LINGERIE & HARDWARE
Jamie taped the box shut and sighed. Wiping a bead of sweat from her brow, she surveyed the kitchen, a sea of boxes all neatly labelled ‘kitchen.’ How could there be so many boxes from one relatively small kitchen? She wondered if she was being stupid shipping it all back. Surely it would be cheaper just to buy new. But she recognised that as soon as she landed in London, she’d have to continue her gruelling schedule of shoots for the car campaign. There simply wouldn’t be time to do anything else. No, she was definitely doing the right thing. Just pack it all and sort everything out once they are settled. But who, in their right mind, decides to move to another country and then only gives themselves a week to turn it around?
The doorbell rang and startled her. “I’m coming,” she yelled out, rushing towards the door. Jamie imagined she must look a right sight, so briefly checked her reflection in the large bronze-framed mirror by the door—yet another thing to be packed. Her ensemble of cut-off denim shorts and a light blue halter neck top wasn’t unlike something Madison might wear. Her curls were scraped up into a messy bun on top of her head, looking remarkably like a pineapple. A messy pineapple at that.
“Only me.” She heard from beyond the door, blocked by an army of more boxes. Deftly edging her way around them, she opened the large wooden door and felt awash with relief. There stood Kate with a huge grin on her face. Jamie smiled as she leaned in to hug her friend, who surprisingly had on white denim shorts with a not so surprising white baggy T-shirt. Jamie nearly commented that she’d never seen Kate in any other colour than black. Kate caught Jamie looking at her and as if she read her mind. “Black is only for the winter. I flip to white in the summer.”
“Oh my god, you have no idea how happy I am to see you.” Jamie took one of Kate’s hands, attempting to help her navigate back through the boxes and into the clear. “This packing is doing my head in. I’ve spent hours and only finished the kitchen. Doesn’t seem that long ago that I packed everything to come here.”
“Fear not, your very efficient friend Kate is here. I’ll have you know I’m a whizz at packing, and labelling. We’ll get this done.” Kate refrained from mentioning that she did, in fact, spend many a day organising the insides of her cupboards just to have something to do. She could do this with her eyes closed. “And besides, you’re forgetting our secret weapon.” Kate lifted the large Marks can’t you ask David to pick up the girls? Pretty pleeeease.” Jamie pulled the cutest, most angelic face she could muster.
“Trust me, I can’t. I want to. But I can’t. Thursday is the only day I get to spend any one-on-one time with Emily. I can’t let her down. We can both have virgin Cosmos if you like?” Kate said, trying to ignore Jamie’s now bleak and disappointed expression. “Come on, Jamie, let’s get cracking.” Kate’s attempt to distract her friend was thwarted as she became aware of her surroundings. Kate gazed around the open-concept living area, which had a small kitchen tucked away through an archway at the back. It was the perfect fusion of old Spanish charm with clean, modern lines. Kate took note of several large paintings that dominated the walls. One in particular caught her eye. It was a woman wearing a red dress, dancing almost Flamenco-style. The figure was slightly blurry, as if you could almost feel her every move. It was breathtakingly beautiful and undeniably passionate.
“Oh wow, Jamie. This duplex is amazing.” Kate finally averted her eyes from the life-sized work of art. Noticing the French doors, cast wide open, leading out to the balcony beyond the lounge area, she made a beeline for it.
“Crikey, what a view.” Kate leaned onto the wrought-iron railings, looking out to sea. The apartment was every beach lover's dream. The water looked almost cobalt as it glimmered under the sun, dotted with several white fishing boats, which only served to further accentuate its rich colour. Kate watched with fascination as the world walked, ran, and cycled along towards the beach below. Whilst it wasn’t exactly city-living, there was far more life here than there was in her little village of Santa Maria. Irresistibly charming Mallorquin life. It wasn’t hard to see the appeal. “This is just amazing Jamie.” Turning now to face her friend, who was standing behind her. “Are you ready to go back to London? It’s going to be a bit of a change after having this,” Kate said with all sincerity, sweeping the air with her arms.
“I know. The view is incredible. But I don’t have much of a choice at the moment. It’s weird because for the last month or so I’ve been feeling restless here, but now that the reality of going back has finally hit me, I feel kinda sad.”
“I know. But it’s the right thing to do, you know it is.” Kate understood. “Honestly, I think I’m a little jealous.”
“Jealous? Of what?” Jamie couldn’t imagine what Kate could possibly be jealous of. Her life seemed to be so idyllic and secure.
“Ufff, Let’s not get into that now. I’m here on a mission.” Kate grinned, promptly changing the subject. “So kitchen fully done? But how are you going to cook? You're not leaving for another week?”
“Haha, you obviously don’t know me well enough. I don’t cook. I don’t even eat. But there are such things as restaurants, and I’m pretty sure we can get a takeaway for my mum and Maddy somewhere around here.” Cooking was the least of her worries. She found it funny that it seemed to be Kate’s primary concern.
Stepping away from the railing, Kate turned towards her friend. “So bedrooms next? Which one shall we start with?” Grabbing her marker pens from her bag.
“Let’s do mine.” Jamie decided as she led Kate back through the duplex, up the stairs and into her bedroom. “We can start here. It’s where I have the most stuff, anyway.” Jamie threw open the doors of her walk-in wardrobe and Kate’s jaw dropped as she surveyed the contents. It was like a fireworks display of colour; a treasure chest of emeralds, rubies and sapphires all glistening. God, she was so boring, thinking of her own cupboards, which literally only had white or black, and she made a mental note to brighten up her own wardrobe.
