I walk into a photo shoot – there’s a line of half a dozen chairs in the middle of the floor, an illuminated island, Pam in the center, flanked by Japanese business types, all attended by a flock of scurrying females who adjust lights and screens at the direction of a manic, long-haired photographer in a madras jacket, his barked orders getting louder by the second.

The suits are stiff and awkward, trying to look natural despite the glare, but no matter how it shifts and flashes, Pam remains incandescent, her smile bright and broad, the red highlights playing in her hair, shiny stockings glistening around her incomparable legs, crossed at the knee, one foot dangling like bait.

Try talk the photographer shouts, and they turn toward Pam and make an attempt at earnest conversation. I’ve moved off to the side, and all I can see of the guy next to her is a patch of male pattern baldness shimmering between two jug ears, but she leans to him, rapt and beatific, her lips dramatically red over gleaming teeth as she smiles encouragingly, her outlined eyes and mascaraed lashes as big as a cartoon character’s, the hair fluttering over her shoulders as she nods, pearl drop earrings swinging, this close to a caricature, but clearly pulling it off, carrying everyone and everything before her. One of the subordinate suits surreptitiously lowers his eyes to her smooth thighs as she shifts in the chair and who can blame him.

All in all, it’s a truly mesmerizing spectacle, a beauty in the midst of the performance of beauty.

But really, in point of fact, the thing is that Pam, with her bony forehead, too wide eyes and pointy chin, isn’t really what most people would call beautiful. Granted she looks better now than ever, having gained enough prosperity and experience to make the most of what she has via hair dye, cosmetics and contact lenses, her tailored business suit artfully framing her best feature, those striking legs, displaying them against the chair leather like two matching pearls on a jeweler’s pillow, but if you saw her at the supermarket or rolling out of bed in the morning you wouldn’t look twice.

Right here and now, however, radiant and engaging, charming and disarming, there’s something irresistible in the way she carries herself, graced by the certainty and confidence of privilege, a faint and unwavering sheen that makes her absolutely worthy of the world’s regard, if only because she can so clearly afford to live without it.