Busy Woman Seeks Wife

by Annie Sanders

“You are joking!” Alex shouted so loud that startled heads bobbed up from behind computers in the open-plan office. “That’s outrageous!”

  “Well.” Maurice dropped his arms and looked down sulkily at his nails. “You have to pay for creativity, you know. These things take time to do and you did say this was very, very important.”

  Alex could see her entire launch budget being blown out of the water by a fruit salad. There was a small cough. “It would look tremendous,” Camilla said quietly from her seat. She’d barely spoken since the meeting had started. “It might even impress the most hardened hacks, Alex?”

  Alex shook her head. “But it’s way too expensive, Cam.”

  “Well.” Camilla shrugged. “I’m sure Maurice could relook at his quote, but in the end it’s up to you, of course.”

  What Alex really needed now was her assistant’s characteristic decisiveness, but she knew Camilla was right. It was up to her to make the final decision. She glanced across the office at Gavin, deep in conversation with Peter, running-shoe marketing manager and terrier on the heels of Alex’s job, and realized that this launch had to be good. Better than good. It had to be great. And she had to produce something that would make a gimmick-weary press sit up and notice. A fruit sculpture, ridiculous as it sounded, might just do it.

  “O… kay,” she said slowly. “If you can relook at the costings, we’ll go with the sculpture.” The caterer’s face lit up.

  “But, Maurice.” Alex paused. “No strategically placed bananas, hey?”

  Maurice threw back his head and laughed, a sound that Alex could only describe as a demented cackle. “Oooh, you!” he teased, and once he had shut his baby-blue briefcase with a click, he minced out of the office with a “Nice to do business with you.”

  Alex turned to Camilla. “Did I dream that?”

  Camilla had a small smile on her lips. “Isn’t he a piece of work?”

  “Oh God, I hope I’ve made the right decision. I mean, will he cope? I’ve only ever seen him do a low-key event. Perhaps we should have used someone bigger?”

  “Well.” Camilla uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other way. “You did say you liked his muffins—if you’ll pardon the expression!—and his references sounded good. On the way up in the lift he told me he’d done an ice sculpture of Rodin’s Kiss for a wedding in Chorleywood.”

  “Gosh. Well, let’s see, shall we? Now, what time is Donatella coming in?”

  Camilla looked at her watch. “She’s always fashionably late but she is the best and this is very, very important…” Her imitation of Maurice was spot on and they both laughed.

  Chapter 16

  By the time Alex spotted the hair of Donatella Cappuccio, somewhere between Cruella de Vil’s and a skunk’s, sashaying across the office, she had managed two calls to Italy and Holland and a large pain au chocolat. The stylist, undoubtedly London’s most sought-after and over six foot in Vivienne Westwood stacks, leopard-print jacket, black tights and tartan shorts, folded herself into the seat Maurice had recently vacated. She was so out of place in the office, a shrine to Lycra and sneakers, that Alex almost laughed, and looked down at her own clumsy jeans and navy sweatshirt. Donatella hadn’t even spoken, just proffered a cool, limp hand, but the expression of distaste on her face said it all, and it turned into frank disbelief when she glanced over at the new range hanging on racks behind Alex.

  “Is that the collection?” she asked in bored tones.

  “Yes, yes.” Alex jumped to her feet in an attempt to justify the vibrant colors of the Urban Classics range. “Yes, this is it. We are very excited by it…” Alex finished lamely. How could she possibly excite this woman, whose natural milieu was Galliano and Stella McCartney and setting runways on fire, sometimes literally, at London Fashion Week with her exotic ideas? Donatella got to her feet and wandered over to Alex. She smelled strongly of something heady and expensive, and Alex looked on enviously as she ran long, French-manicured fingers along the racks. Would she just turn around and say: “There’s nothing I can do here”? It had been such a coup to get her to even consider being involved—but if she turned them down, and this late in the day? Well, Alex wasn’t sure what she’d do.

  The stylist picked the odd thing off the rack, looked at it and put it back without saying a word. “What’s your message here?” she asked eventually, turning around, and Alex breathed out.

