I visited the Well-Sprung Interiors website about a hundred times that week, from home and from the office, when I should have been dealing with the Effortless Bathing project. But the website wasn’t enough for me. By the end of the week I knew that I would have to go to Well-Sprung’s office.
The urge had not left me when Saturday rolled around. I just wanted to get some idea of the world Miss Well-Sprung (it seemed like a good nickname given her “assets”) moved in. I told myself it would do no harm.
All the same, a disguise seemed like a good idea. According to the website, Well-Sprung wasn’t open weekends, but I couldn’t take the risk. What if she lived over the shop? There was a strong possibility that if she saw me, she would recognize me. Michael may not have officially introduced us at the Christmas party where Miss Well-Sprung first came to my attention, but, especially if they had already begun their flirtation, she must have seen me clinging to him on the dance floor. Clinging because I had noticed her circling him like a shark. Yes, I would have to wear a disguise.
I stood in front of my wardrobe and waited for inspiration. Unfortunately, it was not a fruitful cupboard of disguises. I did have a nurse’s uniform, but I’d bought it from Ann Summers, the sex shop, in an attempt to cheer Michael up when he had man-flu. With its mini-skirt in highly flammable nylon, that outfit was going to fool nobody. Had it been the winter, I would have been fine. I had plenty of coats with hoods and sweaters with big roll necks that I could have pulled up to my nose. But it was the beginning of May and unusually hot. Definitely not balaclava weather. Wrapping up would draw more attention than it diverted. Only nutters wear too many layers in the heat.
Soon my options had been narrowed down to a pair of big sunglasses with a loose lens in the left eye and a head scarf, bought when I had the notion that channeling the glamour of Grace Kelly might be a suitable fashion direction for me. I’d spent the best part of two hundred pounds in Hermès, but it hadn’t quite worked as I’d hoped. On the three occasions I’d ventured out with that scarf, I’d looked less Princess Grace than palace washerwoman. I didn’t look much better when I tied it around my head now, but it would have to do. With the sunglasses clamped firmly to my nose, most of my face was covered. The scarf hid my hair color. I was ready to go.
The premises of Well-Sprung Interiors were surprisingly uninspiring. They occupied the ground floor of a building in a little parade of shops that also contained a dry cleaner, a kosher butcher, and a newsagent offering mobile-phone top-ups and Oyster transportation cards. Opposite was a hairdressing salon so out of date that it still offered a shampoo and set. I was immediately cheered by the fact that my rival obviously wasn’t making Martha Stewart lose any sleep.
As it was a Saturday and the shop appeared to be empty, I pressed my nose against the picture window for a proper look inside. There were a couple of very ordinary-looking desks. Possibly Ikea. Neither especially tidy. The bookshelves were bowing under the weight of hundreds of three-ring binders. Against the wall were piled carpet and wallpaper sample books. A tower of interiors magazines was topped by a dirty mug. The mug claimed it was a present from New York. There was nothing to focus on. It was just an ordinary interiors shop, really. No more clues as to what Michael found so compelling about its inhabitant. I’d had a wasted journey. Or so I thought …
Just as I had satisfied myself that I could glean nothing more from staring into the closed shop, I became aware of a car pulling up to the curb behind me. Watching the driver in the reflection on the big picture window, I realized to my horror that it was her: Miss Well-Sprung herself.
I should have hopped onto my bike, but I was paralyzed with anxiety. I couldn’t pretend I had just been browsing, could I? Well-Sprung Interiors didn’t exactly have an inviting window display.
“Can I help you?” she asked. It was the first time I’d heard her voice. It was as husky and exotic as I had dreaded from the moment I heard she came from Brazil. Damn.
I snapped my sunglasses back down over my eyes like a visor before I dared turn around. When I did, I found her just a couple of feet away from me, her head cocked to one side as if to ask, What have we here? I had to make my excuses and quickly.
“I was just …” I glanced across the street and the salon caught my eye. “Just waiting for my hairdressing appointment. Hence the …” I indicated the scarf on my head.
