How Not To Shop

by Carmen Reid

  'Oh very funny.' Lana swivelled her chair away from her desk and turned to smile at her mum. 'How was your day?' she asked.

  'A bit stressful in parts,' Annie told her. 'How about yours?'

  'Oh, I'll get over it,' Lana joked.

  'Me too . . . I think,' Annie said, then she took a seat on the edge of the very crowded bed. A huge assortment of Lana's clothes, bags, books and belongings had been scattered about here.

  'Planning your weekend wardrobe?' Annie asked with a smile.

  'Ermm . . . something like that,' Lana replied.

  'It's only Tuesday,' Annie reminded her.

  'Just as well. Nothing's come together yet.'

  'Something big happening at the weekend?'

  'Well . . . Daisy's having a birthday party. At her home,' Lana added quickly: 'parents around, nothing too wild.'

  'Sounds fine,' Annie responded, 'but you know I trust you. You're older and so much more sensible. I hate you getting older, but I like the sensible bit,' she admitted. 'Maybe it's my compensation.'

  She took a long look at her daughter, with her pretty, pale, sweetheart face and dark hair. The older she got, the more she looked like her very handsome actor dad. Annie allowed the thought to cross her mind.

  There were only a few moments in the day when she let herself think about the late Roddy Valentine, whom she had been married to for six years. Very happily married to, until a small, completely unlucky and unnecessary accident had taken him away from them all.

  As she occasionally explained to people who asked: no, you didn't 'get over it', not a loss like that. You eventually just had to pick yourself up and somehow 'get on with it'. Especially for the children's sake. Somewhere along the way, along the years, she'd let go of the fury raging inside her head and made some sort of 'peace' with the situation.

  Losing Roddy had become a part of who they all were: Annie, Lana, Owen, Dinah, Connor, even Ed.

  The only thing that still broke her heart, whenever she allowed herself to dwell on it, was how proud, how fiercely, fiercely proud Roddy would have been of his children. But they were never going to hear that from him.

  So she had to over-compensate. 'You're looking really nice,' she told Lana, 'I like your hair like that.'

  'Oh, thanks,' her daughter smiled and pulled her locks over her shoulder a little shyly.

  'I'm glad it's not so black any more. I mean, it was fine,' Annie corrected herself, 'but it made you look a little deathly.'

  'Yeah, bit too Gothy. I'm over that,' Lana agreed. 'So what happened on the shoot today?' she asked, not able to hide the excited smile that the thought of her mum working on TV conjured up.

  'Oh babes, I have no idea what is going to happen next,' Annie blurted out. 'The woman I'm supposed to be transforming from top to toe and sending to the ball to meet Prince Charming doesn't want to go. I've got her the dress, the bag and the shoes, but I can't get inside her head. Well, not in the five minutes I'm allowed to spend with her in front of the cameras, anyway. I've no idea what's going to happen now.'

  Annie lay back on the sprawl of teenage clothes on the bed. It took Lana hours to get ready to go out at the weekend. Sometimes it would take her two whole hours just to get to the point of going out, then she'd still have to rush upstairs and make another complete outfit change at the very last minute. She was almost as insecure about going to parties as Cath was proving to be – a thought which inspired Annie to ask her next question.

  'How do I turn ordinary, plain Jane Cath into Cinderella for the cameras, baby? How am I going to do that? She hasn't been to a party for years. She's too self-conscious. But this is the happy ending that the producer wants. He needs Cath to look gorgeous and beam happiness and confidence at every handsome stranger she meets at the ball. I mean, good grief! Impossible or what! He doesn't just want a makeover, he wants a personality transplant!'

  'Cinderella only knows three other people at the ball and they don't even recognize her,' Lana said thoughtfully. 'It's much easier to pretend to be someone else if you don't know anyone there and if you're in disguise. I'd love to go to a party in disguise. No-one would recognize me and I could just be a fly on the wall. A mysterious guest!'

  'Yes?' Annie was trying to understand what her daughter meant. 'So I should put her in disguise?!'

  'But she's going somewhere where she won't know anyone, isn't she?' Lana asked.

  'Yes . . . I think so. I mean, it's not a family party or anything. She's supposed to be taken to some sort of party. I don't know what yet.'

  'So why don't you take her to a masked ball or something like that?' Lana asked enthusiastically, 'Somewhere she won't know anyone and she won't be known. Somewhere where she can hide all her awkwardness behind a mask?'

  'You know, babes,' Annie said, feeling a sense of lightness and relief, 'that is a very, very good idea. That is such an amazingly good idea I might have to speak to someone about it right now!'

  Lana shot her mum a smile but then her attention seemed to be caught by her computer screen again.

  'You're working so hard,' Annie told her, 'I'm so proud of you.'

