The Stylist Takes Manhattan

by Rosie Nixon

  Only happen to me. Why do I attract moments of sheer idiocy so easily? Why? “Seriously, I’ve never seen a water bottle bounce off someone’s head that hard before,” Vicky told him, reliving every painful moment at my expense and clearly finding it sidesplittingly funny.

  “Shame it wasn’t the real Victoria,” Rob said. “You might have an argument for a claim there. An insecure water bottle on a spinning bike?” He sucked in his cheeks. “I’m sure someone somewhere in America has sued over an incident like that.”

  “Hmm, maybe . . .” I said, yawning, still resistant to accepting there was a funny side to my accident. All I wanted to do was lie down.

  Vicky had been fidgety since we got back, and, as she offered to make us a quick strong coffee, I asked what was wrong.

  “I’m just wondering if I should pack my case now?” she stuttered, eyes glistening. “Sorry, it’s just I suddenly feel really hungover and I’m wondering if Rob’s brother is coming soon?”

  I looked at Rob.

  “Oh, sorry, forgot to mention, Dan hasn’t actually booked a flight yet,” he said.

  “Which means you can sofa surf at ours for the rest of the week!” I added, relieved we could give her time to work out when she would go back to Trey and LA, or whether she really was gearing up to leave him for good.

  I glanced at Rob, wondering whether I should have checked he was fine about Vicky staying, too, but it was too late. “Thank you! Thank you both so much!” She threw her arms around us. “I’ll make you dinner this evening.” Fortunately, Rob doesn’t yet know what a terrible cook my best friend is.

  “Meanwhile, some of us have to go to work,” Rob announced, standing up. “We’re filming auditions for the new stylist for the show today—should be interesting. Lola Jones is coming in for an audition, among others. It’s going to go on into the evening, so don’t cook for me.”

  “Let me know if Lola makes any reference to wanting me skinned live,” I joked.

  “Yeah, don’t know why, but I think I’ll omit to mention the fact her Instagram nemesis is my girlfriend,” he said sarcastically, winking at me as he headed for the door.

  I smiled at the space where he had stood as the door closed and the sound of his footsteps disappeared down the corridor.

  “You’ve got a good one there, Amber,” Vicky said, catching me. “Tell me he’s not that perfect all the time. He loves you to bits, you know.”

  “Really? How do you know?” I asked.

  “Just the way he looks at you. Plus, he’s good-looking, successful, dependable—he’s husband material all right.”

  I blushed. It had to be said I did feel pretty smug that somehow I’d managed to bag myself a boyfriend as fantastic as Rob. For a few seconds, I allowed myself the daydream that one day I might actually become Mrs. Amber Walker. I would certainly welcome losing the Amber Green moniker I’d had to put up with for twenty-eight years, with all the unfunny traffic-light puns that came with it.

  “He’s not bad,” I replied, modestly. “I think I’ll keep him, for now.”

  “Don’t mess it up, like I always seem to do,” Vicky warned me. “I know I’m hardly the best person to be dishing out relationship advice, but there aren’t many genuine good guys out there, believe me.”

  “I know. I was single for two billion years before this—remember?”

  “Ha. You just hadn’t found your One.” She smiled. “Well, I think you have now. You’re lucky—I wish I had that.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, slightly embarrassed. I wasn’t used to my love life being something someone might envy.

  My eyelids felt heavy, but there was to be no duvet day, we had a shoot to get to, and it felt good to have my bestie by my side as my unofficial assistant.

  * * *

  We arrived at a smart house in a plum spot in the heart of Greenwich Village, and were greeted at the door by a woman who introduced herself as Irene, marketing manager at Kute Kids—one of America’s biggest children’s wear retailers. She looked irate.

  “Tell me you’re the stylist?” she said, her hair falling out of what probably started the day as a neat bun on top of her head.

  “That’s right, Amber Green,” I held out a hand. She blanked it.

  “Thank God, I don’t think we’re going to keep their attention for much longer—we need to get this shoot started.”

  She took in the egg on my forehead. My attempt to camouflage it with makeup had clearly failed. It felt as though it was pulsating like the lights on a police car.

