My Most Glamorous Friend

A little story about an encounter I had today

Bumped into a friend today.

My most glamorous friend.

As is always the way with stylish friends, naturally she caught me at my most haggard; weighed down with supermarket carrier bags and wearing my Poundland reading glasses as a makeshift hairband.

Her ‘well turned out’ met my ‘well…. I turned up’ with comic ease.

“Me Julie!”

She said in the mock Ali G she reserves for our encounters. Then;

“Ooh….What have you been buying?”

Hm……

Well, if you’d seen me yesterday, you’d have found me with a healthy selection of spinach, lettuce and blood oranges I mused as I opened my bag gingerly, as though she were an overly stringent customs officer.

Today, however…….

She clocks the pizza boxes and moves swiftly on without comment.

Most Glamorous Friend is a couple of years older but girlishly pretty. She’s a petite blonde and does the ‘casual chic’ thing enviably well. Today, she models wears wide leg jeans and a simple poppy red top teamed with an angled animal print cravat. The rims of her glasses (which she does not wear as a makeshift hairband) have a slight flick outwards that make her look like a sexy cartoon cat. The look is ‘girl in sports car’ meets ‘chill day by the beach hut’ and it works.

I suddenly become hyper aware of my own eclectic outfit. The ensemble I affectionately refer to as ‘just had to get out of the fucking house’.

“Yeah…….got my hiking boots on….”

I say both randomly and self consciously as she scans me. Not so much last season as past reason. Which bit is she picking up on? I wonder. My mumwear staple of black leggings? My bitten finger nails?

“You’re looking very nice”

I offer, diverting attention.

“Well…. I’ve put a bit of lippy on. You know…..thought I’d make an effort”

She says

To go to Sainsburys. Really?

Most Glamorous Friend is a funny fish.

We worked together for years yet she virtually ignored me until I became a mum. Don’t you find some women do that? It’s like they need proof you’re one of them, entry to the club.

But after that, we found our way and decided we quite liked each other, were the least square people in a very square job.

Most Glamorous Friend was the first person to introduce me to the delights of dry shampoo. I can still see her in her car, opening her designer handbag to reveal the sleek metal can.

“Dry? Shampoo? But….”

I’d expressed in confusion before watching her spritz it generously into her roots, only to resurface with the perfect bad gal ‘bed head’.

I, on the other hand introduced her to M&S Wasabi Peas.

We do the small talk, the “we should get together” thing.

“But I can’t do now…..Easter school holidays”

I say.

“Summer? Christmas? Next year?”

She jokes.

Then;

“Actually…..I’m off work at the moment.”

“How long you off?”

“I don’t know……..gonna go back soon. I will….”

“Oh….. I thought you meant on holiday.”

“No….”

Most Glamorous Friend launches into a story of work place bullying, as well as the pressures of the job itself which include being regularly verbally abused.

“Oh, so you’re signed off with stress? Depression? Some mental health type thing?”

“Yeah. That sort of thing”

She takes a long drag on her cigarette.

“I actually think that everyone’s mentally ill, Julie”

“Yes. A lot of it about.”

I say.

Most Glamorous Friend and I proceed to swap catch up stories about our nearest and dearest. We court each other in shades of shock jock, each trying to make the other feel slightly better by revealing something slightly worse about our so-called lives.

Our real, raw, rough around the edges lives.

The only ones we have.

“I will return to work soon though……. because I only end up drinking more, smoking more…….”

She admits.

“I can tell you that…….’cause you already know what I’m like….”

I don’t know whether I’m supposed to dismiss it, laugh, what……

Because I do indeed know what she’s like.

“Can I give you a hug?”

She asks tentatively, as she finishes her cigarette. I lean in, holding my breath, conscious of the garlic I consumed earlier. For a brief moment, Most Glamorous Friend clings to me like a tiny rhesus monkey.

And then we part.

As we go our separate ways, Most Glamorous Friend no longer looks intimidatingly gorgeous.

She just looks gorgeous.

I remember why we are still friends.

It’s not because we once worked together.

It’s not because she’s a total style queen.

It’s because she’s authentic and vulnerable.

And in an uptight, guarded world, a heart on a sleeve, is the most beautiful accessory of all.

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