-Papoose
I tried to work in a fitting picture, I really did, but there were only two and they were both unusuable so have the cutest freaking thing to come out of VS ever instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf2XowqOpqs&feature=player_embedded
If you expected Klara to be wearing anything other than the model uniform (literally she's worn it on like every single set) to her fitting, you're dead wrong.
Also I've started to call her Klaratin, as in it's Klaratin Klear I need to write more for her.
☆ Saturday :
Third Challenge - The VSFS is less than a week away, so all of the girls are heading down to the VS studio to try some test outfits on for the show! We're also getting interviewed by some press while we're there, so expect cameras!
♕
- Why does your model love the fittings/what does she love about them?
Klara doesn’t love fittings, she merely tolerates them. However, she finds something intrinsically special with the Victoria’s Secret fittings, and they’re somewhat pleasant (although, she does vastly prefers Karl Lagerfeld’s uncharacteristically orderly, sweet-comment-filled fittings with none of the chaos that VS has). She likes being able to joke around, and give her input, and the fact that the camera crew calls her ‘the Czech Princess’ and just generally adores her. And it doesn’t hurt to be fawned and cried over and treated like an actual person instead of a mannequin.
- Why are the fittings important to you?
Fittings are only released to the public due to the request of fans. Klara was hesitant to be filmed for the videos at first, but gradually she fell into it and people adore her because of some of the fittings. She still gets uneasy about the cameras, but in general, fittings are very important because she can see, visualize how she wants to walk, the way the skirts twirl, the wings flutter… Things she can’t do with only a sketch.
- What outfit(s) were your favorites to try on?
Klara adored the jeweled blue lingerie with the large feathered wings (http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md5oiipD2T1rchw7ao1_500.jpg), because, of course, they were wings. She’s had much larger, but these were so lovely, and not in the slightest bit uncomfortable. She would have teared up when the put them on (with happiness, of course) if she wasn’t so refined. The other outfit she tried, the gauzy, parachute like skirt and black lingerie (http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md5prbQGyJ1rchw7ao1_500.jpg) she adored as well, and she joked around so much with the skirt and various twirls (ahahahhaha still in love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TxVVK_Wc1zc)
♕
I woke up submerged in darkness, suffocating in my pillow. There was something making it hard to breathe, even as I lifted my head to read the hotel clock on my bedside table. It was barely three am, and my eyes felt heavy. I lifted a hand to my lips, touching something wet and I knew what it was, stumbling blindly into the bathroom and turning on the light. My face cheeks nose lips were covered in blood, it stained my hand, and when I spat into the sink it was red and gory. I had suffered last night. A slight overdose, maybe. I shouldn’t have bowed. I never had before.
I patted myself dry with a fluffy white towel, the sort all the hotels I stayed in had. My towels in Paris were grungy, stained with dye or makeup or fake tan. I missed my flat, the one that looked out on the open-air market. Karolina lived just below me, sweet Karolina with her soft big eyes and my beautiful beautiful native language. She would know what to do, and I walked back into the main room, picking up my cellphone to dial. It would be nine am there, and she would be wide awake, making breakfast. If I was there she would be sharing.
"Karolina, má lásko, díky Bohu. Mám problém." (Karolina, my love, thank god. I have a problem.). She hesitated before answering, her words delicate music in my ears, regardless of how fast my heart was pounding. "Klára? Co je to, je všechno v pořádku? Proč nespíš?" (Klara? What is it, is everything alright? Why aren't you sleeping?). I switched to English. We were both so slow with it, and I needed so badly time to think.
“I think I overdose.” She inhales sharply, and I worry for a long time as she says nothing, her tea kettle whistling on the stove. I continue. “I took too much of cough syrup, the one not legal in the American.” She breathes again. “Klara, my love, what did you think? What is so important you can’t have cold?” She’ll understand, I just know it. “Victoria’s Secret.” I’m wrong. She lets out a barrage of our Czech curses, cold and unfriendly. The clock ticks another minute past silently. “Klara, you can do fitting in cold, I seen you do it. Many times.”
