Lindsey Kelk - The Single Girl’s To-Do List

‘Done?’ Dan asked, checking I’d powered her boobs sufficiently. I didn’t know for sure but I was pretty certain that, off set, Dan and Ana weren’t being quite so professional as me. In fact, I was pretty certain he was one of the men who had been nibbling on her jacksy. I recognized the bite marks from the last time he’d eaten half my sandwich without asking. Well, maybe he wasn’t the bottom-biter but he was definitely up to something with Ana. He was probably the dull one. Crazy sex romps with someone who was only interested in checking out his own biceps couldn’t be much fun for a supermodel.

‘Just a minute,’ I confirmed, looking my model over from every angle. I might think Ana was a vacuous slapper, but I did care about my job.

But no, I thought to myself, stepping out of the bright lights and back into the shadows, if someone had told me I’d be doing this in ten years, I really wouldn’t have believed them.

‘Goodbye, Raquel,’ Ana breezed by in a flurry of air kisses, swathed in at least three pashminas. In August. ‘And, Dan, it was so lovely to work with you again. I hope I will see you soon.’

The air kisses in his direction weren’t nearly so breezy, and the subtlety of her charade was somewhat undermined by the fact that the stylist, Dan’s assistant, Collin, and I all heard her ‘whisper’ that she’d be waiting for him in the car. Ah-ha. Suspicions confirmed. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed about it. I chose to take the high road and carried on packing away my kit. There was no way I was getting involved with this. In the six years we’d worked together, he must have shagged enough models to open his own branch of Victoria’s Secret, but Ana was actually a name. Good for Dan, finally made it into the Premiership after years in the lower leagues. He was dedicated to his cause, if nothing else.

‘Night, Rach,’ he shouted across the studio, sheepishly heading out after his latest conquest. I gave him a quick wave before settling down in the make-up chair and pulling out my notebook. Cue satisfied sigh. Whizzing through page after page of my own handwriting, I finally found today’s date, written in blue at the top of the page. My to-do list. Taking a black pen out of my handbag, I crossed off the tasks achieved with one straight, black line: drop off dry cleaning, buy toilet roll and knicker shoot. Still to go, buy wine, bikini wax, wash hair (it was almost down to my arse; honestly, it really was a task that warranted its own bullet point) and call my brother.

OK, so maybe my attachment to the lists was slightly unhealthy, and possibly the buzz I got when I crossed something off shouldn’t be quite so satisfying (another indication that my sex life wasn’t all that it should be?), but I had a system. Write in blue, cross it off in black, new list every day, don’t go to sleep until they’re all done or rolled over. I couldn’t help it; apparently I had some sort of genetic defect that prevented me from achieving anything unless it was written down. I blamed my GCSE science teacher, who told me making lists would help with my revision. I might have failed double modular science but I passed obsessive-compulsive order development with flying colours. To be honest, I knew which had come in more useful over the last twelve years and it wasn’t anything to do with a working knowledge of photosynthesis. Well, hopefully biology would come into play tonight because tonight I had bigger fish to fry.

Tonight, I was going to lure Simon back into the big bedroom.

Because no plan can succeed without the assistance of reliable wingmen, I had drafted in my best friends, Emelie and Matthew. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at The Phoenix, Emelie was wasted. The queen of pre-partying had put away almost an entire bottle of red at my flat and was now trying to convince us to join her in a round of shots. And, for whatever reason, only known to himself, Matthew was encouraging her. Generally speaking, I didn’t drink. Hangovers really didn’t sit well with my job: there weren’t many models or celebs that wanted a make-up artist stinking of gin, breathing on them for an hour at a time, and applying liquid eye liner half cut is not something I’d recommend. That said, I was a pretty good drunk, more happy than emotional and, nine times out of ten, I managed to keep my kebab down. Emelie, however, was not blessed with that talent. Despite knowing that she was incapable of drinking so much as a shandy without vomming all over the night bus, she never gave up. Amazing tenacity, that girl.

‘Come on, Ray, it’s Friday,’ she said, brandishing a shot glass, brimming with thick, sticky-looking liquor. ‘And, you know, liquid courage.’

‘One shot,’ I warned, more an order for her than a promise to myself, then knocked it back in one. My throat scorched with sambuca afterburn and, by the time I’d prised my eyes open, she was ordering a second round. Too bad tonight would not be a night spent holding back her hair while she brought up half of Burger King.

‘If you leave me with her, I will destroy you,’ Matthew said, reading my mind. I shrugged, trying not to smile. He loved her really. Matthew (never Matt) and I had been friends ever since he walked out of a queer theory lecture at uni, declaring it ‘a great big bag of wank’.

As his brand-new flatmate, I felt obliged to chase after him, and we spent the afternoon, evening and much of the early morning in the union, drinking pints and making up our own queer theories. Mine hung on the idea that men were just greedy, Matthew’s on his belief that ‘touching a vagina would make him vomit’. There was evidence to back both schools of thought. After that, we were bonded for life. It was a win-win for me – I never had to worry about him trying to get in my pants and he had a stand-in girlfriend to keep his grandmother happy. His mother had known he was gay from birth, by his account, but his grandparents weren’t quite so accepting. Which was possibly why he wore a skintight, neon-pink T-shirt to his grandfather’s funeral.

The poor lamb hadn’t had an easy time of it as a kid. His dad had skidaddled before he was even born and only shown up again a year earlier, shortly before shuffling off his mortal coil and leaving Matthew an absolute ton of money, leading him to quit his air steward job and spend the last twelve months generally fannying around London with absolutely no aim in life. Even when he wasn’t rich, he was pretty much a catch, however you looked at it. The boy was huge, well over six feet tall, and broad with it. Handfuls of thick blond hair dropped into his dark blue eyes and his skin was always tanned, despite my constant sun-bed warnings. Looks-wise, he was somewhere between Hitler’s Aryan dream and Louis Walsh’s wet dream. Personality-wise, definitely erred more on the side of fascist dictator than Gary Barlow. Which was pretty much why I loved him. That and because he came over and killed my spiders when Simon wasn’t around.

It was still early, only just after ten thirty, but the club was already busy. Over in a dark corner of the small, sweaty basement, my brother and his friends were cooing over some guest DJ’s vinyl collection and debating which records to play. I raised a hand when he looked up. They ran this night every month, mostly so they could hang around the DJ booth and look cool to girls. The things boys did to get laid. Said the girl still trying to find a way to get comfortable after her speculative Brazilian.

‘Have you said hello to Paul yet?’ Em asked, distributing the second round and looking at my brother with puppy-dog eyes. ‘We really should.’

I threw back the shot and shuddered. ‘We really shouldn’t,’ I disagreed. ‘Actually, you really shouldn’t. Seriously, Em. No.’