Charlie Glass's Slippers (24 page)

Her nostrils flare. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous. Glass Slippers is . . . well, it’s
my
thing, Gaby.” I don’t point out (it’s really not the time) that in actual cold, hard, legal fact, Elroy Glass itself is pretty much My Thing, too. “I didn’t tell you about this shoot because—and I honestly mean this in the nicest possible way, Gab—it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Well, of course it has! For one thing, you don’t even have permission to set up Glass bloody Slippers yet!”

“We’ve sorted that. The article is just a retrospective on Dad. We’re not mentioning selling the shoes yet.”

“Well, whoop-de-doo. That doesn’t change the fact that if you make your as-yet-nonexistent brand look ridiculous, Elroy Glass will look ridiculous in turn.”

“But who says I’m making it look ridiculous?” (I’m not, am I? I mean, this whole
Evening Standard
thing isn’t just part of some zany hidden-camera TV show, is it, where Heather and Katya are actually paid actors and the photographer pulls off a prosthetic mask to reveal he’s really Ashton Kutcher or something?)

“Oh, come on, Charlie, you can’t tell me you honestly know what you’re doing with all this stuff.” She waves an angry hand through the doorway back at the shop floor, where I can see that Heather has started up another heated discussion with Rufus, and where the photographer has grown tired of mucking about with his camera equipment and started trying to chat up Katya instead. “You don’t know how any of these things work.”

“The shoes?” I try to lighten the mood with a joke. “Any old idiot knows how shoes work, Gaby. You just put them
on your feet, and then you put one foot in front of the other, and—”

“I’m talking about fashion editorial!” Gaby snaps, evidently not in the mood to have her mood lightened. “I’m talking about press and publicity! You have no idea how any of
that
works, Charlie. Have you given serious thought to the key pieces you want the shoot to feature? Are you making certain the fashion editor isn’t just creating the looks that
she
thinks are important? Are you presenting a coherent brand image, or are you just letting them take pretty pictures of a pretty girl in pretty shoes?”

Well, no. I haven’t thought of any of that. But now that Gaby mentions it, that stuff does actually sound pretty important.

And let’s face it, it’s not as if I’m exactly enjoying being in charge of the media stuff. I had a fabulous time discussing the nitty-gritty of the actual collection with Leo and Suzy, I enjoy every minute I spend working on the Glass Slippers business plan, and I couldn’t have been happier this afternoon when I was picking out all the possibilities for the shoot, but dealing with (difficult, tardy, and moody) Fashion People isn’t exactly my forte.

“Exactly!” She’s triumphant, which has always been one of her very favorite things to be. So triumphant, in fact, that it even seems to take the edge off her bad mood. “Which is why you should have called me to tell me about this. Which is why I should be in charge here.”

“Well, no.” I hear myself say the words before I actually think about them. “It’s why it might be nice if you could give me some expert help. It doesn’t mean you need to be in charge.”

And then I have to hang onto the nearby banister for a moment, as the enormity of what I’ve just done
(standing up to
Gaby??!)
sinks in.

The enormity of it seems to be sinking in for her as well, because there’s a rather shocked silence, and she looks as if she might quite fancy hanging onto a banister herself.

“Well!” she says, after a moment or two. “
Somebody’s
got rather big for her boots.”

“Gab, look, I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, it’s fine. If you need my help, you need my help.”

“I’d certainly
like
your help,” I counter, unwilling to openly admit that I do, in fact, need her help rather desperately. After all, if dealing with difficult, tardy, and moody Fashion People isn’t my forte, it absolutely is Gaby’s. (Let’s face it—she’s a pretty difficult and moody Fashion Person herself.) “Heather—the fashion editor—is getting very worked up about whether to choose a blue platform or a red Mary Jane . . . oh, no, hang on, it was a red platform and a blue Mary Jane . . .”

“Well, which one do you want in the magazine?” Gaby demands impatiently.

I actually take a moment to think about this and realize that I do have a strong opinion about it after all. “The red platform. It’s a bit more . . .
Dad
. I mean, I know you said you don’t remember that time when the three of us came to hang out at the store on a Saturday, and he let us each pick out a pair to play dress-up with, but then all of us chose a red pair, and he said—”

“I remember Robyn being a ghastly brat about a pair of red shoes, if that’s the occasion you’re referring to.”

“Yes! And then we went for a pizza at the place around the corner, and Dad made us all try ice-cream sodas . . .”

