“I feel like you have a wall up. Do you see what I mean?” Raj says, showing me some examples. In the shots where I’m making eye contact with the camera, I see that I’m a little removed. They look like pictures for Facebook, not headshots. “I think you need to open up a little and…how do I say this?…reveal something.”
“Okay,” I say. The muscles on the back of my neck tense. “You’re a director, can you…direct me?”
“Sure,” Raj says, standing up. “Let’s try some shots by that bench.”
I walk over to the bench, sit down, and smile, feeling even more self-conscious than before I knew I was inadvertently putting up a wall.
“Just close your eyes and breathe,” Raj says. I take a few deep breaths. Then I open my eyes, look up at him, and smile. He snaps a picture. “Let’s try that again.” We do, but clearly I’m not letting my guard down enough. In fact, the harder I try, the tenser I feel. “Okay, I have an idea,” Raj says. “Think—without thinking too hard—about a moment when you felt really happy. Get really specific. Where were you? Who was with you? What were you doing?”
What comes to mind immediately is Maine, the day before Alex and I set off on our road trip. We were on the ferry to the little island where his family has a summer home. It wasn’t raining, but it was misting. There was supposed to be a send-off party for us with his whole family and all of his cousins, before we drove across country together. I picture Alex, one arm wrapped around me, as he leaned in to kiss my cheek. And suddenly I can feel his skin—my hand on his. I remember thinking that we fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I remember feeling lucky, even though I hadn’t been accepted to college, because I already knew where I belonged. I remember that my fingers were chilly, and then he took my hands in his and blew on them. I remember the smell of his damp wool sweater. And that’s what does it. That’s what sends up a wave of emotion from my gut so forceful it hits me like a fist. Raj is clicking his camera, but I cover my face and turn away.
“You okay?” Raj asks.
I nod, but I can’t speak. If I do, the tears will surely start. And once they start, I’m not sure they’ll ever stop. I walk away and face the San Gabriels. I hold my breath until I feel the wave subsiding.
“Hey, are you okay?” Raj asks again.
“Yup,” I call back, and I hold up my hand as if to say, One minute. I don’t turn around until I’m one hundred percent positive that I won’t cry.
“Do you see what I mean about shooting headshots outside?” Marisol asks later that night as the three of us eat Thai food and look over the pictures in Raj’s apartment. I promised Raj I would buy him dinner for all of his help, and Marisol didn’t have any cash on her, so I bought enough for all three of us. There are no less than eight Thai restaurants within a two-mile radius of the Chateau. “There are too many factors to consider,” she says as she slurps her spicy shrimp soup. “Not to mention hair and makeup.”
“Yeah, but you can’t beat the setting,” Raj says as he pops a spring roll into his mouth. “Or the natural light.”
“These are amazing shots,” I say, clicking on a picture of myself leaning against a curved wall of the observatory. “Couldn’t I use this one?”
“It’s a beautiful picture, but it’s too serious for you,” Marisol says. “If you were in your forties and hoping to play a divorced mom, I’d say go for it. But you’re eighteen and comedic, I think. People aren’t going to know what to do with you with that shot.”
“So we need a close-up of Becca smiling,” Raj says, quickly clicking through the one hundred and ten pictures he took.
After a container of pad Thai, two sides of chicken skewers, some fried tofu, and a fistful of fortune cookies, we narrow it down to three good pictures. Even if I do seem somewhat removed in them, and despite the fact that I could use some mascara and some concealer, they are at least a good representation of me.
Marisol sighs. “As brilliant as you are, Raj, I just don’t think they look like headshots.”
“But they’re shots of my head,” I say.
Raj laughs. “She has a point. I’d call her in for one of my films without a doubt.”
“I’m afraid that if you use them, you’re going to look like you don’t know what you’re doing,” Marisol says. “No one will take you seriously with those shots.”
“Whaaaat? Come on, now.” Raj’s voice has a defensive edge.
“Relax,” Marisol says. “Let me show you what I mean.”
