New York Valentine Part 17

Towel (also Elena's)

Plasters (drugstore)

Flat waffle slippers (hotel freebie)

Total est. cost: $3

'I'm sorry about the dog.'

Annie and Elena had tried to find a cab office, a cab rank or any trace of a cab at all. But to no avail. So, it was an exhausting thirty-minute walk, but together with their rolls, they finally made it to the subway station.

No one in the carriage gave a second glance to the two dirt-streaked females in stained dresses, holding several grubby rolls of fabric. In this part of Brooklyn, anything and anyone got onto the trains and it was best not to stare.

When Annie had recovered her breath and taken a full inventory of the damage she'd inflicted on herself and several cherished possessions the shoes would never recover, she'd scratched the leather right off the side of the heel on the skip edge she still looked over at Elena with a triumphant grin.

'We could have 180 metres of jersey here about $4,000, maybe $5,000 worth. And we got it for free!'

'Yes!' Elena couldn't help smiling, 'but do you really think we can make good dresses out of it?'

'Of course!' Annie insisted.

'Is cotton jersey, is very different from silks and silk jersey we make first dresses from,' Elena pointed out.

'That will be the beauty of the dresses, though. Cotton, so wearer friendly. Beautiful design, beautiful fit and drape, but you can wear them all day long and chuck them in the was.h.i.+ng machine.'

'We need nice b.u.t.tons ...'

'Yes,' Annie agreed, 'and lovely detailing. A little matching satin trim around the cuffs and the collars.'

'Yes! Sleeves draping or gathered with a bow. So elegant and beautiful, not too plain.'

'Are you OK?' Annie asked, 'I'm sorry about the dog.'

'I will be fine, but I rip hole in my dress and break two straps on my Gucci sandals.'

'That is bad,' Annie sympathized.

'No, not too bad. I get them at Designer Shoe Warehouse for $90.'

'You're going to have to tell me where that is.'

When Lana burst in through the apartment's front door face alight with the splendour of her library date and lunch with Taylor, she found Annie on the sofa bed: damp, in a dressing gown, with a towel on her head and bruises all over her s.h.i.+ns.

Elena, also freshly showered, was at the Perfect Dress NYC nerve centre the kitchen table frantically tapping at her laptop.

'Mum, how come you aren't working?' Lana wanted to know. 'It's only four o'clock!'

'We've had a tiring day, believe me,' Annie told her. 'Anyway, I'm just regrouping and I needed to wash because my skin was crawling ...'

She shuddered, still not able to shake the memory of the rat.

'I'll be back to work in about ten minutes, fresh as a daisy,' she insisted, 'but first of all ... lunch went on a bit?! How was Taylor?'

'Yeah ... well, no ...' Lana stumbled and flushed a rosy pink, 'it was great. Really great. We toured round the library which is amazing and you totally have to go. Then we had lunch at this ... restaurant!' She burst into giggles at the thought.

'A restaurant? So sophisticated,' Annie said.

'I hope you not be all British and pay for your meal,' was Elena's comment.

'No ... well, I offered but he wouldn't let me.' Lana couldn't help giggling again.

She was 'aglow', Annie thought. There was no other word for it. But how incredibly amazing to be almost 18 and in New York with a huge, ma.s.sive crush on a blond writer who took you on library tours and out for lunch. Annie felt more than a little jealous.

'Tell us all about everything, every little moment ...' Annie said, sitting up and patting the sofa bed, 'but first of all, you have to look at our material and tell me what you think.'

Annie pointed at the rolls of fabric leaning up against the kitchen sink. This was the only place she'd found in the flat free enough of clutter to have room for the nine rolls.

Lana walked over and looked carefully. Annie was impressed at the serious attention she was giving to the task; Lana realized how important this was.

She peeled some fabric away from the roll, ran her fingers over it and crumpled it up in her hand.

'Sort of sweats.h.i.+rty,' she said.

'Yeah.'

'Nice plain colours. I'm loving the magenta ... and the grey ... and the navy too!'

'Simple colours to go with everything,' Elena added, 'dress up dress down, very nice for New York in winter with a coat and boots.'

'So a smart-casual sweats.h.i.+rt dress?' Lana said, getting the idea. 'I think it's going to be fantastic! Casual dresses. Smart s.h.i.+rtdresses but in cotton. Everyone is going to want one. I think you should make me one right now so I can wear it just as soon as it stops burning down at 30 degrees or whatever it is out there.'

'Long, long summer here. Sye say this is unusual,' Elena said, 'but long, long winter here too. Very cold, then you will miss the burning sun. This how is in Ukraine too.'

'The material's great, but doesn't it look a bit ... dirty?' Lana asked tentatively. 'I hope you got some money off.'

At this, Annie began to laugh: 'We got it out of a skip, darlin'!'

'Out of a skip? Seriously?!'

'Seriously. Your mother like dis' Elena tapped the side of her head in the universal sign for crazy person.

'We're going to wash it all at the launderette, which will hopefully kick start the worn-in, faded look,' Annie explained, 'then we'll get a US factory to run us up as many of our amazing new Perfect Dresses as we can afford. Once the money comes in from those, we can get all fancy and go back to stretchy silk and s.h.i.+ny satin. But maybe carry on the cotton if they do well.'

'This is the plan,' Elena reminded them. 'We don't know if this is going to happen yet. No factory has agreed to make dresses-'

'Yet,' Annie chipped in.

'And if these cotton dresses not good enough, existing orders might be cancelled,' Elena warned.

