Unexpectedly, Laurie was envying herself. Emily was right, this sort of admiration for her own reflection was a very rare thing. She’d spent so long being low maintenance she’d forgotten the kick to be had in high.
‘How’s that?’ Honey said, standing back, with the smugly delighted intonation of someone who knows they’ve absolutely smashed it and can’t wait to collect the reviews.
‘I love it! Oh my God, I love it,’ Laurie said, turning her head and making it swish around her shoulders. ‘I love it so much.’
‘Right?’ Honey said, and started talking her through the products and processes for best maintenance, during which Laurie mumbled ‘hmmmm mmm’ as if she was taking it all deathly seriously when in fact she was giddy. Such a small thing, a nice hairdo, but it was nice to know she could still appreciate small joys. Laurie paid a three-figure sum, tipped hard and she and Honey giggled delightedly at their successful collaboration throughout.
‘He’s gonna ask you to get back with him!’ Honey called, as Laurie stepped out into the chill and felt her new curls blow about in the breeze.
‘Hah. Maybe,’ Laurie said, smiling, trying not to let the dagger of thinking about that right now break her skin.
‘No doubt!’ Honey said, waving. ‘Call me psychic! Psychic Honey!’
Laurie nearly said ‘Sounds very prog rock,’ before considering that despite the number of vintage band tees being sported in the salon, no one would have the faintest clue what she meant.
While Laurie guessed the response she’d get from Emily would be positive, she didn’t bank on what actually happened; Emily not recognising her for a moment. She passed, stopped, tracked back two steps and let out a small startled cry.
‘You look absolutely AMAZING,’ Emily said, clutching her chest. ‘Seriously, Laurie. You look like you’re a famous person trying to go unrecognised and failing. My heart’s going like a broken clock here! I fancy you!’
‘I thought you fancied me anyway?’ Laurie said. ‘It’s alright, isn’t it?’
Emily plopped into a seat and set her latte mug down.
‘It’s not alright, it’s utterly fucking fabulous. You are fabulous. I wish my hair could do that. It’s so good to see you like this. Fighting back.’
Laurie wasn’t sure she bought in as fully as Emily to a L’Oreal vision of womanhood where bouncy hair signalled being mentally robust. But she thought there’s a time and a place to be a naysayer, and now and here wasn’t it. She looked different so she felt better, that’d do.
‘Aw thanks, it’s only a ‘do I won’t be able to do myself. I like it though. Feels odd,’ Laurie said.
‘I didn’t even know your hair could do this! Can I touch?’
‘I’d forgotten too, to be honest. ’Course you can!’
Emily prodded a ringlet.
When they’d drained their coffees, Emily pulled Laurie out into the blue-dusk and up to the department stores of the Printworks for cosmetics.
‘I have make-up,’ Laurie said.
‘Evening out make-up.’
‘I wear my make-up on evenings out.’
‘Not the same thing. Stop filibustering, feminazi.’
Emily could always make Laurie laugh.
Laurie found herself perched nervously on a stool at Emily’s favourite concession, MAC, while R’n’B thundered at nightclub volume. Emily tapped a photo of a Naomi Campbell lookalike in Studio 54 quantities of glittery slap above the counter, and said: ‘All out, Tess, go all out.’
Tess the assistant had a tool belt full of brushes, as if she was a facial mechanic who might need to contour a cheekbone in an emergency. She set to work on Laurie’s eyes with serious intent.
‘Maybe keep it natural on the lips,’ Laurie said, nervously, as Tess snapped open the third shadow palette.
‘Really, a nude lip? Because you could really carry a red,’ she said.
Tess had a glint not unlike Honey’s, which said: I am about to make a right bundle on this one.
Emily nodded furiously and said: ‘Red. Let’s not fuck about here. We’re not here to play.’
Laurie quailed a little. The last time she wore showy make-up was at indie clubs in her twenties when she rolled glitter up her cheekbones and had a penchant for neon eye shadows. In her thirties, she was happy in her mid-range mascara and tinted balm rut.
When she was shown her face in an oval hand mirror, she let go a small ‘ahhh!’
This woman looked like her, but had roadsweeper lashes above large, defined sooty eyes with silver sparkles. There were iridescent, light reflecting angles to her complexion, and a bold crimson mouth. Laurie tried to fit this brash vamp with Real Laurie, cowering inside. She was now projecting a person she didn’t feel. She didn’t entirely mind it, though. It was another mask, like the one she wore at work.
‘Incredible. Really gorgeous, Laurie,’ Emily breathed. ‘If I could look like that, I would look like that all the bloody time.’
Laurie grinned at her. ‘Instead, sadly you are a plain, pious, devout sort of woman.’
Emily was flushed, triumphant, and snuck off and paid for the haul before Laurie could protest. She then dragged her up two flights of escalators and forced Laurie to try on a black maxi dress with wisps of lace for sleeves. Laurie fully expected to refuse exhortations to buy it, yet when the zip flew straight up her misery-diminished frame and Laurie saw an elegant, Audrey Hepburnish creature of the night looking back at her, she needed no convincing.
If nothing else, it’d solve the whole ‘what to wear to first date Jamie Carter’ conundrum. That sort of thing was tricky enough when you were hopeful your date would be knocked out; when you didn’t care and it was a performance for someone not present, it was yet more admin.
‘Could I happen to run into you?’ Emily said, as Laurie paid and Emily practically bounced up and down. ‘No intrusion, a drive-by eyeballing. Where is it?’
‘The Ivy in Spinningfields. I guess so? Remember, on pain of death, you’re not supposed to know what we’re up to. Act like you’ve caught me out and ask who he is. Etc.’
‘Ten four, Red Leader.’
Jamie had inquired if it was the kind of place Laurie went, had she been before? When Laurie answered in the negative, Jamie replied with the gnomic:
That’s no bad thing tbh
She didn’t ask if it was a Jamie Carter sort of haunt, but he added:
It’ll probably be nouveau riche AF, but.
Laurie vaguely wondered why they were going somewhere Jamie didn’t go or rate much either. As she tapped her fingers waiting for the taxi, a few hours later, the answer came to her: so he doesn’t see anyone he knows, stupid.
18
The good thing about this fashion for very long dresses, Laurie told herself, as she felt her ankles snugly circled by thick fabric in the footwell of the cab, is there was very little of you on show, considering it was a special occasion look.
She knew why she was jittering: she was either going to feel woefully underdone or dollied up mutton for this date, and she’d firmly landed in the second category. The chances of hitting the sweet spot of ‘herself, enhanced’ was always minimal and she’d overshot the runway by some distance.