This scene is set in the beauty salon which Sophie visits in preparation for her night out to meet the delectable Darcy Drummond, but it all goes horribly wrong!

 

The exterior of the salon is quite unassuming but when I get inside I am dazzled by the pure whiteness of everything and I mean everything is brilliant white, including the flowers, the chairs, the walls, the furniture and the staff uniforms. I guess whoever designed this space figured that white is alluring. Personally I find it pretty clinical and a bit hospital like, although admittedly it smells better.

 

‘You must be Sophie Johnson?’ a girl at the gleaming white crescent shaped desk smiles in a welcoming manner. She is just stunning, amazing skin, long perfect straight blonde hair swept from her face in an immaculate ponytail. Her makeup is flawless and she looks as though she lives on a diet of early morning dew and fresh fruit and nothing else. She is certainly a great advert for the salon so I breathe a sigh of relief, thinking somehow that if I magically look even a tiny bit like this for the awards this evening, it will be a miracle.

 

‘Yes,’ I smile at her, maybe this will be ok after all.

 

‘Great,’ the girl replies revealing perfect dazzling white teeth, ‘Shannon will be looking after you today so if you would like to take a seat, she’ll get the room ready for you.’

 

As she speaks, a young girl appears from the adjoining room, also dressed in white but she is completely different from the goddess at the desk. It isn’t that she is unattractive as such, she could be quite pretty but her hair is dyed a rather strange shade of purple and scraped into a stringy ponytail. More worrying still, I’m not really sure what sort of look she is going for with her makeup. It is as though she felt she needed to put the entire dark colour palette on her face and even an amateur like me isn’t sure the colours, she has chosen are working. To be fair she looks a bit like a goth.

 

‘Fab,’ I say in a faux cheery voice.

‘Right,’ says the girl at the desk. ‘You’re booked in for a back massage, mani-pedi, leg wax and an after dark evening makeover.’

‘OMG!’ grins Shannon, simultaneously revealing not one but two tongue piercings and an old much chewed piece of gum, ‘the full works, love it. Ya goin somewhere special?’

‘Erm, yes, an awards ceremony,’ I reply half heartedly whilst wondering if I can say I’ve changed my mind, or if I could text Mel surreptitiously asking her to phone me about a sudden and unavoidable crisis at home. Instead, I find myself being ushered into a small airless room with no windows, painted white of course and a bench and chair with a bowl of water placed next to it.

‘I’ll do ya feet first, then hands, although what time is me next client Maria?’ asks Shannon.

‘I’ll just check,’ replies Maria, tapping on the computer keyboard. ‘Oh God, it’s Marika Mitzpova and she’s due in at 4.’

Shannon turns pale under her heavy makeup, ‘Oh crap, what we gonna do? We can’t double book Marika, remember last time?’

‘It’s ok,’ I interrupt trying not to sound too eager although in a weird way, I am kind of interested in what did happen last time. ‘I can just leave it, it’s no problem.’ I start edging towards the door, my feet feeling for my flats, which I have removed in readiness for the bubbly bowl of water.

‘No, no,’ exclaims Shannon, grabbing my arm and propelling me back into the room, ‘we can’t have you going to an awards ceremony looking like this, we can squeeze both in can’t we Maria?’ I feel a bit offended actually, looking like what? I don’t look that bad do I?

“I guess we can juggle some stuff around, and Jen, can paint your fingernails whilst Shannon does your wax to save time. And if you don’t mind missing the massage?’

 

The two girls usher me back into the room before I can protest or think of an excuse to leave.

 

To be honest, I’m sorry about the massage though, that had been the bit I was looking forward to most and I could do with something relaxing as I am pretty anxious about the prospect of meeting the delectable Mr Drummond. The words ‘award ceremony’ still have a bit of a negative connotation for me since the time I was collecting my A Level results and my shoe fell off as I ran up the steps having received my certificates. I had to walk back down four steps with one shoe on and one shoe off to collect my rogue slip on, my face beetroot red with total and utter embarrassment. The theatre packed with an audience of a thousand people had roared with laughter and I had instantly found fame as ‘the shoe girl’ forever more. In fact I think it is still mentioned in the yearbook.

 

I plonk my feet into the water, which is quite nice actually, whilst Shannon appears with several plastic nails painted in vibrant shades. “Which colour are we goin for today then?’ she asks in a voice that makes me feel about six.

 

‘I think I might have the red please.’ I say after a minute’s consideration.

‘Oh ok,’ Shannon’s face makes me feel as though I have made the wrong choice. ‘What about this one?’ she splays her long black spiky fingernails out in front of her, ‘very fashionable this look at the moment you know.’

‘Erm yes, very nice, but I was thinking of something a little brighter for this evening. Looks very pretty on you though.’ I add hastily not wanting to hurt her feelings.

‘What about this one then?’ asks Shannon, producing a bright neon pink plastic nail with shiny sparkles on the edges.

‘I was thinking the red one really,’ I persist, pointing to the deep red nail sample for clarification.

‘If ya really think so,’ drawled Shannon, making it clear she didn’t agree with my choice at all but taking out her frustration by removing my feet from the water with an angry splosh, dabbing them briefly with a towel and setting to with a large nail file on my big toe. After a few minutes of Shannon’s scrubbing viciously, I begin to wonder if I have misunderstood the purpose of a visit to the salon. I thought it is meant to be relaxing and that it might help me mentally prepare for the evening, not be some kind of foot torture session.

‘Bit ticklish?’ asks Shannon.

‘A little bit, just rather sore there,’ I answer politely, thinking please stop bloody hurting my foot.

