The Heat Is On

by Helen Bridgett

  He stops and we look at each other slightly overwhelmed.

  ‘It’s a lot bigger than I’d imagined,’ I say.

  ‘It seems that way but the great thing is very little of the filming takes place overseas,’ he tells us. ‘We get a lot of content before the wedding and do the edits way in advance.’

  ‘And how would we film the Formentera piece?’

  ‘It’s really easy and most phones have good video cameras these days. If we needed to I’d find someone local and train them up.’

  He seems to think everything is feasible, so we promise to get back to him if we do win the bid. I guess Patty is up next. I wonder how long we’ll have to wait for her?

  ‘Yoo hoo everyone!’ – and suddenly I can answer my own question.

  ‘Blimey, this is all a lot smaller than it looks on TV isn’t it,’ I hear her say to someone without a hint of nervousness. Then my dearest friend appears before us.

  ‘What on earth have you done to your face?’ I ask.

  She looks like a Native American. There are white stripes down her nose, her cheeks and across her forehead.

  ‘Are there cowboys chasing you?’ I ask.

  ‘Ooh, I hope so,’ she replies, not taking offence at all. ‘This, my dear ignorant friend is…’

  ‘Contouring,’ finishes Josie. ‘Here let me blend it a bit for you.’

  Josie starts to rub the edges of the stripes, giving Patty a slightly more normal appearance. I’ve obviously heard of contouring, the art of giving yourself cheekbones, but had no idea how it was done. Clearly Patty hasn’t either but has been educating herself on the art via YouTube videos.

  ‘As I haven’t had the chance to lose the ten pounds this camera is about to put on,’ says Patty, ‘I thought I’d better create an optical illusion.’

  She takes off her coat and gives us a swirl. She’s wearing a lovely shift dress with black panels down the side.

  ‘Contouring and Bodycon,’ admires Josie, ‘girl you’re pulling out all the tricks.’

  Patty smiles appreciatively as the studio team come out on to the floor. The director greets Patty very professionally and shows her where she has to stand. Then he attaches a microphone and asks for a camera check. He peers into a little screen beside the camera and looking over his shoulder I can see the lighting has turned Patty’s odd make-up into a more defined face; she actually looks good. The director asks for a soundcheck, so Patty stretches her mouth and starts singing the tongue twisters she always did before a show to loosen her up. She starts with Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers then adds one of her very own making, Red Rioja, red Rioja and a bowl of olives. She has us giggling but we’re given a stern look so we stop; we can’t help ourselves, it’s all ridiculously exciting. The director seems satisfied with the sound so moves behind the camera with us. He then utters the words I have always wanted to hear in real life, ‘Lights, camera and…action.’

  They’ve given Patty a bag of flour and she has to pretend it’s the home-shopping product of the day. She has to extol the virtues of it but also has to ask an imaginary co-presenter lots of really daft questions.

  ‘How perfect do you think a top-of-the-range juicer would make your mornings?’

  To her credit, Patty manages to ask all the questions as if there is someone there and as if they’ve told her something really interesting. It’s a bit wooden but it is her first time.

  The director suddenly yells, ‘Cut’, then gives a round of applause as a studio audience would and we follow his lead.

  ‘Word perfect,’ he says, ‘but could we inject a bit of you into it? Roll.’

  Patty does at least ten takes of this and is getting quite hoarse by the end so the director calls a break, or rather he tells everyone to ‘take five’, which again I find exciting – they really do say these things then. Patty is offered some water, which she grimaces at.

  ‘Is there any food?’ she asks and the slender young production assistant who looks as if he survives on espressos scurries around trying to find something.

  ‘There’s a full Farm Kitchen hamper out back,’ instructs the director and it appears a few minutes later.

  Patty forages through it pulling out a range of gorgeous foods: cheeses, hams, fruitcake and whisky. She finds something she can eat easily and opens a packet of biscuits; while she’s distracted the production assistant takes the packet and offers us one, too. Oh my word, they are crumbly, buttery, spicy, lovely, and Patty obviously thinks so, too.

  ‘Oh, these truly are divine,’ she declares, her face expressing every crumb of pleasure. ‘How on earth do they make them taste this good?’

  ‘You should try the rest,’ says the director. ‘Can someone make Patty a plate of the other goodies please?’

  The assistant plates up samples from the rest of the hamper and lays them out on the kitchen island. Patty needs no invitation to go over and start tasting each one. My mother will die of envy when I tell her this tale; she’ll declare that if Patty got all this free after denying her a couple of morsels in the shops, then there’s no justice in the world. I can’t wait to taunt her with it.

  ‘Patty, could you tell us what you think of each dish please,’ says the director, ‘in your own words. Pretend they’re options for the wedding buffet.’

  She picks up the cheese and chutney perfectly arranged on a little oatcake, then taking a mouthful her eyes roll heavenwards. ‘Now I have just come back from a luxury cruise ship,’ she says, her mouth only partly free of food. ‘And they serve delicacies from all over the world: French Brie, Italian Fontina – no I’d never heard of it either – but this, well this beats them all. Is it British?’

