Mexican Kimono (3 page)

My phone beeped with a message from Kylie.

‘What? Oh my God! How are you going to live? You’re at Toff’s? Shouldn’t you be looking for a new job? And no, I can’t meet you. Like I told you last night, I am running my own business! I have appointments all day. I’ll come over tonight and help you look through the employment section if you like?’

Geez, what a killjoy. How boring could one person be? I needed to ramp up the search for a replacement BFF. The old one was becoming excessively responsible. She’d obviously been hanging around my crazy mother for too long. Running her own business! Wasn’t the reason people did that so they could take time off whenever they wanted? I began to lament the fact my so-called entourage had developed some serious character flaws. In the past, times like these were a cause for celebration. And now look, everyone was busy. Faux busy, if you ask me. I needed to move on, and fast. Time to go home and wrap myself in my kimono. It made me dream of another, more gentle world. Submissive, subservient, exactly what I needed in a friend.

‘Kylie, you don’t seem to have grasped the seriousness of the situation. I am in a crisis here and need some moral support. You’ve obviously neglected to remember when you were fired from the pet shop for murdering all those fish! You went to ground immediately and I was there to pull you up again. I took you to Underwater World to help you get over your fear of killing things. I took the week off for you! I’m asking for one lousy day!’

I scrolled through my contact list in my phone for a potential new bestie. It was a tough choice. I had certain expectations when it came to friends. I won’t go into the specifics because you’ll think I’m some kind of nut job, but the deal breakers were:

They could not be thinner than me.

They must not be taller than me.

They must not have blonde hair, blue eyes or bigger boobs.

The other stuff on my list was just shallow.

My phone beeped again with a new message. God, that girl did not give up easily.

‘Sam…you took the week off because your boss caught you stealing a stapler and all those liquid paper pens! I’ll see you tonight. I can only drink absinthe because I’m on the green colour diet. K xx’

Green? Why would you pick green? All I could think of was vegetables; that wasn’t a very exciting diet.

I finally found a ‘maybe’ for the new best friend shortlist. Gemma. She was a flame-haired musician type, and while she was kind of cool, I secretly thought her hair colour held her back a little. I decided to call her anyway. At this point, I really had no choice.

She answered on the first ring (not a good sign). ‘Hey, Samantha! How are you? I haven’t seen you in ages!’ She was very exuberant for first thing in the morning.

‘I’m great, Gemma. I was just wondering if you’re free? I thought we could go get a pedicure at that place with the massaging chairs? I need to get my French tips put back on too.’

‘Sure, I’d love to! What time?’

I began to regret calling her. She was way too eager and available. I really tried not to hold it against her, but if someone called me that short notice, out of principle I would say I was very busy, because, you know, I’m important-like. It was too late now. I was in too deep.

‘Half an hour?’ I asked.

‘Great! Can’t wait to have a good ol’ gossip.’

‘Ok, Gems, see you there.’

I don’t know if you know about the acrylic nail rule, most girls do, especially ones prone to chubbiness due to inheriting the wrong genes (thanks, Dad!). Anyway, here it is: if you want to shed a kilo or two without dieting or exercising, all you need to do is get acrylic nails put on. They instantly make you look thinner. I’m not kidding. Don’t go too long, though; nails should be kept under a centimetre for best results. If they’re too long, people start looking for an Adam’s apple.

I finished my omelette and took my sombrero off. I hated to think what that damn hat had done to my hair. I didn’t dare get my mirror out to check in case Toff saw me and took offence. You really had to be on your game in that place.

Chapter 3

Massage Chair Diet

There were still twenty minutes or so until I had to meet Gemma. I was walking innocently enough toward the nail place, glancing into the windows of shops whose clothes I could no longer afford when, out of nowhere, something barrelled into me, causing me to trip and fall. Stunned, I glanced up wondering what had happened. I was sure I was concussed and not seeing straight. A small boy approached me, yelling, ‘You’re gonna have to pay for that, lady!’

I looked around for the ‘lady’ he was referring to.

‘Did you hear me?’ he repeated, somewhat huffily.

Miffed, I asked, ‘Are you implying I’m old?’ Lady? I mean, come on, I was early to mid-twenties, for God’s sake.

‘You broke my car!’ He dissolved into tears as a mother-looking figure raced out of the toy shop to investigate.

