Famous (8 page)

Oh how I wish, in sweet but useless retrospect, that I’d said something other than ‘Okay.’ Something like ‘I think I’ll wait another week or so’ or ‘I think I’ll stick to my usual salon, thanks anyway.’ I usually went to Flossie, but Esther, my regular beautician, had recently developed the unsavoury ability to drag a bikini wax out until I was sure she had actually stripped me of my womanhood and was going to hand it to me in a small brown envelope on my way out the door, saying something like, ‘Here’s your clitoris Sam. Terribly sorry about that.’

Oh Christ, I thought to myself, as Lizzie and I arrived at Jewel on Saturday morning, I’ve got my period. How on earth could you have forgotten that?

‘Guess what?’ I hissed at Lizzie as we sat in the waiting room flicking through old copies of
Vanity Fair
. ‘I’ve got my period.’

‘Hell!’ she hissed back. ‘Oh well, it shouldn’t matter. Are you plugged?’.

‘Course,’ I replied. Obviously Lizzie and I had fallen out of menstrual sync. It happened occasionally.

‘You’ll be fine then. Don’t worry about it.’

Ten minutes later we were called into our separate rooms. I stripped off my skirt and knickers and lay back on the table reading my magazine, as Celeste the technician plastered hot wax precariously close to my womanly core.

Think about the results, I told myself. Forget about the pain.

Please God, just let her be quick, I prayed. There was nothing in the world more horrific than a drawn-out bikini wax.

‘Here we go,’ said Celeste. ‘We’ll do the upper area now. Just relax, Samantha.’

Impossible. I braced myself for the impact.

‘On the count of three,’ said Celeste. ‘One…two…and…three.’

Shit and bugger. Was there anything more painful in the world?

‘There we go then,’ she said, looking up at me and smiling.

‘That’s one side. Well done.’

Hallelujah to that, I thought, looking back at her with the agonised sneer that only the bikini-waxed can perfect.

‘Other side now,’ she said. ‘Here we go. One…two…and…three.’

Lord have mercy. It just didn’t get any easier.

‘That’s the top all done,’ she said cheerfully. ‘We’ll do the lower area now.’

‘One…two…and…great, that’s one side done. Now for the last little bit. Nearly there Samantha.’

I braced myself for the agonising finale.

‘One…two…and…’

Two things happened on Celeste’s final count of three. One was that the right side of my lower bikini line had all unwanted hair successfully removed. And the other was, unfortunately for all those concerned, that my hair wasn’t the only thing to be removed.

‘Sweet Jesus!’ cried Celeste, as my airborne tampon flew past her right cheek and hit the wall behind her, before dropping to the floor.

‘Ohmygod!’ she gushed, turning as red as a beet. ‘I am so…sorry!’

Generally in situations of incredible discomfort involving two people there is one person who is more embarrassed than the other. But in this case I think it was fair to say that Celeste and I were both first equal.

‘It’s okay,’ I muttered, as I lay spread-eagled on the table, turning far redder than ever before.

‘I’ll just…um…get it,’ said Celeste, turning around.

‘No! I’ve got it!’ I burst out, lurching up from the table.

The last thing I wanted in this world was a complete stranger picking my used tampon up from the carpet. Especially as it had just sailed through the air in perilously close proximity to her face.

I jumped up, still half-naked, and retrieved my travelling tampon from the floor, by its string.

‘Have you got any…ah…paper?’ I asked.

‘Aha,’ said Celeste, still completely crimson.

She handed me a piece of paper and I promptly wrapped the tampon it in and placed it safely in my handbag.

‘Are we…um…done?’ I asked, attempting to regain some form of composure, which was nigh on impossible.

‘Yes,’ replied Celeste, unable to look me in the face. Who could blame her?

‘I’ll leave you to get dressed,’ she added. ‘Hopefully I’ll see you again…sometime.’

This was definitely one of those things that people say, regardless of whether they actually mean it or not. I was quite positive Celeste did not want to see either me or my vagina ever again.

I got dressed quicker than after waking up next to an ugly bloke after a huge night on the plonk, grabbed my handbag (complete with runaway tampon) and bolted out to the waiting room.

‘You know what’s going to happen now, don’t you?’ I said to Lizzie, as we drove home. ‘I’m going to be the horror story that’s told at beauty schools all around the country. The story that makes beauty technicians everywhere wonder if they shouldn’t consider another career, and is it too late to get their course fees back? The story that gets passed down through bikini-waxing generations until nobody’s really sure if it actually happened, or if it’s just some sort of horrible urban myth.’

Lizzie slowed down and pulled the car to the side of the road. She was having trouble driving while laughing hysterically.

‘I am never going back there,’ I added. ‘Ever. In fact I’m never having a bikini wax ever again. I’m going to go all Hairy Maclary from now on. I’ll be an Amazonian woman.’

‘Ksssss,’ said Lizzie, as she banged her head on the steering wheel.

‘And you’re not to bloody tell anyone,’ I ordered. ‘Not even Mands.’

‘Oh…come…on…tsss…’ laughed Lizzie. ‘Gotta…tsss…tell…Mands.’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘En-Oh. And stop bloody laughing and start driving,’ I ordered. ‘I wanna go home.’

Later that week, after Mands had been filled in on the whole sorry saga by Lizzie and laughed hysterically until I was positive she was going to spontaneously combust, the three of us decided it was well and truly time for us to organize a fabulous and schmoozy dinner party. More commonly known as the prime opportunity to network and openly pillage one’s friends’ contacts for the benefit of oneself.

