Beads, Boys and Bangles

by Sophia Bennett

  Apart from that, it’s great news.

  ‘Was Sigrid at the meeting?’ I ask.

  Jenny nods. ‘She was her usual, bouncy self. She said she was totally psyched to be working with us all, and just to treat her like any normal actress. She was wearing a mink jacket.’

  Edie growls. I’ve never heard her growl before. It’s quite scary.

  Jenny goes on. ‘They’re giving us an extra week of rehearsals to let Sigrid get up to speed. The director says he’s decided to make the stepmother character even younger, so she’s twenty-two instead of thirty-two. He says it adds tension to the mother-daughter relationship. And they’ve decided to expand the part slightly, to give Sigrid more to do.’

  ‘How slightly is “slightly”?’ Edie asks.

  I remember the picture of Sigrid and the director coming out of that club. Her dress was minuscule and he was looking extremely happy. I’m betting ‘slightly’ is ‘really quite a lot’.

  ‘She’s coming to rehearsals tomorrow,’ Jenny says. ‘They’ve given us the day off while Bill does some rewriting. She’s already texted me to say how thrilled she is to be acting with me, and that I must have a lot to teach her. I think she did that to everyone.’

  Jenny says this with a straight face, but we all suspect that this is Sigrid-speak for ‘how lucky you are to be working with me and you have so much to learn from me’.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ I tell her, holding out my hand to touch hers. It’s the best I can think of.

  ‘Sure, as long as Sigrid has a personality transplant,’ Edie adds glumly.

  I give her the Look, but she ignores me. She’s too busy looking surprised when Jenny starts crying again.

  On Tuesday, Alexander texts me after school suggesting a club in Chelsea where I happen to know the cocktails cost £100. Mum says I absolutely categorically cannot go. This is a mega-relief, although of course I’d never tell her.

  How many sweaty kisses is a £100 cocktail worth?

  He texts back in the middle of my Romeo and Juliet essay, suggesting an evening viewing at the National Portrait Gallery instead. I happen to love the National Portrait Gallery. If you’re obsessed with clothes it’s perfect: men and women in some of the most incredible fashions through history. And I love evening viewings, when it’s quieter, and the light’s more interesting, and you come out into the London night afterwards.

  I know how it’s going to go. Great date. Lots of interesting conversation. Then a bench somewhere. I’m tempted to say no, but Jenny will be SO full of herself if I do that I can’t bear it. I say yes and pretend to myself that I’m looking forward to it.

  Two seconds later, the phone goes and I think, Oh no, he wants to talk about it. I answer warily. Even more so, when I discover it’s actually Amanda Elat on the other end. What have we done now?

  ‘Hi, Nonie,’ she says brightly, in a sucking-up sort of way. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ I say cautiously.

  ‘Oh, good. How’s Crow?’

  I think this is code for ‘Has Crow said anything about the truly scary experience she had at our offices three days ago?’ And she hasn’t said much on the subject, so I say in code back, ‘Er, fine.’

  ‘Great!’ Amanda bubbles. ‘Fantastic!’

  I wonder if this is code for ‘I’m really sorry we gave you both such a horrible time and please can we start again?’

  But I’m not sure, so I don’t say anything. There’s a long silence over the phone.

  ‘Are you still there?’ she asks, eventually.

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Right.’ She’s panting a bit now. I wish I knew what she wanted so we could get it over with.

  ‘Edie hasn’t changed her mind about the website, I’m afraid,’ I add, to speed things up.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ she says lightly.

  Excuse me? DON’T WORRY?

  We’ve just sat round a big, scary table with lots of people staring at their cappuccinos because what’s happening is so awful they can’t bear to look at us, and then we’ve walked out of the meeting with the super-terrifying supremo who runs the company, and she says, ‘Don’t worry’?

  ‘We’re working on it,’ she says. ‘And I’m sorry about Saturday. But something you said has given us an idea.’

  I stare at the phone. It was weird on Saturday but this is weirder.

