Chapter Fifteen
Step Into Your Magnificence
After lunch with Merlyn, I’m back in the Yuvana Labs reception area. Although it’s only been two weeks, it feels like years – twenty years, come to think of it. It’s a different receptionist today, and she looks like the personification of an Instagram reel, with dusky pink clothes, hair slicked back into a neat ponytail and the shiniest lips I have ever seen. She appears to be eating some kind of high-protein cacao-nut ball type thing while tapping away on her rose-gold MacBook Air, with pointed white fingernails. Next to the laptop is a book calledStep Into Your Magnificence.
‘I’m here to…’ I say, but The Human Reel interrupts me.
‘Be the best version of yourself you can possibly be?’ She looks at me quizzically and sips from a gold water bottle filled with bits of cucumber. I’m trying to work out what ‘Core’ she is when it hits me: she’s a Millennial, same as Glazed Doughnut. A few months ago, Gen Zs and Millennials all merged into one undifferentiated mass: People Younger Than Me. Now I see the difference.
‘Well… yes. I mean… I’m here to see Dr Marcus. I’m Erica.’
She stares at me, a penny visibly dropping. ‘Well, then you must be here for your Youth Review.’
‘I am.’
‘Dr Marcus will be ready shorty.’
Is she calling me ‘Shorty’? Or maybe she said shortly. I’m not sure enough to say anything so just glare at her and sit on the blue sofa with my picnic basket.
Sitting there, I find myself thinking about Nandy and how much I want her to be okay with all this. Friends like her don’t come along very often. Well, not for me. I don’t know why this is exactly. Maybe I’m not good at making friends, or maybe I have too strict a door policy, or maybe I don’t try hard enough anymore. I made more of an effort in the past, but I suppose the old jowly me, with confidence levels so low, kind of gave up.
That said, there was a time I tried. It was about ten years ago – Josie and Laure hadn’t arrived on the street, so I hardly knew anyone, even though I’d been there for the best part of a decade. I signed up to host Bella & Tot jewellery parties, lured in by talk of being a ‘stylist’ and ‘new season drops’ (but secretly appalled at the prices of what was generally silver or gold ‘finish’ rather than real silver or gold). It was really to meet some of the women on the neighbouring streets – I felt sure there must be more kindred spirits out there.
I dropped invitations through doors (‘be sure to over-invite!’ advised the Bella & Tot Stylist Guide), chose an outfit from Reiss, got fresh Botox and bought some nibbles from Sainsbury’s, in those wilderness days before the M&S Food opened at the garage. I made Sangria, although I’m not sure why, and cut up a quiche. I laid out jewellery on a load of old Amazon boxes of different heights that I covered with duvet covers, and it didn’t look as bad as it sounds. And then I waited for my guests to arrive, with disposable incomes and amazing personalities in tow.
Three people came. Mrs Belcher from over the road, who I distinctly remember not inviting – for many reasons, but let’s pick two for brevity: she wipes her feet for about five minutesbefore she goes inside her house, so I feel there are issues there, and I am also convinced that when she takes PR sample parcels in for me she syphons off a few. That woman might dress as though she works at Alan’s Auto Repairs, but she always smells like one of the treatment rooms at The Connaught Spa.
Guest number two was Nicky, or Nicki, or Nikki or… oh who cares? She lived a few doors along from where Josie lives now, but thankfully has long since moved to Market Lavington. Nicky told me as soon as she arrived that she was ‘well known at the school’, which to me sounded like a matter for the police but to her appeared to be something to boast about. She could only stay for half an hour as her husband was ‘doing bedtimes’ and Flora was ‘overtired’. So am I, listening to you, I thought. She ate most of the quiche and knocked over one of the Amazon boxes, ruining my display of Clip-on Teardrop Hoops.
