The kittens choose this moment to wake up properly and start crawling around, mewing gently.
Jenny, Edie and I use the excuse to grab one each and stroke them. We don’t talk to each other. We don’t look at each other.
My lovely, lovely, fashion-planning, friend-filled, exam-free summer is turning into a nightmare. And then my phone goes. It’s a text from Mum.
‘Just got your report. Come home now. Need to talk.’
The nightmare has just begun.
Mum’s sitting at the kitchen table (white marble, matching chairs, spill-phobic), with my report open in front of her and a very strong cup of coffee beside her. And the worst thing is, she doesn’t even look angry. She just looks helpless and sad.
‘What am I supposed to do, Nonie?’ she asks.
This is a trick question. I bite my lip.
‘I mean, I send you to that expensive school. I spend hours helping you choose your options. I tell you over and over again about the importance of exams, and college, and preparing for your future. But if none of it goes in, what can I do?’
‘It wasn’t good, then?’ I ask. I might as well get the basics over with first.
She sighs. ‘No. It wasn’t good.’
She slides the report over the table to me. It skids across the marble. But I have no great desire to read it.
‘But it’s only my first year of sixth form, right? I mean, it’s next year that counts,’ I say hopefully.
‘If you carry on like this, you won’t last through next year,’ Mum says. ‘They’re not just disappointed in you, Nonie. They’re worried about you.’
‘Oh.’ Maybe all those bullet-point essays didn’t have quite the effect I hoped for. However, I’m determined to keep looking on the bright side. ‘But Mum, it’s not as if I really need loads of A levels anyway. I know you keep saying about college and everything, but if Crow does her own label, she’ll need me to run it for her, and if she doesn’t, there’s this big fashion house that could hire us. It’s kind of happening already.’
I try not to sound smug or anything, but basically I am pretty smug, to be honest. I’ve helped Crow produce three collections and if Andy Elat’s right – which he always is – she’s about to go stratospheric. I have a career! Yay! And I didn’t even need to leave school to get it!
‘Oh, Nonie,’ Mum sighs again. ‘You’re so naïve, darling. You have no idea, do you?’
OK, I’m not smug now, I’m cross. No idea? NO IDEA? Haven’t I produced a catwalk show at London Fashion Week? Haven’t I just helped to launch a high street collection and chatted to Joan Burstein? What kind of an idea do I need?
‘Look, sit down,’ Mum says.
I’m so wound-up I hadn’t even realised I was still standing up. I slide into a chair and half-perch on the edge of it. Mum tries to reach out for my hand, but ‘the girl with no idea’ doesn’t feel like holding hands right now.
‘Think about it, darling. Crow is the designer. She’s the name. She’s the one people want. What would you do?’
‘What I’ve always done,’ I say. ‘Help her.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know . . .’ I stumble, grappling for ideas. I haven’t thought this through, because it seemed so obvious. ‘Make decisions, you know – talk to people. Make her designs come true.’
Mum sighs. ‘But running a label is a serious business.’
‘I know that.’
‘It takes a lot of money.’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘And that money has to be managed by someone who knows what she’s doing. Someone who understands about cash flow and market research and sales projections. Do you actually want to know all that stuff, Nonie?’
‘Of course I do,’ I say.
I mean, obviously I don’t want to become an expert in cash flow, exactly. Or sales projections, whatever they are. Did we do something about them in Business Studies? I think I was mentally working out a party outfit that day.
‘Well, maybe I wouldn’t run the label,’ I admit. ‘I’d do something . . . helpful.’
‘Like what?’
There’s a silence.
‘And anyway,’ Mum goes on, ‘how can you help if you produce “the worst performance of a promising student” that your Business Studies teacher has seen in the last ten years?’ She is seriously rubbing it in. What is her problem? Andy Elat said this was Crow’s moment. I want it to be mine, too.
‘If I need to, I’ll go to college and learn . . . whatever,’ I say, to keep Mum happy. I haven’t stopped being promising, have I?
