Getting Over Mr. Right (10 page)

Of course, knowing Giselle Kleinbeck’s name and having access to a picture of her with spinach between her big teeth on Michael’s Facebook page was not enough for me. I had to find out more. With her name, unusual as it was for London, my earlier investigations had made it very easy to find out where she worked. Well-Sprung Interiors, southeast-area representatives for Well-Sprung Upholstery, had their premises in Wimbledon, a mere two miles from my flat. I investigated their website further. It was very dull. It explained that they specialized in office interiors, and there was the name of Michael’s firm among the company’s list of clients. The sight of it made me clench my jaw.

He really had met her while she refurbished his office. To think I had thought that between the hours of nine and five each day I had nothing much to worry about as far as my boyfriend was concerned: There was very little T&A in an office full of people who got excited about tax codes. I hadn’t allowed for incomers. Now I thought back to the first time Michael mentioned that his office was being decorated. Of course I’d thought nothing of it at the time, but now I wondered if the decorating had coincided with Michael’s visit to the personal shopper at Harvey Nics and his sudden renewed interest in weight training.

I visited the Well-Sprung Interiors website about a hundred times that week, from home and from the office, when I should have been dealing with the Effortless Bathing project. But the website wasn’t enough for me. By the end of the week I knew that I would have to go to Well-Sprung’s office.

The urge had not left me when Saturday rolled around. I just wanted to get some idea of the world Miss Well-Sprung (it seemed like a good nickname given her “assets”) moved in. I told myself it would do no harm.

All the same, a disguise seemed like a good idea. According to the website, Well-Sprung wasn’t open weekends, but I couldn’t take the risk. What if she lived over the shop? There was a strong possibility that if she saw me, she would recognize me. Michael may not have officially introduced us at the Christmas party where Miss Well-Sprung first came to my attention, but, especially if they had already begun their flirtation, she must have seen me clinging to him on the dance floor. Clinging because I had noticed her circling him like a shark. Yes, I would have to wear a disguise.

I stood in front of my wardrobe and waited for inspiration. Unfortunately, it was not a fruitful cupboard of disguises. I did have a nurse’s uniform, but I’d bought it from Ann Summers, the sex shop, in an attempt to cheer Michael up when he had man-flu. With its mini-skirt in highly flammable nylon, that outfit was going to fool nobody. Had it been the winter, I would have been fine. I had plenty of coats with hoods and sweaters with big roll necks that I could have pulled up to my nose. But it was the beginning of May and unusually hot. Definitely not balaclava weather. Wrapping up would draw more attention than it diverted. Only nutters wear too many layers in the heat.

Soon my options had been narrowed down to a pair of big sunglasses with a loose lens in the left eye and a head scarf, bought when I had the notion that channeling the glamour of Grace Kelly might be a suitable fashion direction for me. I’d spent the best part of two hundred pounds in Hermès, but it hadn’t quite worked as I’d hoped. On the three occasions I’d ventured out with that scarf, I’d looked less Princess Grace than palace washerwoman. I didn’t look much better when I tied it around my head now, but it would have to do. With the sunglasses clamped firmly to my nose, most of my face was covered. The scarf hid my hair color. I was ready to go.

The premises of Well-Sprung Interiors were surprisingly uninspiring. They occupied the ground floor of a building in a little parade of shops that also contained a dry cleaner, a kosher butcher, and a newsagent offering mobile-phone top-ups and Oyster transportation cards. Opposite was a hairdressing salon so out of date that it still offered a shampoo and set. I was immediately cheered by the fact that my rival obviously wasn’t making Martha Stewart lose any sleep.

As it was a Saturday and the shop appeared to be empty, I pressed my nose against the picture window for a proper look inside. There were a couple of very ordinary-looking desks. Possibly Ikea. Neither especially tidy. The bookshelves were bowing under the weight of hundreds of three-ring binders. Against the wall were piled carpet and wallpaper sample books. A tower of interiors magazines was topped by a dirty mug. The mug claimed it was a present from New York. There was nothing to focus on. It was just an ordinary interiors shop, really. No more clues as to what Michael found so compelling about its inhabitant. I’d had a wasted journey. Or so I thought …

Just as I had satisfied myself that I could glean nothing more from staring into the closed shop, I became aware of a car pulling up to the curb behind me. Watching the driver in the reflection on the big picture window, I realized to my horror that it was her: Miss Well-Sprung herself.

I should have hopped onto my bike, but I was paralyzed with anxiety. I couldn’t pretend I had just been browsing, could I? Well-Sprung Interiors didn’t exactly have an inviting window display.

“Can I help you?” she asked. It was the first time I’d heard her voice. It was as husky and exotic as I had dreaded from the moment I heard she came from Brazil. Damn.

I snapped my sunglasses back down over my eyes like a visor before I dared turn around. When I did, I found her just a
couple of feet away from me, her head cocked to one side as if to ask,
What have we here?
I had to make my excuses and quickly.

“I was just …” I glanced across the street and the salon caught my eye. “Just waiting for my hairdressing appointment. Hence the …” I indicated the scarf on my head.

