Playing Her Cards Right

by Rosa Temple

  ‘Any more “must haves” and we’ll need a third bedroom.’

  We left shortly after, arm in arm as usual. I crossed over to Veronique’s and peered into the window. I stopped there often on my way back from work just to see how Veronique had arranged the shop but this time I dragged Anthony along. He was all fidgety and wanted to go home but just then I noticed the handbag of my dreams. Anthony noticed me notice it, too.

  ‘No you don’t,’ he said, pulling me off towards our mews. ‘You told me to stop you spending on clothes and accessories until we could afford to have the downstairs redecorated.’

  ‘I’ll paint the downstairs myself. I must have that bag.’ I tried to drag him back to the window but Anthony scooped me up in a fireman’s lift and carried me towards home.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I said, feeling my Ella Fitzburger brunch threatening to resurface. ‘I think you made your point. But the offer of me painting the downstairs is still on the table.’ Anthony gently set me back on my feet.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the handbag in Veronique’s window and the prospect of Shearman selling handbags that no woman could resist.

  A week after sighting the gorgeous bag my twenty-ninth birthday came around. Anthony surprised me with the handbag from Veronique’s.

  ‘My very first grown-up bag,’ I said. I held the bag on my knee as we sat on the sofa. I ran my fingers over the smooth, midnight-blue leather, opened and closed the gold clasp, inhaled the interior, and stroked the short straps. ‘It’s perfect, Anthony.’ I grinned up at him, wondering if Veronique did matching shoes. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’

  Anthony, looking slightly worried about my handbag obsession, took the bag off my lap and placed it to one side. He kissed me.

  ‘Well maybe there is a way I can show you how thankful I am,’ I said. I wrapped my arms around Anthony and pulled him into a kiss.

  Anthony and I were made for each other; I was convinced of that. I never saw a break-up coming. Not then, not when we had our Saturdays.

  Chapter 3

  The Assistant

  I started making a slight diversion to and from work each day just so I could walk past Veronique’s. The idea of manufacturing women’s handbags never left my mind. I had to bide my time, though, and really think it through because keeping on top of the man bag market was not exactly a walk in the park. But once a very successful first year in business was under my belt I began acting on the idea of diversifying. I wanted the new range for women to be in keeping with the man bags: varying in price, style, and use but with a signature look that made them say Shearman.

  It wasn’t an easy decision to make. Shearman was already a European market leader in man bags but the market for women’s bags was flooded with competition. I needed handbag designs that would wow every woman who saw them but none of the designers I approached or who approached me had anything new to add to the market. The process proved more difficult than I’d first thought.

  I decided to cast my net wider than the UK when it came to designers. I’d started making inquiries in Europe. My search led me to track down three very promising contacts, all in Paris, and I planned a trip to meet with the designers in person.

  A few days before the business trip, Riley, my dizzy secretary come receptionist and personal assistant in training, burst into my office.

  ‘You asked me to keep your caffeine levels up,’ she said. ‘This ought to do the trick.’

  Riley was in her early twenties, very petite, completely lovable, and extremely naive. She had the willingness of a puppy, up on hind legs waiting for a ball to be tossed across the grass for her to fetch.

  In many respects Riley was another of my challenges. Maybe I’d hired her as some sort of test for myself. You see I could tell she was neither a competent secretary, a useful receptionist, nor a potential PA at the interview. But then, neither had I been when I first started at Shearman as a PA.

  I wanted to give Riley the benefit of the doubt; I really liked her a lot. Even though she turned up at work on her first day, half an hour late, with a goldfish in a bowl, which she plonked on her desk, splashing fish water everywhere, I still thought I could make something of her.

  After her initial three-month trial everyone asked why I didn’t just sack her. I’d obviously made an awful mistake. She’d made blunder after blunder and I’d taken care of her mess-ups each time. She double-booked appointments, sent emails and letters to the wrong person, and ordered a taxi to take me to Harwich Harbour when I’d told her I needed to get to an interview at Harper’s Bazaar. But I knew, or at least I hoped I was right to assume, that somewhere deep down, beneath the charity shop chic and Doctor Marten boots, there was an amazing PA just waiting to emerge.

