Rosie’s towering shoes were difficult to walk in but Holly was right that they had an effect. As Holly had promised, Clare made it across the dining room without falling over. And as she did so, Clare couldn’t help but notice that Melanie took a good look at her new footwear. Thank goodness Clare was the kind of girl who never skipped a pedicure. While her own wardrobe might have been exclusively blue, black and grey, Clare’s toenails were always a vibrant red. It was her little secret. That day, her painted toes really came into their own. Melanie didn’t have so much to say about Clare’s outfit now.
This time, when Guy Braddington called Clare up to the stage, she was ready for him. Rosie’s sky-high shoes made it an absolute necessity for Clare to walk slowly, but the height of them also meant that she was no longer in danger of tripping over the maxi skirt. There was now a good clear inch between the hem and the ground. Still Clare was grateful for the lectern. Once she was able to hold onto it, she felt altogether more secure.
The crowd looked up expectantly and the way to open the speech came to Clare in a flash.
‘When I first joined Cyber Intel Solutions, I was fresh from university. I had never had a proper job before. I had been on work placements, of course, but this was for real. I was being paid. Suddenly, my mistakes would cost money. I was terrified. But I was very fortunate to be paired with an excellent mentor, who took me to lunch one day in my second month and asked how I was getting on. I told him I was worried that people would find out I didn’t know what I was doing. I told him that every time I stood in front of a client, I worried they would realize I was a fraud.’
“‘Everyone feels like that,’ was what my mentor told me. ‘We’re all just actors, playing a role. Every morning,’ he said. ‘I put on my suit and I hope no-one will notice that I’d rather be at home painting my miniature soldiers. That’s what you’ve got to do, Clare. Just put on the costume and go for it.’”
‘In fact, he went so far as to tell me that I should dress for the job I wanted, rather than the one I had. So today, I am dressed for the job of Hawaiian representative of Cyber Intel Solutions. Let me know when the position becomes free.’
The audience laughed.
Clare started up her PowerPoint presentation and this time it worked.
‘How did I do?’ Clare asked Holly as she came off stage.
‘Brilliant. You absolutely rocked it. You had them eating out of the palm of your hand.’
‘I did?’
‘Of course! I wouldn’t lie to you. I was very proud of you up there. You were confident and you were colourful. You were like a parrot among pigeons. No-one is going to forget your presentation in a hurry, that’s for sure.’
Clare gave Holly a quick squeeze.
‘Thank you. It’s like you said, I just had to put some conviction behind the look. I tried to imagine how my sister would do it. And as soon as I got going, I could forget about what I was wearing. Though I feel like bursting into tears right now.’
Holly looked concerned.
‘In a good way,’ Clare said quickly. ‘I’m just so relieved it’s all over.’
‘So, what are you wearing to the dinner tonight?’ Holly asked.
‘Crikey. I haven’t had a chance to think about it but I guess it’s going to have to be something colourful.’
‘Like me to help you choose?’
Clare was extremely relieved at the suggestion.
For that evening’s dinner, Holly helped Clare choose and accessorise the perfect outfit. She picked out a knee-length dress in the kind of hot pink that could sear your eyeballs. Clare would never have chosen that colour in a million years. Not even for a pair of socks. What surprised her when she actually had the dress on was how good it looked with her skin tone. Though of course, that shouldn’t have been a surprise at all, given that she and Rosie had the exact same shade of skin. It was easy to forget that fact when Rosie was always changing the colour of her hair and plastering her skin with make-up. Clare and Rosie hadn’t shared the same natural hair colour for almost fifteen years.
Now the pink of the dress was reflected in Clare’s pale cheeks, making her look as though she was wearing subtle make-up though she hadn’t been anywhere near a blusher brush. Still Holly showed Clare how to add some extra oomph to her make-up for the evening.
‘This is too much,’ said Clare, as Holly layered on highlighter and foundation and blusher.
‘Not when you get downstairs. Under the soft lights in the ballroom, this make-up will be perfect.’
