New York Valentine

by Carmen Reid

  Glancing at the next table, Lana saw two women in designer suits and power jewellery gossiping over salads. One had a bright yellow ostrich skin Hermès bag perched in her lap.

  Could this be any more glamorous?

  Annie heard a clang as the tip of Elena’s pointy shoe hit the side of the skip. Then came an undignified scrambling sound, and finally Elena appeared, then tumbled straight down into the bin bags and roll ends.

  Annie looked out across the car park and saw a huge black and brown beast running at full stretch towards them.

  The chain collar around his neck clinked ominously as he bounded up. When he reached the foot of the skip, he began to bark ferociously.

  ‘I’m sure he’s all talk and no trousers,’ Annie said loudly, trying to be heard over the furious barking.

  Good grief! Look at the beast! Foamy saliva was flecking the dog’s jaws as he barked and barked like a mad thing.

  ‘I never used to like dogs, but we have one now and they’re really not that bad. They just like food … all they’re ever after is food,’ Annie said, trying to sound as calm as she possibly could while she wondered how on earth they were going to get away from the Hound of the Baskervilles down there.

  Elena was cowering low. She was obviously not a doggie person.

  ‘Hello boy, hello there. Good boy,’ Annie said over the edge of the skip, in the brightly cheerful, slightly insane tone she’d heard doggie people use.

  The dog stopped barking, sat down and looked at her expectantly.

  ‘See, he’s not so bad.’

  ‘No, no …’ Elena said in a whimper, still crouching down in the rubbish.

  Unless Annie could think of a way of getting rid of the dog, it looked like they would be stuck in the skip for some time. She wondered if there was a security guard somewhere … but then he probably wouldn’t exactly be impressed to find two Manhattan fashion types going through his trash.

  She looked at the scrunched up takeaway packaging dotted across the skip. Maybe she could find some scraps of food in one of those that would pacify the dog?

  As she reached over to pick up one of the bags and look inside, it seemed to stir, rustling slightly. She hesitated for a moment, but then, determined, she reached over and snatched it up.

  She didn’t mean to shriek, but she couldn’t help it: when you see the big brown furry back of an ugly urban super-rat, instinct takes over.

  ‘Aaaaaaargh!!!’

  ‘What?!’ Elena jumped up, horrified.

  ‘There’s a … mouse … a small mouse,’ Annie exclaimed, trying to play it down, but now her flesh was crawling and more than anything she wanted to get out of this place. She was wearing peep-toes! Any moment now she might feel rat fur brushing against her bare feet.

  Uuuurgh!

  ‘I’m going to give the dog the hamburger leftovers in here’ – she held up the rustling bag – ‘and see if I can get him to like me.’

  Given the choice between dogs and rats, Annie would try her luck with the dog any time. Gingerly, she reached inside the bag, feeling for the cold, greasy scraps of burger and fries and hoping she wasn’t going to come across another horror: a dead rat bit or live rat baby.

  ‘Here boy, good dog,’ she said, tossing the bit of mouldy chicken nugget or whatever it was to the ground.

  The dog wolfed it down, then looked up at her expectantly. Were they making friends? Or was the dog just hoping she would taste as good as that?

  The big brute began to bark again, loudly, as if to tell her off for not giving him enough food.

  Annie glanced back into the skip. Carefully, she picked up another food bag, but this one was empty. Then with a lurch of horror, she caught sight of the rat again. Or maybe it was another rat! Maybe this whole skip was teeming with them!

  Help! She had to get out of here.

  And that was when the idea sprang into her mind. It was one of those terrible ideas: the kind of idea which has too many problems, too many reasons why it might not work. So Annie acted quickly, instinctively, before she could talk herself out of it. She grabbed hold of the handle of the old spade lying in the skip.

  Then she lunged for the rat, whimpering a little in horror … What if he ran up the spade handle?! On to her arms! She would faint. She really would.

  But the big fat rat, heavier than she expected, was now on the spade.

  Elena must have seen him because now she began to scream.

  With a mighty effort, Annie swung the spade and launched the rat into the air. ‘Grab the rolls!’ she instructed Elena.

