It’s a lesson I learned early and well.
“Good, Veronica, darling. That’s perfect,” Marc tells me as he snaps picture after picture. “Now pout a little for me. Yes, yes…a little more. That’s right. Good, good. Can you roll over on your stomach now, darling? Yes, like that. No, no, keep your skirt hiked up. I want to see the top of your stockings. Bend your knees. Good, now maybe kick off one of your shoes—no, no, not completely off. Leave it dangling on your toes like the femme fatale we all know you are. Yes, yes, like that. Can you prop your elbows up now? Rest your chin on your hands. Yes, exactly. Now give me your most demure look—”
“Do you want to fix my lipstick?” Though I haven’t looked in a mirror yet, I’m uncomfortably aware of it smeared on the edge of my cheek. Above my lip. I don’t like the feeling, don’t like anything that doesn’t fit between the lines ascribed to it.
“No, no, I don’t. It’s perfect. You’re perfect, darling. Now smile for me. Smile, smile, smile. Like a predator, love, not the prey. I know you—ah, yes. There it is. There. It. Is. Good, good.”
Through it all the camera continues to click, picture after picture, until finally he calls a break and I end up back in the dressing room getting my hair and makeup redone. This time I’m in a beautiful, vintage, black and white Dior dress with an asymmetrical collar, puffy sleeves that go to my elbow and a thick, black patent leather belt that accentuates my waist. Black gloves and red shoes for a “pop of color” complete the outfit, as does the wide brimmed hat the stylist sticks on my head at the last minute.
They want to photograph this look with me walking up and down the rows of my father’s perfectly landscaped English garden. It was his pride and joy when he was alive and since his death several years ago, my mother and I have made it a point to keep it up. I’m not sure why I bother since it’s one of my least favorite places on the estate, but it’s what he would have wanted so…
Halfway through our time outside, Marc has one of his assistants find me pruning shears and then tells me to go crazy. I know Miguel, my gardener, will kill me if I mess up his plants, but once I cut off the first hibiscus blossom, I’m a little bit of a woman possessed. I start hacking away, cutting a couple flowers of each variety, including the very rare verbascums, and leave them strewn on the path like breadcrumbs for Hansel and Gretel to find.
As I do, I can’t help wishing that they’d been there all those years ago. My younger self could have used them.
We move from the garden to the pool, where I’m in a vintage polka dotted two-piece with a matching towel and beach ball à la Gidget. Then I’m in a red pencil skirt and white blouse in my father’s office—which I haven’t changed at all since he died—playing boss woman with my three thousand dollar shoes kicked up on his desk.
I’m in vintage pedal pushers while I arrange flowers in the kitchen and another Chanel suit—white with elaborate black piping this time—in front of the huge black gate that separates the estate from the people on the street who want to gawk at the movie stars. At me.
At one point Marc shoots me right up against the gate, my gloved hands wrapped around the bars, and I can’t help wondering what it looks like. Can’t help wondering if he’s going for the poor little rich girl vibe, if he’s trying to show just how trapped and isolated it sometimes feels being on this side of the gate.
Then again, maybe I’m overthinking. It’s not that big of a stretch, after all, to want to represent a murderess behind bars.
Still, I’m disturbed. And because I’m concerned that one of those pictures—me holding on to the bars and looking out—is the one that will make it on the cover, I decide to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Which is why, when they dress me up in the pièce de résistance—an absolutely gorgeous dream of a gown from Christian Dior’s 1955 couture collection that has layers upon layers of scalloped tulle and a sleeveless sweetheart bodice with rose piping—I know I’m running out of time to take matters into my own hands.
My hair is in another elaborate up-do and I’m wearing vintage Harry Winston diamonds that would steal the show if I was wearing anything less than a grown-up princess dress. But I am wearing that dress, and it—combined with the jewels—tells me that this is the look they want to anchor the shoot.
They’re right—I know they’re right—and still the photos of me holding on to those bars haunt me. I need to find a way to move this look from the center spread to the cover. Quickly.