Photo Shoot

I work at a retreat center in central Texas and volunteer (with three others) to be models for a travel magazine’s photographer. We are here for our own reasons. Martha— because she thinks it’ll help her self esteem. June— because she’s bored with her job and any excuse to play is a good excuse. Tricia— because she thought it would intrigue her boyfriend. Me— only because I like having my picture taken. Ages ago, when I worked at a National Monument in northern Virginia, I was photographed by a man with a handlebar moustache for some biker magazine. Looking winsome in Colonial garb, I posed leaning against the herb garden gate. He suggested that I loosen the ties of my dress. Today I’m hundred years older and probably not the first choice of this young chick photographer from NYC but it appears that they have no money for this shoot. They gotta take what they get.

fallen logs
in between
the budding trees

The photographer asks us to walk single file on the trail, first down the hill then up and then down again. I look over my shoulder and laugh and the photographer likes that, she asks me to do it again and I trip. We all laugh. She asks Martha to step aside, four are too many. Standing in the shadows, Martha adjusts the crotch of her pants. Back at the locker room, the photographer had asked her to put on looser fitting pants, her panty lines stood out like a muscle-man’s veins. Now she looks down at her feet, clad in the photographer’s shoes since hers were not quite right.

passing clouds—
leaves settle
on her hair

I get miffed because the photographer is shooting the Buddha statue at the edge of the trail instead of us. She walks around it, tilting her head to the right as I try to look photogenic on a nearby rock. Martha watches as Tricia and June whisper like sisters and the photographer pulls the cover off her test shot, exposing a picture only she will see.

mudra hands
carved in stone—
off the path, laughter