Something had shifted for Ellen in the past few weeks, since that day she had sat on the upturned milk crate, having coffee with Finn. He was right. Whether she was a victim or not, she had decided she had to stop feeling like a victim. She was going to stop letting things get her down and take charge of her life. That meant she had to do what was best for her and the kids and not worry about what people thought. So she went ahead and applied for the position at the private school; she would deal with her parents if she actually got the job. After all, they had up and sold the house without consideration of any of them, so they were going to have to respect her decisions as well.
Getting an interview buoyed her resolve, but it also sent her into a spin. She had to find time to get to the hairdressers, and what the hell was she going to wear? So she decided once again to bite the bullet and take Emma up on her offer.
‘Oh my God!’ Emma exclaimed when she called. ‘This is fantastic!’
‘Are you sure you’ve got the time, with the wedding and all?’
‘Are you kidding me? I’ll make the time,’ she declared. ‘I’ve been wanting to get my hands on you forever.’
‘You have?’ Ellen said nervously.
‘This is what I do,’ said Emma. ‘Trust me.’
So she did. Emma dragged her around to designers’ warehouses in back alleys in places Ellen didn’t even know existed – these were not for the general public. And she had her try on clothes Ellen would never have chosen for herself.
‘You don’t wear clothes that flatter you,’ Emma said. ‘You just cover yourself up, and you’ve still got a nice figure, Ellen. It’s not perfect, but whose is?’
‘Yours comes pretty close,’ Ellen muttered.
‘Ha,’ she scoffed, ‘I just know what to wear. I’ve got the Beckett backside.’
‘Well, I got the Turner boobs.’ All the Turner women, their mother included, had ample bosoms, which was all well and good when you were sixteen and they sat up all on their own. Not so good once you were the wrong side of thirty and had to wear scaffolding for a bra.
Emma rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t stand women who complain about having big tits, I mean, come on!’
‘But I’m all out of proportion,’ Ellen complained. ‘I’ve never been able to find a jacket that fits me properly.’
‘Trust me, I will.’
And she did. Ellen felt like a different person in the classic black suit; somehow it gave her an entirely new silhouette. It was all in the cut; Ellen had always heard that, now she understood. She looked taller, more elegant. She looked . . .
‘Amazing!’ Emma declared. ‘Now we have to find the right shoes.’
‘No way – no, I can’t wear heels like that,’ Ellen insisted when Emma took her to yet another back-alley place and picked out two beautiful pairs of shoes for her to try.
‘I bet the last pair of shoes you bought cost, what, sixty dollars?’ said Emma. ‘Maybe eighty? It’s no wonder you won’t wear heels, Ellen. Quality costs.’
When Ellen tried the shoes, she had some idea of how Cinderella must have felt when she put on those glass slippers. And she understood how all the celebrities were able to walk in them. They were a feat of engineering beyond her meagre comprehension, or her meagre income. But in the end, a deal was struck, and Ellen had the feeling she had paid for little more than the box they came in.
Her younger sister had a lot more pull than Ellen had ever given her credit for. No one in the family had ever really given Emma her due; teaching, doctoring, mothering, even hanggliding had more status in their collective eyes. Ellen was as guilty of it as anyone.
‘Now we have to get the rest of you up to scratch,’ Emma announced when the shopping was complete.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your interview’s Friday, right?’ Emma said, scrolling through her diary on her iPhone.
‘Yeah, we scheduled it for after school, so it wouldn’t interfere –’
‘Well, you can forget that, you’re certainly not going to work first.’
‘What?’
‘Ellen,’ she said, looking at her directly, ‘I’ve seen how you look after a day at school – that will never do.’
Emma finally talked her into taking the day off and arranged to pick her up at nine.
‘Why so early?’ Ellen asked. ‘The interview’s not till four.’
‘We’ve got a lot of work to do before then.’
