About a Girl (13 page)

Peering out of the bedroom window, I saw a narrow path that wound its way through the gardens and up to a huge, tented terrace and the back of the main house. Aka Bertie Bennett’s palace. The only people who could legit live in a house like that were Bond villains, the final six in
America’s Next Top Model
or P. Diddy. If I got up there for dinner and Beyoncé was a house guest, I was going to lose my shit.

After tearing myself away from the view, I tore myself away from the rest of my clothes and locked my skanky self in the bathroom. Thanks to Boots at Heathrow I had some bare essentials in my suitcase, but there was no need to bust out the miniature Pantene. Mr Bennett had supplied everything a lady could ever need ? Molton Brown toiletries, Diptyque candles and even a proper girl’s razor, not the individually wrapped things you get in hotels that slice your legs to ribbons. A proper lady’s razor. He had to be gay.

After the world’s longest and most delicious shower, I settled down in the leather chair with my laptop on my knee. Having been trapped on a Wi-Fi-less plane for the best part of twenty-four hours, I hadn’t been able to do nearly as much research into Mr Bennett as I’d have liked. I’d bought every fashion magazine and photography journal on the stands at the airport, read every single one cover to cover, and by now I knew that my battered H&M denim jacket should be a luxe leather bomber, my loose linen trousers should be cropped cotton, and everything else I owned should be neon. Most of the items I’d plundered from Vanessa’s wardrobe were as far away from my conservative clothing collection as I could stomach, not that there weren’t an awful lot of monochrome options, but I’d been brave and pilfered all of one bright yellow dress as well. Glancing over at the case full of stripey T-shirts and skinny jeans, I sighed loudly. I’d been pitching for a continental chic sort of look, left-bank sophistication and all that jazz. According to
Marie Claire
,
Elle
,
Vogue
,
InStyle
,
Gloss
,
Belle
,
Grazia
and even
GQ
, which I’d picked up by accident, I’d dropped a major bollock. Shocker.

Once I was connected to Bennett’s Wi-Fi network, I clicked through my emails as quickly as possible. I ignored the four Lolcats from Amy, pretended I didn’t care that there was nothing from Charlie, and opened the brief that Agent Veronica had sent over. It was nearly ten pages long. Suddenly I got the impression that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t consider Vanessa to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. Not that I was complaining. In this instance I needed all the help I could get, and she really did make the job sound relatively simple. Cue sense of epic relief. Scanning the info from the magazine, I saw that the art director from
Gloss
was going to be here to direct the actual shoot. I was literally in charge of pointing the camera at the right spot, pressing a button. The only thing that made me sweat was the portrait of Bertie Bennett. What if he was a complete bastard? Not that I hadn’t managed more than a few of them in my time. And given that my only other option was to fess up, go home and face Charlie, King of the Bastards, I figured I’d stay here and take my chances. After all, it was only taking a few pictures. How hard could it be?

With a new sense of confidence, I stretched out on the bed and looked at the itinerary, biro between my teeth. So, Monday. According to the official document from
Gloss
, I was to arrive in Honolulu, get to the Bennett compound and meet Bertie. According to Agent Veronica’s notes, added in a bright red font, I was to get to Honolulu, get to the house, ‘keep my fucking mouth shut and my fucking knickers on’. Neither of those had ever really been a problem for me. Tuesday morning I was to meet with Paige, the art director, to discuss the shoot, and then Bertie, Paige and I were supposed to go over the clothes he wanted to shoot for the main spread. Again, Veronica had added her own note that advised, ‘Do not piss him off.’ Harsh but fair. On Wednesday, I’d be shooting the fashion spreads, locations TBC. Thursday was set aside for the portrait of Bertie, and then we had Friday open ‘just in case’ before we all flew home on Saturday night. Agent Vanessa had added a couple of other general asides in what had to be at least a 32-point font ? mostly motivational statements like ‘Fuck this up and I’ll destroy you’ and ‘Even a chimp with a camera phone could do this.’ Perhaps a chimp with a camera phone could do this, I thought, but chimps had also been sent into space and could count cards if they put their minds to it. I couldn’t do either of those things. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

