Styling Wellywood: A fashionable romantic comedy (Wellywood Series Book 2) (6 page)

Morgan is efficiency herself, saying things
like, “too baggy”, “bad shape”, and, “wrong colour”. But I notice Stephanie has a somewhat strained look on her face as she watches Morgs simultaneously discard more than three quarters of her wardrobe in an ever-growing pile on the floor.

As I watch
in disbelief at Morgan’s increasingly frenzied attack on this poor woman’s clothes I really start to feel for Stephanie. Her life was turned upside down by her divorce and the public humiliation of her husband leaving her for a younger woman.

It’s very clear
Morgan is not taking Stephanie’s fragile emotional state into account, so I decide to try to make her feel more at ease.

“
I know it’s hard,” I say to her. “We need to go through your clothes so we can keep the items that work for you and discard the ones that don't. Then we can do the fun part - shopping - and find some really fabulous pieces to make you look a million bucks.”

Not really hitting the mark there, Jess. Stephanie
nods, still watching as Morgan starts in on her folded jerseys, inevitably adding to the floor pile with a rainbow of brightly coloured knits Cyndi Lauper would be proud of.

“
I bet you have lots of great memories wearing some of these clothes,” I continue, trying a different tact.

Morgan seems oblivious to us, intent on her task
, looking like a manic acrobat on a mission, flinging Stephanie’s clothes around the wardrobe. Stephanie averts her eyes from Morgan’s commotion and looks at me with obvious gratitude, eyes welling up.

“
Thank you, yes I do. I know that I need to achieve this ‘new me’, but I really didn't expect to feel like this, watching my old clothes being rejected. I mean, they’re just clothes after all. I’m being silly.”

Just as I
'm about to reply Morgan chimes in. “Right. Now, we've worked out what would be best offered to the City Mission, it's time to put some new looks together for you Stephanie. With such a fabulous figure it's an outright crime you've been hiding up those curves!”

Morgan's sm
ile looks almost feverish. What’s got into her? She’s gone from the queen of professionalism in the dining room to a crazed demon on crack cocaine.

We both
watch her, mesmerized, as she proceeds to rush her through the cardinal rules of dressing an hour-glass - low cut tops so breasts don't appear to start at your neck, cinched in waist to emphasize curves, A-line skirts to skim the hips, hipster trousers to minimize the bum, etc. etc. - demonstrating with what clothes poor Stephanie still has hanging in her wardrobe.

Totally disregarding Stephanie’s obvious bewilderment s
he then wraps up the session brusquely. “Well, it's been wonderful seeing you today, Stephanie, and I really think we've made some major progress. I'll leave you with Jessica to organise when we're going to go shopping together in order to add some new, exciting pieces to complete your new look. I'll see myself out, no need to get up.”

Still frantic she turns
to me, saying, “Jess, I'll call you later. Thanks a million, babe.”

And then
she's gone and Stephanie and I are left standing in the wardrobe next to a mountain of abandoned clothes on the floor, both feeling like we’d just witnessed an exorcism.

Although
I’m utterly in the dark as to why Morgan just rushed through the session and then left at breakneck speed, I’m certain she’ll have a fully plausible explanation she simply couldn't share with me in front of a client.

R
ight now I need to do some damage control to ensure Stephanie's feeling positive about our session and excited about going shopping with us later in the week.

She’s sitting on the ottoman, looking at her clothes on the floor
in stunned silence. Realising I need to do some serious recovery work here I follow her gaze and notice a soft floral chiffon top with floating cuffs Morgan had hastily rejected, poking out of the pile. On impulse I pull it out and hold it up in front of me to examine it.

“
I wore that to my son's christening,” she says weakly, smiling at the memory. “He was only a tiny baby, dressed in one of those traditional christening dresses that made him look like he was a girl, which he could have been of course - he was such a pretty baby. You know I accidentally dipped one of those long sleeves in the holy water as the vicar was wetting his head. Oh but I felt so pretty and feminine in it.”

