Beads, Boys and Bangles Page 9

  Paolo looks super-serious. He’s turned his head in our direction, so I suppose he’s checking us out, but I can’t be sure.

  ‘Great to meet you at last,’ says the girl nearest to him, holding out her hand.

  He says nothing, but stands up and leans forward a bit. The girl rightly guesses that this means he wants a kiss, not a handshake. So she gets up and air-kisses him on both cheeks, which is what you do in fashion. I wonder for a split second whether Crow and I are supposed to air-kiss him too, but one look at Andy Elat assures me that kissing is off the agenda for us today. We’ve done something terrible and we’re about to hear all about it.

  I realise that since our last meeting with Amanda, we haven’t made quite as much progress as we’d hoped. Crow’s designs are still just as ‘adult’ and ‘undoable’ as ever, and I haven’t exactly managed to get Edie to change her website. But we’ve been busy with dates and Sigrid Santorini and party frocks. And anyway, there are those photos from No Kidding, which we can’t really ignore, and that reminds me – surely Andy will be impressed when he hears about Edie’s amazing award?

  I decide to start things off on a positive note, so I lean across to Andy and say, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard, but our friend Edie’s just won a web award.’

  He looks back at me without a hint of a smile in his crinkly eyes and says that yes, funnily enough, he had heard about that.

  Wow! He already knows. Yay!

  ‘Isn’t it incredible?’ I say. ‘She’s thrilled. Her site’s got so many hits it’s crashed twice. She’s having to upgrade the server.’ I can’t believe I just said that. Sometimes the right words come to me when I’m least expecting it. I sound so technical!

  I’m about to go into lots more detail when Andy does his wiggling fingers thing, so I shut up.

  ‘Exactly,’ he says. ‘Paolo?’

  Paolo strokes his mini-beard. Paulo pauses until he has the room’s full attention. Then Paolo speaks.

  ‘DISASTER!’ he declares, glaring through the sunglasses. ‘It has to stop.’

  ‘Stop?’

  ‘Stop! Cease! Desist! Every day this girl . . . this schoolgirl . . . gets more hits on her website. More publicity. And now the award. Thousands of people go to her site. Not just other girls now. Journalists. Bloggers. Fashion commentators. Serious people. They read about Crow. They read about Miss Teen. They read about Mr Elat and his brand. And they read this.’

  He presses a button and some wood panels slide aside on a wall at the other end of the room, to reveal a screen that’s already been set up to connect to the internet. Everyone turns to look. It’s showing Edie’s homepage and in huge letters across the top (above a picture of Svetlana in her amazing gold dress) is a banner advertising Edie’s new campaign which says, ‘Cheap Clothes Cost Lives’, with a link to the No Kidding photos of children doing embroidery.

  There’s a gasp around the table from the design team. Oh dear. This moment wasn’t great when I’d imagined it and it’s even worse now I’m actually sitting in it.

  Everyone looks at Crow and me. Not in a good way. We shrug. What are we supposed to do?

  Paolo says, ‘So. Disaster. First, the suggestion that Miss Teen clothes are cheap. They are not cheap, they are reasonably priced. Second, that Mr Elat and his brand might be in some way involved with bad labour practices. This is preposterous! It is unthinkable! It is an insult to the brand.’

  Paolo stops. He has spoken. The room is filled with silence. Everyone goes back to staring at their cappuccinos. I feel a bit sick.

  ‘Paolo’s right,’ Andy says. He sounds a tiny bit kinder now. Perhaps he can see how green I’ve gone. ‘Edie needs to buck her ideas up, Nonie. I’ve shown her the studies. They prove I’m not involved in this stuff. But one minute she’s talking about child labour and the next minute she’s talking about Crow, and that means Miss Teen, and that means me. This could cost me millions. Millions.’

  Amanda joins in. ‘Edie’s getting quite famous in her own right, because of this website. People trust her. She’s got to come out and say once and for all that some people may be carrying out these practices, but that we don’t. Because we don’t. We’ve written this piece she could put on the website, explaining everything. Can you ask her to put it on? And to take down that “Cheap Clothes Cost Lives” banner? I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to do.’

