All That Glitters (24 page)

‘But it’s perfect!’ Ella exclaimed. ‘It’s exactly what we wanted.’

‘I know, but . . . but it’s not very sophisticated, is it? It’s not very classy.’

Ella frowned. ‘It’s incredibly classy. It’s just different from what we’re both used to. Just because we don’t have antique chairs from the sixteenth century, or Ming vases, it doesn’t mean we’re not sophisticated.’

‘I just don’t know if Freddie would like it, though.’

Ella tried not to roll her eyes. ‘Chastity, do you like it?’

A smile began to form on Chastity’s mouth. ‘I love it. It’s fresh and girlie without being over-the-top.’

‘And what do you think Freddie would think of it?’

‘That’s it’s girlie and over-the-top.’

‘And do you care?’

Chastity paused, so Ella pressed the point.

‘Do you care what Freddie Taylor – who got a seventeen-year-old pregnant – thinks about how you decorate your new flat?’

Chastity laughed. ‘I couldn’t care less,’ she said gleefully, and Ella smiled. Perhaps Chastity was getting over her cheating, philandering husband. Just a little bit.

‘But really, what do we do now?’ Chastity asked Ella as they sat at their frosted orange dining table and ate take-out Chinese. It was the first official meal in their new home, so they’d matched the greasy meal with vintage Perrier Jouët champagne to celebrate.

‘What do you mean?’ Ella replied through a mouthful of duck and noodles. She’d been wondering what Nash was up to that evening. She missed him being around all the time.

‘Well, we have the flat, and you’ve set up the spare room as an office . . . but what do we do? What’s our business going to be?’

Ella swallowed her food and thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly. ‘But I do know that between the two of us we’ll think of something. We have to. I used to run a cupcake company that went under, but I have to admit I picked up some business skills, despite it being a complete disaster. Have you ever worked?’

Chastity raised her eyebrows. ‘Before I met Freddie I was PA to an editorial director at a major publishing house, and I was going to business school in the evenings.’

Ella dropped her chopsticks. ‘What?’

Chastity laughed and flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder. ‘What? Do you think I’m stupid because I look like this and because I married a footballer?’

Ella was speechless for a second. ‘No . . . but I had no idea. Jesus. Business school?’

Chastity shrugged. ‘I loved being a PA, but I wanted to work myself into a position where I had a PA of my own. I wanted to be in charge.’

‘Of what?’ Ella asked curiously. She couldn’t quite believe that Chastity Taylor, who had long blonde extensions, wore thick false eyelashes every day, made sure she had a spray tan once a week, and was regularly in the magazines for wearing crazy tight outfits to the supermarket, had been to business school.

‘I don’t know,’ Chastity mused. ‘I always wanted my own magazine, but I was more interested in the financial side of it than the editorial. You know, how to make sure it made money even though a lot of magazines aren’t. It’s kind of what my boss did, but I’m not sure he was very good at it. I was dying for a chance to look at the figures properly.’

‘But you’re loaded,’ Ella said excitedly. ‘If you wanted to you could easily launch a magazine.’

Chastity shook her head. ‘I’m not loaded. Far from it, really – mainly because I signed a pre-nup and because, well, I suppose I’m too proud to ask Freddie for any more money. He offered to buy me a flat, and I accepted because I had to leave our home, but that’s as much as I want to ask for. If he offered it I’d take it. But I can’t ask.’

‘Suppose we could get the money though,’ Ella pressed. ‘Would you want to? Could you be any good at it?’

‘I think if I really put my mind to it and focused I might be okay at it – I learnt so much when I was a PA, you have no idea – but I can’t concentrate at the moment. I can’t concentrate on anything. I just miss Freddie so much, and it’s like the pain’s engulfing me. I can’t do anything with my brain.’

‘Maybe we could start a magazine in a couple of months,’ Ella mused, but Chastity cut her off.

‘I don’t want to run a magazine,’ she said. ‘I don’t think now’s the right time to launch one, and if we did it, it would have to be right. We’d need investors and a board, and it would never just be ours. We need to do something else.’

Ella nodded, and picked up her chopsticks again. For a second she’d had a tiny flash of inspiration about what they should do, but it had gone.

