Chapter Two It’s a Boy/Girl! （Delete as Appropriate）
Chapter Two
It’s a Boy/Girl! (Delete as Appropriate)
Let’s just get through this, eh?
Hold it together, and we can be out of here in three hours, maximum.
. . . and drink more of that Red Bull. It’ll keep us going.
I drain the sickly-sweet liquid from the bottom of the can, and open the car door. I do this with towering reluctance.
The headache that has settled in over both eyes is hardly going to react well to a noisy party involving a large number of excited middle-class people.
Eloise and Conrad have invited approximately seven thousand of their closest friends to this shindig, and all of them are likely to be speaking at the top of their voices.
That’s what being influencers, and the friends of influencers, gets you – endless attempts to be the centre of attention.
I really should have cried off the job, and handed it to one of my competitors, but the kudos of handling Eloise and Conrad’s gender-reveal party for their first baby was just too large an opportunity to pass up.
They have two million followers on their travel channel. Two million people who could be potential customers for King Promotions, if my ebullient clients put out a few social media posts about how wonderfully I arranged their important day – as they have promised to do.
So, I have to suck up the fact I’ve had about two hours’ sleep, get in there and be the absolute best Charlie King I can possibly be.
‘There’ being the expansive four-storey terrace in a pocket of north-west London that I couldn’t afford to live in, even if I arranged gender-reveal parties for every influencer on Instagram for the next several centuries.
Mind you, I should be fine. I got a deep and restful three hours’ sleep the night before last, so I should be perfectly okay to handle this event, yes? Five hours’ sleep in two days is more than enough to function at 100 per cent capacity.
Christ on a bike.
‘Do you think you should go and see a doctor?’ Annie asked me this morning. She’s been staying over at mine more and more, and has really noticed the decline in my sleep patterns over the last month. ‘This has been going on for a while now.’
I cringed with embarrassment. I thought I’d been doing a good job of hiding my tiredness and general lack of oomph from Annie, but quite clearly not. My girlfriend is very perceptive.
‘No. I’m absolutely fine, I promise,’ I told her, with as broad a grin as I could muster. ‘I just need a decent night’s sleep. I don’t need to trouble a doctor with it, when that’s all I really need. I have the sleeping pills I bought in the chemist. I’ll take them tonight.’
Annie would no doubt have tried to convince me more, had I not looked at my watch and leapt up from her kitchen table, citing that I had to be at Eloise and Conrad’s place in an hour.
This was a lie. I had plenty of time. Two hours, in fact. But I didn’t want the conversation with Annie to continue any longer. Which is something I never thought I’d say.
But I don’t need to see a doctor. I don’t want to see a doctor. I’m perfectly okay. I just need some sleep.
What I most assuredly do not need is a cacophonously loud doorbell that plays Taylor Swift’s ‘Blank Space’ in a hideous two-tone chime that makes my head ache all the more.
Novelty doorbells died out among the working class a good thirty years ago, only to be resurrected by the middle class – but louder, more digital and programmable on your iPhone.
I’m hoping against hope it’s Conrad who comes to let me in. He is enthusiastic about life – but he’s also German, so still maintains some reserve, which makes him easier to deal with, when you’re not feeling at your best.
‘Aaaah! Charlieeeeee!’
The door is not answered by Conrad. It is answered by a World War II air-raid siren in a kaftan.
Otherwise known as Eloise – who is the walking, talking answer to the question, ‘What would happen if you gave electricity a face?’
‘How are you?!’ she exclaims at the top of everyone’s lungs, and hugs me in the kind of embrace usually reserved for the climax of a professional wrestling match.
‘I’m very well!’ I attempt to exclaim back, which isn’t easy when a five-foot-seven-inch blonde maniac is squeezing the very life out of you.
. . . I’m being grossly unfair to my client here, to be honest. My lack of sleep is making me extremely intolerant. Eloise is a lovely human being. She just has all the dials turned up to eleven all the time, and today my cold, tired soul is burning in her overwhelming presence.
She should probably be careful not to hug me too hard, as the heir to the Travels With El & C empire is currently gestating in her womb. Don’t want the poor little girl to come out with a flat head, do we?
‘Your people have done a wonderful job with all the decorations, Charlie!’ Eloise screams at me as we walk along the expansive corridor of their house.
