We stare at each other in silence for a few moments.
“You don’t have to say anything,” I say at last, looking away. “I only did it because I can’t stand Alicia. No other reason.”
“So… I’ve put you on row thirty-two,” says the checkin girl brightly. “Boarding should be at four thirty…” She takes one further look at my passport and her expression changes. “Hey! You’re the one off Morning Coffee, aren’t you?”
“I used to be,” I say with a polite smile.
“Oh right,” she says puzzledly. As she hands over my passport and boarding card, her eye runs over my FT, and stops at Luke’s photograph. She looks up at Luke, and down again.
“Hang on. Are you him?” she says, jabbing at the picture.
“I used to be,” says Luke after a pause. “Come on, Becky. Let me buy you a drink, at least.”
We sit down at a little table with glasses of Pernod. I can see the light on Luke’s phone lighting up every five seconds, indicating that someone’s trying to call him. But he doesn’t even seem to notice.
“I wanted to ring you,” he says, staring into his drink. “Every single day, I wanted to ring. But… it’s been so crazy since I got back. And what you said about me not having time for a real relationship? That really stuck with me. Plus…” He breaks off into silence.
“Plus what?” I say at last.
“I wasn’t sure,” he says, and looks up with frank brown eyes. “The truth is, I didn’t know whether we could make it work. It seemed in New York that we suddenly split apart, and started going in different directions. It was as though we didn’t understand each other anymore.”
I should be able to hear this without reacting. But for some reason the back of my throat feels tight all over again.
“So — what happened?” I say, forcing myself to sound matter-of-fact. “Why are you here? The day when all your investors have flown in to see you.”
“Not ideal. I’ll give you that.” A flicker of amusement passes briefly across his face. “But how was I to know you were planning to skip the country? Michael’s been a secretive bastard. And when I heard you were leaving…” He meets my eyes. “I suddenly realized.”
“Realized… what?” I manage.
“That I’d been a fucking… stupid…”
He pushes his glass around the table abstractly, as though searching for something, and I stare at him apprehensively. “You were right,” he says suddenly. “I was obsessed with making it in New York. It was a kind of madness. I couldn’t see anything else. Jesus, I’ve fucked everything up, haven’t I? You… us… the business…”
“Come on, Luke,” I say awkwardly. “You can’t take credit for everything. I fucked up a good few things for you…” I stop as Luke shakes his head. He drains his glass and gives me a frank look.
“There’s something you need to know. Becky — how do you think The Daily World got hold of your financial details?”
I look at him in surprise.
“It… it was the council tax girl. The girl who came to the flat and snooped around while Suze was…” I tail away as he shakes his head again.
“It was Alicia.”
For a moment I’m too taken aback to speak.
“Alicia?” I manage at last. “How do you… why would she…”
“When we searched her office we found some bank statements of yours in her desk. Some letters, too. Christ alone knows how she got hold of them.” He exhales sharply. “This morning, I finally got a guy at The Daily World to admit she was the source. They just followed up what she gave them.”
I stare at him, feeling rather cold. Remembering that day I visited his office. The Conran bag with all my letters in it. Alicia standing by Mel’s desk, looking like a cat with a mouse.
I knew I’d left something behind. Oh God, how could I have been so stupid?
“You weren’t her real target,” Luke’s saying. “She did it to discredit me and the company — and distract my attention from what she was up to. They won’t confirm it, but I’m sure she was also the ‘inside source’ giving all those quotes about me.” He takes a deep breath. “The point is, Becky — I got it all wrong. My deal wasn’t ruined because of you.” He looks at me matter-of-factly. “Yours was ruined because of me.”
I sit still for a few moments, unable to speak. It’s as though something heavy is slowly lifting from me. I’m not sure what to think or feel.
