by Karen Swan
‘There won’t be a picture to “get” with me.’
‘If Luke Laidlaw says there will be, there will be. Come on,’ Kelly cajoled. ‘At the very least, it’ll be a story to tell your grandkids one day! The day you modelled for Luke Laidlaw! He’s one of the legends, Cass.’
‘I am not a model. I am a private, plain, boring individual who would like it to remain that way, thanks.’
Kelly sighed wearily. ‘Look, Cass, Luke has to all intents and purposes fired Selena. He’s wiped every shot he took of her this morning.’
‘Well that was a bloody stupid, rash thing to do,’ she cried hotly.
‘If you don’t do this, the shoot will collapse and things will get even worse for Bebe. Luke Laidlaw shooting her ad campaign might be the only thing now that can save her business.’
Cassie sniffed. She was having trouble visualizing Bebe Washington as a tragic figure. Besides, the entire situation was ridiculous. How on earth had it come to this? ‘Bebe will go nuts – the PR who destroyed her breakthrough show becomes the model in her ad campaign? I don’t think so. I would not want to be in the room – no, the city! – when she heard that.’
There was a short pause.
‘Then do it for me,’ she heard her friend say in a smaller voice.
Cassie looked up, surprised by the timidity. Kelly was looking at her beseechingly.
The old friends stared at each other in silence, words redundant. It didn’t need to be said that this could be Cassie’s opportunity to undo the awful harm she’d done to Kelly’s business and reputation, to repay the constant kindness and favours that she’d extended to her since she’d left Gil.
Cassie sighed. There was simply no argument against that. She should just be grateful it wasn’t a Playboy shoot going on out there.
‘Okay,’ she said finally, pulling herself up and sliding her bottom along the floor of the van. ‘For you. I’ll do it for you.’
They opened the doors and the bleached glare of sunlight rushed in at them.
‘She’ll do it,’ Kelly smiled, nodding at Luke, Bas and Molly, who were leaning against the beach regulations sign.
‘Yay!’ Molly said cheerfully, wholly convinced that this was a dreadful idea.
‘That’s my Teabag,’ Bas said, hugging her by the shoulders. ‘I’ll make you look doubly gorgeous, darling.’
‘That’s great news,’ Luke said. ‘We’ll head back to the house now, and once you’ve worked your magic, the rest of you can take the day off – fully paid, of course.’
‘But – ’ Kelly frowned. ‘You’ll need them for touch-ups, surely? They can’t just disappear.’
‘Sure you can,’ he said, including her in the dismissal. ‘It won’t take long. Besides, Cassie’s never done this before. She’ll be a lot more relaxed if there aren’t loads of people standing round staring at her.’
‘Three’s hardly loads,’ Bas countered, looking worried.
Luke looked at him. ‘Like I said, she’s not a professional, Bas.’ He turned back to Cassie, and she saw a smile in his eyes. ‘I want a closed set.’
Chapter Twelve
‘Usher in the new spring mood with Maddy Foxton’s sublime—’
‘No, scratch sublime,’ Kelly muttered. ‘Too gushy. Change it for . . . delicious. Let’s get tactile with it.’
‘Usher in the new spring mood with Maddy Foxton’s delicious new collection—’
‘Capsule collection. It sounds more exclusive. It screams waiting list.’
‘. . . delicious new capsule collection of day-to-night clutch bags.’
‘No, hate it. Change that.’
‘All of it?’
‘The day-to-night clutch bag bit. Too done. I only change my bag from day to night if I’m going to the Met Institute. Women expect their bags to be versatile.’
‘Okay.’ Cassie blew out through her cheeks. ‘What if we go in on the craftsmanship angle instead? I mean, logistically I still can’t work out how they weave a plaited bag from one piece of leather.’
‘Okay. It’s what allows them to charge three grand a pop,’ Kelly said. ‘And get the quality of the leather in as well. Ring Maddy’s studio to get the specific details. I can’t remember what she sources exactly – the placenta of woodland fauns or baby unicorns or something.’
The phone on her desk rang and Kelly’s eyes brightened as she saw the number. ‘It’s Brett. Let me see that before it goes out.’
