Beads, Boys and Bangles (11 page)

‘
I
t was fine,’ Edie says.

We’re back in the school cafeteria. Edie has promised to tell Jenny and me exactly how it went last night.

‘And?’ I ask.

‘And?’ asks Jenny.

Edie looks up from her shepherd’s pie, surprised. She thinks that ‘fine’ is a perfectly reasonable description of a Hollywood starlet’s fashion fitting in a posh London hotel.

‘And WHAT?’ asks Jenny at last.

‘Oh,’ Edie says. ‘Well, Sigrid was very nice.’

Edie does this. If you ask her to describe someone in Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy she’ll use about fifteen adjectives you’ve never heard of and you need a dictionary to keep up. But normal people are just ‘very nice’. I think Edie spends most of her time thinking about chess club or orchestra or going to Harvard and hardly notices real people at all.

Not that it’s a surprise to hear ‘nice’ associated with Sigrid Santorini. Despite being the Queen of Evil, this is how she comes across when you first meet her. The thing with Sigrid is, she doesn’t
know
she’s the Queen of Evil. She thinks she’s an adorable cutie and the rest of us just can’t wait to be a part of her fabulous world. She bounces around, smiling at everyone and radiating joy. It’s only later that you find she’s ripped your life to pieces, stabbed you in the back, stolen something precious and disappeared.

And she seems to think even
that’s
OK, because simply being in the presence of somebody so famous will make everything better for you. What’s worse, she’s often right. The night she stole Crow’s star catwalk outfit last year she said to me that she’d wear it on television and we’d get loads of publicity out of it and we’d be really grateful. Well, she wore it to the Oscars and Crow became an overnight sensation. But she didn’t
tell
me she was saving it for the Oscars and in the meantime Crow had to make another one and I nearly died. So I’m not as grateful as I might be. And I still think she’s the Queen of Evil.

‘Nice HOW?’ asks Jenny. Jenny likes detail.

‘She offered us loads of stuff from her hotel suite. They had five kinds of juice and this massive fruit bowl and some really interesting biscuits I hadn’t seen before . . .’

Jenny jiggles with frustration.

‘What was she wearing? What kind of dress did she
want? What was the fitting for? How long is she staying in London? Did she say anything about . . . anyone?’

Jenny says this as one very long word, but Edie gets the gist.

‘Well. She was wearing her hotel bathrobe. I think it was white with a pocket and . . . oh, all right. She wanted a dress to wear to an awards do in Italy in a few days. She knows all the Italians are going to be in amazing stuff so she’s after something special. And she’s only supposed to be in London for a week or so, but she just heard her next film’s been cancelled or something so she’s not sure what she’s doing exactly. She was on the phone about it a lot while we were there. Actually, she said a lot of rude things for someone so nice. And – what was the other thing?’

‘Did she talk about anyone we know?’ Jenny asks.

‘Oh. No. Not exactly. She asked after both of you, of course. Well, sort of all of us in general. But mostly she just looked at the dresses Crow brought along and said how she’d need them adapted to show off her legs. Oh, and I told her about the new collection for Miss Teen and the play and everything.’

‘Right,’ Jenny says.

All she really wants to know is whether Sigrid had anything interesting to say about Joe Yule, the boy who broke her heart, but she’s too shy to ask and Edie is too dim about these things to work it out for herself.

‘To be honest,’ Edie goes on, ‘I’d been starting to wonder about Sigrid a bit. I mean, she said some
very
rude things on the phone. But she was so interested in the new collection. And the play. She wanted to know about the actors and the theatre and the director and everything. I couldn’t tell her much, but it was nice to see she cared.’

Edie goes back to her shepherd’s pie. Jenny and I are both pondering something. Perhaps it’s the use of the words ‘Sigrid’ and ‘cared’ in the same sentence. Something definitely doesn’t feel quite right, but we’re not sure what.

