Christmas at Tiffany's

by Karen Swan

  ‘Here you go, Lou,’ she said, handing him another camera dangling from her wrist. He took it and turned the camera on, holding it up as he scrolled back through the memory card. Cassie gasped, a hand flying to her mouth.

  It couldn’t be!

  Lou looked up and saw her horrified expression. He smiled.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, walking towards her. ‘I believe we’ve met before.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you knew Luke Laidlaw?’ Kelly hissed as they pretended to refill the wine glasses.

  ‘I wouldn’t say I “knew” him, Kell. I only met him once. He was the one who saw that Alexa was . . . you know . . . standing.’ She saw Kelly flinch. She might as well have said ‘falling from a great height’ – the calamity was the same. ‘He tried to help, that was all.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who he is?’

  ‘A photographer?’

  ‘The photographer du jour, Cass. He’s key in Alexa Bourton’s revamp of Vogue – the new typeface, layout. He’s under contract to do a lead fashion story and cover-try for every issue.’ Kelly lowered her hiss to a whisper. ‘And rumour says he’s sleeping with her. No wonder he was so keen not to see her slighted.’ She looked at Cassie pointedly. ‘Which is why I’m concerned about you being here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Kelly shrugged. ‘Plainly put, you dissed his girlfriend. He might refuse to work with you.’

  Cassie put her hands up immediately. ‘I don’t want to cause any more trouble, Kell. I’ll go. Straight away.’

  There was a click.

  ‘Go where?’ said a voice from the doorway.

  They both turned, startled. Luke was walking back into the kitchen. He was wearing faded jeans and a pale grey sweatshirt, and he still had his camera in his hand. He hadn’t put it down since he’d come into the house. He came and stood by them, examining the picture he’d just taken.

  ‘I was just saying to Cassie that, unfortunately, she’s got to go back to the office . . .’

  Luke frowned as he zoomed in on it.

  ‘A few things have come up that I need her to take care of for me.’

  There was a short pause as he fiddled with buttons.

  ‘Can’t you go?’ he asked after a moment, putting the camera down and looking at Kelly.

  ‘Me?’ Kelly asked, surprised. ‘Well, I hardly think so,’ she said, laughing harshly. ‘I mean, in Bebe’s absence, it’s clear that I’m the most senior representative of her vision. I worked with her closely on this collection. I see through her eyes.’

  Cassie could have sworn she saw Luke’s left eyebrow twitch slightly. He passed them each a refilled glass.

  ‘Oh no, not for me, thanks,’ Cassie said, putting the glass back on the worktop. ‘I’m going to head off. Get out of the way.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Luke said, holding the glass back up to her. ‘You must stay. I insist.’

  His intonation on the last word suggested that indeed he did. He was pulling rank. Cassie looked over at Kelly, who was staring at him quizzically.

  After a moment Kelly shrugged lightly. ‘Well, if Luke feels that . . . the shoot will benefit from your presence, Cass, then you must stay.’ She forced a smile. ‘Those other matters can wait till next week.’ She walked briskly out of the room, leaving Cassie standing awkwardly with Luke.

  She felt a blush begin to creep up her neck as they stood in a silence that Luke felt no compunction to fill.

  ‘I know this probably isn’t the time, but . . . there might not be another opportunity to say this, and it’s important that I do say this—’

  ‘There’s going to be plenty of opportunity for us to talk,’ he corrected.

  ‘Well, yes, of course . . . but it’s going to be a busy few days, and just in case, I wanted to say thank you – you know, for trying to help me at the show.’

  He stared at her but said nothing. Which made her even more nervous. She’d dissed his girlfriend!

  ‘So thank you. It was very kind.’

  He nodded. ‘I felt sorry for you,’ he said finally.

  Most people do, she thought to herself.

  ‘This can be a hard industry. Easily cruel. And I could see it was a genuine mistake on your part.’ His face cracked into a small smile. ‘If the lot of us weren’t so power-crazed and status-obsessed, it would have been almost funny.’

  There was nothing funny about Kelly losing three-quarters of her revenue or three people losing their jobs, she reflected. She took a sip of her drink distractedly. It was warm and smoky-tasting.