It was hard to imagine. Clare had always been intimidated by make-up counters. The bored looking girls who held dominion over the myriad eye-shadows and lipsticks never usually glanced in Clare’s direction, even if she was already holding up a plain black mascara and ready to pay. On those rare occasions when she did dare to ask for advice, Clare usually wished she hadn’t. There was nothing worse than sitting on a high stool in the middle of a department store aisle while a girl fresh out of school offered you expensive high-tech products to solve problems you didn’t even know you had.
‘You’ve got lovely skin,’ said Holly, full of admiration. ‘What do you use on it?’
‘Soap and water,’ said Clare.
‘Damn,’ said Holly. ‘I had an awful feeling you would say that.’
By the time Holly had finished with her, Clare barely recognized herself but she was pleasantly surprised to discover that she did actually like the stranger in the mirror. The mascara and eye-lash curlers made Clare’s eyes look so much bigger. The blusher on her cheeks made her look as though she’d been on holiday for a week. She looked rested and happy. She looked great. Holly was pleased with how her efforts had turned out.
‘Now work that wonderful dress! I shall be watching to see the heads turning as you walk into the room.’
Clare was feeling pretty damn good about herself, until she saw that she had been put on a table with Melanie.
Melanie was wearing a little black dress. It was cut close to her body. Not so close that it would every be considered tarty but close enough to remind everyone that Melanie spent at least an hour a day in the gym. It was the kind of dress that Clare made a bee-line for every time she went shopping for something new. Suddenly, the pink dress that had seemed like so much fun when she and Holly were laughing in Clare’s room, seemed wrong again. She burned with embarrassment as Melanie gave her a once over and smiled in a way that could only be interpreted as pitiful.
‘You really have embraced this colour blocking thing this season. It’s very… brave.’
Clare gave a small nod in response.
‘I like it,’ said a man across the table. He wasn’t someone Clare had met before but she could tell by the way that Melanie’s pitying smile was suddenly frozen that his opinion must matter. He was important.
‘You girls are always wearing black, black, black. Sure, we get that it’s sophisticated but doesn’t it ever get a little bit boring?’
‘It may get boring,’ said Melanie. ‘But at least it’s never inappropriate.’
Clare understood at once that Melanie was referring to her stand on the podium.
‘Looking pretty is never inappropriate,’ said the man.
Clare couldn’t help smiling at that. Even though the man then back-tracked furiously.
‘Not that I mean anything by saying that, of course. Obviously, in the work environment, I can see why you might want to be able to know that nobody, but nobody, is judging you on your looks.’
The fear of flirtation being misinterpreted as sexual harassment was alive and kicking at Cyber Intel Solutions.
‘Of course,’ said Clare. ‘But thank you,’ she mouthed at her new friend.
‘I’m Dustin Marshall. Texas office.’ He held out his hand towards her.
Clare recognized the name of one of the company’s rising stars. As she glanced towards Melanie, she saw her rival’s mouth tighten with disapproval. Al Dustin’s attention was on Clare.
Melan
ie quickly moved the conversation onto topics with which she was far more comfortable - mostly herself - but Clare could tell that Melanie had been wrong-footed by their colleague’s compliment on Clare’s appearance. At one point, Melanie disappeared to the ladies’ room. When she came back, Clare noticed at once that she had pulled the neckline of her dress a little lower and put on some more lipstick.
But at the end of dinner, Dustin Marshall gave Clare his card.
‘There’s a project in my department that could be of interest to you,’ he said.
He didn’t have a card left over for Melanie. He said she could look him up on the company intranet. Melanie scowled and left the table, leaving Clare to negotiate a visit to the Texas office as soon as possible.
Chapter Sixteen
First thing the following morning for Rosie, last thing at night for Clare, the sisters found themselves having a text conversation.
‘How are you getting on with my suitcase?’ Rosie asked.
‘Not half as badly as I expected,’ Clare replied.
‘What have you been wearing today?’
‘I wore your blue dress for my presentation and the pink dress for dinner. They seemed to make a good impression.’
‘Oh, I love that pink dress. I was going to wear it to the wedding ceremony today.’
