The Note: An uplifting, life-affirming romance about finding love in an unexpected place

by Zoë Folbigg

  James looks back down at his phone and presses the button that sends it to sleep.

  *

  Maya gives the clock in the top right-hand corner of her monitor a quick glance: 5.31 p.m.

  I’m outta here.

  She throws on a belted wool coat and slings her bag over her shoulder. It is Wednesday and all day Maya has been anxious about whether the column will run today, as it did last week, or Thursday as was originally planned. So far today there haven’t been any outrageous gasps or whispers in the canteen, or people walking apace through the glass double doors and around the quadrangle of the building towards Rich Robinson’s office.

  Maybe tomorrow.

  Just to be sure, as she heads out of FASH HQ, Maya picks up a paper, from the vendor on the corner of Portman Square. She tucks it into her bag and walks with haste to meet Nena at Liberty. Ankle boots click as Maya thinks about the wedding accessories she’s about to help Nena pick out. Hair jewels, purses, shoes, stoles. Maya thinks back to last weekend and how she made a grown man cry. She thinks about what next week’s column should be about. Week one was an introduction to a fashion empire and a few key characters, but mostly the Horrible Boss who belittled her own team and said her favourite pastime was to unfollow people on Twitter. Week two is more about the fashion vernacular. The terms Fifi Fashion Insider hears on a daily basis and how, well, fluffy her job is. That took Maya longer to write than she thought it would because she couldn’t use any of the terms FASH actually use, or the looks, trends or campaigns she herself created at work, so it was like doing her job twice over. Maya did come up with ‘Hell Yeah Partywear’ and wished she could nick that in real life. But it made for a more fun, less bitchy column, which Maya enjoyed writing.

  As she turns off Oxford Street onto Argyle Street and sees the monochromatic castle in front of her, she decides to hold that thought, maybe ask Nena for column inspiration after they’ve sorted out her wedding kit and caboodle.

  The doors revolve and Maya snakes through the beauty hall to where Nena is sitting in a chair while a make-up artist strokes her face.

  ‘You’re having a makeover?’ Maya asks, stating the obvious.

  ‘I won’t be long, I just realised I need someone to show me how not to do my make-up like a clown. I can’t get away with red cheeks and glittery green eyes on my wedding day.’

  A woman dressed head-to-toe in black smiles politely but carries on putting taupes and beiges and neutral shades over excited eyes.

  ‘This is my friend who works in fashion,’ says Nena, as if they’ve already been talking about Maya. ‘She’s helping me sort out the rest of my outfit, so I don’t end up in my ballet Blochs.’

  Maya laughs. ‘Do you think your dad will walk you down the aisle en pointe?’

  Nena gives a punchy cackle, unsteadying the steady hand of the Laura Mercier girl.

  ‘Sorry.’ Nena says through pursed lips.

  The make-up artist smiles and swipes a peach gloss over a naturally raspberry pout, then breaks her silence.

  ‘Did you see that thing in the Standard last week about the girl who works in fashion?’

  ‘No I didn’t,’ Nena lies, giving her friend a sideways look from the vice-like grip of brushes and a gloss wand.

  ‘Oh it was proper funny. A girl who works for FASH or Garment Guru or wherever, she was spilling the beans on what it’s like to work there. My friend who works at Walk In Wardrobe said it was spot-on. All these models walking around in rollers and thongs while she tries to book a courier. And a really mean boss.’

  Maya laughs nervously and deftly changes the subject. ‘You must get some real characters walking through here?’

  The make-up artist looks away from her canvas for the first time since Maya arrived.

  ‘Oh definitely. Some good celeb spots too. I’ve done a few famous faces. Actually you look a bit familiar,’ she says, turning back to Nena.

  Maya breathes a sigh of relief. She’s not sure if she can do this beyond the four weeks Tiffanie Doyle commissioned, it’s stressing her out enough as it is.

  *

  ‘What do you think?’ Nena asks in the duck-egg and glass grandeur of the second-floor cafe.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  Maya hesitates while she chooses her words. She finds it harder than Nena to be candid.

  ‘I don’t think you look like… you.’

