Stilettos & Stubble (3 page)

‘Marco was
everything she had dreamed of - tall, dark and handsome - and just a little bit
broody.  His eyes smouldered when he looked at her and her heart never failed
to miss a beat.  He stroked her silken cheek and smoothed her raven hair behind
her ear.  His full lips were approaching hers at an alarming pace and …’

Damn, the phone
was ringing just as I was getting to a juicy part and I bet I wouldn’t be able
to get back into my groove again later.

I knew the second
I answered it that is was Mia.  As a mum of two kids under five, her phone
calls were always interspersed with screams, cries, silence and ‘
don’t do
thats’
.  It was a bit like talking to Joyce Grenfell.

I waited
patiently, knowing that she’d come onto the line just as soon as she’d dealt
with whichever domestic catastrophe had reared its ugly head.  Eventually I
heard a small voice.  ‘Auntie Percy?  Mummy says bugger, de pasta is boiled
over and she be here soon.  I got a new hat today and Jo Jo did a poo in it. How’s
Bogey?’

Conversations
with five year old Isla always went like this and often left me wondering how
certain things managed to happen in Mia’s house.  I mean, a
poo
in a
hat
? 
What
was
the story there?

I knew to answer
quickly and succinctly.  Isla had the concentration of a gnat.  ‘Bogey is very
well thank you and he sends his love. 
How
did the poo get in the hat,
Isla?’

I heard a little chuckle
at the end of the line.  ‘Don’t be silly, Auntie Percy.  Cats can’t send love
and I told you Jo Jo put the poo there.  Byee!’

None the wiser, I
waited for Mia to pick up the phone.  I could hear her approaching, kitten
heels clicking on her perfect wooden floors and calling out, ‘Coming Perce!  Jo
Jo, put your trousers back on or you won’t watch ‘In the Night Garden’ before
bed.  Isla, help him will you?  We’ll get you another hat tomorrow so you don’t
have to wear the stinky one.’  Breathless, she spoke into the receiver, ‘Hi,
you!  Sorry about that, I’d forgotten about my pasta.  You OK?’

I filled her in briefly
on the pitiful state of my love life and bank balance and then told her I’d
almost finished my novel.

‘Oh sorry about
Adam, I quite liked him.  What a dick!  But great about your book!  Email it
over - I could do with a bit of romance in my life.  James has been working so
hard lately, I barely see him.  But … we
are
taking one his clients out
for a meal tomorrow night and … he’s single too.  Fancy coming along?  You
never know, he could be
the one
!’

Mia was a
hopeless romantic and wanted everyone to be as happy as she was.  Married to
her childhood sweetheart, she had no concept that love could be a rocky road.  She’d
planned her wedding outfit and hat for every man I’d ever dated and she
wouldn’t rest until she saw me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen with the
man of my dreams.

The idea of a
blind date filled me with dread and I told her as much.

‘Don’t think of
it as a date then.  Just dinner with your oldest friends and a potential new
one.  DO NOT DO THAT!  Oooh sorry, Perce, not you.  Jo Jo was trying to stick a
marble in his ear.  Every orifice is being tested right now and I really don’t
fancy A&E again.  We were there for four hours last week with a Lego brick
up his nostril.  So tomorrow?  See you at eight at ‘The Bay Leaf’.  ISLA!  Put
him down, NOW!’

And she was gone. 
I was left with a dead phone and a sinking feeling.  Whichever way I
looked
at it, it was a blind date.  A set-up.  He’d be introduced to Mia and think,
‘Wow!
Hope the friend’s as cute as her’
and then he’d meet me and think, ‘
Great. 
A whole night of this to get through.’

I knew all too
well the giveaway look and the signs.  I’d cringed my way through enough
evenings knowing that I was the runner-up prize.  Or on a really bad night -
the booby prize.

I just didn’t think
I had the energy for it any more.  Maybe I was meant to die a spinster?  You couldn’t
mess with fate.

Returning to my
laptop, I decided I really would type those final lines.  My characters were
waiting and they were at least something I had complete control over.

It was just about
the only happy ending I could be sure of.

Chapter
Three

I’d stayed up
until gone two in the morning working on my manuscript and determined to type
the words, THE END.  I’d finally done it and I looked proudly over my total
word count of 82,314.  My heroine had nabbed her man and all the loose ends
were tied up.  Through all her dramas and conflicts, she’d remained perfect and
unruffled - how could Marco ever have resisted her?  My final chapter saw her
walking down the aisle towards a teary-eyed groom with the guests erupting into
tumultuous applause.

On a final read
through, the thought occurred to me that it might be a bit corny - a bit
too
Barbara Cartland.  But she’d done alright from dodgy romances, hadn’t she? 
Why shouldn’t
I
?

Nevertheless, I
deleted a few ‘throbbing manhoods’ and a couple of ‘delighted sighs’, logged
into my Hotmail and sent it off to Mia.  She’d be honest with me and tell me if
I should begin to approach agents.

