by Lee, Corri
Growing tired of being surrounded by overly-confident men, I tuned out his drone and added my ‘yes, sir’s and ‘no, sir’s when appropriate. He could spout follicular terminology at me until he was blue in the face but it would have made no difference to the fact that I neither knew nor cared what he was talking about. All this tweaking and fine tuning of my appearance meant nothing if I was that unattractive.
His hazel eyes caught mine in the mirror and his face unexpectedly flooded with sympathy. “You’re so out of your element that it hurts, aren’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?” He nodded and gathered my hair in one hand at the nape of my neck and set the other on my shoulder.
“What bothers you about your appearance?” What didn’t bother me might have resulted in a more productive conversation.
“Everything,” I sighed, “I’m obviously missing something vital.”
“That’s crap and you know it.” I raised an eyebrow at him in the mirror, somehow bolstered by his sentiment. He gave me a small smile and crouched down to whisper in my ear. “My name is George and I was born in Newcastle,” his accent dropped and left me stunned, “you have it, you just haven’t found it yet.” As much as I was bowled over by the extension of his dirty secret, I secretly prayed that my finding ‘it’ wouldn’t require a pseudonym and an alter ego.
He stood back up straight and relocated his exaggerated inner Spaniard. “So, do you trust me?”
I beamed at him, honoured by his unjustified honesty. “I should say so after that little gem.”
“Super. You know, between those eyes and your hair colour, anyone would think you and Mr Alexander were related. See,” he pulled a board full of hair swatches from a cupboard next to my legs and pointed to a particular shade of rich chestnut, “that’s him. You’re a perfect match.” I heard Lobke and Bethany laugh next to me and sneered bitterly. Like it wasn’t bad enough that the man had my eyes, he also had my hair. I was starting to consider consulting a lawyer over copyright infringement.
Fabrio, uh-… George spent the next few hours painstakingly taming every hair on my head with awe-inspiring gusto. My hair was chemically straightened and deionized, then hacked with utmost skill and precision. His scissors flashed around like styling hair came as naturally as breathing and he worked so effortlessly that he could still gossip and bitch with his staff between snips. He lavished upon me secrets of greying celebrities and backstage mishaps at fashion shows while his despicably pretty apprentices catered to sating my caffeine cravings while wearing unintentional scowls of disdain which, I presumed, were directed at the ease of which I interacted with the hair genius. I couldn’t help that grand and influential men flocked to me and instantly forged bonds with me. They had done so for years, and after my past experiences of what price those bonds came at, I couldn’t be sure if my innate magnetism was a blessing or a curse.
After assuring me that my new mane would be easy to manage and would fall into luscious layers without the aid of either Bethany or a plethora of products and devices, he showed me how to pin curl, finger wave and beehive my hair into easy urbane glamour for day to day activities. I couldn’t even begin to express my gratitude for his bestowed wisdom and struggled to contain my tears as he transformed me into a would-be Hollywood starlet- just like the protagonist in my novel.
Bethany and Lobke looked divine in their freshly styled matching blonde curls- they each took one of my arms and escorted me from the salon like a pair of guardian angels. All I needed was a pair of large sunglasses and a small obnoxious dog in an oversized handbag, and passers-by may have believed that I was a ‘somebody’.
But I wasn’t. I was a nobody, and no amount of appointments with prestigious frauds and expensive beauty treatments could change the fact that I was just a bar maid who penned my pathetic fantasies of love, and not even my admirers really admired me. The bruising to my ego was starting to proliferate and spread down into my spirit.
“Cecelia, you look like you’re about to cry.” I glanced up to meet Lobke’s eyes in the rear view mirror and shook my head.
“I’m fine” I lied.
She raised an eyebrow at me before casting her eyes back to the road. “You’re a lousy liar. You are allowed to talk to me, you know.” I felt myself withdraw and my self-pity deepen. What good would talking ever do to rectify my quandary- particularly talking to a woman I barely knew? “Bethany told me about last night. He sounds like a fool to me.” I couldn’t even begin to understand why Bethany had thought it appropriate to divulge that information when she had been so rigidly protective of my emotions and secrets for years. But as she already knew, I sought an outside opinion.
“Is it so wrong to be wanted?”
“I really hope not because I revel in driving my husband to the point of combustion.” Her smile was apparent in her voice as she pulled over in front of a small inconspicuous restaurant in a secluded corner of the city and climbed out to open my door. “You are wanted, Cecelia, you just don’t know it yet.”
A waitress led me up to a small terraced mezzanine area of the restaurant, where I found Nathaniel glowering over a magazine. He looked up at me with such a vicious lour that I took an involuntary step backwards to retreat and felt the muscles contort painfully in my stomach. His glare had hit me like a blow of the hard steel his irises had set to and I could almost hear his molars grind. I approached him carefully like he was a wild leashed animal, and put as much distance between us as possible. I was genuinely afraid of those eyes- eyes that now reflected the red of the table cloth and fuelled the illusion of fury.
He pushed the magazine over to me slowly and hissed- “What the hell is this?” I looked down at the open page and blinked in uncertainty. Pictures of Cole and I kissing on our date the previous night covered the page with a short uncomplimentary caption.
