How Not To Shop

by Carmen Reid

  There was still space on the bed for the gems that Annie was hoping to unearth in the back of the cupboard. Maybe she would find a dress or two, a special blouse or skirt . . . things which would just need a little alteration or a new accessory to turn them into new outfits. Although Annie looked hard and combed once again through the tangle of clothes, she could find only casual, functional, practical clothes.

  The tea break was over and the camera crew began to shuffle back into the bedroom. Lights were moved, and Nikki freshened up Annie and Cath's face powder and lipgloss.

  Finn discussed the angles he wanted to see, the direction of the dialogue between Annie and Cath, then finally declared: 'And action!'

  Annie felt hot and slightly flustered now that the camera was pointing directly at her. But she tried to control the nerves. More than anything else, she just wanted to be herself. Unlike Miss Marlise she didn't want to create a whole larger than life TV personality. She'd understood long ago that it was best to just be fully yourself and if other people didn't like it, too bad.

  'Right, my darlin',' she said as she bustled busily through Cath's clothes, scattered across the bed: 'I've seen the sweatshirts, the old T-shirts, the polo necks, the fleeces, the baggy trousers and the long, dark skirts. But what I'm asking myself is: where are your special clothes? Where are your dresses and your shiny things? What do you wear when you've got a wedding to go to? Or a party? Or a night out?'

  Cath looked straight up at Annie and replied, 'Oh, I've nothing to wear, so I don't go.'

  'Oh babes,' Annie looked back at Cath and forgot about the camera completely, 'that is the saddest, saddest thing I've heard in a long time. But what about when it's your birthday? Everyone's got to have something lovely to wear on their birthday.'

  At this, Cath's lower lip trembled slightly and out came the revelation she'd had absolutely no intention of making on TV: 'My husband left me on my birthday,' she blurted out. She didn't need to say anything else. Now everyone understood why there were no party clothes in Cath's wardrobe.

  Finn caught the eye of his assistant and mouthed the word: 'Woohoo!'

  Chapter Eight

  Connor on his bike:

  Tiny black shorts (Nike)

  Tiny black bike shoes (Adidas)

  Bluetooth wireless headset (Motorola)

  Total est. cost: £120

  'I can talk and burn, baby.'

  Connor McCabe, star of ITV's top-rated Sunday teatime show, The Manor, co-star in the box office hit Never Sleep by director Sam Knight, was on an exercise bike out on his balcony in the Californian sunshine.

  No British actor transplanted from London to LA can ever quite get used to the fact that the sun really does shine here almost every single day. Well, OK, there was a little bit of smog, cloud cover and drizzle now and then, but really, he thought as he adjusted his shades, stretched out his arms, then put them back on the handlebars, it was not a bad life. Not a bad life at all.

  It was late afternoon. He'd spent his obligatory two hours in the gym first thing this morning. Every single actor out here spent two hours in the gym every single day. There was no get-out clause. It was mandatory. Like brushing your teeth. Otherwise some much fitter, leaner, more muscular piece of beefcake would Get Your Part. No matter how well you'd played Prince Hal at Stratford-upon-Avon two years ago, if a centimetre of waist flab poked over the edge of your trousers, it was over.

  He'd been on the phone to his agent for half an hour, he'd gone for a meeting with a producer and now he was going to burn some more calories and catch a few rays before going out tonight with Hector, his boyfriend of . . . well . . . erm . . . Connor wasn't quite sure exactly, because there had been a break, but that was all over now. Long forgotten. They were totally together and committed now.

  The phone in a holster round his waist began to ring and when he picked it up he was pleasantly surprised to see the words 'Annie babes' on caller display.

  'Annie, babes!' he said with pleasure.

  'Connor! Can you talk? You're not about to shoot off to a high-powered meeting, or rustle up a bean sprout salad or something?'

  'I'm on my bike, I can talk and burn, baby, burn.'

  'On your bike? In LA? What about the traffic . . . or getting mugged?'

  'On my bike on my terrace in the sunshine. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere.'

  'Oh.' Annie tried to understand. But really, it was too strange. She still thought of Connor as a charming, but quite lazy actor who had sort of stumbled on success somewhere between the pub and his latest bedroom conquest. She couldn't get her head around this all-new Californian fitness- and career-focused star. She didn't want to think of him like that, because then she couldn't think of him as her best friend any more. And he was definitely, despite the eight-hour time difference and the vast Atlantic Ocean now between them, still her best friend.

  'I've been thinking about you,' he said, only slightly out of breath from the cycling.

  'Oh really,' she teased, 'and it's making you pant.'