When they’d pulled up at the salon spa that morning, Ellen had baulked. ‘Emma, I can’t afford this. I mean I know you got me the suit for less than cost, but –’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Emma dismissed. ‘This is a freebie. I’m calling in some favours. And believe me, they owe me big-time.’
And so she spent the day being preened and plucked and waxed and generally slapped into shape. The first hour or two were all about pampering – a massage and a facial followed by a deep relaxation bath with rose petals and essential oils and God knows what else. Ellen felt a little like she was stewing in herbal tea, but she had to admit it was quite relaxing. Then the real work began, starting with a pedicure – the first in her life – followed by a manicure. Then it was time to attack her hair. Ellen had worn her hair in the same style for more years than she could remember. She had been going to the same hairdresser and when she occasionally suggested a change, showed her a photograph, the hairdresser would agree, but her hair never looked any different afterwards. Ellen blamed her hair.
‘I blame your hairdresser,’ Emma snorted. ‘You’ve got good hair, Ellen, we all do actually – fortunately both the Becketts and the Turners helped us out there. But you need to get some shape into yours to suit your face.’
‘Not too short!’ she warned. ‘I like to put it up in a clip or a ponytail.’
Ellen curled her lip. ‘So I’ve noticed. You’re not going to want to do that after Rene finishes with it.’
Rene was a tall, slender, terribly attractive man, with some kind of South American lineage, Ellen guessed. But he looked at her hair with such disdain Ellen was embarrassed by it. He tuttutted and shook his head, despairing at the amateur colour job, the dreadful condition, the way it had been hacked, according to him.
‘But don’t worry, I will fix,’ he told Emma.
Ellen had never spent so long in a hairdresser’s chair in all her life, she even nodded off a couple of times, till Rene would come along and yank her back to life, inspecting the foils, sending her off to the basins, and then back again for another application of colour and more foils. She couldn’t watch when he started to cut; she couldn’t tell what he was doing, but he seemed to be taking off an awful lot, and Ellen was too intimidated to tell him not too much. But when he began to blow-dry it, and it fell into perfect golden waves around her face, Ellen almost didn’t recognise herself. She had to blink back tears.
‘Beautiful,’ Emma said proudly, as though she had done it herself.
The final step was makeup, and after that Ellen really didn’t recognise herself. How did they make her eyes look so big, her skin so smooth? And where had her double chin gone? All that, but she didn’t really look ‘made up’, she looked quite natural, and . . . well, damn it, she looked attractive. Ellen had never considered herself very attractive; maybe when she was young she was all right, but as the saying went, her looks had faded. This was like they’d filled them all in again.
Emma snapped her out of her reverie. ‘Come on, we have to get you home and dressed. We’re not going to waste all this by making you late for your interview.’
When she was finally dressed in the complete outfit, shoes and all, Ellen looked at the full effect in the mirror in her bedroom, and she was bowled over. Tears sprung into her eyes.
Emma came to stand behind her. ‘Look at you.’
‘It’s unbelievable,’ said Ellen. ‘You know, if you took a photo of me right now, and I saw it, without having seen myself, in the flesh . . .’
Emma was frowning.
&nbs
p; ‘Just go with me,’ said Ellen. ‘What I’m trying to say is that if I saw a photo of myself looking like this, I wouldn’t know it was me.’
Emma smiled then. ‘You know what my philosophy is?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know, I should be taking better care of myself.’
‘No, that’s not what I was going to say. I realise most women can’t go to this much trouble every day, or even every week.’
‘Or even every month,’ Ellen muttered.
Emma nodded. ‘It’s a huge commitment, and the problem is, once you get started, you can’t stop.’ She looked a little wistful. ‘Sometimes I wonder what Blake would do if I let myself go. That’s why I’m scared to have babies. I mean, I know I could bounce back, but it’s hard to look like this when you’re in labour.’
Ellen saw something in her eyes she hadn’t seen before, vulnerability perhaps?
‘I’m sure Blake would love you no matter how you looked.’
