Somebody To Love

𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲𝐧 𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤

I am sitting in my room. I budge the zip up on my boots one more time. I keep anxiously checking my clock. The obnoxious ticking fills the room and I start to panic. The arm reaches for 6pm and I hear my doorbell ring. I instantly relax and run down the stairs.

"Christ, girl." My mum laughs from the hallway "How can you run that fast in those shoes?!" I pull open the door to reveal Kath. She's in her outfit I gave her holding a silver case, filled with hair things.

"Hi!" I say, letting her in.

"You alright Kath?" My mum says, giving her a hug. "How's your dad doing?"

"Hello Viv!" She hugs my mum back "Yeah he's alright." She giggles, following me upstairs. I open the door and budge my sewing machine across my desk, revealing a huge mirror. Kathie plonks the case down in front of us, smiling at me.

"Right. What do you want done?" She asked, pulling boxes of rollers and curlers out from her case. I was thrilled to be seeing Smile, but even more thrilled to be going with my Kathie.

"Can I have what I normally get done? Please?" I ask, looking at her in the mirror.

"Of course! You have to leave the rollers in this time though, otherwise it'll go wrong!"

"I will, I will! Don't worry." She lifts the curler up to my head and wraps my long hair around it. I can feel the heat of the curling rod creeping up to my scalp. It's almost soothing in a way.

"So" She began "You been packing up your things?" She asks, sectioning another bit of hair.

"Oh... Yeah, I have. I still have my clothes to go and that's about it." I say, the thought of moving out always scared me. Well, it didn't scare me. I just didn't like the thought of leaving home. Except, I've started to feel a bit better, as I'm moving in with Kath and the house is only a few minutes' drive from my mum's house. I feel Kathie pick up a bit of hair and wrap it around a roller. They're wide and have Velcro around them. They're slightly uncomfortable but I don't say anything. I'm too engrossed in what's going on with my makeup.

"What's that?" Kath says, looking at the pink powder in my hand. I tap the brush lightly on the lid and pink powder falls, like snowflakes onto my dressing table.

"It's blush" I say, sweeping a fat, fluffy brush across my cheeks "I'll put some on for you, if you like." I ask, looking at her in the mirror again.

"Ooh, yeah. Make sure it's not too much though." She laughs. It reminds me of when we used to steal my mum's makeup and do each other's. We were about ten, and my mum caught us. Kath had red lipstick and blue eyeshadow smeared across her face, and I had green sparkly eyeshadow and pink lipstick, similarly smeared across my face. My mum took a picture of us. I still have it in an old leatherbound photo book on my shelf.

My hair is now huge, rollers piled on top of one another. Kath did this new hairstyle she did on a woman at the salon: 'Disco Curls.' I thought they looked so good.

"Have they promoted you yet?" I ask, dragging a mascara wand across my eyelashes.

"Yeah! I got promoted to 'Senior Hairstylist' the other week on Tuesday." She says, in a bubbly tone.

"Oh wow! I'm so proud Kath!" I say, hugging her around her neck from behind her. She smiles and thanks me.

"I don't know why Pheobe won't put your stuff up, never mind promote you." She begins, furrowing her brow, annoyed and confused "You've always had a creative eye for things, and you have some of the best clothes ever. It doesn't make sense to me!"

"Kath, I know it's annoying but if she doesn't like it, it isn't going to happen, she's the boss." I say, filled with disappointment, trying to hide the fact that I was upset too.