Page 66 of The Sun Will Rise
“We just… vibe?”
“Vibe, sis,” Paloma says with a single nod of head and a sage expression, then she looks across at Annie. “Do you want to start with the meadow backdrop, or the wooden one?”
“Meadow, I think,” Annie decides. She begins to stand, gathering sheaves of paper. For the first time, as she begins to collect them all, I notice the plethora of small velvet pouches laid out around us.
“Gotcha! I have all the props we picked out ready. You do your thing, and I’ll go and finish setting up.”
Paloma pops to her feet effortlessly, and I can’t help but wince. I think that even at only thirty-two, my knees would be crying if I tried to mimic the ease with which Lo flings her body around. That’s what you get for being a long-limbed former dancer, I suppose. She’s more in tune with her physicality than I could ever dream of being.
As Paloma bounces back towards the room she’d been in earlier—her ‘backdrop room’—Annie swaps black velvet pouches for lavender ones, and begins to lay them out in neat lines.
“Go ahead,” she says, nodding to me and Katy. “Have a look. I have a few pieces in mind for each of you, just based on your hair and skin tone, but other than that, you’re welcome to choose which ones you want to wear for the photos.”
Katy reaches for one of the larger pouches and pulls out a bangle. It’s made of silver wound into a spiral, and as she slips it onto her wrist, it looks like she’s wearing a stack of four or five bangles. At either end of the spiral, bright turquoise stones shine under Paloma’s studio lights.
“Oh, Katy, I love that one for you!” Annie exclaims. She reaches out to take Katy’s hand, rotating my best friend’s wrist beneath the lights. Katy beams. I unwrap a collection of delicate gold rings, each one perfectly round, and each one with unique patterns stamped on the thin metal. I start to slip them onto my fingers as Annie looks over and gasps.
“Ruth! Youhaveto wear these ones, this gold and your skin tone are beautiful together!” She claps her hands together giddily before reaching for the pouches she’s laid out. Feeling a few of them, she eventually settles on three and pushes them towards me. “This gold, your skin, and that gorgeous black top—oh, it’s going to be perfect. Paloma said her friends would be perfect for this, but you girls are gorgeous, I’m so thrilled to have you model my jewellery!”
We continue to ooh and ahh over the pieces for several minutes. When Paloma explained that the photo-shoot was for a jewellery designer, I naively assumed it would be beads strung together like friendship bracelets, and maybe a necklace or two. But this stuff is high quality: carefully designed and beautifully crafted, expertly soldered metals and beautiful, glittering gemstones evoking all kinds of imageryand emotion through texture and shape. This isn’t just homemade arts and crafts.
I sit and watch with Annie as Katy takes her position in front of the lens first. With her long, blonde hair loose in soft waves, and a crochet vest over a white cami, she’s the perfect model for this boho-style collection.
“Lift your chin a bit,” Paloma directs. “Turn slightly to the right. No, the other right.”
Katy fights a smirk, trying to remain still with her fingers splayed over her throat. Paloma’s camera is connected to her laptop, and I peek at the screen to see the shots she’s taking. Katy looks like she’s in the middle of a meadow, staring into the lens with a sultry gaze.
After another few minutes of directing, posing, and snapping, Paloma releases Katy, and Annie walks me over to the spot Katy has vacated. She reaches into a basket just outside of Paloma’s frame and hands me a small bundle of realistic-looking silk wildflowers.
“Hold these down here,” she directs me, adjusting my hand so it hangs close to my hip. The colourful flowers pop against my black top and light blue jeans. Annie twists a couple of the rings on my fingers, separating them a little, and then does the same for the pair of thin bangles she’s layered over the cuff of my sleeve.
“Relax a bit, Roo. The camera won’t bite.”
“No, but you might,” Katy calls out with a smirk.
“Only if Roo asks nicely.” Paloma grins with her tongue between her teeth, and Annie’s blue eyes dance with mirth as she looks between the three of us, a wide smile on her face. Something tells me Annie doesn’t have a girl group like this. But the way she pats my shoulder, before waltzing over to Paloma and standing close enough to see every pore on my best friend’s face as they look at the camera screen and whisper together, tells me she might fit into ours quite nicely.
“Oh, Ruth, these pictures are gorgeous! That gold really is perfect on you,” Annie says from across the room.
“Lift the flowers just a little, Roo,” Paloma says. “Tilt the flower heads towards your belly button.”
“Bold of you to assume I have a belly button,” I answer, awkwardly trying to follow Paloma’s directions. When I agreed to model, I made Paloma promise my face wouldn’t appear in any of the photographs. I don’t entirely hate my face, I just don’t want people to connect my professional career with modelling. I’m not ashamed of what I’m doing, but I’ve worked hard for my success in the legal field, and I like to keep my private life separate from it.
“Girl, we’ve been onhow manyholidays together? I have seen you in a bikini.”
“Yeah, Ruthy,” Katy chimes in. “We all know you’ve got a belly button. You can’t fool us.”
Annie darts over then, pulling the bouquet from my fingers and swapping it for one made of some kind of fluffy reeds and grass.
“Turn this way,” she says, a hand on each shoulder and spinning me to face the backdrop, rather than the camera. She can only be an inch or so taller than me. “Hold the bouquet out like this”—she moves my hands so that the one holding the reeds is swung out behind me—“and move this front leg, like you’re walking.”
“Lift it a tiny bit higher,” Paloma instructs, and Annie moves my arm for me. “Perfect!” Annie scurries out of the frame and Paloma clicks away.
“Bet CowboyDaddywould like a print of these pics,” Paloma offers. I hold my body steady and flick my eyes to my best friends, huddled together with Annie behind Paloma’s laptop which is connected to her camera. Paloma is smirking with her tongue between her teeth and a mischievous glint in her eye.
“Oh, yes! Do it, Roo, these look so good,” Katy gushes. “I love how your outfit is such a contrast to the meadow.”
I glance down for a second. My jeans are the fashionably ripped kind, and my top is a black, one-sleeved body-suit. A black leather belt with a small gold buckle is wrapped around my waist, more for fashion than function. I put my boots back on before we came in here, and they’re chunky-soled Chelsea boots. The jeans, especially, aren’t something I’d normally wear, but Amie talked me into buying the entire outfit after I admired it on a mannequin recently, and she texted me last night to demand that I wear it today for the photo-shoot. I can’t deny that these jeans are comfy as hell, and they’re doing the absolute most for my barely-there curves.
