Читать книгу Wrong Knickers for a Wednesday: A funny novel about learning to love yourself - Paige Nick - Страница 9

I put my shopping down and shake the circulation back into my fingers. The lounge is full of women, the chatter of their voices fighting to be heard over the Fashion TV voice-over. The smell of coffee drifts through the air, reminding me I forgot to buy myself coffee.

Amsterdam had me at hello. The canals; the bridges; the people; the families on bikes; the snaking trams; the smells, at turns pungent and swampy, then deliciously foodie. The old buildings and quaint streets, the feel of being somewhere completely different; nowhere I’ve ever been before, filled with people I’ve never seen before. Eventually I stumbled on a street market that went on for days. Food and clothes and more food and more clothes and raw herring on fresh bread. If it wasn’t for the giant life-sized disaster beating at my brain, I could have almost tricked myself into thinking I was here on holiday rather than a fraudulent stripper travelling on someone else’s passport, and in a lot of trouble.

My feet ache, and I have a terrible hangover-y headache, and there’s still a bad taste lingering in my mouth. As if something curled up in the pit of my tummy and died. I want to sleep forever, maybe longer, but I’m too nervous to go up to my room in case Marilyn’s still there.

I look for a familiar face, but without the costumes, wigs and make-up, I don’t recognise any of the women from last night. A few are spread on the couches chatting, watching TV and paging through magazines, analysing the models. One of them has a thick green face mask on. Across the room, three women are doing yoga on mats. And one of the large sash windows is open a crack and there’s a woman perched on the windowsill smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke out the small gap in the window as the cold air seeps in around her.

I say a shy greeting to anyone who makes eye contact with me, and carry my bags into the kitchen, catching snatches of conversation that might be Russian or Polish and I think I recognise some French in there too.

There are two women in the kitchen. One has her head buried deep in one of the fridges, the other is wearing a green towelling bathrobe and is stirring a large pot on the stove. I can’t recognise what she’s cooking by sight or smell, but as it comes to the boil it creates a putrid haze, making my eyes water. It’s like the bad taste in my mouth has been recreated in odour. The only good thing is the smell of coffee coming from the pot on the stove. I take a step closer to it.

‘Who’s cooking that sheet again?’ A shout comes from the lounge. I pin down a Spanish accent.

‘Ees not sheet, ees flaczki,’ the woman in the green bathrobe yells.

‘I thought we agreed, no cooking pig balls,’ the Spanish voice calls.

‘Ees not pig balls. Ees pig tripe stew. Big difference. Ees Polish delicacy!’ shouts Green Bathrobe.

‘Well, smell is like pig sheet!’ the voice says. ‘Somebody open another window.’

The woman continues stirring and grumbles swear words under her breath in Polish. Swear words have a particular tonality. Even if you don’t speak the language, you know what they’re insinuating. The Spanish voice is right, though; the stuff smells awful. The joys of communal living. Close to gagging, I open the lid of the angular metal coffee pot on the back plate of one of the stoves and breathe it in. I’m momentarily tempted to pour myself a cup, but Dania’s words of warning ring in my ears. I need as much goodwill in this house as possible.

‘Is this either of yours? Please could I have a cup?’ I ask, looking hopefully at both women.

‘Is Taylor Swift’s, ask her,’ says the one as she finishes rummaging in the fridge for a small carton of milk. Then I follow her into the lounge, where she joins the others on the couch and digs into her bowl of muesli.

I scan the room for a possible Taylor Swift. She could be any one of the blondes with big boobs, or maybe the one in the face mask. But what if Taylor Swift is actually one of the brunettes and she wears a wig to do her impersonation? I’ve seen these women work magic with a make-up brush, it’s all smoke and mirrors. For all I know, Swift is the dark-skinned woman on the yoga mat with tiger-print fingernails. All these women are chameleons in G-strings with fake tans and feather boas. I examine each of their faces closely, and wish I’d paid more attention when reading Heat. There’s a hint: only one of the blondes in the room is sipping from a mug of coffee. She’s petite and has the kind of features that could morph into a Taylor, with enough time, make-up and duct tape.

I nervously approach the couch where she’s hanging out with two other unrecognisable women and a possible Shakira, who’s saying, ‘If he puts hand on arse of mine one more time …’

‘People pay good money to put hand on this arse … why he should do for free?’ says the one unrecognisable woman. ‘Just because son of boss?’

‘I’d let him do it free,’ unrecognisable woman number two says.

The other women on the couch erupt in disgust.

‘What? Maybe he put me in better spot on line-up then. Dania always makes me on too early. Is better later.’

‘New girls should go early, to varm up crowd,’ says potential Taylor Swift, her voice thickly accented. Sensing me hovering, she stares pointedly. ‘Vhat?’ she snaps.