Marisol shows us the online portfolio of her headshot photographer, and I see that she’s right. The actors look perfectly groomed and flawless. They look, well, like actors.
“Okay, okay, we get the point,” Raj says after we’ve seen enough doe-eyed ingénues to sink the Titanic.
“I’ve come all this way, the least I can do is get a headshot that looks real,” I say.
“I’m sorry, boo,” Marisol says. “I’m just telling you the truth.”
“The sad truth,” Raj says. He gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Our pictures are much cooler.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Friends are honest, right? But I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I don’t have a thousand dollars just, you know, lying around.”
“That’s why God made credit cards,” Marisol says, and smiles.
MARISOL’S PHOTOGRAPHER IS booked until Christmas. So I research headshot photographers online and meet with my three favorites. I hire Theresa Vasquez because she accepts credit cards and the people in her pictures look engaged, like they’re listening to a story with a luminous vulnerability or a charming, restrained enthusiasm. I scroll through the pictures on her site. The last one is a picture of a lady angling for school principal and judge parts. “I’ll allow it, Counselor, but you’re on thin ice,” her expression says.
“Bring five of your favorite outfits. You want to feel like yourself because you need to look like yourself,” Theresa says when we schedule. “And bring lots of textures. I love texture.” I choose a blousy top that has metallic threads running through it, a tank top with lace trim, a T-shirt with a scoop neck, a retro denim jacket, a sundress, a chunky cardigan, and my favorite jeans.
The morning of my shoot, I wake up early, leaving plenty of time to take a shower, wash and dry my hair, pick up a coffee at Starbucks, and get the bus downtown without any stress. I’m making my way to the bus stop on Hollywood Boulevard, an Ikea bag with my outfits in one hand and my latte in the other, when a Honda Civic pulls up next to me.
“Becca?”
It’s Oh Fucky!
“Hi,” I say, wishing I’d never told him my name.
“Can I offer you a lift?” he asks.
“No, thank you,” I say, continuing to walk. He drives slowly next to me. I feel like I should be scared, but I’m not. I just want him to go away.
“Do you like avocado?” he asks.
“Um, yes?”
“I knew it. Women love avocados. Now, I know you don’t like sushi, but I can make an avocado filled with itty-bitty shrimp that will blow your mind. What do you say? A bottle of red. Avocado and prawns. Chocolate. My place or yours—wherever you feel more comfortable. We’ll light some scented candles? Maybe take a bubble bath?”
“No, no, no thank you. I don’t think my boyfriend will like that.”
“Oh fucky!” He hits the accelerator and drives off.
Ew! A bubble bath? Itty-bitty shrimp? I feel gross just knowing that Oh Fucky’s been planning this evening for us. And he lives right upstairs! I try to shake off the encounter so none of its weird residue interferes with my shoot. My shoot!
Theresa picks through my clothes and pulls out the cardigan, holding it with her thumb and forefinger. “Okay, this could work.” She drops it on a chaise lounge. “If you were fifty.” I feel my throat close a little, the way it does before I cry. She picks up the tank top, checks the label, and runs her fingers over the lace trim. “I’d hate for you to look cheap.” She tosses it on top of the cardigan. My breat
h gets shallow as she picks up the sundress and frowns, then does the same with the jean jacket. She considers the T-shirt. “We’ll start with this.”
She’s just being honest, I tell myself. This is why I’m paying a professional. She knows what works and what doesn’t.
Her friend Adele walks in from the kitchen and sets up a stool. I’m paying an additional hundred dollars for her to do my makeup. It’s nothing like when Marisol did my makeup. She applies it without tenderness.
“Um, do you think the lipstick’s a little dark?” I say when I look in the mirror. She gives me a condescending look, shakes her head, and touches up her own face with a sponge.
I sit in a chair and smile. Theresa takes a few shots. She lowers the camera away from her face. I wonder if I’m putting up the wall that Raj mentioned again.
“Do you smoke?” she asks, wrinkling her nose.
“No,” I say. “I mean, I did once. I was really stressed-out.”
