Chapter Fourteen
T he following day I lay low, tending to the returns from the shoot and calling in new pieces for engagements in the week ahead. I didn’t see much of Mandy. She was a figure fleetingly leaving the kitchen as I entered, or dashing out of the front door and into a waiting car.
The next morning, as the final moments of sleep drained from my body, I lay in bed and a sick feeling went from my throat to settle like concrete in my stomach.
I expected that today, Mandy would speak to me about the dining room incident.
I picked up my phone and scrolled between WhatsApp, email, and Instagram.
Blair had gone quiet, which potentially meant they were trying to stay out of it and would accept no blame when I was fired.
I opened the Mindful Moments app and tried to do some breathwork.
‘Inhalation … exhalation …’ said the woo-woo person in the video. I couldn’t get past two breaths before I gave up and put down my phone, only to pick it up a second later when it buzzed with a WhatsApp from Jimi.
Morning! Just a reminder that everything we discussed must not go anywhere .
Don’t worry, it won’t.
Fancy a Pilates session? Mandy’s just cancelled so I’m free.
Sure, I’ll meet you in the gym.
I had harboured an irrational fear of these machines until the session with Jimi, who took me through a series of exercises and made it seem like fun, although my abs were already sore.
Being in the gym with Jimi had offered a distraction from worrying about whether my time here was about to be cut short.
He was so busy delivering instructions, and I was so busy trying not to injure myself again, or accidentally fart whilst doing roll-ups, that an hour passed in a flash, and we didn’t get a chance to talk about anything else.
When I looked at my phone for the first time after the session, I read a WhatsApp message from Mandy. Your attendance is required at a team meeting this morning. 10am sharp in the drawing room. It’s mandatory.
Jimi picked up his phone and read the message at the same time as I did.
‘Jose’s back,’ he said.
‘Do you think he’s come especially to sack me?’ I asked, a tightness emerging in my throat.
‘I doubt it, but I think we’ll find out what Mandy thinks of the photos.’
I sighed.
‘But if she hates them, you do know it’s not your fault, don’t you? Everyone was a part of the shoot. You saved it, if anything. I’m going to change my T-shirt quickly, I’ll follow you down.’
I looked at the side of Jimi’s perfectly formed face. He had said exactly what I needed to hear.
I hurried into the drawing room to discover Jose sat on the sofa next to Mandy. Blair, Coco, and Lola were already there, stealing the best seats – the ones furthest away from Mandy and Jose.
Jose must have got in from New York late last night or early this morning. His hair was still damp as though he had not long showered, and the familiar whiff of fresh aftershave created a warm bubble of fragrance around him, just as it had done on the day I first met him.
‘Julie-Ann will be joining us shortly,’ Mandy informed us, setting herself up as chairperson for the meeting. ‘She’s running a bit late, but she’s bringing the photos with her – so we can all look at them on the big screen.’
‘Morning!’ Jimi said on cue, strolling through the door. He came and sat next to me. It felt nice to be close to him again.
I focused my gaze on the tightly clasped hands in my lap. So far, Mandy had avoided direct eye contact with me, which wasn’t a good sign.
Philippa entered the room, making us all look up. She was a welcome vision, holding a silver tray containing a cafetiere of fresh coffee and mugs. ‘Stimulants are served,’ Philippa exclaimed in her deadpan manner, as she deposited the tray on a large, low coffee table in the middle of the sofas.
I nudged Jimi’s side subtly with my elbow.
He knew exactly what I meant and surreptitiously dug a firm finger into my ribs.
It got me in exactly one of my most ticklish places.
When I looked at him, his eyes widened. This led me to have a sudden, uncontrollable urge to laugh.
Instead, I let out an ungainly loud snort through my nose which I immediately had to pretend was a coughing fit.
Everyone looked at me.
‘Are you okay?’ Blair said.
‘I’m fine,’ I spluttered.
Blair was on their feet, arm outstretched, offering me a glass of water. ‘Here!’
‘Oh God, I’m honestly fine, just a little dry.’ I cleared my throat to emphasise the point.
Jimi seemed to find this amusing and was giggling behind his hand.
