I worked until just before eight, then hopped on the bus to go home and do some more work. A teenage kid, probably 15, boarded the bus and was easily the most striking person I've ever seen in this town. A tall twig of a punk, with curly hair bleached yellow-blonde, dark roots peeking out underneath the tangles. Baggy, boxy red Sex Pistols sweatshirt and skinny jeans. I didn't know if I was looking at a boy or a girl at first, but when I saw the jeans tucked into the boots, I realized: girl.
Her skin was poreless, creamy, smooth. She had big round azure eyes and a tiny turned-up nose and a light smattering of freckles over angled cheeks. Perfectly symmetrical. And she had that self-consciousness of adolescence: chewed-down fingernails, darting eyes, sudden shifts of carriage. Looking at everything.
I told her that she should go to a modeling agency. She folded into herself a little, mumbled something to deflect my words, and bashfully smiled despite herself. I wound up talking with her dad a bit more; the two of them were visiting from London and traveling the coastline. The girl's eyes lit up when I mentioned Joy Division, and her dad was giddy because he'd followed New Order around back in the day. "You really should take her to Storm Models," I said to him. "She'd be bigger than Agyness Deyn." At this, the girl seemed as excited as a 15-year-old punk can be, and I saw this wonderful glimpse of the woman she might become when she sheds her self-consciousness.
It was such a wonderful, tiny conversation — and though this may be cheesy, I saw some of my former self in this girl. I was never as beautiful, but I remember swimming in clothes and dying my hair and feeling completely awkward and unattractive. And seeing how happy she was to hear a stranger insist that she was beautiful made me very happy indeed.
Her skin was poreless, creamy, smooth. She had big round azure eyes and a tiny turned-up nose and a light smattering of freckles over angled cheeks. Perfectly symmetrical. And she had that self-consciousness of adolescence: chewed-down fingernails, darting eyes, sudden shifts of carriage. Looking at everything.
I told her that she should go to a modeling agency. She folded into herself a little, mumbled something to deflect my words, and bashfully smiled despite herself. I wound up talking with her dad a bit more; the two of them were visiting from London and traveling the coastline. The girl's eyes lit up when I mentioned Joy Division, and her dad was giddy because he'd followed New Order around back in the day. "You really should take her to Storm Models," I said to him. "She'd be bigger than Agyness Deyn." At this, the girl seemed as excited as a 15-year-old punk can be, and I saw this wonderful glimpse of the woman she might become when she sheds her self-consciousness.
It was such a wonderful, tiny conversation — and though this may be cheesy, I saw some of my former self in this girl. I was never as beautiful, but I remember swimming in clothes and dying my hair and feeling completely awkward and unattractive. And seeing how happy she was to hear a stranger insist that she was beautiful made me very happy indeed.
Labels: regression to adolescence
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