“Let me just check something.” I pull out my iPhone.
I open Safari and type Ryanair into the search bar. Maybe all of the flights to Paris are already booked, which would mean I am stuck in London until morning—and if I am stuck in London until morning, why shouldn’t I go to Poppy’s party?
“If you are checking on a flight to Paris, don’t bother.”
I look up from the glowing screen. “Why not?”
“I’ll have my assistant book you a seat on a British Airways flight out of Heathrow.” She whips out her smartphone and taps the screen. “How about the six fifty flight? You will arrive in time for breakfast.”
“Oh, thank you, but I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Too late.” She slips her phone back into her purse. “It’s done.”
Either Michel slipped a few mushrooms into my spotted dick or I’m already suffering pangs of guilt, because my stomach aches.
“I’ll still have three days and two nights with Luc,” I say, trying to rationalize my selfish decision. “Besides, we would have been asleep for most of the night anyway.”
I mentally calculate the profit versus the loss and decide it’s worth the risk. Luc might be a tiny bit irritated, but Big Boss Lady will probably give me a raise.
“Okay, I’d love to be your plus one, Poppy.”
“Splendid,” Poppy says, standing. “Now, we really should do something about your hair.”
Chapter 5
Hips Don’t Lie
Text from Camilla Grant:
It’s your mum. I finally joined the Facebook. I was going to like the donut shop’s page, but I hit enter too soon and typed Happy Ho instead of the Happy Hole Donut Shop. Can you believe there are 173 Happy Hos on the Facebook? I am thinking of friend requesting one and inviting her to church.
Text to Louanne Collins-London:
Fab news! I’ve been invited to the Brava party celebrating the first season of their new show. Bishop Raine, Wynona Pathlow on guest list. Would you like me to write a piece about it?
Text from Louanne Collins-London:
Sure.
I am not sure which text fills me with more dread: my mother’s expressed desire to send a friend request to some random perky prostitute or Louanne Collins-London’s tepid one word response to my exciting Brava party invite.
Sure.
Maybe I am reading more into it, but Louanne’s text was distant and dispassionate.
Would you like a cup of Earl Grey?
Sure.
Wanna listen to Josh Groban’s new album?
Sure.
How could an editor of a hip and happening magazine be so blasé over a splashy, celeb-filled party piece?
“Because you totally blew the Prince Harry story and now she’s blasé about you,” whispers my inner Regina George.
Yes, I have an inner Regina George. The manipulative, deceitful, belittling queen bee in the movie Mean Girls talks smack, giving my self-esteem Ray Rice beat downs. Don’t judge. I’ll bet you have an inner Regina George, who makes you feel like crap because of your thighs/boyfriend/job/laugh. We all do. Some are just better at silencing their Reginas before she inflicts real damage. My Regina is telling me I am going to lose my job.
Fishing in my pocket, I pull out my iPhone and scroll through my contacts until I come to Jean-Luc de Caumont. I select his name and his tanned, handsome face pops up on my screen above his contact info. I look at his thick eyelashes framing his smoldering brown eyes and suddenly feel weepy.
What if I jeopardize my relationship with Luc for some silly insipid story about Bravalebrities, and Louanne still fires me?
I select his mobile number and hold my breath. The phone rings five times before sending me to voicemail. A lump forms in my throat as I listen to Luc’s deep voice and smooth, sexy French greeting.
“Bonjour. C'est Jean-Luc. Veuillez me laisser un message et je vous téléphonerai aussitôt que possible. Merci.”
“Bonjour, Mon Cowboy. C’est moi…Vivia,” I say, my mood and tone falsely chipper. Spending the evening at some narcissism and martini-fueled soiree with a bunch of self-impressed Flat Stanleys suddenly seems pointless, shallow, and tragically selfish. “Something has come up here and I won’t be able to make it to Paris tonight. I’m catching the British Airways flight leaving Heathrow tomorrow morning at six fifty. Luc, I’m…really…sorry.”
