by Cate Woods
Then right on cue, my phone beeps with a message and, as has been my habit this past week, I think, This is it, the American has reported me, I am going to be fired. Or arrested. Guilty as charged.
But then rational Annie pipes up and says: Don’t be daft, if he was going to make a complaint he’d have done so by now. You’ve got away with it.
Sure enough, the message is nothing to do with any of that mess. What it actually says is this:
How about that lunch, Barb? Like, right now? I’ve got a job near yours this p.m. Riva xoxo
I break into a relieved smile. This is typical Riva – I mean, talk about leaving it to the last minute to arrange a date – but then I suppose it used to be typically me, too. (There’s a party tonight, you say? It’s in Edinburgh? And you have to come dressed as your favourite Mr Man? Fab, see you there!) But spontaneity is a thing, like lie-ins and attractive nipples, that is wholly incompatible with raising babies. Riva sends me the address of a restaurant and suggests meeting there in an hour. Dot will undoubtedly be awake and need feeding by then, but in the spirit of being more impulsive, I agree and push aside my worries about sticking to Dot’s routine and the fact that in my Gap logo sweatshirt and maternity jeans, I’m not exactly fashion-ready for a date with the woman who dresses Zoe Kravitz for brunch.
20
The place Riva suggests we meet turns out to be a greasy spoon under a railway bridge, its façade grimy with age and pigeon poo. It’s certainly not the fashion hangout I was expecting – the only hats you’ll see in here are of the hard and yellow variety – but perhaps it’s so uncool that it’s gone full-circle and is actually cutting-edge? Anyway, I fancy a fry-up and there’s plenty of room for Dot’s buggy, so it suits me.
Ten minutes later Riva sweeps in, instantly filling the room like she’s famous, despite barely scraping five foot. She is clad head to toe in motorbike leathers, right down to the matching gloves and boots, while her hair is as gorgeously untamed as ever.
‘Hello, darling.’ She kisses me enthusiastically on the lips and scrapes back the neighbouring plastic chair. ‘Don’t you love this place? It’s so authentic.’
‘You come here by bike?’
She looks at me blankly. ‘Uber, doll.’
I glance pointedly at her outfit.
‘Oh, you mean the leathers? Silly! This is Margiela pre-Fall. Stunning, right? Totally worth the clammy crotch . . .’ Then her eyes fall on the buggy. ‘Oh my God, is that yours?’
I smile at her look of wide-eyed shock. ‘Didn’t I mention I’d had a baby?’
‘No, you didn’t!’ She holds out her arms. ‘Gimme gimme, I need a cuddle.’
I glance into the buggy; luckily Dot has just woken up. ‘This is Dorothea, known as Dot,’ I say, dropping a kiss on her head and then passing her over. ‘Dot, say hello to your Auntie Riva.’
‘Well well well, my little polka-Dot, aren’t you just the cutest?’ Riva holds her so they’re face-to-face, then leans in and whispers conspiratorially: ‘We’ll forgive Mummy her Gap hoodie for having made such a delicious baby.’
I pull a face at her. ‘We came straight from swimming.’
‘Babe, the only place that top would be acceptable is if you actually worked in Gap and were being paid to wear it.’ She considers me for a moment then adds, hopefully: ‘Unless you’re wearing it, like, ironically?’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
At least, I don’t think I am . . . Christ, I forgot how complicated fashion can be.
Riva sits Dot on her knee and she grabs delightedly at the glittering jumble of necklaces around her neck. ‘Anyway, what’s important is that you’re here and I’m here and we can have a proper catch-up,’ she says. ‘I need a full and complete download, starting with how this little one happened . . .’
I forgot what great company Riva is. She has the ironclad confidence and twinkly charisma of a Hollywood star, plus a bottomless supply of hilarious/astonishing anecdotes which always seem to end along the lines of: ‘and then Kendall told Kim she had a fat arse and Kanye pulled out a bottle of George Clooney’s tequila and we all got off our fucking heads!’ She’s so fun and sparky that it’s hard not to feel inferior, and I have to remind myself that we actually used to be peers; in fact, crazy as it now seems, I’m pretty sure Riva used to be the one who asked me for style advice. But while I’ve now faded to beige mediocrity, she’s still grabbing attention wherever she goes – and it’s not just the flamboyant way in which she dresses; she gives off this impression that she owns life, that she deserves the very best of everything. Did I really use to be this fabulous too?
