Christmas at Tiffany's (7 page)

All of which was great for Kelly, but none of which soothed Cassie’s nerves.

‘Here, you’re going to need one of these, by the way,’ Kelly said, opening a small enamel pill box and handing her two white tablets.

Cassie gasped. ‘Kelly!!’

Kelly dropped her shoulders and shook her head. ‘They’re ibuprofen tablets, Cassie! Painkillers. Just here, driver,’ she commanded, tipping the tablets into Cassie’s hand.

‘And why would I need
those
? I’m not having a tattoo or anything like that, Kell. I don’t care if they’re “in”.’

‘“In?”’ Kelly echoed, wrinkling her nose and teasing her. ‘Did you really just say that?’

Kelly paid the driver, held the door open for her and, linking her arm around Cassie’s elbow, led her towards an industrial-looking building. ‘We’ve already had this conversation – remember? Need-to-know only,’ Kelly said, patting her arm soothingly. ‘Look, I’m one of your oldest friends in the world, Cass. Everything I’m doing is in your best interests.’ She pushed the door open with her bottom as her BlackBerry beeped again. ‘Just trust me.’

‘Where are we?’

‘The only place that justifies travelling south of 57th,’ Kelly said, draping herself over a granite reception desk like a lounge singer. ‘Hey, Trudie. Bas ready for us?’

‘Oh yeah,’ the receptionist nodded. ‘He cleared his morning for you.’

Cassie felt the panic mount. What the hell was going to happen to her here?

‘Come this way,’ Trudie smiled. She handed Cassie a black wraparound cover-up and led her across a polished walnut floor. Everywhere Cassie looked, she could see women with foils, towels, dryers on their heads. So far, so conventional.

Then she saw him. The man Kelly had run over to and was hugging like a long-lost friend.

‘Cassie, this is Sebastien. Bas,’ Kelly said, taking a deep breath. ‘This is Cassie.’ The way she said it suggested that her ‘unveiling’ of Cassie was a momentous event.

‘Hi,’ Cassie said quietly. She was appalled. Rail-thin, six foot three and covered in acne scars, all she could think of as she looked at him was deep-fried Ryvita. She’d never seen someone so overly tanned. The man had clearly sailed past mahogany without stopping.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The way he was looking at her, it was as if
she
was the one who needed saving.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Hmmmm. Sit down,’ he said imperiously.

She slid into the chair and he swung her round to face him. Carefully, he pinched a strand of hair disdainfully between two fingers. It was true she hadn’t washed it since the party, and what with jet lag, an international flight, heartbreak and a near heart attack on the run this morning (Kelly had used up all the hot water in the shower, so it wasn’t as if she’d been able to wash it even then), she knew her hair wasn’t looking at its best. Cassie watched Bas and Kelly scrutinize her hair intently, and her mouth began to dry up. It all seemed terribly serious and suddenly very important that he should be able to help.

‘When was this last coloured?’ he asked, peering closely at the strands. ‘It must have been
years
,’ he murmured.

‘Actually, I’ve never coloured my hair,’ she said. It had always been a point of pride for her to have remained naturally blonde for so long, though her mother kept telling her that would change when she had children.

Bas dropped the hair in fright, his eyes roaming her face and taking in the aeroplane clothes, unwaxed eyebrows, unmanicured nails . . . if he only knew what was going on under her jeans.

‘You’re not from here, are you?’ he said sympathetically.

Cassie shook her head. Wasn’t it obvious? Little green men from Mars would do a better job of blending in than she would, it seemed.

Kelly checked her watch. ‘Are we good? You can do something?’

Bas paused dramatically and then nodded. ‘Yes. I can do something,’ he said with intensity, as though he was going to perform life-saving surgery.

‘You’re a king! I’ll come back in two.’ She kissed Cassie on the cheek and squeezed her shoulders reassuringly.

‘Make it three!’ he called after her.

Cassie shrank into the chair a little deeper as Kelly skittered out, straight back into a cab.