  Meanwhile, Annie watched as the rat spun and twisted, its horrible tail flexing. She wasn’t sure if it would splat and die on impact, but she scrambled for the fabric rolls close to her feet as she watched.

  The rat landed and for a moment was very still.

  Dead? she wondered.

  No. The dog heard it land and, as Annie had wildly hoped, ran over towards it.

  Now, exactly as she’d wanted, the rat raced off and the dog bounded after it.

  ‘Quick!’ she urged Elena.

  The rat scurried under another skip a good 50 metres away and the dog, tail up in the air, stiff with excitement, began to bark and claw at the gap between the skip and the ground.

  Now was definitely their chance. Annie heaved herself, her heels and her handbag over the rusty, flaky edge of the skip. She dangled for a moment, then let herself drop the two feet or so to the ground.

  ‘Owww!’

  She twisted her left ankle as she came down onto her heels. Next time she went out to source ‘one-off’ fabrics for a special collection she would wear a much, much more sensible outfit.

  With shaking hands, Elena passed down the remaining rolls. Then, because Elena had maybe decided there was only one great big Brooklyn rat in that skip, she began rummaging deep down in search of more of the usable fabric.

  These weren’t big, supersized rolls. At a guess, there was somewhere between 15 to 20 metres of fabric on each one. Still, they’d now managed to find nine rolls: four navy, two grey and three a surprisingly nice bright magenta. How they were going to carry them out of the car park, even without the attentions of the guard dog, was another matter.

  Elena scrambled down from the skip and stood breathlessly beside Annie, brushing her outfit down and looking about anxiously for the dog.

  ‘He’s very busy with the rat over there,’ Annie said, ‘I think we’ll be OK.’

  Elena bent down, tucked two rolls under one arm, three under the other and stood up. The weight was considerable. Annie loaded up with the remaining four rolls.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ Elena answered, but she sounded shaky and close to tears. She really was very frightened of that dog.

  ‘Don’t run,’ Annie instructed, ‘just walk as calmly and quietly as you can.’

  They were just a few metres from the gate when the dog looked up from his rat-worrying.

  ‘Oh no! No!’ Elena whimpered.

  ‘Keep walking,’ Annie hissed. She didn’t look round, just kept marching towards the gate as quickly as she could.

  For a moment, the dog stood still, watching them and figuring out what was happening. Then with an outraged yowl, he began to run towards them, his huge chain collar rattling from side to side with every bound.

  Annie and Elena, still clutching their rolls of material, dived for the gate. As Elena slammed it shut, Annie shot the bolt just as the dog made a leap for them. He crunched into the metal rails, fell back, but was immediately on his feet snarling, barking and snapping his jaws ferociously.

  That was when Annie saw the bright yellow ‘Beware of the dog’ sign on the gate. She had no idea how she’d missed it the first time.

  But they were now in the road and the hound from hell was on the other side of the gate. Shaken, but strangely light-hearted now that the rat and dog horror was over, they shouldered their rolls and began to walk away from the scene of the crime.

  ‘Now that,�
�� Annie told Elena, ‘is what I call a shopping adventure.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Annie recovering:

  Floral dressing gown (Elena’s)

  Hair conditioning masque (Paul Mitchell via Elena)

  Towel (also Elena’s)

  Plasters (drugstore)

  Flat waffle slippers (hotel freebie)

  Total est. cost: $3

  ‘I’m sorry about the dog.’

  Annie and Elena had tried to find a cab office, a cab rank or any trace of a cab at all. But to no avail. So, it was an exhausting thirty-minute walk, but together with their rolls, they finally made it to the subway station.

  No one in the carriage gave a second glance to the two dirt-streaked females in stained dresses, holding several grubby rolls of fabric. In this part of Brooklyn, anything and anyone got onto the trains and it was best not to stare.

  When Annie had recovered her breath and taken a full inventory of the damage she’d inflicted on herself and several cherished possessions – the shoes would never recover, she’d scratched the leather right off the side of the heel on the skip edge – she still looked over at Elena with a triumphant grin.

  ‘We could have 180 metres of jersey here – about $4,000, maybe $5,000 worth. And we got it for free!’