‘Sure.’
Cassie walked out of the office, closing Kelly’s door quietly. Hannah looked up. As one of the only four employees left – from an original tally of sixteen – there was no hiding from Hannah and her death stares. Aside from the original three Kelly had had to let go, the other employees, Aspen included, had jumped ship when it became clear that Vogue’s displeasure was going to last for more than a week, and only a few die-hard loyalists had stuck around.
Certainly getting Luke to shoot the Bebe Washington campaign had bolstered Kelly’s reputation somewhat, but with the images and new collection not out till February, the man on the street – or rather woman in the shops – remembered only the fiasco, and Hartford Communications was left treading water in the interim.
Cassie shook her head to bring herself back to the present and stared across the half-empty office from her desk. At least she was settling in to the PR world better. With fewer chefs in the kitchen, she was beginning to forge links with the journalists, most of whom were delighted to accept her invitations to lunch, if only to get the inside track on what had really happened with Alexa Bourton. Needless to say, she hadn’t found the courage to call the Vogue office, even though she’d written a contrite but eloquent letter of apology to Alexa the very day of the debacle.
She understood now the mechanisms of the industry – who did what and when – and she’d become so used to her ‘dressing by numbers’ outfits that she was able to put her clothes on in the morning without first checking the labels. She looked the part. She was beginning to act the part. Could she write the part? Ironically, she had bigger responsibilities now that there were fewer people to share them with.
She looked down at her press release. If she could just nail this and get people – the right people – lusting after the collection, she could make another difference for Kelly. First Bebe. Now Maddy. She just had to do it one pigeon-step at a time.
‘This is mental,’ Cassie giggled as a werewolf held open the lift doors for her. ‘Thanks, Bas.’
‘Pleasure’s all mine, m’lady,’ he growled wolfishly.
‘You can’t call me a lady when I’m dressed as a toad!’ she said, as he pressed the floor button.
‘You should have come as a werewolf too. You always look lean and hungry these days.’
Cassie shook her head. ‘You don’t know the half of it. I’m hoping Anouk will put me on a steak tartare diet when I get to P—’
‘Don’t say it!’ Bas commanded dramatically. ‘The P-word. I don’t want to hear it.’ He turned his face to the wall.
‘Oh, Bas. You know we’ll always be friends,’ she said, hugging him to her. ‘And who knows, I might decide to settle here after my Grand Tour. Anyway, won’t you go out for the shows?’ she asked. ‘I can see you then. There’s the couture in January and the autumn-winter collections at the end of Feb.’
Bas clutched his hands to his heart and looked down at her proudly. ‘Oh my duckling,’ he said. ‘You are ready to fly.’
The doors opened just as Cassie whacked him in the stomach. The party was spilling over into the hall and a cacophony of witches, vampires, pumpkins, black cats and zombies was mooching about, leaning on walls and dancing in doorways.
‘Okay. So Halloween’s a big deal here, then,’ she said, taking in the collective effort. Men who wouldn’t deviate from a two-button to three-button suit by day were in full make-up and character dress. It was certainly a far cry from her Halloween the year before: Gil had been away and she’d invited the local primary school to throw a party in the
Great Hall. She’d spent days beforehand carving out giant pumpkins to sit next to the massive front doors, and had dangled big black spiders from the chandeliers and tacked black gauze to the windows. The children had loved it and had spontaneously shouted out, ‘Three cheers for Mrs Fraser’ before they’d left.
‘You’d better believe it. Come on. Let’s get some drinks.’
They pushed through the doorway – quite some feat since she was wearing a bulbous and warty solid-foam bodysuit that was wider than the door – and headed towards the kitchen.
‘You stay here,’ Bas commanded. ‘I’ll get the drinks. Once we get you in there we might never get you back out again.’
Cassie turned and stared out of the enormous floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall glass window. The views from up here – so, so much higher than Kelly’s apartment – were staggering. If she looked north, she could see the lights of Harlem, and south, the very tip of the Statue of Liberty. In front, between the towers, she caught glimpses of the East River, inky black and viscous in the night.