  ‘I’ve got some thoughts I’d like to discuss with you,’ she continues. ‘Can you fit in a meeting? I could come to you, if that makes it easier. And Crow’s finalising some party dresses, isn’t she? I bet they’re fabulous. I’d love to see them.’

  Fabulous? What about ‘preposterous’ and ‘disastrous’ and ‘lose me millions’?

  We fix a time for Amanda to come round. When she rings off, I go back up to the top of the house and find Mum in her cubbyhole office, texting on her BlackBerry.

  She sees the look on my face and pauses mid-sentence. ‘What is it, darling?’

  I explain the conversation I’ve just had. Mum laughs.

  ‘Remember when you told Alexander you were too busy to talk to him? What happened next?’

  Three offers of dates is what happened next. And a windy bench.

  ‘You played hard to get. Without meaning to. This is the same story.’

  ‘You mean the Elats are flirting with us?’

  ‘Sort of. Crow’s reminded them how valuable she is to them. She’s just done an incredibly successful high-street collection for them. And what did they do? They invited you both in and made you miserable.’

  ‘Andy said we might lose him millions.’

  ‘He forgot to mention that you might make him millions. He was a clever man to find Crow and he’s clever enough not to let her go.’

  ‘But what about Edie? And the award? And “Cheap Clothes Cost Lives”?’

  Mum smiles. ‘Amanda said she’d fix it, didn’t she? See what she comes up with. Just don’t do anything you don’t believe in.’

  I give Mum a hug and go to my room and sit on my bed, trying to work things out.

  One thing I know for sure: my mum is amazing and a very useful person to know at times like this. She may be slightly too addicted to her BlackBerry, but I love her.

  Everything else is a mess. Why are people nice to you when you’re mean to them? How does that work? And how can Amanda possibly fix the mess with Edie? And what exactly is it I believe in?

  Well, I believe in Crow. I go down to the workroom, where she’s fiddling with a ball-dress made out of green and gold ribbons that’s so lovely you could just sit and stare at it for hours. I tell her what Amanda said, and Mum too.

  ‘What do you think?’ I ask her.

  Crow ponders for a moment.

  ‘I think I’ve unbalanced it by putting this corsage on the shoulder.’

  She starts unpinning and hands the pins to me as she goes. You have to concentrate on this job, or it gets painful.

  ‘I meant about Amanda.’

  ‘We’ll find out when she comes,’ she answers with one of her shrugs.

  ‘Yes, but what d’you think in the meantime?’

  Crow turns to look at me as if I’m crazy and repeats, ‘In the meantime, that corsage wasn’t working. I’ll do something more delicate. With wire, maybe.’

  I’m about to flip out, but then I suddenly realise what she’s saying. She means she’s not going to waste that bit of her brain that could be thinking about corsages by worrying about Amanda Elat, when there’s nothing she can do about it now anyway. As a plan of action, it’s not as dumb as I thought.

  In fact, how about if I used it myself? I could stop worrying about Amanda and use that part of my brain to think about Alexander. And how to manage the whole windy bench scenario. Which, come to think of it, is entirely avoidable if I . . .

  I give Crow a big surprise hug and she screams. Oops. Forgot about the pins. Luckily there’s only a tiny drop of blood on her arm and none of it goes on the dress. She sucks the
wound better and glares at me.

  ‘What?’ she asks accusingly.

  ‘Just that you’re a genius, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ she says, and giggles. ‘You think the wire will work, then?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I call behind me. ‘I’ve got to practise something.’

  Two evenings later, my National Portrait Gallery date with Alexander starts well. He is beautiful. He greets me with a smile and a gentle kiss on my forehead, as he sweeps my hair away from my face. His fingers are as long as ever and they gently touch mine as we walk round the paintings. He waits as I spend ages looking at the Elizabethans, admiring their ruffs and corsets and jewellery. I wait as he spends ages looking at the contemporary portraits of performers, including ballet dancers. I suspect he’s partly planning his own portrait, for when the time comes.

