Read an extract from Things Will Calm Down Soon by Zoë Foster Blake.
OCTOBER
Kit deeply regretted asking Ramona to wash her hair. Ramona’s off-duty look, her Real-Life Hair, was curly, fine, overly processed and, because of all the peroxide, in terrible shape— classic Famous Girl Hair. Washing it on a drizzly, humid morning was creating a real pain in Kit’s arse. She’d blow-dried it carefully with only minimal product for hold but could see the waves arching right back in. According to the brief, in this part of the film clip Ramona was meant to look like ‘the librarian after she’d taken off her spectacles and shaken out her bun’. Kit had learned from her many years of working with directors, brands and advertising agencies that this meant straight hair; curls were reserved for the nerd or the nosy mum from next door.
‘You’re bein’ a bit sassy up there, babes,’ Ramona remarked as Kit tugged at her hair.
‘Sorry, I’m just . . .’ Kit took a breath to keep her cool and smiled. It was bad form to bring stress or anxiety onto set. Kit took pride in her ability to maintain a calm, professional presence around the talent and crew. ‘Don’t you worry,’ she said. ‘It’s all in hand.’ Kit combed Ramona’s hair gently as she considered which products and tools would achieve the result she was after. Too heavy and the whole thing would flop. Too light and the halo of frizz would bloom. Too sticky and the curls would return with fury.
‘Washing it always makes it foul,’ Ramona observed.
‘I hate clean hair more than anyone,’ Kit told her, ‘but yours was unsalvageable. What I need is second-day hair,’ Kit murmured to herself. ‘Not clean, not dirty, in between.’ She picked up some mousse, looked at it, then put it back. She did the same with a tube of smoothing balm, then a can of texture spray, before folding her arms and pursing her lips in concentration.
‘Why is there no product that does this?’ she muttered to herself. ‘I swear, it’s the foundation of every look . . .’ She mixed a small amount of styling creme with a few spritzes of sea salt spray and applied it to Ramona’s mid-lengths and ends. It was one of a few quick fixes she’d developed to fake slightly dirty hair without spending an hour styling it.
‘Shit,’ she said under her breath, sensing immediately she’d used too much product.
‘You good, hon?’ Ramona asked as she scrolled mindlessly on her phone.
Kit laughed mirthlessly. ‘Yep, I just need a product that doesn’t exist.’
‘So invent it,’ Ramona said.
‘I’m not able to conjure unfortunately.’
‘No but, babes, for real. I’ve heard you say a zillion times you don’t have the right product, so why don’t you make it?’ Ramona said this as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
It was true. Kit had found herself in this situation countless times, had spent a ridiculous amount of money sourcing products from all around the world, yet not a single one had been able to deliver the one incredibly specific hair texture she needed. Nothing could give her the perfect level of tousled separation that was soft, not crunchy, making the hair feel and look lived in, but not too lived in.
‘I’m sure it exists,’ Kit said. ‘I just haven’t found it.’
‘What are you looking for, though, when you’re buying all this shit?’ Ramona gestured towards the battalion of products lined up on the table before them. ‘Like, what actual words describe it?’
Kit shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. I’m probably overthinking it.’
‘Yeah, totally,’ Ramona scoffed. ‘I mean, you’ve been styling for twenty years— ’
‘Ten, thank you, I’m not that old,’ Kit interjected.
‘— and never found it, but, of course, it must exist, right?’ Ramona pushed. She raised a brow at Kit in the mirror.
‘I suppose you have a point,’ Kit said slowly.
‘Do it!’ Ramona said. ‘You’ve been building up a fan base for years on YouTube and Insta; you’re, like, pro-level experienced; you style celebs . . . if that’s not a golden ticket to starting your own brand, I dunno what is. Do the damn thing.’
Ramona went back to her phone and Kit turned on her curling wand. As she waited for it to heat up, she mindlessly smoothed the same section of Ramona’s hair over and over again with her fingers. Make a product? How did you even do that? How did you literally get something in a tube or a pump and put it on shelves? It seemed impossible, a completely mind-boggling concept.
Portia, Ramona’s latest stylist, appeared, her bike shorts and oversized jumper channelling Princess Diana, her mood channelling Satan.
‘Ramona, honey, we have a bit of a situation and need you in wardrobe. Kit, sorry, I need Rom for ten.’
