ᴅᴇᴇᴘᴇʀ

35

I'm from the bottom
of the bottom,
check your sources, baby...

__

It took a good six hours for Chimdi to be done with both cloth-fitting and photo shoot.

The make-up and cloth fitting involved lots of wiping and retouching. Indecision to choose the perfect cloth that wouldn't have her looking like an infant whore and the urge to keep herself from slugging her designer were all energy and time consuming.

Besides, she thought, as she made her way to Antni's office after having a warm bath to wash off the uncomfortable make-up -- if she didn't attend to the tasks at hand, there'd be a crazy pressuring from her Mother.

Ginika Gentry had no patient bone in her. And the skinny girl didn't like pressuring, not when something as crucial as the ANTT award was involved.

The Africa's Next Top Talent award, always got hosted at the end of every year. Honouring celebrated Africans in the entertainment world. It was to all and sundry under the bright African sky, an honorable event and being anything less than perfectly prepared was considered a failure to Ginika.

A week after the list of nominated candidates got aired, Chimdi felt the presence of her Mother more than ever, even in her absence.

New fan pages got created, as per her Mother's orders. Pages designed to hand out giveaways to her starstruck fans and several advertisements got aired.

It was a little bit cringe worthy to Chimdi, but she was thankful to be an invincible part of the team. She just had the duty of sitting pretty, get her face all glammed up and the rest would be taken care of.

She knew how important the award was to her mother, being recognized equated more contracts which definitely added more figures to her Mother's account.

The door shut gently as Chimdi entered Antni's office. Her eyes immediately caught the white book bookshelf, which looked like a giant picture displayer, housing all the magazines the agency's models had featured in and several other fashion magazines.

Antni sat on a pink chair, hands propped on the translucent desk housing the agency's logo, a desktop, a colourful penholder beside a glass bowl filled with mentholated  candies and a discarded blunt on a little glass ashtray, unaware of another presence.

Themed pink and white with little bits of tye and dye to give it a less superficial look, Chimdi felt herself walk into what looked like a world brightness. The burst of pink and white had her feeling like she were at a playground.

Sensing a foreign presence other than hers, Antni looked up, a smile adorned her face as she took in her goddaughter.

"You done already?"

Chimdi nodded, settling down. The strong scent of the older woman's perfume making breathing a hard task for her.

"You ever feel suffocated in here?" She asked Antni.

"No darling, why should I?" Antni  inhaled the air surrounding her. "It's calming in here."

Chimdi sighed, fighting  back a snort. "Yeah right, I forgot you love stressing yourself."

She gave her Aunt a once-over. Heavily beaded orange lace hung on her body like a tunic, completed with a blue turban and gold loops. One, way too heavy to fit an average humans' ear.

Antni grinned, the dark matte red lipstick which coated her lips, whitened her teeth. "Depends on what you call stress. I'm totally comfortable."

She accessed the skinny girl's frame. "Sometimes I feel all the designer brands I gift you are just meant for your box? Do you ever think of wearing them?"