‘Soooooo,’ he exhaled. ‘What kind of blonde were you thinking of?

‘Just the usual, I guess,’ she shrugged.

He looked at her. ‘What does that mean?’

‘You know, kind of yellowish?’

‘Kind of
yellowish
?’ he echoed, shaking his head. ‘Oh boy, this is worse than I . . .’ He blew out his cheeks and started at the beginning. ‘My standard colours are butter, baby, champagne, flax, vanilla, platinum, canary diamond, honey, clotted cream. I
never
do ash. And that’s just for base block. If you say chardonnay, I’ll ask oaked? If you say honey, I’ll ask New Zealand, Clover or Manuka?
Capiche
?’

There was a long silence as Cassie tried to visualize the different tones. She dropped her face into her hands.

‘Oh God. And I asked for yellow,’ she cringed. She peered at him through her fingers. ‘I’m your worst nightmare, aren’t I?’

He stared at her, assessing her intently.

‘Actually,’ he said, brightening up and spinning her chair back to face the mirror. ‘You’re my dream come true. It’s women like you who allow me to show everyone exactly what I can do. He picked up her hair in his hands and this time let it fall like water through his fingers. ‘And I know exactly what to do with you!’

Four hours later, she was lying on her back – knees out, feet together – like a woman having a smear test. ‘Except this is so much worse. Much, much worse,’ she thought as she struggled to keep the little scrap of tissue paper in place.

Kelly was in the next cubicle. Not room, cubicle. It had been like walking into a World War Two field hospital when they’d got to the top of the stairs and rounded the corner. Line upon line of six-foot cloth screens separated one client from the next, sparing them the indignity of watching each other being plucked and waxed, but not sparing them the sound. Some women weren’t entirely successful at stifling the small yelp that burst out when the hot wax was ripped off – unlike Kelly, who was no doubt still texting – and Cassie was getting more tense by the second.

‘So what did she say when you told her you just kept applying over the old coats?’ Kelly asked from the other side of the screen.

‘She nearly threw up,’ Cassie mumbled. ‘I felt like I’d just told her I eat babies or something.’

Kelly burst out laughing, interrupting the sound of ripping and yelping coming from the rest of the room.

‘Then, when she got the colour off, she said my nails looked like rhino horn.’

Kelly laughed even harder. ‘Well, if you’re not going to use base coat . . .’ she managed, before descending into another fit of the giggles. ‘Anyway, they look great now. She does the best French polish in the city. That’s why she’s so in demand.’

‘Yeah, well, don’t be surprised if she suddenly moves to LA on the grounds of ill-health, that’s all I’m saying.’

The woman who’d ordered her to strip came back into cubicle. ‘Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here,’ she murmured, whipping away the strategically placed scrap of tissue paper and leaving Cassie with even less dignity than the pedicurist had. ‘Hmmm, I’ll need to trim,’ she said, turning for the scissors.

Trim? She’d already lost half the hair on her head today. She must have lost two pounds already.

‘Here, have a look at this whilst I get you prepped.’
Prepped?
Oh God. She actually was going to go into theatre – on painkillers!

The woman handed Cassie a laminated card printed with various different shapes. Cassie squinted at it. What was it – a sight test? Plane safety card? Tattoos? Shape recognition for toddlers? She turned it over. It was blank on the other side. ‘You mean you want me to choose one?’

‘Uh-huh,’ the woman muttered as she clipped away.

Cassie studied the card furiously, trying to distract herself from the fact that this stranger – this nameless Brazilian woman – now knew her more intimately than any other person on earth – former husband included. He’d never been particularly up for going down there.

Hearts, oblongs, rhomboids, stripes, stars, leaves swam before her eyes. Was that a dollar sign? For the second time today, she was faced with making a decision about something she’d never considered in her life before but which now required an instant opinion from her.

She sighed. What did it really matter anyway? No one was going to see it, and as decisions went – well, it was hardly up there with leaving her husband and country, was it? And wasn’t everything she was doing today part of showing that she was learning to live with the consequences of her departure – showing that she was surviving, moving on, growing up, evolving?

