How Not to Shop (6 page)

'High powered, eh?' He put his arms round her waist and kissed her firmly on the mouth.

'Good luck, you're going to be great.'

Then it was Lana's turn.

'Bye-bye, babes,' Annie told her, kissing her on the cheek. She was very proud of her daughter right now. The sulky, Gothy, irritating phase seemed to be over and in its place Annie had a model teenage daughter. Maybe this was a phase too. But, please, please, let this phase last for ever.

Lana's long, dyed black locks had been replaced with a natural brown choppy bob, her uniform was neat and ironed and her skirt was respectably within sight of her knee. Plus, she was working impressively hard for her exams. She'd even gone straight to her room to do homework as soon as they'd come in from the party the other night.

Annie knew who she had to thank for this improvement. Lana had had this charming boyfriend Andrei (yes, yes, Annie perhaps hadn't appreciated his charms as much as she should have done when Andrei was around) but although Lana and Andrei had called it a day, his swotty, sporty influence seemed to have had a very good effect on Lana.

Owen, now 12 was maybe in need of a good influence of his own. As she bent down to kiss him, she couldn't help noticing his overgrown, unbrushed shock of hair and his anorak, half on, half off with the hood twisted inside the collar. Even his bags were in a muddle; his rucksack and his swimming bag had got tangled up together in the journey to his shoulders. On his feet were shoes as scuffed and muddied as they'd been yesterday morning when she'd decided to give them a good clean. And they were still fastened with Velcro because Owen coping with laces in the rush to get to school had tipped everyone close to the edge.

'Lunches!' Annie remembered and ran back to the kitchen to get the three lunchboxes.

They were easily capable of making their own packed lunches, but this was Annie's thing. Usually, she wasn't home in time to make dinner, plus Ed enjoyed doing dinner, so Annie's love and nurturing were channelled into the lunchboxes. Every day there was a freshly made sandwich and a yoghurt, then a selection of extras: fresh fruit, berries or raw vegetables sliced up in little Tupperware boxes. Or nuts, dried fruit, cartons of juice and always a little something. A wrapped sweetie, a square of chocolate, a tangerine with a love heart carved on the side, a row of kisses drawn on a napkin. She wanted them to know that, although she was busy, she didn't stop thinking about them.

Handing Owen his lunchbox, Annie had to ask her son, 'Why are you carrying a placard?' even though Ed was holding the front door open and it really was time to go.

'Raffle tickets,' Owen answered.

'Yeah, I noticed that,' Annie informed him, because the words RAFFLE TICKETS had been drawn across the placard in large capitals then coloured in orange, red and yellow, 'but tickets for what?'

'I'm in the eco-committee,' Owen said breezily.

'Are you?'

This was the first Annie had heard of it.

'Yeah!' Ed confirmed, 'hasn't he told you? He's really chuffed, they're having a big sale—'

'To raise money for the WWF,' Owen confirmed.

When Annie looked at him questioningly, Lana filled her in with an exasperated sigh: 'The World Wide Fund for Nature, Mum.'

'We really have to go,' Ed reminded them.

'Well that's great,' Annie said proudly, 'but why am I always the last to know these things?'

Ed gave her a reassuring wink. He didn't like her to beat herself up. She was a good mother, just a bit busy – like almost every other mother he knew.

'Your mum will buy ten quids' worth of tickets tonight,' Ed promised Owen as he ushered him out of the door.

'Hey, I thought I was on a budget!' Annie warned them.

'Will you go and get dressed?!' Ed ordered, pointing at his watch.

As soon as her family had gone for the day, Annie fled back upstairs to the bedroom. A frenzied burst of wardrobe ransacking followed in which at least twenty different outfits were chosen, put together, even tried on in some cases, and then discarded.

This was the curse of being a personal shopper and wardrobe adviser: there was too much pressure on Annie to wear the perfect outfit.

The problem was, she felt totally unsure about today. This was her first meeting with everyone . . . was she supposed to dress up? Dress down? Look authoritative? Or friendly? One of the gang? Or the star? It was enough to make her scream.

Carefully, she studied her latest outfit in the mirror and wondered if it was right. Having tried on five different dresses and several skirts, she was now in trousers, which was highly unusual. She was a dedicated dress wearer. But the wide-legged grey trousers with heels, a waistcoat and this funky pink blouse looked pretty good, and she'd add a long trailing scarf plus necklaces. Would that be TV-ish? A little bit creative? Arty?

Maybe not.

No.

She'd change – try something else.

The loud honk of a car horn blasted through her thoughts.

They were here! This was her car! It was now or never, she had to get her bag and go. She looked in the mirror and hated the trousers. Hated them. This was all a terrible mistake. Nevertheless, she grabbed her favourite, most luxurious handbag, threw in her purse, and headed out of the front door.

At the side of the road, waiting for her was a rather beaten-up looking estate car. The man in the driver's seat was waving to her cheerily. As she approached, he slid the window down and called out, 'Hello glamour puss, you must be Annie Valentine then?'

'Hello,' she replied, 'Are you taking me to the studios?'

'Yup, Bob Barratt,
Wonder Women
cameraman at your service,' he gave a jokey salute and leaned across the front seat to open the front passenger's door for her.

