Smoke And Mirrors ***completed***

Chapter 6.

The jet descended through the haze of a mist like fog that was sure to turn into a drizzle and hit the runway at the gathering dusk.
It always rained in Paris Honey thought glumly already experiencing that feeling she imagined Alice felt as she stepped into wonderland.
With all its glamour, glitz and glitter Paris still represented a dark past to her. The beauty of the city cloaked by the fog of her past. There was no argument Paris with its floral beauty and grandeur both blatant and subtle teeming with historical monuments, snazzy fashion shops, big fashion houses down to its world class model agencies would have done wonders to her career but she avoided the city with a conscientious attention.
She lived in a practical world so breathing deeply she tried to banish her emotions.
She had found out youth offered promise of happiness but life offered realities of grief at an early stage.
Even the future in such clear and vivid color couldn't banish the remnants of her past she could barely make out their texture when they assailed her. Unable to shake their weight off which became acute from time to time like when reminded of that dark past.
The anchor of dread wouldn't lift striking a discordant note in her. She walked unsteadily to a waiting cab her sense of balance off.
Her mind racing. Her eyes clamped shut seated at the back of cab memories she had longed repressed came flooding back with such startling brutality they left her reeling and breathless.

××××

Her life as she had known it had been shattered when her grandmother had died and she had refused to stay with her pious stern grandfather. So, with only clothes on her back and a plan in mind she had taken a bus to Praque. Little did she know going off at half cock and speeding headlong into the world that was short of hell wasn't the way to go about things. But if you thought about it it was faute de mievx. The lesser evil and which between the two held promise of a better future.
She chose living to battle it out on her own.
Young, gauche and idealistic she hadn't known her innocence, dignity, dreams and hopes would be tried at every turn.

Her beauty which she had always thought as a blessing proved the opposite with men preying on her and would have gotten away with impunity if she hadn't known better. They were just like her grandpa only they wanted her body.
So, a realist with no allusions of grandeur she had found herself stripping her clothes off in a seedy rundown club.
Nothing about her was obvious anymore even if she hadn't always been that obvious because of her beauty. She had learnt to dress and many life lessons that saw to it the little innocence she had left hadn't survived as she slaved away in the trenches of Praque. Trying to keep her head above the swirling strong currents that threaten to swipe her away and still hold onto the remnants of self dignity and worth she had left while scraping the bottom of the barrel. A task that had proved almost futile. At times her hardscrabble background seemed like paradise but her grandpa had made it clear in no uncertain terms that wasn't an option. At least it made her focus on what lay ahead, unencumbered by her past.

She was getting the feel of things when she had escaped getting locked up by a hairs breath and the experience jarring by itself made her realize she couldn't continue with that life and anyway didn't she deserve better?

So it was a relief like a breath of fresh air when she had run into Dean Griffith. A middle aged man wiry, handsome with a raunchy sense of humor. The attribute that fascinated her more was he was a movie director.
She had later found out he was an emigre from Russia and he had written and directed a couple of sensational movies under his pseudonym which had established his reputation. He saw potential in her as he one day told her and the next thing she knew she was on her way to Paris. The change of scene was refreshing not to say fascinating to her still gullible naive mind. After all even all the hardship hadn't eradicated those qualities in her but Paris would see to that but she hadn't known that.
He had taught her the ropes of the big screen world and even finagled a contract for her as an actress.