Did My Love Life Shrink in the Wash?: An absolutely laugh-out-loud and feel-good page-turner

by Kristen Bailey

  Giles signals from across the room. I pick up on a bit of tension, as does Joe, so try to divert, noticing a book on the dressing table in front of her. It’s Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.

  ‘This yours?’ I ask her.

  ‘Yeah, have you read it?’ she asks.

  ‘I have. I recommend it to my A-level students. I have an alter ego as an English teacher.’

  Her eyes seem to light up at this point. ‘Don’t you love how it doesn’t conform, how it’s got this amazing feminist streak running through it that women don’t have to be defined by traditional roles?’

  I laugh mainly because literature-wise I haven’t been able to focus on anything more than a takeaway menu for months. Joe looks up at her animated face.

  ‘I love the way it parallels her real life too,’ I tell her. ‘What else are you into?’

  ‘I like Zadie Smith.’

  ‘Who doesn’t? On Beauty is brilliant, have you read it?’

  ‘It’s on my TBR list,’ she says, rocking Joe. ‘Isn’t it Joe Joe?’

  A person behind Kimmie starts adding product to her hair and Joe watches in wonder. That is not the bird nest bun that I am used to seeing in the mirror. I sit and watch as a make-up artist puts finishing touches to her face and rubs a brush on Joe’s nose to make him giggle.

  ‘And Beth, this is Zahra, she’s our baby wrangler,’ says Giles, appearing next to us. I laugh a bit too heartily until I realise that’s a thing.

  ‘Oh yeah, sure. Lovely to meet you.’ I shake her hand wondering if that’s what she writes down in the occupation box on forms. She’s basically a sheepdog for little people. I hope she has a crook and a whistle that only my baby boy can hear.

  ‘And this is Yasmin, who’s going to be heavily involved. There’s quite a cool narrative where she’s an Amazonian street warrior handing over the baby. Like Beyoncé meets Wonder Woman. There are all these symbols for youth, innocence and female empowerment in the room. We are birthing Special K into the music industry,’ Giles says.

  I would like to say that I am trying to take all of that in. But I am stunned into silence. Blah, blah, youth, innocence, blah… For me, the most important part of that sentence was at the beginning. Yasmin? She stands there looking like Tina Turner in a gold headdress, legs up to her armpits. There is a moment of hesitancy as she looks at me. Then comes the moment we realise who the other is.

  ‘Yasmin, this is—’

  She cuts him off before he can draw breath. ‘We went to school together, didn’t we?’

  Shit.

  I say shit. No fucking way is more appropriate here. You see, this is Yasmin King. Of all the people in the world, bloody Yasmin King? There’s a lot I can tell you about Yasmin. She’s the same age as me and for the past ten years has made her career out of modelling. She was never a catwalk model but open your Next catalogue around New Year’s when all the sales come to the fore and she’ll be there in a lavender fleece or caressing a leather sofa. Occasionally, her face adorns something slightly more highbrow such as cosmetics or high-street fashion but that’s as much as I’ve ever seen her in. I know this because Yasmin King has been a model all her teenage and adult life and the reason I know this is that she started modelling when we were at school. Together.

  You’re here? Now? And how have you not aged? Or changed? She has the same mint-green eyes, mahogany-coloured hair, honey-toned complexion, non-existent waist. It’s like she’s been set in formaldehyde since our teens. She was one of those girls who was in all my lessons and for some reason, they always sat me next to her in an attempt to separate her from her bitchy troublemaker mates, and thereby flatten any notions of self-esteem I had about my looks. We did English literature together. I’m having flashbacks of her copying an essay I wrote for our coursework. I owe you, she said afterwards, and stole my best biro. She got a A- for that essay. I got a B+. Go figure.

  I haven’t seen you since our final year ball. You were dressed in Lipsy. I think I wore something that was a tenner in the H&M sale. I got so drunk I went around telling everyone how cheap my dress was. You were horrific at that ball. I know because I caught you shagging some lad in a stairwell and was so drunk I went back into the hall and told everyone about that too. I wonder if she remembers that. This is not a happy reunion or a chance to reminisce. However, she certainly piques my curiosity. She was one of those girls at school who were an urban myth, a source of speculation and gossip in the corridors. I’d heard all the rumours: she’d got into porn; shagged Mr Baker, the design tech teacher; nearly burnt down the PE sheds.

