“I'm, like, sooo happy,” Caroline had sobbed. “Because, like, everyone is finally going to take me seeeeriously. I've got, like, a job. A proper job. And I'm going to make you so pleased you hired me. I'm going to work harder than anyone else in the whole wide world.”
I mean how could you not like someone like that? Sure, I'd had to cover for her a few times, but that was just because I hadn't explained exactly what I wanted her to do—like the time I asked her to address some envelopes for a mass mailing and instead of printing out address labels she'd written them out by hand, all one thousand two hundred and fifty of them. But the funny thing was, that mailing was our most successful ever. Handwriting them had been a touch of genius, even if Caroline hadn't realized it.
So there she was, a month later, looking at me with concern. “No, no bad news,” I reassured her. “Just thinking. You know.”
Caroline nodded. Seconds later she pulled out a notebook and started furtively scribbling in it.
“You're writing down that I'm thinking, aren't you?” I asked her, smiling. She'd brought that notebook in on her first day and wrote in it constantly. All part of her learning, she'd told me seriously—she didn't want to miss a thing.
She looked up, slightly red. “Is that okay? It's just that I think I need to remind myself that thinking time is, like, really important.”
“No, that's fine,” I said. “So, do you have everything ready for the Project Handbag meeting?”
Her eyes lit up. “Absolutely. I took your presentation and like, totally designed it, with handbags and bows and stuff.” She handed me a printout and I cringed inwardly—it looked like it had been prepared for a five-year-old's birthday party. But I didn't want to dishearten her, so I managed a big smile.
“And potential clients?” I asked. “You remember I wanted you to call some publicists and see if we could get some high-profile women to align themselves with the fund and to carry the handbag around with them?”
She nodded sheepishly and my heart sank. Getting celebs on board was my big sell for this meeting. If we didn't have any names to drop, the presentation was going to fall flat on its face. “No success?” I asked, trying not to sound too disappointed.
“I …,” Caroline said, but she was interrupted by her phone ringing. Shooting me an apologetic look, she picked up. “Hi!” she said, her voice high-pitched. “Yeah, no, it was like totally wild … Jamie? Yeah, I think so!” She giggled, then caught my eye. “Look, got to go, actually … No, really … Shoe shopping? What now? No … No look, I'm like working, so … Yeah. Okay, bye.” She put her phone down and turned her doe eyes on me.
“Oh God, look, Jess. I tried calling publicists but no one would talk to me and it was like, so awful and depressing.”
She looked devastated. “Oh well, not to worry,” I said, as brightly as I could.
“So I reaaaaally hope you don't mind but I called a couple of friends and they said they'd like looove to help. You know, if it's okay.”
“Your friends,” I said uncertainly. “Well, that's really great, but you know that we've made the bags with Mulberry? I mean, they're really expensive and we don't have that many of them, so …”
“Right. Yeah, no I totally understand,” Caroline said, nodding fiercely. “I'll tell Beatrice it's a no-go.”
She picked up the phone and I went back to my computer. But something whirred in my head and I couldn't concentrate. And then I realized what it was.
“You don't mean Beatrice as in Princess Beatrice?” I asked lightly.
Caroline nodded earnestly. “She's not answering,” she said. “But as soon as I get through …”
“Fergie's daughter. Tenth in line to the throne or something?”
Caroline nodded again. “I shouldn't have asked him, should I?” she said worriedly.
I cleared my throat. “Caroline, who else did you ask?”
She was reddening now. “Um, well, Eugenie, but only because she was like, there. And Peaches Geldof because we were at this party and … well it doesn't matter. Then my mum was at this thing with Elle MacPherson and she thought the bag idea was totally cool …”
I gulped. “Two princesses, a Geldof, and Elle MacPherson.”
“Oh God. Have I totally messed up?” She shot me a helpless look. “I have, haven't I? I've totally messed everything up.”
I stood up, my legs shaky, and walked around to Caroline's desk. And then I gave her a huge hug. “You did not mess up,” I said, firmly. “You did the opposite. You are a total star.”
