Girls' Night In

by Jessica Adams

  And then, a couple of months ago, I saw the dress. It wasn’t in the window waiting for me or any of that it-was-destiny twaddle that people say. I was in the nearly new shop, Jeanette’s, looking for a mac and a decent jacket for autumn. But there wasn’t much in my size. I’m a 12 and, frankly, it’s the best thing about me. I’d like bigger boobs but I’ve enough to be going on with. Jeanette and I were trawling through the rails when she remembered that a woman had brought in some stuff but it hadn’t been pressed or priced yet. Still, I go there quite a bit so she said I could have a rummage. I had a dig around, feeling for something tweedy in this big black sack, when my fingers touched velvet. Gave it a tug to pull it out, just to have a look, you see.

  It was that crushed velvet, the colour a rich, dark green. I held it against myself in the mirror, turning away from the shop, guilty as a thief. Jeanette bobbed up by my left shoulder.

  ‘Try it on. Go on. The colour’s right for your complexion.’ At least she hadn’t laughed.

  It was designed to be almost off the shoulder, so the velvet framed my collarbones and neck, making my skin look smooth and pearly. I felt different in it – more glamorous, of course, but not just that. For one moment, I suddenly knew how it might be to feel lovely and a shiver spun up my arms. I told myself I was a fraud, scowling to spoil the effect, bullying myself in my briskest, most no-nonsense voice.

  It was a good fit, too, except the zip was broken. Jeanette let me have it cheap because she couldn’t be bothered to fix it.

  In the wardrobe, it hung for a month. I used to stroke it casually, as if it were my pet, when I reached in for a blouse or to hang up my skirt. But its presence embarrassed me. Where on earth did I think I was going to wear it?

  Then, about three weeks ago, Becks rang up: she was going to a dinner-dance with her chap Tim and his brother Alec, but Alec’s girlfriend had just broken her leg skiing. Did I want to come – so long as I understood it wasn’t a double date or anything, but just so as not to waste the ticket. Well, who could refuse such a gracious invitation? Still, I was grateful.

  The dinner was being held at that incredibly ugly hotel, you know, the big modern one on the edge of town with those silly white pillars at the front that look as if they’ve been pinched off a wedding cake. Becks had asked me to stay with her and said I could get ready at her place too, as it’s on the right side of town. I took the dress in its protective zip-up cover and, in case I felt the need to chicken out, my good black skirt with the white silk blouse. I laid them out on her bed for inspection.

  ‘You haven’t been taken on as a waitress for the evening without telling me, have you?’ Becks gestured at the blouse and skirt. ‘No contest, babe. The velvet is hot.’

  Once I had it on, Becks walked around me, nodding to herself like a judge at a horse show.

  ‘Make-up? What’ve you got?’

  She poked through the contents of my toilet bag.

  ‘Is this it?’

  I retrieved my lipstick from my handbag. ‘And this.’

  ‘I’ll have to do you with mine.’

  She bent over me in the bathroom where I sat perched on the edge of her bath, assessing her handiwork as if she were restoring some old painting that might turn out to be worth something after all.

  ‘Your skin’s fine – so just a little light foundation. Where’s my blemish stick? That blusher’s too pink – go like this, see? Use a fat brush, that one’s hopeless. Now, look down, look up – we’ll use this grey shadow as liner …’

  I reached up to pull my hair back into its clasp, but she stopped me.

  ‘Try it loose. Oh, hang on. Head down.’ She put some sort of gloopy stuff on her hands and scrunched it through my hair, then tweaked at bits of my fringe. ‘Better.’

  It felt odd wearing my hair loose, naked almost. Or it may just have been all the bare skin around my neck and shoulders. I tugged at the unfamiliarly low neckline.

  ‘If you’re going to wear it, you’ve gotta go for it,’ Becks bossed me. ‘It’s no good looking apologetic. Shoulders back. Stick your tits out. Don’t keep fiddling with it.’

  ‘Sir, yes sir!’ I gave her a crisp salute.

