If the Shoe Fits (11 page)

“I simply had to get it for you, darling. It's perfect for you, it really is.”

“It might be perfect, and it's not like I don't love it, because I do,” said Eleanor patiently. “But £700 for a dress? You must be crazy!”

“Oh, shut up and go and put it on again, Ella. I want to see it with those gorgeous shoes of yours. Have you got any wine?”

“Um, there should be some in the fridge,” she replied vaguely.

“Well, you get your arse up those stairs and don your glad rags, and I'll pour us a drink. Go on, toodle- pip!”

Eleanor sighed resignedly. There was no arguing with Jake once he put his mind to it. Plus, if she was honest, she wanted to see what the dress looked like with the shoes, too. Good job she'd remembered to bring them home, or Jake would probably have killed her. To say nothing of Muse, who was still pestering about practicing her dignified walk.

The dress was perfect, she admitted to herself, as she carefully took it out of the paper wrapping. It was in her favorite colour, electric blue, and was cut in a style that was perfectly suited to her frame. Strapless, it was tight-fitting around the bust, but loose everywhere else, skimming her skinny frame right down to the floor. In fact, it was a little long for her, but as soon as she put the silver shoes on, she knew that Jake had been right. The dress might have been made for her.

“Looks like my ‘Cinderella' is going to the ball after all,” said Muse, who had been hiding behind the bedroom door.

“I'm still not sure,” said Eleanor automatically, gazing into the mirror dreamily.

“Ella! Get down your butt down here so I can see what you look like!”

“No wonder your language needs an overhaul,” muttered Muse.

“Jake's lovely,” said Eleanor, snapping out of her reverie. “I couldn't ask for a better friend. You should be thanking him, Muse. He's the one who found the dress.”

Muse poked her nose in the air and twitched her whiskers disdainfully, causing Eleanor to chuckle. She was still laughing when she joined Jake in the kitchen.

“Spectacular, darling! Someone's going to be the Belle of the Ball!”

“Bloody hell,” said Eleanor, “Not you as well. It's not a flipping ball, it's a party.”

“Who else thinks it's a ball?”

“Muse,” said Eleanor unthinkingly. “She's been nagging me about it for the last few days. She keeps pestering me about how to walk, how to talk, and what to wear. She's driving me nuts.”

“You're still talking to the cat?” asked Jake, choking on his wine.

“I've always talked to my cat, Jake.”

“You know what I mean!”

Eleanor smoothed the dress carefully around her bottom and sat down. She drained her glass of wine in two big gulps and nodded.

“The cat's still talking, Jake. I know I sound crazy, but she is.”

Muse sauntered into the kitchen at that point and uttered a loud
meow
. She brushed past Eleanor's leg and avoided Jake by walking around the table.

“Did that cat just glare at me?” asked Jake faintly.

“Probably,” said Eleanor. “She doesn't really like you,” she added in a whisper.

Jake's startled face made Eleanor start to giggle uncontrollably, and Muse walked back over to her to give her an accusing stare.

“That cat is slightly scary, Ella,” said Jake, pouring himself another glass of wine and swallowing half the contents in one gulp.

“You don't know the half of it,” muttered Eleanor, causing Muse to hiss at her.

“I don't know about talking, but she's certainly communicating her annoyance very convincingly at the moment.”

“Say something, Muse,” begged Eleanor. “Prove to Jake that I'm not going mad.”

“Meow.”

“Bloody cat.”

“Meow!”

“Sorry, sorry! I know, no swearing. Bad Eleanor,” said Eleanor, smacking herself on the head.

“Darling, are you okay?” asked Jake with concern.

“I'm fine. I'm supposed to be curbing my urge to swear. Muse doesn't like it.”

Jake raised an eyebrow, and looked pointedly at the cat, then at Eleanor.

“Look, I know it sounds ludicrous, but I'm telling you, that cat can talk. Maybe it's all in my head, but that doesn't mean I'm losing my mind. I'm perfectly lucid in all other areas of my life, so you can stop looking at me as if I should be committed or something.”

