The Single Girl’s To-Do List

by Lindsey Kelk

With a sour expression, I rolled off the bed and into the living room, immediately regretting my decision.

  ‘Oh, Emelie.’ I couldn’t quite believe the sight on my sofa. Her long curly hair was a tangled mess and her face was actually grey. I chose not to look in the bucket tucked away round the corner.

  ‘Oh god,’ Em actually put her hand up to her mouth. ‘You look like shit.’

  That, coming from her?

  ‘Have you seen yourself?’ I asked. ‘Pot. Kettle. Black. Look into it.’

  ‘I’ve banished all reflective surfaces.’ She closed her eyes and pointed towards the hot pink throw she’d tossed over the mirror above the fireplace. ‘Don’t make too much noise. Or, you know, any. I don’t want to have to kill you.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Pinballing from wall to wall, I thrust myself forward towards the bathroom. Maybe I should have opted for the no-mirror too. There wasn’t a lot of time to do anything with myself: Dan was supposed to be picking me up in less than an hour. I gently washed my face and then set to covering up the bruise under my eye. It wasn’t too bad. After a couple of minutes with my civilian make-up kit – some Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage, a dab of Touche Éclat and far too much Nars Orgasm blush to perk up my deathly pallor – and I was passable. At least I hadn’t had to bust out the hard stuff, no face and body foundation necessary. I did not look good, but at least I didn’t look as though I’d been punched in the face and then spent all night awake, drinking whiskey.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Dan said, staring straight at me and not even slightly at the road. He’d arrived dead on the dot of ten and, so far, it was all I could do not to puke in his car. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I cut my hair, I dyed my hair and I got drunk,’ I burbled, leaning into the cool glass of the window, trying to maintain short, shallow breaths. ‘Next?’

  ‘It’s just, you know, a new look,’ he pointed out. ‘Not that it’s not good. Who did it?’

  ‘Tina Morgan,’ I replied. ‘It took three and a half hours of Tina Morgan.’

  ‘That’s weird.’ He was still paying slightly more attention to my hair than I would like given that we were in a moving vehicle. ‘She left me the most bizarre voicemail yesterday. Seriously, like, obscene.’

  I didn’t have the energy to laugh but I did force out a smirk. ‘I think she likes you.’

  ‘Well, she’s not really my type,’ he replied, looking out through the windshield just long enough to hurl abuse at the Ford Mondeo in front.

  ‘Not everyone can be a supermodel, Daniel,’ I said, closing my eyes behind my giant Aviators. It couldn’t be much further. It couldn’t be much further.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.

  ‘Because you’re shagging Ana?’ I waited for a cheeky shrug or sarky comment but it didn’t come. In fact he didn’t say anything.

  ‘Because you flirt with every single model on every single shoot?’

  We drove in silence for a few minutes. Happily, I was too hungover to feel awkward.

  ‘Flirting with the models is part of the job,’ he said eventually. ‘There’s nothing to it; it’s just on-set banter.’

  ‘And off-set shagging,’ I added.

  We paused at traffic lights and he turned in his seat to face me. ‘Who exactly am I meant to have shagged?’

  ‘Aside from Ana?’ I challenged.

  ‘Aside from Ana,’ he replied.

  ‘So you are seeing her then?’

  Another long pause, another set of traffic lights. Driving through London really was an arse-ache.

  He put the handbrake on and stretched one arm out of the window, the other out behind my headrest. ‘What if I am?’

  ‘What if you are?’ I said, staring at the road ahead. Well, there went my easy date for dad’s wedding. Arses.

  ‘You’re always bouncing around, telling everyone how wonderful it is to have a boyfriend.’ He pulled off as the lights changed. ‘Ooh, me and Simon are going to Croatia; ooh, me and Simon are decorating the spare room; oh no, I couldn’t possibly come out for drinks, I have to get home to Simon.’

  I had to say, I did not care for his impression of me.

  ‘Do I really do that?’ I was actually fairly certain I didn’t say ‘ooh’ half as often.

  Dan shrugged and pushed his curly brown hair out of his eyes. ‘I don’t know. You must or I wouldn’t say it, would I?’