  We talk about ballet and fashion and the usual stuff and it’s lovely. Then he takes me down the street to Trafalgar Square. I see him heading towards a fountain’s edge, where we could possibly sit down in the moonlight. The time has come.

  I initiate ‘Operation Prada’, which I thought up in Crow’s workroom. I have deliberately worn my super-high platforms tonight, even though I suspect Alexander doesn’t really like them. I pretend to twist my ankle and collapse in agony.

  He calls me a taxi. I get in it and he gives me a quick peck on the lips goodbye, looking worried. I smile bravely.

  YES!

  ‘You’re home early,’ Harry says when I get in.

  He’s in the kitchen, making himself some toast and looking sorry for himself.

  ‘I twisted my ankle,’ I explain, putting more bread in the toaster. ‘It’s very painful.’

  Harry looks down at my un-swollen ankle. I’ve forgotten that I cannot lie to my brother. I’ve tried over many years but it rarely works.

  ‘Rubbish kisser?’ he asks.

  HOW DID HE KNOW?

  ‘Svetlana said something,’ he adds with a strange, lopsided smile. ‘A rumour. Not to be repeated, of course.’

  I look up at him sharply. I can’t lie to him and he can’t really hide things from me.

  That look on his face when he mentioned Svetlana. And the way he said ‘said’. Like they’re not talking any more. He’s not looking too cheerful right now, either.

  ‘Everything OK?’ I ask.

  ‘Yup,’ he says.

  We look at each other uncertainly over our toast and then retire to the sitting room to watch reruns of our favourite programmes. But they’re all about relationships or models, so we give up and end up watching something about police cameras, which is so boring we fall asleep in front of it and Mum has to wake us up for bed.

  The next Miss Teen meeting is very different from the last one.

  For a start, it’s in our kitchen, rather than the boardroom, and instead of staring silently at her cappuccino, Amanda starts by chatting in a friendly way about who we’re all going to see at London Fashion Week this time around and how much she’s looking forward to it.

  Then she mentions how pieces from the Jewels collection are already becoming collectors’ items on eBay. Versions of the dress Svetlana wore are being sold for hundreds of pounds – several times the amount they charged for them at Miss Teen. We talk about the magazines that have featured Crow’s party dresses on actresses and It-girls, and how a couple of boutiques are thinking of selling the couture stuff.

  Mum’s right. Amanda’s definitely flirting, in her own, strange way. But why?

  Still with her polite face on, Amanda asks how the new high-street designs are coming along. Crow brings out her sketchbooks and we look through them. They still haven’t changed much. Each one is a riot of textures, colours and Paris-type trimmings and looks just as undoable as ever.

  Maybe she was just lucky with her Jewels collection – that it worked so well for a high-street store. Maybe she can’t really do ‘commercial’ and she should just stick to her normal dresses for party girls who can afford the amazing prices. Maybe I should just stick to helping her with those.

  I asked Crow about changing her style to suit what they said at Miss Teen, and her shrug was almost painful to watch.

  ‘This is what was in my head,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t change it. I’d ask Yvette what to do, but . . .’

  Yvette is now resting in peace in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris and we miss her SO much. We both started getting a bit tearful at this point and changed the subject.

  ‘When do you need everything to be ready by?’ I ask Amanda.

  ‘I’m afraid the original deadline’s gone. We’re too late for a winter launch. We could potentially do a summer one next year. But that means completely new designs. And we can’t really finalise anything until we’ve sorted things out with Edie. Since that blogging award, a few people have actually returned the pieces they bought in December, saying they can’t wear them because they’re not ethical enough. We just can’t risk that happening again.’

  Great! I think, despite myself. Good on them.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I say out loud. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Amanda grins. ‘Nothing! It’s what you’re going to do.’

  She leans back and waits for us to ask her what she means, which we do.

  ‘You’re going to see the truth for yourselves. You said it, Nonie. Edie won’t believe it until she sees it with her own eyes. We’re going to send you to India.’

  WHAT?

  Is there a shop on Oxford Street called India? Or does she mean the country?