  ‘Yes!’ Elena couldn’t help smiling, ‘but do you really think we can make good dresses out of it?’

  ‘Of course!’ Annie insisted.

  ‘Is cotton jersey, is very different from silks and silk jersey we make first dresses from,’ Elena pointed out.

  ‘That will be the beauty of the dresses, though. Cotton, so wearer friendly. Beautiful design, beautiful fit and drape, but you can wear them all day long and chuck them in the washing machine.’

  ‘We need nice buttons …’

  ‘Yes,’ Annie agreed, ‘and lovely detailing. A little matching satin trim around the cuffs and the collars.’

  ‘Yes! Sleeves draping or gathered with a bow. So elegant and beautiful, not too plain.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ Annie asked, ‘I’m sorry about the dog.’

  ‘I will be fine, but I rip hole in my dress and break two straps on my Gucci sandals.’

  ‘That is bad,’ Annie sympathized.

  ‘No, not too bad. I get them at Designer Shoe Warehouse for $90.’

  ‘You’re going to have to tell me where that is.’

  When Lana burst in through the apartment’s front door face alight with the splendour of her library date and lunch with Taylor, she found Annie on the sofa bed: damp, in a dressing gown, with a towel on her head and bruises all over her shins.

  Elena, also freshly showered, was at the Perfect Dress NYC nerve centre – the kitchen table – frantically tapping at her laptop.

  ‘Mum, how come you aren’t working?’ Lana wanted to know. ‘It’s only four o’clock!’

  ‘We’ve had a tiring day, believe me,’ Annie told her. ‘Anyway, I’m just regrouping and I needed to wash because my skin was crawling …’

  She shuddered, still not able to shake the memory of the rat.

  ‘I’ll be back to work in about ten minutes, fresh as a daisy,’ she insisted, ‘but first of all … lunch went on a bit?! How was Taylor?’

  ‘Yeah … well, no …’ Lana stumbled and flushed a rosy pink, ‘it was great. Really great. We toured round the library which is amazing and you totally have to go. Then we had lunch at this … restaurant!’ She burst into giggles at the thought.

  ‘A restaurant? So sophisticated,’ Annie said.

  ‘I hope you not be all British and pay for your meal,’ was Elena’s comment.

  ‘No … well, I offered but he wouldn’t let me.’ Lana couldn’t help giggling again.

  She was ‘aglow’, Annie thought. There was no other word for it. But how incredibly amazing to be almost 18 and in New York with a huge, massive crush on a blond writer who took you on library tours and out for lunch. Annie felt more than a little jealous.

  ‘Tell us all about everything, every little moment …’ Annie said, sitting up and patting the sofa bed, ‘but first of all, you have to look at our material and tell me what you think.’

  Annie pointed at the rolls of fabric leaning up against the kitchen sink. This was the only place she’d found in the flat free enough of clutter to have room for the nine rolls.

  Lana walked over and looked carefully. Annie was impressed at the serious attention she was giving to the task; Lana realized how important this was.

  She peeled some fabric away from the roll, ran her fingers over it and crumpled it up in her hand.

  ‘Sort of sweatshirty,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Nice plain colours. I’m loving the magenta … and the grey … and the navy too!’

  ‘Simple colours to go with everything,’ Elena added, ‘dress up dress down, very nice for New York in winter with a coat and boots.’

  ‘So a smart-casual sweatshirt dress?’ Lana said, getting the idea. ‘I think it’s going to be fantastic! Casual dresses. Smart shirtdresses but in cotton. Everyone is going to want one. I think you should make me one right now so I can wear it just as soon as it stops burning down at 30 degrees or whatever it is out there.’

  ‘Long, long summer here. Sye say this is unusual,’ Elena said, ‘but long, long winter here too. Very cold, then you will miss the burning sun. This how is in Ukraine too.’

  ‘The material’s great, but doesn’t it look a bit … dirty?’ Lana asked tentatively. ‘I hope you got some money off.’

  At this, Annie began to laugh: ‘We got it out of a skip, darlin’!’

  ‘Out of a skip? Seriously?!’