  ‘Well, no need to worry about that any more,’ I muttered into the window. Why weren’t we there yet? I just wanted to get through the day, go home and look at my list. I had thought maybe today was an ‘angry letter’ day, but perhaps it was more of a ‘breaking the law’ sort of a Monday. Putting a photographer through his own windscreen face first was illegal, wasn’t it?

  ‘Dumped you, has he?’ Dan laughed.

  ‘Yes,’ I said simply. ‘Don’t you read Facebook?’

  Dan let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like someone had kicked a seal in the face. I turned a tiny bit in my seat to take a look at him. I’d never, ever seen that man look more uncomfortable. And given that I’d seen him shooting several extraordinarily homoerotic D&G underwear campaigns, that was quite the statement.

  He looked at me, staring through the darkened lenses of my glasses for just a second too long.

  ‘What?’ I asked. I would have shrugged for effect but I definitely would have vommed on him.

  ‘Nothing.’

  He looked away and turned the radio on. I closed my eyes and concentrated on remaining vomit-free for the rest of the journey.

  Against all laws of god and man, I managed not to throw up in the car and Dan managed to get us to the studio on time. Far more predictably, Ana was, as always, late, and after our fun in-car conversations, two minutes’ peace was wonderful. But not nearly long enough.

  ‘Raquel!’

  Before I’d even had time to crack out the Vita Coco, all six feet of supermodel blew into the studio, ignoring all of the lackeys and hangers-on who were paid to tolerate her, and flew right at me. Her perfume was almost enough to push me right over the edge – supermodels still wore Angel? As she got closer, I stopped being able to smell it and actually began to taste it. And if she hugged me any tighter, my children would be born smelling of it.

  ‘Oh, honey, I feel a-maze-ing this morning.’ She released her vice-like grip, shook her coat off onto the floor and dropped into my chair. Why had I designed the make-up as a neutral lip and a smoky eye? There was absolutely no need for her to shut up. Aside from it being polite but, obviously, social graces had passed this one by. ‘So you know I was seeing that guy? The one with all the money? Well, I decided I couldn’t be arsed with him any more, called him Friday night to tell him we’re over and he shows up at my flat with this!’

  She thrust her hand into my face, almost taking my eye out with an offensively large rock: a large, sparkly, clear diamond mounted on an equally sparkly, diamond-encrusted band. It took me a couple of minutes to focus on it for fear of being blinded. I drew back and switched my attention from the giant engagement ring to her ridiculously beautiful face.

  Now was it possible to choke someone to death with a foundation sponge?

  ‘Of course, I told him I’m not marrying him because, you know, I’m maybe in love with someone else.’ She gave me a knowing look and then craned her neck around to sigh loudly in Dan’s general direction. ‘But he would not take it back. Idiot. But it’s so pretty. What do you think?’

  I had nothing. I opened my mouth a couple of times and closed it again. No snappy comebacks, no congratulations, not even an angry rant. I was dry. All those years of working on zoning out and, finally, my brain was doing it automatically. A-maze-ing.

  ‘Hey Ana, can I please get you on the bed to block out some shots?’ Dan placed an arm in the middle of her back and guided her away.

  ‘You know you can get me on a bed to do anything,’ she purred at Dan before casting me a filthy look. First-class flirt she might be, but she was
still pissed off she was having to block out her own shots and I could tell she somehow knew this was my fault, even if she wasn’t sure how.

  ‘Thank you,’ I mouthed at Dan, sitting myself in the make-up chair. He nodded and turned the cameras on Ana, who was already tossing back her hair and contorting herself into positions entirely inappropriate for a multipack of white cotton hip-huggers.

  Don’t let this get to you, I told myself; this is just how she is. It’s not as if I really want to tear off her eyelids with a Shu Uemura eyelash curler or anything. Except I sort of did. How could anyone want to marry her? And not just anyone, but someone who could afford to put on her finger a diamond big enough to host an episode of Dancing on Ice. Ana was beautiful but she was also a cheat, the world’s most fickle woman and – not to be a bitch but – she was also really, really stupid. I was loyal, faithful and not that stupid. I wouldn’t be challenging Stephen Hawking to a game of Countdown or anything, but I wasn’t a thicko. Still, I couldn’t even hold down a boyfriend who bought me a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. At least I could understand her and Dan: they were the male and female equivalents of each other. But imagine someone normal and rich wanting to marry her?

