Sophie's Run

by Wells, Nicky

“Hold it, hold it,” Dan urged me, grabbing my hand. “You have got to appreciate this before you go in. This”—he waved at the department store—“isn’t just a department store. This is Europe’s biggest department store. Welcome to”—he took another quick look at the guidebook to be sure of his facts—“welcome to over sixty thousand square meters of shopping. I’m sure we’ll find your dress in there.”

  I was rooted to the spot. Dress? What dress? What for?

  Dan snorted with laughter. “The wedding? On Saturday? Let’s get your amour.”

  The wedding, of course. I had never even considered what I would wear. I had assumed I was going to find something suitable in my wardrobe. In a flash I realized that wouldn’t do. Dan was right. I needed something new.

  Oh no, I bloody didn’t. What I needed was not to go.

  My emotions must have played on my face, because Dan held on more tightly to my hand and cajoled me along. “Come on now, it’ll be fun.”

  I muttered a murderous comment under my breath and dug my heels in. We must have looked like an exasperated father with a truculent five-year-old, Dan pulling and me dragging my feet. But Dan was stronger, and he was determined. Suddenly, we were at the information desk on the ground floor, and Dan negotiated with a customer service lady. He was talking about an appointment with a personal shopper.

  Ha. Fat chance, you probably needed to arrange a date three weeks, nay, three months in advance.

  But—what?

  The lady picked up her phone and spoke rapidly in German. In all that foreignness, I latched on to the few words that I could understand. Two of them were extremely familiar, involving as they did, “Dan” and “Hunter.” The third one appeared to be “Freundin”—girlfriend?

  Dan held a finger to his mouth, indicating I should hold my silence. The lady put the phone down and offered Dan her most dazzling smile.

  “Mr. Hunter,” she began in excellent English. “A personal shopper is expecting you. She will be delighted to assist you and your friend. If you’d make your way to the ladies’ department on the second floor, please, she is waiting for you there.”

  And then—I swear she was blushing, and I could tell what was coming—yes, she summoned up the courage. She proffered a piece of paper and a pen. “Would you mind… I’d love your autograph.” She blushed more deeply still. “I’m a huge fan.”

  “Of course,” Dan agreed graciously and swiftly wrote out his name for her. “There you go.” He handed her back her piece of paper and their hands brushed against each other. I had to suck in my cheeks to stop myself from laughing out loud. Not at her, per se, but because it was all so cute. And obvious. And because I had been there, myself. Dan intercepted my look and nudged me in the side.

  “Stop smirking,” he admonished in a barely audible voice. I obediently rearranged my face into a less irksome expression and even managed to give the lady a big smile myself. She was so excited, she barely noticed me anyway. She was already busy showing off her trophy to her colleague.

  “I’m surprised,” I ventured. “I thought you wanted to remain unrecognized.”

  “Well…” Dan sounded evasive. “This wasn’t really anything much to do with me. You’ll see.”

  I was intrigued, but he didn’t give me an opportunity to ask more questions. We went up on the escalators in the central light well, and I had to admit, this truly was a spectacular place. Everything was bright, airy, and very elegant. Every floor boasted high ceilings, and there was plenty of space between the extravagant displays. The escalators rose toward a glass roof that looked to be spanning the width of the top floor, and I longed to go all the way up.

  “Later,” Dan whispered, his eyes having followed my gaze. “The top floor is all food, we’ll have lunch there.” He took my hand and pulled me off the moving staircase on the second floor.

  Soon we were ensconced in a private dressing room with a cup of coffee each and a big prospectus of ladies’ fashion, while the personal shopper was off collecting a selection of dresses for me based on rather cryptic instruction from Dan. “Get the lot,” he instructed her.

  The lot?

  And there, she was back with a rail full of amazing looking dresses. Dan sprang to attention and flicked through the dresses one by one, muttering under his breath, “Too long—too green—too flouncy…”

  He caught me looking. “What?” he laughed at my surprised expression.

  “I didn’t know you were a regular Gok Wan.”

