Famous (2 page)

‘Bitch,’ corrected Lizzie. ‘Selfish bitch.’

‘How weird,’ said Mands, shaking her head. ‘Did he ever, you know, put your frocks on for no good reason?’

‘No!’ I replied. ‘Course he didn’t! Although…’ I suddenly remembered, ‘he did wear my knickers once or twice…you know…in the sack.’

‘He wore your knickers?’ cried Mands. ‘And you didn’t think that was slightly odd?’

‘Well…no. He said he liked wearing them because they were nice and tight.’

‘Bryce used to wear my knickers too,’ admitted Lizzie. ‘Said it turned him on.’

‘Oh for God’s sake!’ said Mands. ‘Say no more.
Please
. You’re putting me off my wine.’

‘So that was the only odd thing he did then?’ asked Lizzie. ‘Occasionally wear your knickers?’

What was she insinuating? That whenever I left the house he’d lunged for my red Trelise Cooper dress and the vacuum?

‘Well…yes. Though sometimes he’d…use my skin products too.’

In fact he’d used my eye cream so much I’d started hiding it from him.

‘You didn’t tell us that!’ cried Mands. ‘Stealing your skincare, that’s a sure sign of a wannabe transsexual.’

‘But he was always watching sport,’ I protested. ‘And drinking beer.’

‘Even transsexuals watch sport and drink beer,’ replied Lizzie, ever the pragmatist.

Friday night had arrived and I’d made my way to Savour to meet Jerry. I arrived in a taxi, being that I’d recently ingested a bottle of nerve-settling-pre-dinner-with-transsexual-exboyfriend wine with Mands and Lizzie.

‘Table for Harrison?’ I asked the maître d’.

Oh God, what if he’s changed his surname too? I thought to myself.

‘Right this way,’ replied the waiter. ‘You’re the first to arrive.’

Well, that’s a blessing, I thought, promptly ordering a bottle of wine.

Oh Christ, I despaired, as I sat down. What if I don’t recognise him? I mean her?

Thankfully I could see the front door from where I sat. I anxiously checked every female who entered the restaurant, frantically searching for one who looked like a drag queen. I hoped he wasn’t going to look too much like the ones who stood on K Rd. This might have been a metropolitan city, but it wasn’t big enough for that sort of caper. Plus, I liked this restaurant and it would be a shame if I couldn’t come back.

The wine arrived and the waiter poured me a glass. I quickly scanned the menu, looking up only when a gorgeous ruby-red embroidered suit jacket approached the table, accompanied by long shiny black hair framing one of the most beautiful faces I had ever set eyes on.

Great, I thought to myself. They’ve put me at the wrong bloody table and now I’m going to have to move. Typical.

‘Sam,’ said the beautiful woman. ‘Hi.’

Oh God. It couldn’t be?

‘Jerry?’ I ventured, uncertainly.

‘Well…no…Jasmine now actually,’ she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

This beautiful woman couldn’t possibly be Jerry? I thought to myself. My ex-boyfriend? There’s no way. She was gorgeous.

I scanned her face for stubble, but there was none to be seen. Just smooth, tanned, perfect skin. There was the same slim, aquiline nose. The same almond-coloured eyes. But there the similarities ended. I looked at her chest, I couldn’t help myself. There, under the outline of the flattering and well-cut suit jacket, was a pair of what had to be, at least, size-C breasts staring back at me. Perky, voluptuous, size-C breasts.

Bloody hell! The lucky cow! Where had the hairy chest gone? I wondered. The chest I used to lay my head on?

I glanced down at her hands, expecting to see the familiar trail of dark hairs covering the back of them. But there were none. In fact, although her hands were large, they looked soft and feminine and…and she had the same pale pink nail polish on as me. Plus, she smelled lovely. What was it? I wondered.

Givenchy? Gaultier? No. It was Issey Miyake. Jerry was wearing Issey Miyake. Hells bells!

That’s just bloody brilliant, I thought to myself. Your ex-boyfriend becomes a woman and he ends up more gorgeous than you.

How completely and utterly pants! Was there anything worse?

‘So,’ said Jasmine. ‘You look great, Sam.’

‘Thanks and so do you…although obviously a little different.’

‘I’d hope so,’ she laughed, huskily and sexily.

I couldn’t, not for one moment, stop gawping at her. This was the same person who had frequently ruined a white wash with his black football shorts. The same person who left the toilet seat up more often than was called for. The same person I’d shagged in my parents’ ensuite while the rest of the family ate Christmas dinner.

‘Shocked?’ she asked, flicking her long shiny glossy black hair in a way that looked, well, very familiar.

Dear God, I thought to myself, he’d been stealing my moves.

‘Just a little,’ I replied.

Truth be told, I was beginning to think she was an imposter, sent by Jerry to break the ice, and at any moment now a tree-trunk-legged, stubble-faced cross-dresser would come sauntering into the restaurant.

Perhaps she’s got tree-trunks hiding under those beautifully cut trousers? I consoled myself.

‘You do believe it’s me, don’t you?’ asked Jasmine, noting my bewilderment.

‘Um…kind of…I guess,’ I replied.

‘What if I told you that you have a tiny round mole in the middle of your left butt cheek?’

Wow. She was good.

‘And that the thing you hate most in this world, aside from Christmas cake of course, is a badly made bed.’

She really was.

‘Closely followed by filter coffee.’

Yuck.

‘And warm bubbles.’

Damn.