  Trying not to freak out, I opened up my make-up case and concentrated on pulling out various bits and pieces. Primer, foundation, concealer, blusher, bronzer, highlighter … there was an awful lot of make-up involved in making a girl look like she was naturally beautiful, and today it was going to feel like awfully hard work.

  Two cartons of Vita Coco, a Berocca and two ibuprofen later, I was feeling, if not looking, something like human, and Ana was back in the make-up chair, consider ably more subdued. She dropped her chin and looked at me as if I was a three-legged dog.

  ‘Dan says you’re sad,’ she said, sporting her ‘concerned’ face. ‘And that I’m not supposed to ask you about it.’

  I gave her a half-smile, pushed back her hair and started cleansing as gently as possible given my limited coordination.

  ‘So why are you sad?’ she asked after half a second.

  ‘I broke up with my boyfriend,’ I said, methodically sweeping at her face with a cotton-wool pad.

  ‘Is that why you’re wearing a wig?’

  God, Allah, Buddha, Angelina Jolie and all the saints, someone give me the strength not to punch this woman in the face.

  ‘It’s not a wig, it’s my hair.’

  ‘Ohhh.’ She tugged on a strand just to make sure while a very high-pitched squeal went off in my brain. ‘Well, that sucks. And I’m here waving my beautiful, beautiful ring in your face. I’m so dumb.’

  ‘You weren’t to know.’ I calmly moved on to moisturizer. And failed to correct her.

  ‘It is definitely over?’ She peeped at me with one eye.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Good,’ she clapped her hands together and giggled. Faintly heartless but – as I’d already established – she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

  ‘You were with that guy for way too long,’ she explained, catching my wrists in her hands. ‘I have so many boyfriends for you. Rich ones. Or hot ones. I am not sure if there are any hot, rich ones who would want … be your type. Which do you prefer?’

  I breathed out and reminded myself how incredibly in control I was.

  ‘Ana, leave it.’

  ‘No, really, you should just like, totally hook up with some random guy,’ she went on. ‘You’re not ugly or anything. Just let me call one of my guys. I’m a one-man gal from now on anyway. They’ll totally take you out if I ask them to, don’t worry. You need a really good seeing-to, that’s all.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, can you shut up?’ I asked her quietly.

  ‘Raquel?’ Ana looked up at me with wounded eyes. ‘I’m only trying to help.’

  ‘Well, you’re not fucking helping,’ I said in a much, much louder voice. So loud, in fact, that everyone in the room seemingly looked up at once. ‘I don’t need you telling me what I need, you overpaid, oversexed, vacuous cow.’

  It was hardly a noisy set before I went the full Christian Bale, but you could have heard a pin drop after I dropped the F-bomb. Ana cowered in the chair in front of me.

  ‘Raquel?’

  ‘Oh, just fuck off.’ I threw my hands up into the air, showering her in loose powder. ‘My name is not Raquel. It isn’t. You know it isn’t. My name is Rachel. You know my name is Rachel. Why, oh why, oh why, do you insist on calling me Raquel? You stupid, stupid woman. Have all those laxatives finally eaten away at your brain?’

  I’d seen Ana burst into tears over a broken nail twice, so I was relatively impressed that it took her until my laxative comment to crack this time. Of course that could be because that was the one that really hit too close to home. With a quivering lower lip, she instinctively held a finger under each eye to protect her eyelash extensions and ran wailing from the set.

  ‘What?’ I spun around, managing not to fall over. Score. ‘Have I missed something? Is she off the laxatives?’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Dan was at my side in a heartbeat, as both stylists, the hairdresser and even Collin ran after Ana. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Don’t,’ I warned. ‘She was totally out of order.’

  ‘No, you’re out of order, you can’t talk to the model like that – you know that.’

  We stared each other down for a moment. I had no idea what Dan was thinking but I was genuinely considering kicking him in the balls. I’d had enough.

  ‘But she can talk to me however she likes?’ Instead I kicked the loose powder pot right across the set and slammed my open make-up kit shut. ‘Not any more. I’m not a doormat, Dan. Do you know how incredibly boring it is putting up with everyone else’s shit?’