  And now you’re here, standing right in front of me.

  ‘You know each other?’ Kimmie says, clearly confused. I know, it wouldn’t seem we match in terms of our potential social circles.

  ‘Yeah, we went to the same school,’ I reply.

  ‘King Charlie’s,’ she mutters. Yasmin looks down her nose at me slightly. Man, it’s like we’re still sixteen. You don’t have to imagine how much being told in your teens that your beauty supersedes that of your peers, shapes your ego and transforms you into a queen bitch. She’s still on that pedestal, looking me up and down. Well, only down, as she feels about a foot taller than me.

  ‘You had a baby?’ she mutters.

  ‘You’re still a model,’ I retort.

  I’m not sure what else there is to say to her. Did you go to the school reunion? I did. They served wine out of a box. Could I have my best biro back? This is something to tell the sisters at least; how all my worlds have collided in one day. I just feel glad that I am wearing support knickers.

  ‘So you give Joe to Yasmin and you just watch from here, is that OK?’ says Zahra.

  I nod. I’m not going to demand I be in this video too. I don’t have the footwear or the dance moves. But this feels bizarre to hand over my most precious thing to someone I didn’t really rate at school. I guess this is what we signed up for though. I hand Joe over and Yasmin cradles him in her arms. He looks up at her and gurgles. I won’t lie, this makes me slightly resentful, but I didn’t give him any warning of our history. Standing back, I watch as they carry Joe to set, strip him down to his nappy and swathe him in white. Like baby Jesus? Oh dear God, there’s also a lioness over there. I literally thought that was real. It isn’t. Obviously. But please don’t put my son on the back of the stuffed lioness. I really want to get my phone out, but I signed an NDA when I came in here. They’ve put a giant crown on Special K now and the dancers take position. The sound gets turned up and Joe sits in Yasmin’s arms. I panic for a moment at the dry ice, thinking it’s smoke. I wave at my son. I’m sure he would wave back if he could. Then a bass kicks in. Except I’m standing right in front of the speaker so I jump and scream in fright. The whole set turn to look at me.

  ‘Stop the music. Who are you?’ asks a director in a baseball cap. Those are some piercing glares.

  ‘No one, sorry. I’m no one…’ I reply. ‘I’ll just…’ I point a finger to the left of me as I sidestep awkwardly away, disappearing into the shadows, clutching a slightly damp muslin.

  Track Nine

  ‘The Less I Know the Better’ – Tame Impala (2015)

  ‘No fucking way.’

  ‘It’s exactly what I thought. Look her up on Insta immediately,’ I tell Lucy on the phone.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’ve finished but there’s some strange wrap-party thing. I’m waiting on Will and breastfeeding Joe in a corridor, it’s all glamour.’

  I didn’t want to feed Joe in the bright lights and noise of the studio or get my boobs out in front of all the skinny model types so I escaped into the quiet of a corridor and perched myself on some stairs. It’s not glamorous but it means Joe has a chance to breathe and drink without distraction. He now has a mouth full of breast and looks up at me. That’s Aunty Lucy, isn’t it? Tell her I say hi. Naturally, Lucy was the first person I thought to call when my baby got handed back to me by the one and only Yasmin King. Lucy and I are of close enoug
h age that she would know exactly who I meant.

  ‘Seriously, I can jump in an Uber and be there in like half an hour. I’ll pretend to be Joe’s agent or something. This is too good.’

  ‘Stay. Away.’ I can’t imagine what adding Lucy to this party would bring.

  ‘That bloody school casting its web again. I once met someone on the Metro in Paris who went there.’

  We both sigh deeply. Us Callaghans all passed through the doors of King Charles Girls’ Grammar School. They were tolerable days; five Callaghan girls meant we were renowned throughout the corridors, more for our multiplicity than anything else. But we had each other – we never got bullied, we always had someone to run to if we forgot our lunch money. A few of us broke the mould: Ems was Miss Brainiac so won the awards, and was the only Callaghan to be head girl. Lucy was our resident rebel. The skirt was short, the tights had holes in them like cheese. I was the run of the mill, slap bang in the middle, Beth Callaghan. I went to school, I got Bs to match my name and I played the clarinet. Badly. The most rebellious I ever got was to wear a bit of eyeliner and some Doc Martens. University, independence and maturity changed things later on. But school was never a place I shone. I kept my head down and just never dared to look up.

