Chapter Four: Daisy

YO! Followers! Daisy here.

Delete.
Add exclamation mark.
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Yo Yo!!! It’s Daisy here.

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Hey guys. Daisy speaking.

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Hello.

Enter.

Last night I saw Take Five. It was awesome.

Enter.

The cursor blinks a mocking monotone rhythm. It blinks more frequently than Daisy’s own eyelids that ache from excessive screen time. Writing does not come easily. It takes tremendous effort like pushing a run-down car up Parliament Hill. Daisy hopes that after some practice her writing will simply flow and move and fill up her blog posts like a frothy pint of beer but it hasn’t yet. The cursor blinks at her. Blink.

Her head drops heavily into her hands. Who will read this anyway? Daisy’s blog (Dai-Dreams) has accumulated a total of three followers: a stranger from Vietnam, her mother and Izzie who actually stopped following her this morning. When thinking about what to put up on her blog Daisy takes inspiration from rivals; blogs with advertisements, sponsors, daily polls and backstage reports. A friend from university has one like that: Arabella Chandos aka Nylon Dreams. Her fashion blog was so successful she was able to quit her career at a charity call centre to work full time as a fashion and events blogger. Dressed in Brick Lane Manolos Arabella hopped from one fashionable do to the next and she documented her every step. Arabella is the type of girl Daisy wanted to be. Arabella understands the 21st century; she runs with it and uses it to her advantage, cashing in as she parties along.

Daisy walks over to her full length mirror and sits down cross legged like a Buddhist in his temple. She locks her eyes into the pair of eyes that stare back at her, mentally preparing for the self-loathing scrutiny that will follow. She scans down her body like an X-ray. They stop accusingly at her belly that hangs over the elastic of her pyjama bottoms; a belly that is pregnant with a calorific chemical concoction: hot chocolate, skittles, three fried eggs and hob nobs. How many biscuits had she eaten: five, four, half the pack? Gross. She scans upwards and reaches her face. There are remnants of last night’s mascara and black dust speckles the silvery skin beneath her eye. She scrunches her skin with her fingers and pulls it back. She puckers her lips, stretching them out as far as they go. With her fingers mangled in her face she gets up and attempts one of the many poses she has seen on fashion blogs. One leg straight, the other bent, back arched, head tilted.

Arabella Chandos really has it all. She’s thin, rich and well connected. In Daisy’s mind those are the three ingredients to a happy life. Daisy was not thin, her only celebrity connection is an ex-rock star uncle who is more famous for his child pornography collection than for any records he made and in terms of money, she no longer has access to her parents’ fortune which means she is officially poor.

Two gluttonous tears drop out of her eyes, bringing a trail of mascara with them. Daisy clicks play in her iTunes library and Take Five’s One Hundred Love Letters pours out of her speakers.

Oh, baby
Oh, oh

I’ve written a hundred letters of love
To tell you I’m here
Please forget, all the things you’ve heard
Just stick with me
You won’t get hurt

Daisy closes her eyes and imagines her five favourite men singing to her personally: a private show for their muse, their number one, their darling. She buries herself in blankets to form a lilac womb where real life can’t get through. Her eyes are closed. Johnny, James, Gonzo, Eddie and TJ all huddle around her and comfort her with soothing lyrics. They are bare-chested, their muscles glow like a Californian sun and trickles of sweat drip down like raindrops on a window. Daisy’s dissatisfaction begins to lift. Her vision of Take Five shifts from a frame of their torsos to a frame lower down where they wear tight boxers, Calvin Klein’s that wrap firmly round their bulging bundles of popstar maniliness and maybe they slowly pull them down, one by one, really slowly and…

Baby-baby-baby-baby-baby-baby-baby-baby-baby-baby

“Fuck”

Music may have moved on from scratchy record players but modern technology hasn’t left our tracks flawless or glitch free. The culprit: a faulty download. Izzie was always going on about downloads and how they are the ruin of the industry. In reply Daisy tended to roll her eyes. Izzie worked as an intern for a record label which meant she had appointed herself patron saint of recorded arts.

Daisy gets out of bed and walks along the corridor into the forbidden zone, the no man’s land of flat 31: Izzie’s room. Izzie had left in a huff a few days ago. A screaming match accompanied by the throwing of household objects escalated into a final high decibel declaration:

“That’s it, I can’t live with you anymore you selfish cow!”

She had stormed out with a bag full of underwear and Daisy hadn’t heard from her since. The room was still a warzone; a toothbrush, spatula and several empty cans of hairspray lay about like shrapnel but Izzie’s room was messy place to begin with, a victim of indecision and garment-grenades. Daisy makes her way through the mess to Izzie’s music selection. There has to be a Take Five CD in here somewhere. A twinkle in the corner of the room catches her attention and beckons her, like the hypnotic lure of candy floss at her first Take Five concert. Izzie’s sequin designer gown hangs from a fabric mannequin. It is the perfect dress, famous in this household for hugging the right curves and swallowing unwanted mounds of flesh. When Daisy asked to borrow it one evening Izzie refused.

“It just fits me so well I don’t want you to stretch it. Your boobs are bigger than mine”

Daisy unzips the dress from the mannequin, takes off her pyjamas and slips into the shiny fabric. It feels like her back is being folded in two but a glimpse in the mirror confirms that this dress really is fabulous. All the Take Five boys would fancy here in this, even Gonzo who famously told a reporter: "I don't date over Size Eight"

Daisy wants more. She opens Izzie’s bulging closet and takes out a purple wig, a pair of sky-scraper high heels and a black feather boa. She tries to get hold of another shiny piece of fabric that’s wedged in between several layers of gym t-shirts and pyjama bottoms. She tugs and tugs, using more determination than she has done for anything else today. A top layer falls down and a fashionable avalanche crashes over Daisy. She gropes her way out of it and finds several strange items lying on top of her. A whip, handcuffs and various bottles of a tropical flavoured jelly like substance. Daisy reads the packaging which is sticky and slimy.

Lubrication.

“Yuck”

Take Five’s only rap song Give me your body echoes from her room. It’s not as clear as when it comes from her speakers, it sounds muted and distorted as if it’s playing underwater. It stops about thirty seconds in and repeats itself. Daisy remembers: her ringtone.

“Hello?”

“Hello I’m calling for Daisy”

“That’s me. Hello”

“Hi. This is Monica from Heiress”

“Oh yes. Hi”

Daisy completely forgot that her mother forced her to sign up with Heiress events, a catering company owned by her great aunt. The promise of 10 pounds an hour had made Daisy sulkily enter her details in on the website.

“We’d like you to work an event on Thursday. It’s a high profile gallery opening. Can you make it?”

Work. Actual work. Actual money.

“Yes. I’ll be there”

“I’ll send you the details through today. Make sure you have your blacks ready and ironed”

“Of course”

“See you Thursday”

“Bye!”

Daisy gets up and wipes her lubricated hands on the sequin dress. She was going to have to venture back into no man's land to see if Izzie has any blacks.