I crouch down next to her. ‘Hi, umm … Taylor, right? Could I have a cup of your coffee, please? I’ll replace it, I promise.’

Possible Taylor glares for a moment, then points across the room at a brunette with heavily plucked eyebrows.

‘I’m Britney Spears. She’s Taylor Swift,’ she says.

Shoot, shoot, shoot! ‘Oh my goodness, I’m sorry. I thought …’ I say, stumbling.

Now that I know, it’s obvious that she’s Britney Spears. She cranes her neck over the back of the couch and babbles something in a foreign language to the actual fake Taylor Swift, who’s doing a side plank on her yoga mat.

Taylor glances at me mid-plank, looks me up and down, and says, ‘Tell Nicki Minaj she can buy she’s own coffee.’

Britney shrugs at me. ‘You hear her.’

‘Have some of mine; it’s in the first cupboard on your right. Milk’s in the refrigerator, it’s got my name written on it,’ another yoga woman chirps, and I recognise the Spanish accent.

‘Thank you …?’ I say.

‘I’m Madonna,’ she says.

‘Thank you, Madonna,’ I say with a small embarrassed smile. Of course it’s Madonna. I’d recognise those yoga arms anywhere.

Another woman comes into the lounge, stark naked. She has long, over-dyed blonde hair, teased to a foot off the top of her head, and huge pink, pillowy lips. But her most startling features are her breasts. I’ve never seen such big knockers before; they’re almost melon-sized. Then her chest tapers down into an unnaturally narrow waist. Her crotch is completely hairless. I try not to stare, but I don’t know where not to look first. She wanders through the lounge and into the kitchen, and I expect the comments to come flying, but none of the other women pay her any attention.

‘Let me guess. Dolly Parton?’ I ask Madonna, who nods.

‘Isn’t she cold?’

Madonna shrugs and returns to downward-facing dog.

‘She should really put something on,’ I mumble. ‘She wouldn’t want to get a chest infection.’

*

I step cautiously back into our bedroom, relieved there’s no sign of Marilyn. I sip my coffee, wondering if it was worth the humiliation, and stare at my open suitcase for a minute, not entirely sure what my next move is. Am I packing or unpacking? I don’t know times a million, times a billion, times a trillion. If I go home, Marilyn and Lucas get to be right about me, which shouldn’t annoy me. What does it matter what other people think? I’ll never even see Marilyn again, if I’m lucky. But I can’t help it. I don’t want to fail at anything, not even this.

And of course there’s the bigger issue: what about Nat? If I can’t make the money she needs, she’ll just keep stripping. For the rest of her life? Surely she deserves the same kind of opportunities she sacrificed everything to give me?

But if I do stay, I don’t know if I can actually physically do what I have to do.

Maybe there are other options. I could leave the house and stay at a backpackers, get a waitressing job to earn enough cash for the flight home. But this isn’t small money we’re talking about. It would take ages to earn that much. Let alone the years it would take to earn the kind of money Nat needs to live and study for three years, assuming she doesn’t tank a year. I don’t have years; the clock is ticking. I can’t stay in Amsterdam indefinitely – what would Lucas think? Not to mention that my first job as a real teacher starts in a few months. A proper job, back home, not one that involves dressing up like Rihanna and taking my clothes off on a stage in front of a crowd.

I run a hand over the dresses still in the suitcase, getting more creased by the second. I haven’t had a chance to go through the contents of the case properly yet. Natalie just handed it to me, and I hurriedly tossed in a few of my own things before we made a mad dash for the airport.

I sift through the contents and pull out a precise black bobbed wig. There’s also the white low-backed, vomit-spattered dress from last night, shoved in a gap. I pull it out and toss it into the bin. Too many bad memories.

I pull out a swathe of red fabric and give it a shake. It’s an imitation of Rihanna’s red Grammy dress from 2013. There’s also a white tulle skirt and crop top. I lay each outfit on the bed, then tug something bright purple out of the case. It’s a pretty good replica of the jumpsuit RiRi wore on her We Ride album cover. Nat’s really done her homework.

Below that, I spot an assortment of underwear. I pull out a couple of pieces – the knickers are so tiny, I’m not sure why Nat even bothers with them. The bras are all beautiful, mostly lace in black, purple, white and green.

I pull my t-shirt off over my head and unsnap my bra, then try on one of Nat’s bras. It’s the simplest one she has. A deep bottle-green, made of silk. It’s so soft to the touch I hold it to my cheek for a moment before I put it on, and I’m sure I can smell Nat underneath the Omo, which makes me feel homesick. But the joke’s on me: my breasts barely fill half the cup; they look like a pair of empty socks. I tug at the two straps, hold my breath and try to pull them towards each other behind my back. They only just close, but I can’t breathe – my rib cage is being crushed while my breasts swim in space. I give up and toss the bra back into the case, sweeping the other bras in after it.

