01 - Jessy

“And how would you describe as a reason for all the acquisition between fame and money you recently earned, Miss Jones?” asked the interviewer in a casual and rehearsed tone.

I could clearly see all the words he hadn't used, but that I would really like, if I wasn't rich and famous enough to take his job with a snap of his fingers. It was the third interview in a single week. His luck was that we were live, and I couldn't send him to shit for his ridiculous expression and derogatory questions.

My fame and money were not recent gains. I worked since I was sixteen, I just had more opportunities than most. However, while I invented an answer not to let go of the countless swear words from my head, the man threw a look at me from head to feet that made me understand where all that veiled poison came from.

Fat. Witch. Ridiculous. That's what he intended to insert at the end of the sentence, but he had to be content to call me something else. Not that those adjectives were a reality in my life. People had no courage to say them to my face. I was very kind, but I also knew how to be very annoying when I wanted to.

As the man looked at me in a strange and intimidating way, I settled in the armchair, letting the slit in my black and lacy dress open a little more. I could really be fat, I could even be a scrotum, but his opinion did not change the value of my bank account or my number of followers on social networks. That's why I just opened a smile.

“I believe that when a person is more dedicated to doing their job, instead of criticizing that of others, they get all the fame and money they crave”, I spoke in a low and submissive tone, although my smile and raised eyebrows demonstrated all my desire to punch that man's head. “But, despite this, my intention was never to reach numbers. I come from a family of voluptuous women. Finding clothes for me, even when I was younger, was always difficult. That's why I had the idea of creating the first Plus Size pieces in Brazil. The idea was not well accepted at first, so most of the pieces were used only by me and my family. However, everything has changed with engagement on social networks. People started buying my clothes, started admiring my lifestyle, and maybe that's the best answer to your question.”

“And in relation to the exorbitant numbers that you have been reaching recently?” insisted the man, taking the thread of my stress and trying to use it against me. It was a very dangerous game. He knew very well who he was dealing with, and everyone around us, from the assistants whose name I would never know, or my own team, were tense. “Not that any of my personal opinions are taken into account in this interview, but for a woman who produces specific clothes, and living in a country of standards like ours, having reached such numbers is really impressive.”

“Yes, I can't disagree” I made a gesture of shoulders, carefree and calm. “But my name has become a brand, Will. I'm very smart, but I'll never be able to say precisely how a virtual engagement has brought me so many benefits. The point is that it happened. Now I no longer need social networks as active as before, because even in a television program like this, whose discredit is of general knowledge of the entire media, the fact that my presence was announced was enough for your audience points to rise, wasn't it?”

The man threw a look at the top of my back, where a woman with big headphones and a microphone raised a thumb in confirmation. In fact, half of the country should have stopped what it did to see me. It wasn't news. I didn't need to be trained in marketing tactics to know how it worked. I had come too far to let a mere man demoralize me. He was already screwed.

“Well, then, can I consider that all the numbers were nothing more than a stroke of luck?” he asked.

This time, I could barely contain my blink of eyes, but I still tried to force a pleasant and low voice. I had an image to keep. The powerful and kind woman. The one who didn't let anyone say what he wanted, and who dictated his own rules. That woman couldn't get up from that armchair and finish the damn interview with a punch in the interviewer's face.

No.

I curled my fingers to close my hands in hand, hurting the knots with the golden rings on three fingers of each hand. Sitting and with my hands crossed on my lap, I still squandered an image of a rich and carefree woman, but I knew which direction that interview would take if I didn't cut that man as soon as possible.

“I've never been a lucky person, Will” I spoke with a cold smile. “In fact, for many years, I've always considered myself a person born for all possible torments. I went through difficult situations, I got up, and to this day I still have some ghosts that give me this false feeling of being a loser. But on the days when I just can't be this Jessy Jones you know, I pretend, until I really believe it. It's not luck. Nothing in my life was out of mere luck, but out of effort and dedication. The numbers were consequences, not goals.”

“Right” said the man, with a tone of who had not even bothered to listen to what I had said. I took a deep breath, still smiling at him. Just two more questions. Just two more and I was free. At least that's what my advisory team had prepared me for. “And in relation to your plans for the future, Miss Jones?”

“Be more specific, please.”

The man sighed.

“Do you plan to get married? Having children? Continue to display a full life on social networks?”

