New York Valentine Part 29

Digital camera (Nikon)

Woven wrist bracelets (Bolivia)

Total est. cost: $680

'There's another side.'

The post-show party was not intended to be a big event but it was nevertheless one of the most glamorous get-togethers Annie had ever been to, because it was in Svetlana's room at the Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue.

Even Svetlana didn't splash out on a suite at the Carlyle, so this was an intimate and cosy party based around Svetlana's king-sized bed and the vast sofa at the foot of it. But it was still perfectly glamorous in every way and with views from eleven floors up right over Manhattan.

Sculptural orchids on every available side table? Check. Impressive white marble fireplace? Check. Bowls of too perfect to eat fruit? Check. Luxurious furnis.h.i.+ngs and fabrics? Swathes of silk and satin? Check and check.

Still, Svetlana had spread her ermine coat over her king-sized bed, just to make it that touch more luxurious.

Now the little handful of guests well, in fact, it was just Svetlana, Annie, Connor and Lana were drinking wine or fizzy water and picking from the silver trays of food brought up by room service.

Annie and Lana were on the sofa, while Svetlana and Connor were draped across the ermine and the bed. Annie wondered why her two friends had only met so briefly in the past. The two divas seemed perfectly suited to one another.

'I can't believe you didn't come to the show. I still can't believe you didn't come,' Annie complained to Connor.

'I'm sorry. I didn't want to take the spotlight away from anyone,' he said with such pomposity that Annie had a fit of the giggles.

'No, of course not,' she managed, 'because you are soooooo famous in New York, I don't know how you manage to get out the door in the morning without being mobbed by your fans and the paparazzi.'

'Have some more champagne, darrrling,' Svetlana said, dangling the bottle over Connor's gla.s.s. 'This the worst day in my business life so far. We have to celebrate.'

'You need a marketing strategy,' Connor offered, already sounding sozzled.

'Shut up,' Annie told him, 'no one's talking about marketing strategies tonight. We're just going to enjoy being in a room at the Carlyle. For me, this is a once in a lifetime event. Well ... unless Tamsin gets me a job starring in the next blockbuster, obviously.'

'Too fat,' Connor informed her.

'Shut up!' Annie repeated, filling up her own gla.s.s. 'Anyway I'm training with Gawain, trademark tomorrow. So look out, Hollywood.'

'If you are training with Gawain tomorrow,' Connor said, sitting up to look at her, 'you better put that gla.s.s down right now. You have no idea how much pain he is going to inflict. You can't have a hangover as well. It will kill you.'

'I will fight the pain with champagne, trademark,' Annie insisted and downed another mouthful.

There was a tap on the door and as Svetlana called out, 'Come in!' Elena and Sye, hand in hand, strolled into the room.

'Oh h.e.l.lo.' At the sight of another so obviously handsome man, Svetlana automatically patted her hair, adjusted her cleavage and sat up on her bed. Then she extended her diamond-encrusted hand. 'Wonderful to meet you properly,' she said graciously, then spoiled it slightly by adding, 'Your mother is total beeeeetch.'

'Well, Mrs Wisneski,' Sye began, sounding relaxed, 'I guess you wouldn't be the first person to think that. But maybe you need to get to know her better. There's another side. A very charming side.'

'Hmmm, I don't know if there is going to be much getting to know this woman better. But you, Sye, Elena thinks I need to know you a little better, so sit on bed here, have a drink and talk to me.'

Annie thought it was a good thing that Elena sat right down beside Sye to protect him, because Svetlana looked dangerously like she might eat him all up in one gulp.

'How are you, baby?' Annie asked her daughter, who was sitting quietly on the sofa, sipping at mineral water and watching all the lavish Svetlana antics with wide eyes.

'I'm fine.'

'Did you like modelling?'

'Not much. Another fantasy fulfilled, which turns out to be not as much fun as you'd thought.'

'Ooooh so young and so world-weary,' Annie teased. 'You did see ... you-know-who, didn't you?'

'Mmmm,' Lana confirmed with a little nod.