“Oh, okay,” said Well-Sprung, looking me up and down. My incongruous Hermès scarf and sunglasses were accessorizing a very tatty pair of combat trousers. She was wearing a white shirt knotted at the waist, tailored capri pants, and open-toed sandals. Her pedicure was flawless. “Excuse me,” she said. She wiggled past me to open the door. As I jumped out of her way, the loose lens in my sunglasses fell to the ground and was crunched beneath her foot.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She knelt to pick it up.
“It’s okay,” I said, running across the street before she had a chance to look at me without the Polaroid shield. “They were old.”
“But … your sunglasses!”
Damn. And double damn. I couldn’t have drawn more attention to myself if I’d tried. And now, as I pushed my way into the salon (it took a moment before I realized the notice on the door said PULL), I became aware that she was still watching me. Of course, she was wondering about my broken sunglasses, but perhaps something about me had jogged her memory and she was beginning to work out exactly where she’d last seen me. As I hovered at the salon’s reception desk, she was still watching. I couldn’t just turn around and leave.
“You got an appointment?” the girl at the desk asked.
“No.”
“Kylie can fit you in when she’s finished Mrs. Brown’s blow-dry.”
What could I do except agree? Sneaking a peek back at Well-Sprung Interiors, I saw that my rival was still outside her office. She was talking on her mobile. Was she calling Michael? Had she worked out who I was? Would she know for sure who I was if I took my head scarf off?
“Take a seat over there.” The receptionist ushered me to a chair at the back of the salon. Momentary relief. But how long was Miss Well-Sprung going to spend hanging around outside her office that afternoon? My exit could be my undoing.
Which is why when Kylie asked me what I wanted done, I asked her to dye my hair brown.
“Are you sure?”
Kylie wasn’t. She suggested a full head of highlights instead, but I knew that wouldn’t work. Miss Well-Sprung was still in and out of her shop, carrying files to and from her car, or just sitting on the bonnet to take phone calls or have a cigarette. She was making the most of the sunshine.
“It’s going to look rubbish,” said Kylie.
I said I just wanted a change. As I watched Miss Well-Sprung to see if she was still watching me, a transformation from blond to brunette didn’t seem like such a bad idea anyway. Apart from the amount of cleavage she was proudly displaying with her artfully unbuttoned shirt, the main difference between me and Miss Well-Sprung was that her hair was brown. Now that I thought about it, whenever Michael and I had spoken about those actresses he admired (for “admired” read “fancied”) they had always been brunettes. Someone Latin looking. Penélope Cruz was one of his favorites. He liked Salma Hayek, too. And Catherine Zeta-Jones (okay, she’s not very Latin, but she had a fair bash at it in Zorro). Michael had never gone for the girls that I modeled myself on: Gwyneth or Cate Blanchett. They were insipid. Not like Miss Well-Sprung at all.
“Can’t you do a wash in, wash out?” I suggested. “Just so I can get an idea?”
“It won’t suit you,” Kylie insisted. “And as it washes out, it will start to take on reddish tones, which will look even worse. I tell all my clients the same thing. If you dramatically change your hair color, it’s not the only thing you’re going to have to alter. You have to be prepared to change your makeup, too, and the colors of the clothes you wear. I had one client who even had to change the color of the walls in her house after she went from blond to brown.�
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“I’m ready for it,” I said. I couldn’t help wondering what kind of walls didn’t go with brown hair.
“All right. But I am doing this at your insistence,” Kylie said one more time.
In actual fact it didn’t look bad. The hair, at least, looked great. It looked magnificent. It had a depth of shine that I never could have achieved with my previous mousy color, even if I slept in leave-in conditioner for a month. My hair was beautiful. It was the sort of hair you see being tossed in an advertisement for L’Oréal. It was sumptuous and silky. It reflected the light like a mirror. It was the kind of hair I defy any man to keep his hands out of … Unfortunately, it just didn’t go with my face.