I wouldn’t start
investing in ‘Cartlandesque’ feather boas or a chaise longue until I knew if my
writing career was set for success or failure.  And besides, my bank account
wasn’t up to it.

So I was facing
yet another morning of trawling the web for vacancies and dreading what the day
held for me - an interview at two o’clock for a desperate last ditch attempt as
a receptionist in a local hairdressing salon and then a date with Mia’s mystery
man.  I could cry off but I knew that Mia and James would give me a bollocking. 
It was easier just to go along with it and keep the peace.

I dressed in a
smart black trouser suit, ready for my interview, laying out a dressy top to
replace the white shirt for dinner that night.  Mia would no doubt send endless
texts, begging me to wear a dress but she wouldn’t win me over - the trousers
were well cut and made my legs look good, the top was slightly fitted and with
a bit of sparkle.  It was the closest thing to feminine that I was likely to
get.

I studied myself
in the mirror after I’d applied a hasty coat of mascara and lip gloss.  Did I
look too straight and boring to greet the customers in a trendy hair salon? 
The answer was a very clear
‘Yes’!
  I’d seen the girls who worked in
there and they all wore leggings or tiny mini skirts with biker boots and
little crop tops.  I looked like I should be doing the accounts for the Women’s
Institute - not only were my clothes wrong but my hair was just too
safe
. 
Oh, it was healthy enough, and a good strong shade of glossy chestnut brown,
but the chin length bob just hung there doing its own thing.  No matter how
many products I plied it with or how hard I tried to blow dry it into some
action, it just remained defiant and flopped.

With a final
ineffectual flick of my hair and a squirt of equally useless hairspray, I
puckered my lips and blew myself a kiss.  Going through my usual pre-interview
pep talk, I smiled brightly at myself and stood tall with my shoulders back. 
‘Go get ‘em girl! 
This
could be the one!’

But the smile
switched off and the shoulders slumped again as I grabbed my bag and left the
flat. 

Would I
ever
find my dream job and would my dream man ever
find
me
?

*****

At least Eduardo,
the owner of ‘Funky Fringes’, was honest and to the point.

‘Oh, lovie,
you’re a darling girl but I just don’t think this is the job for you, is it?’ 

He must have
sensed my disappointment, or maybe I was wearing my state of constant rejection
like a cloak for all to see, because the minute the words which declared me unemployable
once more had left his lips, he dropped to my side and patted my knee.

‘Let me make you
a coffee, my love.  You look like you could do with one.’

His kindness
touched me.  Rejection was usually cruel and never involved a lovely frothy cappuccino
and a friendly face.  As he faffed around at the state-of-the-art coffee
machine in the salon’s back office, I sunk into my chair and sighed.

‘Here, get that
down you.  Everything seems better after a shot of the old caffeine.’  He
handed me my coffee and pulled up a chair next to me. ‘The thing is, lovie,
this job is probably best suited to a school leaver, one who’ll move from
reception to training as a hairdresser.  You wouldn’t have found much job
satisfaction here and then you’d have moved on.  I’m making sense aren’t I?’

I didn’t dare
tell him I was so desperate I was almost at the stage where I’d accept a job
cleaning men’s urinals, because there was no point.  His mind was made up and I
had my pride - I wouldn’t be begging.

Suddenly a look
passed across his leather tanned face and he began to jog up and down on the
spot like an excited child.  ‘I know!  I feel really bad for not offering you
the job but I’ve got a huge gap in my diary this afternoon, let me give you a
little makeover.  Give your locks a bit of a seeing to.  It might be just the
thing you need to help you nab the
next
job you go for.’

He obviously saw
my uncertainty because he took my coffee cup and placed it on the side.  ‘Come
on!  What have you got to lose?  It’s on the house.  It’s not every day I offer
my services for free.’

And like a lamb
to the slaughter, I found myself being draped in a satin robe and led to a sink
in the salon.

As the shampoo
was massaged into my weary scalp, I closed my eyes to him saying ‘Let Eduardo
work his magic on you, my love.’

*****

Eduardo’s ‘
magic
’
found me back at home in front of my bedroom mirror in a state of shock.  I had
precisely an hour before I was due to meet Mia and Co and nothing I’d attempted
to rectify the catastrophe before me had made me look any better.

I’d been permed. 
Badly. 
So
badly I looked like the only thing missing was a blue rinse. 
I resembled an OAP proudly spruced up after her weekly shampoo and set.  My
fringe was in a row of bouncy little curls and the rest was following suit in
perfect granny fashion.

I don’t know what
he’d been thinking because he really did seem incredibly proud of his
handiwork.  He’d said it accentuated my cheek bones and gave me an ‘edgy
look’.  Edgy if I was thinking of a night at a geriatric bingo club or a coach
trip to Skegness, but not for a twenty-eight year old in search of love and a
career.

I looked in the
mirror and felt my eyes well up.  I looked ridiculous, there was no getting
away from it, and no amount of fiddling, straightening or coaxing was going to make
any difference.

