Air Kisses Read online

  ‘With the denim shoot, is that sponsored or are we all right to use a variety of labels?’

  ‘Great scarf, Tess. All you need are some cat-eye sunglasses and a red convertible! I love it! Okay, denim. I need to chat to Laura about that. Kate, can you schedule a meeting for this morning? No biscuits, as per Laura’s orders. Oh, did you all know our advertising manager, Laura, is pregnant? Have I just ruined her news? Probably. Oops. That’s two ad girls in the last month gone the way of the baby. I’ll have to sell my own pages soon. Don’t drink the water upstairs, girls…’

  We laughed because she was funny and she was nice and the way she spoke was interesting and we were glad that, unlike so many of the other magazines in the industry, we didn’t have an editor who terrorised us and belittled us and made us want to leave the industry entirely and become belly dancers.

  Twenty-three minutes later and Karen was done. Back at my desk, I answered a few emails and then got stuck into writing a story about glycolic acid and why it was so brilliant for acne. But after a few paragraphs I got stuck. Not only was my brain not on task – it was back on Saturday morning again – but I actually had no idea what I was writing about. I leant my head on my hands and sighed. I wasn’t sure what had made me think this was going to be a fun/easy/achievable job for a monkey from an advertising company because it clearly wasn’t.

  To take my mind off that now-familiar sick feeling of missing Jesse, I decided to start calling in products with glycolic acid. Perhaps reading the press releases and learning about their celebrity fans would give me the inspiration to finish the story. I opened up my Beauty Contacts document. There were no less than 456 Beauty Contacts listed, and each was liable to swap jobs, brands or agencies within the next week, just to further confuse me. They were a transitory bunch, beauty PRs.

  I had worked out that this was a huge part of my job, knowing which PR company or person looked after which beauty brand. But how was I supposed to remember them all? Just then an email from our advertising manager, Laura, popped up in my inbox, reminding me that our new presentation to advertisers would be ‘live’ from next week, and could I please have a five-minute spiel on what the Gloss reader loves about our beauty pages ready for her by this afternoon to slot into the PowerPoint presentation.

  A huge wave of Fraud Complex washed over me. I felt entirely out of my depth. I had only worked here for a few weeks. How could I be expected to speak convincingly about my manifesto?

  My phone rang.

  ‘You know, now would be the perfect time for Project Mansion, Hannah,’ the voice at the other end purred. Iz preferred to start a phone call by leaping straight into conversation.

  I laughed. Project Mansion had started when we were fifteen. We hated the small country school we went to and bonded over a mutual desire to leave it, and all of the germs that occupied it, as soon as we could. Of course, we would be extraordinarily wealthy within months of making said move: Iz as an internationally renowned chef with her own Oprah Winfrey-style TV show, and me as a world-class actress, which was what I was positive I would be back then. This wealth, naturally, would enable us to buy mansions in every city we fancied. Hence the name.

  Even though life hadn’t quite panned out the way we had imagined, we were still young, and somewhere underneath the schoolgirl frivolity a real plan to move overseas together sat quietly, knitting jumpers and sipping tea, just waiting for us to be ready.

  ‘Oh, come ON!’ Iz squealed and clapped her hands. ‘Admit I’m right. Neither of us is tied down; we’re young and unattached…’

  She paused. ‘I don’t mean to be insensitive about Jesse. I just mean sometimes, you know, a break-up can be a great time for a fresh start and stuff…and these times when you’re free and in your twenties are precious, you know? And, and, well, maybe Gloss could find you a job on one of their overseas mags?’

  ‘But I just started here!’

  ‘Well, we wouldn’t go straightaway…’

  I thought for a second. ‘New York?’

  ‘Too cold at this time of the year. How about Amsterdam? We could live with Dec until we find our feet and our first million euro!’ Her voice smacked of genuine excitement; this was a plan that actually seemed feasible to her.

  Declan was Iz’s older brother. He was an events manager at one of those hyper-modern, groovy companies housed in a terrifyingly hip office that made the rest of the street look like a medieval camping ground.

