Chapter Text
MJ doesn’t mean to become the face of anything. She has vehemently been against the fucked up standards of the beauty industry, the dieting culture and anything else that has lead to the decay of self esteem in her generation. And that of past and future ones too.
But if there’s anything living in Cambridge for school has taught her it’s. Well you need money. It’s a prestigious school which means she is surrounded by quite a few peers who are well cushioned by their family’s money.
MJ has a father that doesn’t believe in her and whatever money he does manage to make, well it does not go towards anything to do with her.
She has scholarships, quite a few. She has work study. When she got out of freshman hell, she even became an RA for the free housing. There’s nothing MJ likes less than listening to college freshman and their bullshit drama, but she’s reached a level of zen when dealing with it.
But life is expensive and she doesn’t want to just get by. It’s hard to keep a steady job, with her intense course load, exams, finals. The other thing people don’t warn you about with college is to get a leg up anywhere you need internships. Mostly unpaid internships.
Being successful is not for the poor by design.
So it starts off with one of her friend’s sister, Carlie, visiting for the weekend from New York, where she attends the Fashion Institute of Technology, who absolutely became obsessed with MJ’s height and bone structure.
MJ has given a lot of thought about her height, both negative and positive over the years but can honestly say she’s never given a moment’s thought about her bone structure.
“I need you to take some photos in this dress,” Carlie gushes, there’s really no other way to describe it. “I really need to start posting more and you’d be perfect for it.”
“I’m good,” MJ had said in response, not looking up from the book she had been pretending to read.
“I pay,” Carlie had returned.
MJ isn’t a sellout by any means. She won’t work for some billionaire’s company straddling the line between philontrophy and war crimes. She won’t go work for anyone testing on animals, or any other shady bullshit.
But to put on a dress and get photos taken to promote a young aspiring designer in exchange for $150? She would do that. They wouldn’t even get seen.
But seen they were.
Carlie and her sister failed to mention that they were friends with some influencer who had over a million followers who had seen the photos of MJ in Carlie’s dress and had made a TikTok about it. And reposted the original post on Instagram.
“Don’t tag me,” had been MJ’s only condition of being photographed.
It didn’t matter. People still found her. And messaged her.
Her own instagram was four photos spanning the past six years of her life. She followed three people.
It didn’t matter. Her phone overheated with notifications.
“MJ,” Carlie had said, when she had come back several weeks later. “What is it short for?”
“Mary Jane,” she lied. She never gave the real answer for this anymore. It was an inside joke with. Someone. From middle school? Maybe. The memory was murky as if covered by a thick layer of cobwebs in her brain.
A lot of her childhood was like that though. Her own mother was just a shadow in her mind and not a fully drawn out character.
Carlie hadn’t gotten the joke and attributed that name to her. Even better. It helped create this will she was finding she needed between girl who got paid $150 to wear a pretty dress and Michelle Jones Watson, aerospace engineering student.
Unfortunately the two collided when MIT found the dress photo, realized she was a student there and wanted her to be a part of its new campaign to entice bright high school minds to come to Cambridge.
She had said no.
They had said it paid $700.
Her smile in those photos had been barely forced. Plus, she liked her school. She would recommend it to others. She would never willingly promote something she didn’t believe in.
She believed in Carlie. She believed in MIT.
And for the first time in her life she had a little emergency fund that was earning dividends at a credit union, instead of stowed away in a sock drawer ready to be stolen by her father when he got into a rampage and tore apart her room, insisting she was hiding money from him. Because she had been.
The photographer had slipped her a business card, asking to keep them in mind if she ever wanted to create a portfolio. She highly doubted it, but she was polite and had taken the card and used it as a bookmark later.
Then a few weeks later, they had texted her, asking if she was interested in being a model for their client’s portofolio, she was a make up artist and the girl she had hired had fallen through.
$250 and free transportation back to New York for the day while she got her face painted and photographed.
MJ had asked about the make up artist, she was a little older than her. She worked at a cat rescue. She had worked her way through cosmetology school juggling two jobs. She desperately wanted to do make up for film, TV or Broadway.
She was a sucker for an underdog story.
She took the train back to Manhattan. Her face was cleaned, contoured, painted and set several times over. Music was played, jokes were told, she tilted her face one way, dipped her chin, stared off to a horizon that didn’t exist.
She had…fun.
“You’re beautiful,” said the grad student who worked at the coffee shop she frequented and asked her out on the date they were currently on. “Holy fuck, you are so beautiful.”
They weren’t even doing anything to force this proclamation. His hand wasn’t slid up her shirt, his hips weren’t digging into hers, maneuvering to the next step of getting closer to fucking her.
She was simply standing under a street light and had turned slightly, reaching back for her half forgotten drink. She is not used to such compliments.
MJ was immediately suspicious of them.
“I don’t kiss on the first date,” she told him, though it was kind of a lie. MJ didn’t follow any rules when it came to dating.
She just wanted to make sure he was aware she is not seduced by words.
“Wouldn’t dare to try and ruin living art,” He responded, holding his hand up in a promise.
