Chapter One #3
‘Get it over with. Blame a mix-up over numbers, it’ll be done by the time I’ve made you a mug of tea.’ He leant forward and passed me my phone from the coffee table.
‘Thank Christ for that!’ Mum exclaimed once I had broken the unfortunate news that due to a computer glitch somewhere between here and King’s Cross, we seemed to be one Eurostar ticket short for a sold-out train, and, as maid of honour, I didn’t want to have to ask Lucy to let one of her oldest friends down, so it was either her or me.
‘ Please don’t tell your sister, but I think a Paris hen do is more for you lot, rather than me,’ she said, sounding upbeat.
‘Are you absolutely sure, Mum?’
‘Darling, I’ve never been surer. To be honest, I’d much rather stay at home. I was going to talk to you about it today, but there wasn’t a good time.’
‘Thank you for being so understanding,’ I added duly. ‘Lucy feels terrible.’
‘That’s one outfit we can scratch off the list,’ she added jovially. ‘You must be relieved.’ Her tone was friendly, as she alluded that she might not have been the easiest customer today.
‘It’s no bother, Mum, honestly.’ I smiled. ‘But I still wish you’d tried the mustard.’
Being a lawyer, Mum was used to keeping it professional in smart suits and dresses, but this was a big family event. It was such a wasted opportunity! Things like this pained me, deeply, on a visceral level, like the thought of chewing cotton wool balls or watching Rob eat a peach.
Buoyed by telling Lucy the good news that we were going to Paris without mother in tow, and redeeming myself as her wedding attendant, I decided to ditch cooking and go with Rob for a date-night dinner of snacks and wine.
‘We may be broke, but you’re worth it,’ he had declared, and as usual we opted for our local, The Chamberlayne.
Nico was behind the bar. He was always a comforting sight, having been pulling pints and shaking cocktails in The Chamberlayne for as long as I’d lived in the area.
He’d been witness to more than a few ‘spirited’ evenings I’d had in here with Vicky – and there was that disastrous night with Rob, before we were together, when I fancied him like crazy and managed to slag off his current girlfriend before drunkenly toppling off my bar stool and twisting my ankle.
Luckily, there wasn’t much about my behaviour that could shock Nico – he claimed to have ‘seen it all’.
But none of it went outside of these four walls.
He’d merely wink and flash his wide, warm Italian smile the next time I saw him.
‘If only he wasn’t gay,’ Vicky would lament, almost every time we had come to the pub and shared a lock-in with Nico. ‘I mean, do you think he’d ever f ancy me?’
I didn’t need to order before a glass of white wine was placed on the bar in front of me, and a pint for Rob.
‘Table or bar, you beautiful pair?’ Nico asked, looking across at the half-empty space. It was nearly seven p.m. and by eight on a Saturday evening, most of the tables would be taken.
‘We’ll grab that one please, mate.’ Rob gestured to a cosy spot.
‘So, tell me properly about this email,’ he said, when we’d ordered a carb-tastic array of bar food to nibble on, plus the cheese croquettes, which made me salivate just thinking about them.
I pulled out my phone and located the email. Reading it aloud made it even more real.
Please let me know as soon as possible if you can meet with Ms Sykes and her team with regards to this position.
Best wishes,
Julie-Ann Morris
Agent to Ms Mandy Sykes
I added a flourish to the last part, to accentuate how big this was.
‘So, what are you going to do?’ Rob asked.
‘Durr!’ I replied, staggered. ‘Seeing as I’m currently unemployed, coupled with the fact I miss the fun of putting clothes on humans, rather than shop window dummies, I’ve emailed her back to say I’m interested already – it’s a no-brainer.
But there is a chance this email has gone out to lots of other, more established stylists so I’m trying not to get my hopes too high. ’
Rob sniggered.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘I was just remembering how you were ecstatic to get the Selfridges job after assisting Mona Armstrong, precisely for the opposite reason – you were sick of actual people, their crazy demands and showbiz nonsense,’ he said, smiling endearingly. ‘Mannequins were appealing.’
‘You’ve got a point. But clothes look the same on those dummies – they don’t come alive like they do on real bodies. I miss people, their energy, and, most of all, their stories.’
‘There were some crazy stories,’ he observed.
‘It wasn’t all about bringing clothes alive, it was the reverse sometimes.
Remember Liv Ramone, who preferred to go naked rather than wear any of the outfits you carefully sourced?
And the fact you ended up styling a six-foot-four drag queen in an Angel Wear diamond bra?
That wasn’t a standard day at the office. ’
‘I know, I know,’ I giggled, ‘but it was brilliant. They were proper fashion moments. I love the power of bringing out the best in people … and I guess I miss the drama of it all.’
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ he warned.
