The next part, however, was not so easy.
Inside the trailer, I was introduced to about a dozen people, each of whom passed me on to another person. Finally, a buxom girl with coal-black hair and tattoos up and down both arms shook my hand, and suddenly the two of us were alone in the trailer.
“I guess you’re stuck with me,” I said.
She winked, her full cheeks rising merrily. “We’re stuck with each other. Is this your first shoot?”
“Not counting the ones I didn’t know I was a part of, yes.”
She gasped. “You’re Peach Tits!”
I nearly slapped the bitch. I probably should have. That’s grounds for slapping someone, isn’t it?
She continued, “I’m a huge fan! Me and my girlfriends are all Team Peaches.”
And then, as she said my name again with her particular accent, and I heard it: Peach-tchiss.
“We looooove Peach-tchiss!”
I clapped my hands to my face. “I nearly slapped you. I thought you called me Peach Tits.”
Her snow-white face grew even more pale.
I fanned my face, saying, “Phew! Just give me a moment to get my bitch dialed down. It shot up to eleven there, but we’re okay. We’re cool.”
The young woman pulled back her silky black hair to show me a hearing aid. “Some of my words come out different from other people’s, because of how I hear them.”
“I’m sorry I thought the worst. I’m a little trigger happy since I read all those nasty things online.”
“I’m Finn,” she said, offering me a delightfully plump hand to shake. “Short for Dolphin, but spelled with an F, in case you’re wondering.”
“We’re sisters in the weird name club.”
She glanced down, taking in my full figure at the same time as she stuck one round hip to the side. We were sisters in the BBW club, too. She could have played my body double, if not for the tattoo sleeves up both of her arms. Her ink was a mix of macabre and sweet, with the skeletons of cartoon animals mixed with flowers, sailboats, and antique keys, plus one yellow French’s mustard squeeze bottle. Surely there was a story to that one, I figured.
“Come to my lair,” she joked, leading me over to a swivel chair in front of three mirrors. We squeezed past several racks of clothing packed into the narrow trailer, and I took a seat.
As the perfumed scent of the makeup hit my nose, the gravity of the situation began to sink in. Holy shit, I was going to be shot for Vanity f**king Fair. Shot, stuffed, and mounted in a display case for all the world to see.
“You have good hair,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“My instructions are to go Country Bumpkin, but screw them. Let’s go Sexy Farmer’s Daughter.”
“What’s the difference?”
“About a mile of false eyelashes and a push-up bra, plus a gorgeous pinafore dress instead of overalls.”
“Honey, you had me at false eyelashes.”
With a confident smile, Finn started opening packages of makeup and prepping fluffy brushes. She worked on my hair and makeup, then helped me try on a few outfit options. She knew exactly what to put on my body, from her own experience, and even loaned me her own silver belt when I confessed that none of the wardrobe options were nearly as nice as hers.
I found myself wishing my mother could have been there, as she would have gotten a kick out of the whole thing. Next time, I thought, then I laughed at myself for thinking there would ever be a next time.
After some frenzied last-minute makeup touches, while people kept popping their heads in the door to urge Finn to hurry up, I emerged from the trailer in my glamorous Sexy Farmer’s Daughter getup.
The pinafore dress we tried didn’t have the seam integrity to handle my curves, so I was in a sturdy and eye-popping polka dot dress, red and white. They actually had a lot of dresses my size in the wardrobe department, which surprised me. A stiff crinoline spread the skirt about a mile wide, and made my curvy legs, exposed from the mid-thigh down, look positively dainty amidst all that fabric. Around the high waist, I wore Finn’s lovely silver belt, which was a snake biting its tail. At the top of the boned bodice, my br**sts were high and proud, round and ready like two well-inflated bouncy castles.
My blond hair was styled in two braids, but artfully voluminous around my face. The makeup was comically heavy, especially the round blush apples on my cheeks, but Finn assured me it was necessary, because the bright lights would blanche half my color out. My earlobes were burdened by heavy clip-on earrings. My ears aren’t pierced, so Finn didn’t have many choices, but we both agreed the shiny silver earrings brought out the blue in my eyes.
As I followed some unnamed assistant to the set, I was glad for the earrings pinching my lobes, as they helped keep me from floating out of my body amidst the surreal scene.
My mouth dropped open as we came around the corner and I saw the scene in front of the log cabin. A seven-man band, all in red and black lumberjack-flannel jackets, were getting into place with musical instruments. A man with a long, red beard played the stand-up bass contentedly as people milled around.
The guy at the drum set, whom I recognized as Shayla’s cousin from the other side of the family, Lester, gave me a wave. That’s when I realized I was looking at the Bushy Beaver Tails, Beaverdale’s almost-famous band.*
*Be careful when you type Bushy Beaver Tails into a search engine, that you don’t have image preview turned on.
Lester cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Go, Peaches!”
I felt myself blushing under my thick makeup.
When Dalton tapped me on my shoulder, I threw myself into his arms. “Hold me, I’m scared!” I wailed, mostly joking.
“I’m not Mr. Deangelo.”
I squeezed him tighter, pressing my body against his, but careful not to smear my makeup on his crisp, green button-down shirt. “Then why do you smell like him?” I asked, nuzzling the neck of the man I assumed was Dalton.
With his hands firmly on my waist, the man pushed me back from him. “I’m the stand-in,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling.
For an instant, I was amazed Dalton had turned his green eyes blue, but then realization smacked me in the face repeatedly (the way realization always does).
I apologized to the attractive young man, and he laughed and told me he would take my error as nothing but a compliment.
The realization I’d nuzzled this stranger’s neck was still smacking me in the face as we got our instructions about where to go for the photos.