'You seemed to handle it very well. Just a cool and casual dismissal. So cla.s.sy. Much better than I could ever have managed. I'd have wanted to throw gla.s.ses, shriek and cause a scene.'

'I'm very glad you didn't!'

'No, I meant if I'd been you. But I'm so obviously not you. You're very much your own person and I just wanted to say that you handled him so well, I was proud of you. I bet he felt about two inches tall.'

Lana's smile broke out now: 'Do you think?'

'Yeah, definitely. You were the ice queen. He saw you on the catwalk, looking amazing and he realized just what he'd let get away there.'

'Good!'

'Because obviously you'd never have him back?' Annie just wanted to check.

'Never!' Lana agreed. 'How's home?' she asked, 'I thought I might even try and speak to them today.'

'Big of you.' Annie winked. 'Let's get my phone out ... ah, but it's already 6p.m., midnight at home ... we'll text, see if Ed's awake.'

Within moments, Annie was reading the reply: Just going to sleep. Too tired to talk. Will spk tomorrow promise. Ed xx Which was fine, of course. She'd left it so late.

But ... just the slightest little but ... they'd not spoken for two whole days now. That was a long time. Just a little inkling crossed her mind that maybe not everything was OK.

The alarm bleeped at 5a.m. Annie groaned, smacked it off and rolled over again.

'What's that for?' Lana asked groggily.

'Nothing,' Annie said, pulling the sheet over her head against the early morning light.

'It's the gym, isn't it?' Lana sat up, remembering just where her mum was supposed to be at 5.30 this morning.

Annie groaned in reply. She felt terrible. Just exactly how many White Russians, or Black Vodkas or Vodkatinis, or whatever else had she drunk last night? Her stomach churned and her head throbbed in reply.

If it was now 5.05a.m., then she'd only managed about four hours of sleep. And now she was supposed to go and Train with Gawain ... trademark?

'I can't go,' she mumbled, 'I'll have to phone in sick.'

'You can't phone in sick!' Lana exclaimed and gave her mum a poke in the ribs. 'Connor would lose all his money! And who knows, Train with Gawain might never speak to him again. He might be like totally humiliated,' she added in finest New York accent.

'Train with Gawain huh more like Gawain the pain,' Annie huffed from her side of the sofa bed.

'Get up, Mum and go to the gym,' Lana instructed her.

'I've got nothing to wear ...' Annie whined, trying out a new line of defence.

'Are you serious?' Lana asked with some amazement. This was just not something her mum ever said. No matter what the event, Annie could put together a killer outfit for it.

'You mean you've booked in for a session with New York's number one personal trainer at one of New York's sw.a.n.kiest gyms and you've not even thought about getting a pair of gym shoes?'

'Well, I have trainers ...' Annie mumbled from underneath the pillow.

'So you bought trainers?'

'No ... I brought them from home.'

'Why? You last wore trainers in the ... nineties?' Lana guessed.

Annie didn't want to tell Lana about the little daydream she'd had back in London of jogging effortlessly round the Central Park reservoir, like all the other fit New Yorkers. Somehow she'd thought if she came over to New York, the will to be fit and slim would just transplant itself into her brain, along with the will to drink Cosmopolitans and shop daily on Fifth Avenue.

'OK.' Lana, despite her puffy eyes and sleep-deprived head, was getting out of bed and rummaging through her bag. 'I have short socks, I have leggings ... you could use one of my big sleep T-s.h.i.+rts, but I haven't got anything that will help you in the way of a sports bra.'

'Oh, don't worry. I'll just wear two bras.'

'Two bras?'

'Old school trick.'

Annie sat up gingerly. She couldn't believe she was actually getting out of bed. But yes: despite the four hours of sleep and the hangover, she suddenly seemed to be was.h.i.+ng, brus.h.i.+ng her teeth and climbing into the leggings and T-s.h.i.+rt offered by her slightly too eager daughter. Just one look in the mirror told Annie that she really was not fit to brave a New York gym. She should be wearing fas.h.i.+onable fitness clothes, not her teen daughter's pyjamas.

