heads! Just snooty, arrogant, and talking about this designer said this, they were going to be in this show, and whoever wasn’t in that show was no damn good. The shit got real old, real fast. I didn’t waste any time telling some of them about themselves. Just wear the damn outfit and shut the hell up.”
She didn’t miss the slight smirk budding across Frieda’s face, but the woman snatched it away, tucked it just so out of sight.
“I don’t believe all models are superficial, Taryn. Some? Well, sure. That industry concentrates almost solely on a person’s physical appearance. It comes with the territory. Now…” She cleared her throat. “I’ve had other models in this treatment facility since I’ve been here. You’re not the first and you sure won’t be the last. Some were posturing, insincere, surface level… I’ll give you that. That created another hurdle unfortunately. Others, such as yourself, were down to earth and well rounded. They were good listeners, able to take constructive criticism, and wanted to heal from the inside out. We have to be careful about categorizing people, however. Even if we are a member of that group.”
“It’s not a characterization; it’s a fact.”
How in the fuck is she going to try and tell me about a job she never did?! School me like she is some damn authority? I was the one on the front lines, not her. Let me break this shit down to her. My turn to teach, Frieda…
“Facts are facts; there is no way around them. Just like it’s a fact that black people have more melanin in our skin—we’re darker. It’s a fact that some of us, no matter how beautiful we’re told we are, tend to be insecure as hell, too. Why do we run from these truths, huh? Because they are politically incorrect?” She shrugged. “The down to earth and well-rounded models you describe are not as common. They are like pink unicorns.”
“Oh, come on, Taryn!” Frieda smiled.
“No, I’m serious. The industry poisons people, Frieda. It takes us by the throat.” She reached for her neck with both hands, demonstrating the point. “And it forces our mouths open and feeds us horse shit sprinkled with sweet, golden flakes of make-believe…makes us think we didn’t just eat a bunch of manure. It’s all bull! The whole damn thing stinks!” She released herself and waved her arm across the room, bringing her argument home. “As I sat in that hospital, month after damn month, my already slim weight dropping to nothing and my hair falling out in clumps, the real pain hadn’t even arrived yet but I just didn’t know it! I didn’t have much, but I had time to reflect over all of it.
“It’s hard to stay humble and real when you have people throwing money at you, your face and body are plastered in all the major fashion magazines from around the world, and celebrity men with fat bank accounts and big status are sending their agents to contact you for a date. That was my life, Frieda.” She pointed at her chest. “That was just an average day in the life of Taryn Jones. No one who was trying to get close to me cared about who I really was.”
“Tell me more about that, Taryn… about how no one seemed concerned about who you were on the inside.” The lady sat back in her seat.
“These guys don’t give a shit about your personality—these singers, rappers, actors that were vying for my attention. No.” She shook her head, paired it with a heartbroken smile. “The things you like to do, the stuff you’re into, they couldn’t give a half a shit about. No, they just wanted to be seen with me, wear me like a damn scarf, an accessory, and fuck me, too.”
Taryn knew she sounded jaded; a discarded lover thrown to the starving, urban dwelling wolves, but her truth was her truth, and she and it would never part. She’d been discovered at the age of fifteen at the Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan while putting around with her best friend during a rainy afternoon of boredom and