Chapter 4 #2
‘See you soon,’ Dinah promised. As Annie stalked up the hilly road of lovely townhouses towards the Leon-Valentine residence, she thought as calmly and logically as she could about the fashion show.
Although the big ticket items were all in place – the venue, marquee, flowers, music, catwalk, chairs, invitations, team of helpers – she knew there were still a lot of important gaps to fill.
They didn’t have enough models and she’d said she would sort that.
They didn’t really have enough clothes, not for a one-hour show and sale rails of items to buy on the night.
There wasn’t much PR or wow factor, or marketing buzz happening yet and most of the starry names hadn’t replied to their invitations to confirm they were coming.
In short, there was ‘A Lot To Do’, but yes, she would put the kettle on and listen to Dinah and tell Dinah about all the things on her mind, too, because that’s what sisters were for, after all.
* * *
‘So, first of all, Lauren,’ Annie began, as she boiled up water in the kitchen. ‘Apparently, she’s not happy; I’ve heard this from Svetlana, but I cannot get her to reply to my calls. She will send messages, but they are just the usual and not telling me anything.’
‘A bit worrying,’ Dinah agreed.
‘Exactly… guess I just have to keep trying. And if there’s still not much more than texts and smiley face emojis, maybe I’ll have to get on a plane.’
‘Oh dear!’
No, maybe that was a bit drastic at this stage, Annie thought to herself.
She was a little worried, but she wasn’t in full-on panic mode.
She would message Elena, she decided, Svetlana’s daughter and Lauren’s boss.
Elena could hopefully put her mind at rest or at least get Lauren to return her calls.
‘I’ll keep trying,’ she said to reassure Dinah as much as herself.
‘OK, so what about the twins, are they settling into nursery?’ was Dinah’s first question, once the hot drinks were made and they’d settled into the sofa in Annie and Ed’s very comfortable sitting room – lots of shades of pale on the walls, in the curtains, the rugs, cushions and shelving, but grounded with a wooden floor and sofas in a washable and forgiving denim blue.
The arrival of twin babies had seen Annie give up for once and for all on her white sofa dreams. Now, her styling goals were confined to arranging frames and ornaments beautifully on the shelves and curating a lovely coffee-table collection of glossy books with a beautiful bowl.
Although Annie did notice that one of the twins had put some plastic dinosaurs and a small bouncy ball on top of the smooth white pebbles in her bowl.
‘Nursery? Minnie loves it and Max hates it, or so he says, but to be honest, I wonder if that’s just to be different to Minnie. The nursery staff are lovely, and doing everything they can to try and help Max fit in. But it’s a trial leaving him there.’
‘Oh no,’ Dinah sympathised. ‘I’m around… if you want me to step in and babysit, until he gets used to the idea?’
‘No, I worry that will make things worse. In fact, I do have a slightly sneaky idea…’
Dinah smiled. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Well… I thought I’d just tell Max, “OK, if you want to stay at home with me, that’s fine,” then I’ll get him to tag along with me, doing nothing special, in fact having the most boring time possible. After a day or two, he’ll maybe think maybe nursery isn’t so bad, after all.’
‘Yeah,’ Dinah agreed, ‘sometimes, they just need to be allowed to choose. So if he’s been at home and then he’s choosing to go back to nursery, it could be fine… or it could go horribly wrong and you’ll have him by your side for a whole year and then have to go through all this again for school.’
Annie threw her hands up at the thought of that. ‘I will have to make life very boring for Max,’ she said.
‘And I was also thinking, Annie…’ Dinah began, ‘what are you doing for your wedding anniversary…? I mean, isn’t it, Oct 1st? And you two romantics, you always like to do something special.’
‘Oct 1st?’ Annie gave her sister a look, her heart sinking. ‘That’s the day of the fashion show and I didn’t even twig.’
‘Oh—’
‘Oh my God…’ Annie couldn’t believe she hadn’t realised. And hadn’t she just resolved to pay more attention to her husband?
‘We’ll just have to agree to celebrate the next day… or maybe the day after that. I will probably need some time to recover from all the fashion drama.’
‘Yup, realistically. A couple of days I’d have thought.’
‘Siri!’ Annie shouted at her phone, ‘set reminder for later today to discuss wedding anniversary with Ed.’
Siri repeated the request and confirmed.
‘Siri! Set reminder to call Elena at 6 p.m.’
Siri confirmed and Dinah tried not to giggle.
‘Is he running your life now?’
‘I wish he was. Bring on the robots,’ Annie joked, ‘me and everything else around here will work so much better.’
‘So… what about Owen?’ was Dinah’s next question.
‘Yes! Exactly, what about Owen?’ Annie repeated.
Good grief it was nearly 11 a.m. and still there had been no sign of her school leaver, about to become a university student son.
‘Don’t tell me he’s still in bed? Honestly, I’m going to install a klaxon outside his room and have it set up to go off at 9 a.m. every morning. ’
‘You can talk,’ Dinah reminded her. ‘I’ve never met anyone who could sleep in like the teenaged Annie.’
Annie had to admit her sister had a point. ‘If I could just sleep in until 11 a.m. every so often, I would probably be a completely different person – so chill, so relaxed.’
‘I want to give Owen a present, for going away to uni,’ Dinah went on.
‘That is so nice of you, perfect Auntie.’
‘You are a perfect auntie, too, so let’s not compete. What would he like? Should I ask him? Or Siri? Or do you have ideas…? Because it must be soon.’
‘What do you mean soon? He’s not going till October. That’s when uni starts.’
‘But not in Scotland…’ Dinah countered. ‘I looked Glasgow uni up and it starts the first week in September. Fresher’s week starts next week.’
This news was even more astonishing to Annie than the wedding anniversary clash.
‘What!! Next week!!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why did I not know this?’ she wondered out loud. Did Ed know this? What about Owen? Did Siri know?
Annie was hit with a wave of overwhelm. She’d thought worrying about the fashion show, the twins and Lauren was quite enough to be getting on with, but now here was Dinah, who was supposed to be her shoulder to cry on, bringing news of wedding anniversaries and surprise university start dates!
‘But he’s not ready…’ Annie protested. ‘I’m not ready. Next week?! It can’t be! Owen!’ she shouted, jumping up and heading for the hallway. ‘For God’s sake, you have to get up!!’