Girl Online (25 page)

“Leah, I don't know what to do with half this stuff. I mean, I think I can guess . . .” I turn over a pack of copper transfer tattoos and it suddenly dawns on me that I really have no clue at all. “When did transfer tattoos come back into fashion, and where do they go?”

Leah snatches the pack off me and places it back in the basket. “Penny, you aren't going to be putting this on by yourself. I'm going to get my makeup artists and hair stylist to come and help you. And these tattoos have been the in thing for a while now, Pen. Don't you read
Glamour  
?” As we walk around the store, I try to avoid noticing that everyone else is noticing
us
—or, rather, noticing Leah. I think there's a
crowd gathering outside the windows, and I notice that the shop assistants have moved to the entrance to stop anyone else from coming in.

“Well, obviously, I love
Glamour
. It's my favourite.” I smile weakly and pray she can't sense my lies through my wonky voice.

“Oh, thank goodness, you almost had me fooled there.” She laughs and gives me a friendly nudge, while adding something called “bronzing dry oil” to the basket.

Once the basket is almost overflowing with beauty products I didn't even know existed, Leah takes it to the checkout, where the girl behind the counter starts beeping it all through. It comes to well over a thousand euros and my chin almost hits the floor.

“Leah, thank you so much for helping me, but I can't afford all this . . .” I go to take the products and put them back on the shelves, but Leah grabs my arm.

“You British are always so polite. It's cute.” She hands over a black credit card and the sales assistant swipes it through her machine.

“Thanks so much,” Leah says, grabbing everything, which is now packed in two huge paper bags tied up with black-and-white string.

“
Bonne journée
. I love your music, by the way,” the girl says in an amazing French accent.

I definitely wish I sounded that sexy. Maybe I should work on my accent and bowl Noah over? I attempt an
Au revoir
, but the shop assistant gives me a strange look that I think means I should never attempt to speak French again.

We hop back into the car and Leah instructs the driver
where to go next. He turns onto a wide boulevard lined with shops bearing designer names I've only ever seen in Mum's fashion magazines. Each store seems to be attempting to outdo the one next to it with fancy window displays, mannequins contorted at different angles, and explosions of brightly coloured flowers everywhere. I swear I see a dress made entirely out of baked goods. Judging by the women I see walking in and out of the shops, though, that is probably the closest they come to a cupcake.

As we slow to a stop outside one of the fancy stores, I realize Leah's about to spend a whole lot more money on me and I can't help but feel awkward. “Leah, this is too nice of you. I wish there was a way I could pay you back.”

She puts her hand on mine. “Penny, please just let me do this. I like being able to do it—I don't get a lot of time to go out shopping with my friends, and I needed a spree anyway. What better way than to do it with you, for you? I have everything I need and more, so shut up and enjoy this.” She opens the car door, grabs my hand, and pulls me out onto the pavement.

We run into the nearest shop, and I glance down the street to see a crowd of paparazzi storming our way. Once we're inside the safety of the store, the bright flashes of camera bulbs illuminate the front window.

“Wow, Leah, no wonder you sometimes go around in disguise!” I say.

“Tell me about it,” she says, rolling her eyes. She walks straight over to the racks and starts pulling out dresses for me, bundling them into my arms. I end up trying on dresses that are more expensive than some of the entire wedding
budgets Mum has had to work with. I hobble out of the fitting room in a hot-pink cocktail dress and snakeskin stilettos that are way too high—I feel like a strong wind would knock me over.

“I'm not sure. I feel silly.” I look down at my hips and skinny ankles and grimace.

“Penny, you have a body to die for,” says Leah. “You have curves in all the right places. EMBRACE THEM.”

“It's not my body I'm worried about. In these heels, I'm a liability to everyone else!”

“
Mademoiselle?
Perhaps you wish to try on something
un peu plus élégant  
?” The small Parisian man who runs the store is dressed head to toe like he is about to meet the Queen. “Something more . . . sophisticated?” He hands me a little black satin sleeveless dress that has a big satin bow at the waist and a lace insert across the entire back and along the bottom.

I feel as though this man is handing me a newborn baby. I don't know how to hold the dress, how to feel about it, how it will look, but I take it into the fitting room with me. After struggling for a while with the whole stick-on-bra malarkey, I finally walk out of the fitting room. I'm met with stunned silence and then a flurry of applause. Even Callum, Leah's bodyguard, is clapping wildly.

“Oh, Penny, you look absolutely beautiful! You really can never go wrong with an LBD.”

I put on a pair of slightly lower black stilettos (four inches high as opposed to six), then stare at myself in the mirror—and not in complete horror, for a change. I've never been glamorous in my life. Even when I've dressed up for weddings or
end-of-year balls, I normally go for vintage-quirky over sophisticated and cool. But standing here in this shop, looking at myself in this outfit, I feel like a grown-up for the first time. In this dress, I look like I belong on Noah's arm.