“I knew it,” said Kylie. “It’s way too dark.”
I didn’t look like Penélope Cruz or Salma Hayek. I didn’t even look like Catherine Zeta-Jones. With my pale skin under that ravishing brunette mop, I looked as though I was going to a fancy-dress party as my grandmother’s favorite comedian, Max Wall. But I was in denial. As far as I was concerned, I had the kind of hair that would make Michael fall in love.
“Nothing that a bit of blusher can’t fix!” I said, full of sudden foolish optimism.
Kylie shook her head. “Let me know when you want me to add some highlights.”
I paid for my new do and left the salon. Miss Well-Sprung was outside having another cigarette, but this time she didn’t even glance in my direction. I grabbed my bike and started pedaling. I’d gotten away with it.
Becky was not so sure.
I spent the rest of Saturday adjusting to my new look. Kylie had been right about needing a new look to go with my new locks. So, high on having gotten past Miss Well-Sprung with my cunning disguise, I spent five hundred pounds in Debenhams on new makeup and a red dress. When I got home, I put on the outfit and the makeup and sat in front of my dressing-table mirror practicing pouting and hair tossing. Anything Miss Well-Sprung could do … I’d have her out of my side of Michael’s bed before she could say, Ay, caramba.
On Sunday, Becky had invited me to lunch. Over the phone she sounded impressed when I told her that I had updated my image as my first step in getting over Michael. “Good for you,” she said. “Out with the old. I’m very proud of you.” In person, her reaction was rather different.
“For goodness’ sake,” said Becky. “What on earth have you done to yourself? You look just like Snooki.”
It wasn’t the reaction I had hoped for.
“I thought I might try being a brunette for a while.”
“But why? You have the kind of natural color that people would die for! This”—she waved her hands at my hair with a faint expression of disgust on her face—“is just horrible.”
“I thought it was okay.”
“Look, I know you probably want to have a new start. A new image. But the whole point of changing your hair after a breakup is to look better than before, so that if the idiot who dumped you should bump into you on the street, he is instantly filled with remorse and regret.”
“Yes. But this is what Michael goes for now …”
Becky did a double take. “Say what?”
“His new girlfriend is a brunette.”
“So you dyed your hair to look like her?”
I nodded mutely.
“You absolute idiot.”
“Makes sense to me. He wants a brunette.”
“You think that’s the only difference?”
“It’s a start at leveling the playing field.”
“Why are you even bothering?”
“Wouldn’t you?” I asked. “If Henry left you.”
Becky shuddered. Even though her wedding invitations had been sent out, I could tell that she was superstitious about even saying such a thing. She changed the subject.
“Apart from anything else, this stupid new hair color is going to look absolutely terrible with the bridesmaid’s dress. Didn’t you even think about that?”
Obviously I hadn’t thought about that.
“For God’s sake, Ashleigh. What am I supposed to do? It’s too late to get the dress changed. You’ll have to have your hair dyed blond again. If that’s even possible. Or wear a wig.”
As a result of my image change, Sunday lunch looked set to be a trial. Every few minutes or so Becky would look up at my hair, frown, and shake her head. Henry tried to be kind. He told me I looked like one of the sisters from that Irish band The Corrs. Becky told him he was being ridiculous.
“She looks a fright. I can’t believe it. I’ve spent nearly four hundred pounds on that bridesmaid’s dress and now she’s gone and changed her hair color.”
“I am here,” I reminded her. “And I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ll get it sorted out. I swear.”
That seemed to mollify her, but by the time the roast was ready, I was starting to feel quite angry and thought that perhaps I would keep my hair brown just to spite her. It wasn’t as though I was ever going to look good in that bridesmaid’s dress in any case. What is it about sensible, fashionable women that makes them lose their fashion sense the moment they get an engagement ring on their finger? I foolishly suggested as much in what I thought was a joking tone. Becky spat her response, which was that she would cancel my floral headdress and buy me a brown-paper bag to wear at the wedding instead. “You can wear it next time you go stalking as well.”
