Seduce Me Read online

  Soaped and shampooed I step out and dry myself with a clean towel. Wrapping the damp one around my body and another around my head I make my way back to my room. It is almost eight thirty by now. No one else is awake and the flat is still and quiet. If I put my ear to any of the other bedroom doors I will hear slow, heavy snores.

  I sit in front of the mirror and gently massage my toweled head. Scrubbing hard damages the hair shaft. When I pull away the towel my hair is a wavy blue-black mess in the mirror. I part my hair and peer at the roots to see if my true color, a soft brown that turns the color of golden syrup and wheat in summer, is showing, but it is not. For many years I chemically straightened my hair, but a few months ago my hair began falling out, so now I am down to hot plates every time I wash my hair.

  I plug the hair straightener into the socket, the light comes on, and I set about applying a ten-pence-sized squirt of protective cream on the palm of my hand and working it into my hair. With the blow dryer set on medium heat I begin to dry my hair. I work carefully because it is only last night that I glued on my acrylic nails and I don’t want them ruined. They are long and pink and look good against my black hair. I adore them but can’t have them all the time; I work as a florist.

  When my hair is dry I gather thin lots between my fingers and pass them through the heated plates. Twenty minutes later my hair is a shiny black curtain falling six inches below my shoulders. I apply some wax to the ends and turn my head from side to side the way they do in shampoo adverts. The curtain swings just like it does in the ads.

  Pushing my eyelids open one at a time, I slip in my colored contact lenses. I blink quickly a few times. They settle in. I look at myself in the mirror. My dishwater color irises are now blue.

  Blue eyes and black hair—just like Lana.

  I lean forward and unscrew the cap of the foundation bottle. I apply a fine layer with a damp sponge, carefully working towards my ears and blending into my hairline. That done, I pat compact powder onto the base. I pick up a magnifying mirror and check that the job is flawless. It is.

  Time for color. First the eyes. Resting my right elbow on the dressing table top to steady it, I slowly pull the eyeliner brush around my eyes minimizing the slight upwards slant. I do the same to the other eye. Already my eyes look as big and as straight as Lana’s.

  Time to open them up: four layers of mascara. Using a combination of eye pencil and mascara and light feathery strokes, I color my eyebrows to match my hair. I tinge the apples of my cheeks with pink. Now for the hard part. I use a lip pencil and expertly draw my lips thicker than they are. The line is faultlessly even. I paint inside it. I wish I could afford those collagen injections that celebrities are always having done. But I can’t so this will have to do.

  I lean back slightly and look at myself and feel happy with the heavily painted mask the world will see. I dress in a white lace top, a cropped pink and white candy striped jacket and a darker pink mini skirt.

  I fasten a sparkly, three-row necklace of glass beads set in zinc and linked together like chainmail around my neck. If I had seen it in a store’s display case I would never have bought it, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t think it looks all that, but the Duchess of Cambridge wore one at the royal screening of Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom and all the papers and magazines called it a drool-worthy, stunning style statement. So I rushed to Zara and queued up to buy it. Just in time to snatch the second last one. It had only cost £19.99. What’s good for a Duchess…

  Sourly, I wonder what Lana will wear now that she has all that money. She’ll probably come dripping in diamonds. I step into a pair of white court shoes with soft pink polka dots. They are difficult to manage. They are not tight, simply badly designed. But they were cheap and look like a pair I have seen Paris Hilton wearing. Slowly and deliberately, so as not to stumble, I walk towards the mirror. I look at my reflection and a flutter of nervous self-doubt begins in my belly.

  I quell it—you’re not fat anymore.

  I pick up a bottle of perfume and spraying it into the air on top of my head walk through the fine mist. I do this three times. For good measure I stop breathing and, facing the spray nozzle at my body, spray it all around myself.

  I put my credit card and mobile phone into a small white Louis Vuitton handbag (fake, obviously) and stand before the mirror. My eyes are curiously blank. I gaze at my waist. Wasp tiny.

  Not bad.