“If you say so,” said Jake doubtfully. “Maybe it's just stress or something?”

“Maybe,” said Eleanor with a sigh. “I suppose I
am
a bit stressed lately, what with Christie breathing down my neck. Did I tell you she's trying to wheedle more money from my dad?”

“No! Really? That woman's a menace.”

“Tell me about it. I have to take my dad to a meeting next week to try and sort things out once and for all. Oh, that reminds me, I need to take the afternoon off next Friday.”

“Sure,” said Jake swiftly. “Take the entire day if you want.”

“Thanks, Jake.”

“Wait a minute, what time's this meeting?”

“Four o'clock. Why?”

“Party? Starting at six o'clock sharp? Ring any bells?”

“Crap! I forgot.”

“Mmm, are you sure you forgot?”

“Yes, I'm sure. Don't forget, it wasn't definite that I was going, anyway.”

“You have the dress. You have the shoes. You're going.”

“I'm sure the meeting won't take more than a couple of hours. If I decide to go to the party, I can be there by eight. It's fashionable to arrive late to a party anyway, isn't it?”

“As long as it
is
late, and not never,” warned Jake. “I know you have a thing for Charming, and turning up at the party looking drop-dead gorgeous will help to move things along in the right direction.”

“I do not have a ‘thing' for Max Charming!”

“Oh, then you won't be interested in what he had to say when he saw your pictures, will you?”

Eleanor tried to keep her lips closed, but two glasses of wine on an empty stomach did little to help her self-control.

“Spill,” she demanded.

Jake grinned as he poured the last of the wine into their glasses. Muse eyed him from her position by the door, ears pricked at the ready for new information.

“Well,” started Jake. “He didn't actually say a lot, but his face was very revealing.”

“How do you mean?” asked Eleanor, leaning forward.

“Well, he tried to hide it, but you could see that his eyes kept being drawn back to the pictures of you. He barely glanced at Jenni's pictures, but each time he saw yours he was riveted. He said the usual things, like how good the pictures were, and how he had high hopes of me being one of the country's most sought-after photographers, blah, blah, blah, but you could tell that he was just waffling.”

“I'm sure that's not true, you're brilliant at what you do,” said Eleanor loyally.

“Well, yes,” said Jake in a matter-of-fact voice. “That's a given. He wasn't really putting any enthusiasm into his words though, if you know what I mean. He was definitely distracted. And when he asked where you were, I told him you were busy. The poor guy looked like a puppy that had lost his favorite toy.”

“Now I
know
you're exaggerating,” said Eleanor.

“No, really,” protested Jake. “He lost interest once he realized that you wouldn't be around for a while.”

“Where was I when all this happened?”

“It was before you arrived yesterday morning.”

“Why didn't you tell me before now?” she demanded, abandoning any hope of concealing her interest in their new boss. It had been a hopeless cause anyway, she reasoned.

“You were so angry when you walked in; it sort of slipped my mind.”

Eleanor threw him an exasperated look and stood up, carefully stepping around Muse, who was blocking the path to the fridge.

“We need more wine,” she said firmly.

Having shared the better part of two bottles of wine with Jake, Eleanor woke up the following morning with an army of little men banging hammers against her skull. She slowly navigated herself out from beneath the duvet, and placed her feet on the ground … which was moving ever so slightly.

She forced herself to eat a bacon sandwich, even though the smell of it was enough to make her stomach lurch in an alarming fashion. She knew from experience that a greasy bacon sandwich would work wonders, if you were strong enough to survive the eating of it.

Muse strolled into the kitchen just as Eleanor was swallowing the last mouthful. The cat gave Eleanor what could only be described as a “lofty” look, and promptly jumped on to the table.

“Hey, you're not supposed to be on there,” said Eleanor. “When have I ever let you sit on the table?”

“Never mind that, I have to talk to you.”

“Look, I'm really not up to listening to a lecture on my drinking habits,” said Eleanor, turning a little pale as she thought about the amount of alcohol that she had consumed the previous night.