“Oh, okay,” said Well-Sprung, looking me up and down. My incongruous Hermès scarf and sunglasses were accessorizing a very tatty pair of combat trousers. She was wearing a white shirt knotted at the waist, tailored capri pants, and open-toed sandals. Her pedicure was flawless. “Excuse me,” she said. She wiggled past me to open the door. As I jumped out of her way, the loose lens in my sunglasses fell to the ground and was crunched beneath her foot.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She knelt to pick it up.

“It’s okay,” I said, running across the street before she had a chance to look at me without the Polaroid shield. “They were old.”

“But … your sunglasses!”

Damn. And double damn. I couldn’t have drawn more attention to myself if I’d tried. And now, as I pushed my way into the salon (it took a moment before I realized the notice on the door said
PULL
), I became aware that she was still watching me. Of course, she was wondering about my broken sunglasses, but perhaps something about me had jogged her memory and she was beginning to work out exactly where she’d last seen me. As I hovered at the salon’s reception desk, she was still watching. I couldn’t just turn around and leave.

“You got an appointment?” the girl at the desk asked.

“No.”

“Kylie can fit you in when she’s finished Mrs. Brown’s blow-dry.”

What could I do except agree? Sneaking a peek back at Well-Sprung
Interiors, I saw that my rival was still outside her office. She was talking on her mobile. Was she calling Michael? Had she worked out who I was? Would she know for sure who I was if I took my head scarf off?

“Take a seat over there.” The receptionist ushered me to a chair at the back of the salon. Momentary relief. But how long was Miss Well-Sprung going to spend hanging around outside her office that afternoon? My exit could be my undoing.

Which is why when Kylie asked me what I wanted done, I asked her to dye my hair brown.

“Are you sure?”

Kylie wasn’t. She suggested a full head of highlights instead, but I knew that wouldn’t work. Miss Well-Sprung was still in and out of her shop, carrying files to and from her car, or just sitting on the bonnet to take phone calls or have a cigarette. She was making the most of the sunshine.

“It’s going to look rubbish,” said Kylie.

I said I just wanted a change. As I watched Miss Well-Sprung to see if she was still watching me, a transformation from blond to brunette didn’t seem like such a bad idea anyway. Apart from the amount of cleavage she was proudly displaying with her artfully unbuttoned shirt, the main difference between me and Miss Well-Sprung was that her hair was brown. Now that I thought about it, whenever Michael and I had spoken about those actresses he admired (for “admired” read “fancied”) they had always been brunettes. Someone Latin looking. Penélope Cruz was one of his favorites. He liked Salma Hayek, too. And Catherine Zeta-Jones (okay, she’s not very Latin, but she had a fair bash at it in
Zorro
). Michael had never gone for the girls that I modeled myself on: Gwyneth or Cate Blanchett. They were insipid. Not like Miss Well-Sprung at all.

“Can’t you do a wash in, wash out?” I suggested. “Just so I can get an idea?”

“It won’t suit you,” Kylie insisted. “And as it washes out, it will start to take on reddish tones, which will look even worse. I tell all my clients the same thing. If you dramatically change your hair color, it’s not the only thing you’re going to have to alter. You have to be prepared to change your makeup, too, and the colors of the clothes you wear. I had one client who even had to change the color of the walls in her house after she went from blond to brown.”

“I’m ready for it,” I said. I couldn’t help wondering what kind of walls didn’t go with brown hair.

“All right. But I am doing this at your insistence,” Kylie said one more time.

In actual fact it didn’t look bad. The hair, at least, looked great. It looked magnificent. It had a depth of shine that I never could have achieved with my previous mousy color, even if I slept in leave-in conditioner for a month. My hair was beautiful. It was the sort of hair you see being tossed in an advertisement for L’Oréal. It was sumptuous and silky. It reflected the light like a mirror. It was the kind of hair I defy any man to keep his hands out of … Unfortunately, it just didn’t go with my face.

“I knew it,” said Kylie. “It’s way too dark.”

I didn’t look like Penélope Cruz or Salma Hayek. I didn’t even look like Catherine Zeta-Jones. With my pale skin under that ravishing brunette mop, I looked as though I was going to a fancy-dress party as my grandmother’s favorite comedian, Max Wall. But I was in denial. As far as I was concerned, I had the kind of hair that would make Michael fall in love.

“Nothing that a bit of blusher can’t fix!” I said, full of sudden foolish optimism.

Kylie shook her head. “Let me know when you want me to add some highlights.”

I paid for my new do and left the salon. Miss Well-Sprung was outside having another cigarette, but this time she didn’t even glance in my direction. I grabbed my bike and started pedaling. I’d gotten away with it.

Becky was not so sure.

I spent the rest of Saturday adjusting to my new look. Kylie had been right about needing a new look to go with my new locks. So, high on having gotten past Miss Well-Sprung with my cunning disguise, I spent five hundred pounds in Debenhams on new makeup and a red dress. When I got home, I put on the outfit and the makeup and sat in front of my dressing-table mirror practicing pouting and hair tossing. Anything Miss Well-Sprung could do … I’d have her out of my side of Michael’s bed before she could say,
Ay, caramba
.