‘Five mins!’
I try to super-speedily shave my legs, which is a grave error of judgement and leads to unsightly shin cuts that sting like a mofo. I hop about and mutter all the swear words until the pain subsides.
A sweet prog rock keyboardist I saw for a few weeks last year asked me why on earth I cared so much about what Summer Spencer thought. And I told him exactly why: Summer was there for me at a time when no one else was. Which sounds dramatic, I know, but it’s a true fact. Because when I was eighteen my mum, Rose, died. I was in my first year at Manchester university and Summer was on the same English Lit course as me. When I’d failed to turn up to lectures for three weeks, she came to my halls to find out why I’d disappeared. To be fair, up until then I’d been helping her with the assignments (I still don’t know how she got on the course – she thought George Eliot was a dude), and she’d been getting rubbish marks in my absence. But still, out of everyone, Summer was the only person who’d even noticed I was missing.
When she discovered me holed up in my room eating an undercooked frozen garlic bread, doing aRosemary & ThymeDVD marathon and swigging shit boxed wine directly from the plastic tap on the box, she said to me, ‘This is the saddest scene I’ve ever witnessed. Put on some lipstick, let’s go out and get ridiculously fucked.’ Which, at the time, I thought was the worst, most insensitive idea in the world. But as it turned out, going out and having fun was the most effective distraction I’d had in weeks. From then on we were inseparable. Summer took me under her wing and introduced me to her crowd of cool friends, who eventually became my crowd of cool friends too.
I’d never met anyone like Summer Spencer before. Even at eighteen years old she was the most confident, popular person in most rooms. She’d wear stylish new hairdos and fashion before they even hit the magazines, always had an innate sense of where the best parties were going on, and the fact that she wanted to hang out with me was supremely flattering. Still is. And I didn’t mind writing the odd essay for her, or even doing what eventually turned out to be most of her dissertation – I loved the books we were studying, and a stressed-out Summer was nowhere near as much fun. And I’ll never forget that if she hadn’t dragged me out of my bedroom that day, I’d probably still be in there now, going mouldy.
Outside the bathroom door I hear the growly opening riffs of one of my favourite Led Zeppelin songs blare out of the iPhone. I can’t resist a quick air-guitar moment before rinsing the conditioner off my head.
So, after graduation, Summer and I lost touch for a few years. She was super busy in New York trying to make it as a fashion designer and dating Anderson Warner – he of the twinkly eyes and MTV movie award fame − and I was travelling across Europe, not really trying to make it as anything but having some pretty epic adventures along the way. Later, when Summer’s fashiony dreams didn’t quite come off and Anderson chucked her for a South Korean model, she came back to the UK and set up a blog calledSummer in the City.
In the beginning it was mostly just daily duck-faced selfies of Summer at different parties and product launches. It barely had any traffic, and no income to speak of. She called me and asked if I’d like to write for her. I was in Morocco at the time having a ball, but she needed a favour and I owed her big time. And now here we are. The wages aren’t quite enough for me to rent my own pad, but Summer lets me live cheaply in the Castlefield apartment Anderson bought her. This is where I’ve been ever since, and over the past two years of working together,Summer in the Cityhas become this gorgeous, popular lifestyle blog based on Summer’s adventures in Manchester. I do the bulk of the writing, but Summer’s the tastemaker. I mooch along to all the restaurants, cocktail bars, boutiques, gigs and product parties, and together we blog about it. Me the voice, and Summer the face. The work’s easy-peasy, and we get to go out a lot for free. I never really made any grand plans for a career, so to have fallen into this, I’ve got to admit, is a sweet deal.
Hopefully it’s about to get even sweeter because today we’re going to London to pitch to Valentina Smith – non-fiction editor at the Southbank Press. They’re interested in turningSummer in the Cityinto a glossy lifestyle book!
OK: clothes.
I dry myself off with the only towel I can find until I do some washing – a teeny green hand towel − and open my wardrobe door to find that the line of plastic coat hangers that are supposed to hold my clothes are all empty except for one, which displays a slutty Cleopatra costume from last Halloween.
Probably not that.
Rifling through my drawers I find, amongst the odd DVD case, a half-empty bottle of rum, the beloved gold bra I thought I’d lost, a slightly crumpled, kind of low-cut but otherwise perfectly all right turquoise and pink floral cotton dress.
Is this even mine?
I give it a sniff.
Not bad …
I liberally spritz it with Febreze just in case and pull it on. It’s quite short, just about covering my bum and fully exposing my razor-doomed legs.
Dammit. I probably should have prepared better for this. The dress does look kind of awesome, though, as long as everyone’s eyes remain firmly above the waist.
‘Jess! Hurry uuuuuup!’
Right, it’ll just have to do.
‘Sorry, Summer! Nearly there!’
I dab loo roll on the cuts, blast my white-blonde hair extensions dry, draw in my eyebrows, put on my favourite silver flip-flops and head out to an increasingly impatient Summer.
* * *
‘What are you wearing? No.Noooooooo.’ Summer panics as soon as she sees me.
She’s in our living room looking perfectly groomed in a coral shift dress and a short leather bolero jacket with some high-heeled ankle boots. Her dark ombre’d hair is softly waved and swept over to one side. Around her neck she’s wearing a necklace with a gold Sonic the Hedgehog charm.Idon’t get it, but we wrote about it on the blog last week and apparently it’s really ‘on trend’. Behind her, draped across our faux-distressed leather sofa, is Summer’s boyfriend Holden. He looks me up and down over the top of his big square knobhead glasses which make him look like a knobhead.
‘I’m wearing a dress, like you said to!’ I explain, fingering the short skirt.
‘That’s not a dress, sweetpea, it’s a tragedy.’
Holden sniggers. I shoot him my best withering glance, which I’ve checked out in the mirror a few times. It’s pretty withering.
‘But isn’t it your dress?’ I ask. ‘I don’t think it’s mine … ’
She’s offended by the mere suggestion. ‘Why didn’t you just buy a new one like I asked you to?’
