What a Girl Wants (12 page)

‘So you thought I could make a fashion-forward statement by going out in my pants?’ I picked up one of the five packs and threw it at her as hard as I could. Which sadly wasn’t nearly hard enough.

‘You’ve got to have pants,’ she replied, throwing them right back. ‘I’m not completely mental.’

‘And what about my bras? And my pyjamas? And all my fucking clothes, Amy?’ I was not calm. I did not have this. More importantly, I did not have any clothes. ‘Oh my God, Amy, oh my God.’

‘You’re wearing a bra.’

‘Women need more than one bra,’ I shouted.

‘That’s crazy,’ she replied, shuffling her own, perfectly formed, bra-less A-cup boobs inside her T-shirt and pushing up the lid of her case to reveal a rainbow fancydress box of nightmares. ‘I told you; I packed a case for you from my stuff. This is going to be loads of fun. Take you out of your comfort zone a bit.’

‘It might have escaped your notice but I’m already outside my comfort zone!’ I was shouting again. ‘I’m in
Milan
. And since when were you an expert in
haute couture
?’

She pouted. ‘Did someone in this room not have an interview at Topshop two days ago?’

‘Oh, that’s it, I’m going to kill you!’ I raised my hands and let them clap back against my sides before I could actually attack. It would be a crime to get blood on this gorgeous carpet. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this to me.’

‘I’m going to go back to my room and let you look through this stuff.’ Amy shuffled onto her feet and folded her arms in front of her. ‘You can thank me when you’ve calmed down. Oh, and so you know, I did pack your sad toiletry bag in there so you know, you’re welcome.’

All I could think was that Amy was very lucky that my shoulder was still sore from falling out of a window or she would have been waking up at the bottom of a river, inside her bloody suitcase. This was ridiculous. I pawed through her outfit selections, trying not to cry. There wasn’t a single thing in here that I would ever, ever choose to put on my body, even if it had fitted me, which next to none of it would. Amy had once described traditional clothes sizing as ‘fascist’ and refused to be boxed into a number or a letter ‘dictated by the man’ but that was a very easy stance to take when you were a size six and had what could be loosely defined as an eclectic fashion sense.

At five ten with a little waist, big arse and giant boobs, I tended to have a bit more respect for the difference between a size six and a size sixteen. Unless I was planning to wear a hessian sack, I couldn’t just throw something on and belt it in the middle. Mounds of glitter, neon, sequins, feathers, leather and pleather oozed out of the suitcase like the magic porridge pot but I might as well have been sitting here with a bag full of Christmas crackers. I couldn’t wear any of these clothes; Al and Kekipi would think I’d lost my mind. I also couldn’t wear any of these clothes if I wanted to keep my midriff and the bottom third of my arse cheeks covered. Oh, and wait for it, right at the bottom was the bloody neon unicorn T-shirt. Of course. I pulled it out and looked at the gurning quadruped, my bottom lip quivering.

‘Better wash this out,’ I said, peeling off my white V-neck and closing the suitcase, blinking back tears. ‘Every night for the next week.’

Brilliant. My first week as a professional fashion photographer and everyone was going to think my fashion icons were either Ian McShane in
Lovejoy
or a poorly dressed drag queen. It was the stuff dreams were made of.

Incapable of even looking at Amy without being moved to violence, I avoided her for the rest of the afternoon. Wearing my jeans and her friendly, ill-fitting unicorn T-shirt, I decided to spend my time getting to grips with my new camera in the gardens instead. Al’s Italian home-away-from-home was truly wonderful. When I marched out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind me, I was certain nothing short of ritual sacrifice would calm me down but as soon as I was outside, in the courtyard, I felt better. For a moment, I wondered if I’d finally had that aneurysm I’d been worrying about and if this was actually heaven – but it couldn’t be. Surely, if there
was
a benevolent God, he wouldn’t make anyone spend eternity in this T-shirt?

Stepping into the sunshine and looking back on the building’s façade made me feel like a princess. And not the real-life Kate Middleton variety; no, the legit, wide-eyed, long-shiny-hair-and-a-waist-too-slim-to-contain-all-the-necessary-vital-organs Disney variety. Actually, maybe they were the same, it was very hard to tell. The gardens were made up of small squares of courtyard, some laid with flagstones and decorated with fountains and urns filled with beautiful trees and plants and others were laid with lush grass and had vines running all over the walls that surrounded them. Almost all of them had narrow arcades running down the sides, with endless repeated archways supporting the palazzo above and providing shady spaces to hide from the sun.

