Sequins, Secrets, and Silver Linings (13 page)

“I need to do more, though,” she says with a dramatic sigh. “I mean, if we could get a million signatures,
say, on a petition, then the Prime Minister would have to take the problem more seriously. And he could raise it at the next G8 Summit. And they’d have to do something.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“Give more money to people who are trying to put families back together. Stop supporting the governments who keep the conflicts going so they daren’t return home. Build more schools. Just imagine: You spend years and years in a camp with hardly any food, no education, people dying around you. There’s thousands of them living like that and hardly anybody’s helping them. Just because they’re not being shot at anymore, it doesn’t mean they’re out of trouble.”

I try to look encouraging.

“Oh, come on,” Edie complains. “It’s not
that
impossible.”

I must practice my encouraging look more.

“
You
care, don’t you, Nonie?” she asks, looking doubtful for the first time.

“Of course I care,” I protest. “But I don’t know these children. They’re so far away.”

Edie looks irritated.

“Huh! Jenny only has to put on a pair of silver shoes and half the country seems to know her.”

We’re back on that subject again. I make an excuse that I’ve got an essay on a Brontë to finish and head for home as quickly as I can. Edie goes on and on about saving the world, but if she carries on like this it’s going to be practically impossible to save a friendship.

Chapter 18

I
t’s not all celebrity and saving the world. Summer vacation is a distant memory and we have normal school things to think about, too. All our teachers have been careful to explain that we have less than two years before we’ll be TAKING SOME OF THE BIGGEST EXAMS OF OUR LIVES and that we should be suitably, and increasingly, stressed. It’s working for Jenny and me.

Edie, on the other hand, is in the zone. Take Eng Lit. By now, she’s read all our assigned texts for the whole year and an additional three books by each author, just to become “fully conversant with their style.” I think that means being able to copy them at will, which she can. Her only regret is that Emily Brontë didn’t
write
enough books to enable such thorough research. Emily Brontë is a bit feeble and lazy, in Edie’s opinion, and should have done less wandering on the moors getting a chill and put pen to paper more often.

Oh, and there’s shopping. Obviously, Edie doesn’t shop, so far as I’ve noticed. And Jenny now has FREEBIES SENT TO HER instead. But I do.

One day after school, I’m walking down Kensington’s High Street and I could swear I see Jenny’s white dress in one of the shop windows. I look closer and realize it’s a good copy. It’s got the crystal embroidery and the clever cutting of the full skirt. It’s not as well made, of course, and the material’s not as classy, but it’s still a great dress to wear to a party.

Then I see another copy, and another. Rock royalty are wearing it two sizes too large, over white cotton petticoats that peep out from under the hem. Sienna Miller is photographed in a black version on a film set. Kate Moss wears something dangerously similar under a black leather jacket to go to a club. I buy a version myself and take it home to show Crow, who immediately takes it apart, fascinated to see how it’s made.

“Do you mind?” I ask her. After all, nobody’s exactly asked if they can borrow the design.

“Why would I?” She looks confused. “I always wanted to see girls wearing this shape. Anyway, now I’m doing it differently.”

She gestures around the workroom, which is full of new versions of the dress, in paper, in toile, in delicate
pink satins. She’s been learning from the pieces in Granny’s attic and now all the bodices are boned and draped and fitted. The skirts still do clever petal things like before, but they also have a hidden cell phone pocket, held in place by stays. Of course, Dior didn’t do that, but he gave her ideas of how to cheat and hide stuff.

She lets me try on a dress to show me her latest invention. It’s designed to look as if the sleeve has accidentally fallen off your shoulder, and there’s some very clever sewing and taping on the inside to arrange the sleeve in the perfect position. The dress also gives me boobs, hips, and model-length legs.

“Golly!”

“You can have it if you like,” she says, scrunching up her eyes a bit, which I know means that it’s promised to a client.

“I’d better not,” I say, taking it off regretfully. It’s not only that someone else needs it. It also makes me look a bit too much like a model/princess/ballerina, which is never a look I’ve gone for. I’m a flat-faced midget and I might as well accept it and rock the look I’ve got.

I’m not typical, of course. There are a lot of girls out there who are totally happy with the model/princess/ballerina look. Rebecca has a permanent waiting list
for new dresses, and if Crow ever has time to run off one of her Arctic-cobweb creations, it sells in seconds. Several of the Saint Martins students require new outfits on a regular basis and pay Crow in fabrics or embellishments from their own collections. She now gets letters from girls begging her to make them something. All teenage, all leggy, all rich enough to pay eye-popping prices.

The letters provide good reading practice. Edie still practices with her every week, but they’ve moved on from the House of Dior to
Vogue
articles and notes from costume exhibitions. Crow seems to have missed out on the Roald Dahl and J. K. Rowling stages entirely.

I ask Edie how Crow’s getting on at school and she says that, apparently, it’s better. She’s still rubbish with homework, but at least she can understand what’s going on in class now. The Bitches are still there, but Crow just seems to tune them out. Her head is always full of fabrics and finishes and design details that she’s spotted.

At home, Mum has taken to asking Crow out whenever there’s a new exhibition on.

“You don’t mind, do you, darling?” she asks me. “It’s just that you’re much happier texting your friends and she needs the visual stimulation.”