  “What happened?”

  “I took a fall for an old lady, long story,” I said. Vicky gave me a sideways look, which I ignored.

  I clocked a large damp patch on Irene’s silk shirt.

  “Puke.” She winced. “Covered in the stuff on a daily basis. I don’t know why I do this job. Or ever bother to wear silk.”

  “Well, that makes me feel better about my head,” I said, smiling, egghead nullified. “Shall we come in?”

  From nowhere a little person appeared between her legs.

  “Jamie go out now!” the boy said excitedly; he couldn’t have been much more than two years old, with a perfect blond bowl haircut, blue eyes and a seriously cheeky face.

  “No, no, Jamie stay here!” Irene yanked him back. “There are six more of these little dictators inside. You sure you want to come in?”

  We all laughed nervously.

  * * *

  It was instantly apparent that the owners of the house didn’t have young children—it was far too tastefully decorated and the walls were far too white. Vicky and I peered into a plush sitting room on our right, where a large, pale gray corner sofa loaded with a huge number of white and silver cushions took up most of the room, behind a large glass coffee table on which eight little cream vases containing green grass trimmed to a uniform length were positioned. Stunning abstract oil paintings hung on the walls, and a gallery of framed black-and-white photographs provided a feature on one side.

  “The owner’s an artist—his works are all over the house,” Irene informed us.

  Next, off the hallway, was a grand drawing room with whitewashed wooden floors and pieces of contemporary furniture, which opened up into a dining room, where a plain white colorama had been set up against one wall by the photographer, who was introduced as Natalie. Her assistant, a small girl with short peroxide hair, was embroiled in a battle to prevent six pairs of sticky hands from ruining it. Why they had bothered to hire a location as opulent as this when they wanted to shoot in front of a white colorama was baffling.

  “Sugar rush. The bloody assistant was handing out candy when they arrived. I mean, how stupid can you be? I could have strangled her,” said Irene.

  “Well, she’s paying for it now.” I smiled wryly as the girl tried to remove a toddler brandishing a large red crayon.

  “Do either of you have kids?” she asked.

  “No,” Vicky and I replied in unison.

  “Sensible.” She deadpanned. “And you haven’t met the babies yet.” She indicated an adjoining room, from which a chorus of cries was emanating.

  “Aw, I love babies, let me at them!” Vicky proclaimed, tearing off toward the door, while I tried to locate the clothing.

  “Great, your job is to keep tabs on this rabble!” Irene yelled at Vicky’s back. “Ensure all the doors, windows and other exits are locked—I’ve had a toddler escape through a cat flap before, you can’t be too careful. The owner of this property is very particular, some would say he’s got OCD. God knows why it was chosen as the location for this shoot. Someone’s going to get fired over this. Nothing must get broken, moved or manhandled. And we absolutely must not let anyone onto the top floor. It’s completely out-of-bounds, not that they can easily climb four flights of stairs. That said, they’re scheming little tykes. Do regular head counts.”

  “Roger that!” Vicky cried over her shoulder at Irene, whom I had decided to christen Irate. Why she works for a children’s wear compa
ny when she clearly hates kids is beyond me.

  I was in the middle of hurriedly unpacking a heap of bags and boxes full of Kute Kids clothes when a woman with dyed red hair and dressed in a bright green jumpsuit, complete with green knee and elbow pads, appeared in the hallway. She began making loud croaking noises and leapfrogging around. The toddlers, not to mention all the adults nearby—some of whom I had identified as parents, others part of the grooming team—immediately stopped what they were doing and stared.

  In a broad Australian accent her voice boomed: “Can you see what I am?” She crouched down on bent legs and then sprung up, before repeating the action again and again.

  “A froggie!” one of the brighter toddlers exclaimed.

  “That’s right!” she yelled. “And where do froggies live?”

  “In a pond!” the same little girl screeched, running toward her, overcome with excitement that the world’s biggest antipodean toad was in our presence.

  “Cuddle the frog!” shouted little Jamie, and ran toward the bizarrely dressed woman.

