CHAPTER 2
IT IS GOING to be a long fucking new day.
I’m in an old hall in inner Melbourne that’s been restored to its nineteenth-century glory.
That means it is insanely beautiful—intricate plasterwork in pastel pinks, greens and creams cover the walls and ceilings, there’s gold-leaf trim everywhere, and the floors are actual hardwood, not that fake laminate stuff they put in new houses.
Even the bathrooms look like something out of a museum.
It also means that it is somehow even colder in here than it is outside and nearly impossible to heat (stupid high ceilings), which is a twofold problem.
I will spend the next several hours freezing my ass off, and a significant portion of that time will be wasted listening to people decked out in their flimsiest finery complaining about it too. And of course it will be my fault.
Reg, bless him, had the forethought to bring me a coffee to start our shift, the first of many stimulants that will sponsor today’s episode of ‘Shit I do for rent money’.
One of the suppliers has brought the tables and chairs to the wrong entrance and just dumped them there, so Reg and I have to wheel them all around in that misty Melbourne thing that isn’t quite drizzle and isn’t quite fog but still definitely fucks up my hair.
And then we just kind of have to sit around for ages because a bunch of big guys in high-vis have to build, and no one has really thought about what we would do while that happens.
In the middle of this actually historic setting, they are in the process of building their own fake historic setting.
Temporary walls with LED sconces spray-painted a patchy bronze attached, freshly rolled-out carpet, new furniture distressed to look antique, cutlery and crockery in colours that match the ceiling, the only part of the actual building guests will get to see.
I have to wear those hospital booties over my shoes to avoid damaging the cream carpet as I set up tables and chairs, but I’ve been doing this long enough to be just waiting for the other shoe to drop—that shoe being some contractor’s muddy boot that will ruin the carpet and make me lose what is left of my mind.
The funny part—to me anyway—is that the event in question is some big football thing.
Because nothing says men’s professional sport like beetroot carpaccio served on pink floral-printed china.
Several hours, hundreds of plates, thousands of glasses and an unknowable number of flowers later, I wander outside to sit down.
It is already dusk, and the frigid air stabs through my wannabe-North Face jacket from Kmart.
Reg offers me a cigarette, which I decline, but I perch next to him on an overturned milk crate and he lights up.
‘Do you ever wonder,’ he says as he draws back, ‘about what happens to all this stuff once they’ve commissioned it for an event like this?
’ I open my eyes and look at Reg and his crinkled brow.
‘Like, do they reuse these stupid custom walls for something else, or does it just go into storage or hard rubbish? Just feels wasteful as fuck.’ He is right; it does.
But I hadn’t picked Reg for a secret sustainability king.
Maybe it’s the smokes that threw me off.
‘I really hope they reuse them. But it’s hard to believe that there’s huge demand for tacky fake nineteenth-century dioramas.’ We look at each other for a moment and then start laughing. I am too busy snorting to notice Bee poke her head out the door.
‘Gertrude! It’s time to get into hair and makeup and uniforms, which, no offence, you need because you both look like shit.
’ She looks expectantly at the two of us.
Reg stubs out his cigarette and stands, wrapping an arm around my shoulder.
‘Come on, Gertie, time to frock up!’ He takes off back into the hall with a saccharine smile for Bee.
‘You know, Gertrude, you really have to tell them to stop calling you Gertie,’ she says.
‘Why?’ I quite like it.
‘It sounds like you’re trying to make your name cool.
And like, I get it, you didn’t call yourself Gertrude but I’m sorry, there just isn’t any way to make your name young and fresh so you may as well stick with what you have.
Using your full name is at least dignified.
’ She grabs my hand and leads me through to a room where staff are lined up waiting for the two makeup artists to get to them.
Bee walks past the line and shoves me in front of them, hands on my shoulders.
‘This one next, please. She’s priority.’ With a flick of her hair she flounces to the centre of the room and I sit down in front of the hair stylist, who now hates me as much as my colleagues whose wait time just got extended.