I released her and saw her wide eyes looking up at me, dumbstruck, a huge goofy smile on her lips. “Oh wow. Oh that's so cool. Really? So they can be Handbag girls?”
“They can be Handbag girls,” I confirmed, walking back to my desk and picking up the presentation slides again. Suddenly the bows were starting to look quite cute. “And you should come to the presentation,” I said suddenly, remembering how frustrated I used to get when I was an account executive and Marcia, the account director, never invited me to anything.
“Me? No. Oh no way. Too scary. Way too scary,” Caroline said, shaking her head vehemently. “But thanks.” She grinned at me, then picked up her notebook and started to scrawl. Then she looked up again. “Oh, and your friend Helen left a message for you. She wanted to remind you about the appointment at the Wedding Dress Shop at lunchtime.”
“Lunchtime?” I'd forgotten all about it.
“You want me to move your twelve o'clock with the creatives?”
I nodded. “Thanks, Caroline. And you're sure you won't come to the meeting? Chester's really nice once you get to know him.”
Caroline shuddered. “No thanks,” she said.
“Okay.” I met her eyes, then I grinned. “You want to call your friend back and tell her you can go shopping after all?”
“What like now?” Her eyes lit up. “Like, really?”
“If you want.” I smiled. “Consider it a prize for doing so well with the Handbag girls.”
“Cool,” Caroline beamed. “You're like the best boss ever.”
Chapter 4
“ELLE MACPHERSON IS GOING TO BE one of your Handbag girls?” Helen was staring at me in disbelief. I'd just told her the whole story—how Caroline had just come out with all these serious celeb friends, how Chester had looked at me in utter amazement when I'd told him, how Max had grinned at me proudly, how I was actually—well, probably going to meet Elle and Beatrice and Eugenie in the flesh. Or at the very least talk to them on the phone.
Not that I was impressed by celebs or anything. And I pretended that it pained me that Helen was. “You're meant to be looking at the dress,” I pointed out. I was, after all, standing on a small podium surrounded by mirrors wearing the most fabulous wedding dress in the whole world. And a tiara.
“I am. And it's lovely. But Elle MacPherson? I thought Project Handbag was all about some boring finance fund. I didn't know it was going to involve real handbags. And Elle bloody MacPherson.”
I giggled. “I know. It's pretty amazing, isn't it?”
“Unbelievable, more like,” Helen confirmed. She started to scrutinize the dress. I'd fallen in love with it the last time I'd been getting married, only that time I'd rejected it in favor of a less beautiful, rather more scratchy dress. Back then scratchy seemed the right way to go. Back then I didn't feel like I deserved to wear this little beauty. “It's really nice,” Helen added. “I mean, it just makes your face glow.”
“I know,” I said excitedly. “It really does. And what do you think of the tiara?”
Helen wrinkled her nose thoughtfully, then nodded. “I think it works,” she said seriously. “I really think it does.”
“Giles is coming here in a bit so he can see it, too,” I said happily, turning to stare at myself again. “He wants it to be the inspiration for the whole thing.” Giles had started out as my florist, but he'd somehow managed to morph into a wedding planner, even though I'd assured him that I didn't need one.
> “I wonder what Ivana'll think,” Helen mused. I raised an eyebrow.
“Ivana?” Ivana was a … a … I'm trying to think of the politest way to say this. She wasn't exactly a prostitute. Not really. More of … an escort. Yes, that's what she was. She was Russian, she was scary, she was married to the most unlikely man called Sean, and she had single-handedly taught me all I needed to know about seduction when all that stood between me and Grace's inheritance was a marriage proposal from Anthony Milton. “She's not coming here, is she?”
Helen smiled brightly. “You like Ivana. Anyway, she called saying she wanted to see you about something. And she's doing my show, after all. So I thought I'd invite her along.”
“She's doing your show?” I asked dubiously.
“She trains people on the art of seduction,” Helen nodded.
