by Pip Adam
‘Well,’ she said, drawing it out. ‘There isn’t a lot that’s got the same story as this. Like, this shot, with Dominic, it’s the pants eh? And like there’s a lot going on with those pants, and yeah, I just feel like the T-shirt works to balance that.’
‘Is there not enough going on?’ Tommy literally had his hand to his chin.
Sharona wouldn’t speak again. She’d saved up her speaking. Kept quiet all fucking season and now, this is what she’d chosen to say. It sounded defensive. It would be taken as defence. No one had mentioned it but they all noticed the space where the other samples should have been. Surely this would all be over soon. She had another shirt. She wasn’t even sure why she was fighting for this one. She had other shirts. The shirts were easy. There was a singlet.
‘We have the singlet, eh?’ Kurt asked.
‘The singlet is tricky for the story,’ said Tommy. ‘The singlet shows a lot of skin. Have you got the button-down close, Shar?’
She put the plastic bag back over the top of the T-shirt and went to the rack to pull out the singlet and the button-down. It would need another steam. The fabric was close and it would be easy to mimic it in the photo, but it wasn’t exactly what she’d promised them. She wasn’t sure at this time, and in this light they’d notice, but she would let them know so they could decide for themselves.
‘It’s not exactly the same material,’ she said, pulling the plastic bag up and over the coat hanger and the cotton shirt.
‘In colour?’ Tommy said.
‘In colour,’ Sharona said, weighing it up. ‘I can’t guarantee it, because I haven’t seen the finished pieces, but I think it’s pretty close.’
Tommy called over the photographer and he assessed it.
Sharona brought over the sample book. ‘Things can change, though,’ she said. It sounded defensive again. What exactly could she guarantee?
‘What exactly can you guarantee, Shar?’ Cal had a smirk on his face. He was trying to keep everything light. Sharona wanted to say it wasn’t her fault.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘At this point. I think we need to look at solutions. That’s what I’ve given you.’ She waved her hand behind her at the rack. ‘So, yeah, I think you need to get your head into that kind of frame. It’s the story that’s important, and I feel confident that this tells a story consistent with your original vision.’
‘She’s right.’ Tommy didn’t look up. He looked from fabric swatch to singlet. ‘We can pump it up or down afterward. We’re shooting some black and white tomorrow, for the tattoos, and I feel like we can get it. I like the button-down better than the T-shirt.’
‘Yeah. I think it’s good. But I still like the T-shirt.’ Cal was talking now. He was like this. Quiet for a lot of the time, almost seething, and then he would talk and it was like someone else had taken over his voice, like he was a puppet, because the only way he ever talked was calm and measured. ‘Bring the T-shirt as well. Let’s get these fuckers into these clothes. It’s so fucking late.’
Carla was wiping the back of Dominic’s hair. She wouldn’t get rid of all the hair with her hands but she wiped anyway. Duey watched her selling it to herself – the evenness of the hair, the way it snapped back as she passed over each millimetre of the real estate on the precious boy’s head. Duey looked around the room. They were all precious, loved, cared for. Tommy called Dominic over. Carla followed.
‘I can’t get rid of all the hair,’ she said. Just to Sharona.
‘Hm.’ Sharona was opening the neck of the singlet. ‘There’s a sink in the kitchen.’
‘But then he’ll be wet and possibly full of hair.’ Carla looked around the room.
‘Yeah.’ Sharona carried on opening the singlet, winding it up into itself like something aquatic. ‘Dry hair’s easier to get rid of.’
Dominic took off his sweatshirt, revealing a torso covered in dark and bright tattoos. It took a lot of effort for him to act like he didn’t know the tattoos were there. They sat heavy on him, drawing people in. Everyone in the room tried not to look. Duey looked at her phone and tried not to look.
When Duey, Sharona and Carla had been teenagers, tattoos were something a drunkard uncle might have, or a fat aunt. Then Duey started getting them on her arms, then her hands, then her neck. Some of them were nearly 20 years old now. When she got her first one, her mother told her it was an abomination. That God owned Duey’s body. She’d said the same, earlier, when Duey cut her hair short.
