Shampoo (15 page)

(forever grateful to be fed, I am)

We went into the fairy shop I always go into
while I’m on the coast, then window shopped at Pac Fair.

We had two hotted up cars keep following us,
and beeping their horns, and yelling stuff out to us. Beth and I
laughed and laughed.

(yes we’re hot and we know it!!!)

(kinda…I forever don’t know my own
worth)

We were stopped at the lights at Broadbeach
where the Hungry Jack’s is, and the two cars following us pulled up
on either side of us. Both hotted up Fords.

“
Pfft,” I said to Beth, our windows
down, listening to their ‘hey babies,’ and ‘where are you’s going?’
“They’re driving fucking Fords!”

Beth shook her head. “You and your Holdens!!” A
pause. “Think you can take them?”

(whoa ho ho, I so don’t need her encouragement.
Is bad for me)

“
I know I can take them. They’re
driving Fords! THIS,” I patted my baby’s dash, “IS A
HOLDEN.”

I started revving the car. This only got the
carloads of bare chested surfies on either side of us more excited.
They started revving too.

(this is so much fun)

The light turned green and I absolutely floored
it, roaring off, both cars on either side of me trying to keep
up.

I left them in my dust.

Piss on Ford!

Beth and I laughed and laughed and lost them
way behind us.

I felt so alive!!!!

9.32pm

Why hasn’t he called??

Watching ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer,’ and
getting more and more upset as the night wears on.

I wish he’d just TELL ME he doesn’t care, so I
can move on.

Monday 14 August 2000

9.11pm

Oh praise Jebus and Hallelujah!!!!!!!! First
day back at work today!!!

The new building is STUNNING. It’s so BIG. And
luxurious and bright colours and polished wood.

(hold the handrails, Karina!!)

Actually, that was the first thing Evie, the
receptionist, all alone now in her great big foyer reception area,
said to me when she saw me – “Hold onto those rails,
Pinky!!”

She hadn’t even seen me yet, the way the stairs
are. “How did you know it was me!!”

Evie laughed. “The way you clunk your heels
down when you walk. It’s so funny! Like you’re trying not to fall
over. Again!”

Ha ha. Everyone’s a comedian.

(no one is ever going to let me live down that
I fell down the stairs and broke my ass at work)

The office itself is huge!! No more girls on
top of each other, getting bitchy!! Now we can just be
bitchy!!

Everyone has their own huge desk, with
partitions in places, and see through partitions in others, and the
bosses and Gerry have three big glass offices one after the other
lined up against one wall, and one spare one decked out with
furniture but empty of a person, as if the architect and the
bosses, when designing it, dreamt some fourth uber boss would join
their (midlife crisis) crew, and selling shampoo based on
sin.

It blows my mind, the new building. We’ve all
been seeing the plans of it for years, as the bosses show us in
their excitement, but it was so far off in the future, it seems so
extraordinary that the time is here now! And we’re living in this
new awesome giant of a building.

It’s like the company just suddenly got
successful and rich. I’m so happy for them. The bosses.

I have my own HUGE desk as Head of Invoicing.
Nat’s on the other side of my partition, so we can stand up and
talk to each other. I love how they kept the sisters
together!!!

I’m in love with my work space. Then Colleen
came in (DY’s wife) and came straight to me and said, “Pinky, you
can decorate your desk all pink!! I made sure there were pink
supplies ordered just for you!”

I must’ve grinned and bounced like a puppy, I
was so in awe that the boss’s wife went out of her way to order
pink stuff for me!!

(everybody takes a role in my pink obsession,
like they jump onboard and encourage my mad behavior, they take
ownership in it and thrill in it)

I didn’t miss a couple of the girls’ glares in
my direction. Jealous of Pinky!!!

(if you wanna be jealous of a demented, lost
woman, go for it)

But not Julia. The beautiful Julia truly loves
me, in a way I don’t really get but I sure appreciate and love! We
had the best time together today, when we could, inbetween orders,
phone calls, office dramas, customer service dramas, invoicing
errors, reps, and the bosses.

And Daryl Agnew - my reason for going to work
each day!! I love him.

He arrived with a pink Piglet toy for
me!!!

(what’s he trying to tell me??)

(more glares from some of the girls. It’s like
having a target on my back sometimes, just for being me)

“
We missed you around here,
Pinky!!!” he boomed, wrapping me in his arms. I feel safe with
Daryl, like he’s my adopted father. “It’s never the same without
your pinkness about!! Now I’m ringing you at five to take all my
orders.”

Most of the reps now seem to ask for me to take
their orders, and tell me when I take it, none of their orders are
ever fucked up.

(unless the warehouse boys fuck up. Which is
always a fun moment, when Nat, in customer service, has to go find
out whether it was a warehousing error or an invoicing error, and
who did it. The boys in the warehouse and the girls in the office
all wait with bated breath, then cheer or boo, depending on which
one of us it was that made the error)

“
Ring at 4.45pm, Daryl,” Renee piped
up from her huge cubicle. “Pinky finishes at 5.”

I know Renee was trying to help, but taking the
reps’ orders takes 45 minutes at times. Never 15
minutes!!

Daryl got into a HUGE huff over that, cause he
thinks he’s the most important rep

(and he really is, as State Manager and Company
Drag Queen),

but finally agreed to call at 4.45pm. His
orders seriously take like an hour to type in!

Nat says Julia’s always so happy when I’m there
and a grouch when I’m not. Isn’t that so sweet??

Anyway, didn’t go to the gym tonight,
conserving my energy, being back at work and all, but been on the
phone all night to Rich, then Sharon nabbed me downstairs, so I may
as well have gone to the gym, cause it’s almost 9.30, and I’ve only
just fallen into bed with my plate of dinner.

