Chapter 2: Checkered Past
Chapter 2: Checkered Past
Alessia
“Ma'am, your seat.” The same flight attendant that had just been speaking was now coming around with a hawk eye for anything out of place.
Honestly, what does it matter if my seat is upright or very slightly reclined? Is it to let passengers out of their seats more easily once we touch the ground? I suppose that probably is why I am still cranky about it. I hit the latch and popped forward, the woman let a wide smile come across her thin lips.
“Thank you,” she said cheerily before being on her merry way.
“Whatever she is on, I want some.” I whispered to Brianna, she snorted a laugh and then covered her mouth.
“Are you going to have a ride home from the airport? I just remembered you saying you don't know many people here.” She randomly said when she recovered her hand.
“Umm, just a lift.” I shrugged.
“Well I am like ninety-nine positive my brother's driver is going to be picking me up. It is kind of our thing, so if you want…” she began the offering but I put a hand up to stop her.
“Oh on , that is okay. Thanks, that is kind but I don't live on your end of the city.” I chuckled at our obvious differing lives. She is on the rich side of the city, I am not.
“Are you sure? He won't mind.” She continued. She is really nice.
“No, I insist, you go straight home and sleep.” I patted her arm on the armrest between us.
“Eat and sleep,” she reminded me.
“True, I am not sure which will overtake me first.”
The same dinging sound came overhead again. This time it was the pilot, letting us know that we were about landing and thanking us for flying with them.
My apartment is narrow, why are so many PH apartments so damn narrow? You walk in the front door and you are in the living room, the kitchen is just after and then bathroom and bedroom one across the narrow hall from the other. After that, at the very end of the hall is the second bedroom. Each room is very small, no room for a kitchen table and I forfeited a dresser when I lived with my third roommate. Only now that I have my own closet sized bedroom do I have racks of clothes along the side wall and an actual closet for the rest. It is messy and I can't hide much. I have a stack of books beside my bed that seconds as a table whenever I have a glass of something to drink. It may be blasphemy to put liquid items above a book like a dang coaster but times are hard.
The racks of clothes automatically look messy, my bed is never made. It is not a very large bed either, we had one mattress and one futon when the third roommate was here. Now, it is just the mattress which gives me a little floor space I didn't once have. I remembered her and I rolled dice for it. Whoever got the higher number got the mattress not the futon and I won but of course, I did. My brothers taught me how to rig a dice. My current and only roommate now is Kara. She is a Ghanaian and she is also twenty-two, very thin with her model typical build, strawberry hair with hazel eyes. She once had crowded teeth, she got an Invisalign fixing them. Kara isn't particularly interesting, I guess her accent is nice and I don't hold my country accent since I spent my majority of years here, in this country but I do speak my language. My mother wasn't always fluent in English, so we speak our native tongue in the house. When I rode my carry-on luggage into that apartment, I got Kara's attention right away. She popped out of the room in sleep clothes since it was morning.
“Hey, welcome back.” She waved.
“You are up early?” I glanced at my phone in my hand, it is just eight in the morning.
“I have a casting.” She replied, already looking at herself in the large mirror we have on the wall between rooms.
“I have to get dressed, but you will have to tell me how it went later when I am back.” She said, I was practically grunting at this point, I was so tired.
“I need something quick to fill my stomach and I need my bed.” I rubbed my eyes.
“Grab one of my yogurt if you need to.” She offered politely again.
She is disciplined with her eating habits to stay her current size. The plague of modeling is that one. I used to have a small eating disorder just from the constant pressure that modeling agencies had against me but I have worked on it and I am doing better. I eat, I prioritize it actually because I don't want to go back there. Just another thing in my past I don't want to talk about. When I stuck my head in the fridge, I heard her call out to me.
“Alessia?” But she never finished her sentence, so I grabbed the yogurt and leaned into the room's doorway.
“What do you think?” She asked, holding up two pairs of shoes.
For casting, you don't want to overdress but you don't want to look like a slob either. You want to be a bare canvas for them and if they like your look then you will end up with the clothes and the makeup and all. Port Harcourt fashion week is in a few months, girls my age are working to get themselves out there and noticed, so a brand will pick them up for runway shows. I did mainly photography in Colombia but I had been pushed towards both runway and photography here in Port Harcourt, so we will see.
I wouldn't think I have an in but I think Brianna actually is mine. If she calls.
“Those,” I pointed at her left hand.
I left her to change after that, we walked around the house half naked most of the time. You get used to it, working with other models who all undress in the same place, I am not a modest girl. I have taken tasteful nude pictures for professional photographers before, so it doesn't bother me.
My name is Alessandra but my mother changed it to Alessia when we moved here. Again, checkered past and all that. My real last name carries its sins with it. Alessia Santoro