Sequins, Secrets, and Silver Linings (11 page)

Granny’s home is enormous, old, and crumbly. There are, for example, nine rooms that could be bedrooms,
although only five of those have beds in them, and only three of those have beds in them that you might ever want to sleep in. It was great for riding our bikes indoors when Harry and I were small, but once you’ve done things like wash your granny’s old tights in the sink in the laundry room, it tends to lose its charm. It’s also freezing, even in August. I’m glad I’ve brought a couple of Crow’s magic Arctic-cobweb sweaters. They’re superwarm and make the stay possible. I think she owes me this at least.

Most of the downstairs rooms are grand, but when we visit we tend to live in the kitchen, which was last decorated in 1972, when Granny had some spare cash that wasn’t required for “basics” like Roger Vivier evening slippers. I last visited the attics when I was about five and had no idea that two of the rooms (there are several) are floor-to-ceiling cotton bags, carefully labeled, stuffed with couture.

This is irritating. I’ve been asking Granny for books on Saint Laurent, Vionnet, and all the greats since I was tiny, and it is a known family fact that I am more than slightly interested in fashion—in fact it’s practically the only thing I know anything about. Yet it’s never occurred to Granny to mention that she PRACTICALLY OWNS A MUSEUM OF THE STUFF. She says casually over dinner
one evening that “being interested isn’t enough, darling. You have to be able to do something with it. Otherwise, I’d have every fashion student in the country over here, rummaging through my things.”

It’s true. She would.

Crow is delicate and meticulous. She doesn’t rummage. Each day, while Granny and I play cards and read, she goes up to the attics like she’s climbing the staircase to heaven and carefully removes half a dozen outfits from their coverings. Her long fingers delicately trace the fabrics, the trimmings, the embroidery, the seams. She’s allowed to pick one outfit a day that Granny will try on for her. Granny, needless to say (and she often does), can still get into her wedding dress and anything else she wore in her twenties. She looks a bit scrawnier than she probably did then, but the fit isn’t bad.

“I would have handed them down to you, darling,” she says to me, rubbing salt in the wound, “but your mother’s too tall and you’re too short. It’s a shame your father was so …
petit
.”

There isn’t much Granny likes about my father. If she hadn’t discovered he was the grandson of a count, I’m not sure she’d ever have spoken to him. He thinks she’s great, but he still calls her “
la belle dame sans merci
.”

One day, about a week in, I go into the bedroom Crow’s using to tell her it’s teatime, and get the shock of my life. A midnight-blue lace cocktail dress is lying under the window in pieces. The bodice has been separated from the skirt and several seams have been undone. Petticoats litter the area. For a moment, I feel as if I’ve wandered into a crime scene, and I half expect to see a chalk line around it and forensics experts crawling over it, looking for DNA.

I go in closer. The label says
DIOR
. This is sacrilege.

Crow comes in behind me and gives me a cheerful smile.

“My God! What’s Granny going to say?” I gibber.

“It’s all right. She said I could,” Crow tells me calmly. “I’m borrowing it.”

“But it’s in bits.”

“Of course. I have some adjustments to make. I’m just examining the seams.”

“‘Examining the seams’? Do you really think you’ll be able to put it back together?”

She shrugs her shrug. “Yvette will help me, but it’s clear how the dress was made.”

It’s clear to me how people go bungee jumping, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever attempt it myself. But Crow seems to think it’s perfectly natural to try and
re-create the stitches of a Dior
couturière
. So does Granny, apparently. She doesn’t seem remotely bothered when I nervously mention it at tea.

In the evenings, Granny reminisces about her Paris days and rumbles on about how things have changed:

“In my day, the regular clients were European princesses and American heiresses who dressed like ladies. Now it’s all mobsters’ molls and pop stars, who dress like glorified tarts. I’ve lost track of the number of nipples I’ve seen on the catwalk. It’s quite disgusting. One of them was your mother’s once, Nonie. I’m not sure I ever recovered.”

Granny doesn’t often talk about Mum’s career. I’m starting to suspect that she might be jealous of Mum wearing all those fabulous outfits, day in day out, and getting paid to do it. Granny was born to be a model. She had the height and the pouty looks and the theatricality. She could have posed for England. But in her day, nicely brought-up girls didn’t do that sort of thing. Or so Great-Grandma told her.

Crow doesn’t comment. She just listens and occasionally you can see her fingertips moving, as if she’s trying to remember the feel of a particular fabric. Or else she’s drawing her dancing girls, but this time they’re in more recognizable outfits. I can see bits of Dior and Saint
Laurent, Chanel, Ungaro, and more of Granny’s favorites. She’ll quickly sketch the outline, as she usually does, but then she’ll spend ages tracing the line of a pocket, or a row of buttons, or a flash of crystal embroidery. I have a feeling that by the end of our stay she’ll be able to re-create every one of those outfits from memory.

When it’s time for us to go, Crow as usual doesn’t bother to say thank you. She just climbs into the car beside the big basket containing the remains of the Dior dress. Granny gives me a look as I squeeze in beside her—the first time I’ve seen her disappointed by Crow’s manners, or total lack of them.

But by the time we get home, she’s been on the phone to Mum—practically in tears, Mum says, which is a first since Grandpa died. It turns out that Granny went up to her bedroom and found a new outfit on the bed. Crow had brought some purple velvet down and made Granny a new tunic dress to show off her latest jewelry. And she’s guessed her measurements so perfectly from handling the clothes in the attic that she didn’t even need to give her a fitting.