I have a flash of what
I can only describe as stylist’s vision and, despite my lack of experience, I decide to go with it. I suggest she team the shirt with one of the two pairs of trousers Morgan didn’t discard in her mania. I add a small beaded necklace and a pair of heels and turn her around to face the mirror.

“
See how the shirt is cut quite low so it breaks up your chest area and the light, feminine material makes you look so young and delicate? And because it's slim fitting but not tight it's really sexy, hinting at your fabulous curves beneath.”

Stephanie regards herself for a moment in the mirror
, turning this way and that, as I hold my breath, hoping against all hope she likes what she sees.

After a moment s
he breaks into a broad smile and responds excitedly, “Yes, I can see that! For the christening I wore this tucked into my black Jaegar skirt suit,” she glances subconsciously at the pile. “But it goes just so beautifully with these brown trousers and hides up my legs, which I’ve always hated. I would never have thought to put these two together. I just love it!”

She’s right, she does have legs
a less than kind person may be tempted to describe as tree stump-esque. The trousers hide them up just perfectly.

Egged on by this success we
try a number of other outfits, mainly from the hangers, with the odd piece pulled out of the pile by either Stephanie or me. Some are more successful than others and I wonder what Morgan will say when I tell her about this. I decide to worry about it later as I feel so good helping Stephanie and she's clearly enjoying the styling session now. It might have started as damage control, but now I’m in the swing of things and we’re having a great time.

We wrap up the session
some time later by deciding to meet in the city in a couple of days to go shopping. I assure her both Morgan and I will be there as I prepare to leave, patting the now calm and happy Cici at the door.

“
Thank you so much, Jessica. You know I never knew what colours or styles suited me and just bought things I'd seen in magazines or in shop windows. And those sales assistants work on commission so they’d say you look good in a straightjacket.” She’s touching my arm as she says this and then leans in and gives me a hug, saying, “Thank you,” once again.

Feeling satisfied with my work and how
obviously good I've made her feel, I hug her back and then say my goodbyes. As I reach the end of the path and turn to wave at her from the gate, I smile quietly to myself.

With clients like this
I might just begin to enjoy my NGWL, which will certainly make living in this city a whole lot more bearable.

As I close Stephanie’s gate I notice the wind has really picked up and there's a distinct chill in the air that wasn't there when we arrived. Realising that with Morgan's hasty departure so too went my cardigan and transport, I shiver in my sleeveless dress.

“
Bugger it,” I think, as I walk down the road in search of a bus stop, silently bemoaning the fact Wellington's too small to have a subway system that could warm me up and get me out of this wind.

T
here’s a sudden gust which catches the full skirt on my dress and blows it up into my face, making me look like I’ve got an oversized hula hoop around my neck. All I can see is blue and white fabric flapping at high speed in front of my eyes.

O
h my god, what underwear am I wearing?
I manage to pull the front of my dress down, only to experience another gust of wind, blowing the back of my skirt upwards again, flapping it rapidly against my head and shoulders.

I feel like I’m being slapped about by a bunch of enthusiastic little flag bearers.

Thankfully I remember I’m wearing some modest full briefs and not a tiny G-string, although they aren't really the sort of panties you want the world to see. Especially as they've turned a less than delicate shade of gunmetal grey, thanks to many washes in London's dodgy water supply.

Looking absolutely nothing like Marilyn Monroe
, I juggle my bags and finally manage to pull the skirt of my dress down, holding it in bunches at either side of my body. I attempt to walk along the street, cursing the wind with each dogged step.

Realising I must look
like a constipated geisha as I struggle inelegantly along, I eventually turn onto the main road and notice a very slim and sporty looking woman of about my age running down the hill towards me. She’s dressed in unforgiving fluorescent pink and black Lycra with a long peroxide blonde hair in a swinging ponytail.

She’
s concentrating hard on her form, but as she looks at me she does an obvious double take and slows down.  It's not until she’s almost on top of me I realise who she is.