Of course I mind. I don’t text my friends THAT much. I message them, mostly. And I like seeing art. I particularly like getting a chance to chat to Mum while we’re doing it. She seems to have much more free time when Crow needs something. I cope with my jealousy by having furious conversations in my head when I rant and rave to Mum about how much attention the TWELVE-YEAR-OLD is getting. I swear a lot and say some evil, unforgivable things and it makes me feel much better. Out loud, I say, “Of course, go ahead, that’s fine, you go and enjoy yourselves.” As you do.

Jenny thinks Mum is being totally selfish and unreasonable. Edie points out how hard Crow works and that she deserves some treats. Therefore hinting that I am being totally selfish and unreasonable. Crow says nothing and carries right on sewing.

Then one morning I come down to breakfast and there’s a SUPERMODEL sitting at the kitchen table, chatting to Mum.

“Hi, Nonie,” Mum says casually. “This is Svetlana. She’s come to pick up her dress.”

Svetlana looks up and gives me a smile. She’s stunning. You could use her cheekbones to slice bread. Her honey-colored hair tumbles past her shoulders and
her golden eyes glitter and sparkle like Swarovski crystals. Her skin glows. And since she’s sitting down, I can’t even see most of her body, which is what she’s really famous for.

I goggle.

She’s eating a chocolate croissant. I’m guessing she has a metabolism like Mum’s. But as soon as she’s finished chewing, she says hi, and I say hi back in a strangled voice that isn’t really mine.

“I’m making toast,” Mum says, silently gesturing at a half-empty pack of chocolate croissants that were going to be for us. Svetlana’s appetite is impressive.

I sit at the table and try and think of something to say, but luckily Svetlana is chatty as well as hungry.

“I had no idea your mum was such a collector. I adore the photographs. She’s going to sell me some limited editions. No time to choose today, though. I’m supposed to be at the airport in”—she checks her watch—”twenty-four minutes. Oops. I may have to jog through security.”

“Where are you going?” I ask politely. It’s really weird watching her lips move after so many months of only seeing her in photographs.

“New York. Big party tonight. Thank God Crow got my dress done in time. I was worried she wouldn’t. My
fault. I only asked her last week. She’s so incredible, your friend. What’s her secret?”

“She actually has a family of elves working for her,” I say with a serious expression. It’s how it feels, sometimes.

Svetlana giggles. Even her giggle is honey-colored and stunning.

Then Harry comes in, dressed in boxers and an open bathrobe, with the air of a boy who’s been partying a bit and needs something restorative. I’m not sure he’s entirely recovered from his India trip yet. He takes one look at Svetlana and reacts for a moment as if he’s been punched in the chest. For that moment, it feels as if the air’s been sucked out of the room and it’s spinning. Then he breathes in, belts the bathrobe, and wanders nonchalantly over to Svetlana, whom he KISSES ON BOTH CHEEKS as if he’s known her for years.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Harry. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Svetlana giggles her stunning giggle again. Harry looks friendly and groggy but not outrageously impressed. He notices the crumbs on the table.

“Can I get you another croissant?”

More giggling. “No, thank you,” she says. “Crow’s told me all about you.”

“All of it true,” he says. “So, how do you know Crow?”

He asks as if it’s the most casual thing in the world, but I’m completely dying to hear the answer. How do international fashion superstars get to meet schoolgirls who make outfits in someone else’s spare room?

“My friend Daisy got two of her dresses on Portobello Road,” Svetlana explains.

She leans back and crosses one impossibly long leg over the other. Harry closes his eyes briefly and breathes through his nose.

“Daisy looked fabulous,” she goes on. “I had to find out who she was wearing. Then I was at a meeting for the Yves Saint Laurent competition and, of course, Crow was a finalist. I thought,
She’s the one
. I must ask her for a dress. I’m going to this party in New York and it’s going to be crazy. I have to have something new and she’s it.”

“Wait! I’m confused,” I interrupt. I’m not goggling anymore, I’m clutching my throbbing head. “The Yves Saint Laurent competition?
Who’s
a finalist?”

“Crow,” Svetlana answers, wiggling her pretty nose at me. “The award’s in a couple of weeks. Hasn’t she told you?”

“The competition in Harry’s room?” I ask, half to myself. (After Zoe’s show, he added the poster to the rest
of his Svetlana collection.) “The one where the prize is for you to wear the dress at London Fashion Week?”

Harry has turned around to give me a furious look over Svetlana’s head, and I realize that mentioning the bit about his room wasn’t the cleverest, but hopefully she hasn’t noticed.

“Mmm,” she nods. “Everyone was so devastated when Yves died. They wanted to do something in his memory. I never got to work for him, of course. Did you, Sally?”

Mum nods and waves a hand dismissively in the air. I can tell she doesn’t want to talk about being a model about a hundred years ago with some young star who’s in the middle of her career.

Harry and I have given up any hope of intelligent conversation and are back to goggling.

“What’s this about your room, Harry?” Svetlana asks with a hint of that giggle.

Harry, realizing the game is up, goes down on both knees before her.

“I worship the ground you walk on,” he says. “Crow must have told you. My room is a shrine to your heavenly body. Go out with me.”

She gives him a smile and runs a hand down his stubbly cheek.

“OK,” she says. “Since you ask so nicely. When I get back from New York. Call me.”

The door opens and Crow appears, clutching a multi-hued pink creation that looks small enough to fit a doll.

“It’s ready,” she says. “Oh. I see you’ve met Harry.”