  “I’m not,” Dan chortled modestly. “But I know you. Remember that black Donna Karan number I got you once?” I nodded dumbly. The man had the memory of an elephant. And anyway, how could I have forgotten that memorable date, when he whisked me off in his stretch limo and handed me a bag with a suitable dress for the evening? I had slid it on, in the limo, completely dubious. And it had fit like a glove. In fact, that little black number still ranked among the best-fitting dresses I had ever owned. Dan had bought that dress completely blind, with no size guides or measurements or anything. Just his image of me in his head.

  “…and anyway, I’ve done plenty of shopping with my sister,” he continued merrily while I was reminiscing.

  I latched onto this new piece of information.

  “You have a sister?” I asked, utterly surprised.

  Dan merely nodded, still sorting through dresses.

  “How come I didn’t know about her?” I demanded. Dan puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. “We don’t see each other often. And she’s just never come up in conversation before. You never asked whether I had siblings, so…”

  I spluttered into my coffee. “Sorry,” I retorted a tad archly. “It’s not exactly the first thing that springs to mind when you date a rock star, is it?”

  “No worries,” Dan shot back. “I never did ask you whether you had any siblings, either.”

  I decided to ignore that barb and persisted. “So what’s her name?”

  “Jodie. She’s my kid sister. I’ve kept her private but she’s become famous in her own right, in her own way. She’s always jetting off to places like LA and New York and Paris and Sydney.”

  “Why? What does she do?” I was intrigued now.

  “She’s in fashion,” he mumbled vaguely.

  In fashion. Jodie.

  I nearly dropped my coffee cup.

  “She’s not Jodie Chase?” I burst out. “The Jodie Chase? The UK’s hottest fashion designer, like, ever?”

  In her corner, the personal shopper looked studiously disinterested.

  “One and the same,” Dan acknowledged. “She designed these garments. What do you think of this one?” He held up a dress for me to examine. It was a gorgeous creation, lovely and flowing sky-blue silk, gathered at one side and flaring out in an A-line. I longed to try it on, but Dan had already put it to one side.

  “So!” I had a light bulb moment. “You came here because they stock your sister’s clothes.”

  “Um… Yes.”

  Another light bulb moment—this one definitely a most ecologically-unfriendly, two hundred Watts, traditional bright glare, not your modern, dim, energy-efficient light bulb.

  “That’s what you were talking about at the information desk.”

  “Uh-huh.” Dan responded matter-of-factly.

  “So that’s why you got to see a personal shopper. Nothing to do with being a rock star at all.”

  “Nope.” Dan smiled mischievously. “I got you to see a personal shopper here today because I made an appointment in advance so that you could try on Jodie’s dresses.”

  I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I didn’t immediately react to this nugget of information. I needed to clarify something else first. “And she downstairs wanted your autograph because you’re Jodie Chase’s brother, yes?”

  “Well…” Dan hesitated, refusing to relinquish his own claim to fame. “I’m sure she recognized me, too.”

  I giggled. “I’m sure she did. But hang on…” The penny finally dropped. “Did you
just say you made an appointment in advance?”

  Dan regarded me with somber eyes. “I did.”

  “Why? I mean, why here? Surely you can get her dresses in London, right?”

  “The idea came to me on the plane. I texted Jodie to see if she supplied any stores in Berlin, and here we are.”

  Abruptly, he handed me four dresses. The magical blue one wasn’t among them. “Try these on,” he commanded. Fingering one of the dresses lightly, I sighed heavily. They looked divine. And expensive.

  I stepped back, my arms folded across my chest. “I don’t think I can afford these.”

  Dan rolled his eyes as though to say, “Not that old chestnut again.” Grabbing a random dress off the rack, he disappeared in a cubicle and pulled the curtain shut behind him. This got the personal shopper’s attention. She jumped up from her chair and walked over to me swiftly, eyes swiveling between me and the cubicle. She cleared her throat, uncertain how to handle this.

  “Did he…did he go in there?” she confirmed unnecessarily.