“
Mon Dieu!
” exclaims Leah in unsurprisingly perfect French. She's staring down at her watch in horror. “Look at the time! I have to be back at the venue or my manager will have my head. Jacques, will you have the dress steamed and sent to the hotel ready for this evening? Penny, how many times have you seen the concert?”

“Oh, like four times now, I guess.”

“Well, if you can stand to miss one night, do it. Let my makeup and hair people work their magic on you, then put on this dress, and I'll come and get you after the show so we can go to the after-party together. You'll knock 'em dead.”

I can't help myself: I launch a full-blown hug at Leah, throwing my arms round her neck. “Thank you so, so much!”

“Aw, honey, you are so welcome! Now, watch the dress. I don't want
anything
to happen to it, or you, before tonight. And that's not a request—it's an order!”

Chapter Thirty-Six

I have strict instructions from Leah for once I'm back at the hotel: take a bath, scrub myself clean, shave my legs, and await the arrival of her glam squad. Not having to worry about being backstage feels like a weight has been lifted from me, and it's a genuine pleasure to be able to use the impressive claw-foot bathtub in my beautiful bathroom. I turn the golden taps and hot water streams out. I drop in a fizzing bath bomb I discovered in the haul from Sephora and watch as rose oil tints the water a soft shade of pink.

While the bath is filling up with hot, steamy water, I text Noah.

Almost immediately I get a concerned text back.

A bath is exactly what I need to clear my head. I lie back and let the bubbles pop against my skin, sifting them through my soapy fingers. As much as this is enjoyable, I ache for home. I couldn't survive this life permanently—zipping from place to place, barely stopping to smell the roses or, in my case, see the sights and taste the food. I know I could just say the word and Noah would take me away with him forever. I could be by his side, living this life of luxury. The shopping spree I just had with Leah, that could be the norm, not a once-in-a-lifetime event. That could be
my
jet-black credit card. I could hang out with Kendra and Selene, and focus on looking glamorous all the time.

Megan would do anything to be in my position. Heck, so would Elliot, if it meant having all the clothes and hats he was able to buy. But would
I
be me right now?

I sit in the bath until my fingertips begin to look like prunes. Somehow, I don't think Leah would approve. I wrap myself up in the snuggliest, fluffiest white dressing gown in existence, then fold my hair into a bath towel to dry. When I open the door back into the main room, I gasp. There's a beautiful bouquet of roses sitting on the table. One of the hotel staff must have come in while I was having a bath.

I read the little card that is sitting beside them:
YOU ARE ALWAYS IN MY HEART, MY FOREVER GIRL. N.

I grin from ear to ear at Noah's note. I can't believe I doubted whether we were right together for an instant. Of course we are. Whatever obstacles there may be in the future, Noah and I can overcome them.

I know we can.

There's another knock on the door, and I wonder if Noah
has more surprises for me. Instead, I open the door and find myself face-to-face with five fierce-looking women who have identical slicked-back ponytails and are armed with black cases of varying sizes. One of them has a hair dryer tucked under her arm. It's Leah's glam squad.

They sit me down and start trawling through the Sephora bags, ripping the freshly bought products from their cardboard packaging and applying them to my face. I learn more than I ever thought I would about whether primer comes before moisturizer (it doesn't; it goes after) and whether to put concealer on before foundation (you can do either, but the lady doing my makeup prefers foundation first). I try to keep at least one eye open at all times, making sure to take mental notes of what they are doing so I can at least have a hope of re-creating the look on my own.

At one point, I have a girl curling my hair with a hot iron, another one brushing purple eyeshadow onto my eyelids, and someone else applying a transfer tattoo to my wrist. I feel like a canvas rather than a human being. These are artists at work.

When they're finished, one of the girls asks me unceremoniously to drop my dressing gown. I want to cling to it with my life, but when she holds up the dress and I remember how beautiful it looked when I tried it on in the store I relent. These girls have probably seen a lot more women in their underwear than just me!

It turns out this particular girl is also an amazing seamstress. I thought the dress fitted perfectly in the store, but she pins it and sews it until it fits like a glove. I hold on to her shoulder as I slip my feet into the stilettos. Then she spins
me round and walks me towards the full-length mirror. I almost do a double take at the girl staring back at me. Her expression may be blank—or, I should say, stunned—but the rest of her is . . . well, magnificent.

The stylists behind me high-five and hug each other. I turn round and hug the girl who helped me with my dress.

I don't have any words; the only ones I can grasp are a jumbled mess inside my head. The feeling I had in the shop when I first tried on this outfit was nothing compared to this. I have dry bronzing oil on my legs, which makes them glisten in the light. My hair is full of volume and curled beautifully—there is none of that cotton-wool frizz I'd usually have at my roots. My eyeshadow is a smoky purple to complement the colour of my eyes, and the new, perfectly applied fake lashes are so curly and pretty I can barely stop blinking. My lips have a beautiful pink shade to them and I have an amazing, intricate rose-gold feather transfer tattoo on my wrist.