Fame
The cameras were all that mattered to Janine.
Even as a little girl, she’d be the first to turn and smile, barely enough teeth to fill her head. There would be a click, and a flash, and she’d never feel happier. Somebody loved her, she thought. You took photographs of the people you loved.
She knew Cameron loved her. He didn’t take photographs of her, but he posed for photographs with her, and that was almost the same thing. And she knew that the people loved them being together. Why else would they photograph them? Plaster their pictures all over the magazines?
It got too much for him in the end. He couldn’t stand the paparazzi. Cockroaches, he’d call them, when he’d chase another one from behind the bushes at the foot of the garden. He wouldn’t let her pose for them, he’d pull her by the arm, out of the restaurant. Sometimes he drank to forget they were there.
They were there that night, hounding them, driving so close, all the way from the hotel to the airfield. When he’d seen them in the lobby, he’d opened the scotch and hadn’t stopped. She’d begged him to pull over, one photograph and they’d be happy, they’d be gone. He’d ignored her, stared straight ahead, and ploughed them into a barrier.
So when she crawled from the wreckage, she made sure to turn and smile.
Click.
Flash.
Cameron might be gone, but they still loved her.
photo credit: Taylor Momsen Event via photopin (license)
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