By the time I speak the last sentence, my voice is as painfully thin and shaky as Rachel Zoe. I wonder what Luc will think when he listens to my message. To borrow a Zoe-ism, I must have sounded bah-nan-ahs, starting off airy and ending up weepy. Torn between my career and romance, I feel like I am having a bipolar breakdown.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph Gordon Levitt! Did I really just quote Rachel Zoe, a woman I find about as annoying as woolly boogers on a cashmere sweater?
I look in the mirror at my pale, gangly legs, bare beneath them hem of a black tent dress with white puritan collar and cuffs, and then up at my red-rimmed eyes.
“How is that Alexander McQueen working for you, Vivia?”
True to her word, Poppy is getting me “sorted out”—rather, she is having her devoted minions sort me out. She put me in a taxi and gave the driver directions to her favorite hair salon for an “emergency wash and blowout.” My ginger fro has been flat-ironed, glossed, and pulled into a sleek, chic high ponytail. Now I’m in Demimonde, her cousin’s ironically named chi-chi boutique.
“Umm.” I blink away my tears, open the purple velvet curtains, and do a little spin. “What do you think?”
Carolena tilts her head, and her chestnut curls spill over her Versace bustier. I only know the dress is a Versace because Fanny pinned a picture of it to her “Covet It” board on Pinterest.
“It’s too…” She struggles to find the perfect word to describe the part hippie, part habit dress swathing my body.
“Ecclesiastical?”
“No.”
“Voluminous?”
“No.” Carolena studies me intensely. “Insolent,” she finally says. “The gown is simply too insolent. It does rude things for your figure.”
How can you not love a woman who uses a word like insolent to describe a—I lift the price tag and gasp—two thousand three hundred and thirty five dollar dress?
Who would pay two thousand three hundred and thirty five dollars for a dress that looks like a Project Runway unconventional challenge gone wrong? An image of Tim Gunn standing with his hands pressed together in a downward triangle pops into my head and his Snagglepuss voice plays in my ear, “For this challenge you will be sourcing your materials at a convent. Make it work, people, and if all else fails, pray!”
I grapple for the side zipper, anxious to remove the ludicrously overpriced dress before I break out in a cold sweat and ruin it.
Carolena reaches over and slides the zipper halfway down.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
She pronounces at all just as Poppy does, blending the two words together to form a single veddy British-sounding portmanteau.
I step back into my fitting room, close the velvet curtains, and carefully remove the dress, hanging it on the padded silk hanger. Seriously, who spends two thousand dollars on a simple dress?
Fanny. Poppy. Carolena. My friend G.
Heiresses spend thousands of dollars on a single garment. I, however, am not an heiress, and even if I were an heiress, I wouldn’t spend two thousand three hundred and thirty five dollars on a dress! I am quite happy making it work in skinny jeans and my vintage Guns N’ Roses T-shirt.
“Hand me that beastly thing and try this instead.”
She sticks a slinky mini dress between the curtains. I take the heavy beaded dress and hand her the hippie habit.
“I have the perfect shoes for that dress,” Carolena declares. “A beaded mini-dress simply demands a marvelous pair of heels. Wait for me to get them. I won’t be a minute.
”
Silver and gold bugle beads cover the mini dress like sparkly, swingy fringe. It’s very Gatsby-esque. It’s Daisy Buchanan circa now. Classic, but current.
I slip the heavy beaded gown over my head and do a little shimmy. The beads capture the light like a disco ball, creating a constellation of stars on the fitting room walls and velvet curtains. It’s mesmerizing.
I summon my inner-Shakira, shaking my hips side to side. The beads make a pleasant rhythmical noise similar to a rain stick when it’s turned upside-down. It’s like having my own backbeat, a hip personal soundtrack. Shakira. Shakira.
Inexplicably, unbelievably, I recognize the pangs of love at first site. I am falling in love with a dress—a designer dress that probably costs more than my entire collection of my Rock Ts and skinny jeans. How can this be happening? I’m not a fashionista like Fanny and Poppy.
Take it off, Vivia. Take it off while you still have the strength.
