Picture Perfect (33 page)

Gotham Hall? Isn’t that where Batman lives?

Then I look at the envelope. It has HARRIET MANNERS written on it in huge letters, and was clearly opened before she handed it to me.

“Who gave you this?”

“That funny little stylist, William or whatever. I bumped into him at LA MODE yesterday. I said I’d be seeing you and he asked me to pass this on. Except apparently they’ve run out of invitations so you’ll have to take me as your Plus One.”

“It’s Wil
bur
,” I say distantly. “With a
bur
and not an
iam
.” Then I look at the invitation again. “I can’t go. I need to get home before it gets dark.”

“We can’t
not
go,” Kenderall says. “
Everyone
who is
anyone
will be there. And we
need
to be the anyones.”

“But …”

If they haven’t already, Annabel and Dad will surely work out I’m missing by nightfall. I’ve got to get back to Greenway before it’s too late.

“Oh,” Kenderall says tensely as I desperately search for an excuse that sounds more grown-up than
I’m grounded
. “So I do all this stuff for you, but you won’t even go to a
party
for me? I thought we were
friends
.”

I flush with guilt.

I am being incredibly selfish.

Again.

“I suppose we could just pop in?” I suggest tentatively, quickly trying to do the maths. If we just drop in, I can be home around 8pm. That isn’t
that
late, is it?

“Awesome,” Kenderall says, holding out a bag.

“Oh, and you left these at Fred’s. Your
Ump
will never work if you don’t actually wear them, y’know.”

Inside the bag are the lobster shoes.

Sugar cookies
.

“We’ll just be there for half an hour, right?” I check as Kenderall grabs my elbow and starts dragging me down the road behind her.

“Babe,” she laughs. “Half an hour is all we’re going to need.”

otham Hall was built in 1922.

It was originally the Greenwich Savings Bank, and was inspired by an Ancient Roman prototype with columns of limestone and sandstone. Inscriptions are written all over the inside: about Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom, and Mercury, the god of Commerce.

And Batman has never lived there.

None of which is of any interest to Kenderall.

As we walk through the Upper East Side of Manhattan, down Fifth Avenue, past the Four Seasons and Prada and Gucci and Tiffany & Co. and Armani, I crack out my guidebook and find out as much as I can about where we’re going. Partly because I’m genuinely curious and partly because studying is what I automatically do when I’m really nervous
.

But mostly because if my head is burrowed in a book, I can pretend I can’t see all of the people staring at me.

Half an hour ago, Kenderall dragged me into the Bloomingdale’s’ toilet to get ready. I now look like the enthusiastic love-child of disco Barbie and a rainbow macaw.

My dress is bright red and yellow and blue and green. It runs in a tight column all the way down to my feet and then explodes into a mass of yellow feathers at the bottom and in a stream along the floor.

My skin is covered in thick foundation, my cheeks are pink, my lips are red and on my eyelids are fake black eyelashes so large that every time I look up I think a couple of enormous spiders are trying to attack my face.

On my feet are the lobster shoes.

And – between the extreme tightness of the dress and the highness of my heels – the only real method of transporting myself is to shuffle in tiny pigeon steps, like a traditional Japanese geisha.

Or, you know: a pigeon.

In the meantime, Kenderall looks beautiful in a simple orange minidress with a gold chain belt.

“
What?!
” she says as I look at my outfit and then at hers. “Babe, orange is my
brand
.”

In the animal kingdom, colour has many uses. It can be used as camouflage or as a warning. It can be a way of communicating, of attracting or repelling, of scaring or appealing.

It can even be a way of pretending.

The Monarch butterfly has bright colours to let the world know it’s poisonous. The Viceroy butterfly has bright colours to make the world think it’s a Monarch.

I think I know which category I fall into.

On the upside, at least nobody’s going to try and eat me. I look
extremely
inedible.

We turn the corner on to Broadway and Gotham Hall looms in front of us. It’s tucked away, as only an enormous eight-column Romanesque building can be tucked away in New York: smallish and antique against the vast skyscrapers.

