Guilty Pleasures

by Tasmina Perry

  ‘Who is it?’ said Stella wearily.

  ‘Emma Bailey.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ she said, before realizing her finger was still on the buzzer.

  ‘I can come back,’ said a crackling voice.

  ‘No, no, come on up,’ she said quickly, before rushing around scooping up everything cluttering the floor and flinging it all into a laundry bag. Then Stella stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh shit!’ she said, as the penny dropped. This woman may be here to offer me a job. Emma had called the previous day and after some polite pleasantries about Saul’s death, Emma had muttered that there might be some design opportunities opening at Milford and that she was very keen to talk to Stella in person about them. Stella had been up for three days putting the finishing touches to a dozen clutch bags which a certain A-lister had requested for the Oscars red carpet. One bag would not do, Stella had been told, because the notoriously divaesque actress could not possibly decide which dress she was going to wear until the afternoon of the event. Her mind fuzzed from lack of sleep and overwork, Stella had failed to take in the meaning of Emma’s words. In fact, until this moment, she had failed to consider why Emma Bailey, new CEO of Milford Luxury Goods, would take the time and expense to fly six thousand miles to see her. ‘Oh, SHIT!’ she cried and ran for the bathroom.

  Stella looked at herself in the mirror, wishing she had time to change out of her shorts and vest-top. But she didn’t look too bad. Her skin was lightly tanned and clear. She had a wide mouth, sun-kissed blonde hair in a Jean Seberg crop which suited her petite frame and height. She did not like to think of herself as beautiful although she suspected it, given the number of people who assumed she was an actress and men who made passes at her every time she went out. She ruffled her hair and pinched her cheeks. Well, it’ll have to do, she thought. She’s not after me for my pretty face.

  ‘Come in. Come in,’ said Stella, opening the door as she kicked her sneakers behind the magazine rack. ‘Sorry it’s a bit of a mess.’

  Stella was slightly relieved to see that Emma seemed equally flustered.

  ‘Don’t worry, my fault for being early. The LAX immigration Gestapo waved me through without too much interrogation and the taxi driver seemed to have a death wish,’ she smiled.

  Emma took in the chaos of Stella’s flat: the piles of magazines, the rolls of fabric, the precarious tower of DVDs by the TV, most of which seemed to be rom-coms or weepies. ‘What a lovely view!’ she exclaimed.

  Stella burst out laughing and Emma couldn’t help but join in. Stella decided immediately that she liked this crazy woman who had flown halfway around the world to see her. She could barely remember Emma from a holiday in Provence when they were both very young, but her mother still kept in touch with Julia Grand. From the snippets of gossip that occasionally filtered her way, Stella had gathered the impression that Emma was the black sheep of the Milford family: someone tough and independent and mysterious. But the woman in front of her was sweaty and creased and had more than a hint of vulnerability about her. Well, that can’t be a bad thing, she thought.

  ‘Well, I guess I’d better offer you a drink after you’ve come all this way,’ smiled Stella, taking Emma’s bag and plopping it on an already overladen armchair.

  ‘Soda or vodka, I’m afraid,’ she said, rummaging around in the fridge. ‘Or I bought mint from the farmers’ market so we could have fresh tea?’

  ‘Mint tea would be lovely,’ said Emma, wandering to the window and gazing out. ‘So your father never made a sculptor out of you after all?’

  Stella laughed. ‘He tried – oh, he tried. And for a little while I went along with it. I studied sculpture at the Slade,’ she called from the kitchen as she banged about preparing the tea.

  ‘I fell into fashion design by mistake although it’s not a hundred miles away from sculpture. All about form and shape. I took a course in pattern cutting but I’m pretty much self-taught.’

  ‘And now you’re a design executive at Cate Glazer.’

  She looked at Emma wondering how much – or little – she knew about her life, not knowing that Emma had spent the entire twelve-hour flight to LA reading an inch-thick file on the growing Cate Glazer empire that she had obtained from a London press agency.

  ‘Well, officially I’m the design executive, which means I help Cate design the products.’

  ‘And unofficially?’ asked Emma, immediately reading between the lines.

  Stella hesitated and looked a little embarrassed.

