Authors: Rebecca Chance
‘Her catwalk was legendary, apparently,’ Ponytail Girl
observed. ‘She’s still got it.’
‘Who are you?’ Victoria snapped, looking past Coco. ‘And
why are you distracting my assistant?’
‘I’m Zarina,’ the girl said. ‘Mireille’s assistant. She’d like to
schedule a time to formally meet and congratulate you on
your appointment.’
Victoria sipped some more water, making Zarina wait for
her answer.
Of course, Coco thought sourly. Of course she’s called
Zarina. And I bet it’s her real name, too. Nobody had to rechristen her because they didn’t think her original name was smart
enough for a top fashion magazine.
‘Mireille can come in to see me now,’ Victoria said eventually, setting down the glass. ‘I’ve sacked everyone I need to.’
‘Oh.’ Zarina’s heavy dark brows drew together. ‘I’m afraid
Mireille isn’t available until the afternoon. She’s got meetings
back-to-back all morning, and then she’s having lunch with
Isaac and Tom.’
Oh, excellent one-upmanship, Coco thought admiringly,
not daring to look at her boss. First she makes it clear that
Mireille’s busier than Victoria, and then she drops in Isaac
Mizrahi and Tom Ford’s names. Very nice.
No lowly assistant would dare to engage their newlyappointed editor in combat like this. There was no question
that Zarina had been specifically instructed by Mireille Grenier
in exactly what to say to Victoria Glossop, a ploy to make clear
right from the beginning how high Mireille considered her
status to be at
Style
.
Victoria took in this information, turning her left hand sideways, contemplating the fires dancing in her grey diamond
engagement ring, sparked by the daylight streaming over her
shoulder; she had had Jennifer Lane Davis’s blackout blinds
removed, and the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows was
breathtaking. Coco, still unused to the height and spectacle of
Manhattan’s skyscrapers, couldn’t help but be distracted by
the panorama. She wondered if she’d ever get used to it, ever
be blasé about the fact that she was working in midtown, in
the heart of New York, commuting up from Brooklyn every
day on the subway, sticking out her hand to hail yellow taxis,
living like a character from one of the hundreds of films and
TV series she’d watched for so long. She was like Rachel in
Friends
, Carrie in
Sex and the City
, Robin in
How I Met Your
Mother
: smart single girls, walking confidently around the city,
as if they owned it.
To think when I lay in bed back at Mum and Dad’s and stared
so wistfully at the TV, imagining myself inside it, living those girls’
lives. And now I am! Rachel worked at Bloomingdales, Carrie
wrote for Vogue, Robin’s a news anchor – I’m in fashion and the
media, just like them. No one in Luton can believe where I’ve
ended up. It’s like going to space, landing on the moon – not just
being in New York, but working at Style as well.
Tiff, still aggrieved at having to call her sister Coco, had
nicknamed her ‘Andy’, after Anne Hathaway’s character in
The
Devil Wears Prada
, who found herself working on a fashion
magazine that closely resembled
Vogue
. But Andy didn’t want
to be in fashion, ended up rejecting it, while for Coco it was
her dream – truly, at this stage, her life. Tiff, Craig, Mr and Mrs
Raeburn, were all dying to visit New York, come and see her,
but Coco kept putting them off, as she did the few friends she
had left in Luton.
She had no place for them to stay, she emailed everyone.
Which was true: the tiny flat she and Emily had managed to
find in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, was really a one-bedroom, all
they could afford. The people they were subletting from had
put a bed in the living room, which at least wasn’t open-plan
with the tiny kitchen. After trekking round what felt like
hundreds of places, they’d fallen on it with huge enthusiasm
and signed a year-long lease then and there. One of the things
sitcoms set in New York didn’t show you was how people
really lived, the cramped apartments with the only view out of
the one window being the brick wall of the apartment building next door.
At least she was lucky to have Emily to share with; Victoria
had wanted to bring over a few London staffers, to seed her
own people through
US Style
, and Coco had casually suggested
Emily, concealing from Victoria her own burning excitement
at having a friend in New York with her. Victoria was quite
capable of drawing a line through Emily’s name just to show
Coco who was boss. Coco was learning to handle Victoria just
as she was learning her way around Manhattan. But it took all
the time she had to spare.