“
Jessica. Hi. Having a bit of a challenge with your dress, are you?” she asks without even a hint of friendliness, observing me holding onto my skirts, shivering with cold. She looks as fresh as a daisy, despite having just been running at breakneck speed, clearly unfazed by the chilly wind.

It's
Brooke Mortimer, a girl I went to school with a million years ago and the last person I want to see right now.

Or at any time
, really.

Way back in
the early days of high school we used to be friends. She was part of our close-knit group of Morgan, Lindsay, Laura and me for a couple of years. We’d hang out, have slumber parties at each other’s houses, tell one another our deepest secrets - you know, pretty typical teenage girl stuff.

Then,
when we were fifteen she started going out with Steve McAndrew, a boy I’d reluctantly admitted to everyone one night in a game of truth or dare I had a
huge
crush on. She totally broke the cardinal rule of friendship - thou shalt not covet thy friend’s crush, be it secret or otherwise.

What’s more s
he totally rubbed their relationship in my face, telling me all about what a great kisser he was, how she’d given him a friendship bracelet she’d made, and how he’d always fancied her but had had to pluck up the courage to ask her out. Of course they only went out together for a couple of months, but that's a lifetime when you're a teenager.

To say
I felt betrayed by her would be like saying it’s a little bit cool in Antarctica this time of year.

T
he thing that riled me most, more than Steve not being interested me, was that she thought she was better than me because she got him. So, unsurprisingly for teenage girls, we fell out. Although we went to university together and she stayed quite good friends with Laura, we’ve barely spoken since.  

She jogs on the spot in front of me and I nearly suffer a fatal flick of peroxide ponytail to the face.

“Oh, hi Brooke. Yes.” False laugh. “How are you?” I ask, trying to appear as though desperately holding onto my dress in the face of a virtual hurricane is really quite normal. Rather than the reality of the situation, which of course is that if I let go the world will be my gynaecologist, as someone once graphically put it.

“
I am
fantastic
. Things quite simply couldn't be better for me. Just out on a run.” Pointing out the obvious. “I do ten k’s a day, but I might make it twelve today.”

I think I
'm meant to be impressed.

She
certainly looks in good shape I'll give her that. She's shorter than me and very athletic looking - all sinewy arms and taut tummy. She used to be a pretty brunette, but has peroxided her hair to within an inch of its life. The overall effect is she actually looks a little hard.

She’
s wearing a full face of makeup and large sparkling diamond earrings, which seems a bit much when you're out for a run.

B
ut who am I to judge? I'm seriously considering false eyelashes and a push up bra for my next tennis session with Scott.

“
Well done. That’s great,” I reply. I'm not really sure what to say, and am hoping she'll just run away.

Quite l
iterally.

“
Look I'd love to stay and catch up but I really have to go. Got to run home to Thorndon to get ready for meetings this afternoon. Busy busy busy!”

My prayers have been answered.

“Oh, shame.” I lie. “Well, nice to see you.” Not.

S
he smiles and runs off, down Wadestown hill towards her home in Thorndon, another one of Wellington’s well-to-do city-fringe suburbs.

I'd heard she was a really
driven and successful businesswoman these days, but I don't think I’d listened when Laura had been telling me what she did.

Laura!
I really need to stop putting it off and just go and see her, especially now I’ve bumped into Brooke. I decide that while I’m waiting for the number fourteen bus I had may as well call her, so I pull out my mobile and dial her number.

The phone goes to answer phone and I can he
ar Laura's husband, Kyle, declaring, “The Moore family can't take your call right now.” I'm just about to leave a message when a puffed sounding Laura answers.

“
Laura, hey it’s me, Jess! How are you?” I say animatedly into the receiver, my back against the bus stop sign. Very useful in controlling the effects of sudden wind gusts on one’s dress, I’m finding, although the thought I look a little like a streetwalker does fleetingly cross my mind.

“
Sorry, what was that? It's so noisy, I can hardly hear you,” Laura asks.