The girls came over to my apartment after work and we set about organising the crucial list of Who To Invite, while devouring several bottles of sauvignon blanc. The venue, Mands’ apartment, could comfortably seat twelve at the dining table, so the inevitable culling began. The three of us were the pinnacle hostesses for the evening and naturally had to be present. That left nine seats to strategically allocate. I had vain hopes of one day being headhunted by top ad agency Miles & McKay. Therefore we had to invite one of the senior account managers, Sean, who was very conveniently an old university friend of Lizzie’s. That left eight seats. Lizzie was currently defending the managing director of a pharmaceutical company against allegations of misconduct by two of the board members. One of the board members who had raised the allegations was a great tennis friend of Mand’s ex-boyfriend’s sister Julie. Therefore we had to invite Julie along, and her husband Hamish. Although she was still seething over Bryce, Lizzie was also presently having a raging affair with a very married man named Simon, the head of his own public-relations company. She had been solidly shagging him for the past three months, so naturally he was invited. It seemed Lizzie just couldn’t get enough of married men. For some strange reason she also wanted to invite Simon’s wife, Lisa. She was quietly hoping once Simon saw her and Lisa in the same room he would opt for the lure of the younger, single woman (ie Lizzie).

‘Are you sure you want to invite her along too?’ I asked, concerned that this might not be such a wise idea.

‘It’s the only way I’m going to get him to make a decision,’ replied Lizzie. ‘Put him on the spot.’

‘Aren’t you worried that she’ll sense something?’ I asked.

‘Well hopefully,’ interjected Mands. ‘That’s the plan, isn’t it?’

‘Right,’ I replied, unsure as to what the rest of Lizzie’s plan might be.

That left four seats.

Mands was contemplating adding the title Celebrity Agent to her diamante belt. Therefore I was required to invite Jasper Carlson, the actor I had met on several advertisements over the years and befriended. Jasper had many famous friends whom Mands held high hopes of one day putting on her books. No doubt, like him, they would one day end up shagging an underage girl and need the best PR strategy money could buy.

I had no qualms about inviting Jasper, he was absolutely gorgeous and ideal table decoration if nothing else. Three seats remained.

Mands had started semi-shagging a Swedish man named Sven, so we had to invite him along. Sven was a lovely piece of Nordic eye candy and also the owner of several fantastic restaurants around town where we’d often end up dining for free. Plus, his networks were untapped gold. For someone who had been in the country barely a year, Sven seemed to know absolutely everyone. That left two seats.

We decided we really needed to have another celebrity persona present, solely for the entertainment factor, and tossed up between Jenna Griffin, who was good friends with Mands’ sister and also a scandalous television personality, and Jonty Hill, the country’s most famous jockey, who was much loved for his mountainesque cocaine habit (which he had managed to kick eight times) and for breaking up no less than six marriages in the past ten years. It was a tough call but we went with Jenna. That left one seat.

It was a unanimous decision to squeeze another chair around the table and to invite Samuel Evans and Darcy Simpson, the owners of Salute. They were both MATs (Men About Town) and very well connected. They were also the most in-demand gay couple on the dinner-party scene. It was unheard of these days to host a dinner party without having at least one gay person present. Amazingly, although we had set the date for only a fortnight’s time, all of our guests were able to come. That meant there would be thirteen of us in attendance. Some people might have thought this was an unlucky number to have at a dinner party. And some people didn’t give it a passing thought, but really should have.

There was no point having a dinner party unless you could afford to have it catered for, we all agreed. The very idea of slaving over a hot oven all day, just to produce something that tasted as if it were homemade, sent shivers down our three spines.

On the Wednesday night before the dinner party, Mands rang Prego to see if their head chef Manuel would do the honours. In past emergencies he had hand-delivered food to her apartment, already immaculately presented on white dinner plates. All we had to do was heat the plates in her oven. It was foolproof. Mands put Manuel on speakerphone and he promptly rattled off a menu for the evening.

‘See vill ave poompkin en ginger ravioli in er vite vine zauce for see ztar-ter. Vollowed by oney zeared zalmon villet en vild mushroom vice en zpring veg-e-table ex-travaganza for see main. Vollowed by zokolat en boyzonberry zoufflé for see dezzert.’

‘Sounds delicious!’ we replied in unison.

The man’s accent got me every time.

‘I vill bring to yer ouse zat five o’clock pm on Zaturday.’

He was just so efficient too, which made me love him even more. If we could have spared a seat I seriously would have considered inviting him along.

The only thing left to organise was the alcohol, and that’s where the phone and a delivery service once again came in handy. I ordered a selection of champagne and fine wines to be delivered chilled to Mands’ apartment on Saturday afternoon. I had once ordered several bottles of wine for a dinner party, only to have them delivered at room temperature, which had caused complete chaos as I frantically attempted to chill them in my toaster-sized freezer. It was hard enough getting ready for a dinner party, without worrying about chilling bottles of wine.

Saturday evening arrived and with it Manuel ferrying several gorgeous-looking dinner plates up Mands’ stairs.

‘Zere vee go,’ he declared, delicately placing the last plate onto Mands’ stainless-top bench, without so much as twitching one of the chargrilled baby carrots.

He had also brought us several delicious platters of hors d’oeuvres to be served upon arrival.

‘Thank you Manuel!’ cried Mands, flinging her arms around his neck. ‘You have saved our lives.’

‘Zu are velcome,’ beamed Manuel. ‘I hope zu bea-u-ti-ful gurlz ave a loverly zevening.’