  Riley was carrying two cups of caffè macchiato. She’d gone all the way to the place near the tube station for them. Not only because we both loved their macchiatos but because Riley had been blown away (her words) by the owner. Admittedly, he was gorgeous, if you went for the unshaven, Ryan Gosling type.

  Jimmy, the unshaven, Ryan Gosling-alike, dropped everything and made a beeline for Riley the second she walked into his coffee shop. I’d witnessed him about to put plastic caps onto scalding cups of coffee and totally forgetting to when Riley appeared behind me one morning. His customers left with hot coffee slopping onto their hands while Jimmy swooped across to serve Riley – ignoring the fact that I’d been next in line.

  Jimmy and Riley had flirted outrageously for ages and neither had made a move.

  I could have intervened and helped the courting process along but since having finally convinced Mother and Father that they should remarry I had begun to plan their second wedding. One matchmaking job at a time was all I could handle. Besides which I was always playing catch-up on my own work: a trip to Paris to organize, a desk piled high with the detritus of my business accounts, not to mention the constant worry that planning to expand the company might be the worst decision I ever made.

  ‘That’s great, Riley,’ I said reaching across my more messy than usual desk to grab for the caffeine. I flipped off the lid from the Styrofoam cup and took a big gulp. As I thought, it was only just warm. Not only was the coffee bar a good walk away from our Mayfair office, Riley had probably hung around for some necessary flirting with Jimmy and forgotten the time.

  The diminutive Riley sat opposite me, messy auburn ponytail flopping to her shoulder as she crossed her legs, wrapping them in that rubbery way of hers, at least twice round. I’d often worry she’d forget to uncross them when she stood up and fall flat on her face. So far it hadn’t happened. She put her coffee on my desk and whipped out a notebook from thin air.

  ‘Now,’ I said, impressed by Riley’s efficiency before noticing that all she had was the notebook but no pen. ‘I’ve finalized the meetings in Paris. These are times, dates, and addresses. I’ll need you to hire a driver. I think my appointments are fairly dotted around but not too far from the hotel.’ I shoved a piece of paper I’d scribbled onto across to Riley and slumped back in my big purple chair to finish off the macchiato.

  ‘You told me you were fluent in French?’ I said to Riley.

  She nodded.

  ‘Then booking a driver will be a doddle for you won’t it?’

  ‘Oh, absolument,’ she said with a flourish of her hands. ‘And will I need to confirm the flights and hotel?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes please. I just really need next week to run as smoothly as it can. I’ve got so much to get done. Don’t forget I’m in New York with Mother and my sisters tomorrow.’ I looked at the coral lipstick smudge I’d made on the foam cup and then at Riley. ‘Don’t you think you should be writing this down?’

  ‘It’s all in here,’ she said tapping the side of her head and nodding. She blinked her enormous blue eyes at me, looking more like a character from a Japanese anime than ever, and smiled. I was worried that by tapping her head on one side she was bound to empty it of all the information s
he’d just acquired via the ear on the other side.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked and bit my lip in concern. Riley hadn’t glazed over and vanished into one of her dream sequences so maybe she had taken it all in. She looked down at the To Do list I’d scribbled for her. I watched her lips move as she read the list to herself. I noticed her frown and I began to panic.

  With a silent sigh I reached across to grab the list back. I then rewrote it in a meticulous step-by-step format.

  ‘Don’t let me down, Riley,’ I said handing her back the revised instructions. ‘I’m leaving next Wednesday. You’ve got a week. Just make sure I’ve got the plane tickets in my hand before I set off for Heathrow. It’s essential you have a word with my driver in Paris. Tell them I’m on a short and precise schedule. I can’t afford to be late. At all.’

  ‘I won’t let you down.’ Riley sprang up and set to work. She left my office with a determined gait and returned two seconds later to retrieve the list and her coffee cup. ‘Leave it with me,’ she said in a casual sing-song way.