  'Absolutely. How is stardom suiting you? How are you looking on the small screen? Any hot men tried to bed you yet? I know all about the aphrodisiac of fame . . .'

  'Oh yeah, I'm beating them off with a stick baby, beating them off with a stick,' she joked thinking of her daily ride home in Bob's estate car. The aphrodisiac of fame!

  'TV is . . .' she began. TV was what? Not exactly as she'd expected? Much more extreme? Much more low budget? Much less glamorous?

  '. . . not quite as easy as it looks,' she decided.

  'Damn right!' Connor was delighted to agree. He'd lost count of the number of jumped-up actors who asked him why he did something as 'easy' as The Manor when he could be doing something much more 'serious' instead.

  'I can't believe how long the details take. Doing every shot, every bit of voiceover from sixteen different angles. It makes me want to scream. But the hard stuff,' Annie added, 'the transforming shy wallflower into belle of the ball, they expect that in fifteen seconds!'

  'Well, baby, you are at the very tough and gritty end of reality TV,' Connor sympathized, 'The cliff face, you could say. Who knows what's going to happen next? You could hang in there and be elevated to the TV hall of presenter/personality fame . . . or you could cut loose and fall away into the sea of failed wannabees, never to be heard of again. Still,' his tone perked up cheerily, 'you've gotta be in it to win it.'

  'So it's not a career path, it's a lottery?'

  'Exactly.'

  'Why did I give up my nice, glamorous, staff-discounted day job?' Annie had to ask. 'Please remind me.'

  'Because like the rest of us glory-hunters, you wanted your shot at the big one.'

  Annie considered the day she'd had today and the day she faced tomorrow: six hours in a shopping mall trying to transform Cath with £250. And Cath wasn't even sure if she wanted to be transformed!

  Even when filming was over, there was still so much work to be done: the debriefings with Finn, then all the additional little camera shots that Bob would insist on. Annie smiling, Annie nodding, Annie shaking her head and looking troubled. 'We might need these shots in the edit,' he'd explained. 'It's always good to have plenty of spare bits and pieces.'

  'Connor, if this is what it's like making cheap TV, what the hell is it like to make films?' she wondered.

  'Oh the agony,' Connor agreed, 'and yet the ecstasy!'

  'Have you heard about that big thing you were up for?' Annie asked.

  'Which one?' Connor said, but more anxiously than boastfully. 'I'm up for about eight, but I'll probably be lucky if even one of them is made. I think that's the strike rate for films in development right now. Only one in ten ever sees the light of day.'

  'Are you worried?' she asked with some concern.

  'Not yet,' he told her. 'I can always fall back on the other great LA industry.'

  'Drugs?!'

  'No, porn. No-one ever tells you this, but LA is only 15 per cent movies and then 85 per cent porn.
That's why everyone's so buff. To make sure they can play the part of Miguel the devastatingly attractive pizza delivery boy, if the rent's overdue.'

  'You worry me,' Annie told him. 'You can come back to London, you know. There's a new series of The Manor, isn't there? And what about the West End?'

  'Yes . . . but coming back with my tail between my legs isn't really what I'd planned to do.'

  Me neither. Annie couldn't help thinking; once again she was determined that she wouldn't be going back to The Store.

  'However you come back, Connor, you'll be welcomed with open arms, by all of us,' she reassured him.

  'You are a very lovely woman.'

  'I know. How are your food intolerances?' She tried to sound as if she meant this, but it didn't come out right.

  'Take that smirk off your face,' Connor commanded. 'Ever since I stopped eating grains, I am struggling to keep the weight on.'

  'Maybe I should try it . . .'

  'I don't know, are you an O type? Maybe you should call my dietician. I'm sure he could give you some guidelines over the phone.'

  'Maybe you should call my dietician?' she repeated in-credulously. 'These are words I never thought I would hear you say. But isn't booze a grain?'

  'I'm allowed champagne and vodka,' Connor told her, 'because they're pure. Vodka with soda water is the only drink you can buy round here anyway,' he added; 'vodka with soda water means you can get drunk but with hardly any calories or toxins, plus you are rehydrating while you're dehydrating.'

  'What do they call a vodka-soda then? The Hollywood Hellraiser?' Annie teased, 'Oh you crazy people! So you can have a big night out and still be up for spin class at six the next morning.'

  'Spin class? Soooo over,' Connor said. 'It's all yoga kick boxing now.'

  'But I thought yogis were pacifists. Do they just box away their negative vibes?' Annie teased.

  'Yeah, you're laughing, but you're a TV presenter now. You are just inches away from behaving like this,' he warned.

  'Am not.'

  'Are so.'

  'Not!'