‘But you can’t!’ Mum practically wails. ‘You’re not good enough. You haven’t worked hard enough. You wouldn’t get in. You’re throwing your life away, Nonie. How can I make you see?’
Well, I can’t see a thing right now. I’m trying to focus through a wall of tears. It’s pointless trying to talk. My voice won’t work. We sit there for ages, not saying anything. What I’m thinking is, ‘Why couldn’t I have been Joan Burstein’s daughter?’ But I guess Mum would be offended if I said it out loud. Goodness knows what she’s thinking, but it’s probably about my A-level predictions, and it’s probably not good.
Up in my room, I stay sitting in the middle of my floor, not touching anything, not moving, as the light gradually fades from the day and the evening takes over. I wait for Mum to knock on the door and invite me down to supper, but she doesn’t. Harry’s working away from home, so his room is silent too.
Eventually, as darkness properly falls, I hear the front door open and shut and I creep downstairs to see if Crow’s arrived. She has. She looks up at me with a shocked expression.
‘What happened?’
I run a hand through my hair. I probably look a bit of a state right now.
‘School report,’ I explain. ‘You OK?’
Crow nods, and holds out her hand to me.
We go down to her workroom together. It’s full of paper flowers. Her latest idea for Isabelle’s dress is a skirt covered in silk blooms and she’s practising with paper, to see how it would look.
It’s so beautiful. A sea of flowers on the carpet. So unexpected, but so typical of Crow. How will I live without this room, and without her in it?
I start crying again. Crow puts a friendly arm around me and doesn’t ask me why. This is a good silence. But eventually I break it.
‘So you’re going to Uganda?’
‘Yes.’
‘I guess Victoria will be thrilled to see you.’
Victoria is Crow’s little sister, and they’ve only seen each other twice since Crow came to England to get a good education when she was eight. Since then, things have improved at home and Victoria is getting a good education of her own, in a school that Edie helped raise money to build. Victoria loves hearing what Crow’s up to and I can only imagine how happy she’ll be to have her big sister home again, even if it’s just for a few weeks.
Crow grins and her face lights up. I suddenly realise that she’s just as happy to be going. I’d sort of assumed she’d be as annoyed about it as me, but of course she’s looking forward to seeing her family. She loves them very much and although she doesn’t talk about it, she misses them.
‘What about Henry? Is he going too?’ I ask.
‘He is,’ she grins. ‘He wants to train to be a teacher, like Dad. So he’s going to get a bit of practice. And I’m going to go and help. Dad says I need to concentrate more on my learning.’
Crow’s dad and my mum should get together. They’d have a ball.
‘You’re fine at school, though, aren’t you?’ I ask.
‘Not really,’ she says, with a sheepish grin. ‘I get too carried away with the clothes sometimes. They say I might not get my GCSEs next year.’
‘Well, I know how that feels,’ I assure her.
I realise that suddenly we hardly have any time for all those fashion discussions we need to have.
‘What about the label?’ I ask. ‘Do you still want to do it?�
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Crow shrugs. ‘I’ll think about it when I’m back from Uganda.’
‘Mum said I’d be rubbish at running it because I don’t know about cash flow.’
I wait for her to look horrified and say something to defend me. But she doesn’t. This time she doesn’t even bother to reply. Her mind is already back in her village with her family.
‘Right. Well. We’ll talk about it when you get back.’
She smiles absent-mindedly. ‘Sure.’
‘Great.’
I tiptoe carefully back through the sea of paper flowers and try not to cry again, but it doesn’t really work. I decide I need a plan. Something to fill the summer and take my mind off Mum, and the house, and missing everybody. I’m seventeen, for goodness’ sake, and living in London and I was nearly glamorous for five minutes at Easter. I’m sure I’m supposed to feel happier than this.
Crow and Henry are the first ones to leave, on a flight to Kampala. A few days later, Edie comes with me to see Jenny off to New York. As Jenny’s heading for the security queue at Heathrow, Edie gives her the most penetrating, accusatory stare I’ve ever seen. Jenny doesn’t seem to notice.
