Page 50 of Did My Love Life Shrink in the Wash?
‘So, the reason I got you ladies together was I’ve been offered a gig and I think both of you would work well together in it. I have some visuals…’
Yasmin and I? Like some Laurel and Hardy comedy duo thing? Oh, he means the baby. Giles gets a file out of his bag with pictures for some sort of organic yoghurt brand.
‘They’re looking for new family images to promote their brand and Joe and Yasmin would be such a good fit.’
His words are going in but I am also trying to work out how to spit out the lychee seed in my mouth. Do I remove by hand? It feels safer to try and swallow it in an attempt to hide any potential embarrassment.
‘So, I would be cast as Joe’s mum?’ Yasmin asks.
I don’t know what’s the worst insult – that she’s serving me pancakes without syrup or that she’s telling me that Joe’s mum should look like her, not like me.
‘Yes,’ Giles says, looking pleased with himself for matchmaking them. I look Yasmin up and down. She’s hardly mother material. For a start, she’s wearing cashmere. A real mother would never wear cashmere, it’d be at the bottom of the washing pile for months. And she no way has the hip and arse flesh on her to have sustained life in her loins; it’s mostly bone and gristle.
‘I also think it’s hilarious that you two used to be friends at school, so serendipitous.’
Giles seems to have missed the mark slightly on this one. We used to sit in the same classroom. She’d steal my work and my pens and more than often would scan down and judge my school coat because I didn’t have a shiny Schott bomber jacket like her. At a push, we may have been at a few eighteenth birthday parties together. Friends is a loose concept in our circumstances.
‘I’ll look at my schedule, Giles. It could work. I have some shoots in Croatia in two weeks’ time and we’re thinking about diversifying my food brand but I could squeeze it in.’
I am not quite sure how to respond. I will be spending the next few weeks in my pyjamas drinking tea with my elderly neighbour, having emotional quandaries about the state of my relationship and loading stuff into my TV planner.
‘If you think Joe and Yasmin would be a good duo then that’s fine with me. I guess?’
Giles looks ecstatic. Yasmin takes to her phone and starts taking pictures of the table, obviously for some Instagram content, while I wonder if it’s rude to get my un-manicured hand in the picture and just help myself to more pancakes. I spy Joe making an attempt to roll off the sofa and put an arm out to stop him. Yasmin watches, comes over and picks him up. I will Joe to voice some contempt but he smiles broadly at Yasmin.Traitor. She sits him in her lap and sips at her tea concoction. This is the image that will sell things, not me sitting here trying to pick chia seeds out of my teeth with my tongue.
‘So, who’s your agent?’ Yasmin asks me.
‘Oh, Joe was a street cast,’ Giles informs her.
‘Weren’t you spotted like that?’ I ask Yasmin, trying feebly to make conversation.
‘How did you know that?’ she asks.
‘All-girls’ school. News got round.’
‘I was. In Waterloo.’
That’s a great tale, Yasmin. So much detail. Do you have any more stories?
‘You have any more babies?’ Yasmin asks.
I don’t know if Giles can sense the conversation here is like pulling teeth while having an intimate wax. He’s my only one. I mean this one’sliterally only just come out too. I clench when I have a wee because my vagina is still traumatised.
‘Joe’s the only baby in my life.’
She smiles without showing her teeth, clearly not amused by me at all. I feel she views me like some nightmare alternative life where the focus would be away from her and on someone else. Share my spotlight, are you insane? I’m also trying to work out how she achieved all of this since we left school. Is this all funded from the modelling? Or is it boyfriend money? Everything matches in here. She even has a DJ booth in the corner, and also looks like she spends money on her skin too. I have post-pregnancy acne that rates up there with when I was fourteen and my face looked like a dot-to-dot puzzle.
‘So, it’s a done deal. This is brilliant. I am really looking forward to working with you both. I will get my office to send over schedules and contracts and I’ll inform the client. I will share your contacts and maybe start a WhatsApp group so we can keep in touch,’ Giles says, excitedly.
Yasmin puts her hand to the air and Joe looks like he’s possibly high-fiving it. They’re both in hysterics while I look over, not really knowing how to feel. This is the next step in our adventures in modelling. I hope it means we get paid in yoghurts for life. Suddenly, I feel a Dicky brush against my ankles. Hello again, rat dog. Do I pick him up? Is that what you do with dogs? I’ve never had a pet. He’s under my skirt, sniffing at my trainers and I sneak him a bit of pancake. Please don’t be allergic to it. He stares up at me, looking a little cross-eyed. I have obviously brought another sentient being into his home and he’s not impressed. He disappears under my skirt again and I scramble about trying to extricate him as he weaves in and around my ankles, then cocks a leg and pees all over my feet.
Standing in Yasmin’s downstairs bathroom, I study myself in the mirror. I think I’ve got a zit growing right between my eyes that punctuates my worry lines. I’ve been sent in here with a kitchen sponge and antibacterial spray but I’m pretty certain I may have to bin these Superga trainers or leave them in our communal corridor for a while until the smell dissipates. The door flies open and Yasmin comes in, Dicky under her arm.
‘Giles has Joe. I am so sorry. You’re a bad Dicky.’
Dicky is actually grinning. He doesn’t care.
‘I found these,’ she says, holding up a pair of trainers. ‘They’re a bit old but luckily, we’re the same size.’
