Air Kisses

Chapter One

Ding.

The receptionist’s name bounced into the top position of my inbox.

I took a deep breath. It was go time.

I grabbed my phone and pondered taking some lip gloss. Noooo, what would I need that for? There would be people to do my hair and make-up there. Wonderful, talented
people who had mastered the exact smoky-eyed,
illuminated-cheekbone
look I wanted.

As I bounded up the stairs to our in-house photo studio, I was giddy with excitement. What would they
do
? How would they morph me from slovenly desk girl to glorious beauty minx? I smiled, thinking of all the possibilities. Most likely I would be presented with several different ‘looks’ – fresh pink lips and rosy cheeks, or sultry night vixen; hair up, hair down; seated or delicately perched on a stool – and then I would sit with the art director and select the most flattering and beautiful photos.
Everyone
knows that a beauty editor’s headshot has to be a masterpiece of shiny, bouncy hair, lacquered lips, twinkling eyes, and well-blended eyeshadow so that the readers believe that the woman instructing them on bronzer application actually knows how to apply bronzer, because just
look
how delicately tanned and pretty she is up there in the top right-hand corner.

I knocked lightly on the door and, getting no response, pushed it open. It took less than thirty seconds for me to surmise that there would be no time for friendly banter.

As my shots had been tacked onto the end of a huge fashion shoot, it had reached that delightful stage of the day when everyone involved has ‘I was supposed to have pissed off home two hours ago’ burned into their irises. Two fashion juniors were in the corner, perspiring slightly after having won a fierce battle against a mountain of unruly, tangled coat-hangers, which they were now attempting to jam onto a rack already frothing with beautiful clothes. Which they then wheeled out of the room. I looked at my drab grey dress, which did nothing for my skin tone and had an
empire-line
seam that flattened my boobs. Oh, and look, there’s my
frayed black bra peeking out over the bust line. Brilliant.

I gulped and walked over to where the make-up artist had all of her utensils laid out. She appeared to be busy sorting out living arrangements with her boyfriend.

‘You
said
he would be off our sofa LAST week. What are we? A shelter for drug-fucked losers?! For fuck’s SAKE, I want him OUT!
TODAY!
’

While she would probably be a lot of fun to sit with as she held pointed implements near my eyeballs, I felt I should let her finish chatting.

I turned around to face a young girl sitting on the sofa reading a magazine. I looked at her with raised eyebrows and ‘Sooo, what should I do now?’ eyes. She looked at me, shrugged, and went back to her reading.

Finally, the make-up artist got off the phone.

‘Sorry, I had to deal with that.’ She wasn’t sorry.

She came over to me, frowning and looking at my face. She pulled back some of my fringe and scanned what was on offer.

‘Oh, you’ve already got make-up on.’ (Hour-old lip gloss.) ‘So you’re already made up, yeah?’ (Bare-faced.) ‘And you’re a beauty writer?’ (Editor.) ‘So you’re probably an expert at applying make-up anyway, right?’ (Rubbish.) ‘So you could just finish it off yourself, probably, couldn’t you?’ (Absolutely not.)

She nodded and scrunched up her nose as though we were agreeing on these questions.

‘Cool. Well, I’m out of here then. Don’t worry, you look fine,’ she yelled out as she started packing up her stuff. Three minutes later, she was gone.

I couldn’t believe it. No make-up. No hair. No clothes. I was fucked.

I was trying to at least smooth down my hair when a small man in tight black jeans and a white T-shirt exploded through the door.

His hair was curling from underneath a black fedora and his eyes darted around the room. He had a camera in one hand and a BlackBerry in the other, and he looked far more interested in the latter.

‘We ready to roll or what?’ he said in a loud cockney accent.

He was not going to be the encouraging type. I started to fret. But no more than, say, a deer being chased by a large spotted cat.

‘Uh, ready…I guess,’ I said.

‘Over you go, then. Ain’t got all night, ’ave we?’

I looked at the blank white ‘set’. No props, no chair,
and where was the wind machine
? Everyone knows you need a wind machine! I walked over and stood awkwardly on the spot marked with tape. I put one hand on my hip. I took it off. I folded my arms. I unfolded them. I had no idea what to do, and I never would. It didn’t matter how often I was photographed, in the face of a lens I suddenly became less exciting than bark. I just froze up.