‘Have a great summer without me, guys,’ she says cheerfully. ‘See you at Christmas!’
‘Anyone would think she was glad to be going,’ Edie mutters.
‘But she is!’ I point out.
‘She’ll regret it,’ Edie says. ‘She’ll miss London. The museums. The shops. Home. Us.’
‘Don’t forget you’re going there yourself next year,’ I point out. ‘Harvard isn’t exactly down the road.’
‘Hmm.’ Edie gives me an odd look, as if she hadn’t thought of this. Honestly! The place is in Boston, up the coast from New York. She’s not stupid. Surely she’s pictured herself there a million times?
‘And why aren’t you going over to California, while I think of it? Or is Hot Phil coming here?’ I ask.
She shrugs. ‘Phil’s trying to be nice, I suppose. He said I’m welcome to go and visit him and take advantage of the sun and everything. But he’s not going to come to London and watch me work all summer. He says I seriously need a break.’
‘He’s right.’
She sighs. ‘I know. But I’ve got my summer job working at the library. And so much reading to do. It’s better if I just stay at home and work my way through it. And my parents are taking us camping for a week. That’ll be good.’
She makes it sound amazing. Not.
‘How about you?’ she asks. ‘Has your mum seriously stopped your allowance?’
‘Yeah,’ I admit. It’s the thing parents try just before they say, ‘I don’t know what else to do’, and throw their hands up and look at you as though you’re some sort of unsolvable Sudoku.
‘I can probably lend you some money,’ Edie adds doubtfully. It’s really sweet of her to offer, but I know she doesn’t have much to spare. And besides, I won’t need it anyway.
‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ I say. ‘I have a plan.’
‘Oooh!’ Edie says, brightening up. ‘I love it when you have a plan. What’s this one?’
‘It’s brilliant. I thought of it last week. It kills lots of birds with one stone. I get money. I get to do something I love. I show Mum how capable I am of sorting out my own career. And I find my perfect job in fashion.’
‘And?’ Edie asks.
‘And what?’
‘What’s the actual plan?’
‘Oh, right. I’ve got an internship at Miss Teen. I begged and pleaded. They’d given all the proper ones away ages ago, of course, but they squeezed me in. I already know lots of people there, and what they do, so they won’t have to spend too much time training me. And I work really hard. They know I do.’ I pause for breath.
‘And they’re paying you?’ Edie asks, surprised. Interns aren’t exactly showered with cash, as we know from friends who’ve practically had to pay to do their jobs.
‘A bit. Not much. Travel and lunch money, basically, but it’s better than nothing. Anyway, I’m really looking forward to it. I just wish . . .’
‘What?’
‘I just wish Jenny and Crow were around so we could all get together in the evenings and I could tell you how great it is.’
Edie smiles. ‘I’ll be around some of the time. You can tell me.’
I smile back. I don’t say that, much as I love her, telling a girl who wears MATCHING TWINSETS and BEIGE CULOTTES about my time at Miss Teen might be slightly pointless. I look at her now. She’s in slacks. There’s no other word for them. Actual slacks. And a brown jacket that has been instructed not to approach the body under any circumstances. Edie and fashion are distant acquaintances. Still, it’s sweet of her to try and take an interest.
I was expecting Mum to be appalled when I told her about the internship. After all, it’s me trying to pursue my ‘flying pig’ career in fashion. But instead, she seemed thrilled.
‘Well done, darling. That should keep you out of trouble. I’m sure you’ll learn loads.’
I nod wisely. Indeed I will. About how to help Crow run her label. Which is what we’re going to be doing next year, after we’ve done our exams. I say this bit in my head, though. Not out loud. Despite the job, I really need Mum to change her mind about my allowance if I’m going to have any fun this summer.
I’m talking a lot in my head at the moment. Mum and I don’t have too much to say to each other. After the whole ‘You’re not good enough,’ ‘I just don’t know what to do with you,’ ‘I’m stopping your allowance’ scenario, I think she’s said most of it already.
