He turned, looked at her with a mix of surprise and sheepish apology and said with a full mouth, ‘I thought anything under cling film was fair game.’
‘Oh no,’ she said, opening the fridge door. ‘Is there anything left in there at all?’
‘Half a tub of hummus,’ Owen admitted, knowing just what his mum would think of this.
‘Oh hummus, fantastic … why don’t I just chop up a celery stick and stuff my face?’ she snapped.
‘
Entschuldigung
,’ he replied, looking properly sorry. He even patted her back with one of his big hands.
‘Please stop speaking German.’
‘
Aber warum?
’ he asked.
‘It’s annoying.’
‘
Nein!
’
‘What are you doing tonight?’
‘
Fussball
,’ Owen replied.
‘Your football kit, Owen, I have a lecture all ready for you about your football kit and what you should not be doing with it.’
Owen bent down and dropped a quick kiss on his mum’s forehead.
‘You look lovely,’ he began, to deflect the lecture, ‘you always look lovely.’
The compliment made her smile – but it was from Owen, a generally charming teenage boy who knew absolutely nothing about fashion.
Really, she was wearing a two-year-old blouse and a four-year-old skirt with tried and trusted shoes. She had a feeling the whole blouse and skirt
thing
was old anyway. She should probably be doing shorts with a pageboy jacket … or slinking about in an edgy graphic-print tunic with jeggings. Or maybe a jumpsuit? A leather dress?
She peered at her reflection in the kettle and felt a fresh wave of worry. She was a fashion presenter on TV, must have her finger on the pulse. She was supposed to find the time to read
Vogue
, follow
Women’s Wear Daily
, check out Net-A-Porter, be right at the cutting edge, accessorize like Mary Portas.
But lately, if Annie was completely honest, she had begun to feel out of touch. She didn’t really (whisper it)
get
this season. She thought the colours were weird and the styles were wacky. She was beginning to suspect that her sense of style, her one true skill, was growing stale.
Chapter Two
London
Dinah dressed up:
Pink and beige floral top (New Look)
Suede button-down skirt (Red Cross charity shop)
Pink wedge sandals (Office)
Purple lace tights (John Lewis)
Faded, frayed denim jacket (Levi’s)
Sparkly diamanté earrings (Claire’s Accessories)
Total est. cost: £90
‘DINAH, WAIT FOR
me!’ Annie shouted, spotting her younger sister ahead of her on the way to the wine bar.
‘Hello you!’
Dinah treated her to a hug as soon as she was in range.
There were many differences between Annie and her sister: differences of opinion, of taste – differences of every kind – but they knew each other inside out, enjoyed the differences and got on brilliantly well.
Annie even employed Dinah as her twins’ nanny during the week because she couldn’t think of anyone who could do the job better. In fact, sometimes Annie had the sneaking suspicion that Dinah cared for the twins even better than she did.
Dinah definitely fed them better. She was the kind of saintly nanny who puréed roasted squashes with sautéed spinach and toasted pine nuts and really, Annie could never hope to keep up with that level of dedication to the job.
‘Ever been to this place?’ Annie asked, as they looked each other’s outfits over appreciatively. ‘Nice skirt – you’re going to tell me it’s Oxfam, aren’t you?’
‘Red Cross.’
Dinah never liked to spend much money on clothes, but she always dressed in a totally stylish second-handy, chain-store-meets-creative kind of way.
‘No, never been here,’ Dinah added, ‘but it’s Connor’s choice, so much more flashy than our usual kind of place. You’ll feel right at home, though, in your snazzy shirt. Are those interlocking
Gs?
Have you been shopping at Gucci?! You are such a bad girl.’
Annie put her hand to the silky chiffon defensively and declared: ‘This is
years
old. Honestly.’
‘You always say that.’
‘But it is. Really. Anyway, I work in television. I’m allowed to blow a teeny bit of my hard-earned money at Gucci. In fact I’m supposed to blow money at Gucci. It’s probably in my contract.’
‘Annie Valentine,’ Dinah began in a teasing voice, ‘you know perfectly well you spend just about all of your, in fact, quite modest TV wages on clothes and drive your poor husband completely crackers.’
‘I don’t spend anything like I used to now that I have
four
children. Anyway, are we drinking posh wine tonight or cocktails?’