Bee claps her hands together delicately to get the attention of the room.
‘Hi everyone! When you’re all done here, please make sure you head out into the main room for our staff briefing at five forty-five.
Guests are arriving at six-thirty sharp, so we need to be ready!
’ She directs a quick pointed glance at the makeup artists.
‘Once you’ve had your hair and makeup done, head over here and find your name on the racks for your uniform.
Change rooms are just through there. Can’t wait to see you all! ’ She bounces out of the room.
The makeup artist shows me the final look in the mirror as though I have any choice about it.
‘Thank you, looks great!’ I say, astonished by how much gel and blush can be applied to one person in such a short time.
My hair has been forced into a smooth bun around one of those weird foam donut things, and on top of the crusty makeup I slapped on this morning I now have a different shade of foundation (that does not match my neck or any other part of me), blush and bright red lipstick (matte; it’ll dry out my lips but at least the blood seeping through the cracks will keep them red) accompanied by a quick smoky eye that reminds me why smoky eyes generally take a long time.
I leave the chair to the next victim and go to find my uniform.
In the change rooms I find a horrified Nicole, and then find the horror to be contagious.
‘I think this might be a hate crime,’ Nicole says. She’s wearing a short black flapper-style dress with sheer black tights and flats, accompanied by two long strings of pearls and fingerless lace gloves.
‘At the very least it’s an OH on me it looks obscene.
From a certain angle guests and co-workers alike will be able to see down to my belly button, and I am completely vulnerable to a) the cold and b) every wandering eye in the joint.
A piece of beaded fringe falls off onto the floor as I stand there and my stockings pull a ladder the moment I put them on.
The gloves are going to make carrying a tray of drinks precarious at best, but there isn’t much I can do about it now.
I take one last longing look at my jacket, tuck it away and steel myself for what is to come.
I am trying to lay out champagne glasses (sans gloves, thank you very much) on the bar without leaning over too far when Bee approaches.
Black knee-length dress, French twist and red lipstick.
The staff are basically cheap knock-off Bees.
Aldi Bee. Bee No Sugar. ‘Oh my God, doesn’t this look amazing?
They were sceptical when I pitched it to them, but I just knew it would come together!
Way better than the James Bond theme they originally wanted. ’
Shit. I would have been great as the fluffy cat that villain guy strokes evilly. Warm, anyway.
‘It’s fantastic, Bee. Really.’
She grins at me.
It is darker now. Dinner has come and gone; wine is just gone and the dancefloor is pumping.
I have bruises on my ankles from the unsupportive ballet flats, and the bass pulsing through my entire body is making me jittery.
The cream carpet is now a marbled grey. This event, like all of them, started off extremely respectful and dignified but the restraint ended the moment the formalities did.
Bee is still here, which is confusing. I saw her flitting effortlessly through the crowd well after nine o’clock, and who stays at work on a Saturday night when they aren’t getting paid?
Being surrounded by hot people and free drinks probably has something to do with it, but it is weird that Bee is acting like it isn’t weird.
I see her again just after eleven, leaving the dancefloor; she waves and goes over to the bar to get a glass of water.
From behind me: ‘Having a good night?’
I turn around to say something sarcastic to whichever co-worker it is, because none of us are having a good time, but it’s a guy in a navy suit and paisley tie.
I look him up and down. From his build (average) he’s not a footballer, but he paid to have that suit tailored, and there isn’t much that is sexier than a man in a well-fitted suit.
He has a nice head of thick dark hair that I have an inappropriate urge to run my fingers through—it flops to each side in a nineties-boy-band way, which is apparently a thing I’m into now.
And he has kind eyes. Or at least, they don’t scream ‘loves to sexually harass the help’, which is why I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I smile—my real one, not my customer-service one. ‘Not too bad.’ Original. Interesting.
‘I love your pearls,’ he says, pointing at them like I don’t know where they are. Pointing at my tits, if I’m being ungenerous.