It was cringe. It was corny. She smiled anyway. But he didn’t get a kiss or a second date.
“You need an agent,” the photographer, Reilly, told her.
After two photo shoots together, and now another save, the photographer and her had reached some sort of friendship, MJ supposed.
“I don’t do this professionally,” MJ reminded them.
It was a bit of a contradictory statement, given she was saying it as alterations for a skirt made out of recycled fabrics were being done to her so that Reilly could photograph her for their client’s newest creation.
Fast fashion was disgusting. How MJ not support someone attempting to give clothing a second life rather than relegating it to a landfill?
“Look at how much you’ve accomplished unprofessionally,” Reilly pointed out.
“It’s a dream career,” MJ concedes. “But not mine. Why take it from someone?”
“Why not?” She’s not certain if they are asking in regards to her first sentence or the question at the end. “What do you dream of, MJ?”
Steaks of red that never fully form a silhoutte. Black dahlia flowers. The feeling of falling in the air. Abstract objects and feelings that never take a familiar shape.
“Aerospace engineering,” she responded.
“And what will you do with that?”
MJ shrugged, this she had no better answer for than what the status of a relationship was with someone she’s been out with more than twice. “Be inspiring.”
“People already look up to you,” Reilly countered. “Why not use that to inspire?”
She just wrinkled her nose in response to that.
This was just a way to earn quick money and survive college without graduating into bankruptcy.
“You should get an agent,” Ned told her one night, when they were at a party in the student housing where his current girlfriend resided. “Think of all the money you could be making.”
“And what do you know of the industry?” She retorted.
He lifted his can of Sharkfire at her. She reached over to bat it out of his hand, but he evaded her. “Probably more than you do.”
Well, he had her there.
She reached over and tapped the bottom of the can hard, making it jump out of his hand and roll onto the floor. Ned yelped in protest, “Mean!”
“Too many,” she countered. This was an ongoing argument.
Her and Ned had been friends since… well that was a murky memory as well. Her psychology major classmates told her it was probably some form of complex childhood trauma that made memories difficult to understand or conjure.
Since high school at least. She doesn’t fully recall the specifics.
It takes two months but MJ meets with a couple agents. Not because she intends to abandon her scientific journey but because people keep suggesting it to her.
And what kind of scientist is she if she doesn’t fully conduct her research?
Plus she gets a lot of inquiries through DMs and emails. It’s overwhelming and getting more difficult through what’s legitimate and what aligns with her own personal morals.
“No bullshit,” this one said. “I love that you’re a woman in STEM.”
It immediately smelled like bullshit to MJ, but she took a sip of her latte anyway.
“Too many sterotypes about dumb models,” he continued on. “We need someone little girls can look up to let them know they can study, they can be smart, they can be beautiful.”
“Like Barbie?”
He brightened at this, before he caught on that she wasn’t fully buying into it. “You could go so far, MU Watson.”
People continue to say things to her that she’s never heard before.
“You’re beautiful,” she’s told again, this time fingers are stroking her, hot breath panting in her ear.
She’s been seeing Dec for about a month now. They’re a friend of a friend.
MJ rolled her eyes, “You’re already inside of me, no need to…”
She let out a gasp, her self deprecating humor leaving her for something a little more pressing.
Dec laughed against her mouth, and MJ wrapped her legs around them and got to forget to think for several more moments.
They broke up less than a week later.
“You’re as bad at committing to people as you are to a career,” Carlie told her, while MJ was visiting her in New York.
This dress had been made especially with MJ in mind. When Carlie pulled that shit, MJ couldn’t say no. It was the problem with having friends.
“I’m a college student,” MJ protested. “I am not at a career stage yet.”
“A college student who has changed their major.”
“Once!” MJ defended. “I’ve changed my major once. Ned’s changed it three times. They’ve threatened to push back his graduation date if he does it again.”
Carlie rolled her eyes. “If you wanted to, you could have a career.”
“Some people try their whole lives to break into this industry,” MJ reminded her. “You all think I’m going to do it with my halfassed attemprs.”
“No,” Carlie told her. “We all think you’re going to do it the moment you put your heart into it.” She sighed. “If you aren’t going to give your heart to anyone, why not give it to this?”
It’s not that MJ doesn’t want to fall in love or be with someone without immediately running away. She just gets itchy. It gets to a point with a partner where everything starts to feel wrong, even if she can’t pinpoint what it is.
Then she books it.
And then she booked an agent. MJ can’t help it, or at least that is what she tells herself when it happens.
Her agent, Jessica, was charming and forthright. She had no problem being frank with MJ. She had no problem telling MJ when she was wrong, when she was wrong for somehting, when she was being stupid and when she was being smart.
Unfortunately, she then proved Carlie right because the moment she tries, it is one success after another.
She is not Bella Hadid or anyone else in that strasophere. But it’s steady work. People ask for her. It takes over life, a little, though she is stubborn in that she wants her degree. No matter what career she ends up in, she wants this degree.
Once she has graduated, and settled back in New York, science takes a backseat and everything gets so much more real.