  “It looks that way,” I offered, trying not to laugh at her disconcerted expression.

  “He’s not—is he trying the dress on?”

  “Err, yes.” I breathed. “Why, is that a problem?”

  Meanwhile, Dan had run into trouble in the changing room.

  “I need some shoes,” he shouted woefully. “Could you get me some shoes to match? Size ten please, for me, and size six for the lady as well. Please?”

  Confronted with a direct request, the personal shopper sprang into action. “Schuhe…” she murmured. “Size forty-four and size thirty-nine…. Hmm…” She bustled off.

  Finally erupting into laughter, I bounced into Dan’s cubicle. I was going to ask him what he was doing, but the words stuck in my mouth. There he was, in a bright orange, low-cut, floor-length dress with a big bow at the front. He had filled in the missing curves using his socks, and he hadn’t managed to do up the zip. He looked disturbingly attractive in ladies’ fashion.

  “Will you do me up?” Dan turned his back to me and tugged experimentally at the fastening. I swatted his hands away and closed the zip to halfway up Dan’s back.

  “It won’t go any further,” I informed him dryly. “By the way, did you know your dress is called GaGa?” My eyes had caught on the flashy black-on-orange label sown inside the back.

  “I didn’t, but it makes sense. It’s a wild dress.” He gave a little twirl. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re nuts,” I snorted. “You be sure not to ruin this dress or else we’ll have to buy it.”

  “Never fear,” he grinned wickedly. “It would look much better on you, though.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t do orange. Not if you paid me.”

  A discreet cough disturbed our whispered conversation.

  “Excuse me, sir? Madam? I’ve got your shoes…”

  “Great,” Dan enthused and stepped out of the cabin. “Let’s have them.” He took a pair of orange flats out of the assistant’s hands and regarded them critically.

  “I was hoping for heels,” he announced with a straight face, and I almost peed in my pants with laughter.

  The assistant was now in professional mode. “I can’t offer you heels in this style in your size,” she announced, “but I do think we have some silver-colored shoes that would work with the dress. The heels are—” She looked attentively at Dan. “The heels are probably about six centimeter stilettos. Would you like to try them?”

  “Why, yes!” Dan enthused. “I most certainly would.”

  The personal shopper went off to fetch the silver stilettos, and Dan grinned his wicked boy smile at me.

  “Do you reckon she’ll let us take a picture?” he wondered out loud.

  “Hm…possibly, why?” I wondered back.

  “It’d be cool to stick up on our website, don’t you think?”

  I regarded him critically. He was most probably joking, but with Dan you never did know.

  “Yeah. But perhaps you ought to tuck those socks in more carefully,” I suggested, tugging playfully at a black-and-pink striped heel that was protruding from his chest area. “It does rather kill the look.”

  He peered down his front appraisingly. “D’you reckon?” he asked. “I think it has something, this unexpected flash of black sock.”

  “Well, it does rather go with your hairy chest,” I conceded. “If you’re serious about the dress, you might consider shaving.”

  “I thought you liked my chest hair?” Dan mock sulked.

  “Yes, but it doesn’t work with a dress. It’s just wrong.”

  “That’s sexist,” Dan declared, then changed the subject abruptly. “Here, try this.” He handed me the divine-looking blue silk creation. “It’s perfect for you.”

  I gave in.

  The dress was so delicate, I barely dared breathe while I unzipped the back and gingerly stepped into it. It floated around me but clung in all the right places. It picked up the color of my eyes fantastically. It was perfect. It could have been made for me.

  I looked at myself in awed silence for a few seconds. I had to have the dress. I twisted, trying to catch the label to figure out whether my bank balance would stretch to it. But of course, there was no label. It was probably very expensive.

  I swallowed. Still, I had to have it.

  “Are you okay in there?” Dan cut into my musings. “Don’t tell me you don’t like it…”

  I pulled back the curtain and stepped out.

  No, correct that—I floated out.