It’s not just the sparkly beads that make this dress so fantastic. The gown hugs my body, amplifying my assets—bosom—and minimizing my deficits—slight muffin top—merci, pain au chocolats!) The fringy beads conceal the evidence of my recent over indulgences without making me look like a shapeless Teletubby.
I do another little shimmy, and the metallic beads bounce tiny circles of light all over the fitting room walls.
Look away, Vivia. Look away from the light.
I can’t. The beads are whispering to me, casting a mind-altering spell with their hypnotic song: “Why such stress? Just buy the dress. Buy the dress! If you use your Visa you can buy the dress. Make us shake and shimmy whenever you want. Buy the dress.”
“Vivia?” Carolena’s voice comes to me from a distant place. “Vivia?” she repeats. “I know you’re in there because I can hear the beads clattering together. Do you like the dress?”
I pull the curtains back and give the beads a little shake.
“Oh, baby, the hips don’t lie,” I sing, mimicking Shakira’s vibrato.
Carolena stares at me blankly.
I swivel my hips and make wavelike motions with my arms, to no effect. Poppy’s posh cousin continues to stare at me blankly, her perfectly painted pout hanging open, strappy heels dangling from a single crooked finger.
“The hips don’t lie?”
Nothing.
“Shakira, Shakira,” I sing.
“Right then.” Carolena snaps out of her reverie. “Don’t do that. Ever. Especially not tonight, at Boujis.”
Heat flames my cheeks as I suddenly imagine what I must have looked like to the staid Brit, singing and shaking to Shakira.
“Is it posh?”
“Very.”
“Lots of beautiful people?”
“Loads.”
My inner-Regina buzzes in my ear, telling me I’m an idiot for going to a Brava party, that I am not posh, not one of the beautiful people, not even a Bravalebrity.
“Maybe I shouldn’t go to Boujis.”
“What? Why not?”
“Hello, Carolena,” I say, thrusting my hand out. “My name is Vivia Perpetua Grant. I am a brash, clumsy American with a penchant for raunchy rock music and spicy Chinese takeout. I am not posh.”
“You’re posh-ish.”
I tilt my head and give her my best get-the-fuck-outta-here look.
“Well, you’re beautiful.”
I roll my eyes.
“You are,” Carolena argues, handing me the strappy heels. “I would kill for your legs and your hair.”
“My hair?” I bend over and slide my feet into the high heels. “You’re joking. It’s an ugly rusty blond and frizzy. I have a ginger ’fro.”
“Have you lost the plot entirely?” Carolena walks over and spins me around to face the mirror. “Look at yourself! Gorgeous hair, endless shapely legs. You will fit in with the beautiful Boujis crowd.”
“Thanks, Carolena. That’s kind of you to say.”
“Not at all.” She looks at me in the mirror. “Now, do you like the dress?”
“Are you kidding me?” I shimmy my hips with each syllable. “I would shank my best friend for this dress.”
“What is shank?”
“Never mind.” I laugh. “It means I covet this dress.”
“Does that mean you would like to buy it?”
“Would I?”
Carolena frowns.“Yes, would you?”
“Are you kidding? I would love to buy this dress. I would wear it for the rest of my life—to the grocery store and the gym and my wedding—or at least until all the beads fell off. Only…”
“Only?”
“Only…” I reach under my armpit to feel for a price tag, but can’t find one. It’s probably so expensive—one of those, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it dresses. “I am not sure I can afford it.”
“Oh, biscuits!” Carolena waves her hand like she’s brushing crumpet crumbs from the tea table. “You look brilliant! I wager you feel fairly brilliant, too. Please say you will take the dress?”
I do a mental balancing of my checking and savings account. If I dip into my travel contingency fund and forgo pain au chocolat for a year, I might be able to afford my Gatsby-esque gown.
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“On the price.” Ain’t no shame in admitting the truth. No fronting. I am a Grant, not a Rockefeller. “I can’t afford a two thousand dollar dress.”
Carolena glances over her shoulder and moves closer, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. She confesses one of her customers purchased the dress and returned it.