Which meant she had no time for guests either, she’d gone
on to tell everyone back home. Nights and weekends she was
perpetually on call to Victoria, whose demands had intensified tremendously with the move back to New York, and
when she wasn’t rushing to meetings with realtors and interior designers on Victoria and Jeremy’s behalf, Coco spent
every waking moment in the fashion cupboard, determined
to familiarise herself with every bracelet and pair of stockings
it contained before she started her job there so she could hit
the ground running.
I do have Stockholm Syndrome, she thought ironically,
having Googled the term now: it came from a group of people
in Stockholm who were taken hostage in a bank robbery, and
not only resisted being rescued but refused to testify in the
trial of their kidnappers.
I’m defending Victoria’s bad behaviour to people, trying to find a new assistant who’ll cater to her
every whim, following in her footsteps so I can be where she is
one day . . .
Lost in a momentary reverie, a dream of editing her own
magazine, Coco was jerked back to reality by the sight of
Victoria’s sleek blonde head rising into her eyeline; Victoria
had stood up, was walking towards the door. Coco jumped out
of the way, and was pleased to see that Zarina did the same.
‘No time like the present,’ Victoria observed, with a malicious little smile, as she trod elegantly into the corridor and
turned down it.
Coco’s eyes widened. She knew exactly where Victoria was
going. And so, from the agonised glance that Zarina darted at
her, did the other girl.
‘Mireille’s in a meeting,’ Zarina hissed at Coco. ‘She can’t
just go in there!’
‘Are you joking?’ Coco hissed back. ‘You never say “can’t” to
Victoria!’
Zarina hurried away, the narrow suede sheath hobbling her.
Coco watched her with great amusement: the skirt was so
tight that Zarina’s knees snapped awkwardly against the hem
of the dress with every short darting step.
‘
Le drama
!’ said a girl in an exaggerated fake French accent,
emerging from an office a little further down the corridor,
watching Zarina rush off in Victoria’s wake. ‘
Ooh la la!
’
Coco giggled, relieved to have some release from all the
tension of the morning. The girl was Chinese-looking, with
matte skin the colour of parchment, big bright eyes and a heavy,
choppy bob with an asymmetric fringe. Her flat-chested, boyish
figure was perfect for her silk shirt with its big floppy, pussycat
bow at the neck, tucked into wide-legged tweed trousers.
‘She’s trying to get past to warn Mireille,’ the girl said, craning her head to see. ‘Oh, Victoria’s blocking her – she’s not
letting her pass . . .’
Coco didn’t even need to look. ‘Victoria’ll elbow her in the
face if she gets too close,’ she said.
‘Hah! She tackles . . . Victoria’s gone in . . .’ The girl nipped
down the corridor for a better vantage point. ‘She blocks –
she’s shut the door in Zarina’s face!’ she reported back
breathlessly, as other heads popped cautiously out of their
offices to hear what was happening. ‘Zarina’s livid. Ooh –
outcoming missiles . . .’
Two smart young women came shooting out of Mireille’s
office and down the corridor as if they’d been fired from a
cannon, their faces flushed, on the verge of tears.
‘She just stormed in and yelled at us to get out,’ one of them
said to the girl, her voice choked. ‘
So
rude!’
‘
No
couth,’ agreed the other one, gulping hard in an attempt
to hide how much her voice was trembling.
‘And now I’ve left my rail in Mireille’s office,’ Girl Number
One wailed.
‘I’ve left my
bangles in
there,’ Girl Number Two chimed in,
managing to make this sound even more serious.
‘Oh God, I
so
need a wheatgrass shot,’ Girl Number One
said. ‘This is worse than when my houseshare in the Hamptons
fell through at the last minute!’
They disappeared into a side office, their high-pitched
voices rising and falling like birds in an aviary terrified of a cat
stalking round the bars.
‘You’re Victoria’s assistant?’ the girl with the bob said to
Coco, strolling back to her own office now the flurry of activity
had died down.
‘Just till I hire someone to do it,’ Coco said defensively.
‘Then I’ll be running the fashion cupboard.’
‘Wow.’ The girl grinned, and held out her hand. ‘I’ll get in
early with the sucking up, then. Always good to be friends with
the queen of the cupboard! Plus, you came over with our new
editor, you’ll know all the dirt, right?’
Coco shook her hand, noticing that the girl, like most of the
other Stylites she had seen so far, didn’t seem to be wearing a
scrap of make-up.
‘I’m Lucy,’ the girl said. ‘Lucy Lee. I know, sounds like it’s
something out of a comic, doesn’t it? But everyone remembers
it, so that’s a plus.’
