Picture Perfect (23 page)

Then I clear my throat.

I memorised that speech from my guidebook on the train on the way home, just in case anybody asked. It’s a good thing I know my family so well.

“Give me your guidebook, Harriet.”

Unfortunately, they appear to know me even better.

I reach into my satchel and hand it over. Annabel flicks through it and then stops. I really wish I hadn’t underlined those exact sentences in green highlighter.

“Right,” she says slowly. “Well, I’m glad you’ve taken the study of New York so seriously. That should come in handy over the next few days.”

She hands me back the guidebook.

“Why?” I frown. “What do you mean?”

“You’re grounded, Harriet.”

I stare at her, and then at Dad. “Do you mean
well balanced and sensible
?” I ask. “Or … prevented from flying, like an aeroplane?”

“I mean you’re grounded. Verb, informal. You will stay in your room for the next five days.”

OK: I’ve never been
grounded
. Ever.

“But …” I can feel alarm creeping up my throat. The shoot’s tomorrow. I
have
to go. If I don’t, I’m going to let Wilbur and Nancy down. My fashion career will be over for the second time. I’ll be back to being nobody all over again.

“No buts,” Annabel says, recrossing her arms. “Go to your room.”

“
Dad
—”

“Nope,” he says. “Beneath this deceptively charming and handsome exterior, I am genuinely quite angry.” He clears his throat. “So do what Annabel said. Go to your room, etcetera.”

Then they both shuffle slightly and look at each other.

I think they’re even more surprised about this than I am. It looks like they’re rehearsing a scene from a play called
How to Deal With Naughty Children
and they haven’t quite learnt their lines properly
.

“Do I get to leave my room to go to the toilet? Or do you want me to use a houseplant?”

They glance at each other. “You can use the toilet,” they decide unanimously.

“And the kitchen, or do you want me to starve?”

Silence. “We’ll leave food outside your door.”

“And the garden or do I have to take deep breaths through the floorboards?”

“
Harriet
,” Annabel snaps. “Go to your bedroom. We will work out the oxygen requirements of this grounding later.”

“
FINE
,” I shout, stomping up the stairs and slamming yet another door behind me. “
WHATEVER.
”

Except nothing is fine at all.

So I get up the next morning at 5am, when the entire house and everyone in it is still fast asleep.

I turn off my phone.

And I run away again.

ew York is a different place this early in the morning.

Gone are the tourists, the cameras, the breathable trainers and the waterproof backpacks. Gone are the giant maps and the confused conversations and the buzzy, impatient queues next to the information booths.

At 7am, New Yorkers take their city back.

I stand quietly in Grand Central station, watching their neat suits, tailored dresses and silk scarves: moving with the deliberate poise and grace of people who know exactly where they’re going.

And even though I know my dad should still be in bed, every time I see a man with red hair, I have to duck behind one of them.

Running away is a lot harder than it looks.

Especially when everybody in the entire world suddenly seems to have morphed overnight into my dad.

“My little Pease-blossom,” Wilbur says as yet another man in a suit and unnecessarily colourful tie walks down the stairs and I abruptly bolt behind a nearby column. “Are we playing hide-and-seek? Are you under some impression that you look exactly like an enormous piece of marble and therefore blend in perfectly?”

I peek out from behind it and glance at the enormous, lit-up, multi-faceted clock hanging above us. 6.34am
.
According to their usual schedule, Dad and Annabel
should
just be waking up now.

I shiver slightly.

It’s starting to look like the clock isn’t the only thing in this building with more than one face.

“Actually,” I say, patting the column, “I think this is Indiana limestone, which is sedimentary rock, while marble is metamorphic. They’re really quite different.”

Wilbur rubs his eye tiredly with the sleeve of his gold lamé jacket. “Bunny-ears, they could both be made from the compressed souls of angels and kittens at this time of the morning and I wouldn’t give a squirrel’s bottom.”

He starts wobbling off across the concourse so I quickly scan the room once more for angry redheads in their mid-forties and then follow him.

