Celebrity Shopper (21 page)

Elena just nodded, but Annie saw the first hint of tears in her eyes.

‘Ask the organist to play the wedding march,’ Annie whispered to her, struck with sudden inspiration, ‘then we’ll send Yvette out first, she’s in white with a big veil, she’s our bride, then Anoush and Celeste as bridesmaids, with Grand-mère and me bringing up the rear. Big effect, grand finale – and at least it will get it over with quickly.’

Elena made a nod of agreement and hurried off to instruct the organist to move the wedding march up to the top of the playlist.

Annie explained in whispers to the models just as the opening chords struck up.

‘Yvette first, go down the aisle like a bride, Celeste and Anoush behind. Then
la grand-mère et moi, derrière
,’ she stumbled in schoolgirl French.

‘
Bien
,’ Grand-mère agreed.

If Yvette had looked good in the blue, she looked
magnifique
in the white dress. White sandals with straps which wound up her legs had been borrowed from Svetlana for this outfit. Grand-mère had made her an elaborate veil from the full three metres of white tulle which Annie had bought. In her hand was a little posy of white flowers.

As she went out, a veiled Anoush and Celeste followed behind.

There was a little flutter of something from the crowd, Annie couldn’t help feeling.

She enjoyed this second trip down the aisle much more than the first. Every one of the models seemed to. The extreme tension of walking through the church for the first time had been broken, now their shoulders lowered and their steps looked much more easy and relaxed.

As she reached the top of the aisle, Annie even managed a smile for Rich and his camera. This felt better, the atmosphere of doom and gloom had lifted and she
could even spot a smile or two in the audience.

But all was not entirely straightforward at the top of the aisle. They had come down in a new order and they were now standing in different positions, which they hadn’t practised before.

Anoush and Celeste had understood that Yvette should be in the centre, not at the far end of the row, so they were stepping past her and encouraging her to move up towards Annie and Grand-mère.

Yvette, in the borrowed sandals, stumbled just slightly, but instinctively put her hand out to catch hold of the nearest solid object. Unfortunately, this was a low wooden screen set out to provide a prettier backdrop. It swayed momentarily, then toppled backwards with an alarming clatter. As Yvette spun her head to survey the damage she’d done, the breezy tulle of her veil swished over one of the candle holders and ignited with an audible whoosh.

Panicked cries of alarm broke out amongst the models and the audience.

Annie’s mind raced.
Where was a fire blanket? Or a fire extinguisher?

Like a vision of calm and control, two women appeared before the screaming crowd with the necessary items in their hands.

Grand-mère was holding a thick fur coat she’d plucked from the front row, Svetlana had an opened bottle of champagne in each hand.

Just as they were about to douse Yvette, the model leaned forward and her flaming veil, along with her luscious wig of astonishing orange hair, fell to the floor in a burning heap.

Svetlana poured on the champagne, and Grand-mère dealt the fire a death blow by smothering it with the coat.

Thick smoke and an astonishingly bitter smell of burning
hair and singed fur filled the space. The audience was on its feet, ready to make a rush for the door, but the relief that the fire was out and the extraordinary sight of Yvette stopped everyone spellbound in their places.

Now that Yvette was stripped of the wig and the cropped hair underneath had been revealed, it was instantly obvious that slinky-bodied, nonchalantly slouchy model Yvette had the strong jawline and slight Adam’s apple of a man.

Annie stared too.

She couldn’t help it.

Yvette was just as beautiful as she had been a moment ago, but she was a he. Yvette was really an Yves, who sensed the curiosity in the room, the eyes upon him.

Snatching this little moment of fame, which was right there before him, waiting to be taken, Yvette threw his head back and gave the crowd the surprisingly polished chorus of Abba’s ‘Super Trouper’. It was almost loud enough to drown out Elena’s whimper of dismay.

Pssst! Vickie goes fashion:

Navy-blue harem-trousered playsuit (Topshop)
Metallic silver blazer (Whistles)
Silver heels (Faith)
Purple mock-croc handbag (Osprey)
Notebook and pen (WHSmith)
Digital voice recorder (eBay)
Total est. cost: £440

‘You never mention your dad …’

‘Well, that’s made selling the story to the editor a piece of cake.’ The magazine columnist Vickie Plumridge turned and smiled at the journalist sitting beside her on the church steps.

The journalist nodded in agreement: ‘Let’s just hope the photos are good.’

‘Do you think they staged it?’ Vickie wondered.

‘No way! Did you see the look on the faces of the other models when the bride turned out to be a guy? And the woman who owned the fur coat! She was absolutely livid!’

‘Still,’ Vickie couldn’t help wondering, ‘for two bottles of champagne to be so close to hand, and already opened … and for Svetlana Wisneski to be the one pouring them over the burning veil? If I hadn’t just seen this happen, I’d never have believed it.’

‘OK, recorders at the ready, they’re coming out,’ the journalist warned and tossed her half-smoked cigarette on to the step where she ground it out with the pointed toe of her shoe.

Elena and Svetlana stepped out of the church, both with bright, cheerful smiles on their faces, as if setting a model alight and nearly burning down a historic church was just another ordinary, everyday sort of thing.

At their request, Annie was standing just behind them.

‘You better come out with us,’ Elena had told her, ‘the British journalists will want to speak to you too.’

‘Hi.’ Elena addressed the crowd of buyers and press assembled in the small courtyard, driven out of the church by the smoke and horrible smell.

Sounding much more confident than she felt, she went on: ‘Everything is under control. Yvette is fine. Luckily, her … his …’ she corrected herself, ‘hair was a wig. So, I’m sorry our show ended with such a drama. But we’re here wanting to talk to you now about our wonderful dresses. ’

There wasn’t any calling out of questions, the press pack just huddled in beside the three women and took turns to ask everything they wanted to know.

