Interlude 2

Author’s Note: I’ve been working to create a version of the Stupid Boy stories for a wider distribution. One thing that was pointed out was that the stories were too long. To that end I broke them into smaller books. At the beginning of each I’ve added an Interlude to introduce the readers to a more in-depth look at different characters. Kara Tasman is featured in the next chapter, so I thought you might enjoy reading about her. Note that this is from the Freshman Year timeframe, right after the Halloween party where she first meets David.

Kara Tasman

When I was eight, one of my friends had a birthday outing to Disney, which had a store called Studio 365 that does hair and heavy makeup for little girls to look like princesses. One of the people at the store made a big deal about how I looked and suggested that I should consider being in a beauty pageant.

When I got home, my parents were not supportive at all. My dad said I was too young and that all these pageants did was sexualize young girls. I thought he was crazy, but he put his foot down. I think he thought I would forget all about it. When I turned thirteen, I told him I wanted to be in the local Little Miss pageant for girls twelve to sixteen.

Looking back on it, it was both the worst and best decision I ever made. It was the worst because pageant contestants, their parents and the hanger-ons were vile people, or at least that was my experience. I’m sure that there are nice people involved, but one of the older brothers molested two of the girls and tried to get me cornered on more than one occasion. I told my dad and that caused serious problems. They all wanted to act like nothing had happened and the two girls were scared to disappoint their parents and admit that he’d touched them.

It became a real mess when the police got involved. The press had a field day and pointed out how it was bad for young girls because it made them grow up too fast. I vowed I would never do another pageant again even though I was second runner-up.

The good that came from it was I met Tony Grant who was the photographer for the event. He came to our home and had a long talk with my parents. Mr. Grant was just out of college and could already see he didn’t want to do portraits and weddings the rest of his life. He’d done a few pageants and he told my parents that I had a unique look. He suggested that I could make a living being a model.

My dad liked that idea even less. He had read about the wild parties, drugs and sex that young models had. His thirteen-year-old daughter was not getting involved in any of that. Mr. Grant said that we should find out if he was right before we worried about me jet setting around the globe and bad things happening.

He recommended that he take me to his studio and that I get my head shots done, and he would put out feelers to see if there was any interest. I’d just hit my growth spurt, so I was tall and skinny. I actually towered over most of the boys in my middle school.

Both my mom and dad went with me for my pictures. Mr. Grant had a friend of his do my makeup and he had some clothes brought in. To this day, I can point to him as one of the keys to making me a model. He was patient and explained everything he did and why. I was a little sponge and learned everything I could.

When my dad saw the pictures, he wasn’t happy. I looked like I was several years older. I don’t think he wanted to think I would ever grow up. What jumped off the page were my eyes. I’d somehow gotten steel blue-gray eyes that drew you in. Within a week, I’d booked my first job. Dad insisted that Mr. Grant had to take the pictures.

From there things somewhat slowly took off. By the time I turned fifteen, my dad had been convinced that I could make a living as a model. Then I was approached by Fashion Models and offered a one-year deal. Tony was now trusted by my dad and offered to go with me to make sure I was taken care of. My parents were finally convinced that I should go full-time and make money now while I could as a model.

Fashion Models had a worldwide reach and I was soon the beneficiary of that. My look was popular in the international market, so I was soon traveling to the Middle East and Europe. My career seemed to take off overnight from that point.

I’d also begun to develop, and I was mortified when my breasts began to grow. I should’ve known that I would eventually get them, because my mom and older sister had large breasts. The problem was most models seemed to be tall and slim with few curves. There were exceptions, of course, and they did very well. It was just that they tended to do sessions that are more revealing. If you did high fashion you couldn’t be body shy, but it wasn’t Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition or Maxim.