  When she closed the door for a second time, I couldn’t help but think that those were the famous last words of someone else – the captain of the Titanic, perhaps?

  Chapter 4

  The Dress

  Wedding dress shopping with Mother had been fraught to say the least. We’d left every appointment I’d made with every reputable wedding dress couturier empty-handed. Mother knew exactly what she wanted one minute and didn’t have a clue the next. She was also terribly fussy. She had wanted all four of her daughters to be bridesmaids. That meant I had five dresses to think about. Well two designs – one for the bride and one for the bridesmaids – but my sisters and I had been squabbling about the style of our bridesmaid dress.

  Then I’d had a brainwave. I was convinced I could settle the whole matter by flying out to one of the Vera Wang bridal shops in New York. If Vera (well the assistant in the shop) couldn’t settle this, then no one could. Mother and I had hit Browns Bride in Mayfair where there was a small selection by Vera Wang, and though we came close, Mother still wasn’t satisfied. I figured a larger selection might inspire her and if we went halfway around the world, Mother might feel compelled to say yes to something.

  Our day in New York was booked. I’d scheduled an appointment in the Madison Avenue shop. As my older sisters Amber and Indigo both worked for my Mother’s lingerie company as head of marketing and company lawyer, respectively, time off was easily arranged. I’d managed to coax my younger sister, Ebony, away from her buyer position at Harrods with some difficulty. Ebony worked hard and played hard but she very rarely found time to play since her promotion to a senior buyer position. It took a lot of fast talking and lashings of white wine to first, detach her from her mobile phone earpiece and, second, to get Ebony to relax once we’d checked in to our New York hotel.

  After two hours into our visit to Vera Wang in Madison Avenue, my sisters and I had tried on several Vera Wang bridal gowns, not one single bridesmaid dress I might add, while Mother sat watching from a corner.

  ‘Mother, please,’ I said to her in a dress very similar to the one Kate Hudson wore in Bride Wars. ‘You’re not taking this seriously.’

  ‘And you are?’ She glared at me in the full and fluffy skirt that swept the carpet. ‘Look, Magenta, these dresses are far too youthful for me. Why don’t you girls stop trying on wedding dresses and see if there’s an actual bridesmaid dress you can all agree on? Maybe we can go somewhere else for me. I’m sure I’ll come up with something.’

  ‘Mother, you’re impossible,’ I said staring at my reflection in the full-length mirror. I looked gorgeous. ‘We’ll run out of time at this rate.’

  The shopping expedition wasn’t a complete disaster. The four of us settled on a dress we would be happy with as bridesmaids. The slight snag was that they were four different designs.

  ‘Honestly, girls,’ I said to my sisters, ‘we might as well get them in different colours, too. How about the colour of our names?’ It was intended as sarcasm but Mother adored the idea.

  ‘Yes.’ She leapt up and looked enthusiastic for the first time since our quest for dresses began. ‘What a great idea.’

  ‘It’s tacky,’ I said.

  ‘But delightfully so,’ Mother replied. ‘Please? For me?’

  We gave in to Mother’s whim but at least that was one less thing for me to worry about. We ordered our dresses and a big tick was added to my mental Wedding To Do list.

  Exhausted by the flight and the morning of trying on dresses, we needed some refreshments.

  We found an authentic English teashop and ordered cream scones and strongly brewed tea.

  Mother sat in her graceful way, red hair piled into a low bun and her little finger elegantly cocked as she sipped her tea.

  ‘We’ll have to go back to the idea of a specially designed dress for you, Mother,’ I said, my energy levels well and truly sunk.

  ‘Yes that’s all well and good,’ she said. ‘But I’ve got so many ideas in my head. I’m not sure I could be much help to a designer. We’ve tried and I’ve only confused them.’

  I laid a napkin on the table and pulled out a pen.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, licking a rogue spot of cream off my top lip. ‘How do you see yourself? It’s a romantic Caribbean wedding, by the sea, on the sand. How do you imagine yourself that day?’