‘I only have’— Kit checked her watch— ‘twenty minutes, and I need all of them before BJ takes her for make-up. I’m sorry.’ Kit was unfailingly polite, but her days of deferring to other
people’s invented crises were long behind her.
‘It’s a Catelyn request,’ Portia said, pulling out the big guns.
‘I can talk to her if you like,’ Kit said brightly.
‘But she’s busy,’ Portia shot back. Catelyn was the director, after all; she outranked everyone.
‘Catelyn understands we all have a job to do,’ Kit replied.
Portia, with no more weapons to deploy, stared at her. ‘What am I supposed to tell her?’ she asked.
‘That Kit said Ramona would be there as soon as hair was done,’ Kit said, smiling.
‘Thanks, babes,’ added Ramona, winking at Portia.
Portia’s eyes narrowed as she looked from Ramona to Kit, suspicious of collusion, before walking out.
‘God, I love you,’ Ramona said. ‘No one ever protects my time, you know? My whole life is “come here, do this, be this, wear this, say this” . . . I can’t even take a dump without people telling me to hurry up.’
Kit looked at Ramona. Despite her youth, her expression was weary, jaded. Ramona, a striking multi-instrument prodigy with an immense online following, had morphed into Ramona 2.0, a Pretty Girl pop singer, at fifteen. Like anyone who achieved fame early, she had lived a thousand lives in her twenty-six years. She jetted between her Sydney and LA homes, travelled the world, performed to sell-out stadiums, and dated race-car drivers, rappers and actors.
‘Can you take a break after this shoot?’ Kit asked.
‘Nah, we start the tour week after next— not that you care,’ Ramona sulked.
‘You know I’d love to go with you, but I just can’t do this one,’ Kit replied, mentally congratulating herself for having accepted a gig on a huge TV network ad campaign almost a year ago. Kit loved Ramona, but she did not love touring. She was too old to be sleeping on buses or in a different three-star motel every night. She wanted to go home each night to her own bed and, ideally, Ari in it— and he was actually going to be around for the next little while, because his next gig was Sydney-based. This realisation took Kit by surprise; for the first time in a long while, she was factoring a man into her plans. Did that mean she like-liked Ari? Or was it just that she was quietly leaning towards a more normal existence, one that involved fewer four am Ubers to the airport, and more morning sex and weekend brunching? Not even her ex— Jackson, that grub— had been able to push her career to number two. Work was everything to Kit. She loved it. She could film a hair tutorial at seven am, be on set from nine to nine, stay up till midnight replying to comments online, and do it all again the next day, no problem. Doing hair never felt like work for her; it was creative, it was interesting, and it was always changing.
But what was next for her? she mused, as she blow-dried Ramona’s hair, and Ramona tried again and again to get a good photo of her nail art for Instagram. Kit had done the shows in Milan and Paris, she’d worked on global ad campaigns, she’d done Oscar-winners and Vogue covers. Since she’d started out sweeping hair on the salon floor at sixteen, she had worked so hard, and been so driven, that she had reached the top of the industry in Australia. So . . . where to now?
Her best friend Maggie thought Kit should move to NYC and try her luck there, but that was only because it was Maggie’s own dream, and now she had two kids and cursed herself for not taking her chance when she had it. But moving overseas didn’t hold any appeal for Kit: she’d done stints in both London and LA and had missed Sydney terribly. Being a full-time creative director for a brand had felt so restrictive; she wasn’t looking to do that again in a hurry. So what was it? What could she do with everything she’d learned, all the contacts she’d made? She could start a hair academy, she supposed, she did love educating people, but that felt like a bridge too far. Besides, both her doctor and osteo had made it clear that her lower-back pain— which had her chomping anti-inflammatories all day during busy periods— would worsen if she continued to stand for ten hours a day. But what was she supposed to do?! You couldn’t not stand all day in this profession.
Seeing Kit lost in her thoughts, Ramona pounced. ‘You’re thinking about it, aren’t you, babes?’
Extracted from Things Will Calm Down Soon by Zoë Foster Blake
Things Will Calm Down Soon
by Zoë Foster Blake
Welcome to the hectic world of beauty and business in this highly relatable novel following a talented hair stylist turned entrepreneur juggling family dramas, workplace
near-catastrophes and relationship crises.
Things will calm down soon…right?
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