Christmas at Tiffany's (17 page)

She picked up the dress and walked back down the beach, leaving Cassie crouched in the back of the van getting pins and needles.

It wasn’t going well. They’d been shooting for four hours already and there wasn’t a decent shot – not quite Luke’s words – in any of the hundreds of images he’d taken.

‘For Chrissakes,’ he cried, raking his hand through his hair and wheeling away from the blue-tinged model. It was two in the afternoon now, and although there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, it was barely above freezing. Everyone was shivering, huddled around the firepit that Kelly and Cassie had hurriedly brought over from their terrace – everyone except Selena, Luke and Bonnie who were still shooting. Bonnie could have kept warm, but she stuck by Luke’s side as if she’d been velcroed to him.

‘What the hell’s wrong with you, Selena?’ he shouted into the wind. ‘Put some feeling into your arms. You’re supposed to be savouring your freedom! I want . . . Julie Andrews coming over that freaking mountain. You look like you’re scaring crows.’

Selena shook her arms out and tried again, but there was no disguising the sinews in them as she braced her exposed flesh against the cold, and you could see the whites of her eyes from halfway up the beach.

‘Jesus! Forget it!’ Luke shouted. ‘There’s no point even wasting the battery on this!’

He stomped angrily up the beach. Everyone looked at each other nervously as he approached. It was clear no one was going to mention the umpteen bathroom trips Selena had made between styling changes.

‘This isn’t working!’ he grumbled. ‘No wonder Bebe wanted her to play a virgin. I wouldn’t sleep with her either looking like that.’

‘Well now, that’s saying something,’ Bas murmured to Cassie, and a nervous giggle escaped her.

Luke looked up, but this time he didn’t smile.

Selena stumbled into the tent, crying from the rawness of the wind chill and Luke’s harsh words. Kelly immediately wrapped her in a duvet that she’d grabbed from the little house. Luke carried on staring at Cassie.

‘I . . . I . . . I’m sorry, Lou,’ Selena chattered. She looked almost ill as the glow of the fire threw orange light on to her ghostly skin. ‘I’ll be f-f-f-fine in a minute. I just need to w-w-warm up for a bit.’

Luke seemed not to have heard. But then he looked back at her and his expression changed. ‘What? I – no. No,
I’m
sorry, Selena. I’ve been too hard on you. It’s bitter out there. It’s not fair for you to stand in those temperatures in just a scrap.’

Selena smiled, as grateful for his kindness as a kitten pulled from a bag in the river.

He rubbed his hands along her arms. ‘God, you are frozen. You’re going to get sick. You need to get back to the house straightaway. Jump into a bath. Here, Bonnie will drive you back to the house.’ He threw his jeep keys over to Bonnie, who looked exceedingly put out at the prospect of being the model’s driver.

‘Thanks, Lou,’ Selena breathed, getting up and kissing him on the cheek, close to his ear.

The two girls left the tent and everyone else turned round to start packing up. ‘Well that’s that, then,’ Bas muttered.

‘Not so fast,’ Luke said, clearing the memory card on the camera. ‘We’re not done for the day yet.’

‘But you’ve just sent Selena home,’ Molly said, gesturing to the retreating figure. ‘We’ve got no model.’

Luke looked up. ‘Yes we have,’ he said steadily, staring straight at Cassie. ‘I want
her
.’

‘No! I won’t do it!’

‘You have to!’

‘I don’t! I am in charge of my life. I am master of my own destiny.
I
am!’ Cassie thumped her chest for emphasis.

‘He wants you!’

‘Yes! And why? You’ve already warned me off him. Told me what a rogue he is.’

Kelly sighed and shifted position in the van. Cassie was huddled up against the side of it, her knees drawn up to her chest defensively.

‘I don’t know why,’ she shrugged. ‘Maybe
this
is why. Maybe this is what he had in mind all along. He likes your look! Photographers are like that. They like to have a muse, someone who inspires them. Maybe I was wrong about him meaning, you know . . . funny business.’

‘I am
not
a model, Kell!’