“Honestly, Charlie, I can’t possibly be expected to remember that level of detail from some random Saturday morning twenty-odd years ago.” Gaby pushes past me and heads for the main room again. “But if it’s red shoes you want, then let’s put red shoes in the bloody shoot.”

Something about the sudden awkwardness of her manner
makes me suspect that she remembers far more about that random Saturday morning than she’d ever be soft enough to admit to. But now isn’t the time to raise it with her.

With Gaby, come to think of it, the time to raise it with her would be
never
.

I think it’s best to just quietly enjoy the fact that we’re here together at the store again, two decades later, working alongside each other.

“
Charlie!
For God’s sake, get back in here! Honestly, do I have to do everything myself ?”

Well, it’s a good thing I’ve made up my mind to quietly enjoy this.

I hurry back into the store to see what drama she’s turning into a crisis now.

chapter sixteen

I
have to admit,
though,
that Gaby really is helpful in getting the shoot back underway and actually
moving
a bit faster for the next forty-five minutes. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that she knows exactly how to handle Fashion People. She gives short shrift to the tension between Heather and Rufus, she bans the photographer from popping outside for a smoke, she barks at Katya to stop pouting and dragging her heels every time an outfit is suggested that she doesn’t like, and she (almost) manages to defer to me on most of the major shoe-choice decisions, albeit that she’s brusque and faintly bad-tempered about doing so. Anyway, I actually appreciate the input she gives about the shoes, even if I’d love it if she were able to voice her opinions without the accompanying bossiness and imperiousness. She’s helpful and rude in equal measure as she chivvies me into insisting that Heather include a particular pair of gold metallic wedges that I really think is representative of Dad’s style (well, quite a lot of the insisting part ends up coming from Gaby herself ), and we have probably the very best discussion we’ve had in years over whether or not it’s important to feature a knee-high boot in the photo shoot or not. (I think yes, Gaby thinks no; when she eventually gives in to my opinion, not to mention
actually using
the words
“Well, you could be right, I suppose,” you could have quite honestly knocked me down with a feather.)

Honestly, it makes me see her undoubted organizational skills in a whole new light, and I’m thrilled when—finally—Heather says she’s happy with the shots we’ve got, and everybody can start packing their things up to go home. All right, it’s way past seven o’clock, and I’ve had to cancel my date with Jay, but at least we finally got there.

Gaby doesn’t stick around to swap congratulations, though—it’s actually past nine, and, as she’s grumbled many times over the last half-hour, she’s running late to relieve the nanny of her duties—so the clean-up is left to me, Heather, and Rufus (the photographer and Katya disappear almost as speedily as Gaby, though I suspect it’s not a viola workshop that they’re heading to). Heather and Rufus concentrate on packing the clothes and other accessories out of the way while I focus on boxing up the dozens of pairs of shoes and transporting them carefully back up to the stockroom. Which is good exercise, at least. Admittedly there are things I’d rather have been doing this evening than working on my gluteus maximus (gazing into Jay’s heavenly eyes over a glass of red wine, say), but I’m trying to find the positives in the situation.

“Charlie?” Rufus pops his head around the stockroom door. He looks rather pink and flushed, presumably from all the exertions of helping Heather to pack clothes into squashy Longchamp tote bags. “Okay, we’re finished packing up, so we’ll be heading off. And I think we should really be leaving you to it, anyway!”

“All this, you mean?” I look around at the now faintly chaotic stockroom. “Yeah, I think I’ll be here a while getting all this sorted out.”

“Oh, God, no, that’s not what I meant!” His flush deepens. “I’m talking about the hottie who’s just turned up downstairs.”

The way he says the word
hottie
, combined with that glow
in his cheeks, leaves only one conclusion as to precisely who this particular hottie is.

“That racing-driver guy,” Rufus continues, as if I need any clarification at this stage. “He asked if you were still around.”

“Tell him no!” I stare, horrified, at him. “I mean, I can’t see him! I’m a mess!”

“We already said you were up here.” He looks confused. “And you look fine to me.”

“I’m not fine! He goes out with
supermodels
!” I dart to my handbag, which—thank God—is up here rather than downstairs, and pull out the makeup bag that—thank
God
—I somehow had the foresight to shove in there yesterday.

