Chapter Nine
Tightly closed Russian dolls
It’s been a couple of weeks, maybe even three, and Yuvana Labs still hasn’t been in touch with me, to the point where I wonder if Glazed Doughnut tried to call me and the phone slipped out of her shiny hand. Merlyn has reassured me over the course of several emails that ‘everything is under control, Erica’. She has also told me about the publicity that I’ll be involved in once the treatment happens. Apparently, there’s going to be a three-page sponsored article inLuscious, with a cover shoot (of me – holy crap), to create some intrigue.
The marketing team is also setting up a new Instagram account called@wokeuplikethis, for me to doBefore and Aftersand share positive stories about what Yuvana Labs are calling my ‘youth journey’. Apparently, I’ll be known as ‘WULT® Woman’ who isNearly fifty but looks mid-twenties!And the good news is that I’m going to get paid for the social media stuff – considerably more than I get for writing articles about things like intermittent fasting and bladder weakness forBalancemagazine (the one they give out free in health food shops). The slightly less good news is that I’m going to have to become an ‘influencer’ of sorts. At least I’ll have had the treatment, so I won’t need to worry about looking jowly while I’m doing all the reels and stuff. And you never know, maybe I’ll get more followers than Cassia, which would be quite the turnaround and rather satisfying.
I asked Merlyn how people would know that ‘WULT® Woman’ wasn’t just a real twenty-seven-year-old, paid to fake it to make Yuvana Labs look good. ‘Don’t worry my dear,’ shesaid, ‘we’ve thought of that – we’ve thought of everything.’ This sounded both reassuring and slightly boastful, but apparently someone called Channing is going to be in touch with me about a ‘content plan’ once I’m booked in for my treatment, which looks like it will be after Christmas now at this rate.
I haven’t told anyone about it yet. I’m going to surprise Josie once it’s taken effect. She’ll be gobsmacked but that’s only because she doesn’t work in the beauty world, so doesn’t really get it. Nandy will get it though – she might even be envious. She must see her daughter Maya and think,I wouldn’t mind looking like that again. Maya is twenty-one and gorgeous. And Nandy really struggles with age spots. Well, she certainly has them. As for Gabe, he’s in for a treat. It would be great if the treatment coincided with Valentine’s Day – what a bloody brilliant gift. Here, have your girlfriend – but twenty years younger. Beats an M&S Dine In Meal For Two, like the Spatchcock Herb Chicken and Raspberry Mousse Hearts that I got from the garage last February and ate on my own.
I’m getting ahead of myself though. I’m not sure we’re even at the ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ stage yet. Do middle-aged people even say that? I’m guessing we’re not though, due to the fact we haven’t had sex, or even come close for that matter, just the odd kiss. Which is mainly because lifting doorstops has had little to no effect on my bingo wings – and whatever those chicken skin bits are called on the inside of my thighs. Maybe just chicken thighs. Bethany, thank god your YouTube videos are free is all I can say, because they’re really not doing much good.
Another thing that’s been slowing Gabe and me up is that after the Trowbridge Museum trip, I’ve only been arranging meet-ups with him where I can be face on, as I’m still trying to hide my jowls with clever use of contour. So, the cinema is out, or any event where we are sitting next to each other in an audience. We also can’t do anything that involves walking together side byside, or water – so swimming (which I wouldn’t do anyway due to the chicken thighs), spa, that sort of thing. It’s slightly limiting but won’t be for much longer with any luck, if the treatment works.
Gabe is funny and sexy, and we don’t just like some of the same things (cheese, puns); we dislike some of the same things too. It’s almost uncanny. The other day, for some reason, we were talking about ice dancing, and I revealed my lifelong dislike of those tights material panels you get on the costumes (seen quite often onStrictly Come Dancingtoo).I mean, they don’t even look like skin. Are they supposed to? If so, then why put Swarovski crystals on them? JEEZ. If I were a judge and someone wore one of those, I would hold up a zero on principle, and Gabe wholeheartedly agrees.
We’ve also discussed our least favourite noises, and I shared my number one: the sound of tightly closed Russian dolls being unscrewed. Most people I’ve told this to haven’t really got it. But Gabe laughed so hard that he got little tears in the corners of his eyes, which, incidentally, are a kind of grey-green, like broad beans. He held my hand over the cafe table (he was directly across from me, which was a relief) and said, ‘Oh good grief Erica, you really do make me laugh.’ Then he told me about a friend of his called Maxine, who’s some kind of comedy producer, and said he would introduce me to talk about writing scripts or sketches or something, which all sounds great apart from the fact that nobody even likes my pun headlines, so I can’t imagine they would like anything lengthier.