Riva barely bats a fake-lashed eyelid when I explain about the situation with Luke. In her world, conventionality is the enemy: a husband, two children and a cosy home in the suburbs would be her idea of hell. So things don’t work out with the father of your child? Move on, honey! Life is too short for worries or regrets – plus there are plenty more fish in the sea (if you look like Riva, at least). She doesn’t see any problem at all with the fact that I’m potentially a single woman with a small baby; after all, she was once one too, and she’s clearly aced it.
Throughout our chat Dot has been perfectly happy sitting on Riva’s lap – it helps that all her beads and dangly pendants act like a ready-made baby gym – but now she’s started up the low-level fussing that indicates she’s getting hungry. Taking care not to flash the rest of the café, I manoeuvre Dot into place and latch her on for a feed.
‘Wow, so you’re doing the whole . . . earth-mother thing, are you?’ asks Riva, watching as I struggle to stay decent. ‘That’s cool. Jethro was on a bottle from day one. I don’t think I even tried him on the tit.’
This seems like the perfect moment to ask the question that’s been niggling at me since we bumped into each other at the dentist the other week.
‘Riva, when Jethro was little, how did you manage to juggle work and motherhood? You made it all look so easy.’
Riva furrows her brow. ‘What d’you mean, babe?’
‘Well, as far as I remember, having a baby didn’t seem to have any impact on your life at all. You carried on working and partying just like before he came along.’ Worried this might sound a tad critical, I add: ‘I’m only asking because now that I’m a mum, I can barely find time to brush my hair in the morning, let alone hold down a full-time job and social life.’
Riva pushes her food around the plate – scrambled eggs and tomatoes, no toast – and thinks for a while. I’m transfixed by her fingernails, which are super-long and pointy, like claws, and tipped with a sprinkle of tiny black beads. I’m sorry to admit my first thought is: how on earth does she fit washing-up gloves over those?
‘Well, I suppose Jethro sort of just . . . slotted into my life,’ Riva replies eventually. ‘I guess I was lucky; he was a very easy-going baby. And it was always just me – no dad on the scene, right? – so I had no choice but to make the best of it.’
‘So you didn’t have any help with Jethro at all?’
‘Nah, not really,’ she says, then gestures to the woman at the counter for two more teas, seemingly considering the subject closed.
I, however, have a million more questions.
‘But what did you do with Jethro while you were working?’
Riva tips her head to one side, thinking hard; this is obviously ancient history to her. ‘Well, when he was tiny, Jeth was happy sitting in his car seat while I got on with my shit, then as he got bigger I suppose he’d . . . crawl around the set when I was working. He’s always been a gypsy child – he’s got a curious spirit, y’know? Never happier than when we’re off on some mad adventure. God, I remember this one shoot for Grazia . . .’
She launches into a story of how baby Jethro ended up charming the g-string off a famous model who then insisted on having him in the magazine photos with her, then segues into an anecdote about being in the Four Seasons in LA styling an Oscar-nominated actress and finding the then-toddler Jethro curled up aslee
p in a pile of couture Versace – ‘I mean, isn’t that the cutest?’ – and my heart gradually sinks, because her account of motherhood with its effortless fun and bohemian glamour has so little in common with my own experience of what it’s like looking after a baby on a day-to-day basis. If I didn’t have a child, I’d probably be listening to Riva and thinking, yes, that sounds both feasible and fun! – but I do have a child, and personally I’ve never found Dot able to occupy herself for more than a couple of minutes while I ‘get on with my shit’, let alone for a whole day. As if to validate my point, at that very moment Dot suddenly pulls off my boob to have a look around, exposing my nipple to a table of builders. Now that’s the reality of motherhood for me, right there! As for the whole ‘gypsy child’ thing, in my experience, children are so conservative and such sticklers for routine that they make Jacob Rees-Mogg look like Noughties-era Kate Moss. Or perhaps I just have a particularly uptight baby.
