Page 47 of If I Never Met You

Laurie

Well that’s a ringing endorsement of my fashion sense.

Jamie

Hahaha! I don’t know what you usually wear on a Saturday night, do I? The point is it looks different to Dan. WOMEN

Laurie gave a grudging small smile.

Everyone was talking about her anyway. She’d give them something to talk about.

17

Laurie stepped into a very modern hair salon with retro beehive 1950s dryers, playing Carly Rae Jepsen very loudly, and knew she was trespassing. A lumpen interloper from the ordinary world in the universe of the naturally sexual, at ease with themselves and on trend.

There were about fifteen staff milling around the front desk, most of them with experimental hairstyles and tiny BMIs, clad in spray-on PVC leggings. The look was Ziggy Stardust meets Warren Beatty inShampoo, and no one here was alive when either was released.

Every pair of kohled eyes was momentarily on her, and she was asked if she ‘had an appointment’ with an air of magnificent disbelief and disdain. Usually you’d have to go to restaurants in Paris in muddy wellies to get this sort of hauteur.

These looks were practiced to nepal the insufficiently cool, the narrowed eyes conveying:You know there are perfectly good neighbourhood places that’ll give you Rachel fromFriendslayers and a cup of Yorkshire Gold?Laurie realised it wasn’t only her Afro hair that kept her out, she was also clearly too old, too shabby and too unpierced. How dare they assume;for all they knew her labia minora could set airport metal detectors off.

The camp man with arched, pencilled eyebrows and peculiarly shiny skin said, ‘You’re with Honey, she’s on her break. Take a seat.’Honey. A world where honey was a name and not a sweet viscous substance.

Honey bounced out of a door within minutes. ‘Hiiiiii is it Laurie? Do you want to come over? Did you want a drink? Coffee, tea, mini prosecco?’

Laurie relaxed a degree.

‘Oh … ooh. Mini prosecco?’ Why the hell not.

‘I wish I could join ya, roll on six o’clock hahahahah,’ said Honey, rifling in a mini fridge and unscrewing the cap, before plonking a paper straw into it and handing it to Laurie.

Honey was short, with a very round face and eyes, spiky peroxide hair with an undercut, her petite frame clad in a Metallica T-shirt. Maybe it was the openness of her expression, but Laurie found her less scary than the other staff.

‘What are we doing today then?’ Honey said, after guiding her to a mirror, hands on the back of Laurie’s chair, looking at her reflection.

Laurie pulled the band out of her customary ponytail and started making self-conscious British jokes about the state of her hair.

Are you type 3C? Honey said, digging the tips of her fingers in the sides of Laurie’s hair and ploofing it, putting her hand at the crown and riffling from side to side.

Laurie near-gasped. ‘You know your stuff.’

‘Yeah, your hair is sort of my favourite, actually! Did Emily say? Yeah.’ She proudly pointed at shelves of relevant products.

Ah, thought Laurie. Always trust Emily.

‘Do you always wear it pulled back? Never loose? You’re wasting it!’

‘Hardly ever. I got into the habit because it’s easier at work. I’m a solicitor and, you know, you want to keep it simple.’

Laurie was about to stutter further explanations then thought: Honey was abouttwenty-four years old, white as mozzarella and a fan of heavy metal. She was not about to pass political judgement on Laurie for not celebrating her hair, the way her mum had. (A debate that usually ended with Laurie pointing out she hadn’t asked to be born, and thinking her dad would probably agree.)

‘Your skin tone is beautiful, wish I was like you instead of getting sunburn from the flash on my phone!’ Honey laughed and Laurie laughed with her. Oh to be unselfconscious like that again.

‘Your hair is actually in really good condition,’ Honey said, pulling a strand and rubbing it between finger and thumb. ‘What are you thinking?’

Laurie sucked in a breath and considered equivocating about ‘take some of the length off’ and thought, after an empowering drag on her prosecco straw, she might as well go for it. She’d come this far.

‘My long-term boyfriend has finished with me after eighteen years and I always have my hair in that ratty pony and to be honest, I just want to look really fucking good for a change.’

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