Chapter 1
Annie for cocktails:
Mid-blue silk blouse with deep cuffs and neck bow
Flared blue velvet trousers
Long, purple faux fur coat
Pink patent leather handbag
Black suede ankle boots
‘Babes! I am here! I made it!’ Weaving past tables, chairs and the late afternoon crowd, Annie, laden down with handbags, tote bags and shopping, hurried across the beautiful antique wooden floor of the cosy London bar to where one of her oldest and dearest friends, Connor McCabe, was sitting waiting for her at their favourite corner booth.
And bless him, there were two elegant cocktails on the table because he’d already got the drinks order in.
He looked up, ran a hand over his luscious blue-black highland warrior style locks, and gave her something of a glare.
His drink was already two-thirds of the way down she saw now.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I didn’t think I was so late…
’ A quick glance at her wrist watch told her she was seventeen minutes late, which was a bit of a social faux pas, especially when you were meeting one of London’s – no make that one of the UK’s – big-name, actually recognisable, stars of stage and screen, even if you had known him for decades and way, way before he was famous.
She kissed him on his chiselled cheekbone, hustled herself into the banquette opposite his, then picked up her drink, chinked it against his and said, just before she took a long mouthful, ‘Nobody puts McCaby in the corner.’
The Dirty Dancing joke did at least make him smile. ‘I am grovelingly sorry I’m so late,’ she said, once a second sip of the drink had gone down and she was ready to speak again. ‘And this is delicious… so fruity and mm, mm packs the kind of punch I’m sure you’d like to give me right now.’
‘Thank you. Our favourite barman, José, is in today and he made it especially for us. He’s named it the “TV Dark and Stormy”.’
‘Very clever,’ she took another sip. ‘We’re both on TV, you’re the dark one, and I’m obviously stormy.’
This made him smile again. ‘Ah, the legendary Connor McCabe smile. All is right again with the world when I am basking in the Connor McCabe smile, made famous on TV and now available all over the West End, but I knew you first. Never forget that. I have the photos you never want published,’ she teased because laughter, jokes and plenty of teasing was the bedrock of their long and happy friendship, which had deepened in the very darkest of times following the death, many years ago now, of Annie’s first husband, who had also been Connor’s best friend.
‘Why are you so late?’ he asked, not quite ready to let her off easily.
‘I am seventeen minutes late!’ She protested. ‘It’s not like I’m forty minutes late or had—’
‘Forgotten me altogether, which can I remind you has happened before.’
‘No, don’t remind me…’ Annie turned to the two handbags, one large, one small, the umbrella and the large shopping totes, which she’d dumped onto the rest of the banquette, in fact her multiple bag-carrying habit was part of the reason why Connor now always snagged the booth for them, instead of a showy table in the centre of the room.
‘You didn’t speak to me for about two months after I forgot our date.
I seem to remember I had to lure you back with cashmere,’ she teased.
‘I should think so too. And 4-ply, nothing nasty from the back of an van,’ Connor retorted.
‘As if you would wear anything from the back of an van… I am late because of… so many reasons. It’s the first of September and September is a killer month in our household, let me tell you…’
Annie leaned back in the booth, took another fortifying sip and tried to corral all that was happening this month into some sort of sensible list in her mind.
‘Ah,’ Connor nodded. ‘Ed goes back to school, you are on a TV shooting schedule, and what about the twins?’ Connor asked, arching one of those devastatingly attractive eyebrows.
‘The twins have started kindergarten with… mixed results,’ was Annie’s take on this latest stage for her four-year-olds. ‘Minette very excited, Max crying to break my heart every morning.’
‘Poor Max, he’s obviously a non-conformist who loves his Mummy.’
‘Yes… and then Lauren is still in New York,’ she updated Connor about her eldest daughter.
‘And that seems to be going OK… thank goodness. And Owen…’ even as Annie prepared to say these words about her now eighteen-year-old son, she couldn’t really believe they were true.
‘Owen is about to start university in Glasgow.’
‘Oh yes! Of course he is… Away to bonnie Scotland,’ Connor added in his best version of a Scottish accent, even though he grew up in Lancashire. ‘How is his wee mammie going to cope with that?’
‘Oh… it’ll be fine,’ she said to try and convince herself.
‘Owen… he’ll make friends anywhere and he’ll be up and down on the train and it’s…
it’s only a seven-hour drive…’ she’d googled it, but that was probably only if you went in the middle of the night and didn’t stop even for a wee.
In truth, she couldn’t really think about it too much.
Wasn’t it bad enough that Lauren was in New York?
Now Owen going to Scotland! He would be fine, but Annie wasn’t so sure about herself.
Owen… Owen was her little boy and the spirit of fun at home and the family member who made everything light-hearted.
Honestly, what was the matter with her children?
All her other friends seemed to have offspring who were perfectly happy to stay in London – and why not, it was one of the greatest cities in the world.
Her children would both be back, she told herself quickly.
They were having an adventure, they were travelling and experiencing other places, other cultures and then they would definitely be back.
‘And what about you, Connor babes?’ She took another bolstering sip of that outrageously strong cocktail, sure she was breathing out flammable fumes by now. ‘What is happening with you?’