“I’m just so sorry,” Luke’s saying. “For everything you’ve been through…”
“No.” I take a deep, shaky breath. “Luke, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even Alicia’s fault. Maybe she fed them the details. But I mean, if I hadn’t got myself into debt in the first place, and if I hadn’t gone crazy shopping in New York — they wouldn’t have had anything to write about, would they?” I rub my dry face. “It was horrible and humiliating. But in a funny way, seeing that article was a good thing for me. It made me realize a few things about myself, at least.”
I pick up my glass, see that it’s empty, and put it down again.
“Do you want another one?” says Luke.
“No. No, thanks.”
There’s silence between us. In the distance, a voice is telling passengers on flight BA 2340 for San Francisco to please proceed to Gate 29.
“I know Michael offered you a job,” said Luke. He gestures to my case. “I assume this means you accepted it.” He pauses, and I stare at him, trembling slightly, saying nothing. “Becky — don’t go to Washington. Come and work for me.”
“Work for you?” I say, startled.
“Come and work for Brandon Communications.”
“Are you mad?”
He pushes his hair back off his face — and suddenly he looks young and vulnerable. Like someone who needs a break.
“I’m not mad. My staff’s been decimated. I need someone like you at a senior level. You know about finance. You’ve been a journalist. You’re good with people, you already know the company…”
“Luke, you’ll easily find someone else like me,” I chip in. “You’ll find someone better! Someone with PR experience, someone who’s worked in—”
“OK, I’m lying,” Luke interrupts. “I’m lying.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t just need someone like you. I need you.”
He meets my eyes candidly — and with a jolt I realize he’s not just talking about Brandon Communications.
“I need you, Becky. I rely on you. I didn’t realize it until you weren’t there anymore. Ever since you left, your words have been going round and round in my head. About my ambitions. About our relationship. About my mother, even.”
“Your mother?” I stare at him apprehensively. “I heard you tried to arrange a meeting with her…”
“It wasn’t her fault.” He takes a swig of Pernod. “Something came up, so she couldn’t make it. But you’re right, I should spend more time with her. Really get to know her better, and forge a closer relationship, just like you have with your mother.” He looks up and frowns at my dumbfounded expression. “That is what you meant, isn’t it?”
I try for a moment to imagine Luke and his mother chatting away in the kitchen like me and Mum — and fail completely.
“Erm… yes!” I say hastily. “Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. Absolutely.”
“That’s what I mean. You’re the only person who’ll tell me the stuff I need to hear, even when I don’t want to hear it. I should have confided in you right from the start. I was… I don’t know. Arrogant. Stupid.”
He sounds so bleak and hard on himself, I feel a twinge of dismay.
“Luke—”
“Becky, I know you’ve got your own career — and I completely respect that. I wouldn’t even ask if I didn’t think this could be a good step for you too. But… please.” He reaches across the table and puts a warm hand on mine. “Come back. Let’s start again.”
I stare helplessly at him, feeling emotion swelling in me like a balloon.
“
Luke, I can’t work for you.” I swallow, trying to keep control of my voice. “I have to go to the States. I have to take this chance.”
“I know it seems like a great opportunity. But what I’m offering could be a great opportunity, too.”
“It’s not the same,” I say, clenching my hand tightly round my glass.
“It can be the same. Whatever Michael’s offered you, I’ll match it.” He leans forward. “I’ll more than match it. I’ll—”
“Luke,” I interrupt. “Luke, I didn’t take Michael’s job.”
Luke’s face jerks in shock.
“You didn’t? Then what—”
He looks at my suitcase and back up to my face — and I stare back in resolute silence.
“I understand,” he says at last. “It’s none of my business.”
He looks so defeated, I feel a sudden stab of pain in my chest. I want to tell him — but I just can’t. I can’t risk talking about it, listening to my own arguments waver, wondering whether I’ve made the right choice. I can’t risk changing my mind.
“Luke, I’ve got to go,” I say, my throat tight. “And… and you’ve got to get back to your meeting.”
“Yes,” says Luke after a long pause. “Yes. You’re right. I’ll go. I’ll go now.” He stands up and reaches into his pocket. “Just… one last thing. You don’t want to forget this.”