‘Heart,’ she smiled bravely as the woman put the scissors away and reached for the warm wax. She had a pretty good idea that she was going to walk out of here looking even more stunned than when she’d walked in.

‘You
never
told me that was what they’d do!’ Cassie hissed as they got out of the cab and Bill rushed to open the doors for them.

‘Well, of course not,’ Kelly soothed. ‘No one would ever go if they knew. It’s like having kids or something. If you knew how bad it was beforehand . . . tch, it would be the end of the human race in fifty years.’ She paid the driver. ‘But it feels nice, doesn’t it? Clean? Thanks, Bill.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Cassie grumbled. ‘Thanks, Bill.’ She was still feeling violated. She thought she might be in shock. She felt like she did the morning after she’d lost her virginity to Gil – that everybody must know! ‘It makes me feel damp. I used three times more loo roll when I went to the loo. At the very least it’s bad for the environment.’

They stepped into the lift and the aroma of Thai vegetables wafting from their bags instantly filled the tiny space. Kelly looked at her, shaking her head. ‘I have
never
heard that argument before. And absolutely everyone I know has Brazilians.’

‘They can’t do,’ Cassie protested. The idea that there was an entire ‘movement’ of women out here, that this was the norm men were presented with, was beyond belief.

Kelly shrugged as they got to her floor and the doors opened. ‘Well, I think it’s all been worth it. You look divine. I can hardly believe you’re the same person who collapsed on a park bench this morning and mugged Henry Sallyford.’

‘I did not mug him.’

‘Are you going to try those clothes on when we get in?’ Kelly asked, opening her door. ‘I can’t wait to see that ruby dress again.’

‘It doesn’t fit.’

‘Only a little bit. And remember, it is a sample size. It’s officially teeny. But a few more days of running and you’ll be in it, no problems.’

‘It would look a whole lot better on you.’

‘Well, we can share it,’ Kelly said, a brief look of relief crossing her face as she took off her heeled boots and padded up the hallway to put on her Babygro.

‘Who the hell ordered this?’ resounded the voice again. Cassie felt herself flinch and freeze. ‘I can’t work with this! I ordered Duchesse lace, not Guipure. I can’t possibly trim the fucking dress with that! I may as well use fricking carpet!’

Cassie slid her eyes – the only things she dared move – over to Kelly, who was staring solemnly at the open box of offending lace. From the look on her face, it appeared that this was a catastrophe.

There had already been a few this morning. First off, the make-up artist who was supposed to be coming in today to run through his ‘test look’ for the upcoming show had been stranded after Krakatau erupted whilst he was in Indonesia for a magazine shoot, and not only did ‘his people’ not know when he’d be able to get back, but despite Cassie having gone through the three-page-long list Kelly had hurriedly given her, every other make-up artist of international rank was now booked. Twenty minutes later, the supermodel who was supposed to be closing the show and walking out with Bebe for her lap of honour reneged on her booking ‘option’ because some photographer called Mario Testino was in town and he wanted her for his new project. Bebe had actually screamed when Cassie had relayed that message. And although the shoes had all arrived, after a three-week delay whilst the factory in Naples shut down for the summer, sadly only the left feet had been sent. And now, well, now the dresses were going to have to be trimmed with carpet.

Cassie chewed on her lip furiously whilst she waited for the next set of orders to be shouted out. It was her first day in her new job. When Kelly had introduced her to Bebe – tall, broad-boned with a crêpey bosom, deep, rasping voice and the nearest Cassie had ever seen to a man in drag – she had called Cassie her new Senior Account Executive. Cassie had gulped at the insinuation of experience her title carried and waited with dread for the barrage of questions about her fictional CV, but Bebe had merely looked her up and down and nodded her head approvingly. Her makeover, she realized, had been her interview – now she blended correctly into the Manhattan fashionscape. She had quickly cottoned on that although she knew nothing about PR and even less about fashion, all her job required her to do was keep Bebe happy. And right now, Bebe wasn’t happy.