My favourite was the smallest of all the spaces I discovered. Unlike the rest of the gardens that flowed into each other, this one was hidden behind a wooden door and a sandy yellow wall. Inside it looked as though no one had been in here for centuries, even though, from the look of the shiny sprinkler system and ashtray with two dead cigarette butts, clearly someone had. But still, even if there had been other visitors, I couldn’t help but be reminded of
The Secret Garden
, one of my favourite books when I was little. I loved reading about Mary and Colin and Dickon, working away in their own private hideaway, bringing the garden back to life.

Sometimes, when my parents were arguing or my sisters were being less than sisterly, I would go to the bottom of our garden and climb over my dad’s wheelbarrow and the old pots of paint he still hadn’t taken to the tip, and pretend that the little square of scrub between the shed and the hedge was my very own secret garden. It was a perfect plan until our neighbour busted me ‘borrowing’ a couple of pansies from his back garden and grassed me up to my mum. But now my mum was far away and there was no one to drag me inside and make me scrub my hands until the dirt had washed away from under my fingernails and the skin was red and raw. I snapped away, working out the setting on my new camera, fiddling with the flash, the exposure, trying to get used to the bright summer light. Even though Hawaii had its share of sunshine, it hadn’t seemed as harsh as it did here in Milan. At least here in my garden, there was enough shade to stop me from burning off every layer of skin. Note to self: buy sunscreen. Along with sunglasses and an entirely new wardrobe.

Glancing upwards, I noticed a balcony at the end of the building on the third floor. My room was at the end of the building on the third floor. With all the nonsense over my case, I hadn’t even looked out of my own window. Retracing my steps through the courtyards, I finally found my way back to the main entrance of the house and bolted back up the stairs and down the hallway to my suite. Panting more than I would have liked, I ran over to my window and pulled aside the curtains, blinking down into the sunshine. There it was, my secret garden, right outside my bedroom. Only it seemed it wasn’t just my secret any more. There was a man sitting at the small, wrought-iron table in the corner, flicking his cigarette into the ashtray I had found.

I slipped back behind my curtains, not hiding but not wanting to be seen. Had he been outside my garden the whole time? Had he heard me singing ‘A Whole New World’ considerably louder than I would have if I’d known there was another human within fifty feet? Something in my stomach tightened as he rested his cigarette in the ashtray and stretched his arms up high, linking his hands behind his ashy blond head.

It couldn’t be.

‘Get your shit together, Tess,’ I told myself, forcing my shaking hands to steady themselves, and held my camera up to my face. ‘And now open your eyes, you daft cow.’

I prised my left eye open and forced myself to look through the viewfinder, trembling as I zoomed in. The focus blurred in and out, settling into sharp reality just as the man in the garden looked up towards my window. Pressing my back against my bedroom wall, I breathed in and closed my eyes. That was how you made yourself invisible, wasn’t it? I heard my pulse pounding in my ears, the blood rushing around my body so fast and making me so dizzy that I couldn’t trust my legs. I grabbed at the camera strap around my neck, pawing desperately. I threw it onto the bed and bolted into the bathroom just in time. My knees gave way and I fell in front of the toilet, just in time to be so incredibly sick.

Panting heavily and wiping my clammy forehead with the back of my hand, I tried to turn and wedge myself in between the toilet and the corner bath. Well, I thought, still shaking and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Surely it couldn’t be the first time a girl had thrown up at the mere sight of Nick Miller?

‘Hello, my girl.’

I heard a warm, deep voice speak from the end of the table before I saw him. It was Al, my fairy godfather, resplendent in a dark three-piece suit and white shirt. Beside him sat Kekipi, similarly suited and booted but opting for a more Kekipi-ish cream-coloured fabric that set off his tan a treat. Apparently we were dressing for dinner.

And when I said we, I did not mean me.

I was wearing my jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt with a low back and, formerly, a sequin trim on the sleeves that had been relatively easily hacked off with a pair of nails scissors. It was the only half-decent option I had found in Amy’s suitcase of horrors and incredibly upset about it I was too. This was not the outfit I would have chosen to be wearing when I went one-on-one with Nick Miller. Obviously, the outfit I would have chosen would be the dress I had worn at my recent wedding to Ryan Gosling. Sadly, I was stuck in baggy old jeans and Amy’s T-shirt. Score.