  I looked at Irate, who seemed to be cracking her first vaguely happy expression of the day.

  “That’s Nicole,” she explained, “the baby wrangler. She’s famous in kiddie-shoot circles.”

  I snapped a quick shot of her on my phone and uploaded it to Instagram. Clarendon filter; caption: “The baby wrangler. Can you guess what she is? #behindthescenes #photoshoot #stylist #NYC #fashion #babywear #babiesofinstagram”

  Vicky poked her head out of the baby room.

  “Hey, Amber and Irene, do you need the babies made up yet, someone’s asking?”

  Made up? Since when have babies been expected to wear lipstick?

  My heart rate was beginning to pick up and a sweat last seen in SoulCycle had returned, as I realized I didn’t have a clue where to begin with a styling job of this kind.

  “Yeah, er, go ahead!” I called back, trying to sound more authoritative than I felt.

  I’d laid out the clothes in color schemes, as instructed on the shot list Dana had emailed me, thinking we had better get the all-white looks out of the way first, but getting ten babies into a selection of white onesies, top and bottom combos, jackets, booties, hats, coats and cashmere cardigans was much easier said than done.

  And just when we thought they were all ready for their close-up, a loud squelch and yellow, cottage-cheesy poo ruined one outfit. No sooner was that being changed than another little angel decided to cry hysterically for seemingly no reason, went bright red in the face and had to be ejected; meanwhile, another was quietly puking up milky sick all down its cashmere front.

  “At least it’s white,” I offered, smiling weakly as Irate appeared with a muslin and looked like she was going to lose it.

  “We’ll deal with it in Photoshop,” the photographer reasoned. I liked her, she was practical.

  As she clicked away and various babies began doing exactly what we didn’t want them to do for the camera, Vicky was chuckling, finding it all hysterical. Within five minutes, I’d used up the whole of the one and only packet of Vanish wipes in my kit, dabbing various bodily fluids off ivory onesies. For such tiny things, babies could be insanely messy. Thank God for the baby wrangler, who pulled endless squeaky toys out of a duffle bag and made an impressive array of animal noises to encourage them to open their eyes wide and coo for the camera. It certainly was a skill.

  Once we got going and Irate had accepted that we weren’t going to achieve more than a handful of usable shots from the whole afternoon, we started to speed through the looks.

  “Witching hour is approaching—we need to get all the shots!” she kept reminding us every time any of the team dared sit down for a second or stopped to make a coffee.

  Witching hour. I’ve seen Nora at witching hour and it’s every bit as scary as Irate is.

  * * *

  At long last, five o’clock rolled around and the shoot had dissolved into one big toddler meltdown; parents had started arriving at the front door to collect their little cherubs. I busied myself reuniting sippy cups and comforters with their rightful owners when I wasn’t reattaching labels to tiny clothes, and neatly putting them back into bags and boxes. My head was really throbbing now and I couldn’t wait to get back home.

  Jamie’s mother entered the house clutching his big, blue, expensive-looking parka and, when her precious son failed to bolt for his mummy as the other toddlers had, a few of us started looking around nervously.

  “Jamie! Jamie, darling!” the well-groomed woman called, her eyes darting around from one blond-haired child to another. But none of them were Jamie.

  “Jamie! Jamie! Mummy’s here!” Irate yelled, to no one in particular.

  But Jamie, who had been rushing around getting tangled up in all of us for most of the afternoon, was suddenly nowhere to be seen.

  Irate looked sternly at Vicky. “We’re all present and correct, right?”

  “I think so,” Vicky replied uncertainly.

  “You think?”

  Poor Vicky, she wasn’t even meant to be here today.

  “He’s probably playing hide and seek,” Vicky tried to reassure everyone.

  With still no sign of him, Jamie’s mother was going from room to room and starting to look panicked as she parted curtains, looked under furniture and behind doors in an effort to locate him. Vicky and I joined in the search.

  “There aren’t exactly many places he could be,” Vicky correctly observed when we had scoured the minimalist interior several times over, even looking in drawers and cupboards too small for a toddler, on the off-chance that he was a secret contortionist. Nothing.