  'Thanks,' Lana replied, but then glanced down at her feet as if almost embarrassed by the praise.

  'You are going to do really well in your exams, aren't you?' her mother asked.

  'I hope so,' Lana said, a little shyly.

  'I'm very proud of you,' Annie repeated.

  'Would it matter if I didn't do well in my exams?' Lana asked.

  'For goodness sake!' Annie shooed the comment away, 'you're up here slaving away every night. You're going to do brilliantly!'

  Chapter Eleven

  Miss Marlise on set:

  Tight black jacket (Helmut Lang)

  White shirt (M&S)

  Tight leather leggings (Les Chiffoniers)

  Black shoe boots (LK Bennett)

  Bright red lipstick (Clinique)

  Total est. cost: £940

  'Ha!'

  'A masked ball?!'

  Finn, clipboard in hand, Bluetooth round his ear, was looking at Annie in obvious astonishment.

  'Just where the heck are we supposed to find a masked ball?' he asked her. 'And won't our ladies have to wear ball dresses, which we can't afford to buy? And anyway, if everyone's wearing masks, just how will we keep track of them? We'll end up filming the wrong women for half the evening.'

  Miss Marlise gave a derisive little giggle and roll of her eyes, as if to let Finn know that this was all you could expect if you let the 'wardrobe lady' come up with ideas.

  Annie could also feel the weight of Bob and Nikki's eyes upon her in this claustrophobic little room. OK, she felt like shouting out, it was just a suggestion.

  Instead, in her defence, she said, 'Cath may seem really cool and collected, but she doesn't do parties. I really don't know if she's going to cope. No-one seems to have mentioned the whole dating party thing to her when she agreed to come onto the programme . . . somehow.' Annie didn't want to point any fingers, but she suspected this might have something to do with either Nikki or Finn.

  'I think she might have a panic attack, lock herself in the Ladies for the evening or something like that, unless we really help her out,' Annie added.

  'Oh for God's sake!' Finn said with exasperation, 'there's no way we can drop her now! We've spent far too much time and money filming her already. Plus, we'd have a job getting her to part with her shiny new things now, wouldn't we?' He shot Annie a glare, as if this was somehow all her fault. None of it was her fault! She'd done everything he'd asked her to do. She could make Cath over, but she couldn't change her into a different person.

  Just then Svetlana swept into the room. She'd always had a loose grasp on the concept of punctuality and appearing on TV wasn't about to change that, despite Finn and Nikki's carefully detailed schedules. So she wasn't just a minute or two late for this briefing, she was a full and glorious twenty-five minutes late.

  Still, when she entered, blonde hair tumbling over a
white fur coat, no-one complained; there was just a collective intake of breath. Although Annie noticed Miss Marlise raise her eyebrows and take a look at her watch. That Miss Marlise was jealous of Svetlana and all the attention Svetlana seemed to inspire had been clear from day one. Instinctively, Annie felt that both she and Svetlana should watch out for that woman. Hadn't Bob said that she would claw her way over anyone in her quest for the top?

  'Svetlana, hi,' Finn smiled welcomingly. 'Don't suppose you've got any spare invitations to a masked ball lying around your Mayfair pad, do you?'

  This was obviously a flippant little joke. But Svetlana, settling down in the one empty chair in the room, elegantly shrugged off her fur and in her richly accented voice, replied casually, 'Yes, but of courrrrrrse.'

  Which shot a fresh surge of energy into the room.

  'Really?' Finn asked.

  'Of courrse,' Svetlana gave a little shrug of her shoulders. 'At the Tate Modern next Friday there is big Art Ball. You can wear masks, you can wear costumes, armour, dresses, overalls . . . whatever you like. It's artistic . . . for charity . . . people always do vhat they like.'

  'Would they let us film there?' Finn asked, sounding quite breathless with excitement. A wear what you like, major glamorous event, being staged at no cost to him whatsoever. He would just need to turn up with a camera.

  'Ya. I'm on committee, I tell them you film or I don't pay my big cheque,' Svetlana added.

  'OK, this is great. Great! Svetlana, I don't know what we would do without you!' Finn gushed.

  Miss Marlise moved her hands to her slim hips and rolled her eyes once again. 'Ha!' she couldn't help exclaiming.

  The clipboard was out and Finn was both scribbling notes and leafing through notes he'd already made.

  'Today, we start with Annie's shopping session. All right, Bob? Sorry love,' he offered in Annie's direction, 'you'll have to meet the next girl in the shopping centre and take it from there. We're doing the "at home" tomorrow morning. That's the way it's going to have to work. So if you can just pretend that you've already met her, looked through her wardrobe and got to know her a bit, that would be great.'

  He flicked through his pages and read out: 'Jody Wilson, same shopping centre, permission hopefully still applies. Nikki if you could ring and check . . .'