“I can tell,” she says. Jesus. Wait. I did it once. Don’t all the movie stars smoke for, like, years? “And what kind of stress can you have at your age?”
“Seriously,” Adele says, pressing powder to her forehead. They laugh.
“Kind of a lot,” I say. I’m paying this lady a thousand dollars for an hour and a half of her time, the least she can do is not laugh at me outright. After I leave, fine. Have a laugh at my expense—my very great expense, actually. But now? In the middle of my shoot?
She takes a few more shots.
“How old do you think I am?” She puts her hands on her hips. I know I have to aim low—like ten years low.
“Um, twenty-eight?”
“Forty-three.” She smiles.
“Wow.”
“Doesn’t she look fantastic?” Adele asks. The way she says it sounds like funtastic.
“Want to know how I do it?”
“Sure.” No. I want you to focus on me and take my headshots. I’m talking about a thousand dollars that I don’t have, that I’m putting on a new credit card.
“I’m a vegan. I get ten hours of sleep a night. I do yoga every day. I drink four glasses of water before breakfast. No sugar. No caffeine. No alcohol. And certainly, no cigarettes.” Well, she’s definitely not funtastic. Up close I think her skin looks a little too moist. I think she might need to take her moisturizing routine down just a half step so she doesn’t glisten with quite as much aggression. She stands back and assesses me. “Okay, babe. You’re stiffer than a corpse. We need to loosen you up,” Theresa says. “What kind of music do you like?”
“I don’t know,” I say, afraid I’ll have the wrong answer.
She frowns, puts on a hip-hop mix, and takes what feels like a million pictures. Half the time I’m in the scoop neck T-shirt. The other half I’m wearing one of Theresa’s kurta shirts. We try to do something with a scarf, but it doesn’t work. We seem to reach the same point I did with Raj. I’m guarded, but in this environment, I don’t know how not to be.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Theresa says. “Pretend like I’m your best friend.” I sigh. This is going to be a stretch. “Imagine you’re about to tell me something funny, something that you know will make me laugh.” Immediately Oh Fucky and his gross date suggestion comes to mind.
“I can see you’ve got something,” Theresa says, softening. “Perfect. Can you tell me the story?”
“So there’s this guy in my building…” I start.
“Yeah?” Theresa says. I can see a smile forming behind her camera. “Go on.”
I tell her the story, imagining that she’s Marisol, and as I go on about the avocado and the scented candles, Theresa laughs and shoots away.
“I think we got it,” she says, biting her lower lip.
A week later, I return to her studio, where we go over the pictures. In some of them I look like I’m in a yearbook trying to appear casually popular. In others, I have a deer-in-the-headlights, glazed, nobody’s-home look. And then there are the I-could-eat-you-with-my-enthusiasm shots that were taken when I was imagining she was Marisol. All the pictures I like, in which I think I look good, Theresa tells me look nothing like me.
“This is the one,” she says, pointing to a shot I skipped over.
“I look like an elf.”
“But you’re connecting with the camera.” This makes me think of what Raj said, about how I have a wall up. Still, I can’t help but notice she’s not arguing with my elf assessment. “And your smile’s not too big. It’s natural. You can see your collarbones. That’s a good thing. Shows you’re thin.” She looks at me with narrow eyes. “How do you stay so thin?”
“I don’t know.”
“Be careful. You almost look prepubescent.” Gee, it’s hard to win around here. Last week I was prematurely aging due to a single cigarette. She points to the image. “This is the one. See how alive your eyes are? The way you’re looking up at the camera?”
“But do you think I look pretty?”
She sucks air in through her teeth. “I wouldn’t worry about that too, too much.”
“Why?” The whole point of these pictures is to look as good as you possibly can. Everyone knows that actors and actresses are supposed to be beautiful.
“You’re a character actress,” she says. My heart drops a little. A character actress is one who plays a supporting role—someone unusual or eccentric. “What? Did you think you were a Leading Lady type?”
“No, no. Not at all. No,” I say. I guess I hadn’t thought about my looks beyond believing that I’m appealing and maybe even pretty. I certainly never thought of myself as weird-looking.