‘But didn’t you find the lack of sleep difficult?’ I plough on, wrestling Dot back into place. ‘Where did you get your energy from?’
‘God, I honestly don’t remember. Maybe I was just high the whole time!’
She laughs, but my face must betray the fact that I’m wondering whether this might have actually been the case, because she shrieks: ‘Babe, I’m joking!’
At that moment the waitress brings over our teas and Riva beams at her – ‘thank you, sweetheart, so kind’ – then pushes her barely touched lunch to one side and folds her arms on the table, in a gesture that blatantly declares CHANGE OF SUBJECT.
‘So tell me,’ she says, ‘what’s happening with the photography?’
I hesitate for a moment, unsure how much I should tell her. My new job isn’t exactly glamorous, after all. Perhaps I’ll just say I’m taking a career break while Dot is little . . .
‘You better not tell me that you’ve quit,’ warns Riva. ‘Out of all of us, you were the one with the real talent.’
‘That’s lovely of you to say.’
‘Well it’s true.’ Then she smiles at me with real affection, and despite the fact we’ve not spoken in so long, it’s like we’re right back where we were all those years ago, hard-partying partners in crime. ‘Please tell me you’re still taking photos?’
And so I tell her about the Curtis Kinderbey job, and she seems genuinely interested and asks lots of questions and I begin to think that actually, yeah, it is a pretty fun job, and if Riva thinks it’s cool then I really shouldn’t be embarrassed about it.
‘So what’s your Insta name?’ asks Riva, pulling out her phone. ‘I’m going to find you now . . .’
‘Um, I’m not actually on Instagram.’
She stares at me, wide-eyed and slack-mouthed, as if I’d just admitted a liking for M&S elasticated-waist slacks. ‘What the fuck, Barb? You’re one of the few people who actually should be on it!’
‘I just don’t have a particularly Instagrammable life these days.’
‘Girl, everyone’s life is Instagrammable, you just need to edit it. Give me your phone.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine, I . . .’
Riva shoots me a stern look and holds out her hand. ‘Babe.’
I hand it over and peer across nervously as Riva swiftly swipes through my photo feed, which is mainly filled with pictures of Dot. At least there’s zero chance she’ll find any dick pics . . .
‘Oh my God, I love that image,’ she says, eyes lighting up. ‘And look at this one!’ She holds up my phone with the picture of the roses and vintage Chanel bag on the marble worktop that I took in that client’s house a few weeks ago.
‘You’ve got the best eye, seriously,’ Riva goes on. ‘You don’t even need a filter on that.’
‘Yeah, I was lucky, the lighting was perfect . . .’
‘Not luck, Barb – talent. Don’t sell yourself short, babe. And that vintage Chanel 2.55 – I die! Is it yours?’
‘Oh no, it . . . belongs to a friend.’ I really don’t want to go into the details of my sordid sideline sneaking photos of clients’ possessions.
‘And check out this one!’ It’s the photo of the Chinese vase that I took in the penthouse of doom last week. ‘Seriously, you need to get this shit online. Promise me you’ll set yourself up on Insta?’
I make a non-committal sort of noise, which I hope will be enough to satisfy Riva.
‘You better,’ she says warningly – and then all of a sudden her face lights up with the wide-eyed triumph of a Eureka moment. ‘Right, I’ve made a decision: you’re going to be my new project.’
Uh-oh, not sure I like the sound of this. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m gonna make it my mission to help you get your groove back.’ She beams. ‘Operation Save Barb! I mean, this estate agency job is cool for now, yeah, but we need to get you back to what you were doing before, right? And my first task – after making sure you’re on Instagram and getting all the right people to follow you – will be to sort out a reunion with all the old gang.’
‘That’s so sweet of you to offer, Riva, really, but you don’t need to go to all that trouble on my behalf, honestly . . .’
‘Barb!’ She glares at me. ‘I’m doing it, and you’re coming. It’ll be fun! You can network! Is Friday or Saturday night better for you? Oh, and don’t you dare turn up wearing Gap . . .’