An American flag hangs at the front, a red carpet curves down the stairs, and blue lights are shining from underneath and wrapped in tiny sparkles around the trees outside so the whole thing looks enchanted.

As we walk nearer I realise with a lurch that New York has changed again.

Gone is the sunny tourist buzz of a New York day or the quiet calm of a New York early morning. Gone is the far-away twinkle of New York when you look at it from a distance.

At dusk, it’s like the inside of a kaleidoscope. The bright reds and greens of traffic lights, the yellows and pinks and oranges of shop signs and cars flashing, the blues of fairy lights, the whites and yellows of lamps and lit offices, the purples and blacks and silvers of the people walking past.

And across the road, next to Gotham Hall, people are emerging smoothly from black cars in short bursts of colour, like butterflies from a chrysalis.

They walk up the red carpet into Gotham Hall, glittering and shimmering. A blonde with an enormous, pale pink dress with embroidered lace down her back; a brunette with dark ringlets and a green gown with sequins like stars all over it. An older lady with a silver chignon and a navy blue high-necked gown; a young girl in lilac decorated with pale blue flowers.

The men follow them: monochrome and rigid in black and white, like gallant penguins.

I look nervously down at my dress for the umpteenth time.

I still don’t like parties. They terrify me. And this one looks like the most daunting one I’ve ever been within a mile of.

Maybe Kenderall will let me ‘make an impression’ from Pronto Pizza takeaway opposite. I can stand on a table and twirl round every time she points in my direction.

“Umm,” I say, trying to prop myself up against a bollard. If I fall over, I suspect I’m going to go down in a straight line, like a tree. “Are you sure I look … appropriate?”

“Babe,” Kenderall says. “You look
remarkable.
”

The word
remarkable
comes from the sixteenth century French word,
remarquer,
which means: observable, extraordinary, conspicuous.

But that just means I stand out.

It doesn’t actually indicate whether it’s in a good way or bad.

“She does,” a voice says from behind us. “She looks incredible.”

My cheeks are red before I’ve even spun round.

“Hi, Cal,” I mumble. “How are you?”

“Brilliant,” he says, flashing his blinding smile.

There’s no sign of the awkwardness of just a few hours ago. No sign, in fact, that he remembers the planetarium, or holding my hand, or seeing me at all.

I feel myself relax a little.

Maybe I didn’t offend him. Maybe he just feels awkward around girls that cry in cinemas because the solar system is really pretty.

I’m not sure I can entirely blame him.

“So,” Cal says. “Do I get to walk into this party with the most beautiful girl in New York on my arm?”

I look at Kenderall expectantly.

“He’s not talking about me,” she says, rolling her eyes. “My God, Brits are ridiculous.”

Cal holds out his elbow. “Only as friends,” he says, winking.

I take it as gently as I can. I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever had a boy offer me his arm before. And at least if my ridiculous shoes defeat me on the stairs I won’t fall over on my own.

Maybe that’s what I should have been looking for.

“Now,” Kenderall shouts with glee. “Let’s P.A.R.T.Y.”

he
Oxford English Dictionary
defines
grand
as:

The Grand Ballroom of Gotham Hall is exactly what it purports to be.

As Cal, Kenderall and I walk up the red-carpeted stairs and push open the ornate golden doors, it unfolds in front of us like an enormous, circular Aladdin’s cave.

Above us is a huge gilded ceiling with a circle of blue stained glass in the middle, through which you can just see the sky. A huge gold and crystal chandelier hangs, suspended in a sparkling globe, and below it is a marble floor with gold leaf in spirals and circles scattered across its surface.

It looks like the ballroom has been overgrown by a magical ghost forest: there are pale white trees everywhere, covered in tiny, paper-thin white leaves which seem to grow out of golden holes in the floor.

Gossamer-thin blue chiffon has been draped from the ceiling, and on the walls are the shining silhouettes of blue trees and birds, as if the entire room has been submerged under water.

Tiny lanterns hang from the ceiling, and hundreds of white candles are placed at intervals around the room, flickering and shivering.