Essex Girls. Laura Ziepe

she’d upset her. ‘Babe, you’re stunning and you always look nice. But, come on, you’re not in Bath any more. You’re in Essex now, where you belong.’

      Jade sighed. ‘You’re right. I’m so used to Tom criticising me about wearing make-up and dressing up that I don’t remember what I used to be like before. Help me. Please?’

      Kelly beamed and practically danced round the room. ‘I’ve been dying to get my hands on you for the past two and a half years! Right, clothes off. You can’t have a spray tan seeing as we’re going out tonight and it takes hours to develop, but I have some really good instant tan we can use. I’ll run up to my room and get everything. We can use the mirror in the kitchen.’

      Five minutes later, Jade was standing in just her underwear while Kelly worked her magic, applying layers of thick brown tanning cream to her legs.

      ‘So how have you been feeling, babe?’ Kelly questioned.

      ‘Not the best, I won’t lie. Still really pissed off about the whole thing with Tom. I feel slightly better today though.’

      ‘I can’t believe what you did to him. How funny. I was telling loads of girls from my old beauty salon about it and we were all in stitches! I would’ve loved to have seen his face when he realised it was you and not her!’ Kelly smiled.

      ‘I know,’ Jade grinned. ‘It is pretty funny. He asked for it though.’

      The girls chatted about Tom, and Jade explained how he’d contacted her since they’d split up and how she’d told him to leave her alone.

      ‘It must be hard, hun,’ Kelly sympathised. ‘He seemed quite nice when he came to Essex. I don’t think he liked me though.’

      ‘Of course he liked you!’ Jade fibbed. ‘He was nice – when he wasn’t lying to me that is. Well, I thought he was anyway. I can see now that it’s for the best we’re not together. I loved him. But I never felt like I was good enough for him.’

      Kelly gave Jade a dressing gown to sit in while her tan dried, wiped her make-up off and applied some tanning lotion to her face. Then she got out her nail varnish case which was full of hundreds of glossy varnishes, in every colour of the rainbow.

      ‘I love that colour,’ Jade pointed to a deep red.

      ‘No babe, it’s all about pink for summer. Trust me; this is the colour for you,’ Kelly said pulling out a hot pink bottle of OPI varnish. ‘I’m going to bling your nails up too with some little crystals, because personally I think they look better with a bit of sparkle.’

      An hour later and Jade couldn’t believe her eyes when Kelly handed her the mirror.

      ‘See,’ Kelly said. ‘Much better. You look like the old Jade!’

      ‘Oh my God!’ Jade said with her mouth wide open. She looked incredible. Her eyes were covered in a gorgeous smokey black MAC eyeshadow, lashings of eyeliner and huge false eyelashes. She had nude glossy lips and her cheekbones looked amazing because of the Bobbi Brown blusher and highlighter Kelly had applied. Even her eyebrows, which she never usually touched, looked perfect. Best of all though, she had a tan! Just looking at herself now made her realise how she’d missed it.

      ‘What do you think of the hair?’ Kelly grinned, pleased with her work

      ‘Fantastic!’ Jade said, swishing her backcombed locks happily. ‘I feel like I finally look like I belong back in Essex.’

      ‘Totes! I’ve got some clip-in hair extensions you can use too, babe. I’ll put them in before we go. If we’d had time, I could have given you HD brows, but I’ll have to do that another day.’

      Jade was baffled. ‘HD what?’

      ‘HD brows, hun. Haven’t you heard of them?’ Kelly looked surprised as she re-applied some more Dior lip gloss to her lips in the mirror. ‘All the celebs have them. They’re totally in right now. You get the perfect arch on the eyebrow and pluck, tint and thread them until they look beauts.’

      ‘Next time I’ll have them then. Thank you, Kelly.’

      ‘Any time. You look gorgeous. Just remember my motto and you’ll always look unreal: “Keep your heels, hair and head held high.”’

      Jade laughed and Kelly walked over to boil the kettle and make another cup of tea. She picked up her mobile with a concerned expression. ‘Oh no! There’s something wrong with my mobile. It’s been charging for ages and still has no battery. I’ll have to go and get it fixed or something today.’

      Jade’s eyes followed the charger lead to the plug and noticed it wasn’t even switched on. ‘Errr, Kelly.’

      She looked up, her eyes wide with anticipation. ‘What?’

      ‘It might help if you switched it on.’ Jade gave a throaty laugh and Kelly joined in.

      ‘So, do you know the other girl that Tom was with?’ Kelly asked, as she sat at the table with her mug of tea.

      Jade shook her head, still unable to take her eyes off her new appearance in the mirror.

      ‘Facebook?’

      ‘What about it?’

      Kelly was shocked. ‘Haven’t you even looked her up?’

      Jade shrugged her shoulders casually. ‘No.’

      ‘Check his friends list. That’s if you want to.’

      Jade smirked. Kelly was clearly dying to see what the other girl looked like and she didn’t blame her. If she hadn’t felt so heartbroken it was normally the first thing she would have done. She was always secretly nosing around people’s profiles and even sometimes ended up looking through albums of people she didn’t even know.

      Kelly continued, ‘Have you not even been on there since you broke up?’

      ‘No,’ Jade shook her head again, picking up Lord McButterpants and stroking him. ‘I didn’t want to go on there to be honest. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m dreading seeing what he’s up to and changing my relationship status so everyone can see we’re over. It’s so embarrassing. I may just delete myself.’

      ‘Don’t be so silly. You shouldn’t delete yourself. You never did anything wrong.’

      ‘You’re right,’ Jade agreed. She felt stronger already talking to Kelly. ‘Do you still have your laptop? I’ll change my status now. That’s if he hasn’t already done it.’

      ‘He won’t have,’ Kelly assured her, jumping to her feet and hurrying out the room.

      A minute later, Kelly returned with the laptop. Jade signed into her Facebook account, apprehensively. She was slightly relieved when it still stated she was ‘in a relationship with Tom Noble’ on her profile page. She wanted to be the one to change it, not him. She clicked and checked the single box. Done. She then checked his page and was relieved to see he didn’t have any updates in over two weeks, indicating he hadn’t been online. Clicking on his friends list, she searched the name ‘Louisa’. Her heart was hammering in her chest as she knew she’d be on there. A plain-looking blonde girl appeared on the screen.

      ‘I’ve found her,’ Jade told Kelly as she shifted in her chair.

      ‘Let’s see,’ Kelly replied, turning the laptop round to face her. She gasped. ‘She looks fat!’

      ‘Do you think?’ Jade said hopefully, knowing full well she wasn’t. She appreciated Kelly’s attempt though; slagging the other girl off was what friends did, it was completely understandable. Louisa was definitely not drop-dead gorgeous, just your average everyday type, but by no means was she fat.

      ‘She looks like she’s been eating far too many pies in her profile picture. Damn, that’s the only one we can see, she’s set it to private. She has two chins for God’s sake, what on earth was he thinking?’

      ‘Do