“I plan to continue working” I replied, and noticed that the answer was not exactly what the man wanted.

It was a general speculation about my love life. Everyone knew about my disaster in the last public relationship, and no one could accept the idea that I have never been seen with a man in the last five years.

I was just smart enough to never get involved with those who could give with their tongue in their teeth. Nothing much. Still, each damn interview contained that question about dreams and the future. I didn't even know if I would be alive in the next few seconds, I couldn't give a sincere answer.

“But are there plans for a son?” insisted the man, using an incisive tone that made his co-worker, also an interviewer, nervous. He stared at the woman for a moment, and softened her expression. “Everyone would like to know if Jessy Jones intends to have an heir to his empire.”

“And everyone should focus much more on the causes I help, and on the products I keep launching”, I fired in a wheezing voice. - I have no plans for an heir. I'm sorry to disappoint the curious.

“What about your family?”

“What about?”

“Do your sisters insist that you, as an older and more successful sister, can increase the branches of the family tree with new members?”

That question was new. I giggled low. It was more than clear that the man wanted to destabilize me. It was nothing professional to insist on a subject that I did as much as possible not to reveal. He was neither kind nor ethical.

But, noting that the interview was not interrupted in any way, it should be a standard for the famous to be embarrassed and caught in the middle of some contradiction. I didn't know if I felt angry with my team for subjecting myself to that, or at myself, for not having had the slightest interest in knowing what that man's kind of work was like.

Smiling like a viper, slowly and maliciously, I cast a penetrating look in the direction of the interviewer.

“Well, Will, I believe there is no one else who insists as much on this subject as the press. My sisters know that I don't have to give satisfactions of my choices to anyone. Besides, they don't even dare to ask questions of this kind. But, answering more directly, no, I don't want to have children. No, I wasn't lucky. And, no, I don't think all my work over the years has been a simple Marketing move. I had rewards for my work, and that's all.”

The interviewer, a blonde woman with early aging traits gave a wide smile, deliberately avoiding observing the expression of her work partner. She should hate him to like my cheeky answer so much.

“Very well.” Said the man in a sigh, checking his questions on a wide rectangular paper.

The interviewer should have a few more questions on his agenda, but he was stressed. He was a Caucasian man and who turned red as angry, I discovered this only after answering five questions as annoyingly and superbly as I could. He should have already regretted scheduling that meeting with my advisor. I was also sorry, and maybe I had to make some layoffs for that inconvenience.

“Are we over?” I asked with a bright smile.

“Of course” said the journalist, getting up. She didn't even wait to see if her colleague would continue with the questions. She turned to the end of the stage where we met, waving to those who were behind the camera and the lights. “Ricardo already there? We need some photos for advertising.”

There was a general murmur. Whoever Ricardo was, he seemed to be in serious trouble, or maybe he wasn't so dear to his colleagues like that. The woman gave me a guilty look and apologized, before leaving in search of Ricardo.

I was alone with the interviewer, and again I noticed that look full of judgments on his face. I didn't bother to keep paying attention to your invasive questions, facing the cameras, moved my hair away from my shoulders slightly wavy and pushed my chin. If he wanted an egos fight, he would have.

I was the eldest daughter of a woman who never bowed her head to a man. A woman who suddenly found herself helpless and had to deal with the livelihood of five daughters. And that woman should be seeing me on the other side of the screen, whether by the cameras that took a long time to turn off - many journalists did everything to try to catch some time when I would get involved in controversy, even if I was the most sensible person in that whole country - or by the cell phones of the production team that stood up to photograph me.

I had achieved success and power thanks to my attitude of helping my mother. We were rich, women who entered with both feet at the door of success, and who remained on top of it. In our country, there were few people who could be said to have a fortune equal to ours.

I even doubted that politicians from years of corruption would have half of what we achieved with numbers and goals. However, it was very easy for me to find a look on people's faces identical to the one the interviewer threw at me. I was just a fat and privileged one. And the best part of all this was that there was no man who weakened me.

I didn't get shaken by comments. I didn't get involved in lasting relationships. One of the good parts of fame was that having sex with strangers gave him the fear of exposing us to the media and leaving as profiteers. I enjoyed all my best weapons, knowing that the power of a woman was all that a man feared most in life. None of them could stop me. None of them had any power over me.

At least not at that moment, because he was closer than I imagined.