Authors: Simon Brooke
"Hi Nora," I
say. "Good to meet you." I smile too - about 750 watts, which is friendly
but not too obviously designed to impress. She is a bit younger than me, late twenties
perhaps. She has dark red hair, pale skin, a small mouth and big brown eyes behind
a pair of black framed glasses. But what is she wearing? It looks like she has raided
an Oxfam shop: baggy purple satin trousers, big Army boots, a sort of New Romantic
shirt that looks like it came from a jumble sale and a loud checked brown and yellow
coat.
Has no one else noticed?
Perhaps they're just a bit more subtle than I am and have not checked her out so
obviously. Hearing Scarlett's voice in the phone reminds me that this is getting
to be a habit.
"Do you want to have
a quick look at the site Nora, before you and Charlie go off?" says Piers.
"Love to," says
Nora, looking up at him expectantly. I thought so - there is a definitely a subtle
American accent there. She spins round to check out the software bit of the office
and her coat catches something on Scarlett's desk. Scarlett grabs it and looks daggers
at her but she is oblivious to it.
Zac, who has arrived by
now, sighs like this whole thing is a total pain in the arse and taps at his keyboard.
The big Mac that we are all peering at bursts into life. 2cool2btrue seems to grow
from nothing in the distance and then comes forward until we are overtaken by one
of the 'o's of 'cool'. There are images of groovy young people in bars, shots of
signs saying "Fifth Avenue", "Bond Street" and "Via Veneto"
interspersed with pictures of Madonna, Hugh Grant, Lady Helen Windsor and Martin
Luther King. Then there are shots of beautiful people in what looks like the Art
Deco area of Miami before we're transported to a modern airport lounge in some part
of Scandinavia where a pale skinned girl with long blond hair gives us a curious,
lingering stare. Suddenly there is newsreel footage of Woodstock and the riots at
Penn State and then a rave in Ibiza. There are catwalk shows and finally stills
of some tosser relaxing in a huge loft apartment overlooking a river and working
on his laptop as he reclines on a Charles Eames chair.
"Hey, that's you,"
says Nora, prodding me. Quite hard, actually.
"Oh, yeah,"
I mutter. I hate seeing myself in pictures, even in such august company.
"That's really cool,"
says Nora when it has finished.
"It needs some tweaking
and we want to make it all completely interactive of course," says Piers.
"Everyone who logs
on will be able to customise the site to fit in with their own interests and requirements,"
says Guy.
"And aspirations,"
adds Piers.
"After you've logged
on a few times the site will be able to identify your own personal, individual interests
together with your activity and retail patterns and actually offer you things that
it thinks you'll be interested in or that you probably need to know about,"
Guy tells her, eyes wide with excitement.
I feel I should be making
notes.
"OK, thanks Zac,"
says Piers.
Zac makes a tiny movement
with his head to acknowledge their belated gratitude as he races the mouse around
its pad and hits a couple of keys.
"That's some site," says Nora as we make our way down
the street to the restaurant.
"Well, I think it's
the whole concept that's so exciting," I hear myself saying.
"Kids'll love it,"
she says, as if she isn't one of them of course.
"It's very much of
its time, I think, you know, after all the dotcom hysteria that surrounded the first
generation of internet entrepreneurs."
"Wasn't all that
business just crazy?"
"Absurd."
Scarlett has got us a nice quiet, corner table at Dekonstruktion,
this week's scorchingly hip restaurant. After we have ordered tuna Carpaccio followed
by Steak and Kidney pudding for her and smoked wild boar on a bed of Pak Choi and
then Alaskan cod tagine for me, she says the one thing that I really don't want
to hear above all else:
"So, you used to
be a male model."
"Model," I correct
her. "I used to be a model. Unless, that is, you're a lady journalist."
She is unembarrassed:
"Oh, I'm no lady".
I decide not to wait for
the standard 'Do you shave your chest?' line (to which the answer is no, never)
and change tack: "Is that an American accent, you've got there?"
"Does it still show?
When I go back to the States all my friends say I talk like the Queen."
"I thought I heard
it," I smile, trying to smooth over the male model faux pas and also, I have
to admit, to avoid discussing 2cool in case she guesses that I haven't really got
a clue about what I'm talking about.
"My father's American
and I grew up mostly in New York but then I came to London to work after I left
journalism school about ten years ago."
"Do you like it at
the Post?"
"Uh huh, it's pretty
cool. I mostly get to do things like 'Which of these women is most likely to suffer
from cellulite in five years time?' and 'Men who spend more on beauty products than
their wives do.' You know, the big issues". She gesticulates with the fork
she has picked up and inadvertently stabs a passing waiter in the arm. He tuts prissily
but Nora continues regardless, clearly unaware of what she has done. "Plus
a few celebrity interviews."
"Really? Like who?"
"Oh, Debbie Harry
the other week."
"What was she like?"
"Big head."
"Oh, I bet a lot
of these people are really conceited."
Nora looks at me.
"No, she has a big
head." She spreads her hands around her face to make the point.
"Oh, right."
That communication thing again.
"They mainly employ
me to take the piss." Nora is saying. "But this is quite a fun story by
comparison. I think it'll be pretty big."
"If it all works
out," I say, consciously lowering expectations a bit.
"Sure, but even if
you all fall on your asses, it'll still be interesting."
I smile.
"You'll still get
a story."
