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Her hugs were the most familiar and comforting hugs in the whole wide world. When Matthew Mavin tied my plaits to the chair in year three, it was an Angel hug that made it better. When the Mothership and the dad dude used to argue, which, FYI, was a LOT, it was an Angel hug that made it better. She was really rather good at them. She was also really rather good at throwing an outfit together, although whether this particular ensemble was Cupcake Bake appropriate, I’m not too sure. Not that Angel would altogether care, she’s not one for being appropriate, just well dressed.
Her fro is tied back with an adorable purple head scarf, she’s wearing a yellow velour track top and cut off denim short shorts, there’s no denying she looks fab, which is why I’m guessing she’s refusing to put on the apron that Sadie is holding out for her.
“Thanks Sadie-cakes,” Angel says, running her finger around the mixing bowl and popping the contents in her mouth, “but I’ll be just fine as I am!” She pulls herself up onto one of the kitchen stools and turns her attention to Bella.
“B, I am loving that totally-of-the-moment look you’ve got going on right there!”
Bella, who gives Angel a big bear hug, is now accustomed to Angel talking like she’s an actual page from a swanky fashion magazine, and responds accordingly.
“Why thank you, Miss Angel, this is what I like to call my Minnie Mouse-inspired outfit—frilly skirt from Topshop, a vintage halter and a faux diamond watch I won in a art competition!”
Angel nods in approval, pleased that Bella at least entertains her passion for the fashion deets.
“Yay—glitter shakes!” Bella exclaims, turning her attention from fashion reports to the pink and purple container sat on the kitchen table. She empties the edible sparkliness into the palm of her hand.
“I freakin’ love this stuff!” she says pushing and poking it around her hand with the tip of her tongue.
“Me too,” Sadie agrees and does exactly the same. “In fact, when I become a hugely successful fashion designer, I’m going to call my customised collection, Glitter Shakes by Sadie—what d’ya think? “We all nod with approval and give Sadie an enthusiastic thumbs up. We’d express our excitement through words, except we’ve all got our mouths full with either glitter shakes, cake mix or in my case, pink frosting.
This stuff is just too, too good.
“So, Lo,” Angel says swallowing the remainder of an unfrosted cupcake (which in my opinion is a complete waste of a cupcake). “I want to hear all about this internship of yours!”
As I add far too much pink colouring to the frosting I’m whipping up, my belly does a full 180 flip of excitement as I tell her all the plans for tomorrow’s all-about-me adventure.
Tori Frankel, ed-girl of fabulousness, had emailed me back with directions to the office—it was literally a minute’s walk from the train station, a starting time of 10am and had signed off the email with ‘You’re adorable Lola Love, see you Monday!’
Eep. She seriously makes me do silent squeals of filled-to-the-brim joy. A total doll.
In the meantime, Aunt Lullah had made sure I had all Skye’s details—mobile number, email address, home address—which made me swell with complete happiness too, because even though Lullah was super-busy and super-important doing all things costume on film sets in NYC, she still made time, no matter what, to look out for me.
“I can’t believe you’ve actually made this happen—you’re amazing!” Angel says reaching out to touch my arm.
“Well technically, Miss Angel,” I say, still mixing hard at the frosting and doing everything within my power not to lick it all up in one gulp, “Aunt Lullah made it happen, she’s totally magic!”
“Okay, hold up Lola Love,” Angel holds out her palm in front of my face. “Sure, Lullah rocks, that’s f’sure, and she might well have hooked you up with somewhere to stay, but you’re the one that created a kick-ass zine, you’re the one that made sure it got into the hands of your very own inspir-o-girl, you’re the one that knocked her very-expensive-I’m-sure socks off. YOU, Lola Love.”
Wow.
I did, didn’t I?
“What’s that saying you’ve got pinned to your mirror, Lo?” Angel asks, “Something like, ‘we are our thoughts, make them good ones’, isn’t it?” She was close, and I really didn’t realise that anyone else had ever really noticed them.
“Well, you thought about being a journo-girl, you, Lola Love and with the help of the people who dig you, you’ve made it happen, and that’s totally kick-ass—high five!”