“Do you mind if I ask what type you thought you were?”
“I don’t know,” I say, answering honestly. A Leading Lady type in Hollywood is someone indisputably beautiful. Maybe a tiny part of myself hoped I was a lead and indisputably beautiful, and just hadn’t realized it yet, but another more realistic part of myself knew it wasn’t true. I guess, if I were a great beauty, I’d know it by now. Theresa is smiling at me as she awaits my response. “I guess I thought I was a Girl Next Door,” I say. A Girl Next Door type would be someone with a sweet, normal sort of prettiness. Not expected to be a great beauty, the Girl Next Door can nevertheless be a love interest and score a big part.
“No, no, no. You’re a character. Trust me. I’ve been in this business a long time,” she says, as she scrolls through my pictures.
I unnecessarily push my hair behind my ears and guzzle my sparkling water. A character actress, especially one as young as I am, is relegated to a lesser role like the really kooky best friend, or a slightly bonkers camp counselor, maybe the member of a cult, or a teenage mom living in dire straits. Even female high school “nerds” are played by the Girl Next Door types.
“I haven’t upset you, have I?” she asks. I study my jeans. “I think you’re taking this the wrong way. Lots of nice-looking girls are characters.” She points to another one of my shots. “Hey, in this one, you look like you could be the Girl Next Door’s sister.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay.” The part of Girl Next Door’s sister doesn’t sound so bad, but it certainly isn’t the stuff that dreams are made of. It isn’t why I moved to LA with nothing but a broken heart and a few suitcases.
“This is totally your shot,” Theresa says, tapping her computer screen. “You can send this one out for more serious roles. The other one is a better commercial shot.” She downloads the files onto a memory stick, hands it to me, and smiles, sending her glossy crow’s-feet down her cheeks. “You have the files now. You’re on your way. Don’t worry. You’re going to make it. I know you are. Just stay positive and drink a lot of water. And please, don’t forget to leave a review on Yelp. It’d really help me out.”
As I’m unlocking the door to the Chateau, I run into Marisol, who is on her way to an audition. Her hair looks like it’s been professionally styled, and her barely there makeup gives her a polished yet fresh appearance. She’s definitely a Girl Next Door, if not
a Leading Lady. I feel a stab of jealousy, but before it sinks in or starts to ache, Marisol embraces me. She smells like soap and laundry and kindness.
“I have a plan for us for tonight,” she says. “We’re going to this cemetery where they screen movies. Tonight it’s Edward Scissorhands. How fun is that? We can bring a picnic and blankets, and it’s totally free.”
“I’ll make some pasta,” I say.
“Perfect,” Marisol says. “I’ll bring the blankets and swing by around five. Love ya!” She blows me a kiss.
“Love ya, too!” I say, and blow a kiss back.
When I get back to my apartment, I download the pictures immediately. A few minutes later I get a text from Mom with a picture of her at our favorite restaurant attached. The sight of her face on my screen after being away from her for a whole month makes my breath catch in my throat.
Mom: Hi, sweetie. Did you pick out a good headshot?
Me: Yes, I think we got some OK ones. I have a commercial one and a serious one, too.
Mom: Send them to me!!
Me: Here.
I send the pics and she writes back right away.
Mom: Becca, you are GORGEOUS! How is that my baby?
Me: Thanks, Mom.
Mom: I miss you like crazy.
Me: Me too, Mom.
Mom: You’re my brave girl.
Me: Do you think you can come visit?
Mom: I’ve been thinking the same thing. Unless of course you want to come home?
Me: You come here!
Mom: OK. Christmas?
Me: Yes, come out at Christmas!
Mom: I’ll start looking at tickets. Now, I hate to ask…
Me: I haven’t started!
Mom: BECCA. I want you to get your college list in order. Tomorrow is October 1!
Me: OK.
Mom: You’ll have a list in a week?
Me: Yes.
Mom: You’ll get online now?
Me: Yes.
Mom: Promise?
Me: Promise.
Mom: Love you to the sky.
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