by Jenny Oliver
Harry had been walking back from his car and asked, ‘Need a hand?’
Then Alfonso had appeared from nowhere and said, ‘I got it, Harry.’
But Harry had replied, ‘No, it’s OK, I’ve got it.’ And taken the suitcase from her hand.
Alfonso, now at Hannah’s side, had said, ‘No, I’ve got it.’ And reached forward to take hold of the handle along with Harry.
Jemima had looked between the two of them, perplexed.
‘Guys, it’s fine,’ Hannah had said, doing her best to keep a straight face, and taken the bag from them. ‘I can carry my own bag. I’m perfectly capable. But thanks anyway.’
And then she had walked with Jemima to the car, who had beeped open the boot, and Hannah had lifted the case inside, all the while biting down on her lip because there were two men watching her, and it seemed quite possible at the time that the little spat between them had been about her.
She had liked Alfonso a lot. It was hard not to – he was chocolate-box handsome, suave, funny – and his liking of her had been unbelievably flattering. But what she’d liked even more was the effect Alfonso liking her had had on Harry. It was a sensation that baffled her still when she thought about it – why she couldn’t just have chosen the sexy, friendly Argentinean – but she had delighted in Harry being forced to play his hand. Unable to stand back all cool and observing, Alfonso’s interest in Hannah had made Harry show his interest and that had been beyond exciting. Especially as it had led to a kind of secret game between the two of them – her and Harry – that consisted only of looks and one-liners – glances that spoke whole sentences and led to laughs like she’d known him for ever.
The result was that she found herself thinking about Harry way more than she should someone with whom she’d spent only a handful of hours.
As a memory, the whole time in France was something she took to bed with her and snuggled down and thought how exciting it had been. Ignoring that it was just a transient holiday moment – a pocket of time when everything had aligned, when she was relaxed and happy and they were all together – a group of friends and strangers – and that wasn’t her everyday. But it had been brilliant. Confidence-boosting brilliant. She treasured it the same was as she did every Etsy order for a dress. Every phone call from someone who had seen her work and wondered if she could do something for them. By no means was she making a profit, by no means could she quit her day job or pay her mum a salary for the hours of work she put in, but very slowly Hannah’s name was seeping out there. Threading its way into the world and, while the work was terrifying, exhausting, stressful, tiring, eye-straining, back-breaking, finger-bleeding, she loved it.
Then, suddenly, one afternoon in late summer, Emily Hunter-Brown knocked on her door.
‘Hannah!’ Her dad called through to where she was sitting in her parents’ living room, because her brother had just popped round, having a cup of tea in her Pilates outfit, chatting to Dylan and her parents, while Jemima watched Peppa Pig. ‘Emily’s here to see you.’
The whole event was like she’d been whooshed back fifteen years. She was surprised she wasn’t in her school uniform and Heartbreak High wasn’t on the TV.
‘Emily?’ Her mum said. ‘Is that the one you used to do detention with?’
‘Emily Hunter-Brown?’ said Dylan sitting to attention. ‘Here in the house? Oh my God. Do you think she’ll sign my newspaper?’
Hannah had stood up and was trying to sort out her hair in the living room mirror and rub her face so it looked like she had some make-up on. She turned round to her brother in horror and said, ‘No, Dylan! Don’t. She’s a big businesswoman now, she doesn’t want to be always reminded of being on the TV.’
‘But she was amazing.’
‘Dylan. Please don’t,’ Hannah said, looking down at her outfit with disappointment. Why couldn’t she have got changed after Pilates? Of all the people to catch her slobbing around in her comfy pants, why did it have to be Emily, CEO of EHB Cosmetics, who always looked one hundred per cent immaculate?
‘She got you into a lot of trouble as far as I can remember,’ Hannah’s mum said with disapproval just as the living room door opened and Emily said, ‘Hello, Mrs Barker.’
‘Oh hello, Emily darling,’ said her mum, pushing herself up off the sofa, seamlessly glossing over her previous remark. ‘Lovely to see you. God it’s been years.’
‘I’ve got better, Mrs Barker, I promise,’ Emily said with a wink.
‘You were fine as you were, Emily. Just a little wild sometimes as far as I remember,’ said Hannah’s mum as she kissed her on the cheek. ‘Are you staying long enough for a cup of tea?’ she added, already on her way to the kitchen.
