New York Valentine

by Carmen Reid

  ‘Come on in,’ Paula said with an expansive sweep of her arm, ‘our dedicated personal shopper isn’t in this afternoon …’

  Ah … how well Annie remembered her treasured weekdays off, designed to make up for the hectic blur of Saturdays at work and often Sundays too.

  ‘Oh …’ the woman at the door hesitated. She was holding a jumble of dark clothing and hangers in her hand.

  ‘No seriously, come on in,’ Paula urged, ‘you’re going to be in very safe hands today.’ She gave Annie a wink as she said this: ‘I’m the head buyer for the floor, but I’m having a quiet day. This is our former personal shopper who now does makeovers on TV and I have a feeling she’s not going to be able to help getting involved. What are you looking for?’

  ‘A dress …’ the woman uttered the word with a degree of dread; despondence, even.

  ‘That’s good, we have lots of dresses,’ Paula encouraged. ‘Special event?’

  ‘Ye-ees.’ Again this sounded hesitant.

  ‘Step into our boudoir,’ Annie urged the woman, ‘this is a nice problem to have and we’re going to enjoy solving it for you.’

  Just half an hour later, the woman – a fifty-something psychiatrist called Joanne Kettner – had sipped her way through one glass of complimentary champagne and abandoned the two severe black dresses she’d brought into the suite with her.

  ‘Black is so strict,’ Annie said, ‘plus, I think it drains you. You don’t want to have to wear tons of make-up if you don’t usually. So, we’ll try out a dress in a better colour that does all the brightening and tightening for you.’

  For the first ten minutes or so of Joanne’s session, Annie had tried hard to take a back seat. She’d tried to busy herself browsing the enormous rack of new season’s clothes which Paula had set out for her to look at in her TV capacity.

  But although Paula was good with Joanne, Annie just hadn’t been able to stop herself from getting involved. Because she loved to shop for other people, maybe even more than she loved to shop for herself.

  ‘My husband’s going to be given an award at the kind of swanky ceremony I usually run a mile from. Most of the time I let him go to that kind of thing with work colleagues,’ Joanne confided. ‘But this one means a lot to him, he’s asked me to come and I want to dress up, make the effort, go the extra mile. But … I’m a psychiatrist, I don’t do fluffy or floral or flouncy or …’

  ‘Fussy?’ Paula suggested.

  ‘No,’ Joanne pulled a face at the very thought.

  ‘So we want to go glamorously feminine, just a touch, an elegant ruffle or two, something just a little softer,’ Annie chipped in, holding out two long silk cowl-necked dresses: one ivory with bold watercolour style pink and black flowers, the other violet with long, silky purple sleeves.

  ‘Oh they are too pretty,’ Joanne said, ‘almost too pretty to try on.’

  ‘Don’t be mad, dresses need someone to try them on,’ Annie insisted. ‘That’s when they come alive.’

  Minutes later, Joanne stood before them in the ivory dress.

  They all agreed it was beautiful, but Joanne didn’t like the bare arms: ‘I’m nearly fifty-three,’ she protested, ‘I think my arms need less attention.’

  ‘We have a lovely little pink bolero …’ Paula suggested.

  ‘I’ve seen the price tag on this number,’ Joanne said with a smile. ‘There’s no way I’m buying a bolero to go with it. We’ll give the other one a go.’

  When she stepped out in the violet and purple dress, Annie and Paula definitely had the ‘that’s it’ look on their faces, but Joanne still looked troubled.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Paula assured her, ‘I love the way the neckline sits, and the drape at the front is so flattering.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Joanne agreed, but she was still peering at herself critically.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Annie had to ask. ‘What are you telling yourself?’

  Joanne turned from the mirror to look at her dressing guide properly: ‘Which show is it you’re on?’ she asked.

  ‘I had my own programme, called How Not To Shop – we did makeovers and shopping tips for real people and lots of fun slots. It was great,’ Annie said sadly, ‘I really loved it, but unfortunately, the plug has just been pulled. We were filming series two then boom … end of story.’

  ‘I’m very sorry. Do you think you’ll get another show?’

  ‘I’ll have to wait and see, but times are tough and there are so many other presenters who’ve done much more than me waiting in the wings.’

