Have you seen that ad years ago, with that little girl on the Pump-Bike? That was me.
Or the one more recently, with the bratty teenager driving her folks crazy taking up their phone, 'til they give her a new mobile phone? Me again.
Or the one even more recently, with another bratty teenager taking a driving test and failing because she's so slangy and ditzy? Yup, me again.
Really, I didn't think much about how good I had it until it all fell apart. No matter how pretty my face is, I can't put it in front of cameras and expect people to pay me for it anymore. That time's long past now.
But I've heard it's bad form to start a story at the end. Stepping back a bit, I realize I was very lucky to get the chance I did at all. You see, my Mom was a writer and photographer with Mythic Sales, a marketing and advertising firm. She might still be there today if she hadn't had such a photogenic daughter. But her boss found out. Thing is, Mom was a big picture-taker back home. I'd had a camera in front of me from the time I could walk. The one in the studio was bigger, that's all, and this time Mom /wanted/ me to move around. I was told later that I was in one of a set of six ads that was shown on all twelve of the Colonies after a short run on Virgon, but I had no idea at the time. I just thought I was helping my Mom.
By the way, I should say a few words about Mom and Dad. I mean, if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here, right? I still don’t know how a native Sagittaron and a native Virgon met, let alone ended up married on Picon, but they did. I think sometimes that Mom probably got thrown off of Sagittaron because she was too energetic and ambitious for the rest of the world. I don’t mean that in a bad way; she just wanted to DO things, and Sagittaron wasn’t the place for that, in her mind. Dad, on the other hand, was about as laid-back and casual as a person can get while still being able to breathe on their own. He was a chef. I know, cooks are supposed to be angsty, pushy perfectionists, but he wasn’t. He’d started up a small restaurant when he arrived onworld, specializing in Virgon cuisine. Pretty exotic stuff for a military world like Picon, and if you’ve ever tasted military food, you’ll know what a great idea he had. He did pretty well, and he was doing what he loved. Win-win.
But, back to Mythic. Between the time I was three and the time I was 19, I'd end up helping my Mom a lot more. From toys to children's clothes to restaurants (all with children's meals) to teen jewelry, I was on camera with it. If you notice, there's always one girl in those ads who looks kind of exotic, with dark hair or skin. Often, that girl was me. I can't help it; I've just always stood out in a crowd. My Mom's boss called it 'appealing to demographics.' I guess it worked, because I was seriously in demand. By the time I was 19, I was doing fashion magazine ads and some catalog work, and I even got an interview with a really great writer, Jan Halcyon. There were a couple of very nice contracts pending with some Colonies-wide publishers, and everything seemed just full of promise. And then I got an invitation to audition for a teen soap opera on primetime.
I flopped. Bad. I'd never realized how different dramatic acting was from commercial acting, which is high-energy and kind of silly. But I sure found out. I couldn’t sustain the mood, and the director told me I was as stiff and wooden as any two-by-four he’d ever seen, whatever a two-by-four is.
Suddenly the name Raedawn Arkili had just three letters: M-U-D, and not the facial masque kind, either. The contracts were withdrawn. My contract with Mythic was in danger, even after so many years. My Mom's last argument with her boss over it sealed its fate. It also cost my Mom her job. I cried when I found out, like I hadn't done since I was three. I think we all cried.
It's not easy going from prosperous to paupers in one day. It's downright scary. I think if it hadn’t been for Dad’s restaurant, we would’ve ended up in the poorhouse. My folks had never learned to live frugally, not with three paychecks in the family, and there were a lot of sacrifices. A smaller home, less furniture, less STUFF… I think the only thing we kept besides a few heirlooms was my car, which was new but not a fancy model. It might've gone, too, but it was paid for and it got great mileage. Mom even sold her paid-for luxury sedan and bought an older model that would hold us all and got better mileage. And she got another job, as a photographer for a local photo studio. It paid the bills. They adjusted and survived.
As for me, I guess even a spoiled brat has to grow up sometime. I filled out a resume, put on my best smile, and went looking for work. That didn't go so well. My only job skills were smiling, singing, dancing, reading dialogue, and looking good in expensive clothes. Hard as it is to believe, there's not a lot of demand for that. After two months, I was ready to try anything. I finally did, working as a passenger shuttle stewardess part-time, while going to college online. That’s no picnic, by the way. Traveling people are usually even more rude and pushy than advertising executives, and having a great smile didn’t help much. It was subsistence wages at best, and I was looking at zero upward mobility and no chance of getting better pay for years. I was going nowhere, and going there very slowly, at that.
I noticed an ad for the Colonial Space Guard on one long flight, in the middle of the in-flight film. A stewardesses’ strike that shut down my job (and my paycheck) hit just then, and I had no place else to go. Sheer desperation is a great motivator: I applied that very week to join the Guard, Picon Branch.
That worked out a little better. There was a college requirement, but the recruiting agent was a friend of an old client of Mom’s, and knew my history, too. For the price of a few recruiting posters and PSAs, done gratis, I was in. I honestly enjoyed the training, and my reflexes were high enough to put me into fighter training school. My folks flipped when they found out, but I was having fun for the first time since I'd become unemployed. It was work, but I enjoyed the work, and I was actually pretty good at it, which was surprising. In the past I hadn't done much with my body and mind that didn't involve dancing, singing, or posing. Now I was suddenly discovering just how much I was capable of, and the confidence that came with that was amazing. Yes, I know that sounds like a recruiting ad, but it's true. It also turned out that I had a knack for piloting I’d never had a chance to notice. That and my newfound confidence buoyed me when the going was tough in other things, like technical training and PT, and my new career as a part-time photography studio assistant. Graduating flight training and getting my wings was the happiest moment of my life.
I've been flying with the VSP-101 'Snow Petrels' for three years now, at the rank of Ensign. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Even better, I'm earning money for college. I'm still deciding what my major will be, but I've got lots of time left before my enlistment period is up. This latest training mission sounds great: a war game with the Battlestar Cerberus against some of their fleet vessels. It's a chance to fly with some great pilots and work with some great people, I'm sure, and I'm not missing it for the world. Even if it’s a total hasslefest, I’ve got nowhere to go but up. Look out Battlestar, here I come!