“It's not that,” said Muse patiently.

“I don't want to be scolded for swearing, either.”

“It's not that either, though now that you mention it, it might be wise to avoid the alcohol when you are at the ball.”

“Party.”

“Ball.”

“Whatever.”

“Make yourself a strong pot of coffee, there's no point talking to you until you wake up a bit, obviously,” sniffed Muse.

Eleanor poked her tongue out, but did as she was asked. Two cups of black coffee later, she was feeling marginally more alive, instead of the zombie-like person she'd been impersonating.

“Right,” said Muse briskly. “First, I'd like to congratulate you on the progress you are making.”

“Really?” said Eleanor faintly. “I was under the impression that you thought I was regressing in my behavior after last night.”

“Getting as drunk as a sailor notwithstanding, you're actually moving things along rather nicely. I can't say I approve of the methods that you choose to use, but stripping down to your underwear certainly got Charming's attention, so I won't quibble over it.”

“I wonder if Jake was right,” said Eleanor musingly. “I wish I'd have been there when Charming saw my pictures.”

“No, that wouldn't have worked at all,” said Muse, shaking her head. “It's actually worked out better this way. This way we have a natural reaction. If you had been there, he might have tried to hide it. Men can be funny that way.”

“How would you know that? You're, well, you're a
cat
. How would a cat know about the way a man behaves?”

Muse gave her a haughty look and lifted a paw to lick lazily.

“Okay, okay, forget I asked,” muttered Eleanor.

“Thank you. May I continue?”

“Oh, continue away,” said Eleanor airily.

“Now that we know you've definitely got his attention, you'll need to make sure you keep it.”

“Excellent.”

“I propose that you avoid him at all costs this week.”

“What? How on earth am I meant to keep his attention if I stay away from him? That's nuts. A completely stupid idea!”

“Ella, dear, trust me on this. It will drive him mad, you mark my words. Think, Ella,
think
. He wanted to see you on Friday, but you weren't there. By the time you get to work tomorrow, he'll have had the entire weekend to mull over what he saw, and will probably be hoping to see you.”

“We don't know that,” pointed out Eleanor. “I mean, let's take a step back in to the real world for a second, and contemplate the idea that you could actually be wrong about this. I'll hold my hand up and admit that I think that Charming is slightly attractive,” — Eleanor ignored the snort from the cat — “but we have no idea if he feels the same way about me.”

“Ella, stop being awkward. I know,
you
know, and even that over-the-top idiot who calls himself ‘Jake' knows that Max Charming is more than interested in you.”

Eleanor thought back to the massage that she had received the previous week, and shifted uncomfortably.

“Maybe, but I don't think we should be getting our hopes up, that's all I'm saying.”

“Eleanor Mary Gibson, don't mess with fate!”

“How do you know my middle name? And what's all this about ‘fate'?”

“I know everything there is to know about you,” said Muse lightly. “I'm your Fairy Godmother, remember? As to the fate thing, isn't it obvious? My mission here is to get you married to your Prince Charming. I've told you this before, why you can't get your head around it is beyond me.”

True, Muse had told her this before, but having a fairy godmother in the real world wasn't something that was usual. Having a cat for a fairy godmother was even rarer, and Eleanor was having trouble dealing with it.

“You really think I should avoid him?” asked Eleanor eventually.

“I do,” said Muse firmly. “It really is the best thing you can do at this point. Avoid him all week, and by the time you arrive at the ball, looking fabulously gorgeous, he will be ripe for the plucking.”

“And I definitely want to pluck him.”

“Yes, you … are you making fun of me?”

“Would I?” said Eleanor innocently.

“Hmm. Yes, well, I think that's all I needed to say to you, so we'll leave it there. Now, go upstairs and have a shower. You reek of wine and bacon, which isn't a very nice combination, and your hair looks like you've stuck your finger in an electrical socket.”

“I love you too,” muttered Eleanor, losing her grin instantly.

“And don't forget to put those shoes on when you're done. Practice, practice, practice!”

“I take it back. I hate you.”