'The dresses will be good enough,' Annie insisted. 'C'mon Lana, fire up the coffee machine, tell us all about dreamy Taylor ...'

'Muuuum!'

'Then we'll get started on a fresh round of calls.'

An hour later Lana had already gone out; a friend of Greta's, pa.s.sing through New York, wanted to meet her for a pizza. So Annie was left in the apartment with an increasingly agitated Elena.

Elena was upset because Sye hadn't phoned her for two days and now a volley of his Venezuelan photographs had landed in her in-box.

'Look at this!' Elena turned the screen to Annie, who took in the lovely shot of a young, tanned vision of gorgeousness frolicking on the beach in the obligatory wet bikini. Her face was turned with deep and tantalizing eyes towards the camera.

'He's very good at his job,' Annie rea.s.sured her.

'He not phone me and I can't make connection with his phone.'

'He's on the beach in Venezuela,' Annie reminded her, 'the signal's probably not very strong. Please, calm down! The guy is crazy about you. I can see it, his friends we met the other night said it. He's probably just as desperate to speak to you as you are to speak to him.'

'When you are on trip with five models, why you want to speak to girlfriend?' Elena snapped back.

'I promise you, there is no need to be jealous. Jealousy is one of the most horrible emotions you can waste time on. It's all bitter and destroying and in your case, based on absolutely nothing. What has he done to make you think he's not totally into you?'

'The only words with this photo are: "I am in love with this girl". I think he send it to me by mistake,' Elena declared angrily.

'Elena! "I'm in love with this girl" it's just photographer-speak. It's his job. You know it's his job. You knew he was a photographer when you first met him. I mean how incredibly flattering to have someone who takes pictures of some of the most beautiful faces in the world, be so in love with yours.'

'He has never said he loves me,' Elena snapped.

Aha.

'Of course he's in love. You're both in love,' Annie a.s.sured her. 'Anyone can see that. It's oozing out of every pore when you two are together. Pure 100 per cent guaranteed in love. But yes, I understand, saying you're in love. That's hard. Maybe you're both waiting to see who says it first.'

'Maybe ...'

'But don't be jealous. Not without any reason. Are you going out tonight?'

Elena shook her head, but then said: 'Maybe just to drugstore to buy some-'

Annie cut her off: 'Babes, have you looked in the bathroom lately?'

Elena glanced over at her in some surprise.

'You have your very own drugstore right there. Whatever it is you could possibly be looking for, you will find it in here.'

Annie pushed open the door to the small but perfectly formed bathroom. Just like in Elena's bedroom, every shelf, surface and available s.p.a.ce was taken up with stuff. Although in here it was bathroom stuff: hair bottles, shower bottles, lotions, potions and make-up.

'I hate to say this,' Annie began gently, 'but I think there's about $2,000 worth of products in here.'

'No!' Elena protested.

'The buy one get one free habit can really mount up ...'

When Annie saw Elena's shoulders slump and her hands move up to cover her face, she immediately regretted her words.

Rus.h.i.+ng to Elena's side, she put an arm around her and said, 'You've been going through so many difficult things. You'll get through all this. Please stop worrying about Sye and ... you'll get over the crazy shopping thing. I'll help you, if you'll let me.'

'The bedroom,' Elena said finally with a tragic sigh, 'maybe I could take you to the bedroom and we could just make one small corner tidy.'

Annie's face lit up at the thought. Back in her personal shopper days, she'd subsidized her income with a home wardrobe makeover service and there was still almost nothing she liked more than being invited into the chaos of someone's cupboards to restore order.

Down there in the back of the wardrobe, the truth always came out. Whatever was going on in someone's life, it would be reflected in their cupboard: new lover, new lingerie; loveless marriage, really bad old knickers; unexpected pay rise, handbag splurge; financial disaster, worn-out suits and high street tops; ageing issues, inappropriate use of Topshop; and infidelity always caused wardrobe schizophrenia boring suits and much red lace.

Annie could probably wander through a wardrobe and paint an exact picture of the woman who owned it without knowing anything else about her.

'I know there is problem here ...' Elena admitted hesitantly, as they gazed into the room.

'Have you spoken to Sye about it?' Annie wondered.

Elena shook her head vigorously.

'But he must have noticed,' Annie pointed out. 'No one who's been in your room could help noticing the plastic bag mountain. Maybe he's trying to find the right moment to talk to you about it.'

'Maybe.'

As soon as they were crammed together in the bedroom, Annie knew there wasn't going to be enough s.p.a.ce here to sort things out, so she instructed Elena to bring a selection of carrier bags into the sitting room. There Annie opened out the sofa bed, so they would have somewhere to tackle the chaos of Elena's out of control shopping habit.

The first two bags Elena emptied contained entirely new clothes, labels still attached, receipt in the bag.

'What do you want to do with these?' Annie asked gently. 'Keep them? Give them away? You might even be able to take them back, the receipts are still there. I used to offer to sell things for my clients, but I don't have a US eBay account ... maybe we could find a second-hand shop.'

Elena looked at the items with a mixture of confusion and surprise. 'I can't even remember buying them,' she told Annie. 'When I'm in a shop, I feel I have to have something, it's like a want that won't go away until I buy, then I feel better. Sometimes, I don't even look in the bags again.'

Annie put her arm around Elena's waist and squeezed: 'That's not good. And it's a very expensive problem to have, girl. But as soon as you start admitting these things to yourself, they start to get better by themselves. Honestly, I promise. Why don't we take back as much as we can? All the things you've bought in the last month. Then we'll try and sell the other things you don't want. We have to make a start on bringing that credit card bill down.'