She’s right, but she doesn’t understand. She was before the cameras, the crews wanting to make jokes, when the directors were the ones who wanted the girls to be serious. I closed my eyes and simply worried while she spoke again. “Call someone, an other girl, make sure you be there. You did bad Klara. I worry.” The line ended with a click, and I collapsed onto the sofa facing the television, turning on the dullest noise imaginable while I scrolled through the names in my head. Veronique, Matthias, Luisa- no, she was in Brazil, Marko, Claire-Marie… Callum. I stopped.
He was gone now, he wasn’t mine, he couldn’t help me. I curled up in a ball as my nose began to bleed again and the screen flashed a time update. Lo, Evie, Karla, Todd. No one. I stood up, slumping on my way into the bathroom, pulling my phone and scrolling through the newest numbers, the ones I put in at Katsuya, somewhat against my will. I hit one, not bothering to look, and sat down on the sharp-edged counter top with a wince as the dial tone sounded, aggravating the burgeoning headache I was incubating. “’Lo?” The voice was tinged with sleep, and I had no idea who I had called. I looked. Thea Dalton, the one who saw my livelihood as a mere hobby, one to hide.
“Thea? I understand it is early, and I do not talk to you, but I need you to help me.” I could hear rustling in the background, maybe sheets being pushed back. “Wait, who is this?” Her accent was oddly comforting. “It’s Klara. The model.” She paused in her breathing, heavy not-awake breathing. I had been awful to her, to all of the new girls, at our introductions, ignoring judgmental rude Klara. “What do you need, Klara?”
I breathe in as deeply as I can without the blood. “Can you… Can you please come stay with me in my hotel room? I will pay for your cab fare, and we can go together. To fittings. It will be fun?” She doesn’t ask questions, saying just, “Done.” We hang up and I text her my address and room number, clicking on a pay-per-view movie, the new James Bond, and sitting stock-still on my bed to wait. I have to do something for her, a stranger who woke up at four am to help someone she barely knew. There was a knock on my door and I checked again to make sure my nose isn’t bleeding still before trying my hardest to sashay over and let her in.
She was beautiful, even without makeup, in a simple, clean white shirt and shorts that would do nothing to protect her from the cold outside, and there were little bumps, the ones from being cold, on her arms. I tried a smile. She smiled back, and looked over my shoulder. “Hey, is that the new Bond?” I nod, and open the door wider. “Please come in.” She gives me another, cautious smile, and follows me down the small en suite steps to the salon, the plush white couch looking beyond simply inviting. We collapsed into it, and Bond was thrown off the train on screen.
I passed Thea the small bowl of M&Ms the staff left every guest, taking the gummy bears for myself. We were drawn in, not talking, simply sitting there, two strangers together in the darkness of the room and light of the screen, breathing hard watching people be shot and buildings explode. “How do you like Victoria’s Secret?” She seems surprised at first, as if she had no idea I have the capacity to speak with her in live, breathing living person. “Oh, ah, I like it. It’s fun. And I met some cool people.” She tosses an M&M at me playfully, and I sit up slightly stunned. She’s treating me like one of her friends. “Yes, some cool people.” I agree and throw it back at her.
She settles back in, sighing. “So what are the fittings like?” She sounds almost woeful, if not dreamy. I shrug, picking at a thread in the blanket spread across my lap. “They are different from other. You get joke, and camera crew. Everyone coos and compliment you.” She smiles in a way that matches her dreamy tone. “Sounds like fun. And I’ve seen last year’s fitting videos like, a thousand times.” We fall back into silence. Bond is resurrected.
My phone lights up and I steal a glance at Thea before I pick it up. She’s pretending not to see it. Karolina has texted me affirmations, and I respond quickly, checking the phone’s time. It’s almost six am, and fittings begin at nine. I sigh, setting it down. My nosebleeds have stopped since she got here, but my head still aches when I move.