‘We’re with Connor, so it has to be cocktails – or is he still AA? I can never keep up.’
‘No, I think he gave up being an alcoholic when he left LA.’
They both stifled giggles, not because they didn’t have sympathy for anyone who was genuinely battling the booze, but Connor was an absolutely diva-ish actor and no one had believed his stint in Alcoholics Anonymous had been anything other than one great big pose and networking opportunity.
‘How is work?’ Dinah ventured carefully, once they’d entered the bar, established with a quick sweep that Connor wasn’t there yet and settled into a corner booth.
Annie leaned back against the leatherette bench and let out a heartfelt sigh.
‘I’m not going to complain because I’m lucky to have a job, a well-paid and interesting job when times are so tough …’
‘But,’ Dinah prompted.
‘I am working very hard – very,
very
hard. I’ve worked sixty hours since Saturday and it’s only Wednesday.’
‘I know.’
‘But that’s television. Once filming starts, the cost of having everyone on set is so gigantic that we just keep going and keep going till everyone drops and the rest of my life just has to wait on the sidelines until the end of the season.’
‘I know,’ Dinah repeated.
‘Without your help and without Ed I would not be able to keep going, you do know that, don’t you, my love?’
‘Yes,’ Dinah assured her.
‘Girls! How totally fabulous to see you!’
At the sound of Connor’s deep, melodious and quite famous voice, Annie and Dinah’s heads weren’t the only ones to turn.
The tall, ludicrously handsome, dark-haired man swept over to their table, kissed them both on the cheeks, then took a place right beside Annie. He pinched her on the bum as he sat down.
‘Still chubby then?’
Only because she had known him since he was fresh out of drama college and auditioning for bit parts, was he allowed to get away with this with just a mild slap on the hand.
‘Not all of us have time for two-hour sessions with our personal trainers every morning of every blinking day,’ she replied.
‘As if! I am so busy, darlings, I am working my fingers to the bone,’ he pretended to complain, throwing off his jacket, stretching his long legs out under the table and making a not-so-subtle check of the room for smiles of recognition and any other devastatingly handsome, available men.
‘Your beautifully manicured fingers, I’m sure,’ Annie teased.
‘Musicals are such hard work, my darlings, you have no idea. You have to eat well, sleep well, gargle with salt, go out and give your all, three hours a night, every single night. It’s drudgery.’
‘Ha! I think I could cope with a little West End theatre drudgery at what, ten thousand pounds per hour?’ Annie chipped in.
‘Is that what you think I earn? You must be having a laugh.’
‘Don’t you be coy with me, Connor McCabe, I know you don’t get out of bed for anything less than five figures.’
‘Are we having a bad day?’
‘Poor Annie, she’s just worked five twelve-hour days in a row,’ Dinah explained.
‘All the flicking through fashion collections, all the getting in and out of lovely outfits, all the time spent in hair and make-up being pampered and beautified … you must be
exhausted
,’ Connor teased. ‘What are we drinking, by the way?’ he asked as a waiter appeared at his elbow, face lit up with recognition of the man who’d once been a star on Sunday evening’s most watched TV series.
‘Champagne cocktails, life’s too short for any other kind,’ Annie replied.
‘Agreed.’
Connor placed the order, lined up another round, then turned back to the conversation.
‘It is hard work,’ he agreed. ‘It is so demanding to give yourself, your heart and soul to an audience one hundred per cent of the time. They want it all, they want to suck you dry. At the end of every performance I feel like a husk.’
Dinah had to gulp her drink to stop herself from laughing out loud.
‘We need to shut up, Connor,’ Annie decided. ‘You’ve spent too long in luvvie-land. Lots of good people work much harder than us for a lot less, but … OK, I’ll have just one more rant. It’s the clothes! The clothes they want me to work with this season are just
impossible
!’
‘Ooooh listen to you, Ms Annie Valentine,’ Connor retaliated, ‘you sound like one of those divas on
MasterChef
complaining about slightly soggy shitake mushrooms.’
‘Shut up!’ Annie warned. ‘It’s fashion this season. I don’t get it. I can’t understand anything that’s in fashion right now and I can’t work with any of it.’
‘Soggy shitakes,’ Connor repeated.
‘Shitake youself. Can we be serious for one tiny moment?’
Dinah saw the concerned look on her sister’s face and put down her glass.