‘Coco Raeburn,’ Coco said. She paused, then blurted out:
‘But that’s not my real first name. Victoria renamed me. She
didn’t think my real name was “fashion” enough.’
‘
O-kay
.’ Lucy blinked hard. ‘So I guess all the stories about
her are true.’
Coco nodded. ‘Most definitely.’
‘Still, my money’s on Mireille,’ Lucy said, gesturing down
the corridor to the fashion director’s office. ‘She’s seen three
editors come and go.’
‘Victoria’s really scary,’ Coco said doubtfully.
‘Yeah, but look what just happened,’ Lucy said. ‘Mireille got
Victoria to go to her! Now they’re going at it on her turf –
she’s got the home field advantage.’
Coco looked at her, taking this in.
‘Battle of the Titans,’ Lucy said. ‘There’s a Chinese curse –
“May you live in interesting times”.’ She grinned. ‘Well, here
we are! Want me to show you where the canteen is? They’ll be
in there for a while, so you’ve got time to grab a quick coffee.
Or a wheatgrass shot, if you want to try that. Be careful,
though. That stuff goes straight through you . . .’
s soon as Victoria stepped into Mireille’s office, she knew
she had made a mistake. Idiot, she snapped at herself. It
wasn’t a consolation to anyone who suffered under Victoria’s
lash, because they didn’t know it, but Victoria was, if possible,
even harder on herself than she was on others. As the two
junior editors fled the scene, flapping like sheets on a clothing
line, Victoria mentally excoriated herself for being so stupid.
You should have made her come to you! Instead, you let her get
you angry and you let down your guard. Fool! You just acted like
a total amateur!
She took a deep breath, trying to regain control. Mireille
was sitting behind her desk, one eyebrow raised, looking
supremely elegant in that annoying French way. She had
perpetual dark shadows under her eyes that she disdained to
cover with a stroke of Touche Éclat, and which her red lipstick
actually emphasised; those circles would look ghastly on
anyone but a Frenchwoman, Victoria thought crossly. But this
bitch manages to look like a world-weary film star.
Memories of working at
US Style
years ago, presenting
edited selections of clothes to Mireille the way the fluttering
editors had been in the middle of doing, flashed vivid in
Victoria’s mind. She had been hired as a features editor, but
Victoria was no writer, had no gift for it, and though her ideas
had been excellent, her copy had always been rewritten.
Unable to sack her, because of Jacob’s patronage, Jennifer had
switched her to the fashion desk – reluctantly, as she feared
that this would put Victoria in more direct competition with
her. She’d been absolutely right. Victoria had used her transfer
as a lever to get
Harper’s Bazaar
to make her an offer; no one
had ever breathed a greater sigh of relief as Jennifer had done
when Victoria announced she was leaving.
This should have been Victoria’s moment of triumph: back
in Mireille’s office, but in charge now, no longer needing
Mireille’s approval. They had crossed paths since Victoria had
left
Style
, of course: at the collections in Paris, London, Milan,
New York, at galas and benefits, at private viewings in designers’ ateliers. Victoria had always treated Mireille with a wary
respect; her reputation was legendary. But Mireille was
currently making it clear that she considered herself in no way
subordinate to Victoria. She had already played this perfectly.
One-nil to Mireille.
‘Victoria, my dear. What an unexpected pleasure,’ Mireille
said, smiling. But she did not get up, nor did she offer Victoria
a seat.
Victoria’s eyes narrowed. Sit down, or keep standing? She
swivelled on her high heels, walking over to the far window,
turning her back on Mireille in a deliberate ploy to gain some
control of the situation.
‘I hear you have been firing away with merry abandon,’ Mireille
said, considerable amusement in her voice. ‘You have certainly
made your point,
ma chère
. Everyone is terrified of you.’
Except you, Victoria thought irritably. She studied her
reflection in the glass window: her Prada dress, which she had
had shortened to show off her legs, was in a cream and caramel
print, and her arms were loaded with wide tortoiseshell bracelets. She was currently obsessed with shades of brown; it felt
very directional. Turning to face Mireille, she noticed with
great annoyance that the trays of bangles and cuffs brought in
by the accessories editor were bang on trend; she could find
nothing to criticise. In fact, her hand itched to pick up one
particularly attractive gold-chased Galliano mesh wristlet . . .