Marta's Job Offer

In the morning the girls found that Valya had popped out earlier, to the local bakers and brought back some Pampushki fruit-filled baked rolls for a breakfast treat. Marta wanted to know what time they were supposed to meet with Ivan, and was told he was happy to see them at any time that morning. On the way to the studio Marta asked if they could first visit Dmitri before their meeting with Ivan, because she had a few 'homework' questions.

When they got to Dmitri's office Marta explained to him she needed some research material on the lives of young teenage American girls, about their interests, hobbies, and the way they spoke, in that they would use different words or terms than adults.

"If I understand you, you're trying to relate to American adolescents because you see Anna as a substitute in that role for our main target audience, very interesting" he sat silent for a moment stroking his beard. "The International School here in the city, check out all the nearby shops, at least a few of them will stock magazines for American girls studying there, let's see if I can look up the titles of some popular ones on the net."

They left with a print out of the top ten U.S. teen-magazine titles.

Ivan had his own office with a desk, a conference table, and a small coffee table with comfy chairs, where he asked his three visitors to sit with him, while Tanya his secretary brought them fruit juice and a coffee for Valya.

"Well I am honoured, to be visited by our fastest rising star, her genius manager, and her make-up artist and mentor. First I want to talk about the 'Natasha super set', everyone tentatively agreed, so Dmitri spiked the members forum with a rumour in order to get some feedback, and already the response is so encouraging we will be releasing the set as soon as we get the nod from the sales team on the timing."

"The next issue is the lovely Marta, we want you to join us" At which point she turned quite red and started stammering saying she wasn't as pretty as Anna and couldn't do what her sister did, until a smiling Ivan held up his hands and asked her to stop.

"Marta despite what you may think, you are an attractive girl, but in this case I was thinking about your management skills, you are the first person to logically and systematically do research on improving our models appeal to our target audience, therefore I want you to carry on with what you have been doing."

"You are too young to work on the admin staff here, but as our teen model consultant there will be an additional fee tagged on to what we send Anna, also I will be writing a memo to all staff that you are our research consultant and they are to offer any help and assistance.

I spoke with your parents last night and they agreed if you were happy doing this then they were content for you to continue as participating would allow you two girls to remain close, I know you speak to them every evening so I called your mum in the afternoon just asking them to phone me after they had spoken to you as I wanted to tell Marta about this myself."

"How will I get paid, I'm not doing sets like Anna, I'm sort of having ideas?"

"Yes but they are very insightful ideas, such as the models speaking in English, rather than reciting a single line from a card, and the work you have been doing on what makes our models successful or not. We will trial your ideas with your sister, which will reflect in her earnings, then if they work, get other models to follow that lead, and we will pay you a percentage based on all of those sales, does that seem fair?"

They talked for a little longer, then Ivan's secretary interrupted to remind him of a meeting.

Before he left he asked if the girls would stay on another day to observe a video shoot the next morning, so that they could think about it prior to their next visit. The girls called home about staying another day in Kiev,but the conversation was stilted due to the fact Nana Olga was there helping get lunch ready.

They rode the Metro, getting off at the nearest station to the International School, where they then started to check out every shop and kiosk in the area that sold foreign papers or magazines looking for any of the titles on their list. The fourth place they visited had one on the list which they brought, and he advised them of a shop to try that was used by a lot of the students. The shop had four of the titles on their list which they added to their haul, Valya then placed a regular order for them to save those for her from now on.

Marta said she had only needed a one off selection for her research.

"That may be so but if I have new teenage magazines laying around my make-up table in the studio each week, don't you think we might have some models who would like to try reading them? You're not the only smarty pants around here" Valya smugly replied.

Marta agreed not only were they good for subject research, but the contents and the words used were aimed at girls their age so they should be useful for learning the language.

Between the three of them on the way back to the studio they tried reading a couple of the magazines, but even with their combined efforts they didn't know enough words to string a complete sentence together. Hence another visit to Dmitri, who was as always pleased to see them. He knew what Marta was trying to do, so he said he would translate the index in the front of each one so that she could then decide which articles could be of use to her.

After translating the indexes of all five magazines, they had an initial list of those they wanted to read, - Ten ways to keep your boyfriend, Cheerleader try-outs, Summer skin-care, The perfect sleepover, Bikini beach tips, Monthly mood swings, Dealing with dad's, Summer camp capers, The Beauty pageant circuit, Step family issues, and Claire's problem page, and in fact all the other problem pages.

Dmitri made a phone call, arranging to borrow someone's audio typist for the project, telling them he would have some of the articles done today which they could transfer to their laptop, and if they hadn't finished by lunchtime tomorrow, he would put them on CD in order to post it to them.