  Nena looks disappointed and pouts. ‘Oh. But this is the classy, ladylike me. Nena 2.0.’

  ‘But Tom wants to marry the Nena he fell in love with. It’s as if that make-up artist took all the natural brightness out of your face and toned it down in a veil of beige.’ Maya feels bad. ‘Glitter doesn’t look ridiculous on you when your blank canvas is so amazing in the first place. It just accentuates an already existing sparkle.’

  Nena blushes, mutedly.

  ‘Right, so what did we get?’ asks Maya.

  ‘Nothing for me! But I love your hair jewel, and the stole is gorgeous. But I think I need one too. A bride with her baps out does not look cool on a brisk December afternoon.’

  ‘Well here, try the one I bought, if you like it, you have it and I’ll find something different.’

  ‘You’re so sweet, Maya. But don’t be silly, you found it first.’

  ‘You’re the bride. Surely the bride gets first dibs.’

  Nena clicks her fingers and whips her neck, pretending to be a diva. Hair piled high in a confection-like bun comes undone from its own twist and swooshes into perfect position. Black, straight, shiny.

  The girls laugh as a disinterested waiter arrives with two pink lemonades. Happy that the wedding is bringing them back closer together.

  ‘Anyway, I need to know, are you bringing a certain “plus one” to the wedding? Tom and I are doing the seating plan tonight. Do we save a place for Kisschase Boy on the top table?’

  Maya winces apologetically.

  ‘Just think of the cost saving,’ she offers sheepishly through gritted teeth.

  ‘Oh no! What happened?’

  ‘What didn’t happen, I think is more accurate.’

  ‘What didn’t happen?’ Nena clasps hands to her face, enormous disappointed eyes waiting above them. Maya sighs. Nena groans. ‘But Kisschase Boy sounded so romantic!’

  ‘It was romantic. When I was eleven. But he was a bit stuck back there.’ Maya stirs her pink lemonade with a stripy straw. ‘Stuck in a time of kiss chase and drawing my face on Wonder Woman’s body… we didn’t really have any spark in the here and now.’

  ‘How did you end it?’

  ‘He brought me to the theatre on Saturday night,’ Maya says, nodding in the direction of Covent Garden. ‘The Lion King – which was amazing – but he was watching my face all the way through, the way he did when we watched the film as kids. I dunno, it felt a bit… creepy.’

  ‘Oh Maya!’

  ‘I know, I know, I feel bad.’ She takes her stripy straw and sips through small rounded lips. ‘He cried.’

  ‘He cried? After what, three dates?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Well now I don’t feel sorry him. What a pussy! And yeah, that’ll save Felipe and Victoria a hundred quid. Go Maya.’

  Maya can’t help feeling like she’s let the side down. She did really try.

  ‘I haven’t told Clara yet – she’s going to be really miffed.’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Cressida clings to the first edition of today’s Evening Standard. It must have only hit the newsstand half an hour ago, which means Cressida was poised, waiting, and within just thirty minutes she has devoured Fifi Fashion Insider, become incensed, and called the editorial team back in meeting room 1.1 for another rollicking. This time without Lucy in charge. Maya looks at her watch.

  The vanity of the woman! I bet you think this column’s about you.

  ‘It’s a blatant snub of everyone who works here, which means it’s mocking each and every one of you around this table,’ she says
in a dreary whine. Cressida is wearing a white shirt and mom jeans, with a varsity jacket slung over rangy shoulders. ‘Let me read you an excerpt from this trash…’ Cressida tucks her hair behind her ear, enjoying the audience: ‘“Walking up the stairs in summer it’s hard not to be hit in the eye by the pendulous bum cleavage in front of you dangling from high-cut high-waisted 90s denim shorts coming up a conveyor belt of polyester and pouts…” – I mean, that sounds like here. We have stairs.’

  ‘Lots of buildings have stairs,’ deadpans Olivia.

  Cressida’s face flushes as red as Olivia’s hair. ‘Olivia, you’re doing a pretty good job of making me think you’re the perp here. All this cynicism about fashion, and being mean about models – and people who actually give a shit what they look like.’

  ‘Whoa,’ interjects Maya. She sat and watched once, she can’t do it again. ‘Cressida, let’s not go there again.’

