crème glacée [the fate of coincidences 1]

6: Jade

Even though Jade loved her job, she still hated waking up early in the mornings. She got to the photoshoot studio, running a few minutes late with hair a mighty bird's nest and mismatched clothes thrown on. But morning or not, she still smiled at the photographer and the other stylists bustling around the studio.

Ria was sitting at one of the chairs by the mirrors, looking through a physics textbook. The first time they'd met a week ago, Jade found out that Ria was taking a few classes at UW on the side while doing full time modeling jobs. She was an interesting individual and Jade instantly wanted to be her friend.

"This is so interesting," Ria commented as Jade applied blush to her cheeks. "I never got to learn this in high school."

"What, physics?" Jade asked, moving her chin for a better view. "Smile a little bit."

Ria did as she was told. "Yeah. There's a law that states that nothing can move or stop on its own without an external force. My mind is exploding at the moment because I've just realized that every time something moves, it's the cause of something else moving or stopping and the universe is just one really long complicated chain reaction."

Jade cringed as memories of her failed high school physics class flooded her mind. "How did you just make Newton's simple second law sound so deep?"

"I think I just think too much about these things," Ria replied. "I kind of regret dropping out of school at sixteen to join my uncle's modeling company."

"Look up and don't blink," Jade asked as she added a line of white eyeshadow, concentrating quietly for a minute. "You dropped out of school? Why? It doesn't seem like it's because you weren't smart."

Ria shrugged and waited until Jade let her blink again. "I just followed my uncle's wishes because he was my guardian since my parents died when I was eight."

Jade bit her lip. "Oh..."

"It's okay." Her smile revealed a dimple. "Life is different for everyone, don't feel bad. Crazy things happen to some people more than others."

Jade gave a tentative smile back. "But losing your parents at such a young age, it must have been really hard."

"What's life without hardships?" She closed her eyes as Jade motioned for her to do so. "It would be pretty boring, wouldn't it?"

"When you put it that way..." Jade blended the eyeshadow at the corner of Ria's left eye and switched subjects. "What are you majoring in, by the way? Engineering or something?"

"Veterinary."

"Really? Then why are you taking physics of all things?"

"General ed." She hummed in thought. "And also so that I would be able to know if a dog fell off the stairs, it was because it was pushed by an external force."

"Or maybe the external force was the gravity and bad eyesight."

Ria laughed a little, moving a lock of black hair that escaped from her headband.

Jade shook her head with a chuckle and continued with the eyeshadow. When the first look was done, Ria walked to the white backdrop to start the shoot.

Jade watched from the vanity table, transfixed a little by the way Ria moved in front of a camera. Maybe she was a little starstruck, since it was her first time working with someone this famous. But Ria was so stunning that it was hard not to sit and stare. Glacé was going to make bank with this collection.

When Ria came back to change for the next look, Jade was already there with all her makeup brushes ready. "You did amazing! Do you want to share some of your pretty magic with me?"

Ria sat on the chair and let Jade remove her makeup. "It was all your makeup magic, not my pretty magic."

Jade squinted as she highlighted her high cheekbones. "It's not fair, because your features look amazing with any kind of makeup."

Ria was about to reply but noticed someone behind Jade and waved. Jade took her brush off Ria's face for a moment and turned around.

"Mr. Kwon! Nice to see you," Ria called to a man in a suit who was walking toward them.

"Ah, Ria, hello." His cheeks scrunched up cutely when he smiled. "I told you to call me Zack, nobody calls me Mr. Kwon around here."

"Ok, Zack." She smiled back, her dimple showing. "Oh, this is Jade, by the way. She's the makeup artist I was talking about."

"Hello, Jade." He offered his hand and Jade shook it, trying not to smile with all of her teeth. "I'm Zack, the communications director."

"Nice to meet you, Zack."

"Likewise." He was so cute that Jade wanted to pinch his cheeks and buy him pastries. "Ria's agent fought pretty hard to hire you instead of our own makeup artists so you must be pretty good." This was news to Jade and she looked over at Ria with wide eyes, who just smiled back. "Anyway, I just came around to check on everything before going to a meeting and making sure Mr. Oswald doesn't bleed everywhere from a papercut he didn't notice." He winked and turned to walk away. "It's happened before, unfortunately."

When he left, Jade went back to brushing mascara over Ria's long lashes. "Who's Mr. Oswald?"

"He's the boss of Glacé," Ria replied, eyes rolled back as Jade put mascara on her bottom lashes.

"How can he not notice a bleeding papercut? Those hurt like heck."

Ria shrugged, holding in her laughter to avoid getting poked in the eye by the mascara wand.

"Wait, what did Zack mean when he said your agent wanted to hire me instead of the other people?"

"Oh that." Ria waved her arm around a bit as if in explanation. "My agent, Gianni, he follows you on instagram. I think he's a really big fan because he even found your LinkedIn, looked through your whole portfolio, and decided you would be perfect for this job. He gets really enthusiastic when he likes someone's work."

"Oh, really?" That explained why Gianni shook her hand a little longer than necessary when she first met them. He might also be that one person who commented "magnificent" on every post she made on her instagram. "Wow, I should treat him to lunch or something. I can't believe I have an actual fan."

It made her giddy to think about that and she might have done Ria's makeup a lot better than she usually did.