  “Well,” she gushed, looking up at the woman, not something she often had to do at five foot nine herself. “It’s that sportswear need not be butch. It can be elegant and urban and sexy.”

  “And chavvy,” Donatella spat.

  “Well, yes, obviously some brands have been adopted by the, er… less athletic, but Zencorp Urban Classics are going to change all that. This range will cross over the sports-to-fashion-classics divide stylishly and seamlessly.”

  Donatella looked down at Alex and assessed her through heavily mascaraed eyelashes. “You sound like a press release.”

  Alex shrugged and suddenly felt defeated. “I’m not surprised. I’ve thought about little else but this for about six months. I even dream in marketing-speak.” Donatella went back to the range and took down a lemon-yellow-and-pink vest, the company logo discreetly hidden on the shoulder. She held it out and assessed it, her eyes narrowed.

  “Yup,” she said eventually. “I think I can work with this.”

  “Fantastic. When can you give me your ideas—”

  “But,” Donatella interrupted, “I will need to be given a free rein. Let me do it my way, you understand? Trust me. I haven’t let anyone down yet. And who’s your big name?”

  “Big name? Well, we do have the athletes we sponsor who are contracted to make appearances.” Alex trotted out the names.

  “Mmm.” Donatella put a long finger thoughtfully to her cheek. “No, we need a model. We need someone who, by the very fact she’s modeling this, will be telling the world this is good enough to wear anywhere, every day. I need a Kate or a Naomi. Better still, Bettina Gordino. Get her and you’ve got me.”

  “I have the feeling I’m being bullied,” Alex sighed when the stylist had left, not before giving Alex an even more alarming estimate of costs. “She had better be as good as they say.”

  Camilla brought over the initial press release Alex had drafted for her to check. “I think her presentations are a bit over the top, to be honest.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, it’s all a bit too flashy, don’t you think? That thing with flares at the Victoria and Albert Museum, for example. Peter said he’d heard she could be tricky. Bit of a prima donna. But if you’ve got the budget and you seem sure, so…”

  “Camilla, we need the best here. Something monumental. There must be a good reason why she’s so expensive and she gets featured in Vogue, and people keep asking her back.”

  Alex thought about Camilla’s reticence during the frantic afternoon that followed. Camilla had always been so behind Alex with campaigns in the past. Always there to encourage, and superefficient when given a task to do. By the time Alex escaped the office she was beginning to question her own judgment. Perhaps, she thought as she squeezed onto the packed Tube platform, she’d taken too big a risk with Donatella. She glanced at the people around her—many of them wearing sneakers and football tops, sweats and baseball hats, many sporting the company’s brand. Did she need to spend so much to get the message out there?

  “The competition are on to this already, aren’t they, Peter?” Gavin had said earlier this afternoon, turning to the oleaginous creep beside him. “Peter tells me some of them have already got a similar urban crossover idea on the drawing board. Someone must have said something out of school, but frankly the idea is not that original, Alex. This launch will have to blow them out of the water.”

  Thanks, Gavin. Defeated even before she opened the door of the flat, she couldn’t bear the idea of an evening with her mother nagging. How much nicer it would be to spend it with Todd—though she wasn’t even sure she
had the energy for his American enthusiasms tonight. All she wanted was to strip off her clothes, have a long hot shower, wash her hair and flop in front of something inane on the TV. Instead, she was more likely to have an evening of her mother making her sit through an old film and regaling her with reminiscences about how the leading man had once been in love with her. Sometimes it was hard being the daughter of an icon. She pushed open the door.

  “Hellooo, darling,” the Bean called cheerily from the sitting room. “I’ve struggled manfully to put the kettle on.” She opened the door and stood in the doorway, her white hair neat and clean. For once she was out of her lounging peignoir and in navy cotton trousers and a white shirt. Her face, under the ever-present makeup, looked fresh. Alex was taken aback. “Or would you rather a gin and tonic, my darling? Oh look at you.” She held out her good arm. “You look knackered in your ghastly sweatshirt. I do wish you’d get a job marketing something glamorous.”

  “Thanks, Mum.” Alex dumped her bag on the chair and brushed her hands through her hair. “I am pretty bushed as it happens and a cup of tea would be fab. Strong please, none of your fragrant nonsense.”

  Her mother tutted and went into the kitchen, chatting as she went. “Have you had a hassley day, sweetheart? I do wish you could relax.”

  Alex sat down to undo her laces. If she could dredge up the energy she’d go for a quick run before her shower. “Yup, pretty much, and relaxing is definitely not an option until the launch is over. What have you been up to?”

  “Oh, this and that,” her mother called over the noise of tea making. “I went out for a lovely walk in the park actually. It was gorgeous in the spring sunshine. London is so charming at this time of year.” She brought in a china cup and saucer balanced precariously in her good hand and handed it to Alex, who would have preferred a mug. Her mother, however, had always thought them vulgar.

  “Thanks. That must be why you look so good.”

  The Bean went to look in the mirror over the fireplace and put her hand to her cheek. “Oh, do you think so, dear? It must have been the sunshine. Do you know,” she turned around to Alex, “we saw a heron scoop up a fish out of the pond—just like that!”

  “We?”

  “We? Did I say we? Well, of course I meant all the other people by the pond. And that Ella girl, of course. Anyway, what shall we eat? I’ve bought some lovely monkfish and some of that delicious Parma ham from that delightful deli. Antonio is becoming quite a friend—”

  “God, Mum, it’s so expensive there!” Alex spluttered her tea. “We can’t afford to eat like this all the time!” She sighed. “We’ve been through this so many times before.”

  Her mother brushed away her concerns with her hand. “Oh, you do fuss so. It will be delicious, we deserve a treat, and you can’t expect me to eat that rubbish you call food. Now, you go and freshen up and I’ll put the lasagna er… Ella’s left in the oven. Oh! I can’t wait to get this bloody cast off.”

  Alex stood up wearily. “Crikey, Mum.” She stretched. “This Ella seems to have had a miraculous effect on you. You are almost bearable to live with! You’ll be jogging next!”

  “Pah!” her mother snorted. “At my age?”

  “Ever so good for your heart, you know. Exercise is also good for your skin, and your bones.” Alex bent down and picked up her sneakers. “Talking of which, I might go for a quick run before supper, if you don’t mind?”

  The Bean had a look of disgust on her face. “Perfectly masochistic, if you ask me. I’ve always had the figure of a seventeen-year-old, so what do I need with this power walking nonsense? And that awful stuff you wear! Can you imagine most people of my age in one of those ghastly crop tops and the leggings? It would be like stuffing a bag of frozen peas into a balloon.” And with that she flounced into the kitchen.

  A swift twenty minutes around the block later and Alex was at last under a hot shower, letting the shampoo run down her back. She rubbed the soap over her stomach and thighs, a body so unlike her mother’s, who had always embarrassed her enormously by introducing her to people as “Amazonian, like her father.” The Bean had always been thin, hence the name, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need to do some gentle exercise. Even so, in just a few days she’d begun to look better—Ella had obviously heeded her note about getting out. As Alex rinsed her hair she thought about what her mother had said. She was right. Exercise gear really was aimed at the young, with the gray market turning up at the gym in baggy T-shirts and baggier tracksuit bottoms. A germ of an idea began to form in her head.

  Toweled dry and feeling quite relaxed now, she padded into her mother’s room to get a fresh bath mat from the airing cupboard. She looked around at her mother’s things strewn everywhere—clothes on the chair and hanging over the cupboard doors, flat pumps in every color tucked under the dressing table, which was piled high with bottles and scarves, and beside them a little pile of shells and grains of sand. Odd. Where had they come from?

  Chapter 17

  More tea?” Frankie called through the open doors to where the Bean stood clad in a vest top and jeans, cautiously prodding her newly freed arm. Without the cast, sliced off a few days earlier, it looked terrible. Pale, slack, spindly. He looked away quickly. But not quickly enough. She snatched up her habitual silk peignoir, wincing as her arm extended beyond its usual restricted movement.

  “For God’s sake,” she snapped. “Can’t I even have a moment’s privacy? Why do you do that all the time? Creep up on people? It’s incredibly annoying.”

  Frankie backed out and returned to the kitchen—fast. What did she mean? Creep up? He didn’t creep up! He’d never crept anywhere in his life. He put the tray down firmly onto the kitchen counter. It wasn’t the first time the Bean had scolded him. In fact, she was always on at him, picking on his posture, his diction, even the way his hair was always a mess. But it was usually in an affectionate, patronizing, almost motherly tone that served mainly to remind him that he was merely Frankie, whereas she was, and always would be, the iconic Bean. She’d never sounded this cranky before. This arm business must be getting to her.

  She was always hard to shift unless some entertainment was the incentive, but Frankie had noticed how much more reluctant she had been to go out lately. It was as if she was more nervous with her arm exposed than she had been with it rigidly bent and slinged. She had an appointment to see the physical therapist soon, yet she wasn’t even attempting to get it moving, as the young orthopedic resident had advised. Frankie frowned. He had never seen the Bean at a disadvantage before. No wonder he hadn’t recognized the signs. Slowly, he emptied the cup of cooling tea, then went to the door.

  “Bean!” he called gently along the corridor. “Just give me the word and I’ll bring you a fresh pot.”

  Her door opened slowly. She had done her makeup and slipped a jacket on but her arm was still bent and held defensively at her side as she walked cautiously towards him. “Oh, you don’t need to do that, you silly boy! I’m here now.”

  Frankie concealed a wry smile. Not a word of apology, of course. He cleared his throat. “I thought it might be fun to go out today, just for a bit.”

  She turned to him, alarmed. “Oh, darling, look at the weather.” She gesticulated at the pale blue sky. “I’m sure it’s going to rain later. Anyway, I must catch Countdown today. That new chap is really very good. And there’s racing from Chepstow.”

  He was going to have to be cleverer if he was going to get her moving about. “Well, there’s a new exhibition at Tate Modern. We could drive up, just have a little walk around, grab a bite to eat, you know. Pay homage at the Globe while we’re at it.”

  She sat down at the kitchen table. “Ah, dear Sam Wanamaker! What drive! What vision! Of course, it’s not really on the site of the original Globe, but it doesn’t matter. I was at the opening, did I tell you about it?”

  He poured her tea and set her toast in front of her, a little out of reach so she had to stretch for it. She barely noticed. “Tell y
ou what!” he continued. “Why don’t you show me round it later? I’m almost ashamed to admit, I’ve never even been there.” He crossed his fingers behind his back. “I’d love to go.”

  Putty in his hands! As long as he got her home in time for Countdown, she promised gleefully she’d give him a private tour. He smiled to himself as he tidied her breakfast things away into the dishwasher, then picked up Alex’s note to read her list of suggestions for the day. He was rather enjoying now trying to guess what she wanted before she even asked for it—and she had clearly noticed. The tone of her note was warmer than ever.

  Hey Ella—thanks for turning my washing round so fast. Those trousers are my absolute faves—no VPL, so no need for the dreaded thong! Could you possibly change my sheets today? Todd’s in town. And can you get Mum to at least try to move her arm? She’s very stroppy with me if I dare to say anything. Any chance of you making some more of that yummy fruit loaf?

  Ta—as ever. Cheque on the side.

  Alex

  Todd? Who the hell was Todd? This was the first he’d heard of any Todd! What a ridiculous name. And the more he said it, the more ridiculous it became. He sounded like a cartoon character, lantern-jawed and bulging-biceped. He probably communicated in grunts. How was it that attractive, clever women always fell for complete idiots, especially ones with stupid names? He’d have thought Alex had better taste than that? “Yuck!” He shook his head decisively and glanced at his watch. He could change the sheets before they went out. Ah—sod it. They could wait until later.

  At Tate Modern, a couple of hours later, the Bean was typically and loudly scathing about the latest installation in the Turbine Hall, but Frankie wasn’t really in the mood for a bitching session, and only nodded vaguely at her more outrageous comments. As long as it kept her moving and entertained and, more important, away from her usual post in front of the television, he didn’t really care.