  I’d always had a bit of a crush on Dec. He had simultaneously formed the foundation of my teenage insecurities and my sucrose-laden daydreams. He was something of a god at school – not only was he Very, Very Good-Looking, all tall and toned without being bulky, with perennially tanned skin from surfing, chestnut hair and warm, brown eyes, he was the first to get his licence, the first to lose his virginity, and the first to be suspended for smoking dope on the back seat of the school bus. All the key ingredients to rule the school.

  I remembered sleeping over at Iz’s as a teenager and wearing a push-up bra under my pyjamas, even to bed, just because he might see my teeny mounds masquerading as breasts during the run from the bathroom to the bedroom, or at the breakfast table, and that, obviously, was unthinkable. He used to make me blush simply by asking me how I was doing, and I would trip up steps when he waved at me in the quad at lunch, and on the occasions Iz and I rode home with him after school I imagined how it might feel to be his Real-Life girlfriend.

  I’d never go near him now, of course. Partly because it would be completely weird: he had taken the shape of a (kind of) brother over the past nine or so years – and had lived overseas for near all of that time – but also because he had possibly the most stunning other half that had ever mutated from a single DNA cell – Pia.

  Pia was a Colombian girl who was a model-slash-photographer. Of course. Whenever they came to visit I ravenously consumed what she wore, and attempted to style-bite her once she’d gone, with varying degrees of failure. Pia had an impeccable, internationally travelled glamour about her, and could blend things like Dec’s waistcoat with denim shorts and stacked heels and a cascade of plastic necklaces and look impossibly perfect. Kind of like Ashley Olsen meets Helena Christensen. I was just Hannah. None of her creative fashion splicing worked on me, I just ended up looking like Lily Allen wearing Mick Jagger’s wardrobe.

  Pia and Dec lived an idyllic life in Holland, with other cool, equally genetically impressive wunderkinds. Last I heard they’d bought a houseboat and remodelled it to look like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Wallpaper* had photographed it.

  ‘I guess Holland could be nice…’

  ‘What about Tokyo?’

  ‘You’re crazy and I love you, but can we maybe talk about this tonight? I’m drowning in work.’

  ‘Of course. But we will be talking about this again, miss.’

  ‘Hey. Project Mansion is no pipe dream. We’ll do it.’

  The face-cream mafia

  The best way to find out if a lip colour will really suit you is to test it on your index fingertip, not the side of your wrist; this is the closest possible match to your lips. Tell your friends: they’re probably doing it wrong, too.

  Without a doubt, the most thrilling part of my job was the frenzied stream of products from cosmetic companies. I had to keep remembering that they were sending them to the magazine, and not me as a person, because it was very easy to get swept up in a spell of megalomania when you were constantly being sent Tiffany necklaces, perfumes, entire make-up collections from Giorgio Armani, and invites to the hottest restaurants.

  ‘Gosh, balls,’ I said to myself, blinking in amazement at this morning’s loot.

  I carefully opened parcels and bags from Lisa K, Estée Lauder, Clover, Lancôme and Voluptuous cosmetics. It was like Christmas. But the last thing I wanted was to appear greedy, so I simply sorted them into order of which month they would go into the shops – to be reviewed later in thematic order – and put some in my subtle ‘Take Home’ pile to try that
weekend. There was even a full make-up collection from Blush, which I was one hundred per cent allowed to have. The note even said, ‘Please try these before you write about them as they are just heaven. We can send more for photography.’ I knew how much that stuff cost. A lot. It was what celebrities used. I tucked the box into the Take Home pile. I knew what Iz and I would be doing tonight.

  ‘Michelle was like that at first, too,’ Jacinta said, laughing, her voice coming from nowhere.

  I jumped a mile, feeling like a thief. I hated that my desk faced the wall and my back was to the door. Anyone could sneak up on me. Plus, I was pretty sure it was bad feng shui.

  ‘But you get over it, trust me. Soon every lip gloss starts to look the same, and even a Chanel palette won’t make you bat an eyelid. But knock yourself out. It’s all yours to use and abuse, baby. Have you got a system sorted yet?’

  ‘Yep, well, for now anyway: I put potentials in those boxes according to month’ – I pointed to a set of mammoth pink tubs – ‘and anything else in that crate’ – I pointed to a mammoth green tub – ‘which I get the interns to unpack into the beauty cupboard every few days.’