  Mother looked off towards the window. The painted menu on the glass obstructed the view of yellow cabs and passers-by but she seemed to be picturing herself on the beach, eyes half closed.

  ‘Something flowing. Not white, obviously, but something in a very pale colour to complement my complexion.’

  I began to draw on the napkin. I drew a slinky figurine. Mother was slight and well toned for a woman of sixty-two. I began the sketching of swoops and lines as Mother voiced how she’d pictured herself on her wedding day. The first sketch wasn’t right. I reached for another napkin and tried again as Mother went on.

  ‘It shouldn’t be too young-looking but a dress rather than an ensemble,’ she said. ‘Those add years to the older woman and I don’t want to look ancient. As long as it’s comfortable but shows off the body I’ve been working on for most of my adult life. No upper arms showing. No matter how much I exercise, age isn’t kind to upper arms.’ She picked up her teacup.

  ‘Something like this?’ I pushed the napkin towards Mother. She took out her glasses and inspected my scribbles.

  ‘And what would it be made of?’ she asked, her light brown eyes being magnified by her glasses.

  ‘Georgette or crêpe de Chine. Something silky and flowing. It’s going to be hot on the beach.’

  ‘Not see-through.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I agreed.

  ‘Colour?’

  ‘For you, I was thinking light peach.’

  Mother pulled off her spectacles. ‘Magenta, this is it. You’ve just designed my wedding dress!’

  ‘Have I?’ I took the napkin and stared at my drawing. ‘I have. I could take this to a designer and have them put it together.’

  Mother placed her hand on mine.

  ‘Why don’t you do it, Magenta? You had some fabulous ideas when you were on your fashion course. I remember that smashing dress you made for an assignment.’

  ‘Oh, Mother, that was a hundred years ago. I dropped out of my degree course. I was crap.’

  ‘Don’t use that word. And you were far from crap.’ She took the napkin. ‘This is my dress, Magenta, and I want you to make it.’

  My sisters were in total agreement, each one grabbing the napkin and nodding in approval.

  I became excited at the prospect of being the designer of my mother’s wedding dress. But could I really pull it off? I did a mental list of the things I’d already committed to do. I remembered I’d told Anthony I was going to repaint the kitchen when I got back from New York. Was I crazy to even consider this? But it was autumn and the wedding wasn
’t until the following May; surely I’d have long enough.

  ‘Well the girls and I all have our dresses sorted,’ I said. ‘But I still have to shop for Father’s suit.’

  ‘Oh he’ll be happy with anything off the peg as long as it’s from his usual place,’ Mother insisted. ‘No one is expecting you to design clothes for the whole wedding party. Just my dress, darling, and I’m sure you could do it.’

  I couldn’t resist the challenge.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ I had a wide grin plastered across my face as we left the teashop. I walked arm in arm with Mother along the wide street, my sisters flanking us. With a renewed energy, we all managed a little retail therapy before making our way back to the hotel.

  I was excited about designing and making Mother’s dress. I’d need help – I knew that. I didn’t even possess a sewing machine. I’d either have to buy one or hire a seamstress. It was going to be a mammoth task, juggling wedding dress fabrics for Mother’s gown and colours for the kitchen walls. I could envisage a catalogue of disasters but not if I got organized.

  At this point I didn’t see that being organized wasn’t going to be enough. I jumped in at the deep end – wedding planner, house decorator, and entrepreneur extraordinaire. Weeks later, at age thirty, I got my first grey hair, a sign that my stress levels were on the increase, but I still didn’t take a step back from it all. You see I was in my happy place, high on a year of Saturdays spent with Anthony.

  Chapter 5

  The Chauffeur

  ‘So I’ll be off to Paris tomorrow afternoon,’ I said to Anthony.

  I was cooking a late supper and breezing in and out of the kitchen to the annexe at the back of the house, which Anthony used as his art studio. It was actually a conservatory, which the previous occupants used as a breakfast room, but it was perfect for light and a good temperature for Anthony’s materials.