  She holds up the wrapping to read it. ‘Yes, it is,’ she declares, ‘well there you go, the best cheese I’ve ever tasted right here on our doorstep.’ She takes another bite and continues, ‘You know that moment when you’re in a restaurant and they serve you something so wonderful you don’t ever want it to end? Your other half is making conversation and all you can think is “stop talking, I want to concentrate on this gorgeousness in my mouth”? Well, that’s how this tastes. I don’t want to be talking to you lot, I want to be by myself with a glass of red and plateful of this and I don’t want to be disturbed all evening – not even by David Beckham in his Armanis.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ says the director. ‘Now could you try the fruitcake?’

  Patty reluctantly pauses in her labour of love and looks at the cake.

  ‘I have to confess,’ she says, ‘fruitcake is not my thing. Nevertheless, I’ll give this a go.’ She takes a bite and her eyebrows rise in pleasant surprise. ‘Well, that’s not what I expected at all. It’s really soft and moist. It’s absolutely crammed with fruit and they taste as if they’ve been soaked in brandy; now that’s the way to get your five-a-day I can tell you.’

  ‘OK – cut,’ calls the director. ‘That was great Patty. I think we have what we need. There’s a lounge on the top floor of the building over the road. I’ll just do a very quick edit and meet you there.’

  His assistant shows us to the lift and presses the button. We head to the very trendy building we’re directed to and then to the glass-fronted roof terrace, which must have been built simply to watch the sun setting. Outside, the sky seems enormous above the river. An expanse of fading blues and greens reflects in the magnificent mirrored buildings of the docklands.

  We make ourselves comfortable on plush sofas in an eclectically furnished lounge where a waitress takes our order. I love to people watch and could probably grab a tub of popcorn and settle in for the night in this bar. Beautiful young things earnestly discuss crucial subjects (or so it appears) and studiously try not to stare when a famous newsreader or television presenter walks in for their after-work drink. In my youth we’d have the cocktails lined up but this generation sip slowly through slender straws; their mobiles lie at the edge of their fingertips and they’re checked frequently. At first, you think a few of them are smoking bu
t then you realise they’re vaping. No wonder they don’t drink much; they don’t have a hand free.

  The director joins us within the hour and sits in the middle, putting his tablet on the table.

  ‘I haven’t done any enhancements,’ he tells us, probably thinking that will mean something to us, ‘just put together the clips.’

  He plays the video and Patty’s first performance as the bag of flour sales pitch begins.

  ‘I don’t look too bad,’ says Patty, and we agree she doesn’t.

  ‘It’s not bad for an amateur,’ says the director, risking physical violence for using the ‘A’ word. After all, as Patty frequently reminds me, she has been paid for her entertainment services.

  ‘You follow a script, express yourself and stick to your mark,’ continues the director.

  Patty grins as if she’s just done a handstand forward roll and got her first gymnastics badge.

  ‘But look at this.’ The director plays the hamper footage. It is full-on Patty: her facial expressions, her humour, her stories and her obvious love of food.

  ‘Your personality really comes through when you’re talking about something you absolutely love, like food.’

  Patty looks at me and we both nod acknowledgement of that fact.

  ‘So I think with the right product,’ he continues, ‘you might be a natural in front of the camera. When you’re allowed to move around and be yourself, you hook your audience straight away.’

  ‘I do,’ smiles Patty.

  ‘So I’ll be letting Craig know,’ adds the director, ‘that I could certainly put you in a few casting reels. I can’t promise anything, who they pick isn’t up to me, but we’ll see how it goes.’ With that he shakes our hands and leaves.

  Patty screams with delight. ‘Can you believe it,’ she squeals, ‘I’m going to be on national TV.’

  I can’t, but then again there is much about my best friend’s life that leaves me completely incredulous.

  Yankee Doodle Dandy

  ‘You are never going to believe this,’ Patty yells down the phone as I’m opening the door to the shop. ‘Craig rang me up and asked me to do a one-off gig.’

  ‘Wow, first TV and now singing, you’re in demand,’ I reply, shaking off my jacket. It’s a very warm day already and I’ve dressed for comfort rather than the season.

  ‘You’ll never guess who for. Are you sitting down?’

  I tell her that I am and roll my eyes at Charlie, not knowing quite what to expect next.

  ‘OK then, your friend across the road has just tried to hire me to sing at Launch this week.’

  I am so gobsmacked I can’t pull together a response. Patty has to check several times that I’m still on the line. I beckon Charlie over and put the phone on speaker.

  ‘Say that again Patty,’ I croak and she does so for Charlie’s benefit.

  ‘Why?’ he manages to ask.

  ‘Because I’m a born entertainer and worth every penny,’ replies Patty, missing the point a little.

  ‘No, I mean what would you be singing? Why does he want singers in the store?’

  ‘It’s for a promotion, a Fourth of July thing. I was asked to do some American songs like “Chicago”, “New York, New York” and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” – that kind of thing.’

  ‘Tell me you said no,’ I plead.

  ‘Of course I did,’ huffs Patty. ‘I’m no traitor but I thought you’d want to know.’

  We thank her and ring off.