  I’m very tempted at this point to say yes. If I say yes everybody will smile and leave the table and this meeting will stop and I can go to the toilets and cry, which is what I really want to do.

  But we’ll only end up back here in a week. Because I know that even if I ask Edie, she won’t listen to me. So I might as well get the worst over with now. I take a deep breath.

  ‘The reason people trust Edie is because she says what she thinks. She’d love to believe that Crow’s clothes are made by grown-ups working in proper factories, with good pay and healthcare and everything. But she can only talk about what she’s seen with her own eyes. And you’ve seen those pictures from No Kidding. Tiny children making Crow’s tee-shirts. They look very real.’

  Amanda sighs. Andy sighs. Paolo sighs so hard his sunglasses nearly fall off.

  ‘Fakes,’ Andy says. ‘Photoshop. I’m sure you’ve done it at school. It’s easy.’

  I sigh.

  Somebody is lying. We don’t know who. Please can I just go to the toilets and cry?

  Then Crow says something. We’re all pretty shocked. It’s standard procedure at these meetings that Crow draws and I do the talking. But she sits there, looking perfectly composed, and talks straight to Andy.

  ‘If you don’t want to work with me any more, Mr Elat, I understand.’

  Dead silence. We’re all too shocked to speak.

  She stands up. ‘But I can’t make Edie change. She’s just . . . Edie. Thank you for everything, though. You’ve been so kind and amazing to me.’

  Then she walks over, GIVES HIM A KISS ON THE CHEEK – a proper kiss, not an air one – and walks out of the room.

  Oh. My. God.

  I get up as quickly as I can and follow her out. I don’t kiss anybody on the way. I have a bit of a kissing phobia at the moment.

  Outside the room, we look at each other, eyes wide, and I suddenly find I don’t want to cry in the toilets any more. I want to go out in the street and laugh. So does Crow.

  We’re not quite sure what we’ve done. But, weirdly, it felt good.

  We meet in Edie’s room.

  It’s full of baskets of chocolates and teddy bears, from people saying congratulations about the award. This is odd, as anyone actually reading Edie’s blog would know she’s not remotely interested in chocolates or teddy bears. Baskets of calculators or textbooks, or chess sets, would have been great. But there aren’t any of those.

  She turns to me. ‘Tell me again,’ she says.

  I’ve explained all about Paolo and the brand and the wooden boardroom, but the bit she keeps wanting to hear is Crow walking out at the end. We’ve described it five times and she still can’t get over it.

  ‘You did that for me?’ she asks.

  Crow shrugs. Edie interprets this as a yes and hugs her so tight she can hardly breathe.

  ‘Was it like this?’ Jenny asks, mincing around the room and twirling on her heel with a flourish. Any excuse for acting, these days.

  ‘No,’ we say. ‘It wasn’t.’

  Of course we haven’t asked Edie to put up that message they wrote for her, or to take down her banner. We might as well ask her to run around London in her underwear. Besides, it’s too late now. All these new people are checking her site out and they all know what she really thinks.

  Plus, two of Edie’s chosen charities have been in touch to say that donations have noticeably gone up overnight, and thank you. Our HEADMISTRESS has emailed to say well done. And Phil from No Kidding has practically sent an essay on how great Edie is, and apologising all over again for hacking the site before Christmas. I bet he’s feeling sil
ly now.

  We’re all busy ‘wowing’ at all the emails, but Edie still wants to talk about the meeting.

  ‘So what happens next? With Mr Elat?’

  I copy Crow’s shrug. We don’t know. The only annoying thing about walking out of a meeting with your head held high is that the meeting carries on without you and people decide all sorts of crucial things while you’re not there and you have to wait for them to update you.

  We all go a bit quiet. Nobody wants to say out loud what we’re thinking, which is to wonder whether Crow and I still have a job in fashion. And hey, no problem. If we don’t, that just gives me more time to worry about my GCSEs.

  Edie’s mum puts her head round the door and thankfully breaks the silence.

  ‘We’re having a big family lunch tomorrow. Edie needs feeding up after all this excitement. Would you like to come?’