  I turn back and look over my shoulder at the reflection of my derrière. That’s French for butt, by the way. I found that out in Marie Claire. The material is snug on my hard won, tantalizingly small rear.

  Not bad at all.

  Three

  Glamour (‘glaeme) American Glamor noun

  1. An air of magic or enchantment—specifically, a deceptive, bewitching and dangerous beauty or charm. Linked to spells of sorcerers, glamour indicates a mysterious, exciting magnetism dependent on artifice and falsification—make-up, beautiful clothes etc.

  2. Archaic A magic spell; enchantment, specifically to bewitch and glorify by deceptive illusion causing a kind of haze to fall over the beholder, so things are seen in a form different from reality in order to possess or control the beholder to manipulate others into forbidden or dangerous actions.

  I can afford a taxi since I won’t have to pay for lunch so I call a minicab. The driver is a Cockney lad who glances into the mirror and tells me I look like a flower arrangement. ‘You even smell like one,’ he says.

  I keep my voice cool. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I love a girl who takes the time to dress up. Nowadays it’s hard to tell women from men. What with everyone wearing the T-shirts and jeans uniform.’

  I make the mistake of looking into his rear-view mirror. He is watching me. I smile distantly.

  ‘Maybe we can meet up and go out for a drink sometime?’

  As if I would go out with a taxi driver. I hate swearing, but it is precisely idiots like these that get me going. Fucking imbecilic moron.

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve got a boyfriend,’ I say frostily.

  ‘Can’t blame a bloke for trying…’ He shakes his head regretfully, as if he ever stood any chance of going out with me.

  I turn my head towards the moving scenery and for the rest of the journey keep my eyes firmly and deliberately away from him while I fume silently. Lana gets the billionaire and I get minicab drivers coming on to me. When we reach my destination he leers at me as he fumbles around for change from my tenner.

  ‘Here you are, love.’

  I hold my hand out. I don’t tip him.

  He drives off and I look up at the building. Pretty impressive. The lobby is clean, but unremarkable. I take the lift, walk along a beige corridor lit with wall sconces, and stop outside apartment fourteen. I ring the bell. Sash’s Ecuador is blaring inside. I wait a few minutes but no one comes to open the door. I take my mobile out and tap into it.

  ‘I’m outside.’

  Billie opens the door in her bra and knickers. ‘Be a few minutes more,’ she shouts over the music. ‘Make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything you find in the fridge and look around, but if you get bored come into my bedroom.’ Leaving the door open she disappears down a corridor while I stand in the living room looking around me.

  Oh! Wow.

  I have been to Billie’s room when she was living with her mum and it was done up in many colors and fun, but always a bit messy. But this, this is grown-up and seductively elegant. Like one of those sophisticated Parisian flats. With palm trees in bronze pots, a fainting couch and a low divan that has a peacock with a spread tail embroidered on it. There are scatter cushions in bright pink, a crystal pig on the coffee table and tapestries on the walls.

  One wall is papered with richly colored birds on winding vines on a deep blue background. The curtains are all floor-length and expensively heavy with green, blue and pink tassels as thick as fingers. The nooks and crannies hold bronze and lapis lazuli lamps. At night they must create a soft amber glow
for Billie.

  A large, elegant armchair signals the end of the living room. Behind it thick drapes section off an intimate dining room with a green marble topped table and ruby chairs. I stand for a moment absorbing the foreignness of it all—the mirror, the beautiful intricately carved silver fruit bowl filled with fruit—and cannot help the envy that pours into my heart.

  Not only Lana but even Billie is now living like a queen.

  If I get close to Lana will her billionaire fiancé get me a flat like this too? And a fruit bowl that will always be full?

  I walk towards the French door into the balcony. There are bamboo plants in blue pots and a stone water feature. The gurgling, splashing sound it makes is soothing. I look down at the scenery, the canal, the pretty houses, restaurants and bars with surprise. What a difference a cab ride can make. It almost feels as though I am in a different country. No trace of the concrete jungle here!