THE EVERARD, however, still hasn’t
called.

I got so depressed at work today, cause all the
placecards had been printed and put out on a table near the
boardroom

(yes there’s a boardroom, how cool is
that??),

and there was Evvy’s: Paul Everard.

My heart just crashed back to earth.

I wanted to ring him then and there, and find
out whether the fuck he’s actually coming, but I chickened out. Nat
reckons I shouldn’t ring ‘the knobhead,’ but Julia reckons I
should!

It was so funny at work, Julia and I kept doing
80’s dances today! John Cash asked me, “What have you two been
snorting??”

(just shampoo!)

The entire product range has been revamped too
(Daryl Agnew’s word), to go with the expansion and new look of the
company, and all the bottles look SO NICE (especially the pink
ones). I was like a kid in a candy store, amazed at the huge salon
downstairs for classes and events, and all the new packaging lined
up so pretty on shelves.

Matt kept watching me today. I could feel his
eyes on me at random moments of the day. While I was spinning
around the salon and touching all the new products, examining their
prettiness and reading every last one of them

(Sin is notorious for spelling errors. I picked
up like seven of them, on five different products, and brought them
upstairs to Renee. Daryl Agnew happened to be in the office at the
time, and he was outraged.

“
I know salon owners and
hairdressers are just about the DUMBEST people on this planet, but
COME ON!!! Millions of dollars spent on this overhaul, and we CAN’T
EVEN SPELL?? And Pinky here is the only one that spots it, IN HER
FIRST SECOND BACK AT WORK!! Who fucking proofread the
bottles??”

Turns out it was Sherrie. Whoops.

She came stomping over to me after that and
slapped the thickest stack of papers on my desk. I’ve never seen
her so angry.

At me, anyway.

“
You’ve just been promoted, Pinky,”
Daryl declared. “From now on, anything that leaves this office gets
proofread by Pinky!” he shouted to the office at large.

“
Welcome back, Pinky,” Renee
laughed.)

and I slowly turned to find Matt looking SO
SEXY, this smouldering look about him, leaning against the
doorframe, a grin on his sexy, sexy face as he watched
me.

“
Stealing products, Karina?” he
laughed.

He’s the only one who actually calls me by my
name. Kinda hot!

I laughed too. “Considering we get free
products, I don’t have to! I’m just looking at them all. Do you
know they now say ‘not tested on animals…tested on party
animals?’”

He’d stopped next to me by now and peered over
my shoulder at the product I was holding.

(God, he smelt good)

He was so tall and close and smelt so
good.

(he’s taller than Evvy)

(nobody’s taller than Benny though)

“
That’s pretty funny,” he said,
taking the product I held out to him, reading it, flipping it in
the air, catching it.

(why is guys flipping things in the air hot??
Why?? Why???)

“
So are you going to the
opening?”

I nodded. “Yeah.” Pause, as I fiddled with some
products on the shelf in front of me. “You?”

“
Yeah, if I have to.” He didn’t
sound too psyched about it. He doesn’t seem to party with all of us
often. If at all. “I’ll go if you’re going though,” he
added.

(whoa!!! What was that about?? I don’t know,
but it sure made my heart race)

I turned now to face him, met his eyes.
Searched them for something. I don’t know what.

(true love? Are you in there?)

Faye ended up walking in on us. “Matthew, I
need the Sin Full from the back of the warehouse like ten minutes
ago!!”

“
Okay, Faye.” He gave me one last
look and bounded off.

“
Hey Pinky!!” Faye said, her grin
spreading. “We’ve missed your pinkness around here!”

I told her I missed everyone, gave her a big
hug, chatted a bit, then took my haul of misspelled products
upstairs.

Sherrie kinda broke my heart today.

Tuesday 15 August 2000

8.23pm

Evvy rang!!!

I rang Nat after the gym tonight, and spoke to
Dan

(he didn’t go to the gym tonight, just Josh and
I),

and told him what Evvy and I decided Friday
night, and whether he thinks I should ring him about opening night,
and Dan’s like, “I’ll ring him.”

I wanted to die!!! Mortifying.

So he rings Evvy, and Evvy rings me, like,
straight away. It was so good to hear his voice!!

(I love his voice so much)

Evvy straightaway says he would’ve gone if he’d
known about it (!!!), but he’s going to Twin Waters first thing
Saturday morning for golf, so he can’t. And he added he’d been
planning on calling, but at 8.30pm, because he knew I’d be at the
gym.

Eek!! So ridiculously happy.

Then we just chatted, told each other what we
did on the weekend. He spoke to me so lovely, like he
cared.

(for once)

He seemed so happy to be talking to
me.

I was VERY happy to be talking to
him.

Then I rang Dan back and drilled him, asking
him what had Evvy said, god damn it!! And he said I sound just like
Evvy, that Ever kept asking him what I’d said!!!

Oh it’s love, it’s just got to be.

Apparently, Evvy told Dan he is into me, but he
wants to take it one day at a time. Dan says this is HUGE for Evvy,
that he’s been single too long, and he just doesn’t know how to
change his life.

Anyway, so work was great today. I’ve been
given New Accounts AS WELL, so I was stoked to get new
responsibility.

(other than Official Company Proofreader – at
no extra money mind you! – which didn’t go down too well with
Sherrie, or Regina, or Sara, or Katie…all of them just kept
slapping things down on my desk while I’d be invoicing and stomping
away. So basically, none of them like that I’ve been deemed ‘able
to spell’ better than them)