‘Oh that would be lovely,’ Emily said, then, ‘Sorry to barge in like this, Hannah, but I was actually in the area and I thought I may as well pop in rather than talk over the phone. I hate the phone and I hate email so much more. I should have called but, well, you’re here, so what the hell.’
Dylan started to get up from the sofa. ‘I’ll go,’ he said quietly. Hannah watched him warily, she’d never seen him so sheepish.
‘Oh you don’t have to,’ Emily said with a wave of her hand. ‘I’m Emily. Are you Hannah’s brother? Lovely to meet you.’
Dylan, clearly starstruck, mumbled over his name as he introduced himself. Then, deliberately avoiding Hannah’s eye, said, ‘Do you think I could have your autograph?’
Hannah gasped while Emily guffawed with delighted laughter and whipped a sheet of paper and a fountain pen out of her bag to sign a note to Dylan.
Dylan took it from her with effusive thanks and, with a quick smirk at Hannah, nestled himself back into the sofa cushions, pleased as punch.
Jemima turned for a moment from the TV and said, ‘Hi, Emily. You look pretty.’ Then went back to Peppa Pig.
Emily looked quite taken.
Hannah thought how pretty she did look. Obviously she’d come from work and was wearing a black pantsuit with gold palm leaves all over it, cork wedge sandals and her hair all piled up on top of her head. For the second time Hannah wished she wasn’t wearing her Pilates garb.
‘So I’ve just come from a meeting. I actually just came straight here because I’m so excited. That’s the honest truth,’ she said, sitting herself down on the adjacent sofa to Dylan’s. Hannah perched on a footstool.
‘Milk and sugar?’ Hannah’s mum asked, poking her head round the door.
Hannah had to bite her lip not to shoo her mum away. For the first time since she’d had Jemima, she wished that she had a flat of her own – somewhere chic and minimalist – where she’d maybe pour a glass of wine and they’d sit around her glistening Mac computer and talk business and strategy.
‘One sugar please, Mrs Barker.’ Emily smiled and Hannah’s mum almost blushed with delight. Hannah had a flash of memory of Emily at school – Queen Bee, terrifying, perfect – the whole place wrapped around her little finger. Grown-up – by the looks on her mum and Dylan’s faces – she clearly still had it, but it was as if her edges had been rounded off. Smoothed down over the years. She wondered if that came more from navigating the harsh waters of Hollywood or from settling down with ‘The One’.
‘So, Hannah, do you remember a girl called Jane Williams – lived on Cherry Pie, still does. Mum was fabric designer?’
Hannah shook her head but Dylan sat forward and said, ‘Yeah I do. She was at school. Couple of years below me. Mum was fabulous but bonkers.’
‘Dyl, you can’t say things like that.’ Hannah bashed him on the leg.
‘Oh no one’s listening,’ he said with a roll of his eyes. ‘She would stand outside the gates in great long patterned coats and scarfs. Hair all…’ he made a movement with his hands to show it was all over the place.
Emily nodded. ‘That’s the one. Anyway, when her mum passed away, Jane took over the business, yada yada yada, and is currently designing some of the freshest fabrics you’ve ever seen in your life. Like she came in tod
ay for a presentation and the whole room was just awe-inspired. She took a year to go travelling recently and you can just see it in the work. Look…’ Emily reached into her bag for a portfolio, then handed it over to Hannah. ‘Have a quick flick through.’
Hannah’s mum came in with the tea and biscuits which she laid on the coffee table. ‘Here you go, Emily,’ she said handing her a mug which Hannah noticed was from the set kept on the top shelf for best. But then her eye was distracted by the portfolio and she didn’t hear any more of the chit-chat.
The fabrics were stunning, the designs beautiful. Pages of cascading colour and texture that made her eyes widen. Patterns that were crying out to become clothing, that her brain could already see changing and morphing, coming to life as they rippled when worn. At the start there were simple Indian-inspired florals and hand-blocked repeat patterns in colourways that caused an immediate stirring of the senses. Then, as she worked her way through the workbook, the prints became bolder; Japanese and Scandinavian-inspired designs printed digitally, some way-out and kitsch, others more pared back with pops of vivid colour. In other fabrics she’d overlaid digital with traditional hand block printing and then started to vary her textures. There were dark velvets inked with vibrant tangerine, neutral linens printed with images that could have been inspired by Annie’s wedding – deer and bunnies half hidden by giant green leaves, and, Hannah’s favourite, the palest grey wool printed with barely visible feathers like dandelion seeds against a rainy sky.
