Chapter 24: In dem Augenblick

Sunset fell on the lake.  

By this time in the day it sank faster and faster beneath the horizon.  Ginger’s home was an easy ten minute ride away, and she took advantage of the proximity often.  But today was different.  Today was the first day she was not a star adolescent model, but rather an alumnus of that coveted clique.

As the promised for her seventeenth birthday, her parents had granted her the option to quit modeling.  The age of seventeen had been agreed upon because it was a boring birthday, denoting no particular milestone of life.   So when it finally happened, she had sat them down at the kitchen table, waving away the birthday cake. 

“I don’t want to model anymore,” she said flatly.  Part of the terms of the agreement were that niether parent would ask why, so they simply nodded.  It happened just like that, “in dem Augenblick,” a German phrase which was the subject of one of Ginger’s favorite songs.  Ginger had studied German since she was very young.  It predated her modeling career.  And she loved it. 

But in that moment she ceased to be a model and at once joined the growing ranks of ex-models, a collection of women who had spent the bulk of childhood in front of the camera. They knew great amounts of attention and had received a lifetime of orders, demands and coersions to contort themselves this way, pout their lips that way. It is a skill that does not fade easily, and Ginger felt a profound sense of loneliness at her realization that everyone was not always watching her. 

This is the way in which paranoia begins to form itself. Having spent the formative years in the spotlight, Ginger felt comfortable only when others were watching.  The lake where she now sat — it had once been a respite, one of those places where she was temporarily glad to be away from the spotlight.  But in the couple of months since she had turned seventeen, it had slowly begun to lose its luster.  She felt nervous and jittery for inexplicable reasons.  She tried to practice her German.

“In aber dem Augenblick, alles wird allein sein,” she said. 

“In but the blink of an eye, we’ll all be alone.”

The sun continued to fall rapidly, too rapidly for Ginger, who loved the hottest of summer days and feared the quickening of the wind and the chill it blew off the lake.  She did not yet understand why she felt the way she did — about modeling, about life, about love, about the future, about anything.  The dreams of youth always seem to be trapped within that fog which is insecurity.  And there was something else she didn’t know.  She did not yet know that in exactly six years to the day, she would meet the man who was most like her, the man who could sense the struggles she felt.  This man would articulate them precisely and tempered through the beauty of empathy and understanding.   Yes, in six years she would meet this man called Tom Drake.

And she would take his heart and shatter it.

Chapter 23: The Way She Is

What makes a model?

What qualities imbibe the psyche? What composes the facade?

These types of questions cannot be answered with fact or by empirical means. And it is this reality that makes those questions infinitely more fascinating than say, some arbitrary stoichiometry calculation. Ginger’s understanding of this principle is, quite singly, what drove her as she modeled.

It was not for a lack of intelligence that she deferred to the seductions of fashion; quite the opposite. She was a younger Carla Bruni, a model of the European calibre. The facet of her personality which dominated was unquestionably her intellect. One wondered– when she flashed her smile and flipped her hair over her shoulder while her legs carried her to the next position– what had she been reading the night before?

The answers would have surprised anyone. By the time she began carrying a purse, it always contained some paperback. She read Salinger & Fitzgerald, Easton Ellis and Tartt. The vapid sorts of boys who drooled over her were quickly shut down when she began to speak. There came a time, eventually, when she found herself interested in one of them. He was a douche: arrogant for no reason, interested in meaningless hobbies such as memorizing sports stats, preoccupied with his cliche and unoriginal thoughts.

When admirers of Ginger — and there were many — saw her with him, the reactions were wholly shrugs and nods. They really did not expect it to be different. See, despite Ginger’s intellect, no one really believed a promising young model could possibly fall for anyone different than she did.

“That will come later,” her mother said.

“What will? Some sense?” her father replied. For his cool head about all things, it surprised everyone that her father disliked this guy. There is one thing for a father to see a man not very much like himself and dislike that man. This happens often with fathers and suitors. It is quite another thing to see not just the absence of himself, but the absence of that which is inspiring. Far from appearing evil to Ginger’s parents, the young man just seemed about the equivalent of vanilla ice cream. No spice. No spark.

And Ginger needed the spark.

Ginger spent some time with this tool for a while, and he abruptly dumped her a few months into it. Her mouth clamped shut, pouting lips pressed tightly together into a thin line, far less attractive and far more off-putting. She spoke little after that, and this reality pained those close to her. She always had such joyful words, bouncy and full of life and expression. But at once she was near-mute, much more the model of America: stoic, turned inward, ungrateful.

The chick she’d been dropped for? She was not much: big breasts, thicker thighs. Faux blonde hair. Nothing special. But she was a slut, and sluts have infinite, universal appeal. If only Ginger had known this. If only Ginger had known her worth lay independent of all these things.

For Ginger, like all young men and women of our generation, there was only heartbreak. The funny thing about breakups– no matter how trivial or serious– is that no one ever thinks about anything except what they are leaving. What a different Ginger it would have been, if she had only imagined the possibilities. What a different Ginger, if she had believed what remained still to come would so easily and completely eclipse that which had been left. Instead, she remained stoic, refused to eat, and retreated to her room.

But her books came with her.

Chapter 22: Ashes

Distorted light from an average day in spring shone upon Ginger’s face in multi-color.

She knelt before the priest as he traced a cross of ash across her forehead. She flinched, then held herself steady as the image completed itself, her face a canvas for the priest’s perverse art. When he had finished, she stood and returned to her pew.

Ginger grew constantly, her legs easily stretching her higher and higher, befitting a model and budding star. It’s not difficult to imagine more than a few people having trouble concentrating on their prayers.

“We call that original Sin,” the priest had told her once. Ginger had not been asking about anything unusual, just why she needed to attend mass so frequently or to bear the ashen cross. His response bothered her. She always found it profoundly sad when the priest said this, or when her parents did, or when anyone did. Who had she wronged so wickedly — before she was even alive — that would have required of someone else a death? She thought of these things and her brow furrowed and some of the ashes clumped and fell away. Her hand ached to touch her face to trace the outline of the cross and determine which portion of it disappeared. She knew her mother would make a fuss of it soon enough anyway.

They stood outside by a flower bed which surrounded a sign announcing the times of mass. Ginger’s mom began to chide her for the crumbling cross.

She sat silently as they drove home, the green fields of Michigan rolling by on her either side. She spent much of her life in the car, be it traveling to and from church or from modeling auditions and photo shoots. Of course, she never complained or voiced a position on this fact. But the truth was: she hated it.

She supposed, however, that she hated ignorance even more.

“Mom. Why did Jesus die for me?”

“So you can come into the light,” her mother said. Ginger said nothing, her mind bouncing with the distorted images of illuminated stained glass windows and with memorized recitations of the virtues of virginity. They threated to blind her with their self-sustaining and luminous intensity.

Ginger thought she would prefer the darkness, the shadows.