My Body(38)
When I looked up Jonathan’s work online, I saw a few fashion editorials he’d shot on film. A little boring, I remember thinking. Hipster-y. His Instagram was mostly pictures of his home and a few strange, retro images of a very young-looking Russian woman with obvious breast implants. Kind of weird, I thought, but I had seen weirder. Maybe this is just the stuff he puts on his Instagram? His work on Google looked celestial and pretty. Legit. I didn’t bother to investigate further. Besides, my agent was in full control of my career: I did what she told me to do, and in return, she was supposed to expand my portfolio so I could book more paid jobs and establish myself in the industry. As promised, Jonathan picked me up from the bus stop in Woodstock. He had a small frame and was plainly dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He seemed distinctly uninterested in me and didn’t meet my eyes as he drove us in a vintage car over streets lined with tall grass. He came off as a nervous, neurotic artist type. He was very different from the other “fashion” photographers I’d met up to that point, men who tended to be LA douchebags with strategically placed highlights in their hair and who smelled like sweet cologne.
I was wearing a tank top that I’d tucked into the front of high-waisted shorts, and as we drove, I watched the soft blond hairs on my thighs glisten in the sunlight. Jonathan never looked at me directly, but I remember feeling watched, aware of our proximity and my body and how I might appear from his driver’s seat. The more indifferent he seemed, the more I wanted to prove myself worthy of his attention. I knew that impressing these photographers was an important part of building a good reputation. Does he think I’m smart? Especially pretty? I thought about all the other young models who must have come to this bus station in the Catskills and sat in this car.
When we arrived at Jonathan’s home, two children were sitting at the kitchen table. I stood awkwardly at the door in my short shorts and felt embarrassingly young—unwomanly even, like a kid myself. I noted the time from a clock on the wall: How are we going to shoot today if it’ll be dark in just an hour and a half? Maybe we’ll shoot very early tomorrow, I figured. I brought my hands up to the straps of my backpack and shifted my weight from side to side, waiting for instruction. I felt relief wash over me when a makeup artist arrived at the house and proceeded to set up on the kitchen table next to Jonathan’s kids. She was older than me, and quiet. I felt more comfortable upon her arrival; the pressure was off me to know how to be and how to compensate for Jonathan’s strangeness now that another adult was there, a woman.
The makeup artist finished setting up and began working on my face while Jonathan cooked dinner. He offered me a glass of red wine, which, in my nervousness and desire to seem older and wiser than I was, I accepted and drank quickly. I took deep sips as the makeup artist painted thick, black, wet liner on the tops of my eyelids. I opened my iPhone’s selfie camera in my lap to check her work. She was making me look pretty, transforming me to fit Jonathan’s aesthetic vision. When he laid out old-fashioned lingerie on a kitchen chair, I began to grasp what type of girl he wanted me to be. My agent hadn’t mentioned that the shoot would be lingerie, but I wasn’t concerned; I’d done countless lingerie shoots before. I could imagine her writing to me the next day, “Jonathan loved you. Can’t wait to see pics! Xx,” as she had on other occasions.
Jonathan’s kids were picked up by someone who did not come inside the house, while the makeup artist finished preparing my face. When he was done cooking, Jonathan, the makeup artist, and I all sat around the kitchen table eating pasta, as if we were a small family. He talked about his “crazy” ex-wife and his affair with a “crazy” actress, now twenty-one (a year older than me, I noted). He told me about his marriage’s undoing; that the actress, whom Jonathan had cast for a short film he’d been making at the time, came to live with them. He showed me naked pictures, Polaroids, he’d taken during their affair. She seemed so vulnerable in Jonathan’s photos, even though I could tell she was trying to look strong and grown-up from the way she held her face square to the camera, chin up, her hair falling perfectly over one eye.
“No one has shot her better,” he said over his shoulder, as I continued to riffle through the Polaroids.
Something switched inside me then. As I looked at the images, I grew competitive. This guy shoots all these women, but I’m going to show him that I’m the sexiest and smartest of them all. That I am special. I chewed on my lower lip as I handed the neat stack of Polaroids back to Jonathan.
I wondered where he normally kept these Polaroids. Were they all meticulously labeled in a giant filing cabinet somewhere in his attic, the names of young women written in ink on their assigned drawers? The image of a morgue came to mind.
It was dark, and my hair was still in rollers as I finished my third glass of wine, my mouth stained purple. I was used to unusual setups on shoots, but I’d never been in a situation like this before. I made sure not to eat too much, while Jonathan silently refilled my glass and I kept drinking. In the industry, I’d been taught that it was important to earn a reputation as hardworking and easygoing. “You never know who they’ll be shooting with next!” my agent would remind me. We finished our meal relatively quickly, and I helped bring dishes to the sink as Jonathan washed them. “Thank you, that was so good,” I said politely. I turned and leaned against the counter, opening my phone. Jonathan sneered. “You girls and your Instagram. You’re obsessed! I don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head and drying a plate with a dish towel.