‘I know that – but maybe that’s what he likes about you. You’re natural-looking, wholesome. Remember how this entire collection is based around the story of a Dagestani teenage bride on the run? Youth, innocence . . .’ Cassie marvelled at how her friend managed to utter that sentence with total earnestness. ‘Maybe Selena’s just too much of a face for what he wants in these pictures.’

‘I don’t even understand what that means,’ Cassie muttered, planting her face into her knees. ‘Anyway, if a professional like Selena can’t hack those temperatures in hardly any clothes, how the devil does he think I’m going to manage?’

‘What’s so “professional” about standing on a sand dune in a pretty dress? You think that’s something she learnt at university? It’s instinct, Cass. Grit. Grim determination to get the picture. Anyway, he wants to shoot back at the house instead. Get the sunset from the attic.’

‘There won’t be a picture to “get” with me.’

‘If Luke Laidlaw says there will be, there will be. Come on,’ Kelly cajoled. ‘At the very least, it’ll be a story to tell your grandkids one day! The day you modelled for Luke Laidlaw! He’s one of the legends, Cass.’

‘I am not a model. I am a private, plain, boring individual who would like it to remain that way, thanks.’

Kelly sighed wearily. ‘Look, Cass, Luke has to all intents and purposes fired Selena. He’s wiped every shot he took of her this morning.’

‘Well that was a bloody stupid, rash thing to do,’ she cried hotly.

‘If you don’t do this, the shoot will collapse and things will get even worse for Bebe. Luke Laidlaw shooting her ad campaign might be the only thing now that can save her business.’

Cassie sniffed. She was having trouble visualizing Bebe Washington as a tragic figure. Besides, the entire situation was ridiculous. How on earth had it come to this? ‘Bebe will go nuts – the PR who destroyed her breakthrough show becomes the model in her ad campaign? I don’t think so. I would
not
want to be in the room – no, the city! – when she heard that.’

There was a short pause.

‘Then do it for me,’ she heard her friend say in a smaller voice.

Cassie looked up, surprised by the timidity. Kelly was looking at her beseechingly.

The old friends stared at each other in silence, words redundant. It didn’t need to be said that this could be Cassie’s opportunity to undo the awful harm she’d done to Kelly’s business and reputation, to repay the constant kindness and favours that she’d extended to her since she’d left Gil.

Cassie sighed. There was simply no argument against that. She should just be grateful it wasn’t a
Playboy
shoot going on out there.

‘Okay,’ she said finally, pulling herself up and sliding her bottom along the floor of the van. ‘For you. I’ll do it for you.’

They opened the doors and the bleached glare of sunlight rushed in at them.

‘She’ll do it,’ Kelly smiled, nodding at Luke, Bas and Molly, who were leaning against the beach regulations sign.

‘Yay!’ Molly said cheerfully, wholly convinced that this was a dreadful idea.

‘That’s my Teabag,’ Bas said, hugging her by the shoulders. ‘I’ll make you look doubly gorgeous, darling.’

‘That’s great news,’ Luke said. ‘We’ll head back to the house now, and once you’ve worked your magic, the rest of you can take the day off – fully paid, of course.’

‘But – ’ Kelly frowned. ‘You’ll need them for touch-ups, surely? They can’t just disappear.’

‘Sure you can,’ he said, including her in the dismissal. ‘It won’t take long. Besides, Cassie’s never done this before. She’ll be a lot more relaxed if there aren’t loads of people standing round staring at her.’

‘Three’s hardly loads,’ Bas countered, looking worried.

Luke looked at him. ‘Like I said, she’s not a professional, Bas.’ He turned back to Cassie, and she saw a smile in his eyes. ‘I want a closed set.’

‘Usher in the new spring mood with Maddy Foxton’s sublime
—’

‘No, scratch
sublime
,’ Kelly muttered. ‘Too gushy. Change it for . . .
delicious
. Let’s get tactile with it.’

‘
Usher in the new spring mood with Maddy Foxton’s delicious new collection—’

‘
Capsule
collection. It sounds more exclusive. It screams waiting list.’

‘. . .
delicious new capsule collection of day-to-night clutch bags.
’

‘
No, hate it. Change that.’

‘All of it?’

