New York Valentine

by Carmen Reid

  ‘How much?’ Annie wondered.

  ‘£15,000,’ Ed replied.

  ‘Wow … I wasn’t expecting that much.’

  ‘There’s tax, agent commission and all those other things to come out of it,’ Ed reminded her: ‘it won’t be as much as that when everyone’s had their share.’

  ‘I know, I know … so let’s call it £10,000.’

  The tissue paper was going round the bag; the assistant smoothing and folding with as much care as if she was lovingly wrapping a beautiful gift.

  ‘Ed, do we need that money right now?’ Annie asked next.

  ‘Well … yeah, we always need the money to keep everything going. Keep the show on the road.’

  ‘But do we need it right now? This month? Or could it wait just for a month or two?’

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘Depends on what?’

  ‘Depends on what you’re going to do with it.’

  ‘I’m going to lend it to Elena.’

  Silence.

  So Annie jumped in with all the reasons why she should make Elena’s business the loan. The order books, the temporary cash-flow situation, the virtual promise of getting the money back quickly – with interest.

  Finally Ed said cautiously: ‘Well … it’s your money. If you want to stake it, you can do that. But please, Annie, be aware that you are staking it. You might not get it back.’

  ‘Svetlana spends that amount of money in a day. She could get it back to me with a click of her fingernails,’ Annie reasoned, ignoring the whole ‘no liquid cash’ and ‘tax’ situation.

  ‘Maybe you want to take out a contract with Elena, have something in writing?’ Ed suggested.

  Annie handed her credit card over to the assistant.

  For a little second, she felt an unusual hesitation. If Elena’s business was such a good bet, shouldn’t she try and put some more money into it? Instead of blowing her cash on another bag?

  Just a little corner of the green leather poked out from between the sheets of paper.

  No. An executive, an investor in an amazing new fashion label, should definitely carry a wonderful new power bag just like this one.

  ‘Where is it made?’ Lana asked, as they perched at a sidewalk café table, sipping at a celebratory coffee.

  ‘What? The bag?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s not actually English, is it? It’s not really made in England.’

  ‘No. I think a lot of their things are made in Turkey and finished in England.’

  Annie’s phone bleeped and she saw she had two messages. One from Owen, the other from Connor.

  Mum, can you add the new Twilight film to my list.

  It’s just come out on DVD over there. Thanks.

  Luv ya. O

  Annie replied:

  OK missing you. Police or fire dept. T-shirt? Mum xx

  Then she opened the message from Connor:

  Think I’ve found Gawain. He’s in NYC like you.

  She quickly typed back:

  Forget it, me not hunting at gay gyms for yr Gawain.

  ‘Is anything still made in England? Or in the US?’ Lana wondered.

  ‘I don’t know … it would be interesting to find out. We could do a special programme about …’ Annie tailed off, remembering with a jolt that there might not be any more programmes at all. ‘I need to phone Tamsin – see what’s happening,’ she said, mainly to herself.

  ‘Weren’t loads of clothes all made in the US once?’ Lana asked. ‘Wasn’t it a huge producer of cotton and cotton clothes, cotton T-shirts, denim? But now, pretty much everything is made in Asia, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. Did you know that cotton jersey, the stretchy stuff, was invented in Jersey? You know, the island off England. And apparently Coco Chanel’s lover wore jersey polo shirts – probably to play polo in – and she loved the stuff so much she ordered bales and bales of it from England to make dresses … and during the first world war, she used cheap grey military fabric she bought in from Spain to make these amazing creations for Parisian ladies.’

  Annie and Lana’s eyes met. There was a spark of inspiration there. They both caught it at the same time.

  ‘Cotton jersey,’ Lana repeated, growing enthusiasm in her voice.

  ‘Made in the US!’ Annie added, her eyes lighting up.

  ‘Elena needs to get in some really basic material,’ Lana said, thinking out loud.