She should do her hair and apply at least a light coating of waterproof make-up. This was Train with Gawain, for goodness' sake. Gawain was probably used to looking at SJP first thing in the morning, not VPL.

'Is there something I could use as a headband?' Annie asked, beginning to feel slightly panicked by her reflection.

'Why?' Lana said, warily.

'Headbands ... people wear headbands in the gym, don't they?'

'No. Well, maybe they did like last century.'

'OK, no headband, then. Can I go like this now?' Annie asked her daughter, hoping, really truly hoping, that she would say no.

'Yes, and you need to go right now. You'll have to find a cab to get there on time. It's in SoHo. That's So-hip-it-hurts-Ho.'

'Thanks. I'm feeling better already.'

The cab dropped Annie off on a corner where two wide streets of low warehouse conversions crossed. There was hardly anyone about: she could see clear down to the Hudson River, golden in the early morning light. Black fire escapes zigzagged up every one of the impressive four- and five-storey brick buildings and Annie felt weirdly energized.

Yes! She could go to the gym at 5.30a.m. Yes! She could learn some moves from Train with Gawain 'trademark' and she would join the crowds of svelte fas.h.i.+onistas marching up and down the avenues in slinky clothes. Annie walked towards the large gla.s.s doors which she guessed must be number 17. No number was attached to the doors, but there was a number 15 on one side, and a number 19 on the other. She looked all around for a bell, a buzzer, a b.u.t.ton of any kind: but there was nothing, just a small black box with a tiny green light at the corner.

Was she supposed to talk to it?

'h.e.l.lo? Is this the gym?' she tried. No reply.

She looked at her watch. It was 5.27a.m. Surely Gawain would already be here? Wouldn't he be looking out for her, since there was no obvious way of getting inside?

'h.e.l.lo?' she said to the box again.

Just then the tallest, thinnest, blondest girl Annie had ever set eyes on, away from a catwalk, strode up to the door. As she was dressed in tightest vest, tightest capris, a pink hoodie and trainers with soles as thick as mattresses, it was obvious where she was headed. Annie gave her a friendly, we're-all-in-this-together kind of smile and stood aside hoping the girl knew how to get in the door.

The girl, in turn, gave her an icy up-and-down, whipped out a set of keys with a little grey electronic tag attached and waved them at the black box. Immediately the green light turned orange and the gla.s.s door sprang open.

The girl went through and attempted to close the door in Annie's face.

'But I'm going to the gym too!' Annie protested, 'I'm supposed to see Train with Gawain and I don't know how to get in.'

'The rule is no tailgating,' the girl replied.

'Please!' Annie whimpered, 'or can you at least tell someone up there I'm here and to open the door?'

With a sigh, the girl relented. Annie followed her into a tiny elevator where they stood facing each other, the duck and the stork, saying nothing. The lift stopped on the second floor and the girl got out: 'This is the gym,' she told Annie, then with a bounce of perfectly pert a.r.s.e she was gone, leaving Annie in a criminally, minimally chic waiting area.

She gazed at the tall, black, s.h.i.+ny counter, dazzlingly white walls and floor-to-ceiling Manhattan view. Oh, and framed, signed photos of the gym's clients, of course: Julia Roberts, Tina Fey ... No, Annie wasn't intimidated. Nooooo, no. Why on earth should she feel intimidated, standing in a place like this in fifteen-year-old trainers and her daughter's pyjamas?

As she contemplated getting back in the lift, a perfectly proportioned, perfectly tanned, perfectly blond man in a tight black T-s.h.i.+rt bounded up and slid behind the counter.

'Good morning,' he said with a way too perky for 5.30a.m. smile.

'Good morning,' Annie replied.

'And you must be Pam, our new cleaner, in bright and early.'

Annie looked at him in horror and felt the blood rush to her cheeks. 'No,' she squeaked, 'I'm Annie, I have an appointment with Gawain.'

Now it was the blond's turn to look surprised: 'Really?' he said with a little too much astonishment, 'Gawain?' Then came the killer: 'Are you sure?'