Realising
the whistling wind is obscuring my voice I turn my back to the wind as best I can and cup my hand around the receiver, repeating, “It’s Jess! Laura, can you hear me?”

“
Jess, is that you? Where are you?” Laura asks.

“
Back in Wellington. Just got here a day or two ago.”

I’
m just going to act perfectly normal and forget she was weird last time I saw her. Maybe she's over it now she has her babies? Whatever ‘it’ was, of course.

“
Well, welcome home, you!” She seems pretty normal. This is good.

“
You sound like you're outside somewhere in the wind. Where exactly are you?”

“
Wadestown,” I reply as I spot a bus coming towards me down the hill. I flag it down. “Hold on a sec, Laura.”

Paying
the driver I walk down the virtually empty bus, spot a seat on its own and sit down, plonking my things on the seat next to me with relief.

“
Sorry about that. I'm on the bus, heading into the city. Morgan stranded me at our very first client’s house, but I managed it all and the client seemed pretty happy by the time I left.”

I watch
out the window as we whizz past trees and houses down the hill into the city. There’s a really quite spectacular view of the harbour as you come around one of the more extreme corners on the bus route and I'm struck by how beautiful Wellington can look. Even when I'm feeling thoroughly pissed off with its legendary wind.

“
Oh my god, that's terrible,” she says. It feels nice to have her on my side.

“
I know, but I’m sure it was just some minor emergency. I’ll catch up with her later. Oh and then I bumped into Brooke Mortimer,” I groan. “She's definitely still a ‘Narci’.”

Brooke
got in with a crowd of girls after our falling out who
defined
the word narcissism. Look it up in the dictionary and there’ll be a full colour photo of them there, pouting for the camera. They didn't seem to be able to see beyond their noses and found themselves unquestionably interesting.

You could sit next to one of them at lunch and end up knowing every little drama in t
heir lives, but if they were put under a spotlight and interrogated about who you were they would barely be able to tell you, even if their lives depended on it.

You see the
‘Narcis’ really only cared about themselves and consequently their conversation revolved entirely around their little group and their concerns. And let’s face it, for a teenage girl to notice this overt self-interest, they must have been Oscar-winningly self-absorbed.

“
I haven’t heard that for years!
‘
Narcis’. Ha ha,” she laughs. “But yeah, I suppose she can be a bit self-absorbed, but she can also be really nice, you know. She runs life-coaching seminars these days. Really successful. Hold on Jess,” she says to me and I can hear her saying, “Oooh, there there,” to a now screaming baby.

After listening to this for a while she returns to the phone, apologizing for the latest scuffle. Apparently Liam had clocked Noah on the side of the head with a wooden dump truck which Liam didn't appreciate and wasn't scared about letting all and sundry know.

That's the thing with little kids, isn’t it? They really don’t give a damn about what others think of them. If they feel like hollering they'll just go right ahead and holler. Sometimes I think it’d be a whole lot easier if adults would behave like them. At least you'd know where everyone stood.

“
No worries, I understand,” I reply, not really understanding and feeling irritated she’s keeping me holding on. You just can’t have an uninterrupted conversation with a new mum, can you?

As if h
earing my thoughts Laura says, “Look, it’s a little hard to talk right now. Noah, stop poking your brother in the tummy. How about you come over when the boys are asleep and I can give you my full, unadulterated attention? Noah! I said stop it!” Crashing and more crying down the phone line.

“
Great! When?” I ask, hoping to get the reply quickly so I can get off the call.

“
Tomorrow at eleven? You bring some coffees and I'll throw some sandwiches together. Deal?”

“
Deal. But can we make it twelve instead? I want to play tennis in the morning.”

I feel
simultaneously suddenly nervous and excited at the thought of seeing gorgeous Scott again.

“
Sure, the boys usually sleep for a few hours so we should be fine.”

“
Great! See you then. Bye.”

As I go to hang
up I can hear further ructions transpiring between Liam and Noah and feel overcome with relief I'm not the one refereeing two sparring eight-month old boys.