"Americans seem so unlike us, I was nearly tempted to get some of their newspapers as well for a better picture of how they see things, but that would have been too much to ask."

"So the only reason you didn't get them was the extra effort of translation?" at Marta's nod, Dmitri wrote down a couple of web site addresses, "There's a spare office over there, you will find those newspapers are available already translated online, I'll log in for you."

The girls sat down to read the papers and make notes, Valya went off to do some work, and Dmitri started to transcribe the articles to the typist who had turned up at his office.

Mid afternoon a teenage lad, who turned out to be the office junior, tapped on the open door to ask if they wanted tea or coffee and also left a plate of biscuits. When he left Anna teased her sister that the boy was flirting with her, Marta coloured up denying any such thing, but was secretly pleased an older boy would even notice her. She had taken great care to practice what Valya had taught her, pleased that using only a very minimal amount of make-up concealed the marks on her face, giving her a new found confidence.

They found they could go back through the archives of the papers, this allowed them to trace stories that unfolded over time, they were surprised to find that corruption and crime were just as much a problem in the States as in their own country. What disgusted Marta was the level of hypocrisy she found, the editorial comment was all holier-than-thou but there were so many salacious stories that seemed to focus on every prurient detail, that she was amazed they could take themselves seriously.

Marta finally decided all Americans were mad after finding two particular news stories, one about the rising level of teenage pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted diseases then a separate one about how the church leaders were demanding that sex education should not be allowed for children under the age of eighteen, horse and stable door came to mind. Another noticeable trait was the high divorce rate, and how they all re-married lots of times from how often there was mention of ex-wives or husbands, till it appeared most kids had at least one more step parents.

Before they left for the evening Dmitri transferred all the articles on to their laptop that had so far been translated. On the way back to the apartment, Valya took them to a reasonably modest restaurant,that served well cooked local regional dishes, in order that they could spend an uninterrupted evening looking through the material Dmitri had prepared.

Letters from the problem pages made it apparent there was a great disparity in the level of sexual knowledge between readers, from an eleven year old with a history of boyfriends, to a girl of fifteen worried about a first kiss. One recurring theme was a concern about a person's social status, the 'elite crowd' or those who played sport, with some sort of unwritten rule that the cheer-leaders would only date boys on a school sports team.

The hypocrisy was also notable in the teens contempt for anyone who spent time studying, but then on the other hand everybody wanted to go the the best college, not through any real interest to learn about their chosen subject, but just about getting the highest paid job.

At college there were various sororities,and it was essential to join the right one, purely for social reasons not for any academic purpose.

There was much agonising about their various rights-of-passage, especially a dance referred to as the 'school prom' where enormous sums were spent on a dress, and many girls expected to loose their virginity after this event if the letters were to be believed.

Though they had spoken briefly to their mum earlier that day, they called their parents for their nightly chat, they spoke of the agreement made with Ivan regarding Marta, and their dad said they had received the first cheque for set two downloads, to go with the three others they had for sales on set one. He said how proud and pleased they were that their two girls could work together, then Anna said they should soon get paid the studio fees for the two shoots she had done this week. They said their good night's then the girls got ready for bed.

At home the girls could only bath once a week or use the feeble shower every other day, due to the expense, and the decrepit nature of their old water heater, of course now their financial circumstances had changed, if not the water heater, but while in the apartment they took every opportunity to use the splendid bathroom with it's copious hot water.

In the morning they were introduced to Vladimir, one of the three people who shot videos at the studio. They met in the canteen for coffee before heading over to studio two, which still had the magnolia painted backdrop. Marta asked a lot of questions about what would be happening,and who the model would be so that she could look the girl up on the laptop before they arrived on set.

Sasha at thirteen was in the top five models at the agency, and had four previous videos and eleven photo sets having worked for just over three and a half years. They reviewed her work in date order, seeing how her first set looked marginal at best, but from set three onwards she seemed to blossom and show her self-assurance. Two of her videos were recordings of photo sets done in the studio, and two were outdoor shoots, one by a sandy lakeside the other in a woodland glade, both with music rather than the natural sounds.

Although this was her second visit to the studios Anna had not had any dealings with the other models, the only times she had seen them was in the canteen, and then they were eating or talking with the people on their table, and it seemed rude to interrupt.

Valya assured them they would like Sasha, she had worked with the girl three times in the past, she was not as academically minded as Anna or Marta, she was more interested in sports and art. They were surprised that Sasha greeted them by name when they arrived, she was especially enthusiastic about the two sets of Anna's she had so far seen, and invited them to come and meet her mother Ludmilla, and her make-up artist, Carina.