“Have you separated what you need for the next few days?” Kate said, stepping into her uber-practical mode.
“Well, no, but good thinking. Hmmmm.” Jamie glided her fingers across hanger upon hanger of exquisite clothing, stopping to touch a dress. Looking at the black and incredibly skimpy number, Kate started laughing.
“Jamie, you need that? Really? I was thinking more along the lines of knickers, a bra, jeans, and a couple of tops.”
“Yeah, yeah, those too but I do have a few days left. You never know.” Jamie winked, as thoughts of Tomás popped into her mind.
“Bloody hell girl. We are so so different. Have you done your charity pile yet?”
“What charity pile? I’m not giving any of this away. You never know when I might need them, especially back in London.”
“You need all of this? Wow.” But as she looked at the backless sequined dress with the plunging neckline, Kate realised that Jamie’s clothes had a very different destiny than her own.
“Okay, fine. Let’s move on. Why don’t you do your bedside drawers? And I’ll focus here. Do you want me to leave your lingerie drawer, or are you happy for me to do it?” Kate saw that the first drawer was filled with lingerie. She was going to say ‘underwear’ but recognised that whilst her own full-coverage bras and functional knickers could be called that, Jamie’s definitely fell under the category of ‘lingerie.’
Jamie, now engrossed in transferring the contents of her bedside drawers into a box, didn’t even look at Kate. “Nah, I have nothing to hide. You can box all of that.”
“Do you need a black bag for the rubbish?” Kate noticed Jamie was emptying the contents directly into a small box without sorting them out first.
“What rubbish? I haven’t had a chance to accumulate any.”
Whilst Jamie continued to put things straight from the drawers into boxes, Kate wanted to do things more methodically. Focusing on the opened drawer, she noticed that whilst the contents weren’t arranged by colour—as hers were—they were certainly very organised.
“Aha!” Kate announced, like a detective finding an important clue.
“Aha what?”
“I’ve found rubbish. In your lingerie drawer. You do have rubbish, after all.” As Kate pulled out an unidentifiable mass of flesh-coloured string.
“That’s not rubbish.” Jamie chuckled while Kate continued to twist and turn the item. “That’s definitely lingerie.”
“How is this lingerie?” Kate was mystified at how a ball of string could be underwear. “It looks like something from the ironmonger.”
“The ironmonger? Kate, do you know you use words left over from a different century?”
“Okay, the ferreteria as they say in Spain.” Kate was almost taken aback for remembering the word for hardware store. Brilliant, she couldn’t remember normal useful things like ‘where is the toilet?’ but she knew what the hardware store was. Bloody marvellous . Jamie was near pissing herself laughing.
“You are mistaking my very useful underwear for a ball of string.” Giggling, she went to retrieve the item from Kate.
“Look, this bit goes under here. That bit goes under the breasts.” Jamie was demonstrating over her clothes. Kate was now in equal hysterics.
“ Voilà! Lingerie. It’s for when you are wearing a see-through dress.” Jamie hoped to help Kate grasp the functionality of the item in question.
Kate could hardly breathe. She was laughing so much that tears actually started to fall. Whilst choking with laughter, she managed to spurt out, “See-through dress.” She just couldn’t stop laughing, especially as Jamie now looked ridiculous. “See-through dress.” She was on a loop. She couldn’t manage any other words, almost doubled over now. Like a see-through dress was the last thing she would ever own, and just the thought of what she would look like in one prolonged her hysterical fit of giggles.
“I think I’ve peed myself,” Kate finally announced. “Okay, Jamie. So not string from the hardware store. Well, that’s a relief.”
Both girls returned to their respective tasks with the occasional murmurings of, “See-through dress,” from Kate. Once Jamie had finished with the bedside drawers, she sat down next to the giggling Kate, and the two girls systematically finished all the contents of Jamie’s cupboards. Once the last box was sealed, Kate couldn’t resist labelling the lingerie box as ‘Lingerie I don’t want to look like a clown.” As the last bit of her resistance withered away. Besides, she never really went out, but Kate didn’t want to upset her enthusiastic friend with the full disclosure that she was a boring person. Jamie seemed to see something different in her, and Kate suddenly became aware of her own potential as seen through her friend’s eyes.
“Kate, please trust me. I'm going to make it look so natural, I promise, and you’re going to love it. David is going to love it too. Just give me half an hour. Oooohhhh and let’s have a Cosmo, seeing that you’ve bought all the stuff. And for the record, we will be seeing each other again. You’ll come to London, I’ll come back to visit; and in the meantime, we can text and FaceTime and still email too. So please stop thinking this is the end. But first, it’s Cosmo time.” Jamie headed down to the kitchen.
“Shit,” Jamie shouted up from the bottom of the stairs, loud enough for Kate to hear.
“What?”
“I packed the friggin’ glasses.” As she resumed rummaging around the kitchen, “Are you sure I can’t tempt you to a proper one?” Jamie yelled up again.
“NO, you absolutely can’t. I cannot be led astray.” Kate was adamant whilst thinking that was exactly what was happening, letting Jamie give her a makeover. Jamie returned, grinning with two disposable Frozen cups leftover from Madison’s party.
“Look what I found.”
Kate sniffed her drink.
“What are you doing?” Jamie looked perplexed.
“Checking you didn’t spike my Perrier!”