After printing out the itinerary and sticking it to the mirror above the desk with a tiny roll of invisible tape I found in the drawer (swoon, stationery), I gave my host a quick Google. In just two minutes and three clicks, I had discovered that Bertie Bennett was (a) a mental and (b) the owner of a super-cool department store in New York called Bennett’s. Fact (b) was easy to find out. Bennett’s had a huge web presence and pretty much every fashion site referenced it. I imagined that if I’d ever been to New York instead of just watching a lot of
Friends
and all of
Sex and the City
, that would be something I might know. Fact (a) was easy to ascertain due to the photos I’d found of Bertie dressed in ridiculous costumes and doing ridiculous things. There were far fewer pictures than I’d anticipated, but the ones I found were corkers. The three years he’d spent dressed as a ringmaster every time he left the house in the late seventies was quite well documented. I hoped he was still wearing the top hat ? he looked very dapper. The five-month stint he’d spent masquerading as an astronaut in the sixties was barely documented at all, which seemed a shame. For such a major figure in the world of fashion, Bertie really had managed to keep a low profile: there was basically nothing on him at all after the mid-seventies. Times really had changed. If he’d been starting out now, he’d have had a reality show and a ‘Designers at Debenhams’ deal by now. All of the shots I did find showed a young, vibrant man with a penchant for a bit of fancy dress and a Barbra Streisand show. Incredibly well turned out and definitely what my mum would call a ‘dandy’. Possibly what my nan would call a ‘confirmed bachelor’. Why northern women over fifty-five couldn’t just say ‘gay’ was beyond me. But there was nothing after he started to turn a wee bit grey. I did find his name in a few society features, mostly schmoozing at Fashion Week events all over the world, but that didn’t surprise me ? fashionistas flocked together, didn’t they? That’s why I didn’t know any. Gnawing on the barrel of my pen, I wondered what had changed his mind about sitting for a photographer again. Maybe he’d been on the Just For Men and wanted to show off. And I was the lucky snapper. Eeep.

After re-reading the brief another seven times, I opened up Facebook, clicked on Charlie’s page and felt my newly acquired balls slip away completely. He hadn’t posted anything for days ? he rarely did ? and so the screen was mostly filled with pictures uploaded by his friends. I clicked the ‘pictures of you and Charlie’ button and choked up faster than you could say ‘emotional cutter’. It was like I was seeing every single one of the photographs with fresh eyes, and not a single one made me feel better. In almost every picture, I was leaning into him or staring up at his face with big shining eyes. In almost every picture, he was looking at someone else or staring at the camera with happy, beery ambivalence.

I remembered every last moment of every last minute we had ever spent together. I remembered going to the cinema to see one of the Bourne movies and barely being able to breathe for nearly two hours because it was so warm out that we were both wearing shorts, and every so often our legs would touch and the skin-on-skin contact took my breath away. I remembered all the times he would walk by my desk and throw a packet of Skittles at my face without speaking because he knew they were my favourite. I remembered going over to see him when his granddad had died, him opening the door with red-rimmed eyes and spluttering sobs. We didn’t even say anything, just sat on the sofa watching episode of
Top Gear
after episode of
Top Gear
until we both fell asleep. I woke up in his bed in the middle of the night and found him passed out on the sofa surrounded by photos of his family. He never really talked about them and it broke my heart to see him in so much pain, but I just covered him with a blanket and went back to bed. When I got up the next morning, he was business as usual. The photos were gone and his sore eyes put down to a bad case of hay fever.

It was still incredibly early, barely ten in the morning, but my jet-lagged brain could not process any of what was happening. I slapped my laptop shut and rolled under a soft white blanket, pulling it up to my chin. Either I had never been this tired in my entire life or this bed was made out of clouds. Before I could even turn over and check my phone, I was fast asleep.

CHAPTER SEVEN

It is a little-known fact, but when you combine jetlag and stomach-churning terror, it’s quite possible to sleep through an entire day. When I eventually woke up, the sun was already starting to dip below the horizon. The sky was a soft pale blue painted with broad strokes of gauzy pink and orange, a world away from the cloudy grey sunset I’d watched over the village duck pond just two days before.

It was already almost seven, which gave me just under an hour to get myself together for dinner with Mr Bennett. My first real test. Every time I closed my eyes and every time I opened them, this seemed less and less plausible. The craziest thing I’d ever done was call in sick in 2004 because Amy had tickets to see Justin Timberlake and I was scared that if I didn’t go with her, she would end up in prison or at the very least with a restraining order. Plus it was Justin.

‘All I need to remember is that my name is Vanessa,’ I told the slightly concerned face I saw reflected in the dressing-table mirror. ‘That’s the only thing I need to remember. The rest of it will be easy.’

Ha. Easy.

At five minutes to eight exactly, I picked my way up the torch-lit path to the main house and headed towards the veranda, practising some very steady breathing and rehearsing my key notes in my head. This was just a pitch like any other ? I was selling a campaign like I did every day. Except today I was the campaign and Bennett was the client. How hard could it be? I’d pulled my hair back into a tight fishtail braid as I hadn’t had enough time to dry it properly, and there was a very real danger of it turning into an unwelcome afro as soon as I stepped outside, and I’d chosen a simple yellow shift dress, one of