  ‘Oh what, so you’ve dyed your hair red and now you’re all feisty?’ he scoffed. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just bored of smiling and nodding,’ I ranted. ‘Maybe I’m bored of listening to her brainless shit. Maybe I’m bored of putting up with your twatty attitude. Maybe I’m bored of being bored by all of this.’

  He grabbed hold of my wrist as I turned to walk away. ‘Twatty attitude?’ Dan’s brown eyes were as wide as saucers. ‘I’ve got a twatty attitude? Can you hear yourself?’

  ‘Forget it, Dan.’ I shook him off without a second thought. ‘I’m out.’

  Grabbing my make-up case, I followed in Ana’s footsteps out through the door, ignored the desperate sobbing coming from behind the bathroom door and took a sharp turn to the right. It took a moment, but eventually I found a quiet spot in the car park, hidden behind two giant SUVs, and just sat for a moment. In the background, my brain was still whizzing around at a million miles an hour but, right in the front of my mind, everything was blank. I had no idea what I was doing and I always knew what I was doing. That was my thing! But even though I was confused and scared and was almost certain I was going to puke, somehow, somewhere, I felt good. I felt strong. I felt as if I could do anything.

  ‘Yo, Red, what’s up?’

  And as if by magic, the universe stepped in to trample all over my rage buzz. Tina Morgan stood over me, packet of Marlboro Lights in one hand, lighter in the other.

  ‘Having a fag?’ She and I had studied together, worked side-by-side at shows and generally competed for work since college. I knew her shoe size, her natural hair colour and her mother’s middle name, but she hadn’t paused for breath long enough to find out I didn’t smoke.

  ‘Nope,’ If I refused to make eye contact with it maybe it would just go away.

  ‘Hair still looks good.’ It was a compliment directed more at herself than me.

  ‘Thanks.’ I knew I was being rude but I just didn’t have the patience.

  ‘Hot in there today.’ She kicked my foot repeatedly until I looked up, at which point I was greeted with a big cheesy grin and a dramatic wave. ‘Earth to Rachel, ’kin hell woman, look lively.’

  I smiled.

  ‘Gotcha, not in the mood.’ She parked her sizeable ar
se down next to mine and sparked up. ‘Smoke?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I can’t be arsed today if I’m honest.’ She took a long drag and exhaled upwards, a light summer breeze springing up just in time to blow it back in my face. ‘Thank god I’m done for the day. I hate doing studio shit when it’s nice out.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind so much if I were you, though. Can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’re working with him today.’ She gave a low groan that quite frankly made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. ‘He’s bloody beautiful. His arms are like the size of my thighs. And I do not have skinny thighs.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Seriously, you must have had a go on it, though?’ She pursed her heavily coloured-in lips and narrowed her eyes in what I took to be an expression of lust. God help any man on the receiving end of that face. It was terrifying. ‘Or is he a blondes man? He hasn’t replied to my voicemail yet.’

  Combo shake and shrug.

  ‘He’s here today though?’ she asked, fluffing out her crop. ‘Maybe I should just go and see him?’

  ‘Actually, you could do one better,’ I said, my brain suddenly remembering what it was for. ‘I just got a call about a thing and I need to leave. Could you fill in for me? Dan would love you for it.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Tina looked at her watch, at me and then back at her watch. ‘Why do you have to leave?’

  ‘My dog is dead,’ I said without thinking.

  ‘Shit, god, yeah, go.’ She stood up, stamped out her cigarette and hustled me to my feet. ‘Was it sick?’

  ‘Yes. She had TB.’ My eyes were wide with wonder at my own lies. TB? Really, Rachel?

  ‘Dogs can get TB? In London?’ Tina asked, following me back into the studio. I passed her the make-up design sheet and threw everything into my case. It wasn’t as if she was that bad a make-up artist. No really. Sort of. ‘Do you have it?’

  ‘No,’ I looked at her like she was stupid, then remembered I was the one who had just lied about my nonexistent dog dying of TB. ‘Anyway, thanks for this. I’ll make sure you get paid for it, obviously.’