“She said some of the beads came off in her hand.” Carolena rolls her eyes. “Absolute rubbish.”
“Why do you think she returned it?”
“I sold the same dress to her cousin’s wife. The two don’t get on, you see.”
I didn’t see. If my cousin’s wife wanted this dress, I would risk life and limb wrestling her for it. My cousin’s wife is five-foot-four and weighs one hundred and ninety eight pounds, so I would literally be risking life and limb.
“Couldn’t you have refused the return?”
“I could have, but she is an important customer.” She widens her eyes and lowers her chin, as if the gesture conveys more than her words. “An extremely important customer.”
“The kind of customer with loads of connections?”
“The sort of customer with a sterling antecedent.”
“A royal?”
Carolena closes her eyes and turns away.
“Tell me, Carolena. Did a royal wear this dress? I am going to die. You have to tell me. Please?”
She opens her eyes and fixes me with an implacable stare—a stare that says, “You can toss me in the tower and threaten me with the rack, but I shan’t answer your inquisition.”
My mind whirls as I try to imagine which royal princess or duchess or highborn lady slipped into my slinky shimmy gown.
“I can’t sell a gown in my store now that has been worn. I was going to sell it to a vintage boutique in Notting Hill, but maybe we could strike a bargain?”
“What sort of bargain?”
Who am I kidding? I would give her my virginity for this dress. That is, if I hadn’t already given my virginity to Leo Crandall, Travis Trunnell, and Nathan Edwards. Yes, I told more than one man he took my virginity. Just call me the perpetual virgin.
“Buy the shoes, and I will sell you the dress seventy percent off.”
I assume the dress costs as much as the hippie habit and mentally calculate thirty percent of two thousand three hundred and thirty five dollars. I suck at math, but even I can know the number is big, too big for my budget.
“That’s super generous, Carolena, but if this gown costs as much as the Alexander McQueen, I won’t be able to afford it.”
“It doesn’t cost as much as the Alexander.”
“How much?
“Since the Lou
boutins are last season and the dress has been worn, how about I sell them to you for…”
Carolena’s words turned to Charlie Brown adult drone shortly after she said Louboutins. Jesus, Mary, and Gianni Versace! Louboutins are crazy expensive. Carolena obviously mistook my plastic spork for a silver spoon.
“Vivia?” She waves her hand in front of my face. “Hello, Vivia? Are you away with the fairies?”
“Sorry? How much for the dress and shoes?”
“Two hundred and seventy five pounds.”
It’s a little over four hundred and twenty five dollars. That’s two pairs of Ugg boots, a pair of skinny jeans, and a couple orders of Mr. Foo’s Spicy Chicken and Noodles plus tax. Or one hundred and eighty pain au chocolats from my favorite Parisian patisserie.
“That must be one deep discount.”
“Do we have a deal?”
One hundred and eighty days without my morning pain au chocolat in exchange for the sexiest, slinkiest, most mesmerizing dress I’ve ever shimmied in and a pair of Louboutins? Yeah, that’s a deal I think I can make.
“Abso-bloody-lutely,” I say, borrowing a Poppy-ism.
Chapter 6
French Kissing in the UK
Carolena was wrong. Boujis isn’t posh. It’s über-posh. The club is the nocturnal playground for the beautiful creatures inhabiting an exclusive netherworld of privilege and pedigree. Millionaire playboys, anorexic supermodels, golden-haired heiresses, bored bluebloods, and megawatt celebrities gather nightly to mingle and mate to an electropop soundtrack. Celestial bodies floating in a neon cloud tinged with perspiration and Chanel No. 5.
As befits Poppy’s noble lineage, we arrived late and took a place in the VIP lounge—a long leather banquette situated beneath a wall of tiny light bulbs flashing Boujis in turquoise, purple, and hot pink. She ordered two bottles of Veuve Clicquot and introduced me to her crew of countesses, celebs, and CEOs, before a gorgeous blond with a Rugby player’s honed body led her to the dance floor.
Finding It Page 5