  ‘Found her,’ says Lucy. ‘Urgh, Yasmin has got a whole Insta influencer thing going on. She’s Ayurvedic.’

  ‘What is that? Like an allergy to something?’ I ask.

  ‘No, you donkey. It’s yoga, Hindi, veggie bollocks. She also only wears ethical clothes, hand-sewn and eco-friendly too,’ she says, mocking it with her tones.

  ‘So no supermarket brand three for a tenner T-shirts in sight?’

  This makes Lucy snort with laughter.

  ‘She also has a sideline in organic hand creams. I know those hand creams. I bought them for Meg. She told me it was like rubbing jizz into her hands,’ she continues. ‘She has a quarter of a million followers. Her boyfriend is in some indie rock group. There’s a dog that looks like a giant rat too. B, it’s literally posey pose pose, deep filter action, sponsored posts of her in a bikini telling us how ethical it is but it’s got a five-hundred-pound price tag.’

  ‘You can buy a bikini for five hundred quid?’

  ‘Sis, for that money I want it hand-sewn by monks and it has to swim for me.’

  I giggle. It’s been such a random afternoon. Joe was captivated by Yasmin, hanging on to her every move. Her teeth came out, the posture straightened out. If you saw that music video, you’d watch it multiple times on YouTube and share it with all your friends. Did it hurt to see Joe with all these perfect people? It did. But these were the images that were going to sell things. No one wanted to see me standing there, bopping away out of time around my baby-changing bag.

  ‘Is she still a mega bitch?’ Lucy asks. ‘She was awful at school. She was part of that gang who stuck sanitary pads on that girl’s locker when she came on in PE. That girl never recovered from that.’

  I remember the horror of that day, the brutal laughter, the nastiness. ‘Nothing damaging like that,’ I reply. ‘But she’s snooty, up her own arse. I met a dad called Harry earlier in the waiting room and she was all over him, mad flirting.’

  I cringe to even think about it. As I left the room, everyone air-kissing and supping on their low-cal drinks, she stood there basking in his compliments, exposing her neck. He was literally peacocking, lunging in front of her to mask the tenting in his trouser area. I was brought back to many an eighteen-year-old birthday party where she’d done the same.

  ‘Not surprised. And the others? How’s it been?’ Lucy asks.

  ‘I like the rapper girl. She hugs me a lot. That Giles director man is kind but the dancers, the make-up people, it’s a very stagey vibe.’

  ‘Look, I’ve worked with creatives for years and it gets a little like this. These people are not your tribe, B. How’s my Joe?’ she asks.

  ‘He’s immense. He loves it. He’s so vain.’

  ‘He gets that from me.’

  I suddenly hear a door bang in the corridor and peer around the wall to see Will wandering about with his satchel. I wave him over.

  ‘Will’s here, got to dash,’ I say.

  ‘Laters, ho.’

  I laugh and hang up. Joe still looks up at me, drinking away. Will saunters through the halls looking a tad confused.

  ‘You told me there was a party,’ he says, giving me the customary kiss on the forehead, smoothing down the frizz of my hair.

  ‘It’s all in there. The rapper, the dancers. There was even fire at some point and two men stood there with extinguishers in case the copious amounts of hairspray caught alight.’

  It was how I imagined these things would be. None of the glamour but all of the posturing. It’s so divorced from my everyday, from sitting in front of daytime TV stacking biscuits on our coffee table.

  ‘And have I ever told you about someone I went to school with who was a model?’

  ‘No, was she the girl who lost a tooth trying to give a boy a blowie on a swing? I tell everyone that story.’

  That was Carly Evans. She had to tell her mum that she tripped on the pavement and her parents tried to sue the council.

  ‘No,’ I reply. ‘She was just some queen bee who ended up in a few magazines and she’s here today. Of all the people…’

  ‘Yikes. Did you two have beef at school?’

  ‘We had small beef. She copied my essays, looked down her nose at me. She had bigger beef with another girl called Hannah. I think Yasmin had sex with her boyfriend and Hannah and her had a full-on scrap on the hockey pitches. People lost hair.’

  Hannah had to have a side parting after that fight. I remember watching it from a crowd of baying girls. There was cheering, there was ripping of tights. I’d never heard shrieky swearing like it and I have Lucy as a sister.

