“Are you ready for your close-up, Ms. Hebden?”
“Not even a little bit. But you better come in.” Annie had opened the door to Polly dressed like a World War II recruiting poster. Petrol-blue jumpsuit, red lipstick, headscarf. Annie herself was in pajama bottoms and a hoodie. The hoodie had a crusting of something on the side—porridge, possibly. Maybe Polly was right. She did need a makeover.
“Help me with this, will you?” Polly was struggling with a huge suitcase. “Oh, look, there’s my baby!” She fell on Buster, letting him lick her face.
“Should you be doing that?”
“Oh, not you as well. I’m dying, anyway. I’d rather go having cuddled this little darling.” Little darling was stretching it, Annie felt. She and Costas had woken up ten times in the night to take Buster down in the lift to “make wee-wee,” even though Costas had to be up at five to serve coffee. Despite this there had been several suspicious pools when Annie got up and she had to leave all the windows open to get the smell out, so the flat was now freezing. Luckily, Costas had taken enthusiastically to the puppy, and was already referring to himself as “papa,” which Annie found worrying. Buster couldn’t stay.
Annie began to feel alarmed by the suitcase. “We aren’t going to just—you know, do pedicures and watch Orange Is the New Black?”
Polly laughed. “Nice try, Hebden. You know my motto. Go big or go home.”
“I am home.” But Annie knew her grumbling was pointless, and if she was totally 100 percent honest with herself, she was a little excited, seeing the fabrics Polly was pulling from her case. Faux furs. Silks. Patterns of red and green and purple.
Polly looked at her critically. “Right. Basics first. When did you last do anything with your feet?”
Ten minutes later, Annie was, with much protesting, wrapped only in a towel, her feet soaking in a bowl, an unmentionable burning cream spread over her lady bits, while Buster chewed her shoes in the corner. She’d tried to say her lack of beauty regime was a feminist statement, but Polly just raised her nonexistent eyebrows again. “Is it really? Or is it just that you haven’t let anyone near you in years?”
“Both,” Annie said sulkily. Now she watched as Polly approached, something like Sellotape in her hands. “What’s that?”
“Nothing. Omigod, what’s that over there?”
“What—aarrgh!” Polly had slapped something down on her leg and just as swiftly whipped it off again. “Mother of Christ! What was that?”
“Wax, duh. We better finish it, or you’ll have one bald strip.”
“I hate you,” Annie muttered. There was more to come. Her feet were buffed into submission, her nails clipped, her fingernails filed.
Polly kept shaking her head. “How did you let them get so bad? Didn’t you see them every time you looked down at your keyboard?”
Annie wanted to say that it was easy to ignore things. You just closed your eyes, or looked at something else, and you told yourself it didn’t matter in the scheme of things if your nails were bitten and your cuticles red and ragged. But she couldn’t speak because her face was smeared in a plaster-like mask and she could hardly breathe for fear of cracking. Annie could feel her body fizzing with alarm, as bits of it that had rested in peaceful neglect for years were suddenly attacked, deforested, buffed and moisturized. “It’s not about beauty,” Polly lectured. “There’s hundreds of different ways to look amazing. It’s just about caring for yourself. If your hair is all greasy and your hands are sore and cracked, how can you feel good?”
Annie was having her eyebrows tweezed when the door went. Oh, no. Costas. She’d hoped he’d stay out tonight. He was wearing his work T-shirt and smelled of coffee, but his smile was wide. “Polly!”
“Hello, you.” Polly and he exchanged kisses. “I’m making over your lovely flatmate.”
Costas clapped his hands. “My sisters, they do this, too. I used to paint their hands!”
Another ten minutes, and Annie was staring at the ceiling in deep shame, while Polly painted her nails a sparkling gold shade, and Costas did her feet in silver. Her practically teenage flatmate kneeling between her ankles was not something she’d ever hoped for. Buster sat watching attentively, head cocked to the side. She said, “Are we nearly done? Only, Grey’s is on at ten, and—”
“We’re not remotely done,” Polly chided. “There’s still hair, makeup and clothes. Let me ask you something, Costas—what do you think Annie should wear?”
“Big skirts,” he said immediately. “She is a—what do you say?—curvy lady, so she needs the...you know.” He flared his hands out from his hips. “Big skirts. And tight here.” He cupped his hands in front of his skinny sculpted chest.
“Brilliant!” Polly nodded, sending splodges of varnish up Annie’s fingers. “Like a prom dress. That’s a great idea. And then I think something like a pencil skirt and blouse, big heels, you know.”
“Not the black slack-pants,” Costas said darkly, as if he and Polly had already discussed this.
Annie thought this was a bit rich from someone who wore T-shirts so tight you could see what he’d had for breakfast (protein shakes, mostly). “I can hear you,” she said crossly.
Polly ignored her, jumping up. “Annie, don’t move for five minutes. We’re going to dress you up.”
A red silk skirt, with a frilly petticoat underneath. A tight short-sleeved sweater, like something from the fifties. “Lean on me.” Polly shoved a red patent stiletto onto Annie’s foot. “Now the other.” They were high, much higher than anything Annie would ever wear, and she teetered alarmingly in them.
“I can’t walk in these! How am I meant to get past that bog around Lewisham Station?”
“Annieeee—you don’t walk in an outfit like that. You get a taxi, and glide regally up to the door of the restaurant.”
“Can’t afford taxis. Never go to restaurants.” Not anymore, anyway.
Polly rolled her eyes. “It’s for a special occasion. Something worth dressing up for, making a fuss. You know?”
Annie couldn’t think when she’d ever had an occasion like that. Even on their wedding day Mike said they might as well just drive their own car to the registry office. The house was costing every penny they had and it didn’t make sense to pay extra. “Well, I can’t wear this to the office. They’d laugh me out of there.”