Page 49 of If I Never Met You

‘Not the same thing. Stop filibustering, feminazi.’

Emily could always make Laurie laugh.

Laurie found herself perched nervously on a stool atEmily’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 hermid-range mascara and tinted balmrut.

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 personshe 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.

Hair by Honey, face by Tess, dress by Self Portrait: the sort of label that would pass muster with Suzanne from Emily’s firm, anyway.

The twin constrictions of the dress and heels necessitated a Marilyn Monroe-ish totter out to the Toyota Avensis that was her Cinderella pumpkin chariot.

Her driver Jabal looked at her curiously in the rear-view mirror and said: ‘Are you going to awards?’

Laurie winced.

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