  I grip the metal rail and feel sad.

  Then I steel myself, turn away and walk through the corridor along the thick carpet. The first door I open is a baby’s room. It has a cot and lots of toys. I suppose Lana’s son must spend nights here. I close that door and open the next. A second bedroom. There is a desk untidy with piles of sketches. I go towards the desk and look at some of them. Billie did say I could look around. Baby clothes as colorful as parrots adorn the pages. I am surprised by how lovely they are. But what is Billie doing designing baby clothes?

  The music has either come to an end or Billie has switched it off. I close the door softly and pass a bathroom—the wall and ceiling are cloudy gray marble. The most surprising thing about her bathroom is the polished mahogany toilet seat. Thick and broad, I imagine it must be an antique. A few more steps brings me to the threshold of a stunningly impeccable kitchen. Even the grouting between the floor tiles is pale and clean. Either Billie never cooks or she is a cleaning beast. Knowing Billie as I do, I’ll stick with the first option.

  There is a tin of baby biscuits on the otherwise barren kitchen table. The sink is empty and dry. All the granite surfaces are as clean as two new pins. I open the fridge. It keeps a pizza box of leftovers, some bars of chocolate and a carton of orange juice. There is a bottle of vodka and a tray of ice cubes in the freezer. I close it and go back to Billie’s bedroom. The room stinks of hairspray.

  Billie puts the can down and turns towards me. Her hair is the color of teal. It kind of suits her.

  ‘Didn’t you get yourself a drink? I’ve got vodka.’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m all right.’

  It’s bad enough that we will be having Chinese food. That stuff is loaded with MSG. And MSG is the stuff researchers feed rats to make them fat fast. My eyes run over Billie’s body. She has the type of body that Pink the singer has. Firm and muscular. I guess Billie carries it off well, but in my books that’s just one step away from running into fat. I am surprised to see that her legs are unshaved. She catches me staring in the mirror.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll shave before I get into that bridesmaid dress,’ she says, amused by my blatant curiosity.

  ‘I…’ Oh good God, she probably thinks I’m lusting after her.

  Billie laughs at my expression. ‘Sorry, but I don’t sleep with straight girls.’

  Suddenly all the years of working to better myself drop off a cliff. Deep down inside me I know nothing has changed. I am still the fat unattractive kid with the hairstyle that looks like a mental illness. Chased and bullied and monstrously ugly. Blood slams into my head. For a lightning moment I imagine rushing at her, my nails curved like talons. They pierce the jelly of her eyes.

  Then she winks at me and I realize it was just a joke to cover an uncomfortable moment. She didn’t mean any harm. It was me who had been rudely staring at her unclothed body. With that knowledge all is forgiven. She is the kid I always wanted to befriend, the coolest girl in school. The other kids were merciless, but neither Lana nor she ever took part in shaming me.

  I smile back. ‘You’ve done up the place real nice.’

  ‘It’s easy to make something look good when you have no budget constraints.’

  ‘Really?’ My voice is incredulous. ‘You were allowed to have anything you wanted?’

  Billie nods and puts away the hairdryer.

  ‘What’s Blake like?’ I ask curiously. I have only met Lana’s man once at a party when he came to collect her. Intimidating as hell. As if chiseled from stone he stood in our midst, haughty, disdainful, and broadcasting universal sex appeal. Suddenly our eyes met across the room. His had poured over me like iced water, found nothing of interest and dismissively moved on. It was clear that he found us all utterly beneath him. He had not stayed long.

  ‘Banker boy?’ Billie says. There is indulgence and genuine affection in her voice. ‘He can be cold-blooded, but he’s always been good to me and he loves Lana.’ She pauses. ‘In fact, don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so passionately in love. He loves her more than anything or anyone else in this world.’

  A shaft of white-hot jealousy stabs me in the gut. Lana gets it right every time. Not only has she snared a billionaire, but one who is completely smitten with her. I make a huge effort to keep my smile in place.

  ‘What about his son?’

