front of the camera against the white backdrop and grimacing in front of the photographer.” She went silent for a while looking for words.
“Like if you compare us to actors. What they do is hard. They have to memorize the role, and then they have to be someone else, to feel someone else’s pain, anger, frustration, angst, happiness… But then when they are done, when they can see the results of their work, they have a feeling of an accomplishment, while we are… we have nothing. To be a model you just need to be born in a certain way, be of a certain height, of a certain bone structure, and to have symmetry in your features. That isn’t an accomplishment.”
“Hey…Where is our fox?” the photographer looked around until he crossed the eyes with Alexa as she steered up to meet his gaze. “Come here, beautiful!”
Alexa stepped to the white backdrop.
“Ok, you are a fox, you are beautiful, sexy, but you have a wild side about you. You are a dangerous carnivore. Show your claws, growl at me, growl…”
“Sir” Alexa was a little perplexed, “foxes don’t growl, they are not dogs.”
“Everybody, attention!” the photographer forcibly laughed, “we have a zoologist here…” then, addressing to Alexa he said irritatingly, «who gives a …” but at this juncture he stopped what was rolling off his lips and said instead “we live here in a fairytale, my dear, fairytale! Here peacocks fly, foxes growl, and elephants flap their ears, ok?” he clapped his hands several times “ok, concentrate, my dear, concentrate. Stretch your imagination. You are inside a fairytale. Everything is possible! You are beautiful, you are foxy, you are dangerous. Show your claws! More drama, more drama...” and as Alexa obliged, the photographer exclaimed “Excellent! That’s what I am talking about!”
“You go girl!” whispered Genevieve and shook her head several times up and down.