  Crow and I both look very confused.

  ‘Mumbai!’ Amanda says. ‘Dad’s arranging for you all to go. You can stay for a few days, look round the factory, see for yourselves and do some sightseeing too. Crow’s very first collection was inspired by the colours of India, wasn’t it? It’ll be good to see them close up.’

  ‘What about school?’ I ask. I hate to do this. It’s awful reminding people you’re only a teenager. But it will be worse to have to say we haven’t got permission to go. And then it really hits me. I go cold and my tummy shrivels. ‘We’ve got GCSEs next term.’

  ‘We’ve thought of that. You’ll go in the Easter holidays,’ she explains. ‘We’ll talk to your parents about exams. Maybe we can get you some extra tuition. And in the meantime, good news! We have a very special client who wants a dress. A special dress for a major occasion and she wants Crow to make it. Dad’s thrilled. This girl is pure publicity. Good publicity.’

  AHA! This is the reason she’s sucking up to us so much. I knew there had to be one. Then everything clicks together. I don’t even bother to ask who it is. I know before she says it.

  ‘It’s Sigrid Santorini again. She’s such a star. Lucky you!’

  It’s February. This time last year, I was putting the finishing touches to Crow’s Fashion Week catwalk show. I was surrounded by notes about models, hair, makeup, music, and requests to be in the front row.

  This year, the invitations to other people’s shows are jammed into the frame of my dressing table mirror – so many I can hardly see myself (which is good, given the total wonkiness of my hair right now). But the only notes I have lying about are revision notes for GCSE mock exams. I have a feeling it’s not going to be as much fun this time.

  We’re planning to go to lots of shows, but going to one and organising one are two different things. I thought I would miss it a bit, but I don’t. I miss it MASSIVELY. I miss it so much it physically hurts. I miss the near panic, the frantic phone calls, the certainty that nothing will be ready, the genius ideas for eyeshadow and shoes, the constant arrival of packages with props, the joy of seeing Crow’s incredible designs coming together into a story that will make people gasp with pleasure. The total, happy exhaustion when it’s over. The feeling of being a working part of the fashion world, instead of on the sidelines, just looking at it.

  Hopefully we’ll get another go, but if we don’t sort things out with Andy in the next few weeks, we can say goodbye
to the kind of budget you need to put on a show. I feel shaky at the niggling thought in the back of my mind that it may never happen again. It’s amazing how quickly you can get addicted to something if you’re not careful.

  It would be nice if somebody asked me how I was coping with being a spectator this year, but nobody does. Everybody seems to have something else on their mind right now.

  Edie is busy making lists of shops we’re not supposed to visit because of their doubtful ethical practices, and checking all the health advice about visiting India. She has ALREADY DONE most of the revision for GCSEs, even though they’re months away, so she’s not particularly worried about the exam part, just excited to travel. Weird. I think I know Edie so well and she surprises me every other day.

  Jenny is busy calling or texting me every five minutes to say her play is changing out of recognition and she can’t bear to talk about it. Sigrid is SO the Queen of Evil.

  Alexander is busy trying to find out whether my ankle is better so we can go out on another date. I’ve told him it’s healing slowly.

  Mum is busy stressing about my exams, but Dad has managed to persuade her that I really can’t miss the India trip. He’s suggested it’ll help with my geography, which is quite funny. My geography is beyond help, but it was nice of him to try. Mum’s also stressed about Harry, who’s supposed to be planning for his degree show in June, but is ‘moping about the house like a wet dishcloth’ or playing soulful Russian folk songs very loudly in his room.

  You’d have thought Crow, at least, would be missing Fashion Week as much as me, but if she is, she doesn’t show it. Instead she’s suddenly busy designing the most complicated, expensive dress she’s ever produced.

  Sigrid has been invited to a party in honour of the film industry at the Elysée Palace in Paris next month. The French President himself will be hosting it. And his wife, the ex-model, will be there. And enough paparazzi to fill the Eurostar. That’s the major occasion she needs the dress for.