not so super model pt.4
I went straight to Eliza. All she said was “Oh B” and “Let’s make for the Hogs Head.”
My inebriated friend was the queen of optimism-verging-on-delusion. “He’s dying to sweep you away,” her voice was all drama, “he’s just pig headed.” She mulled it over for another minute and then said “You know that Bonnie Raitt song, I can’t make you love me?” Yup. “Well it’s bunk.”
Later, through my third tumbler of amber ambrosia, I agreed. “He already loves part of me,” I drawled. “I’ve just gotta make him love the other part.” By other part I meant the part that didn’t look like a Dutch runway model.
The next afternoon I made my way through the streets to the first Toni and Guy with a cancellation. A glam man in mascara seated me. “What’s your pleasure, dahling?”
I flipped through a magazine until I found a photo of a very thin Catherine Zeta Jones – the closest I could come to Miss Van Strudel on such short notice.
“Make me look like this,” I said, and meant it.
A year later we’d sit back and wonder at the events of the following week. Eliza would laugh a laugh full of snorts and I would cringe and hide my head.
But I was full of confidence on the day I decided to turn myself into the woman I hated.
I coloured my hair the darkest shade of brunette. Adopted towering heels and an accessorised-to-death style. I even began learning drunken German – because she spoke the sober kind – and went around saying things like “Ich liebe mich Affe” and “Ich bin sehr konfus”.
When he arrived home from Amsterdam-by-way-of-Paris he was in for a shock. So was I.