Nathaniel Alexander’s mystery woman caught in lip lock with college lecturer Cole Fiore.
Was this what my life had become from being photographed with Nathaniel? A media free for all? But I wasn’t entirely what I’d done that was so wrong anyway. There was no mismanagement of the situation and no distorted perceptions from the journalist.
“How do they have his name?”
“It’s his family’s bistro, Cecelia- it doesn’t take a genius to find out that kind of information. Why the hell are you kissing him?” I wrinkled my nose at his venomous attitude and stared at him in irritation. Even for a man with sparse experience of intimate relationships, I was sure that he knew the function of kissing.
“Because we’re dating, Nathaniel. Like you told me to.”
His jaw dropped and his rage intensified. “The hell I did.” What?
I scoffed at him in disbelief. “You told me to take a calculated risk.”
He quickly rose to his feet and slammed his palms down on the table, sending cutlery clattering onto the floor. “That wasn’t what I meant! I won’t have something compromising on the time I get with you- you agreed to make time for me.” I gaped up at him, feeling my rage quickly escalate to match his. My agreement to make time for him didn’t mean that he got first shout on my extra-curricular activities and I was certainly in no mood to try and justify myself to his pathetic little hissy fit.
“And I will, but you can’t stop me from having relationships.”
“Were you with him when you had your tongue down my throat on Friday?” My response to his outburst shocked both of us but relieved a great amount of my tension- I stood up to match his level and launched a sharp backhanded slap across his face.
“What the hell is it with you men thinking I’m some sort of demimondaine? You know damn well that my actions were beyond my control that night, and if I had been with Cole, would I really have had dinner with the boyfriend who abandoned me in the middle of fucking Soho when I was clearly not in a fit state to find my own way home?” I grabbed the magazine from the table and ripped it up inches from his face. “Fuck you, Alexander- my personal life wouldn’t even be pu
blic interest if you hadn’t dragged me into your pathetic media stunt. There are plenty of other publishing houses who would now be gagging to get their hands on the novel withdrawn from you after already rousing so much public interest.” I looked at him numbly for a moment, my anger dulled for my outburst, and sighed, turning to leave the restaurant. I was sick to the back teeth of people thinking so badly of me- people who should have known me better. “Goodbye, Nathaniel.”
“Cecelia, wait.” My head spun for a second when his fingers closed around my wrist. “I’m sorry. Please don’t leave.” I turned to look at him and shook my head in refusal. I felt dejected enough- I didn’t need to go through round two. “Your hair looks great.” The compliment I had needed came from the wrong place.
“Yeah well send me the invoices and I’ll make sure every penny you’ve spent on me is returned from what remains of my parents’ life insurance policies.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He ran his hands up to my shoulders and he held me at arm’s length, crouching down to look into my tear laden eyes. “Something is bothering you other than me acting like an idiot.” Always so readable.
I knocked his arms away and scrubbed a hand over my face in an attempt to keep my emotions at bay. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He clicked his tongue helplessly and chewed the side of his lip, tugging my coat off around my shoulders and draping it around the back of a chair. Clearly I didn’t have a say in whether I was leaving or not, and curiously, being relinquished of the responsibility of making that decision set me at ease.
“You know you can talk to me, Cecelia.” No, I knew that I would impulsively talk before I’d even realised that I’d opened my mouth. Nathaniel had a strange kind of influence that forced me to divulge everything. I couldn’t keep secrets from him- what the hell was he doing to me? I was comfortable with my secrecy, but now I was inexplicably stepping out into no man’s land.
I bit down on the fingernail of my left index finger as I sat down and looked at him awkwardly. “What do you see when you look at me?” He swept a napkin over my lap and frowned slightly.
“Is that a trick question?”
“No, I-…” I steepled my fingers in front of my face as he sat and found myself quietly appalled that I was even prepared to ask the next question. “Am I sexy?” I clapped a hand over my mouth as Nathaniel raised a bemused eyebrow at me. “Please don’t answer that.”
He rolled his eyes at me and picked up a menu like I’d done little more than ask him what his favourite colour was. “You saw yourself on Friday- you know that you’re sexy. Everyone in the club- male and female, thought you were sexy. Even the guy in the pink cowboy hat who prefers to be balls deep in Bruno thought you were sexy. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t think the same?”
“Cole.” I leaned back in my chair and sighed, running my finger across the edge of the table. “You’d be Cole. Last night he-… he fell asleep.”
Nathaniel squinted at me in confusion and shook his head. “What’s so bad ab-…” The realisation hit him hard. “Oh. Ooohhh… During-…?”
“Before. He didn’t even try.”
He smiled at me sympathetically and reached over the table to take my hand in his. “Still no fireworks despite calculated risks?”
I ran my thumb over his knuckles and squeezed his fingers for comfort. “Not even a sparkler. I’m starting to think that it’s just me being neurotic and I should stop living in a fantasy world of unicorn and rainbows.”
“Don’t you dare start second guessing yourself.” Our contact broke when the waitress brought a bottle of red wine to our table and began to fill our glasses.