  ‘Yeah,’ Annie agreed immediately. ‘And forget about the cheap Chinese factories. That could be her unique selling point – she could have dresses made in the US of A. Come on, let’s get back to the flat, fire up the laptops and start looking.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Lana hits Manhattan:

  Green and white summer dress (Anthropologie)

  Yellow high heels (borrowed from Elena)

  Green messenger bag (Fossil)

  Total est. cost: $180

  ‘A Flirtini? Go on, Mum …’

  As soon as Annie told Elena about the £10,000 she was prepared to invest in Perfect Dress, spirits rose in the tiny apartment.

  Then the idea of an American factory, of dresses ‘Made in the USA’, appealed to Elena too and for the rest of the afternoon and early evening the trio were extremely busy trying to find out what they could do to make this happen.

  They Googled, they searched, they phoned. Annie found herself having a long and involved conversation with Pete from the American Cotton Council. Emails flew out, telephone enquiries were made. The optimistic energy began to infect them all. Now that there was some money, even just this little bit of money, everything suddenly felt possible and doable, if they just put their minds to it. The hours flew past.

  ‘We need to take a break and go out,’ Elena declared from her bedroom, where she was working from her bed with her laptop and mobile.

  ‘Uh-huh, I am totally burned out,’ Lana, on the sofa with Annie’s laptop, agreed.

  ‘Yeah, there’s just one more guy I want to get hold of,’ said Annie. ‘I have his mobile number so I’m going to try him right now.’

  She plugged in the number, but the answering service clicked in. ‘Voicemail,’ she told Lana, ‘it’s probably a sign. A sign that I need to unwrap my unbelievably lovely new bag, dress it up and take it out to play.’

  She could just get dressed up and go straight out, Annie realized with a hit of astonishment. There was no babysitter to arrange, no putting babies to bed, no leaving an entire list of emergency numbers taped to the fridge – she really could just slip into another outfit, apply make-up and leave the building. Not even knowing where she was going to go!

  The dizzying sense of freedom this gave her was like a rush to the head.

  ‘Where can we go? Where’s good to go?’ she called out to Elena, not that there was really any need to raise her voice as Elena’s bedroom was only two feet away from the kitchenette.

  ‘I know very hip bar. Very cool, lots of Sye’s friends go there. Is on Seventh Avenue, close to Condé Nast building, many magazine peoples go there.’

  Annie caught the astonished look on Lana’s face.

  ‘Cool!’ Lana breathed.

  ‘Fantastic,’ Annie enthused, though honestly, she was experiencing an inner dither. Had she really packed an outfit finger-on-the-pulse enough to withstand entry to a bar frequented by glossy magazine types? Yes, the new bag could probably endure the gaze of Vogue editor Anna Wintour herself, but Annie couldn’t get inside the bag. She would have to think of something to wear with the bag.

  Lana was looking properly excited at the evening ahead.

  ‘I’m going to put on my new dress,’ she began: ‘you know, from that amazing shop we were in on the first day. I’ll go and shower first. Is that OK, Elena?’

  While Lana showered, Annie rummaged through the clothes in her suitcase. There was no space to unpack in the tiny apartment, so she and Lana were trying to live out of their bags as neatly as possible. There was also no washing machine, so at some point in the near fu
ture they would have to make use of the communal laundry room, which apparently was down in the building’s basement.

  Dress … dress … Annie needed something lightweight but with long sleeves, something that went with the bag and her highest heels.

  ‘What are you going to wear?’ she asked Elena, who sounded as if she was rummaging about in her bedroom.

  ‘Something new, maybe … I go out this afternoon to Century 21. So cheap there, I always find something.’

  Elena appeared at her doorway still wearing the lilac dress she’d put on earlier in the day.

  ‘You should wear a Perfect Dress every time you go anywhere,’ Annie told her, ‘you’re so lovely, you’re a walking advertisement. Then whenever anyone asks you where you got your wonderful dress, you whip out a business card and get them to place an order. You are still going to sell online as well, aren’t you?’

  ‘Website is a mess,’ Elena confided. ‘Mother supposed to be looking after it. But she say she is very busy.’ This came out a little dismissively. ‘She does not care about the business so much as me,’ Elena added.

