“The Works”
A deleted scene from Summer At The Cosy Cottage Café by Rachel Griffiths.
A note from the author.
This scene was cut from Chapter Three, slotting into the gap during Allie’s makeover while the bleach is setting on her hair and Camilla has temporarily left the room. In the story, we skip over this stretch of waiting and perhaps that’s why it ended up on the cutting room floor. But I always liked it, because it tells you something about who Allie is when no one is watching. She is funny, self-deprecating and absolutely convinced she is handling everything calmly. NOTE: She is not handling anything calmly!
It also reveals something about Jordan, specifically that he has a gift for appearing in doorways at precisely the worst possible moment, which any reader of the novel will recognise. He comes by this talent honestly, and he uses it often.
Camilla, of course, knew exactly what she was doing. She always does.
Set during Chapter Three, while Allie’s hair colour is processing and Camilla has slipped downstairs to fetch wine.
Left alone in her bedroom with a head full of bleach paste and an ice pack pressed to her upper lip, Allie did what any reasonable woman would do.
She examined herself in the mirror for several minutes, trying to find an angle from which she looked acceptable.
There wasn’t one.
The bald cap effect, she had concluded, was not her finest look. Nor was the magenta swelling, which had receded slightly but still gave her the general appearance of someone who had gone a few rounds with a revolving door and lost. She turned her head to the left. Then to the right. Then she tried tipping her chin up, which was meant to be slimming, and also, she’d read somewhere, conveyed confidence.
She looked like a confident woman with a moustache and a bald cap.
She sat down on the edge of the bed.
'This is fine,' she told Ebony, who had arranged herself on the pillow and was watching proceedings with the detached interest of a very small and not particularly sympathetic therapist. 'Completely fine. Jenny does this every day. The swelling always goes down.'
Ebony blinked slowly.
'It does,' Allie said. 'Jenny said so.'
***
She was on her third recitation of 'this is fine' when footsteps sounded on the stairs and Jordan appeared in the doorway.
He stopped.
He stared.
‘Mum.’
‘Don’t,’ Allie said.
‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’
‘You were absolutely going to say something.’
He pressed his lips together in a way that confirmed he had been absolutely going to say something. He leaned against the door frame with his arms folded.
‘Mum, should I be concerned?’
‘It’s a work in progress,’ Allie said with dignity.
‘Right.’ He nodded slowly. ‘And the—’ He gestured vaguely in the direction of his own upper lip.
‘Reaction to the wax. It’s perfectly normal apparently.’
‘Normal.’
‘Yes. Normal. Jenny sees it all the time.’
‘It’s just that it looks a bit like when I did that—’
‘The lip challenge. I know. I’m aware.’
Jordan nodded again in the manner of someone storing away a great deal of information for a later date.
‘Are you going to be OK?’
‘In what way?’
‘I meant physically.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You know. The trout pout.’
Allie considered throwing the ice pack at him. Instead, she raised her chin. ‘It will be absolutely fine.’
‘OK.’
‘It will.’
‘I believe you.’ His lips twitched.
‘Jordan!’
‘I’m going back downstairs,’ he said.
He went. On the pillow, Ebony watched him go, then turned back to Allie with an expression of what might generously be described as solidarity.
***
Camilla returned ten minutes later with two glasses of wine, took in Allie’s expression, and handed one over without comment.
They sat in companionable silence for a moment. Allie held the ice pack. The bleach paste ticked quietly through its chemical processes. From downstairs came the distant sounds of Jordan doing something involving the microwave.
‘Jordan saw me,’ Allie said.
‘Oh dear.’
‘He compared me to his own lip challenge incident.’
‘He was only being observant.’
‘He was being Jordan.’
‘Same thing, darling.’ Camilla sipped her wine. ‘For what it’s worth, I think the swelling has already gone down a bit.’
Allie turned to the mirror. It had gone down, perhaps, a fraction of a millimetre. She chose to receive this as excellent news.
‘What if it’s still like this when Jenny rinses my hair?’
‘Then we’ll deal with it.’
‘What does ‘deal with it’ mean, exactly?’
‘Makeup. Strategic scarf placement. Honestly, Allie, it’ll be fine. Stop worrying.’
Allie turned back to her reflection. She pressed the ice pack back into position and took a long sip of wine.
‘If this is Camilla Dix’s idea of helping a friend prepare for a non-date,’ she said, ‘I dread to think what full assistance would look like.’
‘Full assistance involves a spray tan.’
‘I am never going on a non-date again.’
Camilla laughed a full, genuine, entirely unsympathetic laugh that bounced off the walls of Allie’s small bedroom and made the cat open one eye.
‘You love me,’ Camilla said.
Allie looked at her friend. Bright-eyed, glossy-haired and entirely too pleased with herself, and found, despite everything, that the corners of her own sore mouth were trying very hard to turn upwards.
‘Inexplicably,’ Allie said. ‘Yes.’
Summer at The Cosy Cottage Café by Rachel Griffiths
This scene does not appear in the published novel.
If you’d like to spend more time in Heatherlea, Summer at The Cosy Cottage Café is where it all begins.
👉Summer At The Cosy Cottage Café
Have you ever had a makeover that didn’t quite go to plan? Let me know — I’d love to hear your story!
xxx
