Midnight Baby

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Under a full moon and sodium-vapor streetlights, the girl was all silver: her pale cropped hair, her face with its heavy trowelling of matte makeup. The parts below her face, small, pushed-up bosom, narrow hips, muscled, serviceable legs, were banded in stretch jersey and black mesh and could have belonged to any undernourished, overused hooker between puberty and menopause.

At first, I had no attitude about her. Through the viewfinder of my video camera, she was no more than a photogenic image, good filmic contrast to the fat toddlers I had spent the day recording in Encino.

Guilt, or maybe the impulse of universal motherhood, I don’t know what, took over when I learned the girl was only six months older than my own daughter, Casey. That made her fourteen and a half.

My documentary project was nearly in the can, until I met her. Over-budget and overdue as always, but under control. Until I met her.

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