Chapter 8
Today is the day! Tonight is the night! And now it’s time to take care of all the most important things for a discerning lady DJ. My hair? Re-pinked for the occasion. My body? Smooth and silky like a dolphin. My outfit? We’ll figure that one out in the fullness of time . . .
‘What if no one comes?’ I say, throwing another dress onto the already teetering pile of clothes that I’ve dismissed as not quite right for ThrowBax.
‘That doesn’t sound like you.’ Morgan frowns from her position on the end of my bed.
‘I know! I don’t like it! This whole thing is really messing with my head . . .’ I say, refusing to elaborate on whether I mean my club night or the prospect of getting with Felix.
‘People are going to come! No one’s having a house party tonight that I’ve heard of, so you have, like, no competition. Who wants to go out on a Saturday night and spend actual London money?’
‘No one,’ I say firmly.
‘That’s right! You are providing a service. A fun, cheap place to go on a Saturday night – what’s not to like?’
‘But can you imagine how mortifying it would be if no one came?’
‘It’s not going to happen! Not with Patrick Denton coming. Pat’s coming, right?’
‘Yeah, he wouldn’t let me down,’ I say, reasonably sure that’s the case.
‘And me and Aleesha are coming, and Luke’s coming because I told him to, and he’s bringing his housemates. Anyway, why do I feel like what you’re actually saying is: what if Felix doesn’t come?’
‘Rude,’ I say flatly. But she’s not wrong.
I know people are going to show up. I’ve handed out flyers and told everyone that I’ve seen this week.
Plus, it’s literally one single English pound to get in.
It’s more expensive for people not to come, if you think about it.
At this point it would take some kind of force bloody majeure to prevent a decent crowd from showing up.
But naturally the most important person in the aforementioned crowd is Felix Balfour.
‘So now we can move on to the question of why he wouldn’t come in particular.’
I shrug. ‘Because I want him to?’
‘He’s said he’s going to! There’s no point psyching yourself out about it when you should be having fun!’
‘I know, I know,’ I mumble. ‘We’re meant to be doing something after,’ I tell her, very off-hand, like it’s nothing.
‘What, you and Felix?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You kept that one quiet, mate!’
‘I guess I don’t really believe it’s going to happen.’
‘Oh, it’ll happen, I’m sure. The only question is whether . . . you know . . . whether it’s a good idea?’ she offers gently.
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘Maybe because he’s a total player?’
‘Everyone is trying to warn me off him, but I know what I’m doing! I can take care of myself! I’m a big girl, you know?’
Morgan throws her hands up in defeat. ‘Fine! I trust you, baby girl.’
Finally, I pull a short, tight, sequinned dress out of the wardrobe and hold it up for Morgan’s approval.
‘This is the one.’ I’m pleased to report that it’s a second-hand sequin dress – ever since I found out how terrible sequins are for the environment I’ve had to curb my natural magpie tendencies.
No new sequins for me! Strictly vintage.
‘Definitely the one. Fit for a DJ,’ Morgan beams.
My bedroom is quiet for a moment as I start hanging up my mountain of rejected outfits back in my wardrobe, but I sense there’s something Morgan wants to say.
‘You’re a funny one,’ she says finally.
I turn to look at her over my shoulder. ‘What do you mean?’
She smiles at me a little sadly. ‘I mean, you’re so confident and fun and assertive, blasting through life, but underneath it all you’re a sensitive soul. That’s why I want to look out for you with this stuff, you know?’
I swallow. ‘I’m not that sensitive.’ (I am.)
‘It’s OK! You’re allowed to have feelings! It’s not a sign of weakness, you know? Like, it’s perfectly reasonable to worry that the guy you like won’t show up to your party! That’s a totally normal feeling. It’s not something to be ashamed of.’
‘Well, I hate it,’ I say. ‘I just want to be peppy and blasé and not burdened by big feelings. About anything. Ever.’
‘Don’t we all! But you are, fundamentally, a person. Just a sack of flesh with neuroses,’ she says drily.
‘Thank you so much for that beautiful image, Morgan.’
‘My pleasure as always,’ she smiles sweetly.
‘And more to the point, I just want to sleep with Felix so I’ve slept with Felix, you know? Like I just want to have done it. Ticked it off my to-do list, so to speak. It’s not like it has to have huge significance or anything.’
‘You’re the boss,’ Morgan says, saluting me with a sceptical look on her face.
I check the time on my phone, already bracing myself for a flurry of messages from people saying they can’t make it, but there aren’t any.
God! Morgan’s really got into my head about feelings.
I just want to deal with other people’s feelings, I don’t want to have them myself.
Or rather, the only feelings I want to experience are ‘joy’, ‘delight’ and ‘arousal’.
Is that too much to ask? To have everything under control all the time, to never expose my soft, fleshy underbelly to the world?
To never let a guy know that I might actually like him?
‘I guess I should put my face on and think about going out as I have to set up,’ I say, swallowing hard, suddenly faced with the reality that I actually am doing this.
‘You got all your . . . cables . . . and . . . gadgets . . . and whatever?’ Morgan asks.
I nod. ‘Everything is under control.’
‘Just the way you like it,’ she says with a smile.
‘Precisely, my friend.’
I take a seat at my ‘desk’, which looks more like a dressing table, covered in perfume bottles and pots of glitter and tubes of lipstick and little trinket dishes overflowing with cheap, shiny earrings, strung with fairy lights.
‘What are you going to wear?’ I ask Morgan.
‘Wait, don’t tell me . . . something black?
’ I say, wanting to divert the conversation away from me and my anxieties around tonight.
Morgan smiles. ‘What else would I possibly wear?’ I don’t think I’ve ever seen Morgan wear anything other than black.
She has this deep belief that if she puts zero energy into thinking about what to wear then her brain has exponentially more creative space to make interesting art.
A nice theory, but it doesn’t bode very well for your old pal Mary-Elizabeth here, with my unstoppable attraction to baubles and shiny things, tulle and lace and high heels and heart-shaped sunglasses.
Not that Morgan would ever judge me for my personal brand of frivolity. That’s why she’s my flatmate.
I get to work, applying different layers of skincare and make-up, picking up and then deciding against different shades of lipstick and eyeshadow, before settling on a mint-green glitter eye with a neutral brown lip.
‘Fascinating,’ Morgan whispers as I paint my face.
‘You know I can do it to you, any time you want,’ I say, barely moving my lips, locked into intense concentration as I draw on my winged eyeliner.
‘I don’t think it’s very me, do you?’
‘You won’t know until you try!’ I say, but this is a familiar dance: we are both locked into our relative positions on image.
And then I’m ready, and there is no more messing around left for me to do. It’s time to head to the union and find out if anyone’s going to turn up.
They’ll turn up, right?