‘It’s amazing,’ she said, closing the book. ‘Her work’s amazing.’ The last time she’d felt as inspired was walking round a couture retrospective at the V&A. She could feel her heart actually beating faster.
Dylan leant forward and clicked his fingers for her to hand him the portfolio. Hannah’s mum went to sit next to him on the sofa to look through it with him.
‘Isn’t it?’ Emily said, taking a sip of her tea. ‘Great cuppa, Mrs Barker.’ Then, putting the cup down on a coaster she clasped her hands together, her elbows rested on her knees, and said, ‘I’m looking for a designer. It’s not a big project, we’re starting really slow, but we’ve approached a couple of the big stores about the idea of accessories and a small capsule collection and the feedback’s been positive. It’ll be under my brand but I will make no bones about the fact I won’t be designing. I’m not a designer. I might have a crack at the handbags but if they’re crap then I will more than happily step aside. The clothes though, I want someone fresh. Someone who suits these fabrics. And I also want someone I can trust and someone I can champion. It’ll be shitloads of work, it’ll be really hard and I can’t even guarantee that it will take off at the end of it all, but I want to try.’
Hannah was nodding along. Most of her brain thinking that there was a bit Emily hadn’t got to yet that might involve Hannah. A teeny-tiny section wondering if it was too stupid to be assuming that perhaps she might be about to ask her to design it. The thought of the latter too overwhelming, too exciting, too wishful to allow it proper brain surface area. It was like the bridesmaid dresses – Emily had thrown the idea into the air of Hannah designing them at Annie’s wedding but never got in touch about them afterwards. Knowing to take all this kind of chat with a pinch of salt, she said, ‘That all sounds really interesting. And great that you’ve got those fabrics.’
She could feel her brother watching her.
‘I know, isn’t it?’ Emily said, picking up a custard cream biscuit to dunk in her tea. ‘But, as yet, I don’t have a designer.’
‘No?’ Hannah asked.
‘No.’ Emily shook her head. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ she said, paused and then looked Hannah straight in the eye. ‘I was thinking that maybe you might be able to recommend somebody. Ask around? I figured you’d have much better design contacts than me,’ she said, sucking the centre out of the damp custard cream.
Hannah wondered if she had visibly deflated.
Who’d she been trying to kid? She’d been fully hoping Emily was about to ask her to do it. But of course she wouldn’t ask her. She was a recent design graduate with a handful of dresses under her belt.
‘Yeah, definitely,’ Hannah said with a nod. ‘I can ask around.’ Then, in an attempt to cover her disappointment, she leant forward, picked up a custard cream and ate it almost in one.
‘Hannah!’ Emily said, dunking the second half of her biscuit. ‘I’m joking. That was a joke. Ha ha. I didn’t think you’d believe me. I haven’t just driven all the way out here to ask you to ask around. I can ask around. I have people who ask around. I want you to do it, you doofus. You’ve gotta believe in yourself a bit more! What do you say?’
Hannah, a bit worried that this might be another joke, a joke on a joke, didn’t know what to say. And whatever she did want to say was hampered by the biscuit she was trying to chew in her suddenly dry mouth. As she tried desperately to swallow, her brother leant forward and said, ‘She says yes.’
Emily clapped her hands together with delight, just as Hannah nodded, swallowed and said, ‘Yes. I say yes.’
‘Marvellous. Marvellous. Ooh, I think I’ll have another custard cream to celebrate. Oh no, actually I shouldn’t, I won’t fit into my wedding dress. It’s the most unforgiving design, I can see now why people have those bodices that suck you in, hides all the bloody lumps.’ Emily was nattering on to the group of them, everyone nodding and laughing politely in an attempt to play it cool when, underneath it all, they were all silently high-fiving and waiting to pop open the champagne.
Hannah’s brain was whirring off on its own, cataloguing the chain of events like dominos that had led her here. It was as if the more she had welcomed the world back into her life, the more possibility it gave of amazing stuff back. She had thrown her line back in and it was biting.