“Klara, why did you invite me?” She says it so quietly I barely register at first. I don’t know why her, how to answer, and I try, equally quiet, submerged in not-quite solitude. “I… I overdose last night. I did not want be alone.” She expects me to stop there, knowing what I mean. Almost expecting it. I continue. “I took much cough syrup. I had illness, I do not want be sick on camera…?” She turns to face me with something like pity in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, that’s awful.” I agree, speaking to myself. “Yes.”
She looks away again, glancing around the room, anywhere but at me. “You’re a really amazing model, Klara, and I think you’re really sweet once you lighten up.” She smiles, shrugging a shoulder at the M&M dish. “You promised fun, and I had it. Thank you, really.” I nod, and wish desperately that she was right, that everything was still good in the world, and that I wasn’t so corrupted. “Thank you as well.”
♕
“You look like death.” It’s not a particularly nice statement, and I scowl in Lo’s direction. She smirks, batting her eyelashes from her place, cross-legged, on the floor. “What did you do, stay up all night?” I don’t have to look up to know Evie has joined us. She’s something like surgically attached to Lo. I set down the hairbrush and foundation bottle I’m using half-heartedly on my dark, panda bear eyes, and move towards them, settling down on the hard concrete floor. We make an odd little triangle. “Bond movie on.”
They nod in synchronization, and Lo speaks, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling. We’ve all been here two hours at least. “It was pretty good, I thought.” I tilt my head to match hers, and wince, the blood rushing to my throbbing head. “Klara, are you okay?” Evie looks alarmed, motioning to her face. I tilt back down and touch my own. “Shiit shiit shiit!” My nose is bleeding still, and I finally realize why I feel so light headed. I’ve lost blood. Lo purses her lips. “You aren’t friends with… the fast white lady, are you?” She uses the street name for cocaine all the models know. I frown at her, trying to cap the flow. “What do you think I am?” She exchanges a look with Evie.
Todd waltzes into the room in his special way, looking at his notes. “Angels, up up up! We have your wii-ings!” I watch them go, leaning against the wall and sighing. The blood is gone again, but I have a new fear, drowning in it in my gowns. I should have just come with a cold. I needed to have persevered. I’ll never be a real angel; I’m a fuuck-up, impure, supposed to be dead to the industry long ago. I wallow in the self-pity, taking the cookie a production assistant offers me and swallowing fast, before anyone sees.
Monica takes me to my fitting, smiling and trying out the Czech I taught her a few days ago. She’s butchering it, but I smile regardless and use my equally butchered English. We smile oddly at this until someone arrives with my first look, and I close my eyes. I always do. The cameras click on, and I open my eyes to the bright light. There’s a train at my waist, one that billows out as I try a walk, the assistants screaming ‘ah-maaaaaaazing!!!’. I do my signature runway pout, the one that made me famous, and they practically melt. “Be a VS girl Klara, give us some teeth!”
“I do everything.” I declare. The lightheadedness hasn’t disappeared but I can breathe again, and there’s no blood anywhere. I look incredible, regal and queenly in the lacy black lingerie and little green hat. The parachute train billows majestically when I saunter towards the cameras. The production crew is falling for me, shouting little directions. I blow kisses, pout, shake my asss. Any doubt I have disappears. I feel like an Angel. A real Angel.
They take it off of me and I nearly cry to see it go, but my eyes close again as they place something heavier than simple lingerie on my back. My heart nearly stops for a moment. Wings. I open my eyes to tears from the interns, Monica is beaming, Todd is shaking his head in apparent amazement, and dearest to my heart, Veronique has finally arrived, giving me her bitchiest look. I smirk at her, and saunter towards them, pivoting, the feathered, jeweled wings sprout from my skin fluttering. It’s silent, then someone I can’t place speaks. “She looks like an Angel.”
This story had such an odd premise. I've OD'd on Sudafed before and I got a nosebleed so I guess that's what I was aiming for? I originally wrote it with cocaine (which is why it's weirdness), but I don't think Klara is that sort of girl. She has one vice and it's sex or something. idek. Anyway, Klaratin is better the next day, no nosebleeds, nada. And I think the ending was super sweet, so...
(belle)