I’ve often wondered what interns do. And now I know.
They make a LOT of tea. And coffee. Plenty of coffee. They are experts at packing and unpacking clothes samples, getting the photocopier to work and asking people if they need help, which generally they don’t. Senior managers DO NOT come up to them and say, ‘Our top designer’s off sick today – can you run off a quick collection and have it in by teatime?’ Although interns spend a lot of their time daydreaming that this will happen. Usually while waiting for the coffee machine to percolate.
This is fine, though. My original dream was to make the tea for a big designer. Even though my dreams have grown a bit since then, I’m still happy to produce hot refreshments for major fashion retailers while I’m learning.
It’s lovely being back at Miss Teen’s headquarters, which are just off Oxford Street and basically in Fashion Central. Whenever I’ve been here before, it’s been with Crow for a meeting to talk about her designs. That was exciting, but stressful, especially if it involved the board-room and Andy Elat being upset about something. Now I get to mix with all the people who make the high street collections happen and watch what they do, but the only stressful thing I have to worry about is who wants which sandwiches for lunch.
That, and wondering what to wear every morning. Miss Teen girls and boys are fashion forward. They don’t wear the current favourite looks, but what’s going to be cool in a few weeks, or a few months. They even have fashion forward hair. I would join in, but next season apparently, is going to be all about a major goth revival and I can’t bring myself to wear black velvet and lacy gloves at the height of summer.
Instead, I wear things to cheer myself up. Things I’m quite sure Mum wouldn’t approve of. Colourful, silly things from around the house that will probably rip or tear and are quite often not entirely clean, but make me smile when I put them on. Things that Crow has made for me over the years, that don’t necessarily fit me any more, but work in an ironic, babydoll way. I hope.
I’m in one of these outfits when a Senior Buyer comes into the room where I’m having a quiet argument with the photocopier and asks me to get her a coffee.
‘I’m sorry to be such a pest,’ she says. (She is a very nice, polite Senior Buyer, which is a rare species.) ‘But I’m on a deadline and I need caffeine. A Starbucks triple shot latte, basically. It’s the only thing that works. Here’s a fiver.’
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sp; She hands me a note and looks apologetic. I grab it cheerfully. I am Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada. I’m getting coffee for a Serious Fashion Person and the fact that I’m not doing it in a teeny-weeny little print shift by Marc Jacobs and vertiginous heels doesn’t matter.
‘No problem,’ I say. ‘Sugar?’
She looks at me as if I’m talking a foreign language. Then I remember. Serious Fashion People don’t do sugar.
‘I mean, skinny milk?’ I correct myself.
She nods gratefully and I dash across the road on my mission of mercy.
And straight into Keep your head down Friday.
When I get to the front of the queue, a familiar pair of aquamarine eyes meets mine and widens with surprise. It’s Liam. My second-favourite unattainable boy from French class. The one (actually, one of the many) who saw that picture of me in the kimono and wondered what possessed me. And didn’t seem to mind too much when I smiled at him in class.
‘Hi,’ he says. There’s a question in his eyes. I’m lost and confused. It takes me a while to remember that I’m in a Starbucks, and he’s behind the counter, and I’m supposed to tell him some sort of coffee order. I know I had one. I just can’t remember what it was.
‘Cappuccino,’ I say without thinking. ‘To go.’
He marks it down on a cup and passes it down the line.
‘Anything else?’
He gives me his half-amused smile. Seeing it close-to, and in the context of Starbucks, not French class, I suddenly realise what an impressive smile it is. I think he’s quickly becoming my joint-favourite unattainable boy. He’s still looking at me. I realise I haven’t answered his next question. And then I remember what I really came for.
‘I mean, no – sorry. It was supposed to be a triple shot latte. With skinny milk. Oops.’
The half-amused smile becomes fully amused. Liam glances down the line, where my original cappuccino order is being dutifully made by one of his colleagues.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it,’ he says. Then, ‘Triple shot? That’s a bit much, isn’t it?’
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