Lorelei in La Maison Beauty Salon was a big fan of coral.
Lorelei was out the door with clients.
The ones she liked, she told how she and Meg had been friends for decades and how she was delighted Meg and Stu were getting married again.
That would have been one in the eye for Stu’s old bitch of a mother, although Meg had always been able for her.
The clients she didn’t like, Lorelei told how she used to do all the beauty for the hotel when the rock stars and the movie stars stayed there and partied like there was no tomorrow. She could have told them of the time she’d been asked to do unusual waxing long before such a thing became the norm, but she didn’t because, after all, discretion was important.
Everyone wanted to know about how Meg looked so beautiful.
At her age? The figure on her? Had she had any work done? This was always accompanied by a narrowing of the eyes.
Lorelei could tell who’d had work done from fifty paces and there were a few people she knew who were so addicted to filler that they permanently looked as if they were having an allergic reaction and needed emergency medication.
But she said none of this. Truthfully, she said, Meg had nothing done. She swam, did yoga, meditated and lived life to the full.
People sagged in their chairs at this.
Feck it: work was involved. How annoying. If only they could get the name of Meg’s tribe of technicians, then they could look like her too.
Lorelei didn’t say that Meg would have loved a bit of Botox, had confided as much, but hadn’t the money for it. No need for this crowd to hear that sort of thing.
And the girls …?
Lorelei, who’d known the four since they were in their prams, said they were fabulous.
Indy was an angel; Eden was a force to be reckoned with in politics; Savannah had the most spectacular business – Lorelei didn’t say that she thought Savannah’s husband was a bit of an idiot and she wouldn’t want anyone who belonged to her married to him.
And, of course, darling Rory had won loads of awards in advertising.
Lorelei loved the girls but secretly adored Rory most of all. When her Artie had been eleven, and the jocks at school had begun to make his life miserable because he was gay, Rory had been there like an avenging angel.
It had taken the school many years to understand homophobic bullying but Rory Robicheaux had got it straight off: she had her crew and she took care of them. Nobody ever said a word to Artie Stanley again. Not after the incident where two of the football team had limped out clutching their groins and their throats respectively, one side of their hair shaved off along with the opposite eyebrow.
The words written on their foreheads in indelible ink took some time to come off.
She’d taken photos with someone’s Polaroid.
Yup, blackmail, she added cheerily, but she was laying down the rules now.
Next time, it would be worse. She wouldalwaysbe watching.
Rory made students in school understand that there was a battleground in existence.
They might not see it or be affected by it but it was there. People were bullied for their sexuality, gender, any basic choices in life. For not having money for nice clothes, for having acne, for anything that made them different.
Rory, who was superbright, tall, physically very strong and utterly fearless, said she would rule the battleground for kids who were different. The school wouldn’t do it but she would.
She’d been terrifying, Artie had told his mother gleefully. She’d said she was getting a tattoo kit and was going to do rainbows on the hands of anyone who was homophobic.
Just let them try and prosecute me, she’d said.
Lorelei knew the world was a more accepting place now – or she hoped it was – but when her Artie was a young lad, Rory had saved him.
Artie now lived in London, was married to a fellow architect, and he said Rory was working on a book.
Lorelei didn’t care what it was about, she’d buy it. Rory was an angel and the Robicheaux family were close to her heart.