I looked down at my knees that were now covered with blood, guts and gore. Very unattractive. Jeans for the next month then. My beautiful and expensive red ensemble was now ripped and shredded like a hula skort. I was not pleased.

‘
Excuse me
, little boy, but look at the damage you’ve done to me! I think I’m gonna sue your parents!’

The mother-looking woman scooped the young boy into her arms and hushed him before looking at me in scorn. ‘That car just cost me $200!’

‘Um, are you some kind of crazy person? Your son just hit me with a remote-controlled car as I was walking along the footpath. It came out of nowhere! Do you know this skort cost me $200? Not to mention the fact my knees are most likely busted up! I’ll probably need some kind of surgery to fix this,’ I said, pointing at my bloody wounds and legs that were all akimbo. ‘I think I have concussion. I hope I don’t die in my sleep. Then you’ll really be in trouble. Actually, now my neck is starting to ache. Maybe you should call an ambulance. Do you have insurance?’ I ferreted through my bag to find my phone. Mother-woman stood looking at me in disbelief.

I dialled Kylie’s mobile, only because she was good in an emergency. In the past, she’s fussed and faffed over me, making me feel quite special. She answered on the sixth ring (much better: not so needy looking).

‘What now?’ she hollered.

‘If you must know, I’ve just been hit by a car and I think I need an ambulance. The crazy woman whose child was in
control
of the car is trying to get me to pay for it, if you can believe that!’ I shot the pair standing over me a viperous look.

‘Oh my God! A child was driving a car? Did he steal it?’

‘What? No! His mother just bought it for him in a toy store.’ She was slow to catch on this one.

‘Wait, I’m confused. Are you saying you were hit by a
toy
car? And you think you need an
ambulance
?’

‘What’s with all the
em
-phasis? Yes, a big, motorised toy car. I’m quite badly hurt, I’ll have you know!’

She sighed right into the phone. ‘OK, drama queen, I’ve got a colour on a client that needs rinsing before their hair falls out. You know, like, a
real
drama. So I’ll see you tonight,’ she said and hung up. Again. Of course, I wasn’t going to let devil mother and child know that, so I kept up a one-way conversation. ‘Yes, Kylie, that would be great. Call the ambos and ring Uncle Siegfried for me. He’s in the Yellow Pages under Q. As in Q for Queen’s Counsel. Chief of lawyers. I’ll just wait right here since I can’t walk any more anyway.’

Sure enough, the evil duo was gone as fast as my dad’s wages at a two-up game. It was just the mangled car and me. Finally, a toy shop employee came out to assist me. He was a young boy looking about fourteen who stared down innocently at me. His head hiding the sun made it seem like he had a halo.

‘Are you OK, Miss?’ His cute little cherubic face looked quite concerned, so I held back my wrath about how long it had taken someone to come to my rescue.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said, glancing at his name badge. ‘Cooper, I could really use something to clean my leg up and a couple of ibuprofens. You look at the damage, please. I worry I might faint with the blood and everything.’

He looked down at my knees. ‘A couple of Band-Aids should do it.’

‘Band-Aids?
Band-Aids?
Are you some kind of masochist? Then the hospital will have to rip off the Band-Aids to sew it and possibly make the gash even deeper!’

‘Hospital? You’ve only got a couple of scratches on your knees.’

God! Teenagers were so rude these days, don’t you think? He was probably one of those Generation Z kids that didn’t worry about simple things like school, or working, or the future, and just spent all day surfing and I don’t mean waves. I worried,
really
worried, about our country’s future with kids like Cooper.

‘Cooper, do me a favour. Go back to work. Try and commit to it, OK?’

I got to my feet, definitely unsteadily, brushed as much of the street grime as I could from my clothing and hobbled into the nearest clothes shop. I was on a credit card diet, but this was classified as an emergency, so without any guilt I selected a few outfits. A mere ten minutes later, I was refreshed, redressed and walking to the nail bar, albeit more cautiously.

I could smell the acetone a few hundred metres away. I was now running about thirty minutes late and wondered why Gemma hadn’t called to ask why. Another thumbs-down for her. No one cool waits around like a stood-up date without at least ringing to check that nothing serious has happened to prevent them arriving on time. Which, luckily for her, had happened, but she didn’t know that, so it was still uncool.