“You’re the one who told me I should consider making some concessions in lieu of potentially missing out on a soul mate.”
“That was before you told me about your parents, Cecelia. ‘Never compromise your happiness, and definitely never compromise on love.’ That’s right, isn’t it?” His razor sharp memory was a pleasant surprise. “You’re too good for him. Don’t give up on your fireworks.”
My eyes darted down to the magazine and my mood began to plummet once again. “Why not? You have.” He could sling compliments at me all day and it wouldn’t take away the fact that telling me to chase my fantasies was hypocritical.
“Have I?” He smirked at me behind his glass, “I certainly have fireworks with one of my significant women- she just doesn’t know it yet.” My heart instantly flooded with envy for Nathaniel’s new discovered love affair. Somehow he looked sedate- at ease for the prospect that the quest for his yin may have reached a peak, yet still gleefully nervous about diving into the unknown. I pouted at him ruefully and rested my elbow on the table, chin on my palm.
“I’m so jealous. But if you have your fireworks, why do you need another woman on the side? That’s just going to end in tears.” He grinned and shook his head.
“It’s not like that. They come as a package.”
My eyes widened in amusement. “Conjoined twins? Single mother?” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, “married mother?” He swiped at my hand with feigned insult.
“No, they’re just joined at the hip.”
My mood slipped into a downward spiral of self-pity as I muddled through my shift at the bar that night. Despite Nathaniel’s words of encouragement and the many compliments from our patrons on my new image, I just couldn’t shift the feeling of rejection from Cole’s indifferent attitude towards me. The thought that maybe he had seen more of my misbehaviour at The Duplicate than he cared to admit nagged at me, but why should I feel guilty over my actions when we clearly weren’t ‘on’ at that point? Because I’d proved him right, of course. Either willingly or not, I had acted like a hussy and my actions were forever immortalised on camera.
“Maybe he was just being cavalier?” Shona passed me a glass of brandy- something of a Sunday tradition- and pulled a stool around from the lounge with a gesture for me to sit. Bethany’s stiletto heels were certainly not bar-friendly and I couldn’t for the life of me comprehend how she moved around in them so ably and frequently.
I stared down into my glass bitterly and shook my head. “There is nothing cavalier about rolling over and snoring without a good night kiss, Shona.” I was beginning to take offence at how quickly people were to jump to Cole’s defence- fair enough if he didn’t find me sexually appealing, but he could have just gone home without me.
Bethany wandered into the bar casually and placed a small box down in front of me with a quizzical stare. The box was small, black, velveteen and decorated with the word ‘Greed’ in bold gold lettering. “Looks kind of small to be a stack of cash and a limo driver,” she quipped, recalling the original passage about ‘greed’ from my novel.
Upon opening the box, I found myself greeted by the sweet smell of jasmine straying from a dainty sprig of white flowers tucked within the lid and a small card laid atop a sheer black cloth.
‘Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.’ – Coco Chanel
Your fireworks will come.
Bethany has the morning off- Lobke will collect you at nine. No excuse for poor time-keeping.
I wasn’t aware that there were any issues centred around my time-keeping- I believed myself to be quite punctual, and a sparkling academic record of attendance could vouch for my conviction.
I passed the card to Bethany with a bewildered shake of my head and removed the cloth from the box. “Oh my god.” I took a step back in surprise and regarded its contents in astonishment.
From a bed of fine black satin stared a beautifully polished platinum constructed pocket watch- every cog and gear visible through its tough glass casing and not a detail spared- from the single miniscule diamond that stood in the middle of the pin that fixed the hands together, to the unorthodox date and year dials that sat on opposing sides of the mother of pearl clock face. My fingers traced the letters of my name, which had been carefully etched into the glass window. The belief that this gift must hav
e been intended for somebody else was immediately washed away and overcome with an immense sorrow. The romance in my life didn’t come from the man who’d promised to bestow it deftly.
“Why can’t Cole be more like Nathaniel?” I knew that it was a dangerous direction for my mind to travel, and the pittance of fear in Bethany’s eyes said that she knew it too.
Her jaw clenched as her eyes dropped down to the card, intentionally avoiding my gaze. “Why not just chase Nathaniel?” I rolled my eyes at her and carefully cupped the pocket watch in my palm. It was surprisingly weighty, but by no means heavy, and I felt like I was holding something mythical and legendary.
“Because even if I did see him in that way, he’s too rich, too prolific, too mercurial and blatantly besotted. He has his fireworks now- what the hell would he want with a country bumpkin like me?”
Shona admonished me with a snarl and passed me the long platinum clip-chain that lay beyond the satin. “How can you ever expect anyone to find you beautiful if you don’t see it yourself? That kind of self-loathing makes you ugly, Cici.” Bethany nodded in agreement and I was forced into an uncomfortable re-evaluation of my situation. I was unwilling to entertain the idea that Cole had shunned me for my own lack of confidence, but what proportion of my past romantic failures had been the consequence of my own negativity? Nathaniel was inherently proud and maybe even a little conceited, and had found his fireworks so effortlessly.
How many soul mates had I turned away because I didn’t love myself?