Blue Dress Hot Mess

July

Shakespeare is cancelled: leopard print and wine.

I am thrilled because I bought two fillets of salmon in Waitrose for £1.05. (Small wins). I eat them with hummus.  

(Later: the Tube:) I am one of the snails but we move fast. 

Not me walking down a mews street off Eaton Square eating kale, seaweed and black-pepper popcorn at ten past eight on a Tuesday night with a or gift bag over my shoulder and a swing in my step. People say to live life like a movie; I’m livin’ it.

The journey to work:

People are running for the Harry Potter bus. It is Victoria Coach Station, 8:30am. Catch it before it flies away, I hear an American Dad tell his son. It’s a damn snitch, the child replies, flinging off his baseball cap and running down the street.

A boy opens fuzzy strawberry laces at 8:40am on the tube. 

Eating dates I:

The make-up I applied in the pre-8am rush is beginning to slide slightly after a day of work and 27 degree sunless-office sweating. Although I don’t sweat, because it is air-coned as cold as the Artic. The only thing I haven’t done is painted concealer over my spots. Oh well. He’ll be seeing an unfiltered version of me anyway. I can’t be bothered to be anyone – anything – else. My work colleague – ten days younger than me but two years my senior – tells me to be a Mysterious Woman. A femme fatale. At least I’m working at a fashion magazine. It excuses the on-show black bra, the oversized red and white striped shirt, the sheer lace skirt and ballet flats with rhinestones. I am who I choose to be. No one can touch her. She’s me. I remembered my hairbrush, but attempted to straighten my hair (fools errand in the humidity). I brought spare mascara, but know I won’t use it. I have learnt to time my mornings to perfection, and catch the tube so that I am seated at the desk at 8:57 am. 

We ate cheddar and drank rosé. We started at 6:40pm, and finished at nine fifteen. I missed my friends at the pub. I need to wee all the way home. We are two and a half hours from my birthday. I feel happy. Proud, oh so proud, of 21. He offers to Deliveroo me champagne for my birthday breakfast. That alone is enough to make me fall in love. I can feel my heart in my chest. Really feel it. It aches. Beats. Lives. It turns 22 tomorrow. How does it feel? Unsure. But full. Weighted. Mine. Mine to take and mine to give away. Mine to lose and mine to scar and mine to have and mine to protect. Mine to bring joy. I like that. We are going out again on Monday. 

(He is younger than me. By a year and a week (exactly). Does that make me a cougar?)

18/07/25:

I think I’d like a mews house in Chelsea. I am 22. 22 today. I have hopes and dreams. I sit in Chelsea. It is my birthday. I have eaten a lemon and blackberry cupcake for breakfast. It is heaven. There is a young version of me who is giddy with childish joy. Who thinks I’m cool. Who wants to be me. Little girls outside Ottolenghi sing me one line of Happy Birthday mixed with a ChaChaCha. I smile and laugh with them. They seem young. Toothless grins and rainbow hair grips. I went on a date last night. Me. A date. With a boy with curly caramel hair. Like a Curly Wurly. I thought about him in the night when the rosé he gave me made it hard for me to sleep. I have money in my bank account from kind godparents. I have love in a heart which spent the first years of its twenties feeling bruised and buried and a little bashed. I want new friends. I wear silk bloomers, like a Pantomime Dame. I sit in Pavillion Road in Chelsea and dream of my future. My mews house. My birthday. 

I see Bill Nighy. It makes my day. My heart feels like champagne. My mother left me a bottle in the fridge; it has a bow around its neck, and is blissfully chilled compared to the 30 degree heat which enfolds London like starlight. I haven’t opened it. I probably won’t. It can be my birthday bubbles next week instead. I do an interview for a job I actually want with someone who calls it an “informal chat”, and I message the boy from last night. I go shopping in Zara in Sloane Square and buy a pair of barrel-leg jeans on Vinted. A mother and daughter ask me to take their photo in Sloane Square, and compliment my outfit which makes me smile and tell them it’s my birthday. They are sweet; I tell everyone I can. It’s my birthday, it’s my birthday, it’s my birthday. Just one day a year. Mine. I open my presents and call my family, and am all happy and surprised and pleased and full of birthday-feeling. Unique. All my own. 22. When I go down to throw away the wrapping paper, a lady offers me a wet wipe from her car. Her children (on scooters) wish me happy birthday (I don’t tell them – they see the bags I am chucking in the recycling, which smells of wet cardboard and weed). They are bored. They are sweet, and have braids through their hair – the girl and the boy. I am going in to work, just for a few hours. I will get things done; help out; not get paid. Not get the job with them after the internship (under-qualified?). Slave labour. I consider getting a tattoo, but like my unmarked body. People wear pink tops on the tube. 

We eat chocolate truffles at work. They gave us Tequila Sunrises last night. I have had a very Happy Birthday, and feel elated and soft and fizzy and content. My friend buys me a cocktail which is orange and has David Bowie on top of it. The evening tastes of parmesan and pasta and red velvet doughnuts.

19/07/2025:

The woman opposite wears Astrid & Miyu earrings on the train. The boy texts saying he has booked a French restaurant for Monday night near my flat so I don’t have to travel. The rain is apocalyptic, meaning the number 2 bus to Marylebone felt slippery like an eel. I smile, satisfied. I am going home to my puppy, and it is raining in July and feels hot and putrid and stiflingly fresh, like something big is about to happen. To break, to form. I read fantasy literature, and unclip my hair; the world is flitting past in reverse, but I have always liked travelling backwards. My next door neighbour is meeting me at the station. I feel part of something — of life. 22. Oo Oo. 

(I remember doing exactly this a year ago. I was 21. I was on the train home from London and thinking about Big Things. I must find that writing, compare notes). 

She’s got a Build-A-Bear. Brand new. I remember that feeling. I remember kissing the heart before placing it with all the loving care of a surgeon (blunt knife) into the bear’s fluffy insides. I think I was 9. I want one. A new one. She runs down High Wycombe station platform and leaps into her father’s arms. 

Eating dates II:

I’m sitting in the window waiting for a man. The French double doors are open, and it rains outside — thunder. We are going to a French restaurant for dinner. It is already 7.10pm, and I am hungry. I drink rosé gin and wear Swarovski rings. My hair is up in a low slicked-back pony tail, my necklace is by Kate Moss x Zara, my outfit is all-white (angelic). A year older since we last met. A year wiser? (It has been 5 days). I doubt it. I don’t feel nervous. The world is very beautiful. I remind myself of that every day. A single gin deep and £9 lighter. 

He asks me what I am writing. I finish my sentence, hide my phone. Just thoughts, I reply. I am always writing. You’ll get used to it (a blank promise? White space between words).