But, I was soon lifted up and ushered over to the racks of clothes. The head stylist, Ariel, or Ari as she preferred to be called, showed me options for the first look. They were all fancy dresses. Shiny and puffy and not at all me. There was one plain white silk dress that I never would have worn in a million years, but it was the least extreme option. Ari shrugged, handed it over and pointed toward a change room. I looked at Teddy as I walked toward the change room. He smiled encouragingly.
Inside I ripped my jacket off and looked in the mirror. My makeup was heavy. Like nothing I’d ever had before. The contouring had given me higher cheek bones and a stronger jaw. She’d overdrawn my lips making them appear so much bigger. My eyebrows were darker, sharper. I couldn’t control myself as I grabbed some toilet paper, wet it a little bit, and started wiping.
“Shit,” I said, looking at the smudges I’d created. I used a towel by the sink and tried to fix the mess I’d made. I looked a little more like myself then.
I took off the rest of my clothes and got into the dress. I felt the back for the zip but there didn’t seem to be one. I turned around, my back to the mirror and was surprised to find the dress was backless. “Oh my god.” My whole, pale back was on display. It barely covered my butt. Great choice, Talia.
I sat down on the couch. I didn’t want to go back out there. The last time I did anything like this was with the Betty Coopers. The label had asked us to get professional pictures taken to send with our music. We wore our own clothes, did our own makeup and posed at a skate park. The ‘professional’ photographer was Ashley’s then boyfriend, Ben. This was... a lot. They hadn’t talked to me about any of this beforehand. Was this how it usually happened? The person being photographed had no say over any of this?
“How is it, hon?” I assumed that was Ari.
“Can you please get Manny for me?” I asked.
“Sure. I’ll be right back,” her voice was clipped. She probably thought I was being a diva. I was probably already building my reputation as difficult as I sat there waiting.
A knock came swiftly. I opened it. Manny stood there, a patient look on his face. “Everything okay?”
I opened the door wider and he came in, closing it behind him.
“What’s up?” he asked, tapping away on his blackberry.
“This isn’t me,” I said, honestly. Hoping my notions of him being empathetic to me weren’t incorrect.
He looked up. “You don’t like the dress?”
I shook my head. “Not just the dress. The makeup, the set up… we haven’t talked about any of this.”
He nodded in understanding. “I know. It’s only because we don’t have a lot of time to get this organised. It’s all just going to be really simple.”
I considered for a moment. This dress wasn’t awful. It was beautiful. And, maybe the makeup would look different on camera. Who was I to have a problem with any of it?
“Maybe I’m being silly,” I admitted.
Manny shook his head. “If you’re uncomfortable with any of it, it can be changed. You just have to let me know.”
“I don’t want to offend the makeup artist. I kind of scrubbed off some of her work.”
“It’s fine. We’ll say you splashed water on your face and forgot you had had the makeup done.” I doubted she’d believe that. “You think you might be ready?”
I looked at myself in the mirror again.
“You look beautiful, Talia,” Manny offered.
“Thank you.” He opened the door and we headed out. Teddy was there by the door and asked if I was okay. I was glad he didn’t focus on my dress or my makeup. I nodded reassuringly, and he said he was going to get some lunch. I asked him to bring me back a burger.
Vienna was completely unbothered as she redid my face quickly. The photographer, Joel, was very friendly but very professional. He had me stand in the middle of the white set and he moved around in front of me taking shots, posing me. “Give me cheeky, Talia. Now some strength. Be firm.” I couldn’t keep up. I felt ridiculous.
“Longingly, Talia. Think of someone you long for,” he shouted, snapping away.
That was an instruction I could follow. One face came to mind immediately. Laurie. I longed for him in a way that I couldn’t quite explain. I had only seen him a couple hours before and I could still feel it in my stomach. I didn’t know him at all, but I longed to. I thought of him.