We slap hands, and all do a collective high five while we sing and dance along to The Pipettes, an official Cupcake Bake soundtrack staple.
Chapter Five
Seriously, who knew there was more than one six o’clock in the day? Not me.
I guess that’s why alarm clocks were invented. Luckily, I don’t need an alarm clock because I have a Bella, who is sat on the end of my bed looking every inch the tangerine orange-cream dream. How she has managed to colour co-ordinate so efficiently at such an unearthly hour is truly beyond me.
“Lo-Lo, wake up!” Bella says shaking me, but my body is still in sleep mode, as it should be at this time of the day, and is not entirely receptive to this method of wake up call.
“Lo!” Bella is shouting now. “Dude, you should be up and dressed by now, anyone would think you weren’t excited about going to work at the glossy magazine of your dreams!” she tugs at the duvet, but I hold on tight.
“Of course I am!” I reply trying desperately hard to keep my eyes open, “Why do you think I’m so tired now? I’ve been up all night trying to contain the belly flips—they’re relentless, just like you!” I pull the duvet over my head, trying to escape from the Bella noise, but she is much quicker than me and is pulling me feet first from the sheet and duvet cocoon I’d created.
“Okay, okay, I’m up already!” I say, looking up at her from my just-been-dumped position on the bedroom floor.
“Right you’ve got five minutes, missy!” she says tapping her watch. “I’ll see you downstairs—c’mon, I’m counting!” Who needs a Mothership when you have a Bella?
It’s okay, I can totally do this.
F’sure, fabulousness deffo takes time but being aware of both my inability to ever be able to get up and my big time love of all things sleep, preparing ensembles the night before has become something of a much-needed routine in the land of Lola.
Now, I’m not a total fashion-obsess-o fashionista like my fellow Pink Ladies, but I do love to channel my favourite era icons to create my own Lola Love stylin’—sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t—but that’s okay, because Lola stylin’ isn’t meant to be serious, it’s all about having fun. Y’see, Aunt Lullah left me a ton of stuff she couldn’t take to NYC and ever since, getting dressed each day has been like one big game of dress-up with my very own treasure chest filled with era-inspired treasures.
My first-day-at-work-at-a-glossy-magazine outfit is super-cute even if I do say so myself.
It consists of a white vest top, a denim pencil skirt, a thick shocking pink patent belt, my brand-new white gym pumps that really need to be kicked in, pink frilly ankle socks a la reception class, and a Sadie-made oversized pink and turquoise corsage with lots of glitter and ribbon. It’s a total convo-maker.
“It’s something that will make people stop and want to talk to you, Lola!” Sadie had said as she gave me the hand-wrapped package last night before I left. “It will be just perfect-o for making new friends at Missy magazine!”
Sadie really is the cutest bundle of goodness you will ever meet.
As well as a convo maker, we’d also agreed that it was mucho important that I made a good impression on the Missy team, Angel especially, as she thought it was by far the best way for me to score her a pair of designer shoes. We all umm-ed and ahh-ed as to how I’d do it without coming across like a super suck-up, until mid-way through my third pink frosted cupcake, I realised the most perfect way to impress my potential employers would be to rock up on the first day with yummy treats. Everyone loved yummy treats.
Fact.
We whipped up a batch of very special Think Pink cupcakes, sprinkled them with glitter shakes, put them in a pink box—natch, and wrapped it with a big silver and pink ribbon from Sadie’s craft box.
Think Pink cupcakes really are the very best kind.
Do you wanna know why?
Because they have a shhh-it’s-a-secret ingredient.
When you make Think Pink cupcakes you have to whisper lots of love and pink thinkin’ thoughts of fabulousness as you mix—it makes them taste extra sweet.
I’d also already packed up my pink leopard print holdall with everything I’d need for my week in the Londinium. FYI, the pink leopard print is deffo erring on the wrong side of tacky, but I figured it’s so tacky, that it’s actually really rather fabulous. There was probably a whole lot that I wouldn’t be needing too, but imagine how awful it would be if I got all the way to Londinium to discover I didn’t have my pink Converse high tops? Or my sweet-as sugar collection of assorted hair candy? And I’m not even going to begin to imagine what life might be like without my pair of pink, natch, hair straighteners, because that would just be allsorts of crazy.
