Air Kisses Read Online Free PDF

eyeshadow appropriate or was it too matchy-matchy with the shoes? The
Gloss
girls might snigger into their lattes about my awful make-up. I decided to stick to liner, bronzer and a pinky-beige lip gloss. Timeless and polished. Perfect.
    My hair had already hijacked twenty-five minutes post-shower, and while it wasn’t too bad, I went over it with my straightening iron once more. I got some sticky-outy fried bits for my effort. Great. I applied some more smoothing balm. No good.Now my hair was sticky-outy and greasy-looking. I swore a few more times as I brushed it, then gave up. Why was this happening? We had a 9 a.m. production meeting and I did not want to be late. Especially if the girls had seen the piece in the paper – they would be expecting me to look like hell and be late. I was not about to give them the satisfaction.
    At work, I quickly applied some watermelon gloss and brushed on some more bronzer before I was called into the meeting. I was able to use the mirrored wall to the right of my desk, which was convenient. That I had a huge mirrored wall, beckoning me every day, whispering for me to apply more foundation or fix my hair, or just check myself out when I was bored was still a novelty. Karen had given one to the fashion girls as well in an effort to remind us that as we were the public faces of
Gloss
, since we attended the most functions, we should always be especially aware of how we looked. I was quietly pleased that, while I felt like shit, I had managed to look surprisingly polished. Take five, watermelon gloss and bronzer; you’ve done your work today.
    Obscene mirrored walls were just the start of our violently chic office space. There were wooden beams and polished concrete floors, floating steps up to the advertising department, plasma screens, leopard-print beanbags, Philippe Starck chairs and a long glass bench covered with newspapers, fruit and bottled water that was the common area. It looked exactly how a magazine office should look. In fact, it looked a little
too
much
like it should look, like the designer had referred to a Hollywood movie starring Eva Mendes or Kate Hudson for the template. But I was growing to love it in all of its magaziney perfection.
    A little envelope lit up the face of my phone and my heartlurched. I prayed it would be from Jesse. No such luck. Just a sweet ‘thinking of you’ one from Iz.
    Tears pounced, bored of their artificial hiding place. I sat still. I focused on breathing, slow and steady. I was not going to cry at work. I was keeping it together. Keeping it together. Keeping it together. As long as no one asked if I was okay, I’d be okay. All of a sudden, I was attacked by a mass of black hair and Chanel Chance.
    ‘Haaaannnnah,’ hair and perfume said, with enthusiastic intonation and the kind of flashing, smiling black eyes that belonged in a contact-lens campaign.
    ‘Hi Jacinta,’ I said, smiling weakly.
    She took one look at me and made that sad face that was the last thing a person who was two gulps from crying needed. I inhaled. I knew this was coming today, now I just had to be strong and not cry. There would be
no goddamn crying.
    ‘Oh honey…oh Hannah.’ She bent down and wrapped her arms around me. ‘I saw that nasty piece in the paper. Those arseholes will rot in hell, don’t you worry…’
    I was anxious that no one else see me upset, and half-nudged her away so that I could get myself together for the meeting. I was too new to be having relationship-drama tears at work.
    ‘So, did you speak to him about it?’
    ‘Mm-hmmm.’ I looked up to stop the tears coming. ‘It ended rather badly. He kind of dumped me over text.’
    ‘He didn’t! I can’t
believe
this! Why are you here? Go home! I’ll tell everyone you’re sick.’
    ‘No, no, home was doing my head in. I’ll be fine. I just need to keep busy, you know?’
    ‘Well, all right then. But if you need to go, just go. That
filthy
excuse for a man. I’m not going to ask if