Chapter Two
TWO
There’s nothing like the impending arrival of your arch nemesis to take the edge off a bit of duty-free shopping.
I’m in Harrods eyeing up a selection box of chocolates that costs one hundred pounds – no joke – and I find myself vaguely wondering if I could expense it.
They do look delicious! Will Jan allow me to push a hundred quid’s worth of chocs through on the company dime?
I’m going for no. Besides, I can’t even enjoy looking at all the wildly expensive things in here because Callum Bang has ruined my airport buzz.
Classic Callum.
I abandon Harrods and head for Accessorize, deciding that my own finances could stretch to a new pair of sunglasses.
I hitch my carry-on further up my shoulder and as I stride across the shopping court, I daydream about a trip to Cottesloe Beach, which extensive googling told me is one of the best beaches in Perth.
In the daydream, I’m wearing new sunglasses, my feet planted in white sands.
The sea breeze ruffles my hair. Maybe there’s a cocktail in my hand.
Then Callum Bang’s irritating visage is coming towards me on the beach and I have to immediately abandon scene.
How dare he encroach on my daydreams like that!
For distraction, I decide to FaceTime my best friend, flatmate and favourite human on the planet, Penny. She’ll have just hit snooze on her alarm so let’s hope she’s not mad at me.
‘Nina,’ Penny answers, bleary-eyed. ‘Are you pissed on free plane wine yet?’
‘Give me time,’ I grin. ‘I’ve not boarded.’
‘Wah, I can’t believe you’re going away for a whole week. I’m going to miss you.’
‘I’ll miss you too,’ I say, pulling a face. ‘Will you be okay?’
‘Probably,’ she shrugs. ‘Thanks again for filling the fridge before you left. You are the best.’
‘My pleasure. I like to think that you won’t be surviving on homemade sauerkraut and vodka while I’m away.’
‘I think that sauerkraut’s gone off so it would have just been vodka,’ Penny says, peering into her phone screen. ‘Jesus wept, Nina, you look fit. Are you using a new shampoo?’
‘Oh my God, thank you! I decided to leave my hair to air-dry, forgetting that I’d be immediately getting on the Tube, so the musty underground breeze did most of the drying for me. I believe it’s worked?’
‘Ew,’ Penny wrinkles her nose. ‘Next time, please borrow my Dyson.’
‘You just said it looks good!’ I laugh, migrating towards a rack of sunglasses.
‘Until I knew its origin story. Using stale Tube wind as your hairdryer is not chic.’
‘Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s the Piccadilly Line.’
Penny snorts. ‘Glow up on the Underground. On second thoughts, we could market that.’
‘See!’ I say. ‘Who needs expensive haircare products?’
‘Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Seriously though, you should wear it down more often. You look like a sexy lion.’
‘Erm, thanks?’ I chuckle. I have mad amounts of curly red hair which has been described variously as ‘like the sunset’, ‘unruly’ and ‘Titian’. As I catch the thumbnail of my image on my phone, even I have to admit that it does look cute today. Hair, as they say, is hairing.
‘Shame about your face,’ Penny adds with a yawn.
Way to come back down to earth with a bump.
‘Hey! What do you mean?’
‘You look pissed off. What’s up?’
‘Oh. Well,’ I say with a giant exhale. ‘You know Callum Bang?’
‘The beautiful bellend from your office who we hate? Of course I do.’
‘I’ve just found out that he’s coming on this trip.’
Penny’s face falls as she sits up in bed. ‘Oh love, no. Why?’
‘Kat wants us to become “sympatico” and “collaborate”.’ I wince.
Penny lets out a low, contemplative whistle. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’
‘There’s not much I can do. I already called Kat and tried to talk her out of it but she’s adamant.’
‘You can’t just let this happen!’ Penny looks horrified. ‘You two will literally kill each other.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ I pause, trying a pair of sunglasses on. ‘Is it?’
‘Nina,’ Penny says darkly. ‘Remember how awful he was to you on his first day in the office?’
‘Of course I remember.’
‘How he said your job was …’ She pauses, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.
‘You know what he said.’
‘I want you to say it,’ Penny insists. She is very bossy.
‘Frothy,’ I scowl. ‘He said my job was frothy.’
Penny sucks in her breath. ‘Exactly. Belittling your entire career in one unpleasant swipe. What an A-grade asshole. How rude! How dismissive! How dare he?’
‘Pen, I was kind of banking on you making me feel less bad about Callum coming on this trip, not riling me up even more!’
‘Sorry, love, but some guys are just idiots, plain and simple. It’s not like he’s tried to patch things up since then, is it?’
‘Callum has not made one single attempt to patch things up,’ I confirm. ‘He actually just seems to be getting progressively more rude.’