‘Thank you.’ I took the glass from Blair and sipped. There was no way I could make eye contact with Jimi again, he would definitely set me off. I managed to steady my breathing and swallow without spitting the water out or collapsing into giggles.
‘So, coffee?’ asked Coco, mercifully taking the attention off me, and pouring from the cafetiere. Philippa had melted into the atmosphere.
Normally we would help ourselves to coffee from the kitchen mid-morning, so this indicated a formality, which put me on edge. The air in the room settled back into silence as we all watched Coco, like pouring coffee was the most fascinating thing we had ever seen.
Blair broke the ice. ‘How was your trip, Jose?’
Jose sucked air into his cheeks. He looked more clean-shaven than normal today, and with his pronounced jawline, tanned, blemish-free skin, and bright, clear, brown eyes, he was a good-looking guy – it was obvious he and Jimi were related.
‘All good,’ he replied. ‘Busy. I came back early in the end. The snow was coming in as I left.’ He seemed reluctant to give away many details.
‘I love snow in New York!’ Blair and Coco said practically in unison.
All the while Mandy had her arm tightly linked with Jose’s, as if she were clinging on to him for her life.
We were saved from more excruciating small talk by the bell ringing and a clattering sound from the front door.
A minute later, Julie-Ann hurried into the room along with mutterings about the M25, weather, and bad drivers.
She was visibly flustered and seemed embarrassed to have kept her biggest client waiting.
She hastily set up her laptop on a mahogany table, moving it closer to us all.
Everyone shuffled forwards to get a good view as the thumbnails from the shoot began to appear on the screen.
I held my breath. Julie-Ann seemed to know what she was looking for and scrolled through the thumbnails briskly, not stopping to pause on an image long enough for us to take a detailed look: The lounge set-up, the spare room, some product shots …
she skipped along quickly, suggesting that she wasn’t open to opinions on these.
At last, she seemed to find what she had been searching for.
Julie-Ann double-clicked on an image from the master bedroom set-up, and a photo of Mandy appeared, filling the whole of the screen.
It was the portrait of her lying on the bed.
I recognised it instantly as the candid moment just after our exchange, when she had pulled off her boots in a huff and stared out of the window.
It was more ‘undone’ than ‘done up’, thoughtful, more body on show than many of the others.
I would even call it raw. Yet there was something so beautiful about it too, almost otherworldly.
The sun had been shining in that moment and it caught her eyes, making them sparkle intensely green.
The blue of the winter sky outside, the sharp, spiky foliage creeping around the window, at a juxtaposition with the soft, womanly shape of her body splayed across the bed.
Her skirt was riding up a little, her thigh skin was visibly puckered, cellulite and stretch marks on show; there were indentations on her legs where the boots had been.
Her hair hung loose around her shoulders and her lip gloss was barely visible.
Nothing about it was provocative, it was just real, feminine, human.
‘ This ,’ Julie-Ann said. ‘I think this is really special.’
‘Are you serious.’ Mandy spat out the words more as a laugh than a question. She looked among our stunned faces, all of us gawping at the photo. I felt her eyes glance over me, then fix on Jimi, she was desperate to garner support from one of us. Surely family will fall into line? Jimi looked away.
‘Seriously, this cannot be The One,’ she continued desperately. ‘At least not without a ton of Photoshopping, surely?’
I realised I was still holding my breath. I gulped it down as she spoke again: ‘Someone, for God’s sake, speak some sense …’ She looked around the room in a panic. ‘Right about now, would be good?’
I fiddled with my bracelet, twiddled a piece of hair, and did what I could to avoid Mandy’s gaze, feeling responsible for the image in question. All the while, a hundred reasons why this was the perfect photo – just as Julie-Ann had said – whirled around my mind.
The love handles, the crow’s feet, laughter lines, it was such a brilliant photo. I wished Mart was here to give his take on this candid portrait.
Finally, Jimi spoke. ‘This is you.’
Mandy let out a pained wailing sound. One that you might expect a cat to make if you accidentally stood on its tail. We all looked in trepidation as she turned her face away from the screen. And then her eyes filled with tears. Jose held her close, and no one said anything.
I could understand it must be intense to see yourself looking so vulnerable in front of an audience, but it wasn’t as though Mandy wasn’t used to being the centre of attention.
