Suddenly Starlet

Suddenly Starlet--Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

            “Hello?” Laney’s mom called out after stepping into the studio.

            They could hear music blaring from the back of the large office and slowly crept back to where they could see flashes of light going off.

            “Mr. Bengal?” her mom yelled out again.

            “Come on back,” a voice yelled over the music.

            Laney followed behind her mom and found herself in a big empty room full of lights and different backdrops. The floor was hardwood and was mostly bare except for the occasional fan.

            Seeing the open space, Laney suddenly got the urge to break out one of her cheerleading dances, but kept herself from taking a step toward the floor in front of her. Instead, she looked around the studio and found Mr. Bengal and a girl fiddling with an umbrella-looking device. Once he saw her, he moved quickly over to Laney with his arms stretched wide.

            “Hi there, pretty girl,” he said, pulling her into a hug before she could stop him.

            “Hi,” Laney said, slightly embarrassed.

            She pulled away from the skinny man and took a step back as he leaned over to greet her mom in the same way.

                 After hugging Mrs. Herman, Mr. Bengal put his hands on his hips, stared at Laney and studied her. Laney laughed nervously as he scrunched up his nose and squinted his eyes at her.

            Just as she was beginning to think he was not happy with what he saw, he grabbed a hold of both of her hands and dragged her toward the open space on the floor.

            “Well, aren’t you just gooor-geous,” Mr. Bengal said, snatching up his Polaroid camera and taking a quick picture of her.

            Laney blinked hard after the flash went off.

Hey, I wasn’t even ready yet! Can somebody say do-over, she thought and looked over at her mother who was sitting on a couch in the corner.

Mr. Bengal shook the picture and then stared at it for what seemed like forever, but in actuality was less than a minute.

“This will do just fine,” he said and placed the picture on a nearby stool.

He turned back to her and smiled big.

“You have some outfits with you, right?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” Laney said pointing toward her mom. “They’re right over there.”

“Well, get a move on, girlfriend, we’ve got some pictures to take,” he said and pointed her in the direction of the bathroom.

“Which outfit should I put on first?” Laney asked Mr. Bengal, as she held up the hangers of clothes.

He paused and stared at her for a moment.

“Surprise me,” he answered, a goofy grin spreading across his face, before he turned away from her.

* * * * *

“Little Laney-kins! Won’t you please join us out here?” Mr. Bengal said through the glass door.

“Just a minute,” Laney answered, pulling her shirt over her head.

She tugged on one side of the shirt and then the other and stared at herself in the mirror.

God, my chest is small, Laney thought as she turned first to the side and then back to the front. Her gaze fell on a box of tissues on the granite counter, next to the hand soap. Wouldn’t hurt to have a little pick-me-up, right?

Mr. Bengal knocked on the door loudly, this time turning the knob and entering the bathroom. He looked at the tissue in her hand and then back to her.

Laney’s palms began to sweat as she tried to hide how uncomfortable she was at being caught tissue-handed. Thinking fast, she brought the Kleenex up to her nose and blew hard.

“Must be getting sick or something,” she said and tossed the tissue in the trash.

“You are too beee-u-tee-ful to be sick,” Mr. Bengal said without hesitating and pulled her out of the bathroom and back into the middle of the room. “I mean it. Right now, you are like a massive ball of gas, but today, Mr. Bengal is going to make you a star.”

Wait, did he just say I had gas? Cuz I swear that was how the bathroom smelled before I got in there.

Mr. Bengal fiddled around with his camera and then set it up on his tripod, before looking back over at her.

“Show me what you’ve got,” he said, pointing at her and then looking through the camera lens.

Laney froze up. She thought he was going to tell her what poses to do. She hadn’t thought she’d have to do it all herself!

“Um, okay,” Laney said uncertainly.

Unsure of what Mr. Bengal wanted her to do, Laney started running through the facial expressions she had practiced the night before. Happy, sad, afraid and sexy, Laney showed them all to Mr. Bengal as he snapped picture after picture. After about a minute, Mr. Bengal lifted his head up and smiled at her like a Cheshire cat.

“Okay, now show me your real poses,” he said to her.

“Those were my poses,” Laney said, suddenly deflated.

Mr. Bengal’s face changed as soon as he realized she was serious and he walked over to her.

“The point of a headshot is for me to capture a little bit of who you are, so that the people looking at the picture will know instantly who they are looking at,” Mr. Bengal explained to her quietly.

When she didn’t say anything in response, he tried again. “I need to see who you are, Laney, not the emotions you can play,” he said earnestly.

Laney nodded her head and turned around slowly in a circle before letting her wander back to the camera. She shook out her arms and then jumped up and down a few times.

Then she listened to the music blaring through the room and started moving to the beat. Laney began by moving from side to side and then really started to get into it. The song was one her squad had performed to and one she loved to jam to when she was at home in her room. She smiled as she heard the familiar lyrics and glanced up slowly. Then she heard a click.

Even though Laney knew they were in a studio taking pictures, the click still managed to startle her. But the music was still on and her body had already completely given away to the beat. Laney wiggled her head with attitude as the song called for it and then she looked at the camera confidently as Mr. Bengal took her picture.

After that Mr. Bengal took pictures feverishly and only stopped when he had to reload his camera.

“That was great, Laney! Real good,” Mr. Bengal said as he snapped the film into place and picked his camera up again.

“Really?” she asked, excited that she’d done a good job.

“Yeah, that was bee-u-tee-ful,” he said, stretching out the word like he had before. “Now, lets take a few more shots, but this time I want you to sit down and confine everything that you’re feeling to just your face.”

“Okay,” Laney said and sat down on a chair in the middle of the room.

The CD they had been listening to had ended and now the only sound in the room was the clicking of Mr. Bengal’s camera.

No longer having the music to listen to, Laney closed her eyes and imagined the music in her head.

Tilting her face slightly to the right, Laney opened her big eyes to the camera and waited for her close-up.