Rules don’t apply to some people. They’re licensed from birth for a lifetime of recklessness and cruelty. We have no ability to distinguish them from the rest of us, so we’re unwittingly pulled into the orbit of their chaos. They’re beautiful, intelligent, charismatic. We invite them to our parties. We share with them our deepest, most intimate secrets. We let them sleep next to us. And we only begin to suspect they are capable of treachery when we wake up alone, with knives in our backs.
Police station interrogation rooms are brighter in real life than they’re portrayed on television. And they keep them cold enough to chill you to the bone. When the shaking starts, you don’t really know if it’s from the cold, or from the realization that you’re trapped in a room with a two-way mirror for an indefinite period of time. You’re isolated from the world because you’re presumed dangerous. You’re presumed guilty. Until proven otherwise.
I look guilty. I’m acting guilty. I’ve already smoked three-quarters of Simon’s pack of cigarettes. They let me keep those until they brought me in here. They took my jacket. My hands rub the goose bumps that cover my arms, which are crossed in front of my chest to conceal parts of me I don’t want to be seen by pairs of eyes behind that mirror.
Even after all of the debauchees I’ve had to undress in front of, I’d like to believe I can at least attempt autonomous decency.
But changing in front of strangers never bothered Ariela. Even when those strangers carried cameras.
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The biggest show I’d ever booked — Spring in Milan — was almost as crowded backstage as it was in the front.
Flash, flash, flash.
I’d just slipped out of my dress and fumbled for the next hanger. My seconds were more precious than my modesty in that instant. And one of the photographers took advantage of that.
“Hey,” I said, covering myself as quickly as I could. “Are you kidding? I’m changing! Leave me alone.”
“You’ll thank me,” he said, “when you have the privilege of working with me someday.”
He was old enough to be my grandfather and his eyes were beady – the kind of eyes that have seen too much of the world.
Angry tears began to well up in my own eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I was humiliated enough already.
Ariela appeared from behind the wings, nonchalantly making her way to where her next ensemble hung. Her gait was calm, effortless… as if we weren’t in an overcrowded area with techno music pounding against our bodies.
The photographer turned his attention to her as she slipped out of the gown she wore.
“PAPARAZZI,” I yelled.
But she couldn’t hear me.
His camera just kept flashing.
Ariela didn’t even flinch.
An assistant came to make final adjustments to my top, frowning.
“You’re much flatter than you were at the fitting,” she said. “But I guess there’s no time to fix that now, is there?”
With that, she waved me on to my place in the wings.
Ariela listened sympathetically as I recounted the experience in our hotel room later that night.
“I’ve never felt so violated,” I said.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” she said. “Things are a little different in Europe. Didn’t Richard tell you that?”
“No,” I said, “he didn’t.”
Richard, my agent, had never been one to indulge me with full disclosure. His half-truths expanded beyond more than just my age, but it took me a while to realize that.
Something occurred suddenly to Ariela and that million-watt smile spread across her face.
“There are a thousand girls who would kill us for this job, ” she said. “I’d rather have creepers snap naked pics of me and stay alive. Know what I mean?”
I nodded, thinking of the girls back home. A few close friends called me occasionally, when they saw one of my ad campaigns in a magazine or online. They used words like “envy” and “jealousy.” But between those phone calls, they did normal things. They ate full meals. They got enough sleep. They studied for exams. They wrote papers. They applied to universities.
My picture reminded them of a life they’d never have – a life that somehow seemed more glamorous than theirs.
But they didn’t know anything about my life. They thought the face of the girl who appeared in those ads belonged to me. They thought the body that strutted international catwalks belonged to me.
The truth is that everything I wore, everything I ate, everything I touched belonged to a brand, an agency, a consumer.
So, in retrospect, I guess I really didn’t have the right to be upset when a stranger took photos of me. I ceased to own my image the day I signed my first contract.
I never saw that photographer again. Ariela told me a year or two later that she thought he’d been busted for child pornography. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But I do know that he leaked a few of those pictures of me onto the Internet. Richard told me he had tried (unsuccessfully) as hard as he could to get them removed. – © 2015-2021 Portia July
To Be Continued…
Portia July 