Chapter 16
Florence at the door:
Black pleated fabric tunic
Black leggings
Grey felt slippers
Silver and gold pendant
Gold watch
Silver and gold earrings
Lauren picked up her phone but wasn’t sure if she had the courage to open her email.
The last few days had just been too hard.
She had sent out all those resumés, all those speculative enquiries, offering her services, offering to volunteer even, and so far, either deafening silence or polite ‘thanks, but no thanks’ messages had come back.
It was going to be even harder than she’d thought to change from working in fashion to doing something much more worthy and worthwhile.
It felt as if no one cared about what she had done or what she could do.
And the feeling that she was just a speck of person in a great big city was weighing her down.
This wasn’t how she thought grown-up life would be.
It had all seemed so much more exciting, a life in fashion, when she was at school and flicking through the pages of fashion magazines, watching clips from backstage at the fashion shows…
she’d thought it would be about travel and events and meeting glamorous people… creative and…
OK, sometimes life at Perfect Dress had been like that.
There had been fashion shows and rushing about finding inspiration in thrift shops and tracking down unique fabrics, but it hadn’t been like that for some time.
It had become much more office-y and same-y and boring.
And she couldn’t help feeling that she’d lost the fashion joy.
She didn’t care if red was in and plum was out, or bangs were short or long, or if skirts were slim or floaty, not the way that she once did.
She opened her email and saw two new messages had come in, both from organisations she would have loved to work for.
With a sigh, she opened the first one and read the polite, standard lines of rejection that she had come to completely expect.
Before she opened the second, she felt just that slight flutter of hopefulness.
She just needed one person at one organisation to come back to her with a positive reply.
Just one foot in one door… that was all she was hoping for.
Her heart in her mouth, she opened the email and read the lines.
Oh, it wasn’t just a ‘no’. It was a very blunt:
Why have you contacted us? Two years in the fashion industry is not the basis for any kind of career with us. You’ve wasted your time writing this letter. You’ve wasted my time reading this letter.
Lauren looked at the words with dismay. She hadn’t expected anyone who worked in a non-profit to be so mean.
She could feel tears threatening at the back of her eyes.
Surely just because you’d picked fashion as your very first job that didn’t mean you had to work in fashion forever?
How could it possibly mean that? The feeling that she was a speck of a person in a very big city grew even more vivid.
And the feeling that she just wanted to go home was overwhelming.
* * *
Annie stood once again in front of the blue-grey door waiting for a response to her ring on the doorbell.
She heard the footsteps coming down the corridor and felt almost a little nervous at the thought of meeting the Yamamoto woman again.
Then came the sound of the lock being undone and then the door opened.
Annie could see the woman’s eyebrows lifting when she set eyes on her.
‘Oh… hello, again,’ Annie said. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming round like this… but I think you dropped off two bags of clothes for the show. And I needed to first of all thank you and then, most importantly, make sure you knew how valuable those items are.’
The woman continued to look at her, eyebrows raised but no other change in her expression.
‘I’m Annie Valentine, by the way. And the items are exquisite,’ Annie went on.
‘There are two dresses and a jacket in there which are very, very rare. Fashion gold dust to be honest. And I thought you should know that. In case… you didn’t realise.
’ The long stare she was getting from the woman was not exactly bolstering Annie’s confidence.
‘I donated those things anonymously,’ the woman said finally.
‘Yes… and we really are very grateful,’ she began.
No point mentioning the fact that the show may or may not be happening right now.
‘I guessed it was you from my husband’s description…
but he said you’d left details in the bags.
And when I couldn’t find the details… and I saw how lovely the items were…
’ she trailed off, hoping this was enough of an explanation for why she was on this doorstep once again.
The woman opened the door fully and sighed, long and sadly. Then she said, ‘I’m Florence Perkins.’
‘Hello, Florence,’ Annie replied.
‘Can’t I just donate the items anonymously… that would just be so much easier.’
‘Well, the problem is, with treasures like this, buyers will want provenance… proof of where these things came from and how old they are. Vintage fashion is so easy to fake, as you can imagine.’
‘Hmmmmm…’ was all the reply Florence made. Annie had the feeling that she wasn’t really making much progress. So she decided to come out and ask the obvious question.
‘Do you think those vintage pieces could be fakes?’
‘Oh…’ Florence looked taken aback. ‘Well, no, not really. I mean I don’t know much about vintage fashion, but I do know my mother was an artist, who always supported artists and she took a very dim view of fakes.’
‘So… do you know anything about the items and how they might have come into her possession? Did she wear them? Are there any photographs of her in these clothes?’
‘I don’t know… I haven’t looked… I have honestly no idea how she might have got them. They were never wealthy, my parents. Comfortable, yes. And this is a lovely house, of course, but it was bought a long, long time ago.’ Florence sighed heavily again.
‘I have a lot to sort out, Annie. Can’t you just take the donation and be done with me?’
‘Thank you so much for the donation,’ Annie said again.
She certainly didn’t want Florence to think she wasn’t grateful.
‘It’s incredibly generous. These are the most important items we will have in…
the show.’ If it ever happens. ‘We will treasure them, look after them and make sure they are sold for what they are worth. But if there is anything else you can find out… maybe while you’re clearing out the house…
to let us know when and how they came into your mother’s possession, that would be incredibly helpful. ’
‘I will see what I can do,’ Florence said and looked as if she was going to close the door there and then.
‘Thank you, Florence… here’s my card…’ Annie scrambled in her bag for a moment and managed to find what she was looking for. ‘Let me know if you come across anything useful. Even a photo of your mother wearing—’
‘Very well.’ And with that the door was shut and once again, Annie could hear the lock turning.
* * *
It was all at a standstill. Nothing had been cancelled yet, but nothing was moving forward.
Paula was calling her twice a day to ask what was going on, but so far, Annie knew precisely nothing.
Svetlana had not been in touch. And Annie, even though she was slightly itching to call Svetlana and find out if anything about the situation had improved in the slightest, had told herself she was not calling.
She was not going to crack first. She was not going to run after Svetlana and make it all better.
Svetlana had created this mess; Svetlana had to solve it.
For a moment or two, Annie stared at her phone, as if Svetlana could somehow hear her and would now call with a solution. Instead, up popped a cheery little message from Owen with a photo attached.
Making this for breakfast – bacon, eggs and tomatoes. Toms are a vegetable, I hope you’re proud.
Well, she kind of was. Even though it was 11.30 a.m., was this when all students had breakfast? Didn’t he have a class to go to? Should she be worried?
Looks good. How’s class going? Much on today?
Annie replied.
Yeah, busy afternoon, fuelling up.
Owen fired back.
Busy with studies, she hoped. Not busy spending all his money on beer, she hoped too.
Fingers crossed… she couldn’t micro-manage, had to hope Owen could work it out and manage himself.
She was pretty sure he would turn to them both for help if he got in a muddle – that was the main thing.
Annie thought about Lauren… was she OK? Was she really OK?
How could you ever really tell over messages and a few calls.
You just had to keep taking the temperature and trust that you and your child would be in touch, connect, be there for one another if things weren’t going to plan.
‘I’m fretting,’ she said out loud, ‘because I have nothing, nothing to take my mind off the frets.’ She would phone her own mother, she decided.
Have a lovely, relaxed conversation about what was happening in her mother’s garden, and what she was planning to have for dinner.
They would sort out Annie’s next visit. That would make her feel better and of some use this morning.