She had lived in the spotlight for most of her adult life.
Yet the UK instalment of Mandy’s life had a lot of pressure resting on it, if her fame and fortune were to soar higher over here too.
And there lay the problem, times had changed.
Audiences were becoming less engaged with high-octane glamour and impenetrable perfection.
I could see Julie-Ann on my right, looking fidgety.
‘Personally, I think it’s beautiful,’ she said softly.
I wanted to agree with Julie-Ann, but I felt too nervous to stick my neck out again. I couldn’t afford to lose this job, my future home depended on it.
Mandy pursed her lips and turned towards the screen again. She cocked her head to one side as she studied the image.
‘What do you think?’ She turned to Jose and asked pointedly, ‘Do you think it’s beautiful?’ I felt a familiar pull in my stomach.
‘I think Julie-Ann is right,’ Jose replied, looking at her directly, telling her with his eyes that he meant it. ‘I think you’re beautiful, vulnerable, and sexy in this image – this is the you that I see.’ He put a hand on her knee.
‘Oh Christ, Jose. This is how you see me? Seriously? I don’t know whether to hug you or leave you!’ she exclaimed, but her appearance had softened. ‘Does anyone else agree?’ She looked around the room at Blair, Coco, Jimi, and me, and we all nodded slowly in agreement.
Blair smiled at Julie-Ann, cautiously. They knew what this meant too, Jose championing the team over Mandy. This was big.
Jimi pushed his leg into mine, making me want to sigh.
‘I honestly think we’re all agreed: this is a stunning image. The image,’ Julie-Ann continued.
Mandy was obviously taken aback being overruled like this, but she couldn’t think of an immediate rhetorical slur to hurl at all of us. I pretended to focus on an abstract picture on the wall.
‘It seems to me that fashion is no longer just about clothes,’ Jose said profoundly. ‘Look how much talking this image does. Your audience will love it.’
‘But baby, I’m an influencer!’ Mandy exclaimed. ‘I kickstart trends. The whole point is that I wear clothes – and make-up, accessories, bunion corrector socks or whatever the hell it is that needs some influencing. When did that change? I mean I love clothes!’
‘So do I!’ I said, finding my voice and giving Mandy some support.
I’m not having Jose talk me out of a job here.
‘And you will be wearing clothes, don’t worry about that.
I worship at the altar of the best design talents in the world.
But I think Jose makes a good point. Don’t let the clothes wear you – you wear them .
’ I paused, and then said calmly, ‘That’s the difference between being an influencer and a bad influence. ’
I turned my attention back to the image of Mandy on the screen. The more I looked at it, the more I loved it. Mart had captured such a perfect moment. It was ethereal and unguarded, yet there was something so strong and defiant about the shot too.
Jose said, ‘When your fans see this, they will love you for it, Mands. Just like I do. You’ll be more influential than ever.’
‘For what it’s worth, I love it too,’ said Jimi, contributing to the conversation. ‘“Don’t let the clothes wear you” is a killer concept. It’s going to fly online.’
I was chuffed he had quoted me, and felt my cheeks redden.
‘Yes,’ added Julie-Ann. ‘ This is what will endear you to the British public. Not Mandy Sykes trying to look like an English toff, but being yourself. The Brits like realness .’ She glanced at me to accentuate her point.
I knew I was looking very ‘real’ this morning, slightly sweaty and in my gym gear.
‘The tide has turned. We need much more of this to build a social campaign. We need another shoot.’
The tide has turned. That’s just given me a brilliant idea .
‘West Wittering!’ I announced. The room turned to look at me. ‘It’s on the Sussex coast, not far from here. There’s a long sandy beach and dunes.’
‘Sounds delightful. But what about it?’ asked Julie-Ann.
‘We could do another shoot there, get away from the stuffy stately home vibe and keep it as natural as possible. If we want realness, it’s the perfect backdrop drawing together the wholesomeness of nature with the imperfect beauty of the human form – it will be wild, windy, provocative.
With any luck, it will rain, to complete the picture. ’
‘This is so far outside my comfort zone, I think I’ll need my passport,’ Mandy muttered, a glacial expression on her face.