Page 55 of The Love of My Afterlife
“You know, Cooper, that’s the first pleasant thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Cooper gives a swift shake of his head. “I told you I liked your cactus the first time I brought a parcel to your apartment.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything, Delphie.”
His eyes glint as he fixes me with an unsettling look that lasts a second longer than is polite. I think of his finger in the aquarium.
“Anyway!” I sort of shout in response. “Gotta go!” I hold up the earrings. “Got to do some ear strength training if I’m gonna handle these bad boys. Wonder if they make miniature kettlebells for earlobes? Haha.”
Cooper raises an eyebrow.
I give him a half wave and then spin on my heel and scarper out of the building.
I reach the pharmacy to find Leanne holding a pair of gold spray-painted angel wings aloft, a beam on her lineless face.
“I thought we said Daisy and Gatsby!”
“Do you not trust me? After all these years?”
“No!” I say, eyeing Jan, who has three different sets of heated hair implements plugged into the wall.
“Well, well, well. She’s got what she wanted, so now the sweetness and light has buggered off. I knew it was too good to last.”
“I’m just not sure about angel wings. I said I wanted to blend in!”
“You’re not going to be wearing the entire wings, you turnip.I’m plucking from them for the dress. I’ll use some of the feathers as embellishments, but I won’t know which exact feathers and where to put them until you’re in the dress.”
“Oh.”
“Yes,” Leanne echoes. “Oh.
“Right, come on, Mum.” Leanne claps her hands together and looks me up and down. “We’ve got some serious heavy lifting to do.”
It has taken three hours, and I have felt every one of them deeply. From the shapewear that Leanne insisted she help me squidge myself into (and that she promised had never been used even though she kept glancing at Jan as she said it), to Jan’s snail’s pace looping of my hair over a metal tong that came perilously close to my eye four separate times. And then there was the whole fifteen minutes in which Leanne absolutely lost her shit because I wasn’t keeping my eyelashes still enough for her to stick individual lashes onto my existing lashes and create a “cat’s-eye vibe.”
“Does it even matter?” I’d asked, to which she’d had to “step outside for some air.”
When they’re done, Leanne and Jan step back and nudge each other, smiling.
“Go into the blood pressure booth and have a look,” Jan urges.
I head into the blood pressure booth and pull open the cupboard door that has one of those wiggly Ikea mirrors glued onto the back of it. It genuinely takes me a moment of staring before I realise that the person in the mirror is me. Delphie Bookham. I look…fucking incredible. The dress hugs mybody like it was custom-made for me. The silver fringing swishes when I swing from the left and then to the right. Leanne has glued the golden-tipped angel wing feathers onto the cap sleeves of the dress, making it look dramatic and glamourous. My hair has uniform waves the whole long length of it. It’s tucked behind my ears and is draped over one shoulder, showing off Em’s incredible vintage earrings.
“I didn’t have time to do actual finger waves, but I watched a YouTube tutorial on how to get the effect with tongs,” Jan says, holding up her phone and snapping pictures of my hair. “It’s come out pretty stonking! I might have a go on meself. That’ll get Dan at the deli to give me a second glance, I bet.”
I lean in to get a closer look at my face. My skin looks clear and glowy, the depth of the freckles on my nose offsetting the severity of the eye makeup. My lips are painted in a glossy burgundy colour, the tone mirrored by the pale plum blush on my cheekbones.
“How did you make my eyes look so big?” I gasp. “I look like my mum.”
“Just tricks,” Leanne says modestly. “Your eyes are already massive to begin with.”
Tears well in my massive eyes.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Leanne hisses, jumping in front of me and flapping my face with her hands.
“I…I…” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Thank you.” I look at them each in turn. “You didn’t have to do this and…you just did? Without any conditions.”