Guest number three – Fern, a ‘hedge witch’ from the street parallel to mine – was the only one to alert me to the fact that my eyebrows were raised, making me look surprised, something I hadn’t realised while I was getting ready. Two words: cheap Botox. Maybe that’s why Nicky kept talking, thinking I was actually interested in what she was saying. Back to Fern, no, I didn’t know what a hedge witch was either, but she was late because she was ‘harvesting wolfsbane’ and wondered if the Bella & Tot range included amulets, so I got the general idea. In summary, by eight p.m. I was on my own drinking a bowl of Sangria. It wasn’t all bad though – even though there were no purchases on the night I did get a big order online the next day, not from a name I recognised but I didn’t care, it was enough to qualify me for a free Kimberly Tourmaline Necklace.
After about five minutes, The Human Reel gets up and leads me towards the door. As she opens it, she says, with apparently no irony whatsoever, ‘You didn’t come this far to only come this far.’
I can’t really think how to reply so say ‘Righty-ho!’, which leaves me wondering who is weirder, me or her.
In the room, Dr Marcus is on the same sofa and looks identical to how he did last time. Is it likeThe Great British Bake Off, where the contestants appear to wear the same clothes all weekend, presumably for continuity? When Josie, Héloïse and I watch it together we always wonder if they have multiple sets of clothes, or if someone washes them and dries them overnight, or if they just wear them dirty. They must get quite sweaty, we all know how hot it can be in the tent. Especially when it’s chocolate week, for some reason.
‘Erica!’ Dr Marcus jumps up theatrically as I enter the room and guides me to the blue velvet sofa, as if I somehow wouldn’t be able to see it, despite it being huge and three feet away from me.
‘How are you? You’re certainly looking… as we’d hoped!’ he says.
Peach Jumpsuit makes a hissing sound, which I think is ‘Yessssssss’, but sounds more like air escaping from an inflatable. She is staring at me and my picnic basket with noticeably more interest than she ever has before.
‘I’m good,’ I say. ‘Thank you. And I mean that – thank you. This is amazing.’
For a second, it almost looks like Peach Jumpsuit is smiling, but it might just be the oligarch lighting or the way her face is stretched so tight.
Dr Marcus can hardly keep still, and after sitting down for a second, he leaps up again and squats down in front of me, in a move that I have never been able to do at any age. He stares at my face, looking at it from every possible angle, touching melightly on the chin with a beautifully manicured finger to get me to lift my head up, then down, then to one side, then the other.
‘Stupendous,’ he says, after a minute or so. It reminds me of the sort of adjective generated by AI on LinkedIn. ‘Congratulate Kelly Norris on Two Years at Prestige Consulting Services – Stupendous news, Kelly!’
‘It’s going to change my life,’ I say, surprising myself at how serious I sound. ‘For the better, that is. I mean, it is already. Doing that.’
Peach Jumpsuit hands me a glass of water. How does she know that I can feel my throat tightening with emotion? That wine I had with lunch is really coming back to haunt me.
‘Have you told your family and friends yet?’ asks Dr Marcus.
‘No… I’m meeting my best friend in a couple of hours though.’ I might be nearly fifty, but I still get a warm glow from calling Nandy my best friend.
‘Indeed,’ says Dr Marcus. I might start saying ‘indeed’ more, it’s such a non-answer.
‘And do you have any friends in Europe? You may have noted in the paperwork that the treatment won’t be available in certain European territories, so we would rather keep it under the radar over there. For now, at least.’
I can’t help thinking that with the internet pretty well established, it’s going to be tricky to pick and choose where – and by whom – this gets talked about, especially if we’re about to launch an Instagram account to promote it… But I nod anyway. I’ve got a fringe like Emma Watson and a jawline to match, so who cares about ‘certain European territories’. Not me.
‘Excellent. And now, Portia will take you through for your review.’
Peach Jumpsuit, who has been perfectly still, and holding her hands in a weird mannequin pose again, springs to life andstands up, then ushers me through the far door of the room. This time, I notice, my knees don’t click when I get up.