“Yes, Talia!” he praised. I was then put into another outfit. Sparkly heels and an even more sparkly mini dress. I didn’t argue though I felt like disco ball Barbie.
He had me in the black background with stage lights behind me. “Like a pop star, Talia. Like the biggest singer in the world.” How he could possibly think I would know how to act like that was beyond me. He stopped snapping. “Anyone have her music?” he asked.
No one answered. Manny was in a corner talking on his phone.
“Talia, do you have your songs? On your phone or anything?” I shook my head.
Teddy was sitting on a leather lounge eating his burger, while mine was getting cold beside him. He looked at me, questioningly. He must have had them. But what was Joel going to do with them. Play them? Did I want all these strangers to hear my songs? Strangers already had, I realised. I nodded.
“I got em,” Teddy spoke up.
“Hook it up,” Joel directed one of his assistants. The assistant grabbed the phone from Teddy.
“Track six,” Teddy recommended. One of the more upbeat tracks. The assistant hooked it up to the speaker system and soon it was playing. I felt even more nervous than when it was just quiet. No one seemed to react. They all went about their jobs as usual. Joel had me mime. It felt so unnatural. I was awkward and uncomfortable, until I saw Vienna smiling at me.
“This is so good,” she mouthed to me. I looked over at one of the camera assistants who was swaying her head back and forth getting into the song. I locked eyes with Teddy again. His smile was wide, encouraging. Ari was going through the racks of clothes, ignoring us all, but her foot was tapping. It made me smile. I let myself sing the song, even just quietly. It felt more natural that way.
“Yes, Talia!”
* * *
We did a couple more looks and then I was done. I got changed and scrubbed off the makeup as everyone packed up. I came out of the dressing room and a few people came up to me to congratulate me on the songs they’d heard. “I’ll be buying your album,” Vienna said.
“You’re a natural,” Joel offered. “I’ve got a campaign coming up and I’d love you for it.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant so I just said, “great!”
Ari told me I could keep any of the outfits from the shoot that I liked, which felt like a gift I shouldn’t turn down. I kept a leather jacket and the white dress, which I’d grown to like. “If you ever need a stylist, gimme a call.” She gave me her card. I nodded.
Teddy was waiting, chatting to a very tall and muscular guy. “Talia, this is Leif. He’ll be doing your security for the next few months,” Manny introduced us.
I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Miss Shaw.”
He was Hawaiian, I guessed. “You too.”
I said goodbye to the rest of the people at the shoot and Manny said he’d be in contact with all the other information. Apparently we had a few months of work ahead of us and I wasn’t going home any time soon.
Leif walked Teddy and me to a black SUV that was to be his to drive me around in. Teddy threw out my cold burger so Leif drove us to In and Out. He pulled up so that the back window was in line with the ordering box.
“You want anything?” I asked Teddy.
“I could go for another Double Double,” Teddy patted his stomach.
“Of course, you could,” I laughed as Teddy gave an offended gasp.
“You hungry, Leif?” I asked.
“No, thank you, Ma’am.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. The size of him would indicate he could put away a burger.
In
the rear-view mirrors, his eyes flashed concern. “I’m not supposed to eat on the job,” he clarified.
I shook my head. “That is a stupid rule. Double Double?”
“Okay?” he answered, though it sounded like a question.
“Milkshake?” I asked the both of them.
“Chocolate,” Teddy answered.
“You don’t need to--”
I cut off Leif. “You seem like a strawberry man, am I right?” He didn’t seem like anything at all but I thought I’d take a guess.
He smiled, and I knew I was right. I ordered two chocolate and one strawberry shake.
He was driving out of the carpark when I told him to park, so we could all eat. “I can eat it later, Miss Shaw.”
