Chapter 21
Lauren with jet lag:
Baggy, light blue jeans
Black T-shirt
Big red wool cardigan (Mum’s)
Pale blue trainers
Lauren lifted her head from the sofa cushion and looked around the familiar sitting room of her family home.
She may have recovered from the jet lag, but she hadn’t yet recovered from her big decision.
She had thought quitting her job, leaving New York, and deciding to do something more worthwhile with her life would give her a great big rush of energy and optimism but instead, she was sprawled across the sofa at 11 in the morning.
Ed was at school, the twins were at nursery, her mum was prepping for the show, no doubt rushing about in a crazed frenzy of trying to get everything done in time, even Owen was away at university.
Lauren groaned with sheer pain at the thought of her goofy brother currently having his life more together than she did.
And it wasn’t as if she wasn’t trying… she was scouring job ads and sending out CVs on spec.
Even back in New York, she’d sent about fifty query letters out to companies, charities, organisations…
all kinds of bodies that sounded as if they were doing interesting and worthwhile work.
Her approach had been: ‘I’ve learned a huge amount about marketing, communication, and social media being part of a small team in a creative business that could be so useful in helping your company/charity/organisation to become more visible and grow…
then something about what interesting work they were doing…
followed by… would you be interested in discussing possible openings? ’
She didn’t do the CV attached thing because she did not want people at worthy, serious organisation she was approaching to look at the words ‘Perfect Dress’ and ‘fashion company’ and immediately dismiss her as frothy and never even reply.
No, better to keep the mention of fashion till the last possible moment now that she was bent on changing careers.
But as yet, there had either been no reply from the organisations in London that she was the most interested in, or just those awful ‘Thank you for your interest, we have no openings at present’ that killed hope and made you feel that it was all utterly impossible and you were never going to find anything and would be condemned to a life on the sofa forever.
She had forced herself not to look at her messages or her email more than once an hour.
Because sitting waiting for replies was going to kill her.
No one was getting back. No one had an opening. No one wanted her…
Oh! She gave herself a shake. Lying on the sofa sending herself into a downward spiral was not going to help.
She would go into the kitchen and make a drink, nice and slowly.
Then she would drink it, maybe with a light snack.
And when she came back, then she would look through the messages/email/socials once again for any sign of life.
Something Ed would say about ‘watched pots don’t boil’ came into her head and she smiled at the cute, old-fashionedness of that.
Not to mention the smart-alecky answer she always used to give: ‘But that’s against the laws of physics.
The pot will boil whether I’m watching it or not! ’
* * *
Her drink was drunk and her snack was eaten when she came sloping back into the sitting room and decided it was a respectable enough gap to allow herself to check messages once again. Ohmigod, there was one WhatsApp… from a name she did not recognise! She opened it up quickly.
Do you have any experience with organising live events?
Was the question and from Preeta from Clean Up Fashion!
From Clean Up Fashion!! This was definitely interesting… this was a charity that did very worthwhile things and might actually find it useful that she had worked in fashion.
Right… live events… live events… yes, there had been fashion shows in New York for Perfect Dress, but generally, these had been small-scale and she couldn’t really claim to have had a huge amount to do with them.
Mainly, she’d just run errands for Svetlana and Elena.
Anything else she could mention…? School things… ? But that was so long ago.
Particularly the publicity/marketing side?
dropped the new WhatsApp message. Publicity!
? Marketing?! Yes, she had done loads of that for Perfect Dress, tonnes, never stopped…
but for a live event… she had to work for these people.
She had to think of something… she could feel her palm start to sweat underneath the phone.
Think… think… live event, marketing, publicity.
Something you could ideally be doing right now…
Mum…!
This was of course the thought that came into her head now.
She could help her mother with the charity fashion show, sticking closely to the marketing and publicity side – not running around London on one million little errands.
And wouldn’t Clean Up Fashion love a charity show that was all about sustainably recycling fashion and putting unwanted clothes into the hands of new owners?
Yes, she should definitely help with the show and tell Preeta all about it.
Just one major problem though… hadn’t she made complete fun of the show?
Hadn’t she told her mother no, she really didn’t want to help because it wasn’t ‘her thing’ any more.
Lauren did feel slightly stupid about that now.
It was going to be quite embarrassing having to ask her mum if she could help, after all…
but if anyone would forgive her, it was her mum.
She picked up her phone and read the messages again very carefully.
