In her pink fluffy dressing gown she looks vulnerable and petite. Her wide eyes look up at me.
‘I think everything’s going to change anyway,’ she says. ‘I can feel it. Aurora’s leaving to become some hotshot model, and it won’t be long before Ben and I will be finishing uni and going out into the real world, and I’m not ready.’
‘You don’t have to be ready yet,’ I placate her. ‘You’ve still got time.’
‘I know,’ she says, looking up at me. ‘But this year’s going to go really fast.’
‘No, it won’t,’ I soothe.
‘It will. It always does.’
I can’t hang on any more, so I cut to the chase. ‘I want to know if I’m doing OK?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Us. Am I doing OK now?’
Liv narrows her eyes as if she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
‘You’d tell me – if I was messing this up. Messingusup.’
‘You’re doing fine,’ she says, still looking confused.
‘Because … after you told me off—’
‘Told you off? No, that’s not quite what happened, is it?’ Liv says. ‘I just wanted things to feel normal between us. We seemed to be going at different paces.’
‘You said I was going at the speed of a glacier.’
‘Actually I said glaciers move quicker.’
I smile. ‘We’re arguing about this now?’
‘We’re not arguing, are we? We’re having a conversation,’ she replies.
‘OK. Great.’
‘Tell me you love me,’ she asks, a desperate look in her eyes.
‘I love you,’ I reply.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Aurora
‘Put your hand here,’ the photographer points to my hip. ‘And look back at me.’
I do as I’m told. And then I move in a variety of different ways. It’s instinctive now. And a bit boring. But it pays well. So I make the face I always make – the one my agent said was ‘the one’ – and hope for the best. I’ve done a few of these shoots over the past few months. Since I dropped out of uni I’ve been taking on anything going, almost to prove to those who advised me against it that they’re wrong. This one’s a lingerie campaign in a studio in East London. They’re a new brand. Aren’t they always? And the photographer feels rather rookie, but I’m going with it. He’s trying to be arty, and for a few of the pieces they’ve brought in an oversized home-made sandbox for me to lounge in, which is a little mad.
Liv thinks this weird job is glamorous. Sometimes she’s right. Today she’s wrong. Massively wrong. This is my least favourite job so far, but I keep professional, do as I’m told. I glance again at the sandbox. It would have been cheaper to go to a beach surely, even with their plans to CGI therest of the sand into the shot. I’m not entirely convinced it’s going to work, but needs must and it’s paying fairly well for a day-shoot. I’ve got used to these jobs being hotch-potch, and while I wait for my career to really lift off I’m sticking to my guns and saying yes to everything. I’m not sure my agent is being as selective as she’d normally be. But maybe that’s because I told her I’d say yes to everything, and I’ve no longer got the time constraints of university weighing me down. She’s earning good money from me.I’mearning good money from me.
A message lands on my phone from Ben while we pause for a few minutes, and I stand in my next outfit while around me an assistant tries to smooth out the rest of the sand in the box. The rookie photographer is talking about his vision, and I’m standing in the smallest underwear I’ve ever worn.
Lunch?Ben asks.
I wish I could. I feel this one’s going to drag on.
Tell them you’ve got plans.