I told her I didn’t feel hungry after that and left. Though the lunch had been intended to cheer me up, I left her house feeling much worse. And given how bad the last couple of weeks had been, that was really saying something.
The day was to get even worse. Skipping lunch with the happy couple left me with a rumble in my stomach and a lot of free time that only mischief could fill. The walk from Becky’s house took me past Helen and Kevin’s. How could I forget that they were going to be hosting a barbecue to celebrate their new arrival that very afternoon?
It was half past one when I got to the top of Helen and Kevin’s street. Even from a hundred meters away I could smell the scent of lighter fluid. Since I was still NFI (as in “not f*cking invited”), I couldn’t just waltz in, but I decided that there was no law against walking down their street (though an alternative route would have been easy enough to find). And there was no law against stopping to have a rest. Behind their neighbor’s hedge.
About ten minutes after I took up my vigil, Helen appeared at the doorway. In her hand she held three silver heart-shaped balloons to welcome baby Alex. She had just finished tying the balloons to the gatepost when Michael’s red sports car pulled up at the curb and out he got, holding one more silver balloon (also heart-shaped). But where Helen’s balloons declared in pretty pink letters IT’S A GIRL, Michael’s bore IT’S A BOY in baby blue.
There was little time for me to savor Michael’s confusion and embarrassment, because even as he was handing over his gift, to Helen’s obvious confusion, Michael’s passenger was getting out of the car. With a shake of her hair, as though she were in a shampoo advert, Miss Well-Sprung stepped onto the pavement.
“You’ve brought a guest?” I heard Helen say. “But …”
“Didn’t Kevin tell you?”
“He didn’t, but …”
Michael held out his arm. Miss Well-Sprung slipped under it and snuggled into his side.
“I like your house,” said Miss Well-Sprung to Helen. “Very interesting color, your front door.”
Helen gave a little shimmy, as though praise for her front door from an interior designer were as good as being praised for the figure she hadn’t regained since the baby was born.
“Well, come on in,” said Helen. “It’s lovely to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I hated Helen then. Almost as much as I hated Miss Well-Sprung and Michael.
Oh, my feckless friend, my faithless boyfriend, and that slut. How my heart ached as I stumbled from my hiding place behind Helen’s neighbor’s hedge. I stumbled the rest of the way back to my flat. People with small children crossed the roa
d to avoid me with my face bright red from tears and the great honking noise of my sobs.
Once in the flat, further humiliation was to greet me. I got under the shower, desperate to wash the brown out of my hair now that I had seen Miss Well-Sprung again and knew that being a brunette would not help at all. But the ugly color would not wash out. So much for semi-permanent, though I stood beneath the shower for hours and hours, shampooing twenty-three times. I had been abandoned by my boyfriend, betrayed by my friends, and to cap it all, my hair, as Kylie had promised, was an ugly shade of browny orange.
I needed comfort badly, but I couldn’t call Becky, my so-called best friend. The last thing I needed was to hear I told you so. It was too late to call Mum and Dad. I could have called the Samaritans. I had called them once before, many years ago, when I first moved into the flat and thought I might be losing my job just as I signed a yearlong lease. But as I recalled that dark night, I also remembered that the Samaritans are trained to be wonderfully sympathetic but also utterly impartial. They don’t offer advice. And that was what I really needed, wasn’t it? Proper solid advice. I needed someone to tell me what to do. Better yet, I needed someone to tell me what was going to happen. It didn’t take much searching on the Internet before I found someone who promised to do exactly that. With my credit card in hand, I called Personal Psychics Connection.
“We have three psychics available to talk to you right now,” said the girl on the other end of the line. “There’s Julie, Erica, and Martha.”
“Which one is best?” I asked.
“Oh, I can’t say that!” the girl said, laughing. “A lot of it depends on whether the spirits you want to connect with are ready to communicate with you. But I can tell you the methods of seeing that they use if you like. Julie will base her reading on your horoscope …”
Getting Over Mr. Right Page 7