A Brand New Me: The hilarious romantic comedy about one year of first dates. Shari Low

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СКАЧАТЬ me, and be capable of doing a PowerPoint presentation while winning friends, influencing people, thinking positively and re-bonding with my granny.

      The emphasis on that last bit being ‘should’. Somehow those affirming bibles of improvement seemed to have an expiry date approximately eight hours after I’d turned the last page, when my inherent personality traits kicked back in and shifted my paradigms right back to the ones I was born with. Yet I couldn’t stop reading them. I was like the shoe-holic who bought four-inch platforms in fourteen different colours even though she’d never wear them. To be honest, I thought I’d only be cured when I found a self-help guide to cure me of my dependence on self-help guides.

      Unsurprisingly, none of the techniques or questions recommended in the self-help section came up during the first interview–well, I say interview, but the reality was that every time I spoke she shushed me and told me it was interfering with her attempts to connect our spiritual forces. That was a week ago, and now, to my frankly gobsmacked surprise, she’d called me back again. My spiritual forces must have been acting particularly slutty and welcoming all advances.

      In the seven-day interval, my natural tendencies (the ones that were begging me to forget any crazy notions of new jobs and mad astrologers) were kicked to the kerb by intrigue, and the reminder that if I didn’t make the change now I’d be contemplating Botham’s Ballcocks right up to my pension years.

      I’d read in Prepare Yourself, the Job Is Yours (£9.99 from all good bookshops) that employers form impressions within seconds of clapping eyes on you, so for our first meeting I’d gone a bit formal and pulled my eternally uncontrollable red, shoulder-blade-length hair back into a (only slightly messy) chignon, donned my one skirt suit (black, polyester, Primark, £19.99), a white top, and shoved my protesting feet into black court shoes with three-inch heels. Afterwards, I realised that the outfit probably gave the impression that I was about to serve her a chicken cacciatore at an Italian bistro. And since the heels made me about five foot eleven and a good nine inches taller than my potential employer, I decided to re-evaluate for our second meeting. This time I’d gone casual: black skinny jeans, ballet pumps, white T-shirt, soft grey merino wool wrap with my hair middle-parted, loose and wavy, completely undisciplined by straighteners. On Nicole Kidman, that hair is sexy, casual and straight out the pages of Vogue. On me it’s a bird’s nest straight out of National Geographic.

      Suddenly Zara flicked her eyes open and inhaled dramatically. Was this it? Was this when she delivered her decision? Or decided that my higher self wasn’t qualified for the post? Nope, eyes shut again, back in weird trance. Zara Delta: founder member of Wackos ‘R’ Us.

      Or maybe that should be Hippy Throwbacks ‘R’ Us, given that Zara’s wardrobe seemed to consist entirely of tie-dyed kaftans, straw flip-flops and headbands from which protruded a menagerie of flowers. Today there was a sunflower sticking out of one side, and three large daisies had wilted on the other side, drooping towards her shoulder. Her thick mahogany hair flowed down to her waist and she wore enough blue eye-shadow to kit out an entire Abba tribute band. According to the press she was forty-five, but she looked younger–obviously all that serenity and inner peace was allowing her to circumvent frown lines and wrinkles.

      While she carried on with strange humming thingies, I contemplated my surroundings and realised that, compared to my current place of employment on a dilapidated industrial estate on the outskirts of Slough, working here would be stellar. Literally. The office was in a grand Georgian townhouse in Notting Hill, the kind of building that looked like it housed a stockbroker, his interior-designer wife and three children called Palomina, Pheronoma and Calispera. But any preconceptions had to be dumped at the door, the one that was carved with ancient Mongolian warrior symbols in a bid to ward off evil spirits, negative forces and any local yobs armed with cans of spray paint.

      The huge oblong entranceway looked like a mini planetarium. The carpet was black, the walls and ceiling were the colour of the night sky, and fluorescent stars covered every surface. It wasn’t so much a professional office, more the view from the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. In the corner, a receptionist sat behind a futuristic silver desk, illuminated only by one desk lamp and the flashing red squares on the switchboard. The first thing that had struck me was how miserable she looked–not surprising given that the lack of sunlight probably made her a shoo-in for rickets.

      Zara’s office took up the entire first floor and suitably reflected a zany TV New Age guru who looked like a cross between a Woodstock refugee and Cher in her ‘Turn Back Time’ years. The walls and ceiling were draped with rich red silks, giving the whole space the vibe of an elaborate Bedouin tent. Huge plants sat in every crevice and corner, while ornate Persian rugs covered almost every inch of the ebony wood floor. Two trees had given their lives to make her inordinately wide desk, both of them cut vertically in half and then laid side by side–a concept that might have worked a little better if the branches had been removed. Instead, about fifteen feet of shrubbery filled a whole corner of the room. The rest of the floor was covered with the same oversized cushions that Zara sat on now; massive squares of intricately embroidered, rich damask in shades of deep ochre interspersed with small tree stubs that doubled as tables.

      Still, at least (unlike the poor, pale, vitamin-deprived receptionist) she had three huge sash windows that filled the room with natural daylight. Or they would have if it wasn’t six o’clock on a January night and pitch dark outside.

      Suddenly, Zara jumped up, grabbed a large, gilt-engraved chalice from her desk and headed towards the window I’d been staring at just seconds before. Spooky. Was that a coincidence? Or a bit of psychic prompting? Oh my God–could she read my thoughts? Think nice things, think nice things…

      She wrenched up the window and held the chalice outside.

      Okaaaaay…So was she:

      a) dealing with a cup of tea that was too hot in a sound ecological fashion by using rainwater to cool it down;

      b) contravening Health & Safety legislation by passing out a liquid refreshment to a window cleaner who bucked the industry norm by working nights;

      c) actually, there wasn’t a c) because I couldn’t think of another logical (or otherwise) reason that she had her arm thrust out of a first-floor window on a cold, dark January night.

      ‘Father Moon,’ she wailed, ‘send me a sign that I am walking the correct path, the one that leads to the destiny that your wondrous powers will deliver.’

      My chin incurred skid marks as it ricocheted off the floor. She was, quite literally, howling at the moon. I didn’t need Father Moon’s divine powers to tell me that this woman was about as stable as a vibrator on a hammock. In a hurricane.

      Suddenly, she slammed one hand over the top of the cup, brought it back inside and turned to me, her victorious grin clearly conveying that whatever the bloke in the sky had done, she was chuffed about it.

      Gliding across the floor (she appeared to move in a Dalek fashion, due to the barefoot/ long kaftan combination), she brought the chalice to me and gingerly lifted her palm to show me what was inside. ‘He sent one to us,’ she announced, her voice all breathy with joy.

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous, there’s nothing in there, you mad, mixed-up loon!’ I retorted. But only in my head. In real life I was too stunned to speak and instead just sat with a facial pose that gave her full view of my fillings.

      I stared at the inside of the chalice. Nothing. Empty. Void of all contents.

      ‘He sent us a moonbeam,’ she gushed.

      Of course. A moonbeam. I should have noticed.

      ‘Leni, СКАЧАТЬ