Page 40 of Did My Love Life Shrink in the Wash?
I giggle. It’s been such a random afternoon. Joe was captivated by Yasmin, hanging on to her every move. Her teeth came out, the posture straightened out. If you saw that music video, you’d watch it multiple times on YouTube and share it with all your friends. Did it hurt to see Joe with all these perfect people? It did. But these were the images that were going to sell things. No one wanted to see me standing there, bopping away out of time around my baby-changing bag.
‘Is she still a mega bitch?’ Lucy asks. ‘She was awful at school. She was part of that gang who stuck sanitary pads on that girl’s locker when she came on in PE. That girl never recovered from that.’
I remember the horror of that day, the brutal laughter, the nastiness. ‘Nothing damaging like that,’ I reply. ‘But she’s snooty, up her own arse. I met a dad called Harry earlier in the waiting room and she was all over him, mad flirting.’
I cringe to even think about it. As I left the room, everyone air-kissing and supping on their low-cal drinks, she stood there basking in his compliments, exposing her neck. He was literally peacocking, lunging in front of her to mask the tenting in his trouser area. I was brought back to many an eighteen-year-old birthday party where she’d done the same.
‘Not surprised. And the others? How’s it been?’ Lucy asks.
‘I like the rapper girl. She hugs me a lot. That Giles director man is kind but the dancers, the make-up people, it’s a very stagey vibe.’
‘Look, I’ve worked with creatives for years and it gets a little like this. These people are not your tribe, B. How’s my Joe?’ she asks.
‘He’s immense. He loves it. He’s so vain.’
‘He gets that from me.’
I suddenly hear a door bang in the corridor and peer around the wall to see Will wandering about with his satchel. I wave him over.
‘Will’s here, got to dash,’ I say.
‘Laters, ho.’
I laugh and hang up. Joe still looks up at me, drinking away. Will saunters through the halls looking a tad confused.
‘You told me there was a party,’ he says, giving me the customary kiss on the forehead, smoothing down the frizz of my hair.
‘It’s all in there. The rapper, the dancers. There was even fire at some point and two men stood there with extinguishers in case the copious amounts of hairspray caught alight.’
It was how I imagined these things would be. None of the glamour but all of the posturing. It’s so divorced from my everyday, from sitting in front of daytime TV stacking biscuits on our coffee table.
‘And have I ever told you about someone I went to school with who was a model?’
‘No, was she the girl who lost a tooth trying to give a boy a blowie on a swing? I tell everyone that story.’
That was Carly Evans. She had to tell her mum that she tripped on the pavement and her parents tried to sue the council.
‘No,’ I reply. ‘She was just some queen bee who ended up in a few magazines and she’s here today. Of all the people…’
‘Yikes. Did you two have beef at school?’
‘We had small beef. She copied my essays, looked down her nose at me. She had bigger beef with another girl called Hannah. I think Yasmin had sex with her boyfriend and Hannah and her had a full-on scrap on the hockey pitches. People lost hair.’
Hannah had to have a side parting after that fight. I remember watching it from a crowd of baying girls. There was cheering, there was ripping of tights. I’d never heard shrieky swearing like it and I have Lucy as a sister.
‘Just a shock to see her after all this time.’
‘So what’s the deal? Are they all snorting lines of coke and drinking Cristal in there?’
‘God, no. Kimmie’s only seventeen so it’s soft drinks and Krispy Kremes. Not even the interesting ones with toppings, all glazed.’
‘Boo.’ Will comes over to sit next to us on the steps.
‘And it went OK?’
‘It was weird. I’ll drag you in when the little man is done and introduce you to people. He’s a bit of a superstar, this one, though.’
We both look at Joe. He’s clueless, isn’t he? He’s so unbelievably chilled. I have no idea where he gets that from. Will’s quiet, staring at a spot on the floor.
