My Not So Perfect Life(9)

I’m not quite following what she’s saying—but the next minute she brandishes a box expectantly at me. It’s a Clairol box, and just for one heady white-hot moment, I think: We’re rebranding Clairol? I’m going to help REBRAND CLAIROL? Oh my God, this is MASSIVE—

Until reality hits. Demeter doesn’t look excited, like someone about to redesign an international brand. She looks bored and a bit impatient. And now her words are impinging properly on my brain: …my roots are a different matter….

I look more closely at the box. Clairol Nice ’n Easy Root Touch-Up. Dark Brown. Restores roots’ color in ten minutes!

“You want me to…”

“You’re such an angel.” Demeter flashes me one of her magical smiles. “This is my only window in the whole day. You don’t mind if I send some emails while you do it? You’d better put on some protective gloves. Oh, and don’t get any stuff on the carpet. Maybe find an old towel or something?”

—



Her roots. The special, perfect project is doing her roots.

I feel like the wave has dumped on me. I’m soaked, bedraggled, seaweed-strewn, a total loser. Let’s face it, she didn’t even come out of her office looking especially for me. Does she actually, properly know who I am?

As I head back out, wondering where on earth I’m going to find an old towel, Liz looks up from her screen with interest.

“What was that about?”

“Oh,” I say, and rub my nose, playing for time. I can’t bear to give away my disappointment. I feel so dumb. How could I have ever thought she’d ask me to rebrand Clairol? “She wants me to do her roots.” I try to sound casual.

“Do her roots?” echoes Liz. “What, dye them? Are you serious?”

“That’s outrageous!” chimes in Rosa. “That is not in your job description!”

Heads are popping up all round the office and I can feel a wave of general sympathy. Pity, even.

I shrug. “It’s OK.”

“This is worse than the corset dress,” says Liz significantly.

I’ve heard about the whole team once trying to zip Demeter into a corset dress that was too small but she wouldn’t admit it. (In the end they had to use a coat hanger and brute strength.) But clearly roots are a step down even from that.

“You can refuse, you know,” says Rosa, who is the most militant person in the office. But even she doesn’t sound convinced. The truth is, when you’re the most junior member of staff in a competitive industry like this, you basically do anything. She knows it and I know it.



“It’s no problem!” I say, as brightly as I can. “I’ve always thought I’d be a good hairdresser, actually. It’s my backup career.”

For that I earn a big office laugh, and Rosa offers me one of her super-expensive cookies from the baker on the corner. So it’s not all bad. And as I grab some paper towels from the ladies’, I decide: I’ll turn this into an opportunity. It’s not exactly the one-to-one meeting I was after, but it’s still a one-to-one, isn’t it? Maybe this can be my wave, after all.

—

But, oh God. Bleargh.

I now know hairdressing is not my backup career. Other people’s scalps are vile. Even Demeter’s.

As I start to paint on the gooey dye stuff, I’m trying to avert my gaze as much as possible. I don’t want to see her pale, scalpy skin or her little flecks of dandruff, or realize just how long it’s been since she last did her roots.

Which, actually, must be no time at all. There’s hardly any gray there: She’s clearly paranoid. Which makes sense. Demeter is super-aware of her age and how we’re all younger than her. But then, she totally overcompensates by knowing every Internet joke before anyone else, every bit of celeb gossip, every new band, and every…everything.

Demeter is the most on-the-case, earliest adopter known to mankind. She has gadgets before anyone else. She has that must-have H&M designer item before anyone else. Other people camp outside all night to get it—Demeter just somehow has it.



Or take restaurants. She’s worked on some very big restaurant names in her time, so she has zillions of connections. As a result, she never goes to a restaurant except when it first opens. Or, even better, when it’s not open yet except to special, important people like her. Then as soon as the general public is allowed in, or it gets a good review in The Times, she goes off it and says, “Well, it used to be all right, till it was ruined,” and moves on to the next thing.

So she’s intimidating. She can’t be easily impressed. She always had a better weekend than anyone else; she always has a better holiday story than anyone else; if someone spots a celebrity in the street, she always went to school with them or has a godchild going out with their brother, or something.

But today I’m not going to be intimidated. I’m going to make intelligent conversation and then, when the time is right, I’ll make my strategic move. I just have to decide exactly what that strategic move should be—

“OK?” says Demeter, who is typing away at her monitor, totally ignoring me.

“Fine!” I say, dipping the brush again.

“If I have one piece of advice for you girls, it’s don’t go gray. Such a bore. Although”—she swivels briefly to face me—“your hair’s so mousy, you wouldn’t notice.”