‘Just smile like you’re happy to be ’ere,’ the photographer said lazily, as he focused his lens.

I smiled.

‘Like you’re happy, not terrified, luv.’

Easy for him to say, he wasn’t the one sans make-up with a monstrous camera pointed at him.

I took a deep breath and smiled again. He snapped a few shots.

‘Head down.’

I put it down.

‘Not that far down.’

I raised it.

‘No one wants to see a double chin, do they?’

I raised it even higher.

‘Chin down, not head, just chin. Okay, now, look at me, but not
at
me.’

I moved my head ever so slightly to face him, concentrating intently on which way my head, eyes and chin were each facing.

‘Jesus, smile, darlin’.
Smile!
’

Cue fake smile.

‘Teef? You got any?’

I flashed my teeth, trying to think happy thoughts.

He took maybe ten more shots and then put down his camera. He was probably just checking the settings.

‘You done good, luv. Nice work. Now, Amber, where’s my fuckin’ loight-a? I need a dart and I need to be at the pub and I need both now.’

Ohshitno
. Please no. We were done? That was it?
That
was my moment? As I watched Pete Doherty pack up his camera while the girl from the sofa searched for his lighter, I realised with horror that we were indeed done.

If I never saw those photos, it’d be too soon.

The following morning, Kate popped around to my office and dropped the proof sheet onto my desk. And oh, what proof it was. My décolletage-length brown wavy hair was parted unflatteringly in the centre, my normally quite olive skin appeared pale, the fine lines under my eyes were pronounced and my dark-brown eyes seemed dull and dead. Fish-like. The shots were extra ordinary. Note the gap.

‘They’re nice, Hannah!’

‘They’re awful, Kate.’

‘No they’re not. Don’t be silly. It’s probably just that you look better in the flesh.’ Even Kate – adorable, always-
sweet-and
-complimentary Kate – was struggling to wheel out her usual hyperbole.

‘Well,
I
think they’re nice.’ She smiled and frolicked away.

I looked at my shots again. They were gross. I would have to sweet-talk Antonia,
Gloss
’s retoucher, into performing some magic.

I knew she liked Body Shop stuff; maybe I would make her a little bribe hamper. I needed shine and colour on my lips! Warmth in my skin! Eyes that sparkled! Blush that gently hugged my cheekbones!

I sighed loudly. Like a guy with a bladder full of beer and a tree in his sights, the photo going into
Gloss
was unstoppable: you gotta have a headshot, and this was mine. I tried to think about it philosophically. In a way, it was symbolic: I was always going to be the girl with unblended foundation, a wobbly trail of liquid eyeliner, and a cluster of anti-frizz balm sitting nonchalantly behind her left ear. In fact, the more I thought about it, it was an absolute farce that I was advising women on how to look perfect.

But somehow,
somehow
, I had managed to hoodwink everyone into thinking I had a clue about this beauty thing.

Until now, anyway.

Chapter Two

I looked at the pigsty in front of me. It was as though a teenage girl had unloaded the contents of her bathroom vanity onto her father’s work desk: nail polishes mingled with overseas magazines; shampoo and conditioner with expense forms. It wasn’t that I was a filthy girl; it was just that the sheer volume of ‘things’ coming in to my area every day was too much for me to handle. I
could
clean it, but my desk would only be stacked with a whole new mountain of mess within twenty-four hours, so why bother.

My phone beeped.

If possible, my best friend Isabelle, aka Iz, loved my new job as the beauty editor of
Gloss
more than I did. The perks, after all, were multiple and obvious. For both of us. I was sent bags and bags of product every single day. And because
Gloss
was one of the country’s bestselling magazines it wasn’t the no-frills kind of gear either. Sharing it with Iz made me feel like some form of Beauty Claus, handing out make-up, fragrance and skincare as though it were candy.