  ‘Maybe you need to get someone else to do the website then.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Elena shrugged. ‘There is so much to do … too much to do. I don’t know where to—’

  ‘Shhhh!’ Annie soothed her, because she didn’t want Elena’s shoulders to slump down once again and that pained expression to return to her face, ‘you’ll get there. We will all get there. We made huge progress today. Huge!’

  When the trio stepped out of the apartment building and into the brightly lit whirl of evening on Fifth Avenue, Annie could not wipe the smile from her face. She was in New York City, dressed to the nines and hailing a cab to the bar of the moment.

  Her bag was delicious, her shoes were fabulous and, even better, despite the muffin fest, her dress did up. She felt very happy, although she had to admit to herself it was the two girls on either side of her who were pulling all the admiring glances.

  Elena, glammed up, looked just as sensational as Annie had expected, all tight fabric, big blonde hair and legs.

  The more unsettling surprise was Lana. In her strapless flowery dress and borrowed shoes, with her long dark hair falling in a sleek curtain down below her shoulders and a light touch of make-up, she looked so sophisticated. She was nearly 18, Annie couldn’t help reminding herself. She was so very nearly a grown-up. Annie was hugely proud of her beautiful girl, but it was a little difficult to adjust to all these guys turning their heads in Lana’s direction. Lana was definitely noticing, but she just raised her chin, tossed her hair a little and kept striding on in the tricky pointy shoes.

  Elena effortlessly hailed a cab and it manoeuvred them in and out of side streets and over several huge, six-laned junctions until they were speeding up Seventh Avenue. Back-lit water fountains, fluttering American flags, breathtaking shopfront displays flashed past until they drew to a halt at the bar.

  Elena slipped her arm through Lana’s, and on their long legs the girls pulled slightly ahead of Annie as they walked inside.

  The bar was dark and very swanky – all grey leather banquettes with dark wood and mirrored touches. Low, jazzy music played, the kind that Ed would be able to name in three notes. The loud, crashing, siren-blaring Avenue outside was totally forgotten because, in here, it was as glamorous as an old black and white movie, except the girls were in much shorter dresses and the guys had elaborate hairstyles, not hats.

  After a little look around, Elena spotted her friends and began to walk towards a table where four beautiful young twenty-somethings, three guys and a girl, were deep in discussion.

  ‘Hey,’ Elena said, totally cool.

  ‘Hey, Elena,’ the nearest, a very blond-haired guy with a round, handsome face replied.

  ‘I bring some friends too, from London,’ she added.

  There was a general ‘hi’ of greeting and some shuffling as the four moved down the banquette to let everyone else in. Elena and Lana fitted onto the ends, but Annie was left without an obvious place to sit.

  ‘I’ll see if I can find a chair to put on the end here … does anyone want a drink?’ she offered.

  Seconds later, she found herself trying to memorize an order for six cocktails.

  Even Lana had said: ‘A Flirtini? Go on, Mum … I’ve always wanted to try one.’

  ‘You’re under-age,’ Annie had whispered back.

  ‘No one’s asking,’ Lana pointed out, head cocked defiantly, blinking blue eyes up at Annie the way she’d done ever since she was tiny.

  ‘Just one,’ Annie said, relenting in the face of those melting eyes, as usual.

  ‘And no maraschino, it’s very important,’ the girl with a short and severe brown fringe added, ‘I’m like totally allergic to food colouring. I’ll go into shock and you’ll have to EpiPen me.’

  ‘Oh dear God no,’ one of the guys laughed, ‘not again!’

  Annie managed to make her huge cocktail order at the bar, adding on a glass of wine for herself. The barman got down to the elaborate production performance, shaking ice cubes about here, flipping cucumbers into the air there, sliding glasses up and down the bar. Maybe it would have been fun to watch if she hadn’t been standing all on her own at the bar, feeling like the heaviest, oldest person in the entire world: an invader in the world of twiglet-like, young, gilded, beautiful people.

  The row of glittering drinks was set before her on two silver trays.

  ‘And no maraschino,’ the barman repeated, putting the last cocktail into place.