Duey looked at Carla, who met her eye. Whenever they saw tattoos like the ones Dominic had, worn the way Dominic wore them, Duey was pretty sure both of them were thinking about the same thing. In the 80s, when they were still at high school, a friend of theirs or maybe a person whose path they crossed occasionally, someone they wanted to call a friend, a small mousy girl, possibly still at high school like them, probably at Selwyn College – she was around, and then she went away for a while and then she came back with a full face of tattoos. They were Norse. There was a small spiral on the bridge of her nose and heavy, black, elongated triangles running from her hairline down her jaw. Nothing else about her had changed, just her face. She didn’t dress differently, she didn’t have anything extra pierced or stretched, just this face full of tattoos, dark black tattoos, the type that went green eventually. They took your breath away.
That was what Duey and Carla had said. Sharona was there too this time. Maybe they were at Sharona’s flat. They were somewhere high, but Duey could remember the sound of the city, so maybe they were down low, street level. They had all agreed – it was impossible not to take a sharp intake of air when the girl walked in the room. They were probably smoking and drinking, the bars must have closed, it was late. That was what Carla had said when they’d first talked about it again, this decade. It was late. Everything was probably shut, but none of them were ready to go home and Sharona hadn’t scored a boy. ‘Thank God,’ Duey said, and nudged Sharona’s arm to say that it was a friendly ‘thank God’, because she knew her that well. Carla would have thought it was for her benefit. That Duey wanted some unknown audience to think she knew Sharona that well. She thought about it now – the only audience had been Carla. That was what Carla would have thought she was doing, because Duey was sure that at that time Carla didn’t like something about her. Carla couldn’t place what it was, but she kept taking stabs at it, even though it was right in front of her – she would see it and think, ‘Surely not that.’ Duey remembered that Carla had said, with awe, ‘Imagine being that sure that you never wanted to work in a bank.’ And they’d all set about laughing, except Carla, who had been serious. Who was always serious. Who wore the world like a lead coat. And who wished beyond anything else that she could be sure, that she could stay some kind of course.
Duey looked at her from where she was standing now. Carla was hovering around Dominic. She was worried about the white, she wasn’t sure she’d got rid of all the hair she could. ‘Not sure.’ That would be on her gravestone. Why did they hate each other so much? And then it struck Duey in a horrible, slow, creeping way, that maybe Carla didn’t hate her at all. Maybe she still felt fondly.
People thought they understood. People who were at any proximity to them thought they understood. There were certain sorts of relationships in the world – a finite number – and people thought they knew where Duey and Carla’s sat. Tommy had asked, once, ‘How long did you and Carla go out for?’ People assumed, no matter how much information they had. They would assume they understood what was going on. But they tended to be wrong, because they only thought in binaries – together, apart, woman, man, love, hate, mild, strong – and it was more complicated than they could understand. They couldn’t see what it had been like and what it was like now. The most imaginative ones gave up. But then maybe no one even thought about Duey at all.
Duey slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Why did she stay? Everyone was standing around Dominic now. She could see Carla standing back, pushing her glasses up her nose, pulling
her jeans up, she’d had them tailored and they fitted perfectly, it was a tick, it was like pulling things into her – my jeans, my glasses. Elodie fought her way out of her shoes and was in bare feet now, like the manic pixie dream girl she was. The T-shirt looked good. They’d tried it on Guy, despite discounting it. That’s how this worked. They talked together about it, that all happened in the air, but it was like another conversation was taking place, silently. Like the T-shirt itself had a say. Sharona was pulling it down at the back, just so people remembered she was there, but that wasn’t really true, that’s how it looked to someone like Tommy, but Duey could see Sharona was doing it so she didn’t say anything. She’d made a profession out of shutting up. Duey leaned down and thought about Doug.
Then she was thirsty. She could get herself a glass of water. She walked to the kitchen. There was an assortment of cups in the cupboard above the sink. She wasn’t thirsty at all, she just needed to get up, but now it was weird. She should just go home, but she’d have to tell Carla she was going and then there’d be a scene. An interruption to the standing around and the pulling of the T-shirt.
She walked back into the workroom with a cup of water in her hand and sat back against the wall. Then she looked out the windows. It was so late. How could they work this late? It was a stupid question. Her brain warbled on and on sometimes for no reason.