‘The
day-to-night clutch bag
bit. Too done. I only change my bag from day to night if I’m going to the Met Institute. Women expect their bags to be versatile.’

‘Okay.’ Cassie blew out through her cheeks. ‘What if we go in on the craftsmanship angle instead? I mean, logistically I still can’t work out how they weave a plaited bag from one piece of leather.’

‘Okay. It’s what allows them to charge three grand a pop,’ Kelly said. ‘And get the quality of the leather in as well. Ring Maddy’s studio to get the specific details. I can’t remember what she sources exactly – the placenta of woodland fauns or baby unicorns or something.’

The phone on her desk rang and Kelly’s eyes brightened as she saw the number. ‘It’s Brett. Let me see that before it goes out.’

‘Sure.’

Cassie walked out of the office, closing Kelly’s door quietly. Hannah looked up. As one of the only four employees left – from an original tally of sixteen – there was no hiding from Hannah and her death stares. Aside from the original three Kelly had had to let go, the other employees, Aspen included, had jumped ship when it became clear that
Vogue
’s displeasure was going to last for more than a week, and only a few die-hard loyalists had stuck around.

Certainly getting Luke to shoot the Bebe Washington campaign had bolstered Kelly’s reputation somewhat, but with the images and new collection not out till February, the man on the street – or rather woman in the shops – remembered only the fiasco, and Hartford Communications was left treading water in the interim.

Cassie shook her head to bring herself back to the present and stared across the half-empty office from her desk. At least she was settling in to the PR world better. With fewer chefs in the kitchen, she was beginning to forge links with the journalists, most of whom were delighted to accept her invitations to lunch, if only to get the inside track on what had
really
happened with Alexa Bourton. Needless to say, she hadn’t found the courage to call the
Vogue
office, even though she’d written a contrite but eloquent letter of apology to Alexa the very day of the debacle.

She understood now the mechanisms of the industry – who did what and when – and she’d become so used to her ‘dressing by numbers’ outfits that she was able to put her clothes on in the morning without first checking the labels. She looked the part. She was beginning to act the part. Could she write the part? Ironically, she had bigger responsibilities now that there were fewer people to share them with.

She looked down at her press release. If she could just nail this and get people – the right people – lusting after the collection, she could make another difference for Kelly. First Bebe. Now Maddy. She just had to do it one pigeon-step at a time.

‘This is mental,’ Cassie giggled as a werewolf held open the lift doors for her. ‘Thanks, Bas.’

‘Pleasure’s all mine, m’lady,’ he growled wolfishly.

‘You can’t call me a lady when I’m dressed as a toad!’ she said, as he pressed the floor button.

‘You should have come as a werewolf too. You always look lean and hungry these days.’

Cassie shook her head. ‘You don’t know the half of it. I’m hoping Anouk will put me on a steak tartare diet when I get to P—’

‘Don’t say it!’ Bas commanded dramatically. ‘The P-word. I don’t want to hear it.’ He turned his face to the wall.

‘Oh, Bas. You know we’ll always be friends,’ she said, hugging him to her. ‘And who knows, I might decide to settle here after my Grand Tour. Anyway, won’t you go out for the shows?’ she asked. ‘I can see you then. There’s the couture in January and the autumn-winter collections at the end of Feb.’

Bas clutched his hands to his heart and looked down at her proudly. ‘Oh my duckling,’ he said. ‘You are ready to fly.’

The doors opened just as Cassie whacked him in the stomach. The party was spilling over into the hall and a cacophony of witches, vampires, pumpkins, black cats and zombies was mooching about, leaning on walls and dancing in doorways.

‘Okay. So Halloween’s a big deal here, then,’ she said, taking in the collective effort. Men who wouldn’t deviate from a two-button to three-button suit by day were in full make-up and character dress. It was certainly a far cry from her Halloween the year before: Gil had been away and she’d invited the local primary school to throw a party in the Great Hall. She’d spent days beforehand carving out giant pumpkins to sit next to the massive front doors, and had dangled big black spiders from the chandeliers and tacked black gauze to the windows. The children had loved it and had spontaneously shouted out, ‘Three cheers for Mrs Fraser’ before they’d left.