  Of course, I had this daft fantasy that Tim’s brother would take one look at me and swoon in adoration. Becks said I looked ‘the biz’ and I really thought I wasn’t at all bad. Alec was polite and thanked me for being his escort but, frankly, I thought him rather boring. He talked a lot about his work and kept saying how everyone else in his office was a total tosser and didn’t ask me anything about me or what I did.

  It was one of those buffet affairs, where you have to stand in line for your food as if you were at a motorway service station, a bit of a cheek when you think how much the tickets were. I was helping myself to some salad when a man queue-barged and stood right next to me.

  ‘There you are, darling. Could you just give me a little of that?’

  I looked around behind me, but he gave me a look and then a smile before nodding at the salad again. He had dark brown eyes and very straight eyebrows. I tried not to stare and piled too much salad on to his plate. As I did so, he leant towards me, treating me to a heady whiff of maleness, a sort of spicy-woody smell, a touch of cigar smoke, and said, ‘Sorry about that. Forgot the salad. They’d lynch you as soon as look at you if you jumped the queue here.’

  ‘Rightio, darling.’ I smiled.

  During dinner I tried to keep an eye out for the saladman, but he must have been on the other side of the room. I kept thinking about his eyes and the way he had looked at me. I hardly noticed the food – some kind of chicken thing with rice and rolls that had been left in the oven too long. We all danced; the band wasn’t bad and in the breaks, they had a disco. Then, one of my favourites came on, a Gipsy Kings track. I can never keep still when I hear it. Becks and I rushed on to the floor and, maybe it was the dress or maybe it was the wine, but I really let go. My hair swung out around my bare shoulders, the velvet clung to me; there was only me and the music and I loved it.

  When I went to sit down, I saw the man again. He was standing on the edge of the dance floor.

  ‘Becks, Becks. Have I got food stuck in my teeth? That bloke’s looking at me.’

  ‘That’s ‘cause he fancies you, stupid.’

  I smiled back. He raised his eyebrows and stood there, openly staring at me. As I watched, a woman came up and laid a hand on his arm and he went back to their table. Like most people there, he seemed to be with a group but he was definitely with this woman. Thing is, she was really attractive, the sort men like. She had blonde hair – OK, bottle-blonde, but still blonde. A bright red dress with a slit up one side. But there he was, sitting next to her, and sneaking glances at me.

  A slow number came on and Tim and Becks smooched on to the dance floor. Alec nodded lazily towards the floor, a question.

  I don’t want you to think that I’m so desperate that I’ll dance with anyone, even if they can barely be bothered to ask me, but I hate sitting at the side, grin fixed in place, showing everyone how much fun I’m having and I’m only not dancing because my shoes pinch a little so I’m taking a break, certainly not because no one’s asked me, ignoring me, left over like the knobbly bone on the plate at the end of the chicken supreme.

  We moved around dutifully in small circles, walking rather than dancing, Alec’s hand on my waist, no more intimate than if he’d brushed against my elbow in the street. Looking past Alec, I saw the man, saw him manoeuvre his partner a little closer to us, then closer still. Then, like clockwork figures dancing to a preset pattern, the two couples rotated in synch. At every turn, his gaze met mine over his partner’s shoulder. Unabashed, I looked back.

  I went up to the bar to get some more wine. As I stood there, waiting, I caught his eye. His arm was resting along the back of the blonde woman’s chair, his hand on her shoulder. She was talking to someone else on her right. And then – while he was looking straight at me – he started to stroke her shoulder. His fingers lightly
swept over her skin; his thumb drew a line down her neck, tracing me a message. Beneath the velvet, my own skin shivered. I could feel his desire wash over me in a wave, felt myself flush with the knowledge. Embarrassed, I concentrated on my glass as it was refilled, focused on the coolness in my hand. I reached round to the back of my neck and held it with my cool palm.

  Then Alec came up and said would I mind drinking up because we ought to be making a move soon. He had an early squash game before work and wasn’t it all a bit of a drag anyway? As I walked back to our table, I half-turned, but the man was hidden behind a group of people, so I couldn’t even nod goodbye. I wondered if he would notice that I had left.

  ‘OK?’ said Becks. ‘Ready to slope off?’