‘What will you wear to the ceremony?’
‘Your navy blue cardigan.’
‘Just the cardigan?’
‘Sort of. Ed made it into a halter neck dress.’
Clare had to phone to find out what Rosie meant by that.
‘It won’t damage the cardi,’ Rosie promised. ‘But it’s so long, I can put it on like a skirt and wrap the sleeves around my neck. Everything else you’ve got is too… full coverage.’
Clare managed not to protest that the sleeves would almost certainly be stretched.
‘Will you send me a picture?’ she asked.
‘Of course. So long as you send me one of you wearing my stuff too.’
‘I’ll do it right now.’
Clare hung up to snap a photograph of herself in the pink, which she texted to Rosie. Rosie called her back at once.
‘You look amazing!’
‘Thank you. You know, I thought this would be a total nightmare but it’s actually turning out to be OK.’
Clare told Rosie about her new friend, Holly, who had helped her see Rosie’s wardrobe in a new light and the Texan colleague who had been charmed by her new look. Rosie told Clare about the walk to the top of the hill.
‘You went for a walk?’
‘I would never have been able to do that in my own shoes.’
‘You’re not kidding,’ said Clare. ‘In your shoes, I feel like I need a coterie of manservants carrying me wherever I want to go.’
‘But they look great, don’t they?’
Clare had to admit that they did. She admired her toes in Rosie’s gold sandals. ‘They may be difficult to walk in, but the effect they have on other people is amazing. I do believe I’ve actually turned heads tonight. All because I had to wear your clothes.’
‘And I might have found my perfect exercise because I had to wear your brand new trainers.’
‘Who did you go for a walk with?’ Clare asked. ‘It can’t be Ed. He’s even more allergic to exercise than you are.’
‘It wasn’t Ed,’ said Rosie. She told her sister about Joe. ‘We’re going for another walk this morning. Before the wedding.’
Clare voiced her approval.
‘He sounds like a suitable boy.’ Then she said, ‘I suppose I ought to go to bed. Busy day ahead. There’s one thing about having your suitcase. It takes me ages to accessorise.’
Having finished her call, Rosie put Clare’s workout gear on again and skipped down to breakfast in her sister’s training shoes. Joe was already there, drinking orange juice and reading the news on an iPad. Everyone else was still languishing in bed, sleeping off one hangover before they started work on another.
‘Excellent,’ said Joe. ‘You’re here. I thought I was going to have to go for a walk on my own.’
‘No way,’ said Rosie. ‘I want to make the most of the day.’
‘And it’s going to be a scorcher, so we should take advantage of this coolness before the sun gets high.’
‘Ready when you are,’ said Rosie, picking a bottle of water and a banana from the breakfast buffet.
That morning, Joe led Rosie along a path that took them through the vineyards. There was a haze over the vines. It was as though the countryside had been dressed for a film. It was so beautiful and so tranquil. In the early morning, the sounds were muted. They could hear the high calls of the sparrows and the sound of goat-bells and it was easy to imagine how this place might have been hundreds of years before. Until the illusion was shattered by the traditional Italian car horn, of course. Still, it was perfect. And when Joe took Rosie’s hand to help her over a stile, he held it for a little longer than he needed to, she was sure.
Chapter Seventeen
The wedding of Keira and Adrian took place at midday in the little village church. As he had promised, Ed worked magic with Clare’s cardigan and created for Rosie a perfectly lovely little dress. Joe was extremely complimentary.
The marriage ceremony itself was magical. Keira and Adrian had decorated the country church with wild flowers. Keira had woven more of the same blooms into her hair. Her dress was vintage, nineteen-twenties style in satin with a delicate lace overlay. The little bridesmaids were simply darling in their peach-coloured dresses (Rosie would tease Keira about the colour later on). They sat through the long service without so much as a murmur of boredom (unlike some of the adult guests).
Outside the church, a horse and carriage waited to take the bride and groom to the reception. As she climbed onto the carriage, Keira threw her wild-flower bouquet. Rosie caught it.
‘I would have thought you would be too busy worrying about your nails,’ said Ed.