I digested this for a few moments. Helen's “show” was a reality television program that followed people as they turned their love lives around, aided by a makeover and lessons in flirtation. I had been her inspiration, apparently; she had tried her hardest to get me to agree to do it all again so that I could be her first subject followed relentlessly by television cameras, but I'd politely declined.
“And Ivana offers advice on television? Really?” I asked. This was the woman who believed that good cleavage was all you really needed to get a man.
Helen shrugged uncomfortably. “Yes. Although my producer says she needs to tone it down a bit. The language, you know. And the … advice.”
“You mean her view that girls who wear flat shoes might as well be lesbians as far as men are concerned?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face.
“That and a few other things.” Helen grimaced. “I don't see why, really. I mean, the whole beauty of Ivana is that she never edits what she says. She speaks from the heart, you know. She tells it like it is.”
“She certainly does,” I said, remembering the time she forced me to run around Regents Park shouting “I'm Wiiiiiild.”
“I tell it like is? Yes. That is best way.” I turned to see the curtains surrounding my little cubicle being pushed back and Ivana appeared, all five foot one of her, resplendent in a skintight plastic dress and five-inch heels. “Ah. This dress. Is better than other one. Other dress was chip and nasty. This one okay. Good.” Satisfied, she took the only chair in the cubicle and sat down. “I hef one question though.”
I looked at Helen uncertainly.
“You do?” she asked.
Ivana nodded, her eyes pinned on me. “You merry Mex, yes? Still Mex?”
“That's right,” I said, patiently, motioning for Helen to start unbuttoning me. Ivana was best kept away from hushed environments and places where mothers and daughters tended to gather. Giles could see the dress another day, I decided. Right now, exiting the Wedding Dress Shop was my highest priority.
“Yes, that is vat I thought. So why, I ask myself, is he out with other woman?”
I swung around and stared at her. “Other woman?”
“Saturday night,” she said, studying one of her long, red fingernails. “In restaurant. I em there with client, I turn, I see Mex, with lady.” She looked up. “Very sexy lady. Very elegant. Better hair than you. Much better.” She was looking at my ponytail scathingly.
“Max was out with a client on Saturday night,” I said tightly, willing Helen to go faster with her unbuttoning. He'd told me it was a man. Not a woman.
“Ah, client,” Ivana said. “Like me.” She smiled, her face losing its harshness for a few seconds. Then she looked back at her nails. “Did not look like client,” she continued. “Clients do not wrep arms around men at end of dinner, I think?”
I looked down at her sharply. “He wrapped his arms around her? He was probably just being friendly.”
“She wrep arms, not him. But he return favor.” Ivana was sounding less bullish now. She moved toward me and put her hand on my shoulder awkwardly; the whole “sisterhood” thing didn't come naturally to her. She looked at me for a few seconds, then opened her mouth again. “I think she is bitch,” she said. “I can tell this things.”
“Whatever,” I said. “But it's not what you think.”
“It look like what I think,” Ivana said, moving away and looking rather insulted.
Helen had stopped unbuttoning and was looking at me in alarm. “Shit. You think Max is …?” She met my eyes and shook her head. “No, of course he isn't. Sorry.”
“You should be,” I said, angrily swiveling the dress around so that I could finish unbuttoning it myself. “Max was out with a client, end of story. If she was hugging him it's probably because she was so happy to be doing business with him. He's very talented.”
Ivana raised an eyebrow.
“And you can stop making faces,” I told her. “Not all men are pigs, Ivana. Not all men are distracted by cleavage or think that skintight plastic is the last word in sexy. Max loves me. For who I am. Okay? Okay?”
I was two inches away from her; I realized that I was blinking away tears. Ivana saw them, too; she moved her head back slightly.
“Okay,” she said, putting her hands up. “Okay. I take it back. No boom-boom. Just business.”
I bristled at Ivana's voice, which made even “business” sound dirty and suggestive. But I wasn't going to listen to her. Max wasn't like other men. I trusted him. I did. Even if he'd said he was out with a man. There would be an explanation. There had to be.
“Yes, just business,” I said, tightly, wishing I could be as sure as I sounded.