  ‘Cate is the front-person for the products, but I design everything. It’s a little like a ghost-writer doing novels. She OKs everything and she knows what she likes. Plus however much I moan about her, I have to admit she’s a great business brain and a marketing genius.’

  The truth, thought Stella, was that Cate Glazer was a nightmare. Controlling and arrogant, she was paranoid to the point of forbidding her staff to have telephones, in case they should be tempted to make personal calls on company time. Stella knew Cate was also terrified that her star designer might be poached, but instead of incentivizing her, she kept Stella locked away in a windowless office with her drawing boards and swatches, ensuring that no one outside the company ever met her. Stella brought the tea things out on a dusty tray and pushed some magazines off the sofa so they could sit down.

  ‘So tell me, is this an interview or a chat?’ asked Stella, handing Emma a cup. ‘I take it from your call yesterday you’re looking to boost your design team?’

  ‘No. I’m actually looking for a head designer. I want someone to run the whole operation.’

  ‘No way!’ gasped Stella, almost spilling her tea. ‘You haven’t flown all the way from London just to speak to me have you?’ she said incredulously.

  Emma nodded.

  ‘Why?’ said Stella with a half-laugh.

  Emma hesitated before she spoke. ‘Well, because none of the big names are interested. Because I need to make an appointment very, very quickly before my family’s company goes down the pan. Because I’ve done my homework and know you spent three summers working in the Milford factory, because I know you’re the unsung hero of Cate Glazer and because I hope you care as much about Milford as I do.’

  ‘Blimey. You’re very straight-talking,’ laughed Stella, not expecting such an honest answer.

  ‘I used to be a management consultant,’ smiled Emma. ‘I’m used to speaking my mind.’

  Stella took a sip of her tea, her heart suddenly thumping.

  ‘You work in fashion now, honey. Nobody says what they really think.’

  She paused, put down her mint tea and waved Emma over.

  ‘Come through,’ she said leading her to the second bedroom which had been converted into a studio. In stark contrast to Stella’s living space, there was a clear order to this room. There was a tailor’s dummy in the corner of the room and a sewing machine in front of the French window. Hung up on a wooden rail were a dozen squares of leather. Stella moved over to a white sofa near the window and sorted through a pile of bags.

  ‘Some of this season’s Cate Glazer bags,’ she explained. ‘No doubt you’ve seen all these …’

  Emma picked one up and examined it. It was lovely. A perfect balance between the formal and the avant-garde, you could take it into the boardroom then out to a club without a worry. This girl was good.

  Stella straightened up, holding out a taupe leather tote bag. ‘This one, however, is my own. I make them for friends mostly, although Fred Segal might carry them in the Fall.’

  ‘This is beautiful,’ said Emma honestly. It was made from luxurious butter-soft leather and she had used the material as the starting point – it was somehow structured but relaxed. The bag seemed to mould itself around Emma’s hands.

  ‘But this is what I really wanted to show you,’ said Stella, opening a cupboard.

  ‘Vintage Milford bags,’ she said, handing Emma a snakeskin clutch.

  ‘Some used to belong to my mum, a couple were even my grandmother’s, I
think. This one …’ she held up an amazing crocodile-skin day-bag, like a mini-Gladstone bag, ‘… I found this in Decades, a super-cool retro shop on Melrose. It cost me half my wage packet but I had to have it.’ Stella talked quickly – the words bubbling from her mouth as if she was unable to stop them. She ran her hand over the bag as if it was a precious jewel.

  ‘Can you see? The craftsmanship is amazing. Handbags were tiny in the 1950’s. Women didn’t carry their entire life around inside them as they do now. Look, there’s an inside pocket for a compact. That could be adapted to hold a mobile phone, don’t you think? And the curve of this buckle here is like a Barbara Hepworth sculpture. It’s stunning – it’s actually been die-cast. That sort of thing doesn’t happen now, but I think it would be so great to reinstate it.’

  Stella realized she had been babbling. She looked up at Emma and Emma was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Honestly Emma,’ she said, smiling back, ‘you don’t need me. Just look in Milford’s archives or hunt down every single vintage bag you can get your hands on; private collections, vintage shops, even jumble sales. You don’t need a star designer – everything you need is here.’