‘I think it’s time these extensions got cut out,’ Chastity said as she stared at herself in the mirror. She was dressed in tight ripped jeans and a crop top that showed off her enviably flat stomach, but her feet were bare, and she was hardly wearing any make-up.

‘Really?’ Ella asked. ‘I thought you loved your hair.’

‘Oh, let’s be honest, I look like a drag queen,’ Chastity remarked drily. ‘And I only got them done to keep Freddie. Not that it worked.’

‘So you’re going for a new haircut?’

‘I think I’m going for a whole new look,’ Chastity said thoughtfully, and she stared at her friend. Since she’d moved out of Nash’s flat Ella had burst out of her slump, and she’d started taking care of her appearance again. She was in a simple outfit of a loose cream T-shirt, a grey fluffy cardigan, tight khaki trousers, and towering suede ankle boots and she managed to look cool, fashionable and classy all at the same time. The reflection that faced Chastity was none of that. She looked tired, cheap and like she was trying too hard.

‘Can you help me?’

Ella stood up and stared at her friend objectively. She was so used to how Chastity looked that she couldn’t quite imagine her with a different image. Unless . . . a vision of Chastity in a classic black dress with fierce heels and glossy hair popped into her head, and suddenly Ella felt excited.

‘I’d love to,’ she said honestly. ‘It can be your first stop in your search for your happy ever after.’

‘And it could be the start of you seeing if you’ve still got that styling talent that magazine thought you had,’ Chastity said knowingly, and Ella raised an eyebrow. Every so often Chastity would say something so perceptive that Ella couldn’t quite believe that the girl in front of her was the same one who’d chewed gum as her chief bridesmaid.

It was time to give Chastity a look that showed off her true personality.

To begin the day Ella took her to a smart but discreet salon in Kensington, and after three hours her long blonde extensions had been swapped for a shiny, swinging, shoulder-length cut that flipped up at the ends. Chastity’s hair looked like it belonged on a catwalk model – it was still long and a gorgeous buttery blonde, but it was edgy. It made you look at it, and – almost disturbingly – want to touch it.

After the trip to the salon they went shopping. Out went the revealing designer outfits and in came the classics; cashmere cardigans, silk-mix T-shirts, beautifully cut jeans from J Brand, wide-legged trousers from Joseph, and skirts from Pringle and Burberry. There was nothing too revealing, nothing too sexy, and at first Chastity wasn’t sure about what Ella was picking out for her.

‘I feel a bit frumpy,’ she complained as she stared at herself in a grey silk column dress from Chloe. ‘You can’t see my cleavage
or
my legs, and I know that you can show one or the other without looking tarty.’

Ella smiled, even though the clothes she held were beginning to make her arms ache. ‘That’s true, but you’re showing your face – and that’s stunning enough on its own without you needing to show off anything else.’

Chastity was mollified. ‘Well, if you think I can pull it off,’ she said, and she accepted all of Ella’s other recommendations without a word, and Ella was genuinely pleased. She knew it was too soon after the ‘affair scandal’ for her to consider being a stylist – be it a personal shopper or someone who put together outfits and looks on magazines – but if Chastity trusted her maybe she really did have a talent. Or maybe what she was really good at was reinvention: helping women to find themselves again. As she watched Chastity try on endless outfits, she thought about it more and more, and she wondered if there was a way she could do styling anonymously. Ella Riding couldn’t get away with a job like that – the press would deride her and she’d have no clients – but she could do it anonymously, or under a different name.

It was something to think about when she had the chance . . . and when Chastity wasn’t demanding a pair of trousers in a slightly smaller – and therefore tighter – size.

When they got back to their flat at ten that night they were exhausted, but happy. Chastity stood in front of her full-length mirror again, but this time she couldn’t stop smiling. Ella thought she looked like a different person, like she was brand new. Clean.

‘Freddie would hate this look, you know,’ Chastity said as she stared at herself. ‘But you know what? I don’t really care any more. I spent such a long time moulding myself into the type of woman he wanted me to be, but even doing that didn’t stop him from cheating. So now I’m just me. A shiny, expensive-looking me who’s thankful that Freddie forgot about this credit card he gave me.’

