Stilettos & Stubble Read Online Free Page B

to my side and patted my knee.
     
    ‘Let me make you
a coffee, my love.  You look like you could do with one.’
     
    His kindness
touched me.  Rejection was usually cruel and never involved a lovely frothy cappuccino
and a friendly face.  As he faffed around at the state-of-the-art coffee
machine in the salon’s back office, I sunk into my chair and sighed.
     
    ‘Here, get that
down you.  Everything seems better after a shot of the old caffeine.’  He
handed me my coffee and pulled up a chair next to me. ‘The thing is, lovie,
this job is probably best suited to a school leaver, one who’ll move from
reception to training as a hairdresser.  You wouldn’t have found much job
satisfaction here and then you’d have moved on.  I’m making sense aren’t I?’
     
    I didn’t dare
tell him I was so desperate I was almost at the stage where I’d accept a job
cleaning men’s urinals, because there was no point.  His mind was made up and I
had my pride - I wouldn’t be begging.
     
    Suddenly a look
passed across his leather tanned face and he began to jog up and down on the
spot like an excited child.  ‘I know!  I feel really bad for not offering you
the job but I’ve got a huge gap in my diary this afternoon, let me give you a
little makeover.  Give your locks a bit of a seeing to.  It might be just the
thing you need to help you nab the next job you go for.’
     
    He obviously saw
my uncertainty because he took my coffee cup and placed it on the side.  ‘Come
on!  What have you got to lose?  It’s on the house.  It’s not every day I offer
my services for free.’
     
    And like a lamb
to the slaughter, I found myself being draped in a satin robe and led to a sink
in the salon.
     
    As the shampoo
was massaged into my weary scalp, I closed my eyes to him saying ‘Let Eduardo
work his magic on you, my love.’
     
     
    *****
     
     
    Eduardo’s ‘ magic ’
found me back at home in front of my bedroom mirror in a state of shock.  I had
precisely an hour before I was due to meet Mia and Co and nothing I’d attempted
to rectify the catastrophe before me had made me look any better.
     
    I’d been permed. 
Badly.  So badly I looked like the only thing missing was a blue rinse. 
I resembled an OAP proudly spruced up after her weekly shampoo and set.  My
fringe was in a row of bouncy little curls and the rest was following suit in
perfect granny fashion.
     
    I don’t know what
he’d been thinking because he really did seem incredibly proud of his
handiwork.  He’d said it accentuated my cheek bones and gave me an ‘edgy
look’.  Edgy if I was thinking of a night at a geriatric bingo club or a coach
trip to Skegness, but not for a twenty-eight year old in search of love and a
career.
     
    I looked in the
mirror and felt my eyes well up.  I looked ridiculous, there was no getting
away from it, and no amount of fiddling, straightening or coaxing was going to make
any difference.
     
    I’d tried to call
Mia to get out of dinner but she wasn’t answering the home phone and her mobile
was going into Voicemail.
     
    There was only
one thing for it.  A hat.
     
     
    *****
     
     
    ‘Just take the
bloody thing off and let me have a look, Perce.  It can’t be that bad.’
     
    We were in the
ladies’ loos at ‘The Bay Leaf’ and Mia was desperately trying to coax me to do
the big reveal.  I held on firmly to the rim of my hat, resolutely refusing to
remove it.
     
    ‘Perce!  Come on !  Please let me see it.  I might be able to help.’  Mia put her hands on
her hips and went into ‘mummy mode’.  ‘I’m a whiz with a comb and a bit of
spray, you know I am. Now get it off, this minute.’
     
    I sighed, finally
resigning myself to the fact that she wasn’t going to give up and raised my
hands to lift the black velvet cloche.
     
    Her sharp intake
of breath said it all.  ‘Oh my!  Lordy, Lordy, Perce!  It’s … it’s different ,
isn’t it?’  Mia was nothing if not