‘I can’t go out like this,’ I said. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘You look grand to me,’ he said, staring right at me. ‘Doesn’t she look grand to you, 7?’
‘Grand,’ he squeaked, hands pressed over his mouth. Wanker.
‘You said you’d look at my portfolio today before the model came in,’ I reminded him, stalling for time. ‘When are we going to do that?’
‘When you’ve got my coffee,’ he replied. ‘I’m dying on my arse over here, Jess. If I don’t get a coffee in me in the next two minutes, I’m going to turn into a right old – Kelly, you’re here!’
A six-foot-something goddess with glowing black skin and a weave that would make Beyoncé weep strolled into the studio, only to be swept up in Ess’s arms and lavished with kisses.
‘Jess is going out to get coffee,’ Ess said in between gratuitous snarfs of her neck. ‘What do you want?’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she said, taking off her sunglasses, giving me a double take and then putting them straight back on so she could stare more freely. ‘Thank you.’
‘You need a juice, she’ll get you a juice,’ he reassured her before turning back to me. ‘If you’re back in less than ten minutes, I’ll look at your portfolio.’
‘Can I wash my face first?’ I asked, bouncing my weight from foot to foot.
He sneered. ‘7, start a timer for ten minutes,’ he called across the studio. ‘I don’t know, can you wash your face and get coffee in less than ten minutes?’
‘Bollocks,’ I muttered, grabbing hold of my bag and running for the door. ‘I’ll be back in nine.’
‘She’s not going out like that, is she?’ I heard the model ask in a low voice as I left. ‘Does she know what’s on her face?’
‘Yeah,’ Ess said gleefully. ‘Yeah, she does.’
Starbucks was exactly two minutes away from the studio and the juice bar was next door but one. I’d spent all week bouncing between the two and had my coffee run down to six minutes exactly, I could absolutely do this.
‘No one will be in Starbucks,’ I told myself, shaking out my ponytail and trying to cover my face with my hair. ‘It’s East London, no one will be in Starbucks. It won’t be busy.’
No, the voice in my head reminded me, they’ll all be in the organic juice bar, you fool.
Whatever, I argued, as if I would be the strangest thing on the streets of London today. What were the chances of bumping into someone I knew, anyway?
‘Tess? Is that you?’
The chances were high.
‘Raquel?’ I squinted through my hair to see a small, squat blonde woman staring at me, slack-jawed, in the middle of the street. ‘Hi!’
Because there was no better time to bump into the woman who had fired you from your last proper job than when you were wearing dirty denim overalls with unspecified muck all over the knees and an entire make-up artist’s palette of unblended contouring slap all over your face.
‘Are you …’ She peered up at me, half confused and half delighted. ‘What’s going on with your face?’
‘I’m working,’ I told her, trying very hard not to touch my face. ‘I’m doing a thing.’
‘What kind of thing?’ She kept staring, her eyes flickering from red triangles underneath my eyes and lavender circles on my chin to the brown shading all around my cheeks and nose. ‘Are you a clown?’
I gave her as ferocious a look as I could, given the circumstances.
‘Do I look like I’m laughing?’ I asked.
‘Sort of,’ she replied tartly. ‘That’s an interesting hat.’
‘Thank you,’ I said graciously, touching the peak of the Hat of Shame. ‘Anyway—’
‘I’m glad you found work,’ Raquel said, interrupting me to be even more condescending. If that was possible. ‘You disappeared off the face of the earth and I was wondering where you’d got to. What agency are you with?’
‘I’m not in advertising any more,’ I said, aware of every single person on the street turning to stare as they passed. ‘I’m a photographer.’
Raquel looked at me with her dead shark eyes. ‘You’re a what?’
‘A photographer,’ I replied. It was hard to sound confident when you looked like a Picasso painting of a clown. Brown blocks on my cheeks, silver triangles around my chin, bright red circles under my eyes. It was a grand look.
‘I see.’
‘I’ve been in Hawaii,’ I said, folding my arms around me. ‘Shooting for Gloss magazine.’
‘Is that right?’
‘And Milan,’ I said, nodding. ‘I was working with Bertie Bennett. You probably won’t know who he is but he’s basically a fashion legend. He’s huge. Just an incredible man. An inspiration really.’
‘And this …’ She gestured towards my face, reminding me of my current situation in case I’d somehow forgotten for a split second. ‘Is something to do with that?’
‘It’s a make-up test,’ I said, hoping she didn’t have any follow-up questions. ‘I’m testing make-up.’
Playing make-up guinea pig was another in a long line of Ess’s super-fun challenges. Like how he’d had me wear a necklace of sausages for two hours last Wednesday morning and then source fourteen gerbils and six guinea pigs for a ‘concept’, only to discover that the model was allergic to rodents, meaning I had to return them before she would even walk into the studio.
‘And what about Charlie?’ Raquel asked. ‘How’s lovely Charlie?’
‘He’s fine,’ I told her. ‘I saw him last night.’
‘So exciting to see him go out on his own,’ she said, her over-tweezed eyebrows arching high into her hairline. ‘And picking up Peritos as his first client? Impressive.’
‘He’s very talented.’ I shoved my hands in my pockets and wished I’d brought my gloves. It was windy and cold and I very much wanted to be inside. ‘He’s going to do very well.’
‘I was surprised to hear you weren’t working together, you two were always so buddy-buddy.’
‘You know, I’m actually late,’ I said, looking past her to see a queue forming out the door of Starbucks. ‘I’m shooting a feature for No-No magazine – have you heard of it?’
‘I can’t say I’m familiar with it, but I’m sure it’s very good,’ she said, flipping her bleached blonde head around, stretching up to her full five-foot-nothing.
I stood in the street, looking down at the woman who had taken away my job with a smile, and suddenly realized she didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She could stand in the middle of the street and try to make me feel shit every single day for the rest of the year and it wouldn’t mean a thing. She couldn’t fire me again; I was the only one who could fuck up now. So why waste another second worrying about what she thought of me?
‘You know, you actually did me a massive favour,’ I said, giving her a big, bright smile. ‘And I never said thank you.’
‘I did?’ she asked, her smile fading as mine grew. ‘How’s that?’
‘Sacking me,’ I explained. ‘Best thing that ever happened to me.’
‘Oh.’ Her thick foundation formed deep orange creases on her forehead as she frowned. ‘Well,