  ‘Nicely done! Can tell you’ve worked in admin. Michelle had no boxes, no strategy – it was always a mess. Used to drive Karen insane when the publisher would come for a “surprise visit”. You look nice. Where are you off to?’

  ‘My first big function.’ I grinned nervously. I had my first big beauty launch today, which meant I was finally going to meet all the other beauty editors for the first time, and begin refining the art of professional chitchat.

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t already been going to five a day. Don’t make that face, I’m serious! That’s normal for beauty girls!’

  I really hoped she was exaggerating.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I think it’s called Vine?’

  ‘Ooh, yum. At least the food will be good, even if the event is painful. Now, any word from Jesse?’

  My heart sank at his name. It had been a week, and still he had made no contact. I thought that when he’d seen all of his belongings messily packed and waiting on his desk I would’ve at least been granted a venomous text about how childish I was, but instead I was tortured with a thunderous, heartbreaking silence. He was either really angry with me – but that made no sense, because HE was the one who had urinated in the garden that was our relationship – or he was just having too good a time with that vacuous wench to recall he once loved a girl called Hannah. Either way, it was killing me softly. Any contact would’ve been good contact at this stage, even if only for me to inflict some torture back on to him by not replying.

  ‘No…but that’s okay,’ I said, breathing out. ‘It proves that I was right about it being a break-up. He can go to hell for all I care. Hopefully he’s already there.’

  Jacinta saw through my bravado, but decided not to press it.

  ‘Hey, can I grab a few things from the goo room? Just some body wash and stuff?’

  ‘Of course!’ Grateful for the change of topic, I grabbed my keys and opened the door to the beauty cupboard, or ‘goo room’, as the Glossettes referred to it.

  Cue clouds parting, sun streaming through and some form of triumphant classical arrangement. For me, it was a simultaneously terrifying and beautiful sight. Because while normal people simply saw shelves and shelves of beauty products, all I saw was a neon sign saying, ‘See all this stuff? You now have no excuse to look terrible. Ever.’ Oh, it was a sight to behold, though.

  Once we had picked out some body wash and shampoo for Jay, she left me to it, calling behind her, ‘Have fuuuun!’

  Why did she say it in that singsong voice? Would the other beauty editors be mean to the new girl? Would they be nasty, catty, cliquey girls who would make me feel left out and make me work for their friendship? I didn’t know if I was up to it. Everything was still so new and weird.

  She popped her head back in. ‘Oh, a tip: make sure at the function you find the PR and whoever else is from the brand before you start mingling with your new friends. Karen hates mag girls who just talk among themselves at functions, and she’ll find out, so always introduce yourself to the hosts straightaway. They’ll just love you, honey. Especially after Michelle, who was completely jaded, God love her.’ She blew me a kiss and was gone.

  I made my brain store Jay’s information somewhere easy to retrieve, like near primal requirements (food, sleep, lip balm) so that I wouldn’t forget.

  I figured I should unpack my green box into the goo room, as we had no workie that week and it desperately needed doing. Searching for the hair-removal section, I paused a moment to take it all in, which I realised I hadn’t really allowed myself to do since starting. There were shelves and shelves and shelves of hair products, gleaming and colourful, waiting to improve the condition of, or add volume and thickness to, or deposit minute amounts of colour into people’s hair; there were hair dryers, rollers, curling tongs and ceramic irons crouching in a corner, their cords snaking out gently as if coaxing me, Garden of Eden-style, into doing something, anything, with my floppy, dull brown hair.

  There was a constellation of exotic, exquisite and blatantly practical lotions for arms, stomachs, thighs, boobs and legs. A hairy, untanned, cellulite-ridden leg with dry heels and rough cuticles wouldn’t last sixty seconds in here.

  There were sleek, sophisticated face creams with names that were difficult to pronounce sporting seemingly unbelievable claims. These were the kinds of products that would command three-digit price tags and a talent for understanding words like ‘nuit’ and ‘yeux’. They looked at me threateningly, as if daring me to smile and expose some fine lines.