  Dan and the personal shopper, who had returned from her shoe retrieval mission, gasped in unison. The personal shopper recovered more quickly, instantly homing in on my delight and offering gushing praise. Dan just stared, looking slightly incongruous in his orange dress clutching a pair of silver stilettos.

  “Do you like it?”

  Dan nodded. “She did a great job designing this dress.”

  I flounced around the room a bit more, tiptoeing all the way. The price question was still singeing holes into my financial consciousness, but that couldn’t be helped. However, “I need some shoes,” I announced to no one in particular.

  “Of course,” the assistant concurred. “These really won’t do.” She waved dismissively at the heels she had fetched before. “I have the perfect pair in mind, I won’t be a moment.”

  And off she went again. I felt a little embarrassed, giving her the runaround like that.

  “Don’t worry,” Dan said. “The commission on that dress will make her day.”

  I gulped. “Is it hideously expensive?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “No, not hideously,” Dan replied. “Hideously outrageously expensive, if I know my little sister. But don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it.”

  Moral dilemmas. This was a reprise of everything that had happened two years previously, and my, had I had some criticism from unexpected places. Immoral, immature, indecisive and silly were only some of the adjectives the women’s journals had ascribed to me after the whole story had come out. That had hurt.

  “I can’t accept that,” I said out loud, and Dan let out an exasperated sigh.

  “Come on, now,” he coaxed. “We’ve been through all of that.”

  “You can’t go round buying me dresses like that.” I protested. “I won’t have it.”

  The personal shopper chose this precise moment to reappear, and she looked dejected.

  “You won’t have it?” she repeated. “But it is so very beautiful on you.”

  “She’ll have the dress,” Dan immediately reassured her.

  “I’ll have the dress,” I confirmed at the same time. “I was merely telling Mr. Hunter here that I will pay for it myself.”

  “Oh no, there’s no need for that,” the assistant declared cheerfully. Dan and I looked at her, equally mystified.

  “You see,” the personal shopper continued eagerly, “this dress is part of Jodie Chase’s Perfect Little Dre
ss collection. It’s called Sophie—”

  I had to sit down. This was too much. I knew it. I knew it from the way the silk picked up the exact color of my eyes.

  Jodie Chase was renowned for her daring couture, but the most famous collection of all was her Perfect Little Dress line. She dedicated dresses to women whom she admired or who inspired her, choosing a material and cut that she believed would most flatter. She named the dresses, but she never told her muses about it. She simply put the line with selected stockists all over the world.

  Her first Perfect Little Dress had allegedly surfaced when she was still at fashion college. It was for Princess Diana, “because she always looked so sad.” Word had got out and over time, Meryl, Kate, Pat, Bette and even Cheryl had been united with their very own Perfect Little Dresses. Rumor had it that Jodie gave the dress as a gift if and when it “met” its rightful owner. Which meant that this dress could be mine. But why on earth would she make one for me?

  “Did you ever show Jodie a picture of me?” I asked Dan abruptly. Dan shook his head, but offered, “I didn’t need to. We were in all the mags, once upon a time.”

  True.

  “And…and when did she make this dress?”

  “I don’t know,” Dan admitted. “As I said, I don’t see her that often.”

  I fingered the material. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Would you like to try on the shoes?” the personal shopper inquired discreetly.

  “Oh, yes, of course.” I stepped into the shoes as though in a dream. Needless to say, they fit, and needless to say, I took them.

  And the dress. How could I not?

  Dan had already disentangled himself from the GaGa dress and was ready to move on. I changed back into my ordinary clothes, reverently fingering the material of my dress and admiring the needlework. Surreptitiously, I was also looking for the tell-tale name and finally found it discretely stitched in the back, light blue on blue: Sophie. It really was mine. Smiling broadly, I handed the dress to the personal shopper and paid for the shoes. Dan asked for everything to be delivered to our hotel. Then we had a lunchtime snack in the sixth-floor gourmet corner. Dan ordered champagne and caviar and smoked salmon on delicate little rolls. It was heavenly, but I found myself distracted of visions of myself in my perfect little dress. At least I didn’t have to worry about wedding attire anymore.