‘OK, speaking of weddings, I’ve gotta go, I have so much to organise. Well not me actually, the wedding planner has so much to organise, but everything she has to organise has to be relayed back to me – very slowly and methodically.’ Emily rolled her eyes. ‘I’m like, why can’t you just get on with it. Just do it, that’s what I pay you for. I have no attention span,’ she said, gathering up her bag and Jane’s portfolio and starting to head to the door, followed by Hannah’s mum and Hannah, who was thinking that she should say more about how she wouldn’t let Emily down, that she was so grateful for the opportunity, but Emily seemed to be quite happy chatting away on her own.
‘But actually, the only decision she did make without telling me was a complete disaster. Hannah, it’s her fault about the bridesmaids’ dresses. I said to her that I’d found someone who could make them and she said she’d already got them actioned. Actioned? Who says actioned? She does. She’s a bit of a pain, to be honest. But anyway, sorry about that, blame Olga. She’s terrifying.’
Emily had reached the front door and as she opened it and stepped out onto the front porch she said, ‘Time to quit your job, honeybunch. I’ll get my assistant to set up a meeting to talk terms. I’m so pleased, Hannah, I’m so, so pleased that this is happening. I’m really pleased that Annie got you to do her dress. She has an eye for great things.’ She smiled, then said, ‘Just look at Matt,’ with a wink and started rummaging in her bag for her car keys. ‘Oh we can chat about it all on my hen do,’ she added, keys in hand. ‘Are you coming? Have I told you about it? You have to come. Two nights, New York. August is the best time to go in my opinion – the weather’s glorious. And I’m paying. It’ll be a blast.’
‘New York?’ Hannah repeated, just to be clear.
‘It’s my favourite city. Annie’s coming. Holly can’t make it, but Jane’s coming so you can put it down as a business trip. What do you say?’
Hannah frowned. ‘Urm.’ She couldn’t go to New York for three days.
‘She says yes,’ said her mum.
‘Oh goodie,’ said Emily with another little clap, and with a kiss on Hannah’s cheek, then one for her mum, and then one for Jemima who came running to the door
to say goodbye, she was off down the path, her heels clicking on the paving stones, and a second later her vintage-green Merc was roaring off down the leafy street.
Hannah and her mum stayed where they were for a second as she shut the door. Her mum with a big grin on her face, Hannah with her hands up to her temples. ‘Oh my god,’ Hannah said.
Her mum just kept smiling.
‘Oh my god,’ she said again. ‘I can’t believe that just happened. Do you think it will happen?’
‘It’ll happen,’ said her mum, beaming. ‘See, all your work is paying off. And she’s right, you need to believe in yourself.’
‘Maybe she just asked me because I’m her friend?’ Hannah said.
‘Hannah, people don’t make big business decisions like that based on friendship. If she didn’t think you were good enough she sure as hell wouldn’t ask you to do it.’
Hannah shook her head and then looked up at her mum. ‘No?’
‘No. Her reputation is at stake.’
‘Maybe.’ Hannah nodded, trying to allow it all to sink in. ‘I can’t go to New York though. I’ve never left Jemima for that long.’
‘Well,’ said her mum, steering her into the kitchen where Dylan was already dusting off the champagne glasses. ‘It’s about time you did. She’ll have a wonderful time here with us, get spoilt rotten, and you’ll have a wonderful time in…’
‘New York City, baby!’ Dylan cut in, and the cork on the champagne popped and Jemima yelped with delight at the bubbles and Hannah gave her mum a big hug and then screwed her eyes up tight for just a second to try and make the moment last for ever.
Chapter Thirteen
New York was all so big and so bright. Exactly like the movies. In the cab Hannah had watched the skyscrapers appear, the view almost unreal it was so familiar. As if a theatre backdrop had been rolled down from the sky. She’d opened her window to breathe in the warm air but the cab driver had shouted about the air conditioning so she’d closed it again. The noise had distracted Emily, who had been nattering on to Annie and Hannah while simultaneously texting and she’d glanced up from her phone. Annie had stopped rummaging through her bag on her lap and looked up too and there was a moment when all three of them were silent, just watching as the view of the New York skyline unfolded. No thoughts in Hannah’s head of homesickness and jet lag, just a realisation that this was a weekend like no other weekend in her life would ever be. She’d been a bit tearful leaving Jemima and her mum at the airport but now, seeing this, she was in the moment. She was in New York.
