Chapter 21
It was Jocasta who had tagged me into a post.
I clicked on it and my stomach dropped like a stone. It was a short video of me from the spa afternoon. And considering I had been less than impressed on seeing my reflection in the microwave a few moments before, feeling I looked dog rough, I now had reason to re-evaluate that opinion.
In the smudged mirrored door of the elderly microwave, I could easily pass for a candidate for Britain’s Next Top Model compared to this horror show on Facebook.
It was me in all my glory. And it was anything but glorious. I had wanted to relax at the spa, and to be fair I had achieved that. I did appear seriously relaxed: fast asleep on my recliner by the pool and snoring blissfully away. A little river of drool was making its way slowly down my chin and dripping into the crevice between my boobs.
As I snored, my lips parted slightly. I was horrified to see I was sporting a black tooth. Had the cow tampered with the image? A little bit of sly photoshop? But no, it was just a rogue bit of garnish from the smoothie that was wedged “Toffer-style” between my teeth.
I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the screen, both horrified and hypnotised by it.
I kept watching as another river of drool began its slow descent down my chin. Or rather I should say chins. From the angle the video had been filmed, I clearly appeared to have three of them.
I was also muttering something in my sleep. I couldn’t quite make it out. My voice was low and guttural, like a demon was trapped in my voicebox.
I replayed the video nasty again, trying to concentrate on the low, slurred words. What was it I was saying? My hand flew to my mouth in horror. It sounded like “pleasing hips and muffled cries”.
Oh, my fucking hell! I must have been having a saucy dream. I was recalling some shenanigans from a night of nookie with some boyfriend or other, and now it was there for the world to see, hear and no doubt have hysterics at. I could hear my pulse beating in my head with the acute embarrassment of it all.
As the video played for the third time in a row, my breathing slowly returned to some sense of normality when I realised what I was actually saying. It wasn’t in fact “pleasing hips and muffled cries” but “cheesy chips and truffle fries”. Still embarrassing, but somewhat better than what I had first thought.
I often wondered what I dreamt about at night, as I seldom remembered my dreams. I imagined I travelled to magical faraway places when away in the Land of Nod and had the most wonderful adventures. But sadly, it would appear that in my slumbering state I only travelled as far as the greasy spoon at the precinct. My dreamlife apparently consisted of the thrilling consumption of complex carbohydrates.
I had been too distracted watching my less than perfect self on the video to notice that Jocasta had added a “humorous” caption to it. I was going to bloody well kill her.
“The old dear certainly loves her fried foods. Lucky we’re at the spa, so she can get her beauty sleep and work on her cellulite.”
She had finished the caption off with two smiley faces. She probably believed this absolved her of all guilt, as it was just meant as a harmless joke.
But it wasn’t a joke; it was a complete bitch move. The devious little bint.
It was the unwritten rule between girlfriends that no picture went on social media until everyone had OK’d it first. And of course, the person with the longest arm stretch had to take it and the angle had to be high to avoid the whisper of ‘chinnage’. It would be agreed who would be in the forefront of the picture, as they would have to accept the fact that they were going to fall on their sword and be “Sheila fat face” in that shot.
Jocasta must have been lying prostate on the floor to achieve the level of grimness portrayed in the post. I wasn’t just “Sheila fat face”, I was “Lila lard arse” who looked like she had eaten all the cheesy chips in Yorkshire and possibly County Durham too.
OK, I knew I shouldn’t really care. I was nearly fifty after all, and at a stage in my life when I was confident enough not to care a jot about an unflattering snippet of video appearing on social media. I should just have a brief glance, laugh it off and get on with the rest of my day without giving it another thought. But let’s get real: this woman was trying to play me, and her games weren’t for kids.
So much for me believing we had built bridges and were forging a friendship. Well, this was the stick of dynamite that had just blown that bridge to smithereens.
Seb wandered into the kitchen, his hands shoved in his pockets. He glanced over to the tray of cooling drinks. He must have been wondering what had happened to his hit of caffeine. Before he could utter a word, I shoved my phone screen into his face.
Part of me didn’t want to show him, embarrassed for him to see me like that. But I was just too angry not to. Anyway, deep down I knew that Seb had seen me in many embarrassing predicaments over the years, some much worse than me sleeping off the hangover from hell.
He’d witnessed some monumentally horrendous moments; he had even had to hold my hair back on occasion at parties when I had fallen foul of too many dirty martinis on an empty stomach and had needed to dash to the lavatories before I disgraced myself all over the host’s cream carpet.
The fact was, I hadn’t cared about him seeing me in a state before; but things were different now. Back then, me having no make-up on or not having brushed my teeth wouldn’t have been an issue. He was my mate, my non-sexual, non-male mate; a mate that I loved but wasn’t in love with. Things were very different now.
He took the phone from me, as I’d pushed it millimetres from his face and he couldn’t focus. He watched the video silently, his expression not changing in the slightest.
“To be honest, I’ve already seen it. Don’t worry about it, Lila, it really isn’t so bad.”
My mind ticked back to when we had talked earlier in the corridor. I recalled he had checked his phone then, and a flash of concern had passed swiftly over his face. No doubt that is when he had first seen me, his friend of many years, in all her grotesque glory.
“It isn’t so bad? I’m a flaming laughing stock.”
I didn’t like the whining edge to my voice. I sounded as if I was going to stamp my foot and have a tantrum. But I needed him to realise that to me this was a big deal.
He rubbed my arm briefly to try and reassure me.
“Don’t worry about it, she’s just trying to be funny and make a joke. I’m sure she wouldn’t have done it if she’d thought for a second it would backfire so badly, and you wouldn’t see the funny side.”
I eyeballed him suspiciously. I knew that Seb could be a little lacking in understanding of the ways of women, but he really wasn’t that clueless. He knew that this wasn’t just a joke; it was a pretty devious move on Jocasta’s part. Seb was just being “Seb” as usual, trying to play the role of peacekeeper. But what I really needed was him to have my back and be my mate.
He was still looking at the screen when a gentle smile flicked across his full lips. He brushed his greying hair back off his face, and I tried to ignore how attractive that move made him appear.
“I actually think you look quite sweet! All your defences are down and you’re snoozing away like Sleeping Beauty.”
Men really didn’t get it. He couldn’t have cared less about an unflattering angle in a photo, or anything as trivial as that. For him, the world had many more important things to worry about. But even though I knew that in the big scheme of worldly issues it ranked pretty insignificantly, in this moment and in my life it was still a big deal.
A veritable call to action. A declaration of war.
I snatched my phone back.
“Sleeping Beauty? Are you kidding me? Just forget it, Seb, forget everything. I thought you would have my back. You’re my friend. But to be quite honest, I don’t know who you are any more. We don’t hang out like we used to, I don’t feel we chat like we did, and you don’t even look the same any more. I miss my Seb in his scruffy old sweaters and his single eyebrow. I miss…I miss.…oh, never mind!”
The look of hurt on his face made my heart hurt too. But I needed to get away from him. Get far away before I said too much. And I was hurting too. Stinging with the anger and injustice of it all. I stomped down the corridor on my way to Jocasta’s desk. Me and “Miss butter wouldn’t melt but cyanide would” were going to have it out.