Emma gave a dismissive little laugh. ‘Anyway, I was saying, my philosophy – or maybe it’s not so much a philosophy as a tip – but I believe that every woman should have a makeover, or a professional photo shoot, at least once in their lives. Because even if they don’t want to go to the trouble every day of making themselves beautiful, at least they’ll know that they can look as good as the women on the covers of magazines if they want to. And then they can feel better about themselves the rest of the time.’
Catching sight of herself in the mirror again, Ellen felt bad for every time she’d ever dismissed Emma’s work. She knew this was all only surface stuff and what was inside was more important, but today she didn’t care, today she felt beautiful, and she hadn’t felt beautiful in a very long time.
‘Well I don’t know how to thank you,’ she said in a small voice, her lip trembling.
‘Uh-oh!’ Emma scolded. ‘You’ll ruin your makeup. Okay, there’s just one more thing. Where’s your handbag?’
Ellen picked up the bag she’d been carting around all day.
‘I thought as much,’ said Emma, dashing out to the hall and coming back with a designer carrier bag.
‘What’s this?’ said Ellen when she handed it to her.
‘Take a look.’
Ellen lifted out a gorgeous red leather tote, the kind she’d only seen in magazines or in movies on the arms of actresses. ‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you lending me this for the interview?’
‘No, silly, I’m giving it to you. It’s my good-luck gift.’
Now Ellen couldn’t speak at all. The tears were choking her throat.
‘I said no crying!’ Emma ordered. ‘You’ll ruin your makeup!’
So instead Ellen stepped forward and put her arms around her sister.
‘Don’t crush your shirt! Careful!’
When she stepped back, she was pretty sure Emma had tears in her eyes as well.
‘Okay, so go knock ‘em dead.’
Ellen slid carefully into the driver’s seat now, smoothing out her skirt. She pulled the car door closed and took a deep breath, smiling happily. The interview had gone well. How could it not: she felt like she could do anything, the way she looked.
So what now? She didn’t want to put all this to waste and just go home and watch a DVD on her own. The kids were at Tim’s, so she couldn’t even show off to them. She wanted to celebrate . . . She knew Emma was busy; she wondered if Liz was free for a drink. Ellen tapped her manicured nails on the steering wheel, thinking, and then she had a better idea. Her next payment to Finn was due; she should have transferred it today but it had slipped her mind, not surprisingly. She could just drive over there and pay it in person. Her heart skipped a beat as she started up the engine. Her sisters said she had to put herself out there, but this wasn’t that. She was just . . . broadening her social circle. Finn could be counted as a friend now, and Ellen had to develop new friendships . . . with other single people. That’s all it was.
When she arrived at the garage, she pulled into her regular spot and cut the engine. She quickly checked herself in the rearview mirror. Boy, she didn’t even need to touch up her lipstick, this makeup was so good. She smiled at herself, picked up the red handbag and stepped out of the car.
As she walked across the tarmac to the office, Ellen became conscious that she was even walking a little differently in these shoes, in this skirt. Perhaps it was the entire outfit, or perhaps it was just that she was conscious, but there was a slight sway to her hips. Now she just had to make sure she didn’t trip and fall over, that would certainly ruin the effect.
She heard a wolf-whistle and looked across to see Finn standing in the entrance to the workshop, holding his regular Friday afternoon beer, gazing at her with obvious admiration.
‘Ellen,’ he said in a quizzical tone, ‘is that you?’
She smiled and turned to walk towards him. ‘It’s a version of me,’ she said. ‘New and improved.’
‘I liked the old Ellen well enough,’ he said as she came closer. ‘But this is not bad.’
‘Not bad?’ she said, raising an eyebrow as she stopped in front of him.
‘Not bad at all.’
Ellen felt a frisson, like electricity passing between them. She hoped she wasn’t blushing, but no matter, the makeup would hide it. Finn was staring at her, and she realised that she was staring back. Someone had to say something.
‘So I was just passing,’ she began, ‘and I realised I hadn’t paid my account today. I thought I might as well do it in person.’