Ella grinned. It was the first time that Chastity had mentioned Freddie’s name without being angry or with her eyes filling with tears, but more importantly, she was right. Why change yourself for a man? If they didn’t adore you for who you were and what you really looked like, they weren’t worth it.

She just had to keep telling herself that, and stop wondering if Johnny would ever get in touch.

‘And, well, I want to say something to you,’ Chastity said. ‘I’ve been meaning to say it for ages, but I was embarrassed to bring it up.’

Ella frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I wanted to say sorry for being such a bitch to you. When you were with Danny I was so jealous of you. You had everything – the perfect fairytale – and I hated you for it. Freddie was fucking around and I was miserable, and even though I took it out on everyone around me, I mainly took it out on you.’

‘Chastity, it’s okay you know—’ Ella began, but Chastity cut her off.

‘It’s not okay. I was really bitchy towards you, and you never did anything to deserve it. And ever since you phoned me and told me to come to Nash’s flat I’ve been amazed at how generous and gracious you’ve been towards me. I don’t deserve it.’

‘Of course you do.’

‘God, Ella, you’re just so nice to me!’ Chastity exclaimed.

Ella grinned. ‘It’s because I like you. Yeah, you said some pretty horrible things to me – but it’s all forgotten. It’s easy to forget about it if it means we’re friends.’

Chastity smiled. ‘I’ll make it up to you one day, I promise,’ she said. ‘I’ll do something amazing for you like you have for me. Because I don’t know how I’d have dealt with the Freddie stuff without you.’

Ella gave her a hug. ‘It’s been my pleasure,’ she said.

Chapter Sixteen

Ella and Chastity stared at the blank pages on their laptop screens and felt depressed. For the last couple of weeks they’d both sat in their office from ten a.m. until six p.m. trying to work out what sort of business to start, and it wasn’t going well.

Each day their plans ranged from fantasy – moving to Buenos Aires and importing clothes from UK designers – to the desperate – dog walking in South London – but nothing came close to being something they really could do. Everything was a daydream, nothing was reality, and the whole idea of starting a business was disheartening.

‘So between us we have magazine experience, a bit of business experience, a failed cupcake company and a stint at styling for
Cerise
,’ Ella said eventually, breaking the tense mood in the room. ‘I’m sure there’s something in there that we can work with.’

‘What about a magazine that’s heavy on styling advice?’ Chastity suggested.

‘It could work. But you said you don’t want to run a magazine,’ Ella replied, and Chastity sank a little lower in her chair.

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, and she chewed on a nail. ‘Well, you used to run a cupcake company, so how about something to do with catering? We could do a roast dinner home delivery service on Sundays for people with awful hangovers.’

Ella considered it. ‘We’d need lots of money, a kitchen we could rent, catering staff, health and safety certification, a delivery operation . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

‘Okay, so not dial-a-roast-dinner,’ Chastity said as brightly as she could, and Ella rubbed her eyes, thankful she’d not bothered with make-up that day. She was tired, and trying to come up with a business concept was harder than she’d thought it would be. Everywhere you looked there were entrepreneurs popping up with great ideas, but she couldn’t think of a single viable one. It was frustrating beyond belief.

‘Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong,’ Ella said. ‘We’re thinking about what we’ve done, and using that to guide us. Maybe we should think about what we can
do
.’

‘I don’t think I understand.’

‘We’re thinking of magazines and catering because we have some sort of experience in them,’ Ella continued, ‘but we don’t have enough of the
right
experience to do something credible or successful. So maybe we should broaden our horizons – think about different sectors and jobs that we
could
potentially do, even if we haven’t before.’

Chastity bit her lip. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it better to do something we’ve already done – something we know we’re good at?’

Ella sighed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘All I know is that the only thing we’re really good at is being married to footballers . . . well, we were before both our marriages went down the drain, anyway.’

‘Ha. We could do a book called
How to be a WAG
,’ quipped Chastity. ‘Only nobody would buy it because we were clearly awful at it.’

‘We’re awful at coming up with ideas, too,’ Ella said glumly.

‘Probably because we’ve been stuck in this room for what feels like for ever, and there’s just the two of us. Maybe we need someone who can look at us objectively and help us.’