Now this is New York living, she thought to herself.
‘Hey! Thought I recognized that backside.’
She turned round. Kelly was standing in front of her wearing a red PVC corset, red fishnet stockings, tiny red silk panties and flashing horns on her head.
‘Oh! My! God!’ Cassie shrieked. ‘What would your mother say if she knew you were out like that?’
Kelly laughed. ‘What? You think they didn’t do this?’
‘No!’
‘Don’t you remember that time they all did Halloween together?’
‘No!’ The thought of her parents in any type of dress except black tie, was . . . well, unthinkable.
Kelly raised her eyebrows. ‘Your mother went as the Bride of Frankenstein.’
‘She did not!’
‘And you father was . . . well, you can guess.’
‘Frankenstein? Daddy?!’
Kelly held her arms wide. ‘The very same!’
‘You know, there’s a lot of rubber and PVC and leather going on,’ Cassie said suspiciously. ‘You’re sure we’re not just at some fetish party?’
Bas came back with their drinks. ‘Oooh, you look saucy! I take it Brett approves of that sexpot outfit?’
‘Oh yes. He’s already approved me,’ Kelly said. She winked. ‘Twice!’
They laughed, just as Brett – dressed as Dracula – came to join them. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing,’ Bas said. ‘We were just giving Kelly our approval rating.’
Brett leaned over and gnawed affectionately – and vampirically – on Kelly’s neck.
Cassie smiled to see her friend look so happy. In love, even. Brett had played his cards cleverly, right from the very beginning. It was just as Cassie had suspected. He’d noticed how Kelly had been defending her at Mischka that night, so he’d decided to get to her by pretending to get to Cassie – that way, Kelly forced herself between them and straight into his arms. Cassie thought it very romantic.
‘You look gorgeous too, Cassie,’ Brett said with a grin when he’d put Kelly down.
‘Thanks, Brett!’ Cassie laughed. ‘I’m covered in warts, have green make-up on my face and an arse the size of New Jersey. I feel a million dollars!’
‘Well your legs look great. At least we can see those,’ he said, before looking back at Kelly. ‘Am I allowed to say that?’
‘Of course. But only to Cassie,’ she admonished, smiling as he patted her scantily clad bottom.
‘Of course.’
They drifted off, locked at the lips, leaving Cassie and Bas to steadily empty a jug of ‘virgin’s blood’ and try to people-spot, although it was difficult with all the wigs, warts and appendages in place.
‘It’s like a really, really ugly masked ball,’ Cassie said, trying to identify a bat in the corner.
‘The problem with this outfit, of course,’ Bas grumbled after a while, ‘is that it makes bathroom trips long-winded.’ He sighed. ‘I may be a while.’
‘Don’t mind me,’ Cassie smiled, feeling sufficiently drunk to be left happily on her own.
She had just perched herself on the back of a sofa and was drinking in the power skyline when a slinky black cat, dressed in a skin-tight black leather jumpsuit, furry mittens and ears, with a feline mask over her eyes, ‘miaowed’ suddenly at Cassie as she passed, swiping a not-so-playful paw at Cassie’s face.
Cassie jumped, startled, as the cat laughed. She didn’t need to raise her mask for Cassie to know it was Selena. Her body graced every billboard. It was one of the most recognizable in Manhattan and set off to staggering effect tonight.
Cassie went cold as the model looked her up and down and laughed. Of all the times to be dressed as a toad.
‘So it is you. I did wonder,’ she purred, shaking her head at Cassie’s vanity-free costume. ‘Well, I can see why he chose you,’ Selena said sarcastically, leaning in to her. Her breath smelled of whisky and cigarettes, and her pupils were dilated. ‘I can’t wait to see the pictures.’
‘You were . . . sick,’ Cassie faltered. ‘I was just trying to help.’