In the same cafe, while we were picking at the cornichons (all that remained of our cheese and charcuterie platter), Gabe told me he had been married before. I braced myself – please god no, don’t let him be a widower, this isn’t a rom-com. Living up to someone dead would be a bloody nightmare. I should know, I’ve read enough obituaries of excellent worthy people in UScare homes. But thankfully it was an ill-fated and short-lived marriage to a woman called Aldona in 2002, who, it turned out, just wanted UK residency. She’s gone back to Poland now. I can’t say I blame her, what with all the inflation and other stuff like that.
‘It was one of those decisions you make when you’re younger that in retrospect isn’t a particularly good one,’ he said, breaking the last, almost freakishly large cornichon in two and handing one half to me.
‘I’m very… painfully… familiar with this.’
He looked surprised. ‘Really? Do you have a dark past? Anything I should know about?’
I thought about what happened with Kofi, and decided it was too soon to share any of that, so brushed it off to make myself sound more mysterious and less… troubled. ‘Ha! No, not really… just the usual stuff. No marriages though.’
‘You’re too cool for that.’
I have never considered myself cool, and certainly don’t believe that it’s the reason I’ve never been married, but at that point I was quite willing to let Gabe think it.
‘Well maybe not cool,’ he added. Good that I was able to enjoy about eight seconds of that sensation then. ‘More… quirky. I like that about you. There aren’t many people I can discuss cheese mould with. You’re a kindred spirit.’
Did he just say kindred spirit? I didn’t want to blow it so I didn’t ask him if he’d readAnne of Green Gableswhen he was young. And truthly, I’d rather he hadn’t, which is probably not very modern of me. So, I just crunched on my cornichon and looked into his broad bean eyes.
At the start of December, I finally get the date for my treatment (5 January), along with loads more online forms to complete. I hate signing things on a screen – my signature looks like ‘Colin Turd’ when I have to do it with my finger instead of a pen. I hope it will still be valid if there is ever a lawsuit. Which I’m sure there won’t be. I went to the loo when I was at Yuvana Labs and I’m pretty sure dodgy companies don’t have Aesop handwash by their sinks.
The feeling of limbo is weird, like waiting for Netflix to load when you’re too far from the wi-fi. Something good is coming, but not yet. I really want to tell someone, but I’m making do with talking about it to Merlyn for now. I’m not just excited about my new look, I’m also looking forward to the ten days when the rejuvenation happens. Every day, when I look in the mirror, I’ll look younger – how amazing will that be? Actual change. Not just that pretend change when I wake up and read an affirmation on@dailyinspoquotesand pray something interesting will happen. It will be as though all my anti-ageing products finally work at last.
I just have to get Christmas out of the way first, which means going to Mother Pells’ house, interacting with Simon (who will be going on about Norway, or maybe even something new by then) and generally trying to navigate this Gabe thing, all while secretly counting down to what could potentially be the most ‘New Year, New Me’ ever. January can’t come soon enough.
But for now, the Christmas preparations must begin, which today, for me, involves standing in a ridiculously long queue at the butcher’s to order a turkey crown for Mother Pells. Why she can’t a) order it herself, or b) get one from M&S is anyone’s guess. I stand looking at all the different types of animal organs in the display cabinet and wonder how one would go about cooking an ox cheek. Imagine having a cheek so big that it couldconstitute a meal. My cheeks are so deflated and saggy they wouldn’t even be enough for an hors d’oeuvre.
I’m glad to be summoned from my reverie, which is veering towards macabre and slightly cannibalistic, by Keith, waving a bag at me and shouting, ‘Ossobuco!’ I’m not a hundred per cent sure what that is, being more of a purchaser of fine ready meals than an actual cook, but call ‘delicious!’ in reply, and let Keith keep me company and talk me through the risotto recipe he has planned while I edge further towards the counter. He offers me a lift home and as, according to the Met Office website, it ‘feels like’ –5°C, I gratefully accept.
Ten minutes later, turkey crown ordered, I’m in the front seat of Keith’s electric Volvo, Classic FM belting out ‘Carol of the Bells’, which reminds me of Carol, then Taylor Swift, and I cringe so much I squeeze the Ossobuco in my lap and hope that the risotto recipe doesn’t require whatever it is to be in one piece.
‘I have to make a quick stop on the way, girly-pop,’ says Keith.
‘Okay. Where?’
‘I’ve got some things to drop off for the Christmas Fair.’
‘The Christmas Fair?’
‘Yes, the Christmas Fair. The one they have every year in this town. That everyone goes to. Except you, clearly.’ He laughs. ‘You should though. It’s actually rather fun.’