“No, it’ll get cold and then we’ll have to come all the way back and Teddy’ll eat another burger.” Teddy nodded in agreement. We sat eating our burgers and drinking our shakes. Eventually I got Leif calling me Talia. Leif told me about his mother living back in Oahu, Hawaii, and how he started driving there and a label exec really liked him and brought him over to work in Los Angeles. He had only been on the mainland for six months and didn’t know many people. He was too shy to make friends. I told him I was without friends too and assured him that Teddy and I would be his if he’d have us.
“I do have friends, but I can make some room for you,” Teddy joked.
* * *
The next three months were as busy as Manny had said. First, I had a whole bunch of meetings with a public relations woman, Katie Rowe. She gave me lessons in what to say and what not to say. How to sit and talk and walk, things that I thought I had learnt to do years ago that apparently I had been doing wrong all along. She told me that I had to learn to talk about Ashley and Kelly because every interviewer was bound to bring it up.
They released my first single, Sails, and according to Manny it was tracking well. I started to get recognised on the street. It was only here and there and nobody was wildly enthusiastic to see me but some people did ask for selfies. I almost always thought they were coming over to ask for directions. It was a bit of a thrill but very strange.
Katie had edited my Instagram, getting rid of anything that might be embarrassing or of ‘low quality’. The day the single came out, my follower count increased by 100,000. She made my Facebook private and set up a Twitter account, telling me it was for promotion and not political statements.
I had thirty plus phone interviews that I had to give to radio stations all over the US, UK and Australia. The first one was a mess. The interviewer asked why I chose to do a Pop album rather than Rock and if my old bandmates would have been offended. I was speechless. Katie told them the line had cut out and cancelled the interview. “Just say, ‘I wouldn’t know’ next time,” Katie recommended. “Not that anyone else is likely to be so rude.” And, thank god, no one else was. I became kind of used to it. There were a few questions that were just repeated over and over, and my answers became very repetitive, too.
I barely had a chance to call Mom and Dad or Saffy during that time. In between the interviews, the PR lessons, I was told they needed the Malibu house back. Money had been coming in, from digital sales and streaming, to an account they set up for me, so I could afford to rent something short term. Teddy helped me find a nice place in the Hollywood Hills and then helped me move. He decided he needed to move back to his own place in LA but I forced him to stay over every once in a while. The bungalow was smaller than the Malibu place, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a small pool. It was quite private, with huge trees offering privacy. Teddy and I filled it with funky furniture and had a little housewarming with the gang. Then Teddy left me to go home for his little brother’s birthday.
The campaign that the photographer, Joel, had been talking about was for Burberry. He told them he wanted to do it with me and they agreed. I had no interest in being any kind of model, but they came with an offer of $300,000. That was half my parent’s mortgage and I said I’d do it. Manny then negotiated it up to $750,000 and I couldn’t not do it. They were going to book me a flight but I still couldn’t face a plane. Leif drove me the six hours to San Francisco and we listened to show tunes the whole way, something we’d newly discovered we had in common. We did the shoot right in the street, hailing taxis and running across the busy roads. At the end of the day, they made gifts of the coats and shoes and bags. It felt rude to say no, but it seemed insane to be getting all of these expensive things for free. I set aside the $600,000 to give to my parents the next time I saw them. I couldn’t believe I had that ability. I thought of Ashley and how she had wanted to do something like that for her mother.
The label had decided to do two music videos. One for Sails and one for Bettys, in preparation for its release. I hadn’t realised that they’d chosen Bettys for the single. I wondered how it would fare being so dark compared to the lightness of Sails. Manny assured me it was the right choice. Manny had asked if I had any ideas for the videos. I had none. I tried to get a hold of Teddy, I knew he’d have a million ideas where my mind was blank, but he was impossible to reach. So, I had to figure it out on my own.
I drew myself a bath one evening. I closed my eyes and played the songs in my head, trying to imagine what they looked like. Sails came to me quickly. It was me and Teddy on a sail boat maybe with a few others. It was a song about friends sailing the ocean together and that’s exactly what I thought it should look like. Bettys took so much longer. It was hard to picture anything but them. Ashley and Kelly. The song was simple, and so should the music video be. Nothing flashy or colourful. Maybe black and white, I thought. I got out of the bath and sent Manny an email with my thoughts for both music videos. He said he’d take care of everything.
I asked for Ari again, to do styling, remembering the foot tapping fondly, as well as Vienna and Megan for hair and makeup.
On the day of the Sails shoot, Leif drove me 40 minutes out of the city, to Long Beach where we were getting on a sail boat to film. I met the director there, a young man with a handlebar moustache and a slimy disposition. He introduced me to a friendly male model, Scott, who looked like a young Harrison Ford and had a similar dry sense of humour. We got to know each other in the makeup chairs as they did us up in 50’s style hair and makeup. Ari put me in a one-piece bathing suit reminiscent of Marilyn on the beach at Cannes and put a men’s button down, unbuttoned, over the top.
I looked for the other actors or extras but they never came. The director turned it into a love story. It was just Scott and me, sailing around Catalina. The director had Scott holding me, and us lying together. Then he asked us to kiss. Scott just went right in for it. I was surprised and embarrassed and confused, but I kept going. Later on, we were hugging as the sun set and the director yelled out for Scott to grab my ass. He looked at me for permission first. I turned to the director, “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
The director rolled his eyes and moved on to shouting out different directions. He was such a cliché. I was bubbling with anger but I kept going. I just wanted to be finished with it.
I determined to tell Manny to organise someone else for the next shoot. I went home that night and started researching. These videos were going to be a reflection of me. I couldn’t keep leaving everything, other than the actual music, to other people. Because it was all a part of the music and how people experienced it and, by extension, got to know me. I watched hundreds of music videos that night and fell into a rabbit hole of dance videos and then short films.
I found one in particular. It was shot in black and white, on the edge of a cliff, with a ballerina, dancing on pointe on the jagged rocks. It was hypnotising and melancholy and beautiful. The director was a Mexican woman named Sofie. I found her website and sent her an email. She got back to me straight away and I discussed with her the song and the thoughts I had about what the music video could be. Within 48 hours she sent me back a proposal and it was perfect. I forwarded it to Manny who organised everything from there.
/> We were to travel to a country town two hours outside the city. The shoot was going to be short. Just an hour, the magic hour before the sunrise. It was just me, my hair blown out, dressed in a coat and jeans and boots, walking around the countryside alongside two other girls to stand in for my best friends. Halfway through the hour, a large group of young girls arrived. The crew put up barricades along the pathway and moved them as we moved, keeping the growing crowd away.
They called my name and waved. Some held up phones and asked for pictures. I asked for a quick break to visit with them but Sofie begged me to keep going because we would lose the light. So, we kept going for twenty more minutes until the light was gone and Sofie was sure she had what she needed. When I looked back at the fans that had gathered, there were five times as many. Leif brought me over to sign things and take selfies but the crowd became too much and he recommended we go. I didn’t think half of them actually knew who I was, just had gathered where others were. I took a few more pictures and apologised profusely before Leif ushered me into the car and drove us away.
Even in the quiet car, miles away from the set, I could hear the screaming in my ears. I felt shaky for so long. They loved my music. They wanted pictures with me. But while I loved that, I had this nagging in the back of my mind that I didn’t deserve it. That it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I pushed it down.
A week later, Teddy was back and he asked if I felt like picking him up from the airport. We waited in the car to avoid any excitement like at the shoot and called him when we saw him walk out. He got in the car with a bright smile. “Missed you, kid,” he said as he hugged me.
“Welcome home!” Leif greeted him as he took off out of the airport pick up.
“Tell me everything,” I directed him. He told me about seeing his friends, and his brother’s birthday party where he got so drunk, he passed out in his mother’s flower beds. He woke up to a camera flash as his Dad took a photo of him the next morning. “I have to see that photo.”
Bright Lights: Book One of the Talia Shaw Series Page 7