  ‘So, have you got any ideas about what you’re going to do tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll hit the beach to begin with. The wind’s going to be westerly, so it’ll be a bit warmer and I want some shots of her in the water.’

  Cassie spluttered on her drink. ‘But it’s the middle of October! You can’t have her lying down in the Atlantic. She’ll freeze.’

  ‘It’s her job,’ Luke said cheerfully. ‘Besides, you can make sure there are plenty of blankets and towels and tubs of hot water for her to soak her feet in.’

  Cassie shivered at the thought of it and wondered whether Selena knew how her day was going to read. Tomorrow hadn’t started yet, but Cassie already sensed that, like every day recently, it was going to be cold and long and not without event.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cassie and Kelly were pounding the beach together, running along the tide line where the sand was still damp and hard. Cassie thought her heart might explode at any moment, but she kept up. She could feel Kelly pulling away from her day by day, and running – although unnatural to her – felt like one of the only ways to show her ‘I’m here . . . I’m with you . . . I’ll stay with you like you’ve stayed with me . . . we’ll stand shoulder-to-shoulder . . . this is what friends do . . . we’ll get through this . . .’

  But Kelly seemed oblivious to the message, and now she easily moved up a gear so that she was one, two, three strides ahead, and within a minute she had entirely broken away.

  ‘I’ll see you back at the house,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘I want to finish on a sprint.’

  Cassie kept her legs moving, but her energy sapped away, completely deflated by Kelly’s abrupt dismissal. She felt a stitch coming on from the strain of trying to keep up, and by the time she got back, Kelly was in the shower and a half-drunk espresso on the kitchen counter.

  It took two tries before Cassie got her outfit right. The all-black outfits that passed as uniform in Manhattan were de trop out here in the Hamptons. In the end she pulled on her spare running kit – thin grey leggings from American Apparel and an oversized red hoody. Kelly was wearing $400 jeans and a caramel-coloured cashmere cable-knit jumper. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  Kelly had organized the rendezvous the night before. They parked in the beach car park – they didn’t need a permit out of season. Everyone was already there, including Molly, the make-up artist who’d stayed back in New York till she’d taken delivery of the perfect blush for Selena’s colouring. Busty and short at five foot two, Molly was Bas’s physical opposite, and Cassie felt a stab of jealousy watching them lark about as she approached over the dunes. ‘Teabag!’ Bas cried as he caught sight of her. ‘Come and meet Molly. One of my oldest chums.’ He tried to pronounce it with an English accent, and both Cassie and Molly rolled their eyes. She had a plump, open face that Cassie liked straightaway.

  ‘Hi,’ she smiled.

  ‘All right?’ Molly asked in a broad London accent that was more Albert Square than Bas’s Belgrave Square. Her light brown hair was cut short with a fringe that stopped halfway down her forehead and she was wearing a purple fleece beneath her denim dungarees. Even Cassie’s eye had tuned sufficiently to see that Molly was no fashion bunny, but her skin – Cassie tried to stop herself from peering – was amazing: porcelain pale and as smooth as glass.

  Luke and his assistant Bonnie were down by the water’s edge. Luke was
firing off rapid shots as Bonnie stood in self-conscious, deliberately unmodelly poses for him so he could check the light and composition on his playback. Selena was playing Angry Birds on her iTouch, sitting in the canvas bell tent that had been pitched at the foot of the dunes to stop the wind messing up Bas and Molly’s efforts.

  Kelly blew a whistle – the only way to be heard over the sea and wind – and Luke and Bonnie turned. Giving a quick wave, they made their way back up to the team.

  ‘Right,’ Kelly said as they all warmed their fingers around enamel tea cups. ‘We’re going to shoot the Caspian Sea segment here. You said you wanted Selena appearing over the tops of the dunes, Luke, yes?’

  Luke nodded. ‘The water’s too grey to get in today.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that,’ Selena quipped, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘So Molly and Bas, we want the same looks as the show, please, although lighter on the eye colour for this, Molly. Bebe wants more focus on the brow.’

  ‘And I think I’ll drop the plaits down to here on Selena,’ Bas said, gesturing to the mid-point of the model’s head. ‘She’s got ears like wings,’ he said, patting her shoulder and bending down sympathetically. ‘I love you to death, sweetie, but God knows you do!’

  Cassie bit her lip to keep from laughing. She realized Luke was staring at her and rearranged her expression quickly, but to her astonishment, he just smiled.

  ‘Actually, can you do her hair the way you did Cassie’s at the show?’ Luke asked, looking back to Bas.

  Everyone immediately stared at Cassie, whose hair was now scraped back in a limp, off-centre ponytail to keep it from blowing in her eyes. It was difficult at this particular moment to see her as a source of inspiration.

  Selena glowered. ‘She wasn’t in the show – as I’m sure we all remember.’

  ‘I remember,’ Luke replied, giving nothing away about how he’d been the first to spot the ‘situation’. ‘But Bas had done a variation on the theme for her that I preferred. That okay with you, Bas?’

  Bas arched an eyebrow and preened. ‘Of course,’ he said slowly. ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Riiiight,’ Kelly said, looking slowly between Luke and Cassie and Bas and back to Cassie again. ‘Well then, if everyone’s happy with the brief, let’s get this show on the road. Cass, you can help me steam the clothes?’

  They trudged up the beach back to the car park where the clothes were hanging from rails in the back of a rental van.

  Kelly expertly started up the steamer. ‘Can you get the clothes out of those bags, Cass? I need the peacock mohair dress first.’

  Cassie stepped into the van and handed her the dress.

  ‘So,’ Kelly muttered as she started brushing the dress in long, sweeping strokes. ‘Why did Bas do your hair at the show? You were supposed to be working.’

  ‘I was. Remember you asked me to check on him? He’d just finished the last model, and –’ she crouched down so that she was kneeling – ‘he’d done it before I’d even noticed. He’s always playing with our hair – you know what he’s like. We’re like his dolls.’

  Kelly turned the dress around.

  ‘And why is Luke so keen to replicate you?’

  ‘Well, he’s not replicating me, Kell. He obviously just prefers the style Bas did for me. I don’t know why. I don’t know the man. He’s the one with the vision.’

  ‘He’s the one with the reputation, Cass.’

  Cassie stopped unzipping the hanging bags. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? He’s hitting on you – or he’s going to. Why else would he insist that you stay? Why else does he want Selena to look like you? Hell, why else did he insist that Bebe reinstate us for this campaign? Because, let’s face it, she couldn’t get a ten-year-old with a disposable camera to take a snapshot for her after what happened at the show. So why did he – the hottest photographer in New York City and supposedly Alexa Bourton’s lover – suddenly ring her up and offer to shoot for her, completely free of charge?’

  Cassie shook her head, completely unable to reply.

  ‘Have you heard what his nickname is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Coody.’

  ‘Coody?’

  ‘As in could-he-get-laid-more.’ Kelly raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s meant rhetorically.’

  Cassie gasped, horrified. ‘That’s appalling.’

  Kelly shrugged. ‘He’s a good-looking straight man in a predominantly female and gay industry. You can’t blame him for taking the opportunities he gets given. Just be aware that he’s rampantly heterosexual. That’s all I’m saying.’

  She picked up the dress and walked back down the beach, leaving Cassie crouched in the back of the van getting pins and needles.

  It wasn’t going well. They’d been shooting for four hours already and there wasn’t a decent shot – not quite Luke’s words – in any of the hundreds of images he’d taken.

  ‘For Chrissakes,’ he cried, raking his hand through his hair and wheeling away from the blue-tinged model. It was two in the afternoon now, and although there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, it was barely above freezing. Everyone was shivering, huddled around the firepit that Kelly and Cassie had hurriedly brought over from their terrace – everyone except Selena, Luke and Bonnie who were still shooting. Bonnie could have kept warm, but she stuck by Luke’s side as if she’d been velcroed to him.

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with you, Selena?’ he shouted into the wind. ‘Put some feeling into your arms. You’re supposed to be savouring your freedom! I want . . . Julie Andrews coming over that freaking mountain. You look like you’re scaring crows.’

  Selena shook her arms out and tried again, but there was no disguising the sinews in them as she braced her exposed flesh against the cold, and you could see the whites of her eyes from halfway up the beach.

  ‘Jesus! Forget it!’ Luke shouted. ‘There’s no point even wasting the battery on this!’

  He stomped angrily up the beach. Everyone looked at each other nervously as he approached. It was clear no one was going to mention the umpteen bathroom trips Selena had made between styling changes.

  ‘This isn’t working!’ he grumbled. ‘No wonder Bebe wanted her to play a virgin. I wouldn’t sleep with her either looking like that.’

  ‘Well now, that’s saying something,’ Bas murmured to Cassie, and a nervous giggle escaped her.

  Luke looked up, but this time he didn’t smile.

  Selena stumbled into the tent, crying from the rawness of the wind chill and Luke’s harsh words. Kelly immediately wrapped her in a duvet that she’d grabbed from the little house. Luke carried on staring at Cassie.

  ‘I . . . I . . . I’m sorry, Lou,’ Selena chattered. She looked almost ill as the glow of the fire threw orange light on to her ghostly skin. ‘I’ll be f-f-f-fine in a minute. I just need to w-w-warm up for a bit.’

  Luke seemed not to have heard. But then he looked back at her and his expression changed. ‘What? I – no. No, I’m sorry, Selena. I’ve been too hard on you. It’s bitter out there. It’s not fair for you to stand in those temperatures in just a scrap.’

  Selena smiled, as grateful for his kindness as a kitten pulled from a bag in the river.

  He rubbed his hands along her arms. ‘God, you are frozen. You’re going to get sick. You need to get back to the house straightaway. Jump into a bath. Here, Bonnie will drive you back to the house.’ He threw his jeep keys over to Bonnie, who looked exceedingly put out at the prospect of being the model’s driver.

  ‘Thanks, Lou,’ Selena breathed, getting up and kissing him on the cheek, close to his ear.

  The two girls left the tent and everyone else turned round to start packing up. ‘Well that’s that, then,’ Bas muttered.

  ‘Not so fast,’ Luke said, clearing the memory card on the camera. ‘We’re not done for the day yet.’

  ‘But you’ve just sent Selena home,’ Molly said, gesturing to the retreating
figure. ‘We’ve got no model.’

  Luke looked up. ‘Yes we have,’ he said steadily, staring straight at Cassie. ‘I want her.’

  ‘No! I won’t do it!’

  ‘You have to!’

  ‘I don’t! I am in charge of my life. I am master of my own destiny. I am!’ Cassie thumped her chest for emphasis.

  ‘He wants you!’

  ‘Yes! And why? You’ve already warned me off him. Told me what a rogue he is.’

  Kelly sighed and shifted position in the van. Cassie was huddled up against the side of it, her knees drawn up to her chest defensively.

  ‘I don’t know why,’ she shrugged. ‘Maybe this is why. Maybe this is what he had in mind all along. He likes your look! Photographers are like that. They like to have a muse, someone who inspires them. Maybe I was wrong about him meaning, you know . . . funny business.’

  ‘I am not a model, Kell!’

  ‘I know that – but maybe that’s what he likes about you. You’re natural-looking, wholesome. Remember how this entire collection is based around the story of a Dagestani teenage bride on the run? Youth, innocence . . .’ Cassie marvelled at how her friend managed to utter that sentence with total earnestness. ‘Maybe Selena’s just too much of a face for what he wants in these pictures.’

  ‘I don’t even understand what that means,’ Cassie muttered, planting her face into her knees. ‘Anyway, if a professional like Selena can’t hack those temperatures in hardly any clothes, how the devil does he think I’m going to manage?’

  ‘What’s so “professional” about standing on a sand dune in a pretty dress? You think that’s something she learnt at university? It’s instinct, Cass. Grit. Grim determination to get the picture. Anyway, he wants to shoot back at the house instead. Get the sunset from the attic.’