Penny is shaking her head. ‘This is a real pickle. Did you pack earbuds so you can block him out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. You’re going to have to come up with some strategies to spend as little time with him as possible. Be civil, try to rise above his bullshit, remember that you are a queen and he is not remotely regal. It’s down to you to be the bigger person here.’
‘Urgh,’ I say, reaching for another pair of sunnies to try.
‘Listen, it’s just one week. You’ll be back in no time.’
‘I guess so.’
‘And Nina?’
‘Yes?’
‘You should definitely make the most of the Australian men while you’re out there.’
‘Penny …’ I say warily.
‘I know what you’re thinking. It’s the moustaches, right? But I promise you’ll get used to them. They’re actually pretty sexy when you think about it. I mean, have you seen the Australian rugby team? I’ve never seen a sexier bunch of hirsute men,’ Penny says dreamily.
I’m laughing hard now. ‘Something tells me I’ll be too busy working to find myself a hot Australian rugby player. Besides, I literally just broke up with my ex.’
Penny pulls another one of her faces. She has a whole armoury of them, each one perfectly describing her precise thought process. This one is giving unimpressed. ‘He dumped you a month ago.’
‘Exactly! I’m not in the market for anything new.’
‘A holiday fling would be perfect for you.’
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘You know me. No man will ever come close to—’
‘Under no circumstances may you mention his name,’ Penny scowls at me.
‘Hamish.’
‘You said it.’
‘It’s true!’
Penny lets out an actual growl of frustration.
‘Nina, you dated Hamish for one summer. Barely a season! And it happened ten whole years ago, love. You have got to get over him.’
‘Ouch. I am over him!’
‘You are not. You compare every single new relationship to a guy you went out with for less than half a year and not one of them comes up favourably. No wonder Nice Neil broke up with you.’
‘Nice Neil,’ I chortle, spotting a cute sunhat and popping that on too.
‘What? He was nice! A bit of a drip, sure, but nice enough. I must say I’m surprised he found the courage to break up with you, he always gave me dump-ee vibes.’
‘Brutal.’
‘Just goes to show how little effort you put into that relationship. Poor Neil.’
‘We just didn’t have that spark,’ I say. ‘It was so different with Hamish.’
‘Don’t you dare give me that dreamy-eyed look,’ Penny says sternly. ‘Yes, yes, Hamish was great for like, three months? And then he left for Australia. He literally moved to the other side of the world and you never heard from him again. However great you thought he was, that’s not okay, Nina.’
‘It was kind of mutual, really,’ I insist, but by now Penny is looking mutinous.
I don’t blame her. She’s heard all this a million times before.
She thinks I’ve got rose-tinted glasses when it comes to my first true love and I think they’re just normal glasses which showed that he was, in fact, the perfect boyfriend.
The One That Got Away. It’s not my fault more recent relationships haven’t come close, is it?
Anyway, I can sense that now is not the time to do a deep dive on all that.
‘Just, do me a favour and have some fun on this trip. Okay? Ignore Callum Bang. Find a hot new guy to flirt with. Let loose a little! You deserve this. How many times do you get to fly to Australia for a week? Not many! So make every minute count, okay? Oh, and Nina?’
‘Yes?’ I say tentatively, still reeling from this impromptu TED Talk.
‘You should definitely get those sunglasses. They’re cute. Lose the hat though. It’s giving grandad-goes-to-Panama. Okay, love you, byeeee,’ Penny sings.
And with that, she’s gone.
In the world’s smallest act of defiance I buy the hat anyway, ripping the label off and wearing it immediately.
Penny’s right about one thing though, I do need to rise above Callum’s bullshit.
I can do that! I am a self-assured, confident woman.
I don’t need to let him needle me. In fact, I will not allow it.
That’s the spirit!
Feeling both boosted and still on edge, I make the wise and sensible choice to exacerbate things further with a flat white.
Coffee in hand, I give in to the siren call of the beauty hall.
It’s heavy with the scent of a million perfumes and I immediately spot a body cream that’s meant to give you a butt lift at a really good discount.
Given that I simply do not have the time (inclination) for the recommended one hundred squats a day, maybe this will do the trick?
I turn it over in my hands. Since my thirtieth birthday this summer, I’ve been getting twitchy about body parts heading south, even though I’m probably just talking myself into it.
But I swear everything used to be smoother and bouncier.
And while I slightly resent the beauty industry for pushing the idea that eternal youth is the goal, I also can’t deny my deep love for beauty products.
If it’s got the words ‘lift’, ‘bounce’ or ‘glow’ on the packet, I’m probably buying it. Get on my skin, eternal youth!
My eyes snag on something shiny and new.