“So, where’s the shoot?” I studied my guidebook on the train this morning for an hour and a half, trying to distract myself from the guilt by guessing where the location could be. “The Empire State Building? Central Park? The Rockefeller Center? Inside a diner, leaning against the metal counters and eating hamburgers?”

“Chunky-monkey,” Wilbur laughs. “This is
high art.
We want
subversive. Insightful. Explosive.
We’re not shooting the front cover for
New York for Tourists.
”

This is probably why models aren’t really asked for their creative input.

Somebody shouts
Harriet
and I spin round with a dry mouth. “Hurry
up,
” a woman sighs again at a little girl, dragging her doll along the floor. “Why are you always so slow?”

I swallow noisily as Wilbur starts pulling a huge suitcase towards the stairs that lead down to the subway.

“Harriet?”

I flinch and turn to the side. “
Hawt
,” a man says, flapping himself with his hand. “It’s so
hawt
, isn’t it?”

And then the crowd dissolves into a hum of
Harriet Harriet Harriet Harriet …

Oh my God. I’m going mad.

I ran away less than two hours ago and guilt is already turning me into Lady Macbeth. Any minute now I’ll be scrubbing imaginary blood off my hands, or – in this instance – the tears of my worried parents.

I pause on the stairs and look into the darkness. The handrail is sticky, there’s a rush of hot, damp air, and it smells of sweat and oil and metal. A thundering sound starts rumbling and gets louder until the floor shakes.

I want to go back to Greenway.

“Umm,” I say, turning around. “Wilbur, I’ve made a horrible mistake.”

“Mistake?” Wilbur looks at my striped trousers and green gym shirt with pursed lips, and then shakes his head. “No, Sugar-lump. This look is divine. Although maybe try pool sliders instead of flip-flops next time.”

“I mean –” I cough – “today. The shoot. Can they replace me?”

Wilbur starts laughing.

“Can they
replace
you? Bless my baby cabbages, you’re not a salad with the wrong dressing, Munchkin. The shoot’s in an hour. I can’t magic models out of thin air like genies, as handy as that would be.” Then he pats my shoulder. “What’s up, Poppet? Don’t you want a day at the seaside?”

And – just like that – my day splits down the middle.

I can go back to Greenway: to the loneliest bedroom, the angriest parents and the longest extended grounding in the known history of man, ever. I can sit in my bedroom and wonder what page of my diary Alexa is currently laughing at and which
amazing
new cafés Jessica has taken Nat to. I can wonder whether my dog even remembers what I look like.

Or I can go to the beach.

Sunshine. Sand. Sea. Hot dogs. Deckchairs. Dolphins, jumping in perfectly timed sequence through sparkling water. Apparently there are 7.5 billion billion grains of sand in the world, and it’s been at least two years since I saw
any
of them.

I’m in huge trouble anyway. I may as well earn my punishment properly. That’s just basic logic.

“A
seaside
? In New York? Really?”

“
Absolutement
. I’ll even buy you an ice cream, which I will then not allow you to eat because you’re a
model
and cold whipped fat is not one of the dietary requirements.”

I think about it. The seaside sounds
very
far from Dad’s New York City office, which might mean I can stop hearing my name every couple of seconds.

“Harriet?”

A woman walks past. “I just hate having to get up this early,” she says into her phone. “Don’t you just hate it?”

I don’t really have a choice. Plus I’m still wearing my favourite flip-flops this morning so at least I look marginally appropriate.

I nod and wait until Wilbur’s plinking down the stairs again: one hand held loosely in the air, another dragging the suitcase in loud crashes behind him.

And I pull out the box in my head: the box I haven’t touched in months. Tentatively, I open it. Then – gently, softly – I put in Annabel. I put in Dad. I put in Tabitha. I put in Nat and Toby and Hugo. I lob in Alexa, still clutching my purple diary.

Finally, with a guilty wince, I put in Nick.

And then I gently close it.

It’s just for the morning, that’s all.

Just one tiny morning while I have a bit of fun. And then, when I’ve had my morning of adventure, I’ll get everyone back out again and deal with the consequences.

Whatever they may be.

ere are some fascinating facts about the New York subway: