Brothers of Paradise Series

I do as he says, and when I glimpse back, he’s shooting with his big camera. “For Rieler?”

“Yes. You… well, you had a good idea.”

My lips curve. “Bound to happen every now and then.”

“I suppose,” he says, but there’s a smirk there, too.

“So what do you have against social media?” I ask him, turning around to look at him. He keeps shooting, so I keep posing, even as I wait for his reply. Closing my eyes and tilting my head back. Gripping the waistband of my robe.

Rhys finally lowers the camera. “I recognize that it can be great,” he says, words measured. Like he’s being careful. “For keeping in touch with people, for getting news. But more and more, people seem to be turning to social media for human connection rather than to, you know, actual humans. Not to mention that the beauty standards on social media are sending kids’ self-esteem to record lows.”

His words are a bucket of ice water.

I tug my robe off, revealing the dress I’d worn beneath, and head back into the hotel room. He follows silently. He doesn’t speak when I pull on my shoes either, and he helps me roll one of my giant suitcases down the corridor. We don’t speak until we’ve checked our bags in with the concierge for the day, not until we’re out on the bright streets of Paris.

“Hey, I know that was harsh,” he says.

I don’t reply for a moment, because I don’t feel like I can.

“Ivy…”

“You prefer brutal honesty.” I look up at the sky, because I can’t look at him. The sharp sting of his early judgement is back, but it’s so much more cutting this time, because it’s reaching a wound that’s already hurting. “You touched on one of my biggest fears,” I admit.

Rhys doesn’t reply, but there’s permission in the silence. My words find their way out. “I know this industry is shallow, and models are just… just models. Paid to look pretty. I mean, part of that is what you said just two weeks ago.”

“I could have phrased it better.”

“You know, when the average woman sees a picture of me that’s in an ad or a magazine, it’s gone through so many rounds of editing. And I’m talking before it ever became digital-this is my job.” I pause, pointing to my hair. “Professional highlights. My skin? The agency pays for a dermatologist that I see every month. I’m never in the sun. This tan is fake, courtesy of the agency. I work out pretty much every day, and I’ve worked with both personal trainers and dietitians. My job is to look the best I possibly can. Who else can say that? And when images of me, or of other models, end up on social media… There are additional filters. Retouching. And knowing that teenagers compare themselves to… I know, Rhys,” I grind out. “I know. And yet social media and beauty is the currency of my industry. I don’t know how to escape it.”Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.

“Shut down your accounts,” he says quietly. “I’m not saying you have to, but if this is eating at you, that’s one solution.”

I look away from him. “I suggested it to my agency. Mentioned it in passing, actually. That I was tiring of the whole thing.”

“And?”

“I was informed in no uncertain terms that if I did that, I could find myself another agency.”

“You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

His hand closes around my arm. “They actually said that?”

“Yes. Don’t tell people that, though.”

“Of course I won’t. But Ivy…”

“That’s the industry.” I shrug. “How many followers girls have on social media determines what gigs they book, what opportunities come their way, their income… It’s everything. That was why I was so happy when I got this job, apart from the obvious-all the traveling. I’m not the model with the highest follower count or the most experience at the agency, but I still booked this one.”

Rhys’s expression is impossible to decipher, like so much of his personality. Is he judging me? Pitying me? It could be either and everything in between.

“I’ve tried,” I say, but it sounds weak to my own ears. “I never edit the pictures I post. I try to be more real, to show behind-the-scenes photos too.”

No sign of his emotions in his eyes. Does it sound as pathetic a compromise to him as it does to me?

But then he sighs. “You’re stuck in between a rock and a hard place.”

“Yeah.”

But what he’d said so succinctly, summed up and neat, had felt like salt in a pre-existing wound. One I’ve pondered how best to heal, with every solution coming up short. I don’t want to be part of the reason why people feel bad. I don’t want to be someone people compare themselves to, not appearance wise.

Rhys slides his hand in his back pocket and hands me my phone, which I’d forgotten about at the hotel. It looks small in his grip. Innocent. Like it’s not the home of all of these problems.

“You’ll figure it out,” he tells me. “The fact that you’re already thinking about this makes it clear you will. There are tons of public profiles who use their platforms for good.”

My smile is a bit forced. The ones who do aren’t models, but then again, I’m not planning on being one forever. “You’re right.”

“You know what else I’m right about?”

“What?”

“We don’t have to spend the entire day shooting. After we’re done by the Eiffel Tower, I want to show you a few places around town. We have enough time before we have to head to the airport.”

“Places you visited when you lived here?”

“The very ones.”

“I’m going to get a tour through Rhys Marchand’s Paris? Does that make me a tourist?”

Rhys shakes his head and looks away, but he’s smiling. “Don’t go there.”

“Will you be carrying a little sign, so I don’t get lost? Are headphones included?”

“Another joke out of you and the tour is cancelled,” he says, nodding ahead. “Let’s go. The faster we take pictures of you, the quicker we can look at the city.”

I pretend to lock up my lips and follow him toward the Eiffel Tower in the distance. We work quickly, gathering the shots necessary for the agency. Rhys adds a few extra ideas, having me stop to buy a croissant, sitting along the Seine, buying art from one of the street vendors. I actually go through with it, too, buying a small painting of the French skyline.

It’ll hang in my tiny New York apartment. I already know the spot.

“Tourist,” Rhys tells me.

“Cynic,” I tell him, and I win, because his lips curve into a half-smile.

We film a lot by the Eiffel Tower-me walking down the steps of Trocadero, with Paris in the foreground. Me sitting on the steps and sipping on a cup of coffee. The clips will be put to good use when he edits together the travel film.

“All right,” he finally declares, screwing on the lens of his camera. He’s staunchly ignoring the tittering of a few teenage girls who have stopped to watch us as we work. The attention makes me uncomfortable in a way it rarely does. I don’t want those girls to compare themselves to me.

I stand, brushing off a few leaves from my dress. “You got what you needed?”