A gorgeous Vietnamese guy greeted me as I entered the nail bar. It was the funkiest nail place in town and run by men. That’s not why I went there, if that’s what you’re thinking.

They just so happened to be the very best at acrylic and they were super-fast. Kylie reckons they flirt just so you come back, but I disagree. I didn’t see them flirt with her at all. They were just being friendly. I, on the other hand, had my favourite technician, and whoa could he flirt! He was hot for me for sure, but I drew the line at a boyfriend who touched feet all day. I imagined us getting intimate, and then him caressing me with those hands and instantly saw hundreds of feet belonging to hundreds of different women. It sort of felt like cheating, not to mention the whole ‘ick’ factor of so many dirty feet. Not exactly a turn on.

I asked the guy if Hoang was available for French tips and a pedicure and saw Gemma waving frantically to me. Then she does the unthinkable and yells across the shop, ‘Sammy, you look great! You’ve lost weight!’

Can you imagine? Who says that? Instead, as the consummate together person I am, I casually strolled to the empty chair beside old loose lips and smiled in a friendly and endearing manner that I totally didn’t feel.

‘Gemma, great to see you again. Blue hair, wow, how did you manage to get it that colour?’ Notice I didn’t say anything about her hair looking great. I don’t lie to friends outright like that, unlike some people I know (Kylie).

‘Do you like it? Kylie did it for me. She’s great with hair, isn’t she?’

‘Yeah, I love it. Kylie, hmm, don’t use her myself.’ I didn’t have the heart to say blue hair was so 1990s. I mean she really should know these things, being a performer and all.

So, how are you? How’s that fabulous advertising job of yours?’

OK, so I may have bent the truth slightly about my actual role inside the office. ‘Oh, you know how it is, I could only climb the corporate ladder so far before I need to expand to somewhere bigger and better like, you know, Tokyo.’

She nodded in rapt approval. ‘Really? So are you off overseas then?’

‘Well, not at this stage. I thought I’d take a few weeks off, do some yoga, eat lentils, you know, de-stress from that whole pressurised environment. I tell you, it was killing me. It was work, work, work. Deadlines, KPIs, budgets, bonuses, and boys. It’s a man’s world out there in corporate-land. It’s tough going being one of the players when you’re a young, good-looking woman. I must say, I envy you. Being able to turn up unwashed, ungroomed, with just a guitar. Lucky you. Lucky, lucky you.’

She started laughing, although I’m not sure what at. ‘You’re so funny! Kylie was telling me your boss sent you out
clothes
shopping for him!’

Thankfully, Hoang walked over to me at that moment. Do you see what I mean about Kylie? She can’t help but spread malicious gossip around. It’s the bloody hairdresser in her. Now I was just going to have to spill one of her secrets.

‘Hoang. How are you?’ I said in my best sultry voice.

‘Very good today. What you want today, Miss?’

‘The usual, Hoang, plus a full set of French tips.’

‘OK, French tips no problem. What’s the usual, Miss?’

Coy, very coy. ‘Ha, ha, Hoang. You know, the usual pedicure!

Last time you said my toes reminded you of your long-lost love, Quelo.’

‘Ah, yes, Quelo. My bullmastiff. Had to be put down after he ate our tax bill. All the ink poisoned him. How I miss him!’

Hoang became emotional while I was still reeling over the fact he likened my toes to a friggin’ dog’s! Although, when I thought about it realistically, I could see he didn’t mean my feet visually, he meant metaphorically. He loved me, he loved Quelo. I could see that.

Hoang proceeded to fill up the foot spa and turned my chair massager on to ‘mile-high-club’ mode. It vibrated the bejesus out of me. I knew what he was thinking. The quicker, the harder, the faster – the better. Men. They were as transparent as the defence in the Stapler-Gate affair.

I relaxed into my chair and closed my eyes as Hoang worked his magic. The vibrations of the chair worked all the suddenly unemployed stress right out of my body. Kylie said that sitting in those chairs for thirty minutes or more was equivalent to running on the treadmill for five kilometres. Something about the way they work every muscle in your body. I tried to get a manicure or pedicure every week after I heard that. Incidental exercise, she called it.

I remembered ‘old blue hair’ next to me and figured since I’d invited her here I should really put some effort into some sort of conversation.