Very slowly, he pulls out a long, pale blue, silk and velvet scarf, scattered with iridescent beads.
My scarf. My Denny and George scarf.
I feel the blood drain from my face.
“How did you—” I swallow. “The bidder on the phone was you? But… but you withdrew. The other bidder got the—” I tail off and stare at him in confusion.
“Both the bidders were me.”
He ties the scarf gently round my neck, looks at me for a few seconds, then kisses me on the forehead. Then he turns round and walks away, into the airport crowds.
Seventeen
Two Months Later
OK. SO IT’S TWO PRESENTATIONS, one to Saatchis, one to Global Bank. One awards lunch with McKinseys, and dinner with Merrill Lynch.”
“That’s it. It’s a lot. I know.”
“It’ll be fine,” I say reassuringly. “It’ll be fine.”
I scribble something in my notebook and stare at it thinking hard. This is the moment of my new job I love the most. The initial challenge. Here’s the puzzle — find the solution. For a few moments I sit without saying anything, doodling endless small five-pointed stars and letting my mind work it out, while Lalla watches me anxiously.
“OK,” I say at last. “I have it. Your Helmut Lang pantsuit for the meetings, your Jil Sander dress for the lunch — and we’ll find you something new for the dinner.” I squint at her. “Maybe something in a deep green.”
“I can’t wear green,” says Lalla.
“You can wear green,” I say firmly. “You look great in green.”
“Becky,” says Erin, putting her head round my door. “Sorry to bother you, but Mrs. Farlow is on the phone. She loves the jackets you sent over — but is there something lighter she can wear for this evening?”
“OK,” I say. “I’ll call her back.” I look at Lalla. “So, let’s find you an evening dress.”
“What am I going to wear with my pantsuit?”
“A shirt,” I say. “Or a cashmere tee. The gray one.”
“The gray one,” repeats Lalla carefully, as though I’m speaking in Arabic.
“You bought it three weeks ago? Armani? Remember?”
“Oh yes! Yes. I think.”
“Or else your blue shell top.”
“Right,” says Lalla, nodding earnestly. “Right.”
Lalla is high up in some top computer consultancy, with offices all over the world. She has two doctorates and an IQ of about a zillion — and claims she has severe clothes dyslexia. At first I thought she was joking.
“Write it down,” she says, thrusting a leather-bound organizer at me. “Write down all the combinations.”
“Well, OK… but, Lalla, I thought we were going to try to let you start putting a few outfits together yourself.”
“I know. I will. One day I will, I promise. Just… not this week. I can’t deal with that extra pressure.”
“Fine,” I say, hiding a smile, and begin to write in her organizer, screwing up my face as I try to remember all the clothes she’s got. I haven’t got much time if I’m going to find her an evening dress for tonight, call Mrs. Farlow back, and locate that knitwear I promised for Janey van Hassalt.
Every day here is completely frenetic; everyone is always in a hurry. But somehow the busier I get, and the more challenges are thrown at me — the more I love it.
“By the way,” says Lalla. “My sister — the one you said should wear burnt orange…”
“Oh yes! She was nice.”
“She said she saw you on the television. In England! Talking about clothes!”
“Oh yes,” I say, feeling a faint flush come to my face. “I’ve been doing a little slot for a daytime lifestyle show. ‘Becky from Barneys.’ It’s a kind of New York, fashiony thing…”
“Well done!” says Lalla warmly. “A slot on television! That must be very exciting for you!”
I pause, a beaded jacket in my hand, thinking, a few months ago I was going to have my own show on American network television. And now I have a little slot on a daytime show with half the audience of Morning Coffee. But the point is, I’m on the path I want to be.
“Yes, it is,” I say, and smile at her. “It’s very exciting.”
It doesn’t take too long to sort Lalla out with an outfit for her dinner. As she leaves, clutching a list of possible shoes, Christina, the head of the department, comes in and smiles at me.