This is getting out of hand. It’s been lovely meeting Riva for lunch, but the idea of going to some pretentious private members’ club with a bunch of stylists makes me sweaty-palmed with panic. Old, forgotten feelings, dating back to when the other pupils shrieked ‘Big Nose’ at me in the corridor, stir unpleasantly inside me. An image flashes into my mind: me, standing in a bar, surrounded by fashion people all pointing and laughing at my bootcut jeans and Mumsnet hairdo. No bloody thanks. I need to nip this in the bud ASAP.
‘Riva, I’m so glad we’re in touch again, but I’m not sure a reunion is a good idea. I’m just not part of that world anymore. I won’t have anything in common with any of the old crew.’
‘They won’t care! They’ll just be psyched to see you, like I was.’ She grabs her phone and starts scrolling. ‘Right, I’ll call Delphine, Farrah, Mimi of course, Nick . . . I suppose I should ask Tara, and Tyler – ooh, and Tomo . . .’
She mentions his name casually – I’m not sure she even knows that he and I had an on–off thing together – but the prospect of coming face-to-face with the most beautiful man I have ever seen, let alone had between my legs, sends my already agitated insides into a tailspin. Back then my quirkiness and swagger – combined with my super-cool job – made up for the fact that I’m no supermodel, but now I’ve got nothing to hide behind. To put it bluntly, without the Barbra Streisand make-up and kaftans, my big nose is simply that: a fucking big nose. As Riva rattles away, excitedly making plans, the idea of what Tomo will think when he sees who I am now makes my stomach plunge like I’ve got vertigo. There’s no way I’m putting myself through that ordeal. I’ll just cancel nearer the time.
21
Wednesday morning is the weekly office meeting at Curtis Kinderbey, attendance of which is non-negotiable by order of Kaiser Karl. In theory, this is a chance for the whole CK team to come together to share updates and generate ideas; in reality it’s an opportunity for the pushiest sales guys to boast about their commissions and for the rest of us to watch as the huge timer projected on a screen at the end of the room ticks down the minutes to zero, like something out of The Hunger Games.
‘What the hell is that?’ I muttered to Fi when I first came to one of these meetings, nodding at the ominous black numbers on the screen.
‘Grim, isn’t it?’ she replied. ‘Karl read that Google have a timer in team meetings to make sure everyone stays focused, so now we do as well.’
We also have to stand for the whole meeting because this is what they do at Facebook, although Karl gets to sit down because he strained his groin dead lifting. I’m pretty sure Mark Zuckerberg keeps his meetings brief – that surely bei
ng the whole rationale behind the standing – but Karl is not interested in such technicalities, which means that everyone is sore and grumpy by the end of the hour-long session. The only good thing about these weekly meetings is the unlimited croissants, muffins and cappuccinos, laid on because this is what they do at Apple – or at least this is what Fi told Karl they do at Apple. Thankfully he hasn’t checked whether or not this is actually the case. Fi and I are now thinking about telling Karl that Microsoft sends staffers on annual all-expenses-paid holidays to encourage blue-sky thinking.
‘. . . and so I said to the vendor, “Coxtons may have their own fleet of branded Mini Coopers, but are their sales advisors at the end of the phone 24/7 to help secure the best offer for your home? No! Are they prepared to do whatever it takes to keep their clients happy? I don’t think so!”’
There is a smattering of applause – led by Karl – as senior sales associate Erin Maxwell concludes her Powerpoint presentation, ‘Hustle and Tenacity: the Secrets of Success’.
I lean towards Fi, who is slumped against the wall next to me, her high heels abandoned on the floor nearby, and whisper: ‘Are you meant to be on call 24/7?’
‘Are we fuck,’ mutters Fi. ‘She’s just sucking up to Karl because they’re shagging.’
‘Thank you, Erin,’ says Karl, reclining in his comfy chair at the head of the table. ‘Moving forward, I think we can all pick up Erin’s ideas and run with them, yeah? Now, let’s hear from Stuart on the uptick in the short-term lettings market . . .’