“Hello!” A head poked around the curtains—it was Vanessa, the shop assistant.
“Hi!” I said, too enthusiastically.
“So, that's the dress, is it?” She helped me out of it and put it over her arm. “It is lovely,” she enthused.
“Yes, it is,” I agreed.
She smiled, conspiratorially “And you're going to actually get married this time, are you?”
She was joking. I knew she was just joking. We'd laughed about my last wedding on the phone when I made the appointment. But right now, it wasn't funny. It wasn't funny at all.
“Yes,” I snapped. “Yes, I'm going to get married. To Max. Whom I love.” I looked pointedly at Ivana. “Who loves me. And if anyone has a problem with that, they can just deal with it because I'm not bloody interested.”
There was silence as I pulled on my normal clothes, my normal clothes which now appeared drab and boring and which didn't light up my face the least little bit. I found myself irrationally hating them.
“Of course you are,” Vanessa said, backing out of the cubicle. “I'll just leave you to … to …,” she said, not finishing the sentence, so desperate was she to get the hell out of there. I realized that's exactly what I wanted to do, too.
“I have to go,” I said, picking up my bag.
“Jess, is everything …,” Helen started to say, but I wasn't listening; I was already halfway to the door. I needed to get back to work, to Max, where everything would be normal, where there would be a perfectly rational explanation for Ivana's story, where Max would reassure me, and where I would be happy again.
It didn't take me long to get back to the office, but even so, by the time I pushed open the doors I had already calmed down quite a bit. I was obviously suffering from wedding nerves, I decided. There was no way Max was out with some woman on Saturday night. Or, rather, there was no way the woman wasn't a client. Ivana had totally misread the situation because that's what Ivana did—she saw the world in black and white, where men were only interested in “boom-boom.” She didn't know Max. She didn't know what we had.
“Hi, Gillie,” I trilled, walking toward the reception desk. “Is Max in his office?”
“Max?” Gillie shook her head. “Nope. He's out.”
“He's out?” I stared at her uncertainly. “But we're supposed to be having a Project Handbag briefing in half an hour.”
“Yeah, he wanted me to cancel that,” she said, peering at her computer. “He said
he had to go out instead. Probably thought you'd get held up at the Wedding Dress Shop. So, chosen one, have you? What's it like? Column? Full-skirted? Ooh, you should go full-skirted. You've got the waist for it.”
I sighed impatiently. I wasn't in the mood to discuss wedding dresses, column or otherwise. “Yes, I found a dress,” I said curtly. “But now I need to talk to Max. It's very important. Can you at least tell me where he is?”
Gillie shook her head blankly. “He didn't tell me,” she said thoughtfully, “but he did book a cab. I could call them and find out where he went. If you want?”
She was looking at me curiously now, obviously itching to know what it was I had to talk to Max about, what it was that couldn't wait until he'd gotten back from his last-minute lunch. I smiled serenely. “That would be great. Thanks, Gillie.”
“He's gone to Maida Vale,” she said a few seconds later. “I thought when he said ‘lunch’ he'd be going to a restaurant. But I don't think this is a restaurant.”
“What do you mean, it isn't a restaurant?” I asked agitatedly, then forced myself to smile. “I mean,” I said, my voice as light as I could make it, “can you give me the address?”
She gave me a Post-it note with the address on it: 42 St. John's Wood Road.
“Thanks,” I said, tightly.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
I nodded vigorously. Things were fine. And if things weren't perhaps as wonderful as I'd like them to be, Gillie was the last person I wanted to know. She was a human YouTube—if something of interest happened and Gillie found out about it, you could guarantee that detailed descriptions would have reached every single person in a five-mile radius within five minutes. “Oh, absolutely,” I lied. “Forty-two St. John's Wood Road is where one of Chester's key associates lives. I forgot he needed to get some signatures.”
“Okay then.” Looking slightly disappointed, Gillie looked back at her computer.
I hurried back out into the street where I looked around desperately for a cab. My phone was ringing; I pressed it to my ear.
A Wild Affair: A Novel Page 4