  ‘Did you get any unexpected results?’ Joanne wondered. ‘Did you buy people new jeans, restyle their hair and suddenly find they were dumping their husbands and riding off into the sunset?’

  ‘All the time,’ Annie said with a grin. ‘Almost everyone who applied to the show was on the verge of a big new change. I’m a psychiatrist too, you know, but with dresses, not drugs.’

  Joanne laughed at this: ‘Did you have a good producer who can get you more work?’

  ‘Tamsin Hinkley, yes, she’s fantastic, if anyone can get my show re-commissioned, it’s her. But we’re way off track here. We’re supposed to be looking at you in this amazing dress. Are you worrying that the dress is wearing you?’ Annie wondered.

  Joanne smiled at this.

  ‘That’s exactly right. The dress is wearing me. I’m so unused to a dress like this, I don’t know how to get back in charge.’

  ‘No shoulder pads, no white-collared shirt, you’re all to pieces,’ Annie teased.

  ‘First of all, we need the shoes and the bag,’ Paula said and headed off to the shop floor to find them.

  ‘Then we need a little restyling … wait right there,’ Annie instructed her. ‘Do not go anywhere. I’m posting someone on the suite door to make sure you don’t flee.’

  Within minutes, both Paula and Annie were back. Joanne was buckled into four-inch strappy silver evening shoes and handed a patent clutch. Meanwhile Annie clipped on earrings, applied lipstick and hairsprayed Joanne’s short locks out of her face.

  ‘We want to counteract any hint of a move south. Earrings are moving up, hair is moving up, lipstick gives that central focal point – am I getting a bit technical?’ she joked.

  When Joanne looked into the mirror this time, she was just as poised and elegant as they hoped she would be.

  ‘Very good, girls,’ Joanne smiled. ‘Very well done. The dress, yes, the bag, yes. I’m not even looking to see how much it is because I’ll be too horrified and change my mind. Earrings yes, so long as they’re costume jewellery, not real. I’m even going to buy the lipstick but the shoes …’ she lifted one foot out from under the hem of her dress: ‘no way the shoes. Even if they were the last shoes in Britain. No way!’

  ‘Oh come on,’ Annie urged her, ‘you’ve got the whole of your life to be a sensibly dressed psychiatrist, wife and mother. One night in a pair of fantasy shoes isn’t going to kill you.’

  ‘I’ll need lessons in how to walk.’

  ‘Just swing your hips, baby,’ Paula instructed and began in her four-inch heels to demonstrate the kind of shimmy that suddenly made her look giggly, Bambi-ish and 21 all over again.

  ‘So what will you do if you don’t get another job in TV?’ Joanne asked Annie. ‘Will you come back here and do this? You’re very good, but I’m sure you know that.’

  ‘What about New York, Annie? You were just about to tell me what you might go and do in New York,’ Paula reminded her.

  ‘When I rudely interrupted?’ Joanne asked.

  ‘Well … New York,’ Annie couldn’t help giving a little sigh, ‘I have these friends who’ve set up their own dress label. They wanted me to go over and help out in New York … just for a bit. Nothing permanent. I was desperate to go, because I really can’t stand sitting about waiting for something to happen …’

  ‘But? I have the feeling there’s a but coming,’ Joanne prompted.

  ‘But my husband thinks it’s a
mad idea. I was going to take my oldest daughter with me, she’s just left school, but that would leave him in charge of the other three – and the babies are only a year old.’

  ‘But New York?!’ Paula insisted. ‘Working for a label.’

  ‘I know! I would have loved it. Even for a few weeks. But he won’t agree. And I think I might have to accept that. I mean, he has a point. There are lots of reasons why …’

  ‘Didn’t you just tell me I’ve got my whole life to be a wife and mother? And a psychiatrist in sensible shoes?’ Joanne asked gently.

  She had clear, grey eyes and a soft smile. Her head was titled slightly and Annie felt as if the eyes were staring into her deepest thoughts, reading her mind and smiling knowingly at what she’d found there.

  ‘It’s our biggest challenge,’ Joanne added, ‘working out how to do the best we can for the people we love while remaining true to ourselves.’

  True to ourselves.

  The words rang in Annie’s mind for a moment.