  ‘Well, at least we know what he’s doing next,’ Charlie says looking at the calendar. It is the Fourth of July and it is a good sales idea. We should have thought of it.

  ‘He’ll be able to get other singers, so I doubt the lack of Patty will scupper his plans. What should we do?’

  ‘Get the flags out,’ says Charlie. ‘We know how to throw a party just as much as he does.’

  When Josie comes in we brief her on the plans we’ve just discovered and together we start to deck the shop with red, white and blue bunting; we dig out some road-movie themed music and we gather all our US offers to have ready for customers coming in. Across the road we notice some comings and goings but there doesn’t seem to be too much action. I start wondering whether he did abandon the idea after all. It doesn’t matter now – we’ve started so we have to forget about Lorenzo and get on with selling these trips; fortunately there’s something in the States on offer for everyone, so whether people want cities, mountains or beaches, we have great trips to show them.

  We’re mentioning some of the ideas we have to the first customers of the day when suddenly there’s a huge noise outside. We all rush to the window to see that while we’ve been working, TV camera crews have set up and are filming a marching band complete with baton-twirling majorettes coming down the road. Everyone has stopped to watch them. Naturally they come to a halt at Launch and perform some acrobatics before taking a bow and disbanding to a huge round of applause. Then, from out of the store, street vendors stroll out with trays bearing pretzels, which the crowd are more than happy to accept. A couple of people browsing in our shop make embarrassed noises and head over the road.

  ‘He puts on a good show, I’ll say that for him,’ says Charlie.

  ‘It doesn’t mean people will buy a trip,’ adds Josie. ‘They’re not going inside yet.’

  It’s true, they’re not as yet. Lorenzo seems to have created a party on his doorstep but it seems to be staying there at the moment.

  ‘I’m going out there,’ says Josie, and she takes some offer leaflets and we watch as she walks amongst the crowds handing out our details and pointing to the shop. She succeeds in getting a few customers into the shop, their hands still full of pretzels.

  Of course it doesn’t end there. I’m trying to concentrate on our own business but none of us can when we spot Tom Cruise grinning and shaking hands with the good people of Manchester. Of course it’s not the real Tom Cruise but a really good lookalike. So good that from here I can hear Charlie’s heart beating faster.

  ‘Would it be really bad if I go across and have a selfie with him?’ he pleads, both of us knowing it would be awful but that he’ll end up doing it anyway. I shrug and he heads out leaving me alone in the shop.

  Tom Cruise is joined by Elvis, Lady Gaga and Donald Trump – who seems to be getting the most requests for selfies. Then the Rat Pack turn up and start crooning away; this was a much better option than Patty, I think rather disloyally.

  ‘Are you doing these offers to America, too?’ asks a customer who’s battled her way into the shop.

  I tell her that we are, that we can match any offer and we can do it in a more sedate setting.

  ‘That’s a relief,’ says the customer. ‘It’s all good fun over there but you can’t get through the crowds. It’s nice that you’re so quiet.’

  I smile in that awkward way you do when you get a back-handed compliment. It’s the equivalent of the mean girls at school saying ‘You’re so lucky you’re not popular – I just get no time to myself.’ Although I know this customer doesn’t mean any offence to us at all.

  ‘Sit yourself down and we’ll get your trip arranged, calmly and quietly,’ I reassure her.

  We start to discuss what she’s looking for and as I only have one customer in the store I can focus on her needs completely. I feel like Nero fiddling while Rome burns but I can now understand why he just wanted to keep out of the way.

  ‘Are you offering the free insurance?’ asks the customer, before explaining that today Lorenzo is giving free travel insurance on all US bookings. I try my best not to sigh with despair.

  ‘Do you need insurance?’ I ask her and am relieved when she tells me she doesn’t. I promise to try to get her a room upgrade instead and she leaves happy having made our only booking of the day.

  I look out at the street party still going on; Charlie has left Tom Cruise and is helping Josie with the leafleting but it seems that although people are taking the flyers from them, they’re
also putting them in the bin as soon as their backs are turned. Lorenzo is bound to be cutting prices as well as offering this free insurance, so why would they go elsewhere? I wish I knew how he could afford to do all of this. Oh no. My eyes are drawn to a commotion at the edge of the crowd. A circle of people starts to form; they have their phones out and are evidently amused by the scene in front of them. A scene which seems to involve Donald Trump and…my mother. I have to go and get her. I lock up the shop and rush over to hear her lecturing the orange man in the blond wig.

  ‘You do know you’re wrong about this climate thing, don’t you?’ she’s telling him. ‘Those poor polar bears have nowhere to rest.’

  Mum’s knowledge of global warming comes pretty much exclusively from BBC documentaries, so I’m guessing the lecture will focus on animals.

  ‘And you lot eat too many of those burgers, they’re very bad for the planet.’

  Trump tells her that’s nonsense.

  ‘No it’s not,’ protests my mum very loudly. ‘It’s all those cows – belching and trumping like troopers.’ She thinks about it and adds, ‘Was that named after you? Trumping?’

  The Trump actor raises his palms to the sky and says something about ‘making trumping great again’, which has the crowd in hysterics and my mum indignant. I rush in and pull her away, trying desperately to hide my face.