The girl made an instant friend in Marta when she asked when her first set would be due out, then Marta had to explain she was not as outgoing as her younger sister, and was only here doing research work, to help improve the way the agency presented their models, by trying to better understand their target audience.

Sasha's naturally wavy fair hair had a simple centre parting kept off her face by two flower hair clips, her make-up was complete and she was wearing a robe, explaining the costume was a little warm and tight, therefore she would put it on at the last moment when Sandra and Vladimir were ready for her. Anna said how much she had liked Sandra who had been there at her audition and had been very nice to her, to which Sasha said she had tried four other people but now had all her sets photographed by Sandra.

Sandra showed up and came over to talk with them, until Vladimir arrived then they both went and did lighting and equipment checks, he then came over to tell them how they tried to video the shoot in one unbroken take, and although the mike was directional could they please only talk quietly during the shoot, he would answer any questions they had later.

Marta watched as Sasha got dressed, first fancy white and orange lace panties, a short jacket that looked to be made from lace and orange leather, and flared trousers made of the same orange stretch fabric, she had noticed the tall girl's breasts were a little smaller than her own, but they both had about the same amount of wispy pubic hair, she also saw the girl had a number of red spots on her bum.

Sasha went over to the set and spoke to Vladimir, who then called Carina over to join the discussion, she then sat near the edge of the set.

"OK quite on set" said Vladimir, "when you're ready Sasha."

Sasha moved about the set posing, with the flash of the in fill lights synchronized with the stills camera, and the odd comment of instruction or encouragement from Sandra, while Vladimir followed the action with his tripod mounted video camera. Sasha sat on the floor leaning back against a 'rock' releasing the zip and started to push down her trousers at which point Carina crept in from the edge of the set to pull them down obviously out of range of the video which at that moment focused on her upper body.

When Carina retreated Sasha leaned forward with the camera following her as she pushed them from her ankles, then tossed them off set, from then on the whole process continued smoothly through to it's conclusion, when Sandra called it a wrap. Sasha thanked Sandra and Vladimir, then wandered back to put on her robe while Carina raided the fridge to find everyone a drink.

When they had all settled down Vladimir asked if Marta had any questions for him, but she asked if he would first explain to her why they did things the way they had.

"Well the costume was a last minute change, there was some damage to the one that we had planned to use, so that's why the trousers were a poor fit. The video would look awful if the model struggled to undress, hence the off camera assistance, on film it will look like she just kicked them off while the camera was looking at her face. In videos of a studio set photo session, we use a fixed point from where we pan and zoom, so the stills and video people don't trip over one another."

"Sasha doesn't need any direction from Sandra, but she makes a few comments really just for the video, some other models are more relaxed with music playing, but the videos are fairly new for this studio, a bit over two years. I didn't shoot the videos with the girls doing an English intro, but I saw them and it did look a bit staged, but surely it would be hard for you girls to learn such a foreign sounding language."

"Anna and I have been at it for nearly four weeks, we have learned quite a few words but we can only put together the odd simple sentence as the pronunciation and the rules for grammar are so different, Dmitri has helped a lot, but we do not know anyone in our home town that speaks English."

"I volunteered to do the audition pictures in your town because I have a cousin that lives there" Sandra informed them, "I could give her a ring, maybe she would know someone locally who can teach English"

Moments later the cousin was able to help and looked up a number for them, Sandra then phoned the prospective teacher, explaining her cousin had given her the number and did she want to take on two new students, at the woman's eager reply, Sandra handed the phone to Marta.

The woman had been grateful to think she was going to be giving lessons for a couple of hours a week, but was ecstatic to find Marta and Anna wanted intensive tuition every day until they both had basic conversational English, they both took down the others details agreeing to meet the following afternoon before hanging up. Though Marta didn't know it at the time, the teacher was in a desperate situation with too few pupils left to cover her bills, this call had arrived just in time to prevent her becoming destitute.

They continued to discuss using English in videos, and Sasha professed she would be willing to give it a try if Anna's first video was a hit, they then went on to the technical and practical aspects of making videos in the various locations that Marta had so far reviewed.

When Marta had run out of questions Sandra and Vladimir left, and as soon as Carina had finished cleaning off Sasha's make up, she quickly dressed and all six of them went off to the canteen for lunch together, apart from the fact three adults sat at one table with three girls at another, talking about the same things pubescent girls talk about the world over.

After lunch they popped in to chat and say their farewells to Ivan, then John, and finally Dmitri, who gave them a few more books and a CD.

They took the Metro to the apartment, packed the last of their things in their cases and ordered a cab to take them to the station in time for the four o'clock train, shortly before boarding they called their mum, then each girl gave Valya a brief hug and they were on their way home.

To be continued in chapter 8