So, because of my ‘be prepared’ girl scoutness, with a quick SuperGirl-esque twirl, and a brush through my hair, I was more than ready for my all-about-me magazine adventure. Well, as ready as a super-nervous Lola-shaped girl could be.
I checked my reflection, repeated my go-for-it girl mantra, “I’m feisty, fun, fearless and fabulous!” three times, and was ready to paint Missy magazine a distinctive shade of Lola pink!
Yoga Dad and the Mothership were driving me to the station as planned and, if I’m honest, she was surprisingly chilled under the circumstances. The mood switch wasn’t quite switched to mellow yellow, as she kept referring to the Londinium as ‘that big city’ but she was deffo not as angsty as she usually is. In fact she even kissed the top of my head before I got in the camper van. Weird.
Yoga dad was telling her, in his most soothing Californian way, that I would ‘find myself on my time away. I hadn’t been entirely aware that I had lost myself, but what I think Yoga Dad—who always speaks in riddles and rhymes—meant, is that I, Lola Love, am about to embark on my very first one-girl, all-about-me magazine adventure and that I would be coolio-a-go-go and she shouldn’t worry.
Bella, who had kissed my cheek and wished me luck back at the house, was one Mischievous Millie. She had told me that her work with me was done, and that now she knew I was ready to rock the Missy magazine, she was going to go back to bed.
Except, she didn’t.
Instead, she and The Pink Ladies had all come to the station to see me off on my big all-about-me magazine adventure too. Sadie-Cakes was still wearing her pyjamas, and as I boarded the train, holdall in one hand, and a box of cupcakes in the other, Angel checked, and double checked again, to make sure that I’d remembered her shoe size.
I sit close to the window so I can wave goodbye to everyone, and as the train pulls away, I’m safe in the knowledge that no matter what, I have the bestest set of cheerleaders in all of the world.
Fact.
Chapter Six
So, this is it.
The Missy offices.
Home to my all-about-me magazine adventure for the next week.
Wowzers.
If I thought my belly was doing crazy kinds of belly flips last night before I went to sleep, it was nothing compared to the triple somersault Olympics that was taking place in my tummy right now.
I had done my very best to prepare myself for all things magazine-y on the train journey here.
I’d read the latest copy of Missy from cover to cover to get familiar with all the sections and the people featured inside. I’d taken out my new super-cute pink notebook that I’d decorated with two pretty cartoon Japanese girls on the cover (seriously, if ever there was an excuse needed to buy new stationery, then doing an internship was deffo it!) and made notes with my new pink pen. I love writing in a notebook in public, it makes me feel like a super-mysterious writer girl. No one ever need know that you’re just writing shopping lists, or in my case, potential questions I might ask Ed-girl, Tori, if I get the chance. I also took lots of deep yoga breaths as demonstrated by Yoga Dad on the train platform before I left. I’d laughed at him at the time, and you would have too if you’d have seen him panting like a puppy dog, but I take it back, because yoga breaths are deffo calming the nervy feelings I’ve got going on.
Well they had done ‘til now.
Nothing could have prepared me for this. The building is ma-hoosive. It scrapes the Londinium cloud-filled sky it’s so tall. It has big glass revolving doors and a security man standing outside.
The security man nods his head and wishes me good morning as I take a deep breath and head into the whirl-swirl of the revolving door.
This is it.
I’m here, and I’m going to be the best intern-girl Missy magazine has ever had. I’ll be attentive, I’ll make lots of cups of tea and despite the crazy amount of butterflies currently inhabiting my tummy, I’ll rock. Besides, I’ve got cupcakes, everyone loves a cupcake.
I stand up tall ready to rock my most practiced runway walk of confidence to the reception desk, when I’m yanked backwards.
Hard.
I turn on my heel, thinking the security man has decided he’s made a mistake in letting me pass, that actually I’m way too young to be working in this big and important building, and that I must leave immediately, but it’s not.
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