  Olivia locks eyes with Cressida and smirks, goading Cressida to go that bit further so she can take her to a tribunal. Cressida is silent. Lips poised and pouting, disgusted by treachery.

  ‘Well I don’t know why it’s rattled you so much, Cressida,’ Olivia snipes. ‘Only you would think it’s about you.’

  ‘It’s not about me, I would never wear denim hot pants.’

  Olivia throws down her notebook and waves exasperated arms into the air.

  ‘You don’t get it though do you? It doesn’t matter if Fifi Fashion Insider is you, me, Alex… it’s just someone having a laugh at the ridiculousness of this bubble. About the frivolity of fashion. About how humourless some people are. And it’s the people who don’t have a sense of humour who are getting so rattled by it. Look around you! This is all so fucking lightweight, let’s not pretend it’s anything but!’ Olivia finishes with a laugh, killing any possible accusation of aggression in her efforts to trip Cressida up, to make her cross the line.

  ‘Are you kidding, Olivia?’ Cressida spits with a scowl on her pale brow. ‘Party season is upon us. Our customers have been planning their wardrobe for months. They come to us to for direction so they know what to wear…’

  ‘“Hell Yeah Partywear” apparently,’ pipes up peacemaker Alex, trying to lift the mood. Maya smiles to herself.

  Cressida gives Alex a sideways glance and continues.

  ‘Sales go through the roof during party season. But they won’t if the very people employed here to move fashion forward and sell as many party dresses as possible think they’re above it, that they’re beyond fashion, and are holding business back. Rich Robinson pays your salary, you work for a fashion retailer. If you don’t like it, get out.’

  As Cressida says ‘out’ a tiny bubble of spit shoots from her mouth and onto the illustration of Fifi Fashion Insider on the table in front of her.

  Maya’s phone pings. She grabs it before anyone sees the screen.

  ‘Well how about that?’ Maya says. ‘Emma’s had a girl! 8lbs 10oz, Lola Felicity. How wonderful!’

  *

  Maya rests her head on the inside of the Superior Train window. She’s so tired she doesn’t even think to use her scarf as a protective shield from the fingerprints and food splatters imprinted onto BS 857-TF kitemarked glass.

  Last night, Maya lay on her tummy across the rug on her living-room floor, lit only by the screen of her laptop in the dark, tweeting and retweeting until 1 a.m. from her Fifi Fashion Insider account. Astounded that in just three weeks she has gained 22.4k followers: some prolific, some inspired, some abusive, but all fascinated by Fifi’s column and wanting to know her true identity – and for which fashion empire she works.

  After the fluffy fashion vernacular of week two, Tiffanie Doyle asked Maya to make the next one feel more ‘insider’ again, which Maya knew was code for bitchier. And she knew she wasn’t being asked, she was being told. So, with a feeling of discomfort, and with Herbert Flowers’ disapproving face in her mind’s eye, Maya filed a column about body fascism at FASH.

  ‘Body fascism in fashion is nothing new, Fifi,’ said Tiffanie Doyle in her reply. Maya wasn’t sure if she had got her name wrong deliberately or not. ‘But this is hilarious. I love it. We must extend your contract.’

  It didn’t feel that hilarious to Maya. That Olivia had bravely volunteered herself as a plus-size beach model for a real-life swimwear story and was shot down with a steely glare and the curl of a lip. Of course the details had had to change: Fifi wrote about a ‘strappy summer dresses’ shoot that an overweight marketing manager had put herself forward for, not a picture editor, but Maya couldn’t help feeling that, with this column, the net might close in on Olivia.

  The reaction was immense. Other papers picked up on it. There were debates on Five Live and Woman’s Hour. Everyone reacting to why size was still being swept under the carpet for fashion retailers who sell to women who (mostly) aren’t supermodels. Everyone speculating about who Fifi Fashion Insider is.

  An intern at Wicked Style claimed it was her, but a spokesperson for the Standard denied it and the intern lost her job anyway, without the fanfare or notoriety she was hoping would help her segue into a new career in the media.