I’d tried to call
Mia to get out of dinner but she wasn’t answering the home phone and her mobile
was going into Voicemail.

There was only
one thing for it.  A hat.

*****

‘Just take the
bloody thing off and let me have a look, Perce.  It can’t be
that
bad.’

We were in the
ladies’ loos at ‘The Bay Leaf’ and Mia was desperately trying to coax me to do
the big reveal.  I held on firmly to the rim of my hat, resolutely refusing to
remove it.

‘Perce!  Come
on
! 
Please
let me see it.  I might be able to help.’  Mia put her hands on
her hips and went into ‘mummy mode’.  ‘I’m a whiz with a comb and a bit of
spray, you
know
I am. Now get it off, this minute.’

I sighed, finally
resigning myself to the fact that she wasn’t going to give up and raised my
hands to lift the black velvet cloche.

Her sharp intake
of breath said it all.  ‘Oh my!  Lordy, Lordy, Perce!  It’s … it’s
different
,
isn’t it?’  Mia was nothing if not tactful, and she would do anything to avoid
hurting my feelings, but it was quite clear that this situation called for a
little more sensitivity than usual.  She’d have needed an Oscar to truly
disguise her feelings.

Taking the hat
from me she replaced it on my slightly flattened curls and fiddled with the
edges.  ‘Let’s go for a slightly more jaunty angle, eh?’ she said cheerfully,
making it more than apparent that she agreed with the cover-up option too. 
‘There!’  She stood back and admired the end result - which to me looked just
as dopey as it did before.  ‘Now just top up your lip gloss and add a touch of
blusher and we’ll get back out there.  It’s going really well with you and Tom isn’t
it?  He’s a nice bloke, isn’t he?’

I nodded
miserably, touching up my make up as instructed.  ‘He’s a laugh, yes Mia, but
he’s not for me.  Neither of us is getting ‘the spark’ so don’t start turning
this into ‘Love Story’.’  I knew I had to manage her expectations quickly or
she’d be in Selfridges buying another wedding outfit and planning my hen night.

And he really
was
a laugh.  The dinner had been fun so far, despite my head gear and Tom had
laughed
with
me and not
at
me when I’d told him about my dodgy
coiffure executed by the well-meaning Eduardo.

The fact that it
wasn’t a coupling made in heaven had been more than evident from the outset, when
he stood to shake my hand in greeting.  He was a great looking man … with a
perfect view of my cleavage - because at around 5’ 6” that was roughly where his
eye-level hit.  Heaven knows what James had been thinking when he’d suggested
the foursome to Mia but, despite that, my ‘date’ was a great conversationalist
and the meal was going well.  He hadn’t given me the ‘
Oh my God, what a
freak’
look once and I suspected it was because he’d been on the receiving
end of it himself from women in the past for being so short.  In a way, we had
lots in common.

‘So he’s a little
on the
short
side,’ Mia whispered to me as we headed back to our table. 
‘That doesn’t mean it’s a definite no-go.  Give it a chance!  I think he’s
really keen you know, Perce.’

He
wasn’t
keen, he was just a nice bloke and it was turning into a pleasant enough
evening.  He stood and pulled my chair out for me as we returned to our table,
his manners impeccable.

‘Shall we order
another bottle of wine?’ James asked.  ‘Seems a shame to get back to the baby sitter
before midnight.  We might as well make the most of it, eh Mia?’

Mia nodded in
agreement and then leant across the table to Tom.  ‘So, tell me Tom.  How come
there’s no one special in your life?’

She was a total
lightweight when it came to alcohol, and had been since she’d had her babies. 
The wine had loosened her tongue and I needed to steer her off the conversation
and onto something else before she started asking how many bridesmaids we
thought we might have at our wedding.

Tom smiled and
fiddled with his serviette.  ‘Just not found the right one yet, I guess.  But
we live in constant hope, don’t we Percy?’

‘We do indeed,’ I
nodded.  ‘We can’t all be as fortunate as you two, you know.  Childhood
sweethearts don’t realise how lucky they are.’

Tom sipped at his
wine and laughed.  ‘I’d planned on marrying a girl called Tracy Watson when we
were in the fourth year at primary school.  The trouble was, by the time we
left for secondary school she was head and shoulders above me and I had to
stand on a step to kiss her at our leavers’ disco.  Not terribly romantic!’ 

Mia tipped her
head to one side and looked sad - wine had the ability to make her maudlin too. 
‘Oh that’s
so
mean.  Did she dump you because of
that
?  What a
bitch!’

‘No.  Rumour has
it that she’s now a lesbian living in Nottingham, so it was pretty much doomed
from the start.’  Tom lightened the mood and topped up my wine glass.  ‘I’m an
old romantic at heart though, so I just keep telling myself that the right
one’s out there for me somewhere and it’s just a matter of time.’

‘That’s exactly
how
you
feel, isn’t it Perce?’  James was signalling for the waiter to
bring the bill and I knew exactly what he was up to.  He’d ordered the wine but
had no intention of staying with Mia to drink it.  We were being set up.