"Sure. A better one
in a way."
I try to work out whether
she is being deliberately provocative or whether she simply doesn't appreciate how
annoying that sounds, but her innocent smile gives nothing away.
"You know Piers already?"
"Piers? Er, yeah,
we've known each other for a long time. He's quite a guy - never stops."
"A real ideas man."
"Always."
Our food arrives and I'm
quite relieved to have something to concentrate on.
"So why'd you give
up the male, I mean, the modelling?"
"This seemed like
an interesting project. They asked me. I'd been modelling for eight years or so
- it seemed like the right time to change careers".
"What experience
do you have in internet entrepreneurship?"
"None," I tell
her confidently, deciding that I'd better make a virtue of it. "That's the
point in a way, I've come to it fresh, no preconceptions, no baggage. Like I said,
we're a second generation dotcom, we've drawn a line in the sand after the first
wave and learned from their mistakes." Way to go Charlie! I almost believe
me.
"What experience
have you got in marketing?" she asks, shovelling food into her mouth as if
she hadn't eaten for a week.
"I've got a degree
in it."
"That all?"
Her bluntness takes me
by surprise but I get back into my stride: "Well, to be a successful model,
you have to market yourself effectively. After all, you're selling yourself as a
distinctive product at every casting and when you do a job you have to be in tune
mentally with whatever you're selling, be it fashion or... I don't know, office
furniture, or holidays," I waffle fluently, cobbling together some of the things
Piers, Guy and Lauren have said to me recently. Sounds good, anyway - we're on a
roll here.
"Suppose so. What
kind of things did you model?"
I really want to get away
from the modelling thing so I say quickly: "Clothes, holidays, laptop computers,
but this is a more exciting challenge."
"I think I've seen
your face. Did you do that one for a bank or something where you're walking across
a station concourse while everyone else is in slow motion."
"Yes. So what else
are you writing at the moment?" I ask pointedly, as the waiter, thankfully
not the one she's just stabbed, takes our plates.
"I've got to interview
a woman this afternoon who's just discovered that her husband is married to three
other women." She looks up at me over the top of her heavy glasses then she
pushes aside a stray hair that has fallen out of place as she has been shovelling
her food.
"Three other women?"
"I know, I suppose
if you're going to do these things you might as well do it big, really go for it."
"Why not? Do it in
style."
"Even if you fall
on your ass," she says taking a sip of wine.
We leave the restaurant at gone three o'clock. I can't believe
where the time has gone but I'm just relieved it has. As we make for the door, Nora
manages to take out another waiter, this time by walking into him as he is carrying
a stack of dirty plates. She is telling me about a piece she did some time ago about
people who have married their old school teachers, walking fast through the crowded
restaurant turning her head round completely to talk to me. I try and warn her about
where she is headed but perhaps she doesn't notice or she cottons on just too late
and so, either way, seconds later there are plates everywhere, one of which slides
elegantly down the back of a woman I recognise as a TV weather presenter.
"Oh, no," says
Nora, only mildly concerned. "Did I do that? I'm so sorry."
The weather presenter's
face has what could be described as a black cloud on it. She looks slightly absurd,
glowering at Nora, her familiar smiley face now contorted with fury while she tries
to see what kind of damage the dirty plate has done to the back of her bright pink
jacket.
"Oh, shit. What a
mess," says Nora. Is she enjoying this? "Don't worry", she says,
"that kind of fabric dry-cleans really well. I had a jacket like that - last
year."
The recipient of her helpful
observation opens her mouth to say something but is speechless.
"Just send the bill
to the restaurant - I would," says Nora, touching her shoulder kindly.
I say good-bye to Nora at the top of the street and suggest she
gives me a ring if she has any questions. She says she will do that and that the
piece should be in the paper on Monday.
As soon as I get back to the office I brief Guy and Piers on
the lunch. They seem pleased with how it went although I missed out the final disastrous
episode.
"She should be a
useful ally in the PR campaign," says Piers. "I met her recently at a
dinner party and I thought she could be helpful to us.
"Right, next thing
on the agenda for you mate is the launch party," says Guy. "We've booked
Frederica's - do you know it?"
"That big place in
Berkeley Square?"
"Yep, we've got the
whole place. Piers' dad knows the owner. Saved us a bomb. It's all booked for next
Friday."
"A week tomorrow?"
"Yep, hope you can
make it," says Guy, only half joking.
"Oh, yes, of course.
That's brilliant." I say, genuinely impressed.
"Our PR company have
developed a guest list for us. Can you look over it and let us know about any thoughts
you have - anyone else you think we should ask. Ta."
Scarlett hands me a file
with lists of names and their organisations. There are newspapers and magazines
- Vogue, Harper's, Tatler, GQ, Esquire, Wallpaper*, some TV presenters and a batch
of celebs, most of whom I've heard of, with a note of their agencies, some models
with agencies and figures next to them. "Sophia Kendall - £5,000," says
one.
"Is she doing a shoot
for us?" I ask Scarlett, pointing to her name.
"No, that's her attendance
fee."
"What? She's being
paid for coming to our party?"
"Yep. For..."
she runs her finger further along the line, pushing mine out of the way, until she
finds what she's looking for. "For a minimum of 55 minutes. Any less and she's
in breach of contract."
"Any more?"
I ask, not really interested but thinking vaguely of overtime - every model's first
thought (after travel expenses and buyouts).