‘Oh,’ she continues to scrub hard, unabashed, this girl has the skin of a rhinoceros. ‘So what’s this party tonight then?’

 

I explain to her briefly about the GQ Best Groomed Men Awards. She is suitably impressed; ‘Isn’t that on tele and in all the mags? Are you famous or something?’

‘No,’ I laugh, ‘not exactly, I’m going along with a friend.’

‘Oh,’ Shannon is obviously pretty disappointed with this answer. ‘So what ya gonna wear, long designer dress or something?’

‘Well the dress is long and black with a gorgeous pair of sparkly sandals from Next.’

Shannon looks crestfallen, ‘Oh, I thought everyone wears designer to awards evenings and premiers and stuff,’ she leans towards me in a conspiratorial manner, ‘You realise there’s gonna be some hot, rich guys there?’

 

I smile in what I hope is a nonchalant manner, trying not to look as disgusted as I feel by the whiff of garlic breath that hits me as Shannon talks. I do think there should be a rule about eating garlic when you’re working where you’ll be in close proximity to other people’s noses.

‘My dress is Versace, it’s quite cool actually, with a piece cut out of the side and a long slit up the leg.’ Hah, that would shut her up, I didn’t need to tell her it was reduced to a hundred pounds in TK Max in my hometown.

It seems to work as Shannon finishes drying the Shellac on my toes without further comment. She then starts schlepping what I assume to be wax all over my legs.

‘Does it hurt?’ I ask nervously.

 

I am not a waxing sort of person, being totally OCD about body hair. This means I hack off any offending hairs with my razor as soon as they appear every day whilst in the shower. I was totally horrified when I found out I needed to let my hairs grow for a while before waxing but had managed to force myself to cultivate a few days stubble in readiness for the process.

 

‘Not much,’ Shannon answers briskly continuing to paint wax all over my legs and thighs. ‘You just have to get used to it.’

 

Meanwhile a young girl also dressed in white appears with a set of manicure tools. I assume this is Jen, she seems quite sweet and friendly. She starts buffing my fingernails whilst Shannon puts moisturiser on my finished toenails, waiting for the wax on my legs to dry. It’s quite nice actually, I could get used to this, definitely much more like it. I breathe in deeply, closing my eyes and…….

 

‘Aaaggghhhh my God!’ It feels like someone has poured boiling water on my leg, it’s as though it is on fire. And it isn’t just me yelling, the young girl is screaming and there is a crash as utensils and hot wax goes flying through the air. ‘What the hell did you just do?’ I demand, shocked.

‘More like what’ve you done love?’ asks Shannon, scrabbling on the floor to pick up bits which have been strewn everywhere like confetti. ‘No harm done really tho,’ she says, ‘that is once we’ve got the nail varnish off Jen and hope the wax hasn’t set in her hair.’

I look bemusedly at Jen who to my horror appears to have been daubed across her entire face with bright red shellac polish, oh God and it’s in her hair and oh, good grief, it’s up the wall as well. Though I actually think it is kind of artistic, it sort of breaks up the white. In the Tate gallery it would probably win a prize for symbolising chaos or something.

Worse still, there is a huge blob of hair removal wax nestling at the top of Jen’s blonde ponytail. I try to apologise but she leaves the room sobbing, led out by Maria, who has I noticed managed to get red on her immaculate white coat whilst trying to mop guaranteed long lasting 30 day non chip shellac varnish off Jen’s face.

Oh, God how embarrassing. ‘I’m so sorry, I hadn’t meant to jump like that – it just really hurt.’ I protest, ’I didn’t realise you were going to do the wax then. I guess this happens all the time?’

‘Not really,’ scowls Shannon, trying unsuccessfully to remove the bright red arc of shellac from the wall with a handful of small nail polish remover pads. ‘Simon’s gonna go nuts about this.’

Oh God, this is just so embarrassing, I make a serious mental note to never ever come to this salon again, not that they would let me in next time.

 

‘Right, now I’m gonna remove the rest of the wax, ok?’ Shannon speaks slowly and clearly as though I am really stupid.

She rips off the first part of the strip with meaning, ‘Ouch!’ I yell, ‘Don’t do any more.’

‘Well it has to come off somehow,’ states Shannon, quite reasonably to be fair.

‘Not like that,’ I exclaim, reaching forward and picking the strip off in one corner like a kid trying to gently remove a plaster from their cut knee.

‘You’ll never get it off like that,’ states Shannon pessimistically.

 

A couple of hours later, the wall is scrubbed to quite an attractive shade of rose pink, although it still looks a little odd. I on the other hand, have beautifully painted red nails and toenails. My makeup is……..well pretty good actually though it does look rather heavier than I am used to but I figure I appear more glamorous than my usual self. Admittedly I have one hair free leg and the other is a bit stubbly but I figure I can always quickly shave the other leg when I get home. I have apologised profusely to the staff as I kind of felt bad about the whole episode. Jen has gone home early due to feeling unwell, but as she was wearing a hat, I guess they haven’t managed to remove the hair wax from her head without taking off a load of hair. I feel awful about it but I presume it will grow back eventually.

 

My hair on the other hand has been professionally washed and styled on big curlers without mishap, and when revealed at the end is majorly BIG hair. I kind of like it as it gives me a sort of pampered, well groomed look, which is a total novelty. I don’t look anything like my usual self, which is definitely a good thing.

 

Upon arriving back at the flat, Mel is impressed, ‘Wow!’ she exclaims, ‘someone’s swapped my roomie for a supermodel.’

 

‘Shut up!’ I return, knowing she is exaggerating, but inside I am secretly quite flattered. I’m ready…..move over Lizzie….Darcy Drummond here I come…..