  You might expect Edie to have a pushy mother who’s constantly trying to make her come top in maths and set running records, but actually no. Her mum’s really chilled and spends most of the time worrying that Edie’s overdoing it and trying to feed her up and make her listen to pop music ‘like your other nice friends’. Unfortunately, Edie’s mum only has one speciality dish and that’s pizza, and once you’ve tried it you start to understand why Edie might be so slim. But it’s a nice thought.

  Jenny says sorry but she has a special meeting about her play. Crow’s in the middle of several dresses, including final adjustments for the one Sigrid Santorini wants to wear in Italy. Edie looks at me in desperation. So far she’s managed to convince her mum that we all adore pizza and can’t get enough of it. I’d love to help out, but actually I’m busy too.

  ‘Er, I’m very sorry,’ I mumble. ‘But I have a date.’

  I say this as quietly as I possibly can. With Jenny in the room, I really really don’t want to have this conversation.

  ‘Ooh, DATE?’ asks Edie’s mum. The good news is she believes me and she’s not offended. The bad news is she desperately wants to know more. ‘With a boy?’

  ‘Er, sort of,’ I mutter, even more quietly.

  ‘Who? Alexander?’ Jenny explodes. ‘You’re going back out with him? You’re totally barmy!’

  Edie’s mum is so fascinated by this news that she sits down on the bed to join in. For some reason, friends’ parents think we really enjoy discussing our love lives with them, and we’re just waiting to ask their advice and hear all their anecdotes about what happened when they were teenagers.

  I listen politely while she runs through some of her dates with her early boyfriends. I’m concentrating on not showing that the story about her snogging spotty youths to the strains of Duran Duran in the 1980s is TOO MUCH INFORMATION. When she’s finished, Jenny goes on at me about Alexander’s ‘hidden agenda’, then Edie tries to be helpful by suggesting nice little skirt-and-top combos I could wear to impress him. Only Crow stays silent. I love that girl.

  I ignore all Edie’s advice on outfits, obviously.

  Today, I’m going for ‘you didn’t comment on my fabulous get-up last time, so now I really don’t care’. Which means pixie boots (I rushed out and got some), a bias-cut slip, frayed at the hem where I tore the bottom off, hand-painted leggings and one of Harry’s jackets with the sleeves rolled up, because I spilled hot chocolate on my old pink polar bear and it looks like it’s got some sort of disease. And no fake eyelashes, because we’re going on the London Eye, where the view is incredible, and I want to be able to see it unimpeded.

  Alexander meets me by the fairground carousel near the Eye, wearing his usual designer jeans/linen scarf combo, and looking gorgeous and Robert Pattinson-ish. He smiles when he sees me, comes over, gives me a quick, sweat-free kiss on the lips and casually puts an arm around my waist. He doesn’t mention his earlier lack of contact. Neither do I.

  ‘Nice leggings, Boots. What’s on them?’

  ‘Swear words,’ I explain. ‘Italian ones. I’m learning them from my pen pal. He has a large vocabulary.’

  ‘Cool.’

  He guides me across the open queuing space, towards the giant wheel with capsules all round it that looks nothing like an eye at all (but ‘The London Sort-of-like-a-clock-without-numbers’ just wouldn’t have worked so well), and when we get there it turns out we have a capsule all to ourselves, with a bottle of champagne and strawberries laid out ready.

  YES!

  We spend twenty-five minutes going round the wheel, looking at all my favourite sights in London, taking pictures of each other on our phones and talking about fun stuff like his new ballet and Edie’s amazing award and the fabulousness of my pixie boots.

  Then we walk along the Thames to the posh restaurant he’s chosen to take me to. It’s not a brilliant day. Cold and cloudy, with a strong breeze coming off the river. But that just means that Alexander has to put his arm more tightly around me and I can smell his lemony aftershave.

  For a while, that boardroom seems miles away. I am on a date! And I am having a good time! The only thing that would make it better would be for Crow, Jenny and Edie to be in a café somewhere along the South Bank, watching me enjoy myself so much.