  ‘Just a shock to see her after all this time.’

  ‘So what’s the deal? Are they all snorting lines of coke and drinking Cristal in there?’

  ‘God, no. Kimmie’s only seventeen so it’s soft drinks and Krispy Kremes. Not even the interesting ones with toppings, all glazed.’

  ‘Boo.’ Will comes over to sit next to us on the steps.

  ‘And it went OK?’

  ‘It was weird. I’ll drag you in when the little man is done and introduce you to people. He’s a bit of a superstar, this one, though.’

  We both look at Joe. He’s clueless, isn’t he? He’s so unbelievably chilled. I have no idea where he gets that from. Will’s quiet, staring at a spot on the floor.

  ‘You alright?’ I ask.

  ‘Tough day at the office, that’s all. I am beat.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  He pauses for a moment. See, I do try and be the good girlfriend and ask him about his day. He always used to do the same for me after a particularly bad school day. He’d make me tea and remind me they were just children. Their awful judgement and inability to listen was more about bad parenting than me. He hardly speaks to me about his architecture woes though. He once told me it was because the dramas were usually down to printers not working, or someone had laid the wrong sort of concrete.

  ‘Then maybe we can bail on this. Grab some food elsewhere, go home?’ I say.

  He grabs my hand. ‘I need to tell you…’

  But before he can tell me, one of the doors swings open again and we crane our heads around trying to work out who’s joined us. It’s Yasmin texting on her phone.

  ‘That’s the one I went to school with,’ I whisper to Will, pointing in her general direction. He goes in for the second glance. I try not to act offended but with her looks she warrants it. I join him. How have her legs just got longer as she got older? Mine look like they are turning into rhino stumps. I should probably try to moisturise mine better, try and do something to smooth out my knees.

  ‘Is your house free? I could try and get there later tonight,’ a voice pipes in from the other side of the corridor. Oh, that’s H
arry, the dad she was flirting with.

  ‘I can’t. We could try a hotel?’ Yasmin replies to him.

  My eyes widen. Hotel? Will looks at me. ‘Not her boyfriend. Massive flirting,’ I mouth, trying to pull a weird seductive face. He puts a thumb up at me. We sit here in silence trying to work out their story. Joe still attached to me, I realise we need to stay put, don’t we? To suddenly emerge from this little nook will look a little strange. Ta-dah! Carry on, don’t mind us!

  ‘Come here…’

  There’s silence. Should we poke our heads around again? I don’t think he’s told her to come and look at a funny meme on his phone, has he? Will pops his head around the corner and retracts it back in again, making smoochy faces at me. My hand goes straight to my mouth trying to stifle my laughter. How has this girl not changed since school? I heard she was at a party once and charged boys to kiss her. Lucy just told me she has a boyfriend as well. And I am pretty sure that man told me he has a wife. That’s not right. It’s bordering on scandalous. OK, now that’s a proper snog. We can hear it. Urgh. Will’s eyes widen and I know exactly what he’s thinking. Don’t have some hot, spontaneous sex session now because if we can hear the snog, the sound levels of anything else will be horrific. A door suddenly opens. We guess they’re not kissing anymore.

  ‘You looking for someone?’ Yasmin asks.

  ‘Have you seen that mum with the baby? Kimmie is leaving, she wanted to say goodbye,’ someone replies.

  ‘There were lots of babies.’

  ‘You know, the one with the chubby mum?’

  Neither of them reply. I won’t lie. The words stake through deep into my psyche. But I see Will’s face and he immediately looks angry. He stands up. What are you doing? We’re hiding in the shadows. Yasmin and her snogging partner will know we were round the corner, listening. We’ll look like pervs. I try to pull at his sleeve.

  ‘Hi, we’re here,’ Will says, waving. He stands in the middle of the corridor eyeing them up, looking annoyed at the choice of words that that person, whoever they are, used to describe me. I am less bothered by the random words of a stranger. They will always sting a little bit but it’s part and parcel of how people talk, no? I am rounder, curvier, fuller than the norm. I’m not bloody Yasmin King, that’s for sure. I am also mid-feed though. Crap. I pull Joe off my boob and rearrange myself clumsily, standing to attention. Yasmin and Harry do not look impressed. Well, don’t kiss people in corridors, right?