  ‘He would give up his life for the boy, but if Sorab and Lana were drowning, and he could only save one, there would be no hesitation. No matter what it cost him it would always be Lana.’

  I lapse into silence and wonder what it must be like to be so treasured. No one has ever loved me, let alone so desperately. Billie slides open a cupboard and takes out a purple T-shirt that screams I MIGHT SAY YES in green and a pair of banana yellow jeans. She dresses quickly, pulls on a pair of leopard print boots with red soles and, snagging a man’s black leather jacket from a hanger, turns towards me.

  ‘Shall we go?’

  We hail a cab and it drops us off outside the restaurant. This is where Billie and Lana often meet for dim sum. Lana has telephoned to say she is running late. We go in without her. The restaurant has no natural light. The walls are lacquered black, the carpet under our feet is the color of soot and the place is lit only with strategically placed spotlights that make the tablecloths rise out of the dark ground like very white lilies in a pond. We take our seats. I choose one that faces the door. I want to watch Lana come in.

  A waitress comes to hand us our menus and ask what we would like to drink.

  ‘Vodka,’ pips Billie.

  ‘Chinese tea,’ I say more slowly.

  I have just taken my first sip when Lana comes in carrying her baby. Every head in the room turns to look. A knife twists in my heart.

  She is the living embodiment of that elusive quality: glamour.

  Four

  He has a silly name, Sorab. I would have called him Brad. He looks like a Brad, with sparkly blue eyes fringed by long curling lashes and the most solemn face you ever saw in a child.

  ‘So sorry I’m late,’ Lana apologizes breathlessly, and going around the table kisses first Billie and then me on the cheek. Her skin is softly perfumed and her lips are soft as they rest briefly on my skin. Strangely, the kiss from my sworn enemy doesn’t cause me to flinch inwardly. In fact, some part of me welcomes the feel of it.

  Both Billie and I assure her that she is not late, we have only just arrived ourselves. While she settles Sorab into a high chair and ties some highly colored toys to it and Billie is fussing over the child, I surreptitiously watch her over my menu. In truth I am shocked.

  I had expected designer gear, Manolo Blahniks and diamonds, but she is dressed simply in a beige cashmere jumper that comes to her hips, black drainpipe jeans and a pair of those unfussy, flat-heeled riding boots you see in equestrian magazines. They look like nothing but cost the earth.

  ‘Are you guys ready to order?’ she asks, opening her menu, and the massive rock in her engagement ring blinds me.

  ‘Goodness!’ I exclaim. ‘How many carats is that?’

  Lana l
ooks embarrassed. ‘Ten.’

  ‘Wow! Can I see it?’

  She holds her hand out to me and I take it. Her fingers are finely boned and elegant, the skin soft and unblemished. I feel ashamed of mine. My stubby digits are scratched by rose thorns, and the knuckles scarred and grazed from forcing my fingers down my throat to induce vomiting. Suddenly even my beautiful pink nails look garish and brazen.

  Under the spotlights of the restaurant the stone—an oval cut pink diamond—is so dazzling it is almost impossible to look away from its brilliance. To show off the vividly pink flawless stone it has been mounted on a plain band without any fuss or embellishments. I recognize the design. I have seen it before.

  ‘It’s a Repossi, isn’t it?’

  Lana looks surprised and impressed. ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘I saw it in a magazine.’

  ‘How observant you are, Jules? It is custom, but the setting is from a collection called Tell Me Yes.

  ‘It’s very, very beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I release her hand, the ancient envy stirring, stretching, in a foul mood.

  The waitress comes around and Lana orders green tea. Immediately, I wish I had ordered that. It sounds far more exclusive than plain old Chinese tea. I make a note to order that in future.

  We order a selection of dishes and the menus are taken away.

  ‘I thought your wedding card was really nice.’

  Lana smiles. ‘Good. I’m glad you like it. I wanted Sorab to be included.’

  ‘Personally, I think you should have done a badass zombie invite. Not even death will do us part sort of thing,’ Billie says.