‘I’m glad you did,’ he said. ‘Where have you been? Doesn’t look like it was a regular school day.’
‘I had an interview this afternoon, at a private school.’
‘Ah,’ he nodded. ‘That explains it. How’d it go?’
‘It went pretty well, I think.’
‘I’m not surprised, you look like you’d fit right in,’ he said. ‘Well, I reckon this calls for a drink, to celebrate.’
She smiled. ‘Maybe I could stomach a beer, just this once.’
‘No way, we can’t hang around here with you all dressed up like that,’ said Finn. ‘I know a nice place up the road we can go.’
Ellen wasn’t expecting that. ‘Oh, are you sure?’
‘Yeah, Dave’s still here, he’s working on a mate’s car. He can close up.’ He looked at her. ‘You don’t have to be somewhere?’
‘No . . .’ she said meekly.
He nodded. ‘Good. Give me a sec and I’ll clean up, change out of this shirt. So I’m fit to be seen with you.’
As soon as he turned away, Ellen began to feel twitchy. She started to pace. Was this something like a date? Because if it was, she should really slow down and think it out more. You don’t just drop in on someone, casually, on a Friday afternoon and start something. No, it wasn’t anything. He was her mechanic, for godsakes, and they had become friends, wasn’t that nice? To have someone she could go out for a drink with, someone who wasn’t one of her sisters. It definitely wasn’t something.
She peered into the workshop. Finn was standing at a sink at the back wall, his shirt off, splashing water over himself. He straightened, reached for a towel on a hook on the wall, and turned around, drying himself while he spoke to Dave, who was bent over under the hood of a car. Ellen just stood there, staring, following the path of the towel, across his chest, his shoulders, his arms, his abs . . . Her mouth went dry . . . probably because it was hanging open, she realised, closing it quickly and looking away. But her heart was still fluttering erratically. What was that about? Couldn’t she even look at a man with his shirt off without going weak at the knees? Clearly she had been deprived of sex for way too long. God, why did she have to go and think about sex?
‘Ellen?’
She swung around with a start.
‘Wow, where were you just then?’ Finn was smiling at her as he buttoned up his shirt, from the bottom up, which meant his chest was exposed, smack in front of her. ‘Ellen?’
‘Huh?’ She jerked he
r head back, making eye contact; keep making eye contact, look him in the eye, for godsakes.
‘You were a million miles away.’
Not nearly that far. Ellen swallowed. ‘Oh, just . . . going over the interview in my head.’
‘Well, you can tell me all about it over a drink,’ he said. ‘You want me to drive, or you can drive, whatever . . .’
‘No, you drive,’ she said quickly. She was afraid her powers of concentration were not up to the task right now.
They drove all the way to the point at Abbotsford, and the Rowing Club.
‘This all right with you?’ Finn asked when he pulled up in the parking lot.
‘Oh sure,’ she remarked. ‘It’s a bit fancy.’ Not really his style, she would have thought, but she kept that to herself.
‘I think they’ll let you in, you look pretty fancy,’ he said with a grin.
They went inside and found a table out on the deck, overlooking the water. Finn went to the bar to get the drinks. When he returned, they toasted to her success and he asked her all about the interview. There was a panel of five, she told him, comprising the principal, the deputy responsible for curriculum, a parent representative, plus the head teachers from both the English and History departments. It had been thorough, but polite, she hadn’t felt particularly put on the spot at any time. As far as interviews went, it had leaned more on the side of conversation than interrogation.
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Finn asked.
‘I think so,’ she said, reflecting. ‘That’s as long as they were taking me seriously and not just filling in time. If they were really interested, maybe they would have been more rigorous, put me on the spot . . .’
‘Hey, is that your glass half-empty?’
Ellen glanced down at her wine. ‘No, it’s fine.’ She looked up at him and he was grinning at her. ‘Oh, okay, I get it. I will rephrase – it was a good interview, very positive.’
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