She’s right. I picked out several ‘tasteful’ items based on a theme of international travel, along with a few more kitsch pieces themed around newborn babies.
I’m particularly proud of the bespoke prams with wings I had put together by Roselle and the team at her design studio.
They’re pretty silly – but mesh well with the fantastically bright and colourful depictions of various international landmarks.
I thought the flying passports were a nice touch as well.
The whole effect is a lot more garish and in your face than something I’d choose for a celebratory event like this of my own, but this is what Eloise and Conrad wanted, so this is what they’ve got. Always keep the client happy.
‘Glad to see it’s all up and ready to go,’ I reply, stifling a yawn.
Thank God I can rely on Aisha and the guys from Golden Apple events to do all the legwork for me.
I feel comprehensively terrible today, and if I had to be the main co-ordinator I think I’d drop dead of an aneurism before the party was half over.
I’m so glad I took the precaution of hiring more of Golden Apple’s staff, predicting I still wouldn’t have got over this hideous spell of insomnia I’m fighting.
I really couldn’t do my job without some of the people I employ, and I’m very proud of the relationships I’ve built up over the years with them.
‘Would you like a cocktail?’ Eloise bellows.
Oh God. It’s 10.30 in the morning. She’s insane.
‘No, thanks. But I’ll take a coffee, if you have one?’
‘Of course! I’ll get one of your catering boys to make one for you. They’ve been wonderful with my chai tea soup so far this morning!’
Chai tea soup? What the bloody hell is that?
Best I not try to understand these things. It’ll only make my head hurt more.
I smile at Eloise as she bustles off into the kitchen, where there should be three caterers from Flavours of the World.
They are exorbitantly expensive, but Eloise doesn’t like to see the hard numbers when there’s a guarantee of strange and wonderful delicacies from far-flung corners of the map being waved under her nose.
I spot the aforementioned Aisha, and head off to talk to her.
She’s standing by the ridiculously expensive reveal cake I had the lovely folks at the Red Velvet Patisserie whip up for me.
On the surface, it is a very elegant white frosting job, with a few artistic question marks in pastel blues and pinks artfully piped onto its surface.
Inside, it is bright pink, and somehow has swirls of white baked into the delicate sponge.
I have no idea how this was accomplished, but people are going to be delighted when they receive a slice of it.
It’s a level of cake-related sorcery I can’t even begin to understand.
That would probably be it for a bog-standard gender-reveal party.
Mum and dad would cut the cake, and that would be the time everyone would find out what the baby is.
This is an influencer’s party we’re talking about, though, so beyond where Aisha is standing fussing over a tablecloth is the back garden of Eloise and Conrad’s glorious home, where you will find a large glitter cannon.
If you go poking around the undergrowth, you’ll also find a whole collection of exterior spotlights that will all light up at once in a pink splash of colour when the cannon goes off.
And then there’s the PA system that will blast an extremely annoying dance track called ‘You My Baby Girl’ at a hideous volume, to accompany everything else I’ve organised.
Yes, it does all sound comprehensively awful – but Eloise and Conrad will love it. They’ve left me carte blanche with all the arrangements, and I pride myself on knowing just what my clients want.
And young, twenty-something, gorgeous influencers want gaudy, large and Instagrammable. This will be all of those things, and then some.
‘Are you okay, Charlie?’ Aisha says.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
Aisha looks unconvinced. ‘Only you’ve been staring out into the garden with a horrified look on your face for a good thirty seconds.’
‘Have I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry, I’m just a bit tired this morning. How’s everything going?’
She smiles. ‘All good. We’re pretty much done here for now. I’m just putting a few finishing touches on things, and then I’ll have the team vacate in time for the party to start. We’ll stand off to the side and make sure we’re there to assist any of the guests if they need it.’
‘Thank you, Aisha, you’ve done a wonderful job, as always.’
She looks around the room at her four staff as they straighten decorations and fuss around cleaning up after themselves. ‘It was a strange one, Charlie,’ she says. ‘But your clients have definitely got what they wanted.’
‘They’re quite strange themselves,’ I say, in what I hope is a quiet enough whisper.
Aisha laughs at this, and returns her attention to the tablecloth.
I resist the urge to stare out into the back garden again, and instead head for the kitchen. I really need that coffee.
Inside, it’s a maelstrom of activity, as all kitchens are in the run-up to an event of this nature.