Someone Like You

Part One

"Have you got any dry shampoo? My hair is desperate."

Nina Willoughby looked up from her sketch pad, to see her housemate and best friend Lilah stood at her bedroom door looking a million dollars, then glanced at herself. Her friend was the epitome of beauty and looked particularly breathtaking at that very moment. With a smile of exasperation she offered, "A - your hair looks perfect, as always, and B - WTF is dry shampoo?" She had no idea what it was, let alone had any in her bedroom.

Lilah groaned and rolled her eyes, "you are such a heathen Willoughby, do you know that?"

Nina laughed, "you do enough glamour for us both." And that was true; they were like chalk and cheese. Lilah all colour, vibrancy and exotic, Nina was a tomboy, polar opposites but best friends. Since their first day in school age five back in the centre of London they'd been devoted best buddies. Lilah was an only child, whereas Nina was years younger than her brother James, so they'd been sisters, friends...everything for years.

Lilah was an ex-model, her six foot frame, amazing bone structure and glossy healthy hair made her a wonder, that was without her funny, devoted and caring personality. Nina on the other hand was short, dark and chunky, she would never command a crowd as her friend did, but where Lilah loved attention, loved glamour and all that that brought, Nina was happy carrying the bags, being behind the scenes. And that worked for them both.

Lilah laughed, "the irony is that no matter what I do I never look as lovely as you do!"

Shaking her head in bewilderment, Nina looked at her friend, "Now I KNOW you're after something Miss Ellis! Where are you going anyway?"

Her friend smiled, "on a date! Would you believe that?"

Nina grinned, "brilliant, who is he?"

Lilah's heart had been broken the previous year by the man she thought she'd marry, they'd been together for three years, and whilst Nina had never REALLY liked him, Lilah had been besotted, but finding him in bed with another friend of theirs had more than devastated her. It had taken her months to rediscover her joie de vivre, and over the last twelve months her fragile heart had started to heal. This was the first man she'd dated to Nina's knowledge since.

"I met him at that trade fair the other week, he's called a couple of times, flattering me, you know?"

Nina smiled, "you deserve some happiness, they're not all bastards, ok?" She dropped her pencil and jumped up to hug her friend. "If I knew what dry shampoo was, then now is the exact time that I'd pass it to you. OK?" Nina meant that, she'd do anything for Lilah, because her best friend had done so much for her over the years, as unlike with family, she got to choose who she spent her time with, and that was her best friend.

Lilah chuckled, "what about you? What are you planning on a sunny Saturday afternoon?"

"Painting class at the Oakdale Home, then finish those designs that I started for the Wootton wedding."

Shaking her head Lilah sighed, "you work too hard!"

"How can that be true when it's SO much fun?"

Half an hour later Lilah called out a goodbye and Nina heard the door close, peace. It was a while since she'd had the house to herself. Sliding her design sketches into the pad open in front of her, she stood to leave the bedroom; it was the mirror on the back of her bedroom door that stopped her in her tracks. She looked at her reflection, her unruly black hair, short and spiky on a good day, but today wild and out of control at right angles to everything, the freckles that adorned her nose, a snub nose. She sighed, she'd never be what Lilah described, and she would never own dry shampoo...like that even made sense.