“How’re you doing?”
“Fine,” I say. “Really good.”
Which is the truth. But even if it weren’t — even if I were having the worst day in the world — I’d never say anything negative to Christina. I’m so grateful to her for remembering who I was. For giving me a chance.
I still can’t quite believe how nice she was to me when I hesitantly phoned her up, out of the blue. I reminded her that we’d met, and asked if there was any chance I could come and work at Barneys — and she said she remembered exactly who I was, and how was the Vera Wang dress? So I ended up telling her the whole story, and how I had to sell the dress, and how my TV career was in tatters, and how I’d so love to come and work for her… and she was quiet for a bit — and then she said she thought I’d be quite an asset to Barneys. Quite an asset! It was her idea about the TV slot, too.
“Hidden any clothes today?” she says, with a slight twinkle, and I feel myself flush. I’m never going to live this down, am I?
It was during that first phone call that Christina also asked me if I had any retail experience. And like a complete moron, I told her all about the time I went to work in Ally Smith — and got the sack when I hid a pair of zebra-print jeans from a customer because I really wanted them myself. I came to the end of the story, and there was silence on the phone, and I thought I’d completely scuppered my chances. But then came this bellow of laughter, so loud I almost dropped the phone in fright. She told me last week that was the moment she decided to hire me.
She’s also told the story to all our regular clients, which is a bit embarrassing.
“So.” Christina gives me a long, appraising look. “Are you ready for your ten o’clock?”
“Yes.” I flush slightly under her gaze. “Yes, I think so.”
“D’you want to brush your hair?”
“Oh.” My hand flies to my neck. “Is it untidy?”
“Not really.” There’s a slight sparkle to her eye, which I don’t understand. “But you want to look your best for your customer, don’t you?”
She goes out of the room, and I quickly pull out a comb. God, I keep forgetting how tidy you have to be in Manhattan. Like, I have my nails done twice
a week at a nail bar round the corner from where I live — but sometimes I think I should increase it to every other day. I mean, it’s only nine dollars.
Which in real money, is… Well. It’s nine dollars.
I’m kind of getting used to thinking in dollars. I’m kind of getting used to a lot of things. Jodie was a real star when I called her, and helped me find a studio apartment. It’s tiny and pretty grotty and in a place called Hell’s Kitchen (which I haven’t told Mum. To her it’s “Clinton,” which she thinks sounds very nice and respectable.). For the first few nights I couldn’t sleep for the traffic noise. But the point is, I’m here. I’m here in New York, standing on my own two feet, doing something I can honestly say I adore.
Michael’s job in Washington sounded wonderful. In many ways it would have been much more sensible to take it — and I know Mum and Dad wanted me to. But what Michael said at that lunch — about not falling into anything else, about going after what I truly wanted — made me think. About my career, about my life, about what I really wanted to do for a living.
And to give my mum her due, as soon as I explained what this job at Barneys would involve, she stared at me, and said, “But, love, why on earth didn’t you think of this before?”
“Hi, Becky?” I give a small start, and look up to see Erin at my door. I’ve got to be quite good friends with Erin, ever since she invited me home to look at her collection of lipsticks and we ended up watching James Bond videos all night. “I have your ten o’clock here.”
“Who is my ten o’clock?” I say, frowning puzzledly as I reach for a Richard Tyler sheath. “I couldn’t see anything in the book.”
“Well… uh…” Her face is all shiny and excited, for some reason. “Uh… here he is.”
“Thank you very much,” comes a deep male voice.
A deep male British voice.
Oh my God.
I freeze like a rabbit, still holding the Richard Tyler dress, as Luke walks into the room.
“Hello,” he says with a small smile. “Miss Bloomwood. I’ve heard you’re the best shopper in town.”
I open my mouth and close it again. Thoughts are whizzing round my mind like fireworks. I’m trying to feel surprised, trying to feel as shocked as I know I should. Two months of absolutely nothing — and now here he is. I should be completely thrown.
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