‘Oh, and I told her about my website and she gave me these,’ Edie adds suddenly. She scrabbles around in her backpack and pulls out a red silk purse, which she lays on the table. Inside is a pair of pearl and silver dangly earrings, each about the size of my hand. ‘Sigrid said she doesn’t need them and I can auction them for charity. When I auctioned off Jenny’s shoes last year they made loads of money. These might make even more.’

Jenny and I explain to Edie that they were not ‘shoes’, they were Louboutins. And that it’s rude to suggest that one actress’s earrings may be worth more than another actress’s shoes, even if the second actress is your friend and not
very
famous. And we don’t point out Edie’s
other
fatal error, because we still haven’t spotted it.

I
t’s Friday evening. Jenny’s rehearsals have just started. They’re in a studio south of the river and she happily heads off most days after school, singing show tunes at the top of her voice and frightening passers-by with the high notes.

Crow’s due back from an art show opening with Henry and some design student friends so she can finish a dress, but meanwhile I’m borrowing the workroom because I’m making a dress of my own and the good part is, it’s homework! After much begging, pleading and tearful sulking (in French, which is the best language for sulking in by a million miles, just so’s you know, and also makes me sound vaguely sophisticated), I got Mum to let me do textiles GCSE. Yes!

You’d think if your child was good at something – and sorry to brag, but in the normal world where everyone isn’t a fashion designer, my stuff is ‘surprisingly impressive, Nonie’. Anyway, you’d think if you were good at
something your parents would
want
you to do an exam in it, so you’d get a decent grade at least once in your life, but no. Mum said it was too easy! Repeat after me, TOO EASY! Much better to cram my schedule with geography and history and science and things that make my head hurt. But she came round in the end. I think Dad helped persuade her to give me a break. Plus, a part of her actually
does
want me to get a decent grade for once.

So I’m doing textiles. And I have to do this project linking clothes with art. Which is just total heaven to me. I can’t draw for toffee, but I can cut out pictures and stick them in scrapbooks like a pro. Yves Saint Laurent was influenced by painters like Picasso and Mondrian (see, on my specialist subject I sound really cultured and informed!). I’m doing a dress based on Cézanne, who I discovered when I first started helping Crow. And it’s fabulous. Trust me, it is.

There’s only one problem. When you’re sitting at a worktable pinning and basting, listening to your friend’s jazz collection, you have lots of time to think about stuff. Great if you want to get your head round Shakespeare’s tragedies (I don’t, particularly), but rubbish if you keep wondering when your I-thought-he-was-my-boyfriend is going to call. And wondering. And wondering.

It’s been nearly a week since the club in Shoreditch. I know that wasn’t exactly my best experience ever, but still. Things are supposed to happen after a first proper date, and they’re not.

When is Alexander going to text me? At first, I was cool and laid back about the whole thing, like a Woman Who Has Regular Boyfriends. But now I’m back to my old self, and a bit of a wreck. What happens on the second proper date? Will there ever be one? Is he busy or is he just deliberately making me wait, for some bloke-reason that I don’t understand? Was the first proper kiss, in fact, as bad for him as it was for me? Am I a Seriously Bad Kisser? Have I put him off for life?

I’ve asked Crow’s opinion and she just said Alexander was probably too busy dancing to call. As if.

I really want to ask Harry. As an older brother, Harry’s job is to explain to me about men so it’s all slightly less confusing. But he was so mean to me after my first nearly-date that I can’t talk to him. I’ve even considered asking Svetlana, but as Alexander was supposed to be going out with a friend of hers, I can’t really talk to her either.

In desperation, I put the Cézanne dress down and go and ask Mum.

I catch her in the kitchen, grabbing a quick glass of wine between phone calls.

‘Er, Mum. How long are you supposed to wait to hear from someone? After . . . you’ve seen them. About something.’

I hope I’ve been vague enough.

‘Has Alexander not called?’ she asks. Then she says a word in French that isn’t particularly complimentary to
my possibly-already-ex-boyfriend. I assume this means he should have contacted me by now.