  I was scared of them. It was obvious that these guys were the mafia of the beauty cupboard. They made me feel, think, believe I was older and wrinklier than I should be, and that I needed them, had to use them, or I would lose my looks, appeal, friends and probably my home too, judging by their menacing demeanour.

  There were pink, plum and port-tinted blushes waving gaily from a shallow box, looking infinitely more jovial and frisky than the sleek gold and metallic bronzers that merely glanced in my direction and then got back to be being all sexy and J-Lo-ish.

  My smile was at full capacity. This room was a dream. I made a mental note to sneak Iz in here one day. She would lose it.

  I peered into the mammoth box labelled ‘Lips’. It was a brutal understatement: lipsticks and lip glosses and lip liners and lip balms and lip plumpers and lip salves were all crowded into the deep carton, where they tussled and jumbled with each other aggressively in all their various forms and packaging and levels of prestige. The YSL lipsticks, looking glamorous and expensive in their gold boxes, were starkly contrasted by the cheap, pharmacy-brand lip liners, who had settled for a plastic lid and a sticky-tape seal and a life that held no promise of department-store placement. I promised to love them all equally.

  And then there was the mega-box: ‘Eyes’.

  This beast held three internal boxes: one for eyeshadows and eyeshadow palettes and eye crèmes; one for eyeliners; and one just for mascaras. One particularly lurid shade of turquoise eye-dust had managed to spread itself throughout all three boxes, the shelf the box rested on, the carpet underneath it, and had in all probability sprinkled its way onto the desks of whichever magazine staff member sat on the floor below us.

  Talk about ‘kid’ and ‘candy store’. Coming from being a PA to this was on a par with having worked in a suburban Starbucks, then scoring a job as a barista in St Mark’s Square, Venice.

  Feeling drunk on power, I reached in to the lip menagerie and grabbed a tube of M.A.C lip gloss. It was a lovely peachy-coral colour. Perfect. I put it in my pocket, half-feeling as though I were shoplifting, half-feeling like the luckiest woman in the world.

  Life wasn’t all bad, I thought.

  When I arrived at Vine there was a gaggle of colourfully dressed, loud women standing around holding champagne flutes and flashing 100
-watt, brilliantly white, probably bleached smiles. It looked a bit like an affluent bride’s hen night.

  I walked over to the group, clutching my handbag as though it were saving me from falling off a small cliff.

  ‘Hi, I’m Liz!’ said a short woman with wide-open eyes who was wearing all black, save for some enormous red lips. She went straight in for a guerrilla air kiss, and as I wasn’t expecting this, she copped a mouthful of my nose. Awkward didn’t quite cover it.

  Brushing my hair nervously behind my ear and laughing uncomfortably, I managed to say, ‘Hi, Liz, I’m Hannah, from Gloss…’

  ‘OHHHH! Welcome! How lovely that you could come. We’ve all been dying to meet you. Phoebe, Hannah’s here. Hannah from Gloss. Michelle’s replacement. We just loved Michelle. She’s so cool, so fresh, so gorgeous! And how great that you got this job! What an amazing job. We love Gloss. Such a gorgeous magazine.

  I love your shoes, aren’t they fab?! They’re just heaven. So nice to have you here. Grab some bubbles; relax, darling, it’s Friday! Now, you must meet Francis; he’s a make-up artist who’s here from the Big Apple, where he was backstage at all the shows, and he’s just divine. He’s available for interview till Tuesday so we must lock in a time. Phoebe’s just chatting but she’ll be over in a se— Carly! HI! How lovely that you could make it! Don’t you look gorgeous!’

  And Cyclone Liz departed. I must’ve been visibly shaken because an older woman wearing a lovely sari-type dress and beautiful ruby-drop earrings came over to me.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get used to them, their bizarre intonations and their compliment overload.’

  I laughed nervously, momentarily remembering the rule about not making best friends on the first day.

  ‘I’m Kath. I work at Polished.’

  ‘I’m Hannah – the new beauty editor at Gloss.’

  ‘Well, welcome to the mad world of beauty, darling.’ She extended her hand dramatically. ‘You’ll love it. We all do, which is why half these silly cows have been in the industry for a hundred years, me included.’