  Emma held up Stella’s own tote bag. ‘No, what I need is this,’ she said seriously. ‘I’m no expert on design – God knows, look at the state of me,’ she laughed, indicating her travel-crumpled suit, ‘but even I can tell that what you have done with your own bags is special. Yes, the vintage bags are wonderful, but as you say, they were designed for their time. Women today want something that is right for now, something that in fifty years people will be looking at and saying “Wow, they were so stylish back then”. I want you to take the Milford heritage as a framework and add this,’ she waved Stella’s bag again, ‘the Stella Chase magic’

  Stella laughed out loud. ‘You actually want me to do this?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Stella’s head was reeling.

  ‘But how can I … ?’

  ‘Listen to me, Stella,’ said Emma, her face deadly serious, ‘I came here because I was desperate. I couldn’t get anyone to design Milford’s collection and the bank is breathing down my neck. You were my last option. But since the moment I pressed that buzzer, I have been convinced that, given the choice of every top designer from Hermès to Vuitton, I would still choose you.’

  Stella gaped. ‘Are you on drugs?’

  Emma laughed. ‘Not quite, but it’s how I feel. Call it a gut-feeling if you like, but I just know no one else could do the job better than you.’

  ‘But I have my whole life here …’ said Stella lamely, suddenly frightened by the sudden notion that she might actually want the job. Emma put her tea down.

  ‘OK, let me tell you why you should do this,’ she said, ticking the points off on her fingers. ‘One, you’ll have complete control over the designs – complete control. No ifs, no buts, you’re in charge. Two, I’ll get you all the support staff you need – no more late nights, well, not so many anyway,’ she smiled.

  ‘Three, I’m guessing you’re on a salary at Cate Glazer? I’ll beat it by 50 per cent and if it all works out we can talk about taking a shareholding. And four, you’ll get 100 per cent credit for your designs, and I do mean 100 per cent. I want people to know you’re behind the creative rebirth of Milford.’

  Stella frowned, trying to take it all in, her little nose wrinkling up. She thought back to the CFDA awards when the name Cate Glazer had been called out for Accessories Designer of the Year. Stella had only been invited at the last minute when one of Cate’s Hollywood friends had dropped out and she had almost been sick when Cate went up to accept the award alone. Behind every designer was a team of design assistants, pattern cutters, seamstresses, stylists and money men who all made it come together. But in the creative process, Cate hadn’t so much as lifted a pencil.

  ‘All I want to know is if you’d be interested in the job,’ said Emma.

  ‘Can I just check this?’ asked Stella, a goofy smile on her face, ‘You want me to work for Milford?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As head designer?’ she said, suddenly coughing

  ‘Yes. And of course you’d get to work in a beautiful green English village. No smog, no traffic, and not one mugging since they caught Dick Turpin.’

  Stella snorted. Emma was a clever woman. She seemed to understand how Stella was feeling. She could see she wanted to get out of the trap she’d built for herself, to show the world exactly what she could do. But still…

  She looked around her flat; the cheap white furnishings, paper lampshades and bamboo blinds, and wondered if it really was time to go back to England. She looked out of the window, where Santa Monica was disappearing into the dusk. Of all the places in LA, it was the place she loved best; there were English pubs, a large expat British community, it was close to the sea. But was that simply because it reminded her of home? Emma seemed to read her thoughts.

  ‘Do you have a notice period on your contract?’ she asked.

  Stella laughed. ‘A week, I think. When Cate took me on I think she wanted me to be quickly dispensable and the contract has never been changed.’

  Emma stood up. ‘Stella, I need you to help me do this. Together I really think we can turn Milford around. Make it the exclusive luxury brand it once was.’

  Stella listened to Emma with an almost eerie detachment. She was talking a good game and she was clearly confident in her abilities, but there was a tiny flicker of fear in Emma’s voice. For Stella, this was something new. Cate Glazer’s self-belief had never wavered for a second. She shouted and ranted and demanded the very best, never for a moment contemplating failure. But Emma was different. She was honest and forthright and she was painfully aware that the whole thing could go tits up at any time. I like her, she thought, reaching out to shake Emma’s hand.