‘You’ve been a bit quiet, darling,’ she goes on. ‘How was the date? I never really asked.’

‘Lovely,’ I say.

Lovely is my new word, I’ve decided. Lovely means ‘back off and leave me alone, I’m confused’.

Mum gives me a pitying look, which is worse than anything she might have said.

Then she adds, ‘Well, he brought you back on time, so that’s good. But listen, if he does anything to break your heart, you’ll tell me, won’t you? And I’ll get Harry to bop him on the nose.’

Throughout my childhood, Mum has threatened to get Harry to bop people on the nose for me. As I’m five years younger than him, normally the people in question are also younger, smaller and slightly scared of him. They are not tall, fit dancers with
very
developed muscles and sweaty upper lips. I think, in a bopping contest, Alexander would win hands down. He could probably do it with one leg wrapped around his head.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ I say. She tries.

Back in the workroom, I try and concentrate on getting the overlapping panels of my bodice to line up properly. I also try not to look at my phone every thirty seconds, waiting for a text.

Then one comes and in my excitement I drop the phone and the cover comes off and it makes a worrying,
sad beeping noise. SO not good. When I’ve finally put it back together and discovered that it still works after all, the text turns out to be from Jenny. It’s a smiley face and a question mark.

Aaaauuugghhh!

I text her back anyway. A series of question marks, rather than the ‘Leave-me-alone-you-are-not-who-I-need-to-talk-to-right-now’ that I
wanted
to send. She calls me and I can hear her breathy, actressy voice, which means she’s just been talking to lots of her theatre friends and life is suddenly a big DRAMA, darling. I hope there isn’t a fashion equivalent of this, and that I don’t do it if there is.

‘Caroline’s gone!’ Jenny breathes.

This would be incredible news, if I had the faintest idea who Caroline was. I tell Jenny as much.

‘The stepmother! Well, the actress who plays her. You know Caroline. She was in
The Smiling Detective
last year. And she was Keira Knightley’s mother in that thing.’

I dimly remember Caroline from ‘that thing’. It was a costume drama thing and we spent most of the time wanting to be Keira Knightley’s younger sister, who had the most stunning silk dresses you can imagine, but unfortunately died of some horrible, old-fashioned disease about halfway through.

‘Why’s she gone?’

‘We don’t know!’

Jenny says this as if it’s an answer to my question,
rather than just a really annoying comment.

‘So why are you telling me this?’

‘It’s a big mystery! The producer says she’s got family problems, but she was telling me this morning how much she was looking forward to the run. We’re supposed to start in just over two weeks.’

Oh. This sounds bad. ‘They’re not cancelling the play, are they?’ I ask, suddenly concerned.

‘That’s the strangest bit. The producer said they’re looking at putting it on at a bigger theatre. He says we might get a transfer after we finish at the Boat House.’

I’m not sure what to say now. To most people, the idea of a bigger theatre would be great news, but the whole reason Jenny wanted to do this play was because the Boat House was small and out of the way.

‘Er, congratulations?’

‘Thanks,’ she says, in a wobbly sort of way. I can picture her biting her lip.

I think she called me because she wants to believe it’s good news, but she needs to hear someone else say it. Now that I know what I’m supposed to do, I spend ages telling her how perfect she’ll be after a few weeks performing at the Boat House, and how she’ll be ready for anything they throw at her. She gets less and less wobbly and by the end she sounds like she’s almost looking forward to it. Thank goodness for Mum, and her ‘How To Talk To Creative People’ lessons. You never know when they’re going to come in handy.

*  *  *

Strangely, I have to do it all over again two minutes later.

Edie calls to say that her mum and dad, who are teachers, both have to attend a parents’ evening tonight. This is mildly interesting, but not worth a phone call, in my opinion. Then she says her little brother Jake’s on a sleep-over and am I busy?