  That night, I lay awake on Becks’ sofa-bed, my eyes open in the dark, reliving each moment. I rewound the evening like a video, redirecting it in my head, rewriting the script. He came up to me and I said something amusing, clever, he laughed with delight. He bent his head near mine and breathed in my scent. I felt the light pressure of his hand on my back, his touch on my arm. His fingers explored the boundary between velvet and skin over my shoulders, sliding beneath, questing for the soft swell of my breasts. He murmured into my hair, saying my name, his lips brushing my ear.

  There was no way of finding out who he was, and nothing I could do. The dress went back in my wardrobe, entombed in its plastic cover, my hair clipped neatly back into its clasp.

  And then, yesterday, I saw him. I had dashed into town for a bit of shopping and I popped into WH Smith’s for a packet of coloured drawing pins. He was standing at the magazine racks. I couldn’t just march up and say hello, so I loitered nearby, pretending to be looking at the books, hoping he’d see me. Then he picked out a magazine and moved towards the till. As I headed for the same till, he turned and looked me full in the face. I smiled and started to raise my hand in a discreet wave. But he yawned, half-covering his mouth, then he looked back down at his magazine.

  I stood stock still, clutching my little box of drawing pins like a lifebelt, as if it were holding me up. There must be some mistake, I thought – he can’t have seen me. I pushed myself forward to the other till, saw his eyes lazily travel around the room, slide over me once more, look down at the coins in his hand as he reached the head of the queue.

  Afterwards, I went home and cleaned the flat, gave it a good going-over, letting the smell of bleach and pine cleanser fill my nostrils, scrubbing behind the taps with an old toothbrush, clearing out my old junk, dreary papers and clutter and silly things, bundling them into rubbish bags.

  I felt better when I’d done it. Stood on my doorstep for a moment, looking at the black sacks as if they were a row of prize cabbages. They’ll take them away tomorrow morning, the rubbish trucks grinding into my sleep. But now, tonight, all I can hear is the rain outside, pattering on the plastic, making it cling to its cargo – that terrible old pink lampshade, hundreds of hoarded paper bags, my magazines and, now cut to ribbons, the green velvet dress.

  Yasmin Boland

  Yasmin Boland’s writing career has morphed from working as assistant producer for Channel 4’s The Word to co-authoring an amazon astrology number 1 best-seller Angel Astrology 101. These days you will find her at her horoscope website www.moonology.com.

  Mr Charisma

  Yasmin Boland

  It was late Tuesday afternoon and I was hungry enough to eat my own arm. I’d spent five humid hours hanging around on a pavement (read: gutter) outside a dance studio at the back of Hackney somewhere, waiting for Ricky Martin to emerge.

  He was (allegedly) inside, auditioning dancers for his forthcoming UK tour. If so, he must have back-doored it, because I never saw him. After my sustenance-free sentry duty, I was finally homeward-bound, without a photograph to speak of, and headed for my local Costcutters mini-supermarket on a dinner-or-bust mission.

  Belle Clark hit me right between the eyes the moment I walked into the shop. Metaphorically, of course. In the violent exchange which followed, she was very much the passive victim. She was at the counter waiting to be served, looking like someone had hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign off her nose. Her shoulders were so hunched that her chest was concaving, but trying to look incognito was pointless. Twelve years playing the fiery Fran Adamson on The Crescent had made her famous. Her sacking from the TV show, in a media blitz of accusations and denials, had made her legendary.

  The scandal which led to her demise involved: a televised outdoor charity event, too many drinks and a security guard who ended up with a bloody nose (after Belle decked him, for trying to stop her from driving home under the influence). After being ‘interviewed’ (aka ‘ritually humiliated’) on one of those Friday night post-modernist-up-yer-own-ass-ist TV shows, she’d slammed the door of her high-security Clapham Common mansion in fury, refusing all further interview requests. She was unemployed but evidently not broke or stupid.

  The more she refused the media’s interview and photo opportunity requests, though, the more they (we) chased her.

  So far she’d dodged our cameras.