Carla was shouting. Duey turned around. But it wasn’t Carla, it was Sharona. She was shouting and poking Cal in the chest. Meek little Cal. Duey could hear her shouting. How had she missed it? She was a faulty eye. She was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hadn’t she missed all of the lead-up to Carla’s going away? Hadn’t it taken her by surprise when she was gone? Wasn’t it always like this? Duey thinking about Duey, wondering about things, watching the inside of her mind play over and over. The fight had come from nowhere, she thought. Nowhere, except the lateness, and the tiredness. And the years and years of Sharona being told what to do. That was it, Duey thought, this is the spark in everything. This is Sharona fighting back. Like in Working Girls, like in lots of movies if she thought about it.
She stood up. And halfway through standing up she felt obvious, naked, like everyone was looking at her. Sit down, her body said, but she was halfway up now. I’m halfway up, she screamed back at her body, and it shouted, Now she’s done it. Look at her, now she’s done it. Now we’re stuck halfway up and halfway down and look at her, everyone.
Carla was standing back. Elodie was on a high stool. Legs swinging, sipping from a water bottle, her work finished for the night. She was always so calm, she just did what was in front of her and that was all she needed to do. She wasn’t ever put off. They asked and she delivered. That’s why everyone liked working with her. Duey wasn’t sure she could be relied on as much as everyone thought. Young women were strange.
No one was talking except Sharona and she was quickly heading towards shouting again. She was escalating, getting louder and louder. Duey couldn’t hear what she was saying, despite the fact she was talking very loudly, loud enough to be uncomfortable. Everyone looked uncomfortable. Duey looked to Tommy, to the photographer, who was looking at the ground. Tommy had somehow been caught looking in the general direction of the fight as it broke out.
What the hell had Cal done? Cal. It seemed so unlikely. So wrong. Should she walk over? Duey thought about walking over. But she just stood there. Eyes wide. Why couldn’t she hear what Sharona was saying? Why wasn’t she shouting more clearly? Then they started moving. Cal backing up, Sharona moving forward. Him in retreat, her on attack. By the time they were close to Duey, Sharona had stopped shouting and was just pointing at Cal. Run out of puff. But Cal moved back one last time and they were right beside Duey. Face to face still. That was the thing. Cal was walking backwards but he wasn’t looking away. Maybe that was the thing always with Cal. He looked like he was standing down, like he was small, but he was big in it.
‘Are you finished?’ Cal said.
Duey was stuck. She couldn’t stay where she was but she couldn’t move.
‘Are you finished?’
‘No.’ Sharona looked at Cal. He was not giving an inch.
Elodie was looking down, playing with a brush – smiling. Duey was sure she was smiling, not awkwardly but in some kind of glee like she was seeing something for the first time. Duey could see her behind them both. She was laughing.
‘Well, hurry up.’ Cal put his hands on his hips. He didn’t have all day. He moved his eyes away from Sharona’s. Looked behind her, around the room.
Did he just win? Duey looked at Carla, who shrugged in a way that looked like a yes.
Sharona flicked her pointed hand in the air above her head like she was waving away something annoying her. But Cal didn’t move. He wasn’t going anywhere, because he’d won. Duey looked at Tommy. It wasn’t Tommy who was running the show. Then she looked back at Cal and saw it. Cal looked up at Kurt, who looked up from his phone at exactly the same time, but didn’t meet Cal’s eyes. Kurt looked down again, almost immediately, then nudged Elodie to look at something on his phone, which she smiled at.
Cal stepped down. ‘All good,’ he said. Patting Sharona on her arm, above her elbow. ‘All good.’
Sharona still looked angry, but she also looked surprised it was over. She looked completely unsatisfied. Completely. It was completely not worth it. Duey suspected that was where her shame came from. Not in the outburst, but in the complete waste of time it had been. It changed nothing. Sharona was looking around, lost. She wouldn’t be able to explode like that again. Not for years. She’d been working here for years and had never done it and now she’d done it and it had been for nothing. They were all like that – Duey, Carla, Sharona – letting themselves down, completely incapable of productive conflict. Sharona shook her head and walked back to the workbench and started hanging up some of the other clothes.
Tommy looked at her. ‘Are we ready?’