  ‘Seriously. Your mother like dis–’ Elena tapped the side of her head in the universal sign for crazy person.

  ‘We’re going to wash it all at the launderette, which will hopefully kick start the worn-in, faded look,’ Annie explained, ‘then we’ll get a US factory to run us up as many of our amazing new Perfect Dresses as we can afford. Once the money comes in from those, we can get all fancy and go back to stretchy silk and shiny satin. But maybe carry on the cotton if they do well.’

  ‘This is the plan,’ Elena reminded them. ‘We don’t know if this is going to happen yet. No factory has agreed to make dresses—’

  ‘Yet,’ Annie chipped in.

  ‘And if these cotton dresses not good enough, existing orders might be cancelled,’ Elena warned.

  ‘The dresses will be good enough,’ Annie insisted. ‘C’mon Lana, fire up the coffee machine, tell us all about dreamy Taylor …’

  ‘Muuuum!’

  ‘Then we’ll get started on a fresh round of calls.’

  An hour later Lana had already gone out; a friend of Greta’s, passing through New York, wanted to meet her for a pizza. So Annie was left in the apartment with an increasingly agitated Elena.

  Elena was upset because Sye hadn’t phoned her for two days and now a volley of his Venezuelan photographs had landed in her in-box.

  ‘Look at this!’ Elena turned the screen to Annie, who took in the lovely shot of a young, tanned vision of gorgeousness frolicking on the beach in the obligatory wet bikini. Her face was turned with deep and tantalizing eyes towards the camera.

  ‘He’s very good at his job,’ Annie reassured her.

  ‘He not phone me and I can’t make connection with his phone.’

  ‘He’s on the beach in Venezuela,’ Annie reminded her, ‘the signal’s probably not very strong. Please, calm down! The guy is crazy about you. I can see it, his friends we met the other night said it. He’s probably just as desperate to speak to you as you are to speak to him.’

  ‘When you are on trip with five models, why you want to speak to girlfriend?’ Elena snapped back.

  ‘I promise you, there is no need to be jealous. Jealousy is one of the most horrible emotions you can waste time on. It’s all bitter and destroying and in your case, based on absolutely nothing. What has he done to make you think he’s not totally i
nto you?’

  ‘The only words with this photo are: “I am in love with this girl”. I think he send it to me by mistake,’ Elena declared angrily.

  ‘Elena! “I’m in love with this girl” it’s just photographer-speak. It’s his job. You know it’s his job. You knew he was a photographer when you first met him. I mean how incredibly flattering to have someone who takes pictures of some of the most beautiful faces in the world, be so in love with yours.’

  ‘He has never said he loves me,’ Elena snapped.

  Aha.

  ‘Of course he’s in love. You’re both in love,’ Annie assured her. ‘Anyone can see that. It’s oozing out of every pore when you two are together. Pure 100 per cent guaranteed in love. But yes, I understand, saying you’re in love. That’s hard. Maybe you’re both waiting to see who says it first.’

  ‘Maybe …’

  ‘But don’t be jealous. Not without any reason. Are you going out tonight?’

  Elena shook her head, but then said: ‘Maybe just to drugstore to buy some—’

  Annie cut her off: ‘Babes, have you looked in the bathroom lately?’

  Elena glanced over at her in some surprise.

  ‘You have your very own drugstore right there. Whatever it is you could possibly be looking for, you will find it in here.’

  Annie pushed open the door to the small but perfectly formed bathroom. Just like in Elena’s bedroom, every shelf, surface and available space was taken up with stuff. Although in here it was bathroom stuff: hair bottles, shower bottles, lotions, potions and make-up.

  ‘I hate to say this,’ Annie began gently, ‘but I think there’s about $2,000 worth of products in here.’

  ‘No!’ Elena protested.

  ‘The buy one get one free habit can really mount up …’

  When Annie saw Elena’s shoulders slump and her hands move up to cover her face, she immediately regretted her words.

  Rushing to Elena’s side, she put an arm around her and said, ‘You’ve been going through so many difficult things. You’ll get through all this. Please stop worrying about Sye and … you’ll get over the crazy shopping thing. I’ll help you, if you’ll let me.’