After several minutes, Elena decided to leave the journalists to her mother and Annie; she broke out of the throng and headed straight towards the huddle of buyers.

Vickie Plumridge didn’t waste any time; she moved straight up to Annie with the list of questions she’d already prepared.

‘Hi, Annie, I’m Vickie from
Pssst!
magazine. How are you? Did you enjoy modelling in the show? How long have you and Svetlana and Elena been friends?’

Once Annie had answered these questions, gushing as much as she possibly could about her Ukrainian friends and their ‘totally genius’ dress line, she was hit by Vickie’s more awkward line of questioning.

‘So your friend Connor McCabe. He’s been dropped from
The Manor
and he’s not found any other work yet?’ Vickie asked, in a voice just as pleasant as if she’d said something incredibly nice about Connor, instead of something incredibly rude.

‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly talk about Connor,’ was Annie’s immediate response, ‘other than to tell you he’s been my friend for ever and he’s a fantastic guy, a really funny, really kind, fantastic person. He’s just as good a friend as he is an actor,’ she went on, although they hadn’t spoken since his grumpy text, ‘and …’ Suddenly she remembered the unflattering front cover photo she’d seen at the airport. ‘… he’s totally buff.’

Had that been
Pssst!
magazine? The thought flashed through Annie’s mind. Was this woman from the magazine that was about to publish an interview with her dad?

‘You often talk about your mum in interviews, Annie,’ Vickie went on, ‘but you never mention your dad.

Annie scrutinized Vickie more closely.

She was young, maybe twenty-five, with a sharp blond bob, thin lips and penetrating blue eyes. She was trying to make her face look friendly and kind, but the hungry nosiness behind her questions stared out from behind the thin smile.

‘I’ve not seen or heard from my dad since I was thirteen years old,’ Annie answered calmly, determined not to show how rattled she was by this question, ‘so you’ll
understand that he’s not exactly a big part of my life.’

‘Oh goodness!’ Vickie was pretending to look surprised, but not succeeding very well. ‘So you’ve not heard from him … you’ve no idea where he is or what he’s doing?’

‘No,’ Annie said firmly, but inside she felt a churn of worry. ‘Do you know something about him?’ she asked sharply.

Vickie immediately exclaimed: ‘No! Of course not,’ but she looked down at her notebook as she said it and Annie thought there was a trace of guilt about her. ‘Thank you so much for your time!’ Vickie added.

Vickie?

Didn’t Dinah say a journalist called Vickie had phoned her?

‘Hey!’ Annie called out, but Vickie’s back was already turned and she was stepping away quickly just as Svetlana swooped down on Annie.

‘There is someone over here who is desperate to meet my Annah.’

And that was it. When Annie next looked over in search of Vickie, she had gone.

‘Mmmm. I’ll have to think about it and come back to you.’

If Elena heard this line once again from one more buyer, she would scream.

No one had yet committed to a single sale. No one had told her anything overwhelmingly positive. All the buyers she’d spoken to so far could at best be described as ‘lukewarm’ about the dresses.

All the money was gone and, so far, neither Elena nor Svetlana had made one single sale.

As she watched the buyer to whom she’d just delivered a long and impassioned pitch walk through the chain-link fence towards a waiting taxi, the young photographer
she’d noticed during the show walked towards her, raised his camera and reeled off a couple of snaps.

‘I think you have enough pictures,’ she told him with a slightly exasperated smile.

He shook his head and, now that she was finally looking at him, took a whole load more.

‘You can’t have enough photos, it’s impossible,’ he said eventually, emerging from behind the camera. He had a square and unexpectedly handsome face.

‘And you are … ?’ Elena asked haughtily.

‘Sye Westhoven, freelance photographer, working today for
Women’s Wear Daily
,’ he said with a light transatlantic accent.

‘The website?’ Elena asked, more than a touch dismissively.

‘No, the magazine,’ he replied, not taking his intense look from her face.

‘Do you think we’ll get into the magazine?’ Elena was trying to hide her excitement.

‘Well, what with your burning bride and your famous mother, I’d have thought the chances were … hmmm … about a hundred per cent,’ he answered.

Inside Elena’s clutch bag, her BlackBerry began to vibrate, so, turning away from Sye with an ‘excuse me’, she snapped open the bag and answered.

She didn’t hear the whirr which meant he was photographing her again.

Sye pushed his straight, dirty blond hair behind his ears, scrunched up his eye to get a better look through the viewfinder and moved round to the side of Elena once again.

He liked her face. He liked it very much. He’d looked at hundreds, probably thousands of pretty faces before and usually they didn’t move him a great deal because he no
longer enjoyed perfection in features. He liked a face that was interesting, one full of character, just like Elena’s, with its determined little frown between the eyebrows, steely cool eyes and, by contrast, the lusciously full mouth.

He tried to keep his eyes focused on the face because if he looked too long at the knockout figure in the dress beneath … well, then all concentration on his work threatened to be lost.

When her call was over, Elena turned to Sye again. ‘Have you taken my mother’s picture?’ she asked, sounding very professional.

He gave a nod.

‘The models?’

He nodded again.

‘The woman in the red dress, over there, she’s a famous TV person in Britain.’

Sye nodded again. He was looking at her with a little too much concentration for Elena’s liking.

‘Then I think you’re all done here, aren’t you?’ she asked with a smile.

He nodded, lifted his camera and banged off another frame of her.

‘I think that’s rude!’ she exclaimed.

He did it again.

‘Hey!’ she said.

‘How old are you?’ he asked. ‘Because I don’t think you look old enough to be co-running a dress label.’