  'Totally.'

  'How's your lover?' Annie asked to bring the play-fight to a close.

  'He's great,' came the reply. 'He doesn't have a work visa, so he's busy being my companion. He plans my wardrobe, organizes my diary, books all my sessions, makes sure I don't miss a meeting, or a manicure.'

  Manicure? Over the phone Annie couldn't tell whether Connor was serious or pulling her leg. Surely even Californian Connor wouldn't go for a manicure. Would he?

  'He's finding out about our baby options over here,' Connor dropped in without the slightest warning: 'there's adoption or there's surrogacy.'

  'Hello?!' Annie pounced, 'Your baby options?! You two want to have a baby? And you've not even breathed one word to me about this?'

  There was a pause. Then Connor felt he had to apologize. 'I'm sorry. We've not even been talking about it that long. It's a very new idea,' he added, 'but it's a fantastic one!'

  Annie said the only thing she felt that she could say: 'Well, that's incredibly exciting, babes.'

  But really, she thought it was too strange, that the two men she was closest to, Ed and Connor, both wanted babies. All of a sudden. Out of the blue.

  'Ed wants to have a baby too,' she risked.

  'No! That will be so amazing, Annie! Congratulations,' he added; a little prematurely, to say the least.

  'No, Connor. There's a bit of a difference. Ed wants to have a baby, but I don't.'

  Chapter Nine

  Annie's on-screen outfit:

  Bright blue blouse (Chloé)

  Purple and blue skirt (Whistles sale)

  Purple platform pumps (Miu Miu, Store discount days)

  Thick blue tights (John Lewis)

  Total est. cost: £470

  'Oh practical schmactical!'

  Annie walked briskly, three-inch heels clacking, arm in arm with Cath through the shopping mall. Permission to film in the mall and in most of the shops inside it had only just been granted twenty minutes ago after frantic phone calls to and from the director's assistant.

  Annie had a tight grip on Cath because she felt that the poor woman was going to need real physical, as well as mental, support to get through this shopping ordeal. Hard enough to go shopping for yourself for the first time in years . . . but to have a camera crew watching your every move when you finally get out there? That was almost too much for any woman to bear.

  Five years! Cath couldn't remember hitting the shops for herself once since her son's 16th birthday. It wasn't that she didn't have any money; Cath just felt she should be saving it rather than spending it on herself. Plus, she seemed to have a wardrobe full of things passed on from her friends, or worse, her son.

  'I know you love him dearly,' Annie had told Cath, 'but do you not think wearing his old sweatshirts might be taking things a bit too far?

  'But they're so practical,' Cath objected.

  'Oh practical shmactical! If I hear the p word again I'm going to have to smack you. There are so many lovely, comfortable and cosy ways of getting dressed without baggy sweatshirts and anoraks!'

  Cath had an assortment of anoraks in, yes, beige and pastel colours, that wouldn't have looked out of place on a mountain. In fact, if she had been a mountaineer they would have been fine, but for everyday London life they were . . . wrong!

  'Look around you, try and enjoy the experience. This is called shopping,' Annie was playfully encouraging her. 'If you see a window display you like the look of, let me know, we'll stop and we'll explore. There is no panic, we've got the whole day,' she soothed. 'And a whole day to buy one outfit is a luxury, believe me.

  'The only rule,' Annie went on, 'the one thing I'm insisting on, Cath, is that you buy only things that you love. I quite like it, this will do, this is so practical . . . no, no, we're not having any of that. If you don't love it . . . if it doesn't make your heart beat faster, then we're not going to bother. OK?'

  'How's your son?' she asked, hoping a little bit of cheerful chat would put Cath more at ease.

  'Fine. He keeps asking me when I'm going to get my party dress, as if I'm Cinderella or something . . .' There was note of despondency to this which Annie wanted to nip in the bud.

  'You are!' Annie insisted, 'and I'm your fairy godmother, so you better start believing in me or I'm going to disappear.'

  Spotting one of the funky shoe shops she knew Lana shopped in regularly, Annie steered Cath towards the front door: 'Now,' she began, 'every Cinderella has to have a wonderful shoe.' Annie knew that shoes didn't let you down the way clothes did. You never changed shoe size; shoes never made you look fat. They were a great place for insecure novice shoppers to start.

  Cath was sent to look around the shop as both the camera and Annie studied her closely for her reactions.

  'Just don't get so in her face!' Annie hissed at Bob. 'How is she ever going to relax and get into this if you're shadowing her every move?'

  'I don't want to miss anything,' Bob defended himself.

  'You won't. And if you do, I will personally bribe her to re-stage it,' came Annie's reply.