'Come sit up front with me, it's nice and friendly and that way you won't get tangled up in all the clobber on the back seat.'

Annie jumped in and shook Bob's hand enthusiastically. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that the entire back seat and boot of the car was filled with equipment: cameras, camera bags, tripods, cables, lights and a selection of jackets – waterproof, waxy, down, plus a pile of baseball caps.

'I like to travel light,' Bob joked as he fired up the engine, 'so . . . it's a forty-minute journey. Time for us to get acquainted.' He turned to shoot her a cheery smile and pushed up the brim of today's baseball cap to get a better look at her. 'You were sort of on my way, so Finn suggested I pick you up. Saves him a taxi fare, I suppose. I think saving will be the name of the game on this show. Mind you, it's like this all over TV now . . . I've been in the business for twenty-eight years and I've never seen anything like it.'

'Twenty-eight years? You don't look nearly old enough,' Annie was quick to tell him.

'Aha!' Bob laughed the compliment away.

If he'd started at 18, that would make him about 46, she guessed. He was a fit-looking 46, carrying his slim jeans and rugged brown leather jacket well. Gunmetal grey hair curled out from beneath his cap, and laughter lines were deep set into his darkly tanned face. He either went on holiday a lot, or he was a very outdoorsy, weather-beaten kind of guy. He seemed relaxed, quick to smile and joke, so Annie tried to relax too.

'So you're new to TV?' Bob asked as the car pulled out into the stream of traffic.

'Yeah, first day,' she confided.

'Well, the number one rule is to be very, very nice to the cameraman,' he joked. 'I'm the one who picks which angle to shoot you from, Missus. I can make you look like Marilyn Monroe or Marilyn Manson. So be nice.'

'OK,' she agreed, 'now if you could just tell me everything else that I need to know . . .'

It took a full fifty minutes to get to the studios. The traffic was bad, plus Bob insisted on pulling over at a drive-thru to get them both cups of coffee and a breakfast bun: 'You never know when you'll eat next. Have to have a good breakfast,' he insisted.

Finally, the car was parked up and Bob unloaded the heavy camera bags and tripod.

'Follow me,' he said. 'Time to go in and meet the family.'

As they were signed in at the reception area, Annie realized that she was growing clammy with nerves. Along several narrow corridors they went, until Bob opened the door on a small room already busy with people.

Annie was relieved to see that Svetlana was there. Perched elegantly on a chair, she was sipping tea from a china teacup, wearing a drop-dead glamorous cream dress. Svetlana liked to emphasize her blondeness, her immaculate complexion and her perfect curves in all the shades of pale.

Before Annie had even managed to utter a hello, a thin girl in a tight grey jacket and skinny leather trousers stepped in front of her, looked her up and down critically and barked out, 'Trousers? I thought we'd all agreed that on this show,
I
wear the trousers.'

Finn tries to stay hip:

Leather jacket (AllSaints)
Skinny jeans (Nudie)
T-shirt (Cult)
Converse boots (Office)
Total est. cost: £470

'Woohoo!'

'Woohoo, here comes Annie! Hello!' Finn bounded up to Annie as she stood dumbstruck, and kissed her flamboyantly on both cheeks. He was a forty-something doing his best to look younger and cooler. Both probably essential qualities in the TV world. He wore his skinny jeans with red Converse boots and a scuffed leather jacket and his greying at the temples hair was cut into a youthful Caesar crop. In Finn-speak, everything was 'groovy', 'crucial', 'woohoo' or 'sooo happening'.

'Welcome, come in, hello Bob . . . time to meet everyone.' Finn took Annie by the arm and, although the room was compact, led her round to introduce her to the surprisingly small team of people who would be putting the show together. Finn was producer and director, he explained quickly. Then there was Nikki, his assistant and 'right hand girl'. Thankfully, Nikki was good at make-up too. Bob was in charge of 'lights, camera and action'.

'So there's no sound guy, then?' Bob asked a little bluntly.

'Erm . . . I'm hoping you'll be able to manage,' Finn admitted sheepishly; 'the budget just keeps getting tighter . . . Annie, you know Svetlana of course.'

Svetlana stood up and treated Annie to the multiple-cheeked Ukrainian kissing ritual, then Finn steered her in the direction of the terrifying girl in the trousers: 'Meet Miss Marlise.'

Annie guessed the 'Miss' was because of the strict, teacher-ish persona she had styled for her television self. She didn't look much older than 25 but with her short ebony black bob, pale face, red lipstick and severe clothes, she certainly looked as if she'd like to crack a whip at someone.

Marlise extended a hand and gave a small smile: 'A pleasure to meet you,' she said in very clipped tones.

'Hi,' Annie smiled at her as they shook hands, 'I've heard lots of good things about you,' which wasn't exactly true. In fact, in the car, Bob had rolled his eyes at the mention of Miss Marlise and declared, 'As far as I've heard, she's trouble.' But here on day one of her TV career, Annie wanted only to be a ray of sunshine.

'Sorry about the trousers,' she added, 'nobody told me . . .'

Marlise's tense smile remained and she gave a little nod.

'Right!' Finn opened a large black file, 'we've got lots to get through. I'll tell you about the format for each thirty-minute programme, then we'll work out our shooting schedule. Talent on my left please, girls,' he gestured, 'crew on my right.'