‘Hello!’ I opened up my arms to Al for one of the best hugs in the business, keeping one eye open to scan the rest of the room over his shoulder but there was no one lurking in the shadows, no one waiting with a snarky comment, just Kekipi, tipping me the wink.

Nick wasn’t there.

I breathed out for what felt like the first time in hours, relieved, disappointed, sick to my stomach. I wanted to see him so badly, I could taste it; I wanted to take my eyeballs out and rub them all over him so I would never forget exactly how he looked, sitting in the garden, smoking that cigarette.

‘I am very glad to see you here.’ Al pulled out the chair beside him and waited for me to sit down, his eyes twinkling in the candlelight and late evening sun. ‘And how lovely you look.’

‘I didn’t know we were dressing up,’ I replied, taking my seat as a waiter appeared to pour my water before disappearing just as quickly. There seemed to be an awful lot of cutlery surrounding my eighteen million plates and four glasses. What was I going to do with four glasses?

‘I had a bit of a luggage malfunction.’ I gestured down at my jeans and pulled a face. ‘Fingers crossed I can do better tomorrow.’

‘Luggage malfunction?’ Kekipi asked, slapping another waiter’s hand away to pour my glass of prosecco himself. ‘Sounds scandalous.’

As with the rest of the house, the dining room was predictably beautiful, but instead of the high ceilings everywhere else in the palazzo, I looked up to see the sky. The dining room was outside. Even though it was inside. Mind. Blown. The dining table was right in the middle of the room, covered in more white and peach flowers, roses this time, and the whole space was lit with candles.

‘Amy decided to pack for me,’ I said. ‘So I need to go shopping. Without her.’

‘Milan’s best boutiques are right on our doorstep,’ he said. ‘We’ll go in the morning.’

I nodded, deciding now wasn’t the time to get into the difference between Milan’s best boutiques and the nearest H&M. Sipping my water, rather than the prosecco, I tried to peep around the room as subtly as possible. Definitely just us. And the invisible waiters.

‘Are you looking for someone in particular?’ Kekipi asked.

I looked at him sharply.

‘Should I be?’ I asked, combing my hair behind my ear and lowering my voice into a hiss. I’d been calling his extension for hours and he hadn’t replied once. It was hard to concentrate on half an Italian episode of
Game of Thrones
when you were as pissed off as I was. I had not had a restful afternoon.

Kekipi shrugged and I dug my fingernails into my palms so sharply, I was worried I had magically developed Wolverine powers.

The double doors opened once more to reveal Amy, wearing the leftovers from Molly Ringwald’s prom dress in
Pretty in Pink
. Her polka-dot skirt entered a full three seconds before she did, clashing impressively with the peachy tones of the dinner table.

‘Hi!’ She tiptoed over to the table in matching pink Mary Janes and white ankle socks. ‘I’m not late, am I?’

‘Not at all.’ Al rounded the table to kiss the back of Amy’s hand and pull out her chair. ‘I apologize for not being here to meet you earlier; I am Albert Bennett, and please call me Al. So happy that you were able to come along on the adventure.’

‘How could I not?’ she said, settling into her chair with a prolonged rustle. ‘Tess had such amazing stories about her visit to Hawaii that I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. And you know, she needs a chaperone.’

‘So this is Amy.’ I glanced over at Kekipi who was clearly already utterly in love. He was so fickle.

‘What are you wearing?’ she whispered as the main doors opened again to allow four waiters carrying elaborate platters to the table. ‘That’s supposed to be a dress.’

‘Maybe on you,’ I hissed back. ‘But unless everyone at the table wants to see my womb, it’s a shirt on me.’

‘Still, you could have dressed up a bit,’ she muttered. ‘I love Al’s beard.’

‘It’s a brilliant beard and don’t you start,’ I warned her as the platters were placed on the table, full of cold meats and cheese and God knows what else. ‘Are we waiting for anyone else?’

‘Artie can’t join us this evening,’ Al replied with a barely detectable edge to his voice. I couldn’t work out if he was annoyed or relieved. ‘So I believe I have you two ladies all to myself. So, Tess, remind me exactly where we left things in Hawaii? What’s been happening with you?’