Selena lit a cigarette between cupped hands. ‘Oh really? And how exactly does you pushing me off the job constitute helping?’ she sneered, blowing smoke in Cassie’s face. ‘Bebe needed me in that campaign. She cried down the phone to me, begging me to do the job. She kept saying it was going to be the end for her, that I was the only one who could pull her out of this. I only did it because Lou was on board. And now Bazaar has just crowned me the ‘girl of the year’. Meanwhile, she’s left with some mugshots of the girl who undermined her business in the first place. I don’t really call that helping, do you?’ Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she blew careless smoke rings. ‘In fact, aren’t toads traditionally an omen of bad luck?’
A figure in a bedsheet with holes cut out for eyes and plastic chains rattling round its middle came over, making unconvincing ghostly noises.
‘Whoooooo,’ he called, sounding more like an owl than a ghost, as he held his arms wide and swooped towards Selena. He straightened up suddenly and looked at Cassie. From the way his eyes were crinkling below the cutouts, she could tell he was smiling. ‘Hi, I’m Lou.’
Cassie gulped. ‘I’m . . . Toad,’ she managed, retracting her head further into the foam balaclava. Oh, please don’t let him recognize me, please don’t let him rec—
‘Great costume . . . and great legs!’ he said, winking at her before he swooped away after Selena, who had begun to sway off, swinging her tail hypnotically in one hand and moving sinuously to the music.
Cassie turned away, grateful for the narrow escape, and saw Bas chatting with a bat in the corner. She ran over – not inconspicuously in her toad costume. ‘Bas,’ she whispered, kissing him on the cheek. ‘I’m off. I’m sorry.’
‘What? But why?’ She saw the conflict cross his face. Close up, the bat he was talking to was very good-looking.
‘It’s fine, you stay. But I have to go. Luke Laidlaw’s here and I refuse to be in the same room as him.’ And she turned and fled.
She never, ever wanted to see that man again.
Chapter Thirteen
Cassie waved her yellow flag frantically as she saw them clip round the corner. It was almost impossible to spot them amongst the thousands of other runners, but a man running in a dustbin kept clanging in to them and it was Kelly’s scowl she spotted first. They’d done eighteen miles and been running for two hours already, but she and Raoul had barely broken sweat, save for an appealing rivulet that was trickling idly down the central groove of Kelly’s stomach. Her ponytail – back-combed and tonged by Bas as a good-luck token before she’d set off – swished prettily from side to side, and Cassie felt a rush of love for her proud, ambitious, kind and phenomenally fit friend.
Not that she was doing so badly herself. She was at least able to get round the reservoir every other morning now – it was still less than two miles, but hey! She’d come from
a standing start – and she had to admit Kelly had been right about the kickboxing lessons, not just about what it would do for her thighs (she’d always quite liked her legs), but also what it would do for her arms, shoulders and waist.
She was five back from the front of the crowd, and there were that many rows again behind her, but in her now customary stacked boots, she stood an inch above most other people, and she could see Kelly looking for her – they’d prearranged the spot – finally catching sight of the flag she was flapping about like a demented canary.
She jogged Raoul with her elbow and they both raised a hand in salute as they passed.
‘Only eight more to go, Kell!’ Cassie hollered. ‘You can do it!’
‘Hey!! That’s my new jacket!’ Kelly shouted back, clocking the sumptuous cinched Burberry leather jacket that had only arrived from London the day before. It was sold out everywhere in New York, and Suzy had only managed to get her hands on one by pulling some strings with their marketing director, whose wedding she’d organized.
Cassie put her thumb to her nose and waggled her fingers teasingly, knowing she was safe – for the time being at least. Kelly laughingly shook her fist as she was carried away, swept along in the bobbing current.
Cassie watched the backs of their heads for as long as she could, and then waved her flag and clapped for another couple of minutes as scores of other runners, all with their own supporters, stories and motivations, passed by. But what had been a vital, personal event just moments before now morphed into an anonymous heaving crowd that kept standing on her toes and trying to push her back.
She let herself be squeezed out, people rushing to fill the gap like water, until eventually she was out and walking slowly along the back of the pavement, past the windows of all the closed-up shops. She felt the melancholy that was only ever one step behind her, begin to quicken its pace, trying to catch up and hitch a ride on her shoulder. The day before, in contradiction to her divorce lawyer’s advice, she had chosen not to contest the pre-nup, and Gil was in her every waking thought.