  ‘You’re good,’ she told Joanne, ‘but you probably don’t need me to tell you that.’

  ‘You have to be true to yourself or it eats you up inside, eventually. Trust me here. I’ve heard it so many times from so many different people.’

  For several moments there was a thoughtful silence, then Annie snatched up her bag and rummaged about for her phone.

  ‘Booking the flights to New York?’ Paula wondered.

  ‘No. Calling Ed. There’s still five more minutes of lunch break, I might be able to catch him and then … I’ll have the chance to talk to him again.’

  ‘To tell him you’re going to New York?’ Paula persisted, excitement in her voice.

  ‘Well … I won’t put it quite as baldly as that … but … YES!’

  Chapter Six

  Plane Lana:

  Black vest top (Topshop)

  Black skinny jeans (Primark)

  Pink pointy pumps (New Look)

  Pink and black fringed scarf (Vintage Miss Selfridge

  via Oxfam )

  Overwhelming scent sensation (duty-free)

  Total est. cost: £50

  ‘Oh look! Look at that!’

  ‘So you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be absolutely, totally fine? Do you promise? You won’t let one single thing go wrong?’ Annie asked, aware that her heart was racing at panic-speed.

  ‘Yes,’ Ed said simply, solidly, utterly reassuringly. He placed his hands on her shoulders as if to weigh her down and bring calm to her frantic mind.

  ‘So you’re going to go and see Mum this weekend, to give Dinah a break. And you’ll take the babies, but Owen will obviously be at the stall. But you’ll be back in time to give him dinner and—’

  ‘Shhhh,’ Ed soothed.

  ‘Mum said something about Stefano going away for a fortnight,’ Annie remembered suddenly. ‘I don’t know if that’s soon, or if maybe she’s just got confused. You need to speak to him and find out. Because if he’s going away, Mum can’t be on her own, she’ll have to come and stay with us, so we’ll need to know when that is. And I hope I’ll be back by then otherwise you’ll have too much to—’

  ‘Annie! Stop it! I’ll speak to Stefano on Saturday. I’ll get the dates of his holiday and the recipe for his chorizo casserole. OK? You were the one who wanted to go on this trip,’ Ed reminded her, his hands sliding to the tops of her arms, which he squeezed affectionately.

  ‘Yes, yes …’ she said distractedly because now that the boarding card was actually in her hand, now that her entire family was assembled around her at passport control ready to say goodbye, now she just wasn’t quite sure if she really could manage to go.

  Ed put his hand under her chin and turned her face towards his.

  Oh no. Oh no, it really was going to be time to say goodbye.

  ‘Look, you’ve convinced me that this is a good idea. That it is really important for you,’ he reminded her, ‘so now you have to go. Stop worrying about us. We’re going to be fine. And you’re going to be great!’ he encouraged her.

  ‘Is it too late to change my mind then?’ Annie whispered, her eyes fixed on his.

  ‘Your luggage is checked in! That would cause all kinds of complications. Plus,’ he leaned over to whisper against her ear, ‘Lana would kill you.’

  This was probably true.

  Annie hugged him very, very tightly, then pushed her lips against his in a deep kiss. Suddenly a gap of four weeks and the entire Atlantic Ocean seemed very real and very frightening.

  ‘Do we have to watch this?’ Owen asked from his place behind the twins’ buggy.

  Lana nudged her brother with her elbow. ‘We have to say goodbye too,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Yeah, well, don’t think I’m going to kiss you.’

  ‘You’ll be sorry if our plane stalls, dives into the sea and we’re never seen again.’

  ‘Lana!!’ Annie pulled away from Ed and made a horrified face, ‘don’t even joke about it.’

  ‘Please don’t cry over the babies,’ Ed warned her, ‘you’ll just make them upset.’

  Annie knelt down in front of the buggy and both Micky and Minnie began to giggle and babble, delighted with her attention.

  ‘I’m going to see you later, buddies,’ Annie told them as cheerfully as she could, with a big smile across her face, although now that she was really doing this she felt as if her heart might crack.

  Minnie, who was an acutely sensitive soul, seemed to pick up that all was not well and an anxious look began to build in her face.

  Annie decided to unbuckle her and wrap her up in a big hug.