But it wasn’t all Jesus juice and cupcakes. I had a whole new art – beauty writing – to learn, and a whole new breed of women to befriend. Like any new job, the hours were all-consuming and mildly soul-destroying, but I took solace in the fact that a new job would only be new for so long, and then you could slacken off because no one cared which ring tone you had, or that you did your make-up at your desk in the morning. Iz, who loved the idea of life imitating art, was labouring under the illusion that magazine jobs were an exact replica of
The Devil Wears Prada,
but the reality was not nearly as horrendous. That’s not to say I wasn’t ‘enjoying’ the unique brand of self-confidence building that comes from constantly being outdressed and outwitted at
Gloss.
But, like I said, I was still new, and things were bound to get better over time.

My last job had been as a slave-slash-PA to a beast of a man who highlighted his hair and thought monogamy was a type of board game. He was the kind of man who told people how wealthy and generally brilliant he was (he was neither) as a valid form of conversational currency. The kind of man who called young women ‘baby’ and openly looked them up and down. The kind of man who wore white dress shoes. That his wife was an executive with the Beckert Group,
Gloss
’s publisher, and had suggested I apply for this job had been enough of a pay-off, though. Without her I’d still be filing his shonky tax receipts.

Iz was my rock of normalcy in my flashy new world, and she had warned me not to turn into ‘one of those magazine bitches’.

I guessed that deep down she was worried I would become all refined and snobby, leaving her and her (our) rip-off Chloé bags for dead. She needn’t have worried. We’d been friends since we were fifteen years old, and I wasn’t about to give her up for some blunt-fringed, chain-smoking nutjob. And besides, it was her non-refined side, her innocence and her insatiable curiosity that I loved most about her.

It wasn’t like I was killing it with my sophistication anyway. The girl whose job I had taken, Michelle, had left before any handover could take place, and Karen, the editor of the magazine, openly admitted that I’d got the job because, in a field that failed to inspire, my quirky CV, the recommendation from my ex-boss’s wife, and the fact I was an ultra-confident, enthusiastic, sucky freak had got me over the line. Karen knew I was out of my depth, and so had enlisted Jacinta, the
Gloss
features editor, to look after me in my first few weeks.

Jacinta Trevelli, aka Jay, was my best friend so far at
Gloss
. She’d been lovely from day one, although I’d given it a week or two before deciding to be her friend. I knew not to make best friends with anyone on the first day as they would definitely turn out to be mental.

But Jay was far from mental. She was unreal. All lips and hair, she was half Italian and, in certain outfits, could pass as Monica Bellucci.

She was
Gloss
personified. One of those girls who couldn’t possibly have any other job than one on a women’s magazine. One of those girls who inspires you to spend more money on your wardrobe.

One of those girls you see at the gym who makes you think: why is she at the gym? She doesn’t need to be at the gym. She could be making better use of her time. Like starring in a Snoop Dogg video clip.

Jay waltzed over to my desk and stopped to peer at the new line of lip glosses that had just come in from Dior. Today she was wearing a slinky olive-green dress – it looked
very
Gucci and probably was – of the calibre I would save for special occasions. Her skin was flawless. She had
shampoo-advertisement
hair, and one of those svelte figures that allowed me to use the word ‘svelte’ for the first time in my life. I always felt like a schoolkid next to her.

‘So, what are you up to tonight, New Girl?’

Jay loved to ram home the torture of being the new kid.

‘Just meeting up with Iz; got a birthday dinner on.’

‘That pretend boyfriend of yours back yet?’

I seethed for a second. Jesse was still away for work and wouldn’t be able to make it. He really was the invisible boyfriend. It was both embarrassing and boring having
to make excuses about his whereabouts all the time, not to mention fronting up to everything from weddings to fat Uncle Bart’s sixtieth solo.

I still missed him when he went away, even after two years and four months together you’d have thought I’d be use to it. But his job as a news presenter meant he was often on location, and I had to deal with it.

I gave a grim smile and shook my head.

‘Nope. Not till next week.’

‘That must get boring, him always being away…’ Her focus was still on the gloss, which she was picking up, twisting the wands out to inspect the colours. She suddenly snapped to attention.

‘Anyway, have fun tonight, darling. I’m off to a real-estate awards night – don’t get too jealous – so I’d better haul arse. Kisses!’

With that she pranced back to her desk, and I was left with the scent of her Chanel Chance and roughly four minutes to redo my make-up before leaving.