LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

a bit Girl, Interrupted but it’s fine,’ he said, reaching out for the scissors. ‘Why don’t you give those to me, Angelina?’

      ‘Does it look awful?’ I already knew the answer to that.

      ‘Rachel,’ Emelie appeared behind Matthew. ‘Your hair.’

      ‘Looks great,’ Putting the scissors on the shelf, high out of my reach, Matthew took the poor ponytail out of my hand. ‘I’ll just, um, I’ll take this.’

      ‘I can’t go outside,’ I said in a tiny voice. I was too afraid to touch it, in case it fell out. ‘I look like a boy. Oh god, I look like Justin Bieber.’

      ‘He looks like a girl anyway,’ Em said, putting her arm around my shoulders in a gesture that was both supportive and, ingeniously, kept me away from the mirror. ‘It’s cute. Really. And you needed a change.’

      ‘I did need a change,’ I repeated. My head felt so light, as though it might float up off my shoulders and fly away. ‘It was on the list anyway.’

      ‘List?’ Em ran her fingers through the ends of my hair. ‘You did this because of the list?’

      I nodded.

      ‘Riiiight,’ she tugged manically on Matthew’s sleeve.

      ‘Before you start bungee jumping off the roof, just shower, wash your hair and get dressed,’ Matthew commanded, patting Emelie’s arm. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

      ‘Yes, it’s going to be OK,’ Emelie agreed, poking the ends of my hair. ‘Actually, this will save us a lot of time on blow drying.’

      Silver lining number two.

      Once I’d showered, shampooed and stopped staring at myself in the mirror, I slipped into my fluffy towelling dressing gown and prepared myself for whatever intervention would be waiting for me in the living room. Matthew and Emelie were sitting silently on opposite ends of the sofa, the napkin from the night before in between them.

      ‘So,’ Matthew pointed towards the empty armchair. I sat obediently. ‘You’re taking this list thing seriously, then?’

      ‘Yes?’ I shrugged. ‘I didn’t realize it wasn’t serious.’

      ‘You’re really going to do a bungee jump? Even though you’re so scared of heights I have to come over and change your light bulbs when Simon’s out?’ Em asked. ‘And you’re actually going to break the law?’

      ‘Bungee jump or similar,’ I reminded them. ‘And I suppose so, yes. Somehow. I mean, I’m not going to plan an armed robbery but there must be something faintly criminal that I can get away with. If it’s on the list, I’m going to do it. And since you’re responsible for most of these, you’re going to help me.’

      ‘Rachel, I have to tell you something.’ Emelie leaned forward and took my hand in hers. ‘I have never in my entire life been so incredibly proud to know you.’

      Matthew held his head in his hands. ‘As much as I of course second Ms Stevens’ support, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, it’s not like I don’t know how hard break-ups can be, but throwing yourself into something dramatic might be a bit much.’

      ‘I think I need to throw myself into something a bit dramatic,’ I replied. ‘I haven’t thrown myself into anything even slightly dramatic in a very long time.’

      ‘As long as you don’t take such a drastic approach to breaking the law.’ He didn’t look convinced. ‘I don’t want to see the two of you on the news after a failed bank heist.’

      ‘We could totally pull off a bank heist,’ Em pouted.

      I switched from chair to sofa and wrapped my arms around my best friends. ‘Which is why I need your help with this,’ I explained. ‘I want to do this. You’re both right, I’ve never been single, I don’t know how to be single. I don’t want to walk into my dad’s wedding looking like some feeble tramp who spent a fortnight listening to Power Ballads ’89 and watching Bridget Jones’s Diary over and over, crying “that will never happen for me” and eating ice cream until I lapse into a diabetic coma.’

      ‘That would be quite dramatic given that you’re not even diabetic,’ Matthew replied. ‘You could just not go to your dad’s wedding. It’s not like there won’t be another one.’

      ‘It’s just too tragic that it’s his fourth and I’m not even engaged.’ I ran my fingers through my short, wet hair. ‘I’m twenty-eight. Everyone’s going to ask if I turned up alone. And you know my brother is going to appear with some random slag he’s picked up the night before and everyone’s going to think it’s charming.’

      ‘Um,’ Em coughed awkwardly. ‘About your brother.’

      ‘Not now, Stevens,’ Matthew gave me a sturdy side hug. ‘Right. In that case, we’ve got a lot of work to do, haven’t we?’

      ‘We really have.’ I heaved myself off the sofa, catching sight of my hair in the mirror. ‘We really, really have.’

      One of the benefits of being a make-up artist was a wealth of helpful connections in the beauty world, connections I’d never really taken advantage of before. But with just a few texts, I’d called in enough favours to get an appointment at a great salon with a great stylist inside the hour. Given that Matthew had less than no interest in hair, make-up, clothes or anything else that happened on or to girls, he’d been left in charge of clearing Simon’s influence out of the flat: getting the locks changed, clearing out his stuff and preparing for redecoration. I was on a mission. By the end of the day, I wanted to feel like a new woman. If he didn’t want me in his life, I didn’t want him in mine. There was some debate over whether or not changing the locks was overkill, but the idea of Simon just being able to let himself in whenever he wanted actually made me feel sick to my stomach.

      Which was more or less the reaction Tina Morgan, hair stylist to the stars (if you counted the cast of Hollyoaks as stars) had to my hair.

      ‘Fuckin’ hell, Summers,’ she barked with cigarette-scented laughter as I dropped down in the styling chair. ‘Who did this?’

      ‘I did,’ I replied, trying not to regret my decision. I’d known Tina since college and she was amazing with hair. Her make-up work erred more towards drunk Pussycat Doll, but when it came to hair? First class.

      ‘Right, you never did do well in the hair modules, did you?’ She pulled the strands through her fingers, measuring out the lengths. ‘I’ve been dying to get my hands on your hair for years. Well, you’ve fucked this up good and proper, haven’t you?’

      It was a shame that her talent was matched with an almost complete absence of social skills, which I supposed was why she was still curling WAGs’ extensions in a salon off Regent Street on Sundays, instead of tending to the A-list in LA. Happily, that was working in my favour today. White-blonde hair, hot pink lipstick, skintight blue jeans and a mouth the size of Guernsey. And I was putting myself in her hands.

      ‘Yes I have, but here’s your chance.’ I took a deep breath and forced the words out of my mouth. ‘I want a complete change. Do whatever you want.’

      Tina stepped back from the mirror. ‘Anything?’

      ‘Anything,’ I said, closing my eyes. ‘Just – I want to look good.’

      ‘One guess,’ she stepped up to the plate. ‘Break-up?’

      I bit my lip. ‘Not to be a dick, but I don’t really want to talk. I just want to look amazing.’

      ‘As if I’d let you leave here looking any other way.’ She slapped me round the back of the head. ‘So colour, cut, long, short?’

      ‘I want to look completely different,’ I said, catching Emelie’s eye in the mirror behind me. She was totally chatting up one of the other stylists. She gave me a surreptitious thumbs-up and carried on. Shameless. ‘Just

Скачать книгу