  Now here she was before me in a small grocery shop in South London; her bleached chignon in need of bobby pins, her pale yellow dress in need of a belt, her tights in need of a lycra infusion, handing over a tenner for an ill-concealed litre bottle of Jack Daniels.

  I can’t explain my actions or even say I know what came over me. What I do know is that I’ve spent the last twelve months of my so-called career trying to convince a man called Rod Wilson that I uncategorically do not want to be a paparazza. And yet, faced with Belle and her bottle of JD …

  Before the guy behind the counter had a chance to put the bottle in its paper bag or Belle had a chance to notice me, I pulled my camera out of its case, lined up the shot and pressed the shutter button.

  Now I had her attention.

  My flash exploded, freeze-framing her over-plucked eyebrows, her bleeding red lipstick and saggy jowls. For a second, all I could hear were the clicks of my motor drive whizzing. Then Belle’s guttural voice:

  ‘Oi!’

  I legged it out of there as fast as my mules would carry me.

  The nastiest of my Belle shots adorned three columns of the front page of the London Evening News the next day. My boss, Rod, couldn’t have been more delighted. He called me from the clattering fluoro-lit picture desk to his cubicle.

  ‘Ru, baby, Ruby, aaaaaaangel, well done.’ This was his version of a celebratory haka, saved for scoops and spoilers. ‘Check her out. No wonder she won’t appear in public any more.’ He held the paper up for me, tapping at the first edition newsprint. My shot was what we called ‘clean’; eyes-open-and-to-the-camera, unobstructed clarity. I agreed that, looking at Belle’s craggy face, it was little wonder she now vonted to be alone’. Twelve months out of the limelight had apparently done her grooming routine few favours.

  ‘You did well, sweetie,’ Rod went on.

  ‘Thanks.’ Did I really take those pictures?

  He leaned across his desk towards me conspiratorially. ‘Ru, love, there’s something else you should know …’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Belle had an accident yesterday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After you left her in the shop. She went home, got pissed …’

  She was buying a bottle of JD when I saw her.

  ‘She fell down a flight of stairs. Her husband found her out cold. We’ve had a call from her lawyer …’

  ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘A sprained ankle. Minor bruising. No breakages.’

  ‘God.’

  ‘It’s not a problem. The legal guys say there’s no way she can hang anything on anybody. She’s drunk all the time.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ I said, not meaning it the way it sounded.

  In the two years I’d been at the News, my rapidly rising star seemed inextricably linked to my apparent paparazzi prowess. Small and female, I didn’t look much like your average snapper. My slight f
rame – a liability in a jostling crowd – was also my best asset; with my spiky blonde hair flattened under a headscarf, no make-up and my camera gear stored in a backpack, I could pass for a Scandinavian tourist on a busy London street.

  Catching Belle unawares had been an aberration. Usually, Rod Wilson got the tip-offs from his shonky mates and I was sent to get the shots. So far I’d managed exclusives of ‘Famous Female Popster Exiting Club In Tears’, ‘Ageing Lothario (Rock Star) Shopping For Lingerie With His (Latest) Mistress’ and ‘Young Married Male Film Star Suspiciously Embracing Very Married Sky TV Presenter/Model/Whatever’.

  Not to mention (please) ‘Belle Clarke Getting Ready For A Boozy JD Bender’.

  When I wasn’t being clandestine, I was sent to wait by the red carpet with my milk crate at film premiers, first nights, major club openings and celeb weddings. I’d asked Rod to let me have a go on features, and the best he’d come up was a story headlined ‘Get Out Ya Mugs!’ The News had campaigned on behalf of a timid 22-year-old called Amy to get some bad-mouthed squatters evicted from her Golders Green flat. The cops were called after our first pictures appeared and a grateful Amy moved back into her rightful, if wrecked home, just a few days afterwards. Call me fussy, but photographing squatters using large bits of furniture to threaten petite home-owners didn’t float my boat any more than celebrity-baiting.

  ‘So anyway, Ru, tell me, you’re going on holiday, aren’t you?’ He smiled. The more of his teeth I could see when he talked, the less I trusted him. ‘Tomorrow, isn’t it?’