Next I pull off my jeans and my own knickers and hold up a pair of Nat’s panties, hoping I have more luck in the downstairs area. It’s a nude G-string and I’ve never worn one before. I turn around as I try to figure out which is the front and which is the back. It doesn’t have a label – well, it’s not big enough, I don’t know where they’d put it. I take a flying guess and step into both leg holes, but there’s no way this teeny thing is making it past my thighs. As I’d feared, I like chocolate far too much to fit into Nat’s underwear. Exasperated, I pull the useless scrap of fabric off and catapult it across the room with a twang, aiming for the bin but missing, so the G-string joins the rest of Marilyn’s clothes scattered on the floor.

It’s hopeless: my arse is much bigger than hers, and my boobs are smaller. How is this ever going to work? What am I going to wear? I slip my own knickers and T-shirt bra back on, then fish around in the case for the rest of my own underwear that I had brought with me, laying each piece out on the bed to see how bad my situation really is. It’s bad. All I have is a motley collection of T-shirt bras in varying shades of over-washed grey, and matching panties, most of them with elastic on their last legs. I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t own any sexy underwear. I once got something lacy to wear for Lucas’s birthday, but I felt stupid prancing around in it, so that was that. I’ve always been more of the sensible-cotton-pants-and-sports-bra type. There’s one pair of plain black cotton knickers and a matching black T-shirt bra that might work. They’re slightly less stretched and not as faded as the other underwear, and they’re black – that’s sexy, isn’t it?

I step experimentally into the jumpsuit. It’s lined with the oddest Velcro panels along the seams, which I finally click must be for easy removal. I shake my head again at my sister’s deception and my own naïvety.

Even though the jumpsuit is half a size too small, the Velcro gives me a tiny bit of extra space so I can get it on, although I have to suck my breath in to get the zip up, and it still doesn’t go all the way, stopping a few centimetres short of the top, lodged against a roll of back fat. But it’s on and that’s what counts. If I eat anything or even try to sit down while wearing this thing, God help us all. I had shoved a pair of Spanx into the suitcase back home, thinking I was smart. They’re magic at sucking in fat and that would have been the perfect solution for me to fit into Nat’s clothes, but now the rules have changed: I can hardly strip down to a full latex body suit. Nobody would pay to see that. Well, maybe some people would, but that would be at a different kind of club. Yuck.

I check myself in the full-length mirror hanging inside the cupboard door and pray for an earthquake, something big on the Richter scale. There’s no doubt I’m definitely Rihanna-ish, sort of, on her most hung-over day. But the few extra kilos in the jumpsuit give me a terrible camel toe, and while Rihanna has plenty of side boob, she doesn’t have any of the side fat that’s bulging out the edges of the strappy jumpsuit. I suck in my stomach and fiddle with the fabric, adjusting it the way men do, to make more room in the crotch. It helps, marginally.

Wait, does this mean I’m actually going to do this thing tonight? I don’t know. But if I am, this get-up is going to have to do until I can pick up something more appropriate. Although I may not have to. I’m almost positive that if I put a foot on stage in my tatty old underwear and the too-small purple jumpsuit, Dania will shove me on the first plane home. Hopefully they’ll let me change out of the jumpsuit before I fly: more than two hours in this thing and I’d die of asphyxiation.

I wonder what Lucas would think of me in this? It’s so tight, sexy and low cut, he’d probably say it’s too slutty on me; he doesn’t even like it if I wear a V-neck top to college. I suck in my tummy again and strike a Rihanna-like pose in the mirror. I grab Marilyn’s hairbrush from her bed and hold it up to my mouth like a microphone, then strike that pose again and quietly hum the tune to ‘Umbrella’ as I sway my hips. It’s not great, but it’s not entirely vomit-inducing either. Some people with less than twenty-twenty vision might even consider it sexy with all that skin showing at my sides. Plus, like David said, the right hair and make-up will help, and maybe I can get a Boob Tape 101 lesson from one of the other girls. What they call ‘mood lighting’ (i.e. near darkness) will help too. So, as long as someone loans me some tape, everyone in the club is blind and they have a power failure, I could just about pull this off, almost, if I really wanted to.

What if I did it? Just once. Shouldn’t you try everything at least once? Isn’t that what they say? Who knows, it may not even be that bad – I could chalk it up to life experience. It’s not like I know anybody here, or would ever see any of them again. Maybe I can do this. I may not be as thin as Nat or the other girls, I think, looking at myself critically in the mirror, but I look more like my celebrity naturally than most of the women in the house, and that’s got to count for something.