  As her glass of wine was added to the tray, he informed her: ‘That’ll be $238.55.’

  Although this was almost double the amount she’d expected to pay, Annie managed to rein in her gasp. A quick check of her purse and she found the relevant cash: a $100 bill, then another, then two twentys.

  She put the money on the counter.

  The barman looked at it, then looked up at her. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.

  What?

  ‘No …’ Annie wondered if she’d misheard. Maybe it was $338. Maybe these were the most expensive cocktails in the universe and she’d somehow been crazy enough to order six of them. Maybe it was $538 and she wouldn’t have enough to pay. She’d be flung into a New York jail and never see her other children again because by mistake she’d wandered into the most expensive bar in Manhattan and ordered a round of drinks.

  ‘What have I done wrong?’ she asked, panicky now. ‘I’m not from New York, I don’t know the rules.’

  At this, the barman leaned on his elbow towards her. He was yet another perfect New York physical specimen. What was it about this town? Did they round up the ugly people at the bridges and refuse to let them in?

  ‘Aha, OK new-to-New-York lady. Here we give great service because we expect a great tip.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And not some pussy 10 per cent tip either. If I did a good job, it’s 20 per cent minimum. Only pay less if you want me to spit in your next drink.’

  Urgh.

  ‘Right, OK, I see …’ She began to rummage in her bag again, doing the maths. She owed him another $46! He was pocketing $46 per round of drinks. No wonder he looked so gorgeous and well-dressed.

  She put another $50 on the counter and asked if he would at least help her take the drinks to the table.

  ‘No problem,’ he said, rolling up the money and stuffing it into his back pocket.

  As the drinks were handed out, Annie searched for a spare chair to add to the end of the table and finally found a plush velvet stool. Unfortunately, when she sat down, she was about eight inches lower than the banquette.

  Plus everyone else was in a hubbub of conversation and although they were quite happily sipping at the drinks she’d bought, they didn’t exactly seem concerned about letting her into the conversation.

  Lana, who would have cared, who would have made sure her mum was involved in the chat, had been moved along to the very far end of the table.

/>   Annie sipped at her wine and watched: three girls, three guys, all young, all full of the excited energy of a night out; the adventure and possibility that lay ahead.

  The blond-haired guy was laughing with Lana, who turned all of a sudden in Annie’s direction, pointed to her and announced: ‘My mum’s on TV, you know,’ kindly trying to bring her into the group.

  This caused a little ripple of interest. Everyone now turned to her with curiosity.

  ‘In TV? Over here? Which network?’ one of the guys asked.

  ‘No, in Britain. I was doing a show with Channel Four,’ Annie replied. ‘Sort of a fashion, magazine-style thing. I was the presenter.’

  ‘You’re on TV?’ the blond guy couldn’t really have looked more surprised.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lana dug him playfully in the ribs. ‘Over a million viewers every week.

  ‘How many seasons have you done?’

  ‘Is it filming right now?’

  The questions came in thick and fast until the moment when Annie had to admit that the show was ‘taking a break’ and there was no new commission at this exact moment.

  Then the faces turned away again, the interest faded to nothing and Annie was left gazing at her wine glass.

  Nice.

  When Elena went off to the bathroom, Annie dared to slip from her little stool up onto the banquette.

  Really, she wanted to hear what the blond guy was talking to Lana about, but once she was up on the leather bench, severe fringe girl suddenly wanted to talk to her.

  ‘Jeeeeeeez, they just love real-looking people on British TV, right?’

  This was her opening line.

  ‘Real-looking’ didn’t exactly sound like a compliment.

  ‘Yeah, I think they do,’ Annie replied. ‘But it was a girls’ show. It was for girls, by girls and we made people feel good by not being too perfect. We were keeping it real.’

  ‘Yeah … smile,’ the girl instructed Annie.

  Annie did, wondering if the girl was going to whip out her phone and take a picture.

  But no, instead, Miss Fringe said: ‘Real British teeth and everything. No Botox. That is just so unusual. Over here, you could not be on television. No way.’