Page 11 of Am I Allergic to Men?
‘I hate rich people,’ she mutters, taking a cupcake and running a finger through the icing. She takes off her Snow White bow and drops it to the floor.
‘Trouble?’ I ask.
‘Just people who don’t know the value of things. One woman wanted to hire me for her daughter’s party. I could have said £3K for the hour and she’d have blindly written me a cheque. Also turns out the daughter is one. I’m being paid to sing to a room full of babies.’
Cass and I giggle, having had our fair share of the Pimm’s already. Cass’s worst party experience was a room full of two-year-olds, one of who pooed down her dress because someone forgot to put pants on their child. Darren and I were once expected to dress up like lions. We wore gold catsuits. We had aLion Kingroutine all mapped out and then we got to the party and we were not what was expected. They wanted real lions. For a children’s party. They demanded we leave the venue immediately and we couldn’t get changed. We had to go back on the Tube dressed like that.
‘Waste of money, these big parties,’ I mumble.
Darren laughs. ‘Says she who is having the biggest party for her thirtieth.’
I gesture a hand at Darren for pouring shade on my party plans. In a few months’ time it’s my thirtieth and I am going for broke. I’ve hired a field in Hampshire and I am turning it into LucyFest. It’ll be like a Glastonbury celebrating me, we’re having a small stage erected, an ice-cream van, and everyone is bringing their own tent, firewood and alcohol. Emma, my second eldest sister, is far from impressed because I’m forcing her to buy a sleeping bag but I have perfect visions of dancing around a camp fire, drink in hand, and bellowing into the sky to celebrate thirty whirls around the sun.
‘Babe, you know that’s different,’ I reply. ‘It will be hardcore raving in a field, not a fluffy cake in sight. Just dancing until the sun comes up and getting smashed off our faces.’
‘With your face on all the T-shirts?’ Darren jokes, though I’m glad he sees the funny side of that as he’ll most likely be the one helping me iron all the transfers onto them.
‘And? Not even Ophelia had merch today.’
‘No, she gave everyone Pandora,’ Cass adds, getting out an impeccably wrapped party favour she seems to have possibly stolen. ‘I was tasked with handing these out.’
Our jaws all drop to the floor. ‘Charms for the girls, leather bands for the boys and a note in calligraphy. Not a Tangfastic in sight.’
We all let out a collective sigh of shared despair and resignation. None of us have a desire to be in the party business forever. We’re here for the money. The money pays our bills, keeps our noses clean (maybe not Hayley’s; there’s also a certain irony that she is Snow White) and off the streets. We supplement parties with waitressing, film-extra work, bar work and aforementioned side hustles on the internet. Darren works at Costco every Tuesday too but that’s mainly to get the free hotdogs. They’re not perfect jobs but they also supplement our hopes and dreams of seeing our names in lights. Better to aim for doing something in life that will make our souls sing. That’s the quiet underlying reasoning about why we’re sitting here looking like the world’s saddest Disney reunion film.
‘I don’t ever want to be that rich,’ Hayley says dolefully. ‘If I become the next Adele and win Grammys then you all have permission to slap me back down to where I belong if I become some highfalutin bitch bag.’
I nod earnestly. Cass salutes, half scanning something on her phone.
‘Urgh, how is this even possible?’ she says, gagging. ‘That pervy dad at the party has found my Insta page and has just messaged me.’
We all grab at our phones. ‘Name?’ Darren asks.
‘Frederick Bell.’
You’ve never seen fingers move quicker. Hayley cackles with laughter.
‘The bell stands for bellend. Those berry red chinos are a LOOK… Check out the hunting pics, what a knob. Fiver says he’s into kink involved with that,’ I say.
‘I always get the old man freaks. You two get the fit dads…’ Cass cries, stuffing a quarter of a sandwich into her mouth.
‘I get the married ones,’ Hayley reminds her. ‘I’m the bit on the side, it never ends well.’
I nod in agreement. ‘These are not hunting grounds for boyfriends. It’s either single dads who’ve been dumped on their asses or blokes in stale marriages who want to re-live out stuff they’ve seen in porn.’
Hayley nods. Cass is not like me and Hayley. She’s still looking for that happy ending where someone will pick her up, pledge undying love and whisk her away to a new-build semi in Surrey. The sort of world Hayley and I inhabit, the semis and happy endings normally end on our faces.
I grab Cass by the cheeks and give her a massive kiss on the lips. ‘One day your prince will come.’
She pouts. I mean, he’ll probably come via Tinder as opposed to on a white horse but hey. Our phones all pinging with messages suddenly get our attention.
‘Dickweasel warning,’ Hayley tells us.
We flare our nostrils. It’s Richard, sometimes known as Dick but his proper full name is The Dickweasel and he’s the owner of the agency where we all get our ridiculous party jobs. The nickname is pretty self-explanatory. He’s a sneaky diva, never pays us on time and likes to bore us with his fake stories, like the time he sat next to Tom Hanks on a flight and they shared some nuts. Never happened. He calls us his kids like we’re some sort of family but we’re not here for him and his terrible acting tips, we is here for the moolah.
‘They need an Elsa in half an hour over the river. The girl booked has shown up drunk and thrown up,’ Darren says. ‘Well, that’s me out.’
‘I dunno, D. You have the legs for tights,’ Cass says, looking down at his calves, the hairs sticking out of the Lycra at unsavoury angles like a very bald rug.