‘I really think I might be losing my touch,’ Annie confessed, ‘in fact, I might already have lost it. The last time I was standing next to the woman I was meant to work my magic on, I just stared and stared at all the pieces on the entire clothes rail and I couldn’t see anything I liked. Not one single idea jumped out at me. That has never happened to me before. We took a break and I had to ask one of the junior assistants to help me out.’
‘You were just stressed,’ Connor decided. ‘You
tensed
up and you found it hard to be creative. No one can be creative when they’re stressed.’
‘So am I supposed to ask the director to massage my shoulders then? Or maybe my feet?’ Annie snapped, ‘
Could I have a lovely foot massage please, then I’ll feel so much more focused?
’
‘There’s no need to snipe.’
‘I’m sorry. But I am so het up about this,’ she admitted, ‘If I’ve lost the fashion touch, the makeover magic, then I am over. Finished. And who’s going to foot the mortgage-slash-school fees-slash-daughter’s airfares to New York then?’
‘Shhhush now,’ Dinah said soothingly, the way she might to a sleep-deprived toddler, and patted Annie gently on the hand. ‘This season is definitely a challenge, it reminds me of all the bad things we used to wear when we were teenagers. You’re probably traumatized. I mean, lacy tunics, fingerless gloves, peachy neutrals and dayglo – there are even leg of mutton sleeves!’
‘Oh God, I hate them!’ Annie exclaimed.
‘Exactly. You’re having flashbacks to the late Eighties.’
‘But how can I get over this?’ she asked. ‘And by tomorrow, please. In fact, we have a live event in front of an audience coming right up. I’m already having nightmares about it.’
‘You probably just need to recharge your fashion
batteries,’
Dinah replied. ‘It’s like when Jamie Oliver got fed up with food. Remember?’
‘Huh?’
Annie had as many Jamie Oliver cookbooks as the next person, but she wasn’t quite as devoted a fan as her sister.
‘Don’t you remember? He was pole-axed after his School Dinners nightmare. He was spent, half dead, didn’t even want to open a tin of beans. So what did he do next?’
‘I don’t know, Dinah. Did he retire to his vast mansion for a spot of light gardening?’ Annie asked sourly.
‘No. He got into a camper van and set off for Italy because in Italy everyone loves food, everyone loves to cook, he was surrounded by passion for food and for eating and so he got his cooking mojo back again.’
‘And a whole new TV series, clever man,’ Connor pointed out.
‘You need a break, Annie,’ Dinah said. ‘Maybe you need to go to Italy in a camper van and relight your passion for fashion.’
‘Italy
would
be very nice,’ Annie agreed, a little wistfully. ‘Italy is the birthplace of style.’
She paused to consider the wealth of Italian labels: Pucci, Gucci, Armani, Fendi. Italy was the land of the leather handbag, the spiritual home of the shoe.
‘But in a camper van? No,’ she said firmly. ‘Shudder. If I’m going to Italy then it’s staying in a lovely hotel with 300-thread-count sheets and room service or nothing.’
‘Well, just go to Italy,’ Dinah said, making it sound so simple.
Annie gave a deep sigh: ‘Dinah, sweetheart, I have another six whole weeks of twelve-hour days before the first break in the schedule. There’s not one spare moment, let alone one spare penny, to take me swanning off to Italy.’
‘You’ll have to find your fashion mojo,’ Dinah warned, ‘or how will you man your show with all the required energy, enthusiasm and sparkle?’
‘All my energy, enthusiasm and sparkle is going to be needed to persuade lovely Lana to give up her cushy little number in New York and come back to London to start the Retail Business course at Dagenham Technical College.’
‘Oooooh,’ Connor winced. ‘Give up Manhattan for Dagenham? That is evil, Annie. She is going to hate you.’
‘It’s a really good course,’ Annie protested, ‘I’ve done the research!’
‘She will
hate
you!’
Chapter Three
New York
Elena means business:
Black linen short-sleeved button down dress (Perfect Dress sample)
Gold and black pendant on chain (Gift from Seth)
Mock-croc heels (Nine West)
Glittery hair pin for up-do (Duane Reade drugstore)
Total est. cost: $85
‘FLOOR 47?’ THE
elevator attendant asked, obviously remembering that this was where Lana worked.