Shedding Light | not heat

The Novel Continues…

Aunt Marian, like Robin Hood’s lady friend, is a classic beauty with perfectly colored chestnut hair cascading like silk half-way down her back in perfect waves. After the death of her business partner and husband of many years, Aunt Marian had hired me to help her handle her business until she got her feet back under her. What had begun as a temporary job as assistant to the governing body of Au Courant, eventually became Head of Photography. Thanks to a few innovative tweaks while Marian was recuperating, our agency is now one of the few that staff a number of professional photographers, makeup artists and hair stylists. This means that we are able to prepare, compile, crop, adjust and update every profile without subcontracting, thus making our prices unbeatable and our service unmistakable. And it’s true. I’ve become a walking advertisement for Au Courant: Extraordinary Talent Meets Extraordinary Representation. That doesn’t quite roll off the tongue does it? Ah well. On with the introductions.

Meet Kate. Sweet girl, but with long straight red hair and a killer sense of fashion, she commands attention in any situation. She has piercing green eyes that could size you up with one appreciative look over your body and instantly make you feel as though she knows your every flaw. This is far from true, but a very interesting impression regardless. Having been home-schooled right up until college, Kate was amazingly smart. She had majored in English and hoped to someday become a teacher. Still, after college we moved in together and soon I was working non-stop with my Aunt. Kate was a guinea pig in our early efforts to be a self-contained portfolio machine and was immediately signed on for two perfume ads and since then she has been one of our top models. Currently between apartments (it is never a good idea to move in with your boyfriend) she’s using the “guest bedroom” or living room with a convertible futon as it is actually called, until she finds a new place to live. This translates roughly to allowing Miss Kate Wisdom to sleep, eat, and play my music all for free. Pretty nice package on the receiving end, yea?

Baron. My current boyfriend Baron Pilkey was born Brian Smith and had a long-lived dream of becoming a famous rock star. Brian was the lead singer of Attractive Concern and his good looks and smooth charm were enough to ensure gig after gig, provided the person scheduling the event was a female. After a few years of huge success in and around the town of MacPherson, Kansas, the band decided it was time to try a recording contract. Sadly, they lacked the talent to back up Brian’s charm and in their last attempt at stardom the recruiter told them exactly what he thought of them. Cheap, unoriginal and untalented are all words that were thrown in for effect and to top it off the balding recruiter told them they were better suited for modeling, where “the only talent you need is the ability to sit still, the ability to walk and enough beauty that no one cares what you can or can’t do.” And immediately, Brian became Baron and Baron became a “modeling wonder.”