  Heat blasts at Maya’s ankles, offsetting the coldness coming through the window against her left temple. Maya was contracted to write four columns, and she filed the fourth yesterday, all about the anticipated excesses of the upcoming office Christmas party based on last year’s hedonism. Maya had to be very creative in changing the details of that particular party. The two Riches on the roof of Shoreditch House with the head of womenswear, five fashion stylists, three naked models and a marmoset could not go in.

  Maya’s lids drop as the train careers towards home, on the fastest stretch of the track. The carriage is quiet. Every seat is taken. But her head is buzzing with questions and subterfuge and how she can continue to cover her back. How only Tom, Nena and Tiffanie Doyle know the real identity of Fifi Fashion Insider, but how with each column she writes she’s closer to tripping up and revealing herself. Faintly freckled lids close and Maya thinks of Velma.

  What would Velma say?

  *

  Maya is walking through a gallery where portraits hang from the walls. Faces of movers, shakers, artists, players. Velma is shuffling along by her side, both women marvelling in slow motion, at the walls, at the bright light above them, at the space around them. Mouths open in wonder. They stop at a photograph of Josephine Baker, standing but reclined, upright but draped. One hand sits on her hip while she extends the other languidly. She dazzles in a silver dress while three men in shiny black bowler hats swoon to catch her fall. Maya can hear the sighs of adoration from the still men’s mouths; gasps of appreciation that are drowned by Velma’s vivacious laugh. Maya turns to Velma but her face is blurred.

  The train thunders down the tracks.

  Maya and Velma are climbing a rickety wooden staircase neither of them have summited before. Rising through floors of a department store, eau de nil green walls spar with rich red carpet underfoot as the chinks of fine china lure them to a tea salon at the top. Velma leans into Maya for support and Maya realises her friend’s frail legs are too unstable to do this alone. Maya extends her arm and invites Velma to hold on; slipper shoes edge up each flight towards a bright celestial light at the top, where the white noise of cheery chatter draws them further up. They rise cautiously, offering each other physical and emotional reassurance and stability, slowing at every landing so Velma can catch her breath, never acknowledging that she needs to. At the top of the stairs, Velma lets out a puff of air. A man in a white suit plays a grand piano with bony fingers and Maya and Velma look on in puzzlement and wonder why they hadn’t heard it on their approach, but are delighted to hear ‘Tea For Two’ tinkling now. On the threshold of the tea salon, staff with white linen draped over their arms carry cake stands and cloches bursting with sandwiches, scones, miniature eclairs and macarons, as they sweep past Maya and Velma like dashing dancers in a golden age Hollywood musical.

  The train s
tarts to slow down on its approach, overhead cables spark with urgency.

  A waitress glides towards Maya and extends a welcoming arm before asking if she’d like to be seated, her congenial smile beckoning them into the salon. Maya turns to Velma in excitement but she is not there.

  The train grinds to a halt and Maya opens her eyes.

  I miss her so very much.

  *

  Maya drops her keys onto the little console table with a satisfactory clatter as she kicks off her boots. Post lies sprawled on the floor. Maya picks it up and flips through today’s offering.

  British Gas bill.

  Shit.

  Pizza delivery leaflet.

  I’m hungry.

  Roadside recovery offer.

  I don’t have a car.

  Boden catalogue.

  I’ve never even ordered from them.

  A letter with a United States Postal Service stamp in the top right corner and Maya’s name and address in an unfamiliar handwritten scrawl. Maya decides to open this one first as she walks up the stairs in stockinged feet.

  Dear Maya,

  I hope this finds you well.

  You made our mother very happy in her final months; she would have wanted you to have this. Do with it what you will, as long as it makes you enormously happy.

  Warmest wishes,

  Christopher

  Three sentences and a friendly sign-off. And a cheque for $100,000 that falls at Maya’s feet as she reaches the top of the stairs. She doesn’t open any of the other post.

  Chapter Fifty

  Maya is a different woman to the one she was when she first met Tiffanie Doyle in the cafe of the health food megastore, just a few weeks ago. Has the money given her an air of calmness and confidence, or was it the fact that a letter from America and a message from the grave enabled Maya to find a solution, just when she most needed Velma’s wisdom?