“Oh. Well, in that case, maybe you’re not quite so fine.” Rufus exits, briefly, and I hear him call down the stairs, “We’ll be down in two minutes! I’m just helping Charlie . . .” He trails off. “With something shoe-related!” he finally adds, before returning to the stockroom and heading my way with a purposeful stride. “Almost put my foot in it then,” he says, in a stage whisper. “I nearly said I was helping you lift boxes, but then I thought the hottie might decide to come on up and help us out. Put some of those fabulous chest muscles to good use. Right.” He swipes my foundation compact right out of my hand. “Let’s see what magic I can work in three minutes flat.”

As it turns out, quite a lot of magic.

In the hands of a professional, my slightly grubby, overstuffed makeup bag becomes a cornucopia of undiscovered marvels. Rufus buffs foundation and cream blusher into my cheeks, smudges on some kohl, coats my lashes with my slightly crumbly Max Factor mascara, and then sets about my cheekbones and temples with an ancient highlighter stick that I got for free a couple of years ago from the cover of
InStyle
magazine and that I’ve never once summoned up the courage to use myself. Completing this in a grand total of two and a half minutes, he then instructs me to flip my head
upside down “to give it a bit of oomph,” after which he tousles my hair artfully with the tips of his fingers, tucks some of it behind my left ear, tousles it once more for good measure, and then pronounces himself, “Done! Have a gander at that, my darling,” he adds, whipping open my blusher compact so that I can see my reflection in the little round mirror inside.

Even looking in the tiny, dusty mirror confirms what I’ve come to suspect these past few weeks, which is that if I were to win a lottery windfall of a hundred grand tomorrow, the very best investment I could possibly make would be to hire myself a permanent on-call hair and makeup artist.

Notwithstanding, of course, the fact that I always used to say that if I won the lottery I’d give the money to the hospital unit that treated Dad so wonderfully for the worst parts of his illness.

Okay, so I’d probably only hire the hair and makeup artist for special occasions, then. Occasions like unexpected dates with Jay Broderick. Because Rufus really has done absolute wonders with me: made my skin look glowy and fresh where I know for a fact it was looking sweaty and drained, and given me more fluttery eyelashes than I ever thought was possible. Not to mention worked a minor miracle on my in-need-of-a-wash hair, which he’s transformed into a glamorous one-shouldered sweep that Lana Turner would have been proud of.

“
Now
you’re good enough for the dreamboat downstairs,” Rufus informs me, bluntly but kindly nevertheless. “Well, almost.”

I nod, humbly acknowledging what we both know (that I’ll never really be
properly
good enough for the dreamboat downstairs), and then I hastily grab the controversial red platforms from where I was just about to stow them back into a crate and pull them onto my feet. They’re half a size too small, but hopefully they’ll make my jeans and T-shirt look a bit sexy and snazzy, not to mention giving me crucial bum uplift.

And then I take a deep, calming breath, shove my handbag under one arm the way I often see Robyn and her friends carrying theirs, and follow Rufus down the stairs towards the shop floor, where Jay is waiting for me.

Heather has engaged him in intense, hair-flicking conversation, but the moment he sees me his eyes light up and he takes a step towards me.

“Charlie,” he says. He smiles, leans down, and places the softest of kisses on my cheek, only an inch or two from my mouth. “I hope I’m not interrupting work. It’s just that I thought if Charlie Glass couldn’t come to me, I ought to come to Charlie Glass.” He lifts his right hand, in which he’s holding a proper wicker picnic basket. “I come bearing dinner.”

Behind me, Rufus lets out a sigh so loud and so lustful that even Heather clearly decides it’s time to stop flicking her hair and get them both the hell out of Dodge before her colleague does something embarrassing.

Which means, only a couple of minutes later, that I’m closing the door behind them and that Jay and I are alone in the empty store together.

“It’s so nice of you to do this,” I say, as I turn back to face him. “And I’m so sorry that I had to cancel our planned dinner.”

“It’s perfectly okay. Besides, it was no trouble. My father has a fantastic new cook, so I just went round and begged her for something tasty.”

Stupidly—
really
stupidly, given that I wouldn’t be here with Jay now if I’d not got stuck in an elevator that day and managed to get the job—I feel a flash of envy towards whoever it was who got the cook’s job instead of me. Clearly some wrongly wired bit of my brain would rather be slaving over a hot stove to supply Jay’s hot dates with supper than actually being on the hot date with him myself.

“Jay, this all looks amazing,” I say, watching him open
up the hamper and produce a crisp white tablecloth, which he spreads over one of the upturned crates before reaching back into the hamper for a bottle of red wine and two crystal glasses. “And candles, too!” I add, as he brings out a handful of little tea lights and a box of matches. “You’ve thought of everything.”