  Annie felt taken aback by this set of instructions. She'd not even met Jody and now she was going to be sent straight to the changing rooms with her.

  Of course, at The Store, she'd done this many, many times before: met women, put them in a changing room, then heard most of their recent life history and seen them in their pants before twenty minutes was up. But on camera? On TV? It felt as if she was stepping out on stage without any lines or a single rehearsal

  'Oh and if we could keep the budget down below £200 this time, Annie, I'd be more than grateful,' was Finn's parting shot as Annie and Bob headed for the door.

  Bob and Annie met Jody Wilson in a café in the shopping centre. As they said their hellos and Bob explained the filming schedule, Annie carefully sized up this petite new makeover client.

  In her very safe, almost expressionless outfit of black suit and black boots, it was hard to get much of a clue about Jody. Annie guessed she was in her late twenties and wondered if she had volunteered herself or been volunteered by friends for the Wonder Women treatment.

  'What made you contact us?' Annie asked.

  'My mum,' Jody replied with a wary smile. 'She heard the ad on the radio and put me forward. I think she's hoping you can wave a magic wand and suddenly I'll be walking down the aisle.'

  'Ah . . .' Annie understood: 'the "why isn't my daughter settled down yet?" obsession.'

  Jody nodded.

  'But you're here,' Annie went on, then added carefully, 'I take it you'd like to meet someone . . .'

  'Special?' Jody suggested. 'I would love to meet someone special. But I'm not sure there's anyone special left. The good ones go early and everyone left is fatally flawed,' she said gloomily.

  'Ah well, we're all fatally flawed,' was Annie's verdict.

  As they set off from the café, Annie wanted to make sure that Jody knew the makeover was leading to a party.

  'Have you heard where you're being taken to, once we've found you the outfit?' she ventured.

  Jody shook her short, neat bob as a no.

  'This amazing Art Ball at the Tate Modern. It's a big event, packed . . . definitely a few famous faces . . .'

  She looked over at Jody, who wasn't smiling. Careful, Annie told herself, she didn't want to intimidate a second client.

  'Oh, but it's not grand and glam,' she added quickly.

  'Apparently people turn up in whatever they want. You could wear a ball dress or a pair of ripped jeans covered in graffiti . . . or both! It's all about expressing yourself, Jody.'

  'Right.' Jody didn't sound very certain.

  As Annie installed Jody in a River Island changing room, Bob set up his camera.

  'I know it's hard,' were Annie's words of encouragement to Jody, when she began to stare at the camera with anxiety, 'but you've got to pretend that he isn't there. Think of this as just about us. Focus on me and my face,' Annie went on. 'I'll focus on you and we'll just try and let Bob do his own thing in the background.'

  'OK, hang up your jacket,' Annie instructed her, 'turn around, let me see what I've got to work with here and tell me something really important. Who do you want to look like? Who's your fashion heroine? Whose wardrobe would you love to steal?'

  'Whose wardrobe would I love to steal?' Jody repeated.

  'Yes,' Annie replied, 'that's the best help of all for me. I can easily run round here and bring in a whole bundle of clothes that would suit your figure. But what I really need to know is what will suit your head.'

  'If you love bright blue hats and funky jodhpurs,' Annie went on, 'then we have to go out there and find some! Just please don't tell me that all you really want to wear is plain black suits and nothing else, because it doesn't say enough about you. It doesn't give anyone meeting you for the first time nearly enough clues, and clues are vital. How is anyone going to chat you up if they haven't the slightest clue about you?'

  'I love Audrey Hepburn,' Jody said thoughtfully. 'Hers is the wardrobe I'd most like to steal.'

  'Oh, Audrey Hepburn,' Annie said with a touch of exasperation, 'so elegant but so . . . chilly. I mean, do you really believe that she and Gregory Peck got hot and sweaty and down to it at the end of Roman Holiday? No. She was definitely the kind of girl who would have had a headache. What about Amélie?' Annie suggested. 'Did you ever see that French film? The quirky girl with the chic little bob just like yours and cute dresses and little hats.'

  'Amélie?' Jody sounded surprised, 'I loved Amélie, but I don't want to seem weird.'

  'Why not?' Annie shrugged. 'Maybe your inner weird and wonderful will attract someone else's weird and wonderful.'

  Jody looked unconvinced.

  'I've been dressing women for ten years now,' Annie told her with a confident smile. 'I think you're just going to have to trust me here. OK?'

  Slowly, Jody nodded.

  Chapter Twelve

  Harry on parade:

  Bespoke dinner suit (Daks)

  White bespoke shirt (Thomas Pink)

  Navy-blue tie with small white spot (Gieves & Hawkes)

  High polished black shoes (Church's)