‘So,’ said Jasmine. ‘Do you believe me now?’

‘I guess so,’ I replied.

‘And that’s not the worst of it,’ I said to Mands and Lizzie the following evening, as I recounted my Date With Ex-Boyfriend Who Is Now a Woman.

‘What else?’ they said eagerly, sitting on the edge of the sofa, braced for gossip.

‘She’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous!’

‘No!’ they cried. ‘You’re having us on!’

‘I’m not,’ I replied, shaking my head for emphasis. ‘It’s true.’

‘The bastard!’ they chimed.

‘Exactly!’

‘What does she look like?’ asked Lizzie.

‘Gorgeous, straight, shiny black hair.’

‘Short or long?’

‘Long.’

‘And?’

‘And a beautiful long slim face with the same brown eyes and nose but that’s it.’

‘No stubble?’ asked Mands.

‘No, not a whiff. Gorgeous, smooth, tanned skin with full red lips. And the most perfect eyebrows you’ve ever seen.’

‘No way.’

‘Yes way. And…wait for it…a pair of size Cs.’

‘No!’

‘Yes!’

‘But you’re only a B. That’s not fair!’

‘I know!’ I wailed. ‘They were unbelievably perky too.’

‘Fake,’ comforted Mands.

‘How about that,’ said Lizzie. ‘Jerry has a sex change and ends up outdoing you in the gorgeous stakes.’

‘I know!’ I cried. ‘The arsehole.’

The more I thought about Jasmine, the more irate I became.

‘She even dresses well,’ I added, giving a detailed rundown of her attire.

‘Think I’ve seen that jacket at Trelise,’ replied Lizzie. ‘It’s gorgeous!’

Great. Now she was even shopping at the same places as me.

‘And,’ I added, ‘she’s been stealing my moves.’

I explained the hair-flicking incident, which had happened on more than one occasion throughout dinner.

‘Get out!’ gasped Mands. ‘That’s just not on.’

‘Bit SWF,’ added Lizzie.

‘And did she want to get down your pants?’ asked Mands, ever a gallant supporter of the worst-case scenario.

‘No. In fact she has a boyfriend.’

‘No!’

‘Yes.’

‘Mother of God,’ said Lizzie. ‘It just gets more bizarre.’

‘She showed me a picture of him.’

‘And?’

‘And,’ I hissed, ‘he’s foxy.’

‘So, it does get worse,’ said Mands, clearly relishing the situation. ‘Your ex-boyfriend, who is now a more gorgeous woman than you, has a boyfriend, who also just happens to be foxy. And yet you don’t have a boyfriend yourself.’

‘Yes. Thanks ever so much for pointing that out.’

‘Unbelievable,’ said Mands, shaking her head.

‘Ignore her, dolls,’ said Lizzie. ‘She’s just jealous.’

Sometimes best friends were a real pain in the arse, I thought to myself.

Lizzie and Mands had been my two best friends for as long as I could remember. So long that we had managed to synchronise our periods decades ago. They were the kind of lifelong friends with whom you could happily talk about the quality of your last shag (if you could remember it, that is) and who had no problem letting you know when your hair or waistline had seen better days. The three of us were PSGs (Professional Single Girls). Or at least two of us were - Lizzie had been having a raging affair with a married man named Simon for the past three months. Lizzie was to a married man as honey was to a bee.

The next morning, post Sex-Change Date rundown, I sat on the opposite side of the boardroom table in a numb daze as Trixie and Davis, the two young creatives, babbled on about their pitch for the latest shampoo commercial.

Gareth, my boss, and Erica, my assistant, were sitting on either side of me.

‘Fruitawhat?’ I asked, not sure I had heard them correctly.

‘Fruitavessence. Fruit nutrients for the hair,’ explained Trixie.

‘What in God’s name is fruitavessence?’ I asked. ‘Mashed banana in your shampoo?’

‘Brilliant!’ enthused Gareth, oblivious to the ridiculousness this fabricated word.

‘Fruitavessence to keep your hair alive,’ expanded Davis.

‘But hair is dead cells,’ I protested.

‘Shut up Sam, no one knows that,’ said Gareth, clearly sold on the ridiculous idea.

‘I like it,’ chipped in Erica.

I flicked her the Death Stare. Sometimes (quite often) I wished she would actually die. Although she was my assistant she had been hired by Gareth, against my better judgement. She was nothing but a young upstart who had her hungry eyes locked on my job, and would do anything to get it. I didn’t trust her from a cheap, fragranced bar of soap. I was just patiently waiting for her to slip in her lather so I could whip the job out from under her conniving young feet. And I was confident the time was near.

I resigned myself to defeat and set about outwardly sulking.

What kind of word was fruitavessence? I wondered. I was the one who had to present their Mork-and-Mindy ideas to clients who thought I was responsible for such ridiculousness. I could only smile profusely and hope the clients were stupid enough to swallow the pitch without questioning the logic. After all, it was painfully obvious to me after more than ten years in this career, the last eight spent at Beckett Brown Creative, that there was no logic in advertising. I was convinced that at advertising agencies all around the world there were groups of creatives who sat around in brightly coloured rooms with tea cosies perched on their hollow heads and made up these words, solely to embarrass us account managers. Words that no one had ever heard of before. Words that had absolutely NO meaning whatsoever. It was very difficult to be proven wrong when you claimed a shampoo had fruitavessence when no one actually knew what the bejesus fruitavessence was.