  ‘OK, boss, see you in a week.’

  It was Emma’s turn to gape.

  ‘Really?’ she replied.

  ‘Really!’ said Stella. ‘Only, can I ask for one thing?’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘Can I have my own phone?’

  10

  Sitting in the meeting room of the book publisher Leighton Best, Cassandra Grand was having trouble keeping her temper. She did her best to ignore the plate of cheap biscuits and ugly mug of milky tea that had been pushed in front of her, she could even overlook the IKEA furniture and magnolia walls. But what was driving her to distraction was listening to the company’s art director Paula Mayle run through her so-called vision for the design of her new book Cassandra Grand: On Style.

  ‘I hope you like it,’ said Paula, putting down her mock-up board. ‘We think the pillar-box red jacket is very strong.’

  Cassandra just stared at her. Who are these people? she thought. What do they do with their lives?

  ‘You’re obviously not aware that red was something of a signature colour for Diana Vreeland.’

  ‘Erm, Diana Vreeland?’ asked Jenny Barber, the book’s commissioning editor.

  Cassandra rolled her eyes heavenward.

  ‘US Vogue editor 1963 to 71. One of the most influential magazine editors of the twentieth century. She was at least twenty years ahead of her time, completely understood the concept of brand – just as we must grasp it now. This book is a brand statement. My brand statement. Consequently, red is unacceptable. I would suggest lucite.’ She turned a wintery smile towards Paula. ‘It’s a platinum, Pantone number 1032.’

  ‘Paula, maybe you can look into that,’ said Jenny to her assistant, quavering under Cassandra’s gaze.

  ‘I’ve also been making a few notes as we go along,’ continued Cassandra taking a sip of water. She winced. It was semi-flat, sparkling mineral water.

  ‘Fonts. Helvetica is an absolute no. My readers are going to be extremely design-conscious and I think they would appreciate something more unusual. I will send you the number of David Sellers, one of the country’s best typographers, to create something new. We can use Tahoma
or Trebuchet as a template.’

  ‘So are you happy otherwi…’

  Cassandra cut Jenny Barber off mid-sentence.

  ‘My name Cassandra Grand should be bigger than the title,’ she continued as if the interruption had never occurred. ‘Lift it several point sizes. Also when I said coffee-table book, that’s what I meant. Something of size. This has to be a book in people’s libraries, a gift for people to treasure.’ She held her hands apart to indicate the size of the book she had in mind. ‘Roughly the size of a large picnic basket.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad we’ve made progress here,’ said Jenny when she was completely sure Cassandra had finished. ‘One final thing though, Cassandra? When do you think we’ll be seeing any copy? For a September publication date we’re getting a little tight.’

  Cassandra dismissed it with a wave.

  ‘Don’t worry about that. You’ll have it within the fortnight.’

  She glanced at her mobile which was suddenly glowing an elegant emerald green. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me,’ she said politely, stepping outside the meeting room to collective sighs of relief from the Leighton Best editorial team. It was Lianne.

  ‘Can you come back to the office immediately?’

  ‘What is it? I’m at Linda Meredith for my facial in forty minutes.’

  ‘I think it’s important: Jason Tostvig and Greg Barbera.’

  Cassandra caught her breath. Greg Barbera? What did the Managing Director of the company want? He was on the international board.

  ‘Did they give any clues?’

  ‘I’m just guessing, but there was a letter from a London solicitor acting for Phoebe Fenton in today’s post. It’s quite angry.’

  Cassandra gave a long hard sigh.

  ‘Fine. Tell Toxic and Greg I will meet them at twelve. But first, I need you to do something for me …’

  Cassandra stood in front of the mirror, touching up her make-up. She had made a detour from the lift to the bathroom before she went into the Rive office. A sweep of mascara and a slick of gloss was all she needed to look like a model who had just stepped off the catwalk. There was a light smell of vomit coming from the cubicle behind her. It was a familiar smell at noon; there were at least half a dozen bulimics in the office. She took a little vial of her bespoke scent out of her purse and dabbed it on her pulse points. She was as ready as she’d ever be.