  We get to the restaurant, which is posher than I’m used to (Mum says why waste money on white tablecloths when I prefer burgers anyway?), and I have no idea what to choose so Alexander orders for me. We talk more about ballet and running a catwalk show and our favourite bits of Paris. The food comes and I hardly notice I’m eating it. There’s Thing With Vegetables. Followed by Thing With Chocolate Sauce. Tastes fine. Don’t care. I’m with the best-looking man in the room and he is SO flirting with me.

  Then after lunch he’s meeting up with some friends so it’s time to say goodbye. The champagne has kicked in by now and I’m feeling wobbly and not totally well. I’m expecting him to walk me to the Tube, but instead he walks me to a bench overlooking the river. A cold, windy bench. Oh dear.

  We sit down and he does that thing where he suddenly whips under me and I find myself sitting on his lap. I look across at his upper lip, hoping for the best, but no, they’ve started. The little beads of sweat are slowly appearing. He’s half-closing his eyes, going in for the kill.

  My whole body is screaming EW EW EW, but it’s too late now. He’s bought me lunch.

  We go through the whole rigmarole again. His lip is sweaty. He pokes his tongue around. I keep my jaw firmly shut. He keeps his eyes closed and looks transported. I wish he would be. And then, finally, it’s over.

  Am I allergic to kissing? Do I have some sort of medical condition? Is it only me?

  ‘See you, Boots,’ he says, with his confident smile.

  And he’s off. And I’m left alone on the windy bench, feeling dizzy and wondering where the Tube is.

  I’m sure it’s not supposed to be like this.

  Luckily, at school on Monday Jenny and Edie forget to ask me about the date. Unluckily, it’s because we have other things to worry about.

  Sigrid Santorini to make West End debut.

  Hollywood actress hits London.

  New play gets star treatment.

  We’re in the school library. Edie has fanned all the papers out. I’m giving Jenny a hug and she’s crying as quietly as she can, so the librarian doesn’t notice.

  ‘That’s what they called the meeting about yesterday,’ Jenny explains. ‘They wanted to share the “good news” before it hit the papers.’

  Sigrid has ‘graciously agreed’ to step in at the last minute and take the place of the actress who was mysteriously sacked from Jenny’s play. We know that ‘graciously agreed’ means that as soon as she found out about Her Father’s Daughter from Edie, Sigrid set about cosying up to the director and setting herself up for a starring role. Something to keep her busy after her new movie was scrapped.

  Poor Edie is upset too, for giving Sigrid all the information she needed about the play, but it wasn’t her fault. Even Jenny has to admit this. Once a girl like Sigrid gets an idea, there’s nothing you can do to stop her
. And you never know what she’s going to do next.

  She’s part of a trend. Some Hollywood movie stars aren’t happy with earning gazillions and being on thousands of cinema screens. For a little while at least, they like to be ‘simple acting folk’ and earn a tiny amount of money appearing live on stage to a small audience. And some of their favourite stages to act on are ours, in London, which are as close to the stages that Shakespeare performed on as you can physically get. Although I don’t think Shakespeare did Phantom of the Opera.

  Mum takes me to see the big names sometimes, when we can get tickets, and they’re mesmerising. It’s kind of strange seeing them normal size, as opposed to three metres high and in Technicolor, but you get used to it.

  We’re not the only ones who enjoy going, of course. The plays usually sell out. Now, Her Father’s Daughter will too. In fact, the Boat House isn’t big enough. With a Hollywood name involved, especially one who’s going out with the New Teenage Sex God, the backers have managed to get the play transferred to a major West End venue at the end of its run. That’s why there was talk about a new theatre. Everybody is thrilled.

  Jenny is devastated.

  ‘It’s not her, particularly,’ she mumbles. ‘I’m not in that many scenes with her and I’m supposed to hate her in the play, so that bit’s easy. It’s the whole publicity thing. Look!’

  We look. Every paper has a piece about the play. Even the Financial Times, which is where Edie spotted it this morning, naturally. We know what Jenny’s thinking. From now on, there will be paparazzi outside the rehearsal studio. It will be worse once the play opens. Everyone will have their picture taken on the way in, clutching their coffees, and on their way home, looking tired and drawn. Jenny’s every spot breakout will be analysed in celebrity magazines. And if she’s rubbish again, like she was in her movie, everyone in London and half the country will know.