The whole boobs thing is definitely a spanner in the works, though. I put down the brush and cup my breasts with my hands. I don’t hate my boobs. They’re perky-ish, but small in comparison to the other girls’. And would I really be able to flash them to a crowd? Although it will be dark, surely? So maybe I can hold out and then flash them super fast, so that the crowd barely has a chance to get a good look, right at the end of my routine. Shoot … what about my routine?

I try out some of the Rihanna moves Natalie and I used to pull out back in the day. It’s the routine I was planning on doing last night before the vom-fest. Everyone always used to think we were twins, the cute little Rihanna girls. While I’m working through a couple of our old moves, I wonder what it feels like taking your clothes off in front of a bunch of strangers. When you’re with the same person for a long time, your guy doesn’t look at you in that kind of way any more, maybe because you’re not looking at him like that either. It can’t be all bad to feel sexy and wild once in a while, can it? Swinging my hips again, I pull at the zip, trying to get it down elegantly, but it gets stuck on another fat roll. So I give one of the secret seams a tug instead. Nothing happens, so I grab another seam and pull. Eventually when I tug hard enough, and in the right places, the Velcro pulls apart. Seconds later the jumpsuit is off, without me ever having to as much as come close to a zip or a button. Standing in the middle of the room in my saggy old grey knickers and bra, I piece the suit back together, then fold and put it on top of the open suitcase.

I try on the red Grammy dress next. It’s also super-snug, and I have to squeeze into it carefully, holding my breath. But once it’s on (after several minutes of tugging and two minutes lying down on the bed to get the zip up) it kind of looks okay. It fact, it’s pretty stunning. It cinches in my waist and pushes out my boobs in all the right places, giving me a devious extra cup size or two. When I breathe out, I hear some of the Velcro in the seams complaining, making room for all of me to settle in the limited space. Feeling fat again, my moment of confidence vaporised, I waddle closer to the mirror. My eye wanders to all Marilyn’s clothes stuffed in the closet. Curious, I rifle through the hangers. Dresses, blouses, and at least six of the identical replica Marilyn Monroe white halter-neck dress. I pick up a pair of glitzy white strappy stilettos from the bottom of the cupboard. They’re gorgeous, but how the hell does she walk in them? They must be at least six inches tall and weigh a ton. I slip my bare foot into the right shoe, wondering how it will look with the Grammy dress I’m wearing. My foot swims in it; it’s at least three sizes too big. I’m about to look for a size on the sole, but I hear footsteps coming down the passage. A second later, there’s a rattle at the door handle. Panicked, I flip Marilyn’s shoe back into the cupboard with a thud and leap away from the incriminating evidence, trying to act natural, but knowing that I probably look guilty as hell.

‘Oh. You’re still here?’ she says in her pouty-whispery Marilyn voice. ‘Quelle surprise!’ She looks from me to the cupboard and back again, and then eyes the red Grammy dress.

‘Get used to me,’ I say, shoving a hand on my hip with more confidence than I feel. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘God, in that dress I hope not,’ she counters.

I sag and breathe out, and the Velcro gives way with a loud rip. Marilyn grabs her bag from her bedside table and leaves with a snort.

*

The dressing-room is deserted. Which gives me a chance to sit on my torn chair and look into the light-bulb-framed mirror. I tug at a passport-sized photograph of a small, smiling blonde girl that’s wedged between the mirror and the frame. Gwen Stefani must have left in a hurry, and Marilyn missed this little memento when she tossed the other pictures. I look for Gwen Stefani-like features and wonder if this little girl is her daughter, sister or maybe a niece? Maybe even herself in a different life? I wonder if this little girl knows what her mom, sister, aunt or future self does for a living.

Empty like this, three hours before show time, the dressing-room feels echoey and overly bright. The overhead fluorescent lights buzz like the ghosts of hairdryers.

Paris offered to show me around before we opened, and I want to get ready first. I also want to avoid dressing in front of all these perfect, surgically enhanced women, which is ridiculous, since they’re all bound to see me near-naked a little later. I tuck the photograph into my bag, too sentimental to toss it. I pull out the purple jumpsuit, together with the same black wedges I wore last night. (It had taken me twenty minutes to wipe off the puke.) They’re the only pair of shoes in Nat’s suitcase that I’ll be able to dance in without breaking my neck. I need to feel as stable as possible for this, whether the real Rihanna would approve of low wedges or not. I shove my backpack and handbag into the locker that has my name on it, and now contains all my worldly possessions. I wonder how many other legends have done the same thing over the years. Bette Midler? Roxette? Maybe even Barbra Streisand?