Sharona nodded. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
If Tommy had been quiet it would have been better, but he wasn’t. He turned away from her and said, ‘It’s late. We’re all tired.’
Carla was looking out the window now. Was she just watching all their reflections or was she looking at the sky? Duey could never tell anything with her. Nothing. It was like Carla stopped where her skin began and then she left the room. Suddenly, Carla grabbed the key for the toilet, which hung on a hook by the door and was attached to a soft toy. It looked like a horse. Elodie noticed Carla leave. Duey saw her notice Carla leave and jump down from the stool she was sitting on and follow Carla out the door.
Carla heard Elodie’s footsteps on the wide concrete stairs.
‘I’m not going,’ Carla said, not turning round. She held the key out behind her to Elodie, so the My Little Pony swung like it had hanged itself.
‘Me neither,’ Elodie said, smiling. ‘I just haven’t talked to you in a while. How are you?’ Elodie’s hand was on her shoulder, which Carla didn’t like. She couldn’t shrug it off, though.
‘Yeah.’ Carla turned so they were facing each other, so Elodie had to move her hand. It was like Taekwondo.
‘Bit of a night.’ Elodie had nowhere to put her hand, so she ran it through her hair, awkwardly. She was so young.
‘Sharona?’
‘And the boys,’ Elodie said, in a pitying way. ‘I bet you find that hard.’
Carla had no idea how she did it. When she first met Elodie she’d thought it was some kind of thing. Like Guy. Some personality trait that was more about fashion. This season’s attitude. But the longer she spent with Elodie the more she realised she never knew where the nice-nice ended, or if it ended at all. She made Carla feel old. Maybe that was why she did what she did. No one else made her feel old. Elodie was younger than Tommy and Cal and Kurt. Maybe this was it for Carla? Maybe this was the generation that would leave her behind. Maybe this was the generation she wouldn’t understand? But then Carla had sought out others. Purposef
ully. That’s how far into her mind her thing with Elodie had got. She’d purposefully found people Elodie’s age, and then found out that she could read them like she could read everyone else, everyone but Elodie. Even now, standing here in front of her – it was like a magic power. Elodie should seem patronising, awful. But instead she was attracting. Carla wanted to talk to her.
She laughed slightly. ‘It’s a bit exhausting.’ It was like a slam to the guts. She wanted to believe that Elodie was as exhausting as the rest of them, but she wasn’t. She just seemed to radiate something that made Carla want to jump in. It was real.
‘I can see why you’re tired of it.’ Elodie walked beside Carla. Carla couldn’t quite look at her. She was frightened of the glare – that it was real, and not put on. That Elodie was genuine. That there was no excuse for Carla’s behaviour. ‘Where are you going?’ Elodie said.
‘Outside?’ Carla hadn’t really thought it through to completion. She’d just left the room. This is how this sort of thing happens, she thought to herself.
When Duey and her were in their 20s, their boss had brought two hairdressers out from Germany. Their boss went on and on and on about how good these two men would be, on and on. Carla and Duey were going nuts with it. To them it was just two more people between them and being on the floor. And they weren’t that good. Duey and Carla could see it. They weren’t that good at all. Then, one Friday, a fucking busy Friday, the hairdressers from Germany went out to ‘grab some lunch’ and no one saw either of them again. Ever. Duey and Carla had one of the worst days of their working lives. The salon was crazy. The manager wouldn’t believe the men were gone and didn’t cancel any of their clients. Saying ‘They’ll be back soon’ and ‘Just hold your fire’. Carla remembered it right inside her body. Her head had felt like it would ring off its neck. She remembered throwing up, then cursing herself because it took vital seconds out of the day. And they had to do it all with a smile. Every time Duey and Carla ran past each other out the back, they’d hurl abuse about how the manager needed to start cancelling clients and how the other wasn’t working fast enough. It felt like there would be no end. Colours were processing. At one stage, Duey was taking off four colours at once. One of the senior stylists came over and said to Duey, ‘Don’t you fucking dare put a treatment on my fucking colour,’ as if Duey didn’t know. But there was no time to get into it. Carla saw that. She learnt from the way Duey just said ‘Okay’ and carried on. It was one of many moments that day where she saw how they were different. It changed the whole salon forever, that day.