“Well, I was going to pick you up and suggest we go back to mine for a takeaway pizza in front of an open fire.” He grins at me, lighting the last of the tea lights and starting to open the bottle of wine with a corkscrew. “But I didn’t want to make you feel I was just using any opportunity to lure you back to my place.”

I give a half-smile, and try to pull off that mysterious look he seemed so keen on back at the roof terrace, in order to conceal the fact that every part of my being is howling,
You’ve got it all wrong! Lure away! In fact, next time you’re of two minds about how to spend an evening in my company, just remember I’m a huge fan of open fires, and of anything at all that you might want to do to me in front of one.

But then I remember my plucked-chicken thighs, and the fact that I can’t possibly get up to anything tonight that might involve having to expose them. The open fire at Jay’s place is going to have to wait for a day when I haven’t been assaulted by a wax-laden spatula.

Jay pours a glass of wine and hands it to me. As I take the stem, our fingers touch.

I hear him catch his breath—or maybe it’s me catching mine. Either way, we both just stand and stare at our touching hands for what feels like roughly three days, but is probably more like three seconds. I’m the one who breaks the silence.

“Do you get manicures?”

“No, Charlie. I don’t get manicures.”

“Oh. Right.” I concentrate, hard, on not dropping the wineglass. “It’s just that your hands are . . . so nicely groomed.
So I just wondered if you have them manicured. Or if you just use a good hand cream, or something . . .”

Thank
God
, Jay puts an end to my nervous prattling
(manicures, Charlie? Seriously?)
by sliding his hand farther over mine. His skin is cool. The pads of his fingers caress the base of my fingernails. I mentally add
fingernails; base of
to the list of erogenous zones Jay Broderick seems capable of creating in me.

“You have lovely hands, too,” he says, softly.

“Thank you.”

“
Very
beautifully manicured.”

“Thank you.” I swallow. My throat is dry. I’ve no idea what to say next. “I . . . get pedicures, too.”

He laughs. “You’re hysterical, Charlie.”

I’ll take
hysterical
.
Hysterical
, let’s face it, is better than
a weird blabbermouth who seems to want the world to know intimate details of her foot-care habits.

He pulls his hand reluctantly away from mine and turns back to carry on setting out the picnic dinner.

“Dad’s cook was making shepherd’s pie, so I’ve brought us some. With lemon tart for afters.” He’s taking a tightly wrapped dish and a couple of proper china plates out of the hamper. “Better that than some miserable sandwiches, or a nibble of salad. At least, that’s what I thought. I mean, quite a lot of the girls I’ve dated before tend to get the vapors at the mere thought of carbs. You know, the kind of borderline anorexics who think mineral water is a food group. But if salad is what you’d prefer . . .”

Okay, this is a tricky one. Shooting through my head are several competing thoughts:

1) Jay is tired of dating borderline anorexics! (Great news);

2) Jay
hasn’t
accidentally mistaken me for a borderline anorexic (possibly not such great news);

3) Shepherd’s pie shepherd’s pie shepherd’s pie shepherd’s pie.

Greed (and aching hunger) crowd out the first two thoughts.

“Shepherd’s pie is perfect! In fact, this whole thing is perfect, Jay.” I go and sit down, cross-legged, where he’s indicating that I should sit, on one side of the crate. The smell of the shepherd’s pie, now that Jay is peeling off the foil covering, is mouth-watering. “I don’t think,” I add, sincerely, “that I’ve had such an amazing dinner as this in a long, long time.”

He looks delighted (though probably not quite as delighted as I do when I see exactly what he’s serving onto the two plates; the mash looks creamy and the meat looks lightly caramelized, and I feel as though I’ve died and gone to heaven before even tasting so much as a mouthful). “I hoped you’d like it! I mean, I don’t get the impression, Charlie, that you’re the kind of girl who only wants to go out to the most expensive restaurants and the most exclusive nightclubs. It’s what I find so refreshing about you,” he adds, sitting down beside me and clinking his glass against mine. “That you’d rather eat shepherd’s pie than salad. That you’re naturally gorgeous, without having to go to any effort.”

I choke on my mouthful of wine, and have to pretend it’s gone down the wrong way.

But really—
naturally
gorgeous? Without having to go to any effort? If only Jay knew about the eight solid hours of exercise I’ve put in since Saturday, and the miracles Rufus has just worked with his wonder-hands, and the Hairdressing Appointment that Time Forgot, and, of course, the agonies and indignities of Galina . . .