Caro rushes over to check on me and the equipment, but I'm already on my feet, murmuring a jumble of words that hopefully amount to an apology. It is possible I'm still whispering that I am sorry by the time I am in the car, by the time I am fumbling my key in the door of my home, by the time I am pouring a chilled glass of Sancerre to wash it all away, by the time I am no longer sure what I am apologizing for or to whom.
I take a breath because that's what you're supposed to do in moments like these, take a breath like I am performing Woman Who Must Recenter Herself After Freaking Out In Public. The role of a lifetime. One breath, then another, and then I take a photo of the invitation and text it to my friend Bernice. Bernice who lives in New York, where it is already 9:00 p.m. Bernice who is so busy that our phone dates require planning and a spot on her calendar so her assistant does not accidentally book over them. Bernice whose name lights up my phone ninety seconds later.
"What are you going to do?" she asks. No time for greetings.
I tell her I don't know. It's in September.
"That's barely enough time to get work done!"
My laugh comes out in a dry bark. But this is why I adore Bernice—she understands where my mind goes first, even if it's not the most flattering place, because her mind has been molded in the same way: around our appearance.
"Well," she says. "You don't have to decide right now."
We both know, though, that the deciding isn't the only problem. It's everything else—the peels and fillers and history and emotions—in between.
Bernice has to go, has to return to dinner. I don't mind; we'll talk more later. What matters in this precise moment is that someone else knows. And I am here, breathing my breaths, feeling the cool tile under my feet, feeling the sweat of the wine bottle against my palm.
I am still here.
But then again, so are all the me's I've been. Those girls and those years have, quite literally, piled up as a stack of portfolios in my living room.
In modeling, a tear sheet is currency. It's exactly what it sounds like, a sheet of paper, torn from a magazine, and also more. It is proof that a model exists. You tear yourself away from the pages you worked so hard to float among so that you may have another page to tear later.
I built myself from my tears. The magazine pages and before too, from the beginning. Each tear means something. It has to. For example: birth is a kind of tear, and if that sounds too dramatic, too much like fumbling for a connection between two different things, tell me what to call it, then, when a woman barely has time to feel what's growing inside of her for what it is before the baby girl comes thrashing out.
No bond, no hand hovering over fluttery kicks, no dreams of her looking more like Mom or Dad but as long as she's healthy. She is—healthy enough, at least. At first.
Each tear said it louder.
I am here. I exist. Better than before.
Your active portfolio doesn't get longer. Quality over quantity. A solid life philosophy. You rotate pages out, keep them current. The old ones I moved into a different binder. Even though I never open it, I still have it. The proof. And what need do I have to look when I can still see some of those pictures so vividly.
The first shoot, sweet thirteen and never been anything, all big hair and party dress dreams.
The first bathing suit, a year later, no hips, all legs. A pout, nothing yet to put behind it.
Three pictures later, something behind it.
Tanned, hairless thighs. Sunbaked hair removal ad. Later, a commercial.
A fashion show: the wedding dress walk, just a year past old enough to legally wed in the state of California. This bride was crying.
Hint of a smile, face hidden by hair. Truth hidden by face. You've come a long way, baby.
Empty years.
Hands smoothing anti-aging cream.
Made into a woman as a girl, then broken into parts once womanhood became too real.
I could say this is the summary of four decades but that would be too simple. Every picture tells a story is a cliché until it's not.