Rob had a point. I had been so caught up in the excitement of celebrity, it nearly cost us our relationship. I bristled as I recalled how I let my obsession for building an Instagram following take over my life.
Yet there was something so tantalising, so alluring, about the prospect of being a personal stylist to a personality as big as Mandy Sykes.
It could turn my career around. It would show Joseph and the Selfridges bosses.
The fact Mandy’s agent had taken the time to write to me personally was such an ego boost.
‘I could start a new career as a personal stylist with a job like this,’ I enthused.
‘And I would get to know Mandy, what suits her shape, her personality, rekindle my relationships with top designers to reinvent her look, help to bring out the real her – I’d love to get to grips with the fiery Latino side of her that the tabloids like to spin as if it’s a negative.
I’d love to see her really own her heritage, her curves – the real her. I could be so creative again.’
‘ If Mandy is up for the journey,’ Rob reminded me. ‘What does Vicky think?’ he asked after a pause.
It was a question I often asked myself at life junctures, big or small.
Like when Rob asked me to move in with him.
Vicky told me to go for it. Or, the time when Joseph was being unreasonable at work, expecting me to stay late without any extra pay for the second time in a week – just like he had the week before.
What would Vicky do? ‘Tell him, no! What are you, fashion roadkill? No overtime pay, equals no extra time. Tell him you have boundaries. End of.’
I could always rely on Vicky to tell it straight.
When Mona offered me the chance to go and work for her in LA, it was Vicky whom I got drunk with the night before and who stayed up all night to help me pack my suitcase.
No way was she going to let me miss that plane, even though it broke both of our hearts to end such a special era of flat-sharing together.
Vicky was the best of BFFs. She always had my interests front and centre, and was the only person who could be completely honest with me – brutally, at times – but she could do it in a way that still made me greatly admire and love her. (And, by the way, I did get the extra pay from Joseph.)
I sat back in my seat. ‘I haven’t had a chance to speak to her about it yet,’ I told Rob, feeling the urge to FaceTime Vicky immediately but restraining myself, seeing as I was on a date night with my boyfriend, not my long-distance best friend.
Vicky had come between Rob and I once before, when she rocked up unannounced on the doorstep of our tiny sardine-tin bedsit in Williamsburg, New York. That was all in the past, but I still felt a wariness about putting her advice ahead of his too often.
‘I reckon she’d tell you to go for it, don’t you?’ Rob lifted his hand and stroked my cheek, as if reading my mind.
‘Probably. Do you think I should?’ I asked, gently capturing his fingers on the side of my face and holding them there for a moment.
‘Of course, beautiful.’ He smiled. ‘Just as long as Ms Sykes doesn’t have you on her private jet every other day, so I never get to see you.’
‘Well, now I just have to hope that Julie-Ann Morris, Agent of Ms Mandy Sykes, gets back to me. I gave her literally all my contact details, save my NHS number.’
He laughed and, as the dimple appeared on his left cheek, I marvelled at how lucky I was to have him.
The following day I FaceTimed Vicky and she confirmed what I suspected.
‘This is the most exciting potential job I’ve ever heard – you’ve got to get this!
’ she squealed. It seemed that living in Los Angeles, and regularly doing her weekly shop at Erewhon next to Hailey Bieber, had done nothing to dampen Vicky’s excitement about the power of celebrity.
‘Surely you’ve checked her Instagram recently?
’ she asked. ‘She wore the most heinous white body-con monstrosity to a Taylor Swift gig. Two words: camel foot. If she was meant to be a white witch, she could have cast a better spell over her wardrobe.’
I laughed.
‘No, seriously,’ Vicky continued. ‘I mean I’m all for body positivity, I think she’s got a shape to die for, but she needs Amber Green in her life. Never mind her bunions, you need to save her front bottom, Amber. This is a fashion emergency!’
I was belly-laughing into the screen now, instantly reminded of why it was friendship at first eye-roll when Vicky and I met on the first day of university in Brighton. We’ve been BFFs ever since.
Since that day, Vicky and I had probably shared over a million eye-rolls, sniggers behind hands, and knowing looks.
We once nearly wet ourselves at a British Airways check-in desk when we tried to explain, in heavy French accents, that she was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, as we tried to blag an upgrade to Nice.
When the woman behind the desk pointed out that the festival finished last week, and the flight was full, award-winning directors or not, we were forced to retreat to the back of the queue, blushing and Vicky muttering, ‘Sacré bleu, les Angleses est trop rude,’ as we joined the snaking economy line that almost reached the French border anyway.
Little did we know then that one day Vicky would be living in the movie industry capital, Los Angeles, with an actual film director boyfriend.
Talk about serendipity! I felt a pang. I missed my partner in crime.
But perhaps an opportunity like this, working with an American star like Mandy Sykes, might mean I could see her more often. The pluses were stacking up.