In the spotlight

2

Sofia Christensen

"Doing great, babes, just a few more shots." I heard my photographer's words dripping with heavy French accent as I was strictly maintaining eye contact with the camera in front of me. I have perfected my "model look," as my best friend called it, in my almost 12 years in this profession; therefore, nobody could snap me out of it.

I changed positions after almost every shot; hearing the camera click and seeing the flashing white lights around me felt like home. The long yellowish Dior I had on was extra uncomfortable but absolutely beautiful. It had some floral pattern creeping up on my right side, and the color perfectly matched my hair. I wouldn't have turned this request down, not in a million years.

After a few more clicks and flashes, my photographer, Pierre, took off his camera from the station and approached me while looking through the pictures. He took at least 20, each one of them from a different position and distance.

"A real masterpiece." We were both amused by those pictures. Pierre was by far our best photographer; he handled the angles and the lightning like a real genius and never forgot to stun me during our photoshoots.

"I will handle the rest; you go and catch your flight in time." He excused me once we finished looking through the camera roll.

"Thank you, Pierre." I sent him a grateful look. I straightened up from my previous position and gave him a hug, but quickly left the scene because I was late from the airport again. I changed my clothes in the changing room, which was basically a little space fenced off with a curtain in the back of the studio.

Carefully unzip the dress and put the hanger back. I unfolded my previously prepared clothes for my flight and put them all on in the span of one minute. I picked a black cropped tank top going around my neck with a small Dior signature on the upper left side.

Put on similar black sweatpants because I hate wearing jeans for flights. They are hella uncomfortable, even if I am just flying to Milan from Paris. I pulled out my blue Jordan sneaker from under the seat in front of me and tied it for a few seconds. Years of practice later, I somehow managed to always be late before a flight.

After I finished tying my shoes, I quickly threw on my black puffy jacket because it's almost freezing in Paris right now. I placed the dress on the clothes rack and said goodbye to every member of the staff in the studio. I finally left the room and entered the lobby, where I instantly spotted my dearest friend sitting on the couch, bored out of her mind.

"It took you long enough." Adriana sighed in annoyance, but I knew perfectly well that she was just trying to piss me off. We do that sometimes when we are bored.

Adriana is my best friend of all time. I have known her since, like, forever. Stop overexaggerating, bitch. Okay, true. I met her when I was 15, three years into my modeling career. I was practicing for my first ever runway show in New York when this girl just barged into the room and instantly attracted everyone's attention.

She is only 6 months older than me; therefore, we had countless photoshoots together in those few weeks and walked together on the runway when they saw the chemistry between us. Since then, we have been inseparable; even at 24 as grown-up women, we still act like those 15-year-old kids sometimes.

My sister is from another mother, as the public likes to say. She really is my sister, which I have never had due to me being the only child in my family. Luckily, both of my parents have large families on their own, gathering lots of cousins every year from both sides of the continent. My mother is a breathtakingly beautiful Russian woman, and I never had any doubt about how she managed to wrap my dad around her fingers just like that.