I think if Crow were fifty years older and a bloke, Granny would probably marry her.

Chapter 16

I
t turns out Mum was right.

All Jenny needed was corsetry. A bodice with boning sewn into the fabric can make your flabby parts seem perfectly curvy and can emphasize your thin parts to the max. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but if you want to change your shape, it works. Women have been doing it for centuries.

Crow’s design for Jenny is effectively a corset with a puffy skirt. As well as being not the easiest thing to wear, it’s also not the easiest thing to make. The last week of summer vacation is so manic with cutting, sewing, fitting, pressing, and remaking that I almost forget to go to school. And that’s only the toile—the cotton practice version of the dress that creates the pattern. Then Crow has to do the whole thing again in white silk. And just because that isn’t enough of a challenge, she’s decided to embroider the bodice with crystals. Yvette watches over her approvingly, showing her shortcuts
and special stitches to make the fabric do exactly what she wants.

The result is stunning. Worth every pinprick and late night. Jenny gives us a mini fashion show the day before the awards and she doesn’t look like Quasimodo anymore. She looks like a movie star. She has a waist. A tiny one. And delicate ankles. And beautiful peachy skin on her shoulders. The full skirt hides her hips and thighs. The bodice makes her boobs look like they’re supposed to be there. And the vintage Louboutins are the perfect finishing touch.

The style may be inspired by the New Look, but whereas Dior relied on enough fabric in the skirt to make a large marquee, Crow has done clever things with seams and petticoats so it uses a fraction of the material and seems as light as air. The overall effect is “Oh, this little thing? I just threw it on my perfectly proportioned body.”

Granny loves it because it makes her nostalgic. I love it because it reminds me of Marilyn Monroe, which is the direction I think Jenny should be going in with her curves. Jenny loves it because it makes her feel pretty. Crow loves it because she enjoyed every second of putting it together.

We invite Edie over for her opinion.

“You look like a princess,” she says after some serious consideration. “One of the better-looking ones.”

I really worry about that girl’s diplomatic career.

Edie is busy gathering college-application points on the night of the awards. Crow’s working. But I’m loyally standing outside the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank of the Thames, looking at the twinkling lights over the water and waiting to see the stars arrive.

There isn’t a massive crowd of us. This isn’t exactly the Oscars. But there’s a huge throng of photographers jostling for space. They’re expecting Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman, Gwen and Gwyneth—so this is a night for EXPENSIVE celebrity. I now understand why I was supposed to look impressed when Jenny first mentioned this ceremony to me.

I don’t see all the famous people. Some sneak in through the back door. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m only here for one girl. She might not be famous enough to require sneaky entrances yet, but I don’t care.

For once, I’m not nervous about how she’ll look. I know it will be gorgeous. And she is. She floats along the red carpet looking stunning in her white dress and white skin, with her copper hair gleaming. The flashbulbs start to go and a paparazzo figures out who she is
and calls her name. Startled, she turns around and more bulbs go off. Then she starts to enjoy herself, smiling properly and looking like a regular famous person having a good time.

Until suddenly her face freezes, and I know instantly what she must have seen. I look around and sure enough, the tousled hair and green-laser eyes of Joe Yule have made their appearance, above an immaculate black jacket and sky-blue tie. You wouldn’t think he’d only arrived a few hours ago after a killer of a flight.

Instantly, the photographers start to yell his name, but Joe is a practiced hand. He comes over to the little gaggle of us and languidly signs a few autographs. He dazzles us with his smile, and I could swear he looks right at me. I know what Jenny means about that jelly feeling, and I’m not even close enough to smell the Mentos.

Eventually, he turns to go into the building and I watch Jenny move toward him. Joe stops for a minute, surprised, and then gives her a polite kiss on the cheek. I can see her murmuring something at him. So can the people around me.

“Who’s that? She the new girlfriend?” someone asks.

“Nah. She was his sister in that film, remember?” says the movie buff beside me. “Used to be fat. Scrubbed up OK tonight, though.”

I have a pretty good idea of what Jenny’s just said to Joe and I watch as closely as I can to see his reaction, wishing I had a pair of binoculars or one of the photographers’ massive lenses so I could look in close-up. From where I’m standing, his back seems to relax and he starts talking rapidly to Jenny. The color floods back into her face, but not her usual raspberry. Her cheeks just look cheerfully rosy. Her face relaxes, too, and I realize how pretty she can be when she’s happy. It only shows how strained she’s been all summer.

Joe looks down and obviously says something nice about the dress. Then he puts his arm around her waist to guide her—in a gentlemanly fashion—along the last few feet of carpet. Just before they go through the doors, someone in the crowd calls their names and they both turn around again. I’ve never seen Jenny look so amazing. Her eyes are bright and she’s positively sparkling. I hold up my phone and get a rubbish picture of her, only hoping that a professional has done a better job.

Two hours later I get a text. I’m impressed that she managed to get her iPhone into the teeny diamanté clutch I found for her. The text isn’t much: just a smiley face. I can’t be sure whether this is because
Kid Code
has won an award, or because of Joe. I have to wait until she gets home and onto Instant
Messenger before I can hear the full story.