  ‘Bye-bye Min, see you very soon. Very, very soon,’ Annie said, rubbing her hand over her baby’s back.

  Her baby girl nuzzled her face against Annie’s shoulder.

  ‘Daddy’s here, and Owen and Aunty Dinah. Mummy and Lana will be back soon.’

  ‘Mumma,’ Min said, squeezing her podgy arms tightly around Annie’s neck.

  If Min cried or protested, Annie wasn’t sure if she would have the strength to walk through the departure gate.

  ‘Boo!’ Owen had crept up behind Annie and now popped up under Min’s face, causing her to break into a giggle. ‘Come to big bruv,’ he said, holding out his arms and grinning.

  Min let go of Annie and accepted a lift from Owen without the slightest worry.

  ‘You’re a star, Owen,’ Annie said, and bent over to kiss him.

  ‘Watchit!’ Owen warned, ‘no lips! One on the cheek is all you’re getting.’

  ‘A hug? At least a hug …’

  He gave her a brief, one-armed squeeze because of Min. ‘And remember my DVDs. The full list plus the money is in that envelope I put into your bag this morning. All right?

  ‘Take care,’ she told him, swallowing a lump in her throat the size of a potato.

  ‘We’ll be sweet as a nut, Mum. You go off with Lana and have a ball. And next time you’re going to New York, you’re definitely taking me, OK?’

  She kissed him again and ruffled his hair, just to annoy him: ‘I love you, all right?’

  Then it was time to squeeze the life out of Micky and give Ed one last, long hug. Until the build-up of tears behind her eyes was at danger level.

  ‘You’ll be fine. You’ll be more than fine,’ she whispered, ‘you’re the best Dad ever and you run the house like clockwork.’

  Feeling his arms hold her tight and his curly hair brush her face, for a moment she thought of when she’d first been invited into Ed’s basement of chaos. So much had changed. Imagine if she’d known then that he would become her totally domesticated husband and they would have twins!

  ‘OK, see you in four weeks!’ Lana called out. She was incredibly cheerful and excited. Ever since the flights had been booked, the cloud of boredom and gloom hovering above her for so long had completely evaporated.

  She whirled round her family, landing quick kisses on cheeks then took hold of Annie’s arm. ‘C’mon Mum, it’s time to go. N
ew York is waiting for us!’

  As soon as her family was out of sight, Annie cried hard.

  She cried all the way through the security process and on into the departure lounge. There, Lana marched her to a bar and made her buy a glass of buck’s fizz, even though it was eight in the morning. Only when the entire drink was downed, did Annie finally stop sobbing.

  She blew her nose and began to look around through streaky eyes. There was a full ninety minutes till boarding.

  ‘We could try on a lot of perfume in ninety minutes,’ she pointed out, with a final sniff.

  ‘We could,’ Lana agreed with a grin.

  ‘You’re supposed to stick to three or four … apparently the nose gets confused.’

  ‘Right.’

  Annie hadn’t managed to doze for even one moment on the flight, and neither had Lana. It was cramped, chilly and claustrophobic on the plane. How had transatlantic travel managed to become like a marathon bus ride? Where was the glamour? People had once arrived in New York by steam liner with bellboys in pressed uniforms ready to trolley their initialled leather trunks behind them.

  Annie pulled the lump of fibre held together by static which passed for a blanket around her shoulders.

  Once the champagne buzz had worn off, the first hour of the flight had been hard. Watching the coastline of Ireland slip away beneath them and the great steely grey expanse of water begin, Annie had brooded on the fact that the entire Atlantic Ocean was going to be between her and Ed, Owen and her babies.

  An ocean! What had she been thinking? She couldn’t help feeling that there was no way she was going to last four weeks. This would be impossible. But it hadn’t seemed fair to mention such doubts to Lana, who was glowing, tingling, just about out of her mind with excitement about landing at JFK in a few hours’ time.

  Whenever Annie’s face looked worried, Lana had made her order another glass of fizz. So now, six hours later, Annie was gulping water and trying to recover from the effects of high altitude early morning drinking.

  Plus, the concerned look on the face of their American air hostess was becoming a little bit off-putting. There had been no denying the reprimand in the last: ‘Another glass of sparkling wine for you, ma’am? Ok-aaaaay.’