She gave a few moments thought to her reply.
Then began to type, feeling as if her whole life, her entire future depended on these words.
Hi, Preeta, thanks so much for getting in touch. Right now, I’m helping to promote a charitable/sustainable fashion event happening in London on October 1st. I have done lots of other marketing/publicity work. Is that the kind of experience you’re looking for? I’d love to…
Talk? was that too forward. Chat? Too casual…
tell you more.
she decided on. For a moment, she considered asking for a call.
In fact, she even thought about hitting the call button.
That would be the best, bravest thing to do.
Her mum would totally cheer that on. But…
Lauren quailed at the thought of ringing.
What would she do if Preeta actually answered?
Or what if, even worse, she had to leave a message?
No, no, no that was too complicated. She would have to go with her message.
Put it all into the message. Create Message Gold.
I’m Lauren btw. I would love to find out about any opportunities at Clean Up Fashion. Thanks so much.
OK, she read the whole thing over again, palms almost slippery with stress-sweat.
OK, she hadn’t made any typos. She didn’t sound too desperate.
She didn’t sound too formal, or too casual.
In fact, she sounded like a dynamic, busy girl doing all the right kind of things.
Definitely the kind of person Preeta would surely want to meet.
Lauren took a breath and hit send. Then couldn’t resist giving a little scream to express both the excitement and the terror of what she’d just done.
And now, of course, she needed to talk to her mother.
She needed to get signed up to working on this fashion show just as soon as humanly possible.
She dialled Annie’s number. ‘Hello, darling, how are you doing?’ came the caring but slightly breathless voice that suggested her mother was on-the-go, on her way, en route to something urgently important.
‘Can I come and work for the show?’ Lauren asked, deciding she might as well just come out with it.
‘Of course! Of course you can! Fantastic! We need all hands on deck!’ was Annie’s first reaction. Followed by the almost suspicious, ‘And… can I ask, what’s caused this sudden change of heart?’
‘Oh… so bored,’ Lauren told her, making her voice sound all lifeless and fed up. ‘I do not want to sit around waiting for people to not get back to me.’
‘They will, darling,’ Annie assured her. ‘Honestly, who wouldn’t want the amazingly talented Lauren working for them?’
Lauren found herself smiling, even though this was praise from her mum, so it didn’t really count. ‘Do you want me to come over to the venue?’ Lauren asked.
‘No… we’re not at the venue today. So, I want you to stay at home, get on your computer and think of some clever ideas.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well… we’ve emailed people to tell them about the change of venue and…
’ Annie sighed, ‘suddenly we have a lot of “sorry, no thanks” replies coming in. A lot,’ she emphasised.
‘In fact, if I see one more, I’m probably going to start crying.
We can’t put this whole, elaborate shebang on just for an audience of friends and family.
That isn’t going to work. That isn’t going to get donations rolling in for us. ’
‘Oh dear, Mum,’ Lauren sympathised. ‘What is the problem? Do you think people liked the idea of the Mayfair garden more than the Gallery of Textiles?’
‘But this is such a cool place!’ Annie protested. ‘I don’t know… it’s just fashion people. One person decides something is a bit “old” or “uncool” or who-knows-what and then they flock to make the same decision together.’
‘So, we need the “cool” tide to turn,’ Lauren said.
‘Exactly! That is exactly what we need. Any ideas?’
‘Hmmmmm… between you, Svetlana and me… we must have a few social media followers…’ Lauren speculated.
‘More than a few, babes. I’m nearly at 10,000 and Svetlana, she has tens of thousands. She was born for social media but she doesn’t even realise and only posts about twice a year. But whenever she does – viral.’
‘So, we need to do posts, not the boring stuff about where and when the show is, but lovely pictures of the best things coming up for sale. Get people very excited.’
‘Great idea,’ Annie had to agree. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
‘Guess you need the comms skills and the marketing brains,’ Lauren joked.
‘Very good thing you have them both and you are around.’
‘And can we get Svetlana to post? Sounds like she has the knack.’
Annie hesitated. ‘You’re not going back to Perfect Dress are you?’
‘Ermmm… I don’t think so…’ Lauren agreed.
‘Well, there is a conversation you need to have with Elena before you can fully jump into the show. Otherwise, it could cause a lot of upset.’
‘Yeah…’ Lauren agreed, heart sinking slightly because she wasn’t looking forward to that.