‘No, no. Not so fast, Annie. I need to hear about the new series of How to be Fabulous and how it’s shaping up.’
Her reply to this was to sigh and say, ‘Exhausting babes, exhausting. You know how it is. Whatever you’ve got, you’ve got to give, give, give.
And TV will only ever take, take, take. By the time we wrap, I’ll be ready to lie flat on my back…
preferably in a soothing Italian spa, but more realistically on the floor of my bedroom, barricaded shut against the twins in the middle of a rampaging row.
But instead, what have I agreed to do as soon as shooting stops?
I have agreed to help Svetlana put on a huge, glitzy, charity fashion show. ’
‘Whoa! That sounds ambitious.’
It would be fair to say that Connor looked an exact mixture of astonished and intrigued. ‘A glitzy charity fashion show?’ he asked. ‘With your Mayfair multi-millionairess friend at the helm. So, when is this? And where? And who is coming? Details, details, Annie, that’s what I want to hear.’
Honestly, Annie was a little surprised that she hadn’t already told Connor about the Garden Fashion Gala.
This show had been in her head for months on end and, surely, she must have mentioned it to him.
But then when she thought about it, the idea for the show had only come about early in the summer when Svetlana had decided to purge her vast designer wardrobe and sell a significant proportion to raise money for charity by hosting a lavish garden party fashion show and auction.
So, really it had only been a few months of planning and prepping and in that time, there had only been one or two get-togethers with Connor and they had involved the whole family, so maybe she hadn’t mentioned it to him.
‘It’s on October 1st… in exactly one month’s time,’ she told him, a little startled at the thought.
One month… when there was still so much to do.
‘And when do you finish filming?’ Connor asked.
‘Due to wrap in fifteen days, but let’s be realistic and say seventeen days.’
Connor pulled a face. ‘Oooooh,’ he sympathised. ‘That’s going to be tight.’
‘No kidding,’ Annie replied. ‘No lolling about in Italian spas for me.’
‘Definitely not. And your son is heading to uni, don’t forget, and your baby is crying about kindergarten and I’ve not even asked how the long-suffering Ed is doing.’
‘Ed who?’ she joked. ‘Yes, I do occasionally run into my husband in the kitchen. He gets up extra early to make me a coffee before I head out of the door to TV-land.’
‘He’s a very nice man. You are too lucky.’
This, she had to agree, was very true. She and Ed worked as a team to hold it all together. Nothing about her busy, stressful life would make sense if he wasn’t by her side helping her. She needed to remember to take some time now and then to tell him how much she appreciated him.
‘No sign of a very nice man in your life, then?’ she asked Connor.
He shook his head before adding cheerfully, ‘But there is the joy of still searching.’
‘True.’
‘Annie, you have got people helping you with this show, haven’t you?’ he asked now, sounding a little concerned. ‘Svetlana must have… minions.’
‘She does and this fabulous woman, Paula, who used to work with me at The Store is our right-hand showrunner. But ultimately… this is our show, our big moment, our chance to pull off something impressive, so—’
‘The buck stops with you,’ Connor said, understanding perfectly. ‘And how is it coming on?’ Annie was torn for a moment or two between being relentlessly optimistic or being honest.
‘I’m going to get in another round of these bad boys before I can tell you,’ she admitted and went off in search of José, the magical mixologist.
* * *
When a second round of TV dark and stormies were in front of them, she felt she could properly offload some of the heavy weight of angst she’d been carrying around with her over the last few days.
‘Spill,’ Connor commanded after chinking glasses with her once again.
‘The caterers are booked, the flowers, same, drinks, same, glasses, chairs, waiting staff, coat check, all done, marquee, likewise,’ she said.
‘Donations are coming in – beautiful clothes, amazing accessories and hard cash, so that’s all good.
The starry guest list – both high society and fashion – has been compiled, the tickets designed… ’
‘But…’ Connor leaned towards her, sensing there was a major speed bump on the fashion show road that Annie was hurtling towards. ‘I’m definitely sensing a “but”,’ he said, then added, ‘And this is no time to make jokes about my butt sensing skills.’
‘Very funny,’ Annie said immediately, but she could feel her tension headache easing.
Somehow, nothing was ever so bad when you shared it with Connor.
He’d lived through so many of her crises, major and minor, that he would definitely be able to remind her that maybe she could pull through this one too.
‘I’ve not printed the invitations and sent them yet because…
because I… well, maybe I’m just being paranoid… ’
‘I doubt it,’ Connor said.
‘Because, well, I just have a funny feeling that something isn’t quite right.
Something hasn’t been done. Something is going to derail the whole project.
’ Annie shook her head. ‘I can’t explain it.
It’s probably just nerves, but I can’t bring myself to print and send invitations with my name on them as the guest star to all these important people, especially the very important fashion people, until I know that it’s going to be a brilliant show that it is definitely going to happen.
I mean… I may not work in TV forever. In fact, I know I won’t work in TV forever.
I need to make more fashion world connections.
I need to think about my next move,’ she tried to explain.
‘So, this show needs to be amazing and put me on the fashion map. Not turn into a disaster that makes me a laughing stock forever.’
‘This doesn’t sound good, Annie,’ Connor sympathised. ‘So what are you going to do?’