Faith sucked in a breath. "Wow. I look like a real model!"
"Yes, you do," I agreed. "But wait, there's more. See how that strap right here is a bit twisted?" Another brush, and I zoomed in to fix that. "And that bit of shadow under your butt? Let's just take that out. Anything else you don't like?"
"The hair on my cheek," she said. "It's, like, stuck there."
"Easy."
So I removed that. It took a few extra clicks to match her makeup and make it flawless, but Faith sucked in a breath, clearly impressed. When that was done, I saved it with a new name, listing it right at the top, and then we went back to the rest of the pictures. Anything she liked, I fixed up, and the young lady beside me looked like she was sitting a little bit taller than she'd been yesterday.
"Ash?" she finally asked. "Am I pretty?"
"Very," I assured her. "I'm not saying that to be nice, either. You're thirteen, so you still have a bit of cute going for you, but you're also very attractive." I turned to face her. "See, your cheekbones are nice and high. Your nose is straight and small. People in my line of work pay a lot of money to get noses like that. You have full lips and a little cupid's bow. Boys like those."
"But I'm kinda fat," she said.
I just tilted my head back at the images. "I didn't do a thing to make you skinny. That's you, Faith. That's how you look to everyone else. You're also at the age where some girls are growing up faster than others. They have boobs and butts forming, and you're still getting there. Here's the thing no one tells you, though. When you're fifteen, you'll be caught up. When you're twenty, they'll be declining, and you'll still be getting more beautiful. And when you're thirty, you'll still make people stop and turn in awe."
"But that doesn't help me now," she insisted.
"I know," I promised. "Trust me, I do know." Then I pulled out my phone. "Let me show you something. I have this picture from when I was a kid. It's one of my most treasured possessions. That's Violet."
"You showed me that," she grumbled.
"But this guy? That's me. That one in the back? That's Cy." I pointed at each of us in turn. "But look at me. I was so scrawny! I had a zit on my chin, and my teeth didn't fit in my head. I was not a cute guy at that age, and it sucked. Violet was this a-dork-able little nerd, but you know what? I still loved her. She was the most amazing girl in the whole wide world. I mean, I thought I was all that back then, and Cy was pretty impressed, but I wasn't a lady's man. I was just a kid waiting to grow up, and no matter how many pushups I did or weights I lifted, I just never got any bigger, and I hated it."
"But you have muscles now," she said.
I nodded. "I actually had to give up modeling because I got muscles. They wanted me to be lean and lithe. Instead, I got muscular when I hit about twenty-five, and the jobs stopped coming, so I started designing lingerie full-time instead. I actually like it more, but at the time, I was so sure I wasn't good enough. Know why?" I didn't wait for her to answer. "Because someone else told me that, and I was dumb enough to listen."
"Mom said she knew you were gay because you were too hot to be straight," Faith told me. "So it all worked out, right?"
"Eventually," I agreed. "But it didn't help me when I was the boy in that picture. It felt like I would be that way forever, and I just wanted to hurry up and get sexy so the ladies would fall all over me. And guys, but I honestly only liked Cy."
She giggled at that. "But he wouldn't like ladies falling on you."
I decided to ignore that. "All I'm saying is that people are so happy to tell you all of your flaws because they want to make themselves feel better. If your teeth aren't straight, then you aren't perfect, so they can't be failing as badly. They do it because they're jealous, Faith, and there's a lot for them to be jealous of. How many kids in your school don't have a dad who loves them as much as yours does?"
"A lot, I guess?" she said.
I nodded. "And you have cool clothes, a horse of your own, and all these things that others can only wish for. Your dad has a pretty cool girlfriend who likes spending time with you instead of shooing you away so she can be with him, right?"
"Yeah, and most of Mom's boyfriends didn't want to talk to me."
"Exactly," I said. "Those kids you go to school with have their own issues, and the only way they know how to deal with it is to be mean. No one has ever shown them anything else. That doesn't make it right, but keep it in mind when they try to cut you down. They're doing it because your life as a whole is better than theirs. I mean, would you want to be pretty if it meant your dad hated you and your mom never talked to you again?"
"No," she mumbled.
"There's always a give and take. I know it's hard, buttryto keep that in mind when they make you feel bad. We all love you, and we don't want to see you get hurt. You have a whole family who is here to help, Faith. School is only a few hours every day, and then it's done."
"Ash?" she asked, looking up at me. "I think you're my best friend."
I leaned over and hugged her. "Well, you have to share with Violet, but I'll take it."
And then we went through the rest of the pictures. She found a bunch she liked, and the two of us spent the entire day editing and choosing which ones we'd use for the catalog. When we were done, she had a lot more than even I'd expected, and narrowing it down wasn't easy. In the end, she asked me to pick.
I chose the one with Luke falling into the water first, because I just liked that one. Both Faith and Violet looked good, and Luke added a little humor - and a lot of abs. I chose another that had her fake tattoo showing really well without getting in the way of the bathing suit. Then there was one of her lifting her hand to her mouth to hold in a laugh. Faith approved them all.
"Ok," I said when we were done. "Now, here's the hard part." Pulling open the top drawer of my desk, I found last spring's catalog and passed it to her. "We mail these out to millions of people. Most are women, and it's a bit like Avon books. Are you sure you want to be in one that we send out, or do you just want these pictures for yourself?"