  The photographer and her assistant had dispatched themselves out into the street to check he hadn’t run out into the road when all of our backs were turned—a thought that none of us, least of all Jamie’s mum, who had turned a shade of gray, wanted to contemplate.

  “There’s the out-of-bounds top floor . . .” I remembered just when the adrenaline began to kick in.

  Irate began flying up seemingly endless flights of stairs, galloping upward taking them two at a time toward the banished floor.

  “The owners said it was all locked up—it’s his studio, you see,” she puffed.

  When we reached the top landing a door opposite was ajar, giving us a glimmer of hope. The room was dark and Irate fumbled for a few long seconds trying to locate a light switch. As soon as the room was bathed in color we were able to call off the search, because there was little Jamie, clean alabaster skin no more, covered in a rainbow of oil paints. Thick, greasy paint was in his hair, on his probably expensive clothes, and smeared on any available bit of flesh, including his face, which now bore an uncanny resemblance to a Picasso portrait. Plus, there were tiny fingerprints and random splodges plastered all over a large canvas of a landscape leaning against the wall.

  “Well, at least he’s safe,” Vicky said meekly.

  We watched Jamie sit there slipping and squirming in paint for a few moments, before he added a few extra dabs to the canvas. None of us was quite sure how to tackle him, he was so wet and slimy. I certainly didn’t want to risk my oatmeal Marlene Birger dress near that mess.

  “I think we’ll let his mother get him,” Irate said.

  “Good thinking,” I agreed, as we heard Jamie’s mum ascending the staircase.

  “But what the hell am I going to tell the owner about this mess? We’ll lose our deposit on the location, for sure. My boss is going to go insane!” Irate turned and looked at me as if I was somehow responsible for what had happened.

  “Well, it can’t be the first time on a photo shoot with a hoard of crazy toddlers that one of them has done something they shouldn’t?” I offered.

  “But they didn’t sign the bloody contract with the location!” she snapped. “If only you’d done your job and kept a closer eye,” she said, staring at Vicky now, giving her a scary headmistressy look.

  She picked the wrong person.

  “Now,
hold on a minute!” Vicky was having none of it. “I don’t actually have an official job on this shoot, remember. And I certainly don’t answer to you, Irene. As I see it, had it not been for my presence today, perhaps we would have found five toddlers up here ruining priceless pieces of art, while you were flapping about a collar being turned up on a starchy white onesie. I think we got off lightly.”

  And she turned on her heel and headed downstairs, just as Jamie’s mum led her crestfallen son past us, a smudgy trail of footprints on the landing carpet behind him.

  “Starchy? I’ll have you know these onesies are made of the finest quality materials!” Irate ranted.

  “Um, we’ve got to dash,” I told Irate. “The clothes are packed up ready for collection. See you again.” I said the last words in a tiny voice. I hope I never see any of them ever again.

  * * *

  Vicky and I spent the rest of the day back at the apartment, sprawled on the sofa, finally able to see the funny side.

  “Please remind me,” I chuckled, “never to work with exercise bikes or babies ever again. What a day.”

  Vicky smiled, her eyes partially closed she was so jet lagged, as well as hungover. “It was hectic, but seriously comical. I still can’t get over your egg—it’s a beautiful shade of emerald and purple right now, very this season.”

  “I wonder if we’ll see eggheads on the catwalks of Paris next,” I said.

  “Or maybe the real Victoria Beckham will take inspiration from you for her new collection?” Vicky teased. “I’ve heard of stranger things.”

  We were sitting on the sofa trying to find some reruns of Friends on TV, when Dana called. Her tone was different to the persuasive, encouraging Dana of earlier in the day.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news,” she said, skipping any pleasantries. “From what I’ve heard from the client, today was a major disaster. The location company has gone berserk following some vandalism of the owner’s artwork, and Kute Kids are trying to pin the blame on your assistant.”

  “They what?” I shrieked, standing up in horror. “My assistant? You mean my best friend, who you said I could take along, and who stepped into the breach because no one else there seemed to be able to control the rabble? Those were the worst-behaved agency children ever.” I was seeing red.