‘Not any more,’ Rosie winked. ‘Two days without my make-up bag and I’m a changed woman.’
Then she caught sight of Joe watching her and blushed to her roots.
‘Watch out, Joe,’ Ed shouted, earning himself a dig in the ribs.
Lunch was another delicious affair in the marquee. The local restaurant pulled out all the stops. But it was that evening that everyone was looking forward to most.
The party that night was to be the biggest event of Keira’s wedding weekend. The theme was ‘glamour’. Rosie had intended to wear the most treasured outfit in her entire wardrobe: her tutu. Alas, that ancient ballet skirt would not be going to the ball.
Rosie had not really looked at the dress folded at the bottom of Clare’s suitcase. It was black. That was all she needed to know. Everything in Clare’s case was black or navy and black wasn’t a colour that Rosie ever associated with good times.
However, Ed saw the dress differently.
‘This,’ he said, lifting the Donna Karan dress from its tissue paper wrap. ‘Is really rather special.’
‘It’s yet more black,’ said Rosie.
‘Yes. But look at how it’s cut. It’s been done so cleverly. I just know you’re going to look a knock-out once you’ve got this on.’
The dress was not something Rosie would ever have chosen for herself. It had no ‘hanger appeal’. It was impossible to imagine oneself inside it. And yet, as she felt the silk jersey slithering over her skin, Rosie allowed herself to believe that Ed might be right. And when she looked in the mirror...
‘Wow,’ said Ed. ‘Just wow.’
There was nothing plain about this plain black dress of Clare’s at all. The cut of it followed Rosie’s curves without clinging to them. It transformed her body. She felt like a bombshell.
‘It’s so well-cut, you need hardly any accessories at all,’ said Ed. ‘Take that necklace off. Have you got any plain hoops?’
Rosie removed the cubic zirconia dangles from the earrings she was wearing, so that only th
e gold hoops remained.
‘You hair needs to be sophisticated. Shall I fix it for you?’
Rosie agreed and Ed quickly pinned her hair up in a French plait.
‘This is perfect. Just perfect. It’s like that moment in My Fair Lady when Henry Higgins realizes he’s made a lady of Eliza Doolittle at last.’
‘You mean I wasn’t a lady before?’
‘Of course you were, my darling, but you know what I mean. Right now you look so wonderful, you could even turn me straight.’
‘Oh Ed.’ Rosie punched him on the arm. ‘It’s still me underneath it all, you know.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Something’s different. You’re oozing this strange serenity all of a sudden. I don’t believe I’ve ever had the opportunity to describe you as serene before.’
‘You know what,’ said Rosie. ‘I do feel oddly serene. And I’ve been doing some thinking. I need to try to hang on to this feeling when I get back to London. I need to try to be like my sister in more ways than by wearing her dress. An outfit like this calls for dignified behavior. Less boozing.’
‘What? No prosecco?’ Ed asked.
‘Just less of it than usual. I know I’ve been using the booze as a crutch. But yesterday’s nightmare lunch with Nathan was a real eye-opener with regard to what other people think of me. I don’t want to be that girl anymore. The one everyone is just waiting to see fall off her chair. I’ve dressed like a clown and been the butt of everyone’s jokes for too long.’
Ed was actually dabbing at his eyes by this point.
‘I see now that everyone has left me behind. Keira’s married. You’re all growing up and I’ve been clinging on to the past. I think it’s because I’ve been frightened. Frightened of failure mostly. I need to make some changes.’
‘Rosie,’ said Ed. ‘You’re one of my dearest friends but I can’t wait to meet the new you.’
This time, as she walked into the party, Rosie did turn heads again. She was aware of the eyes of every guest in the room upon her once more, but not because they were aghast at her latest colour combo. She saw envy in the eyes of the women and flat-out admiration in the eyes of the men. Joe actually paused in taking a sip of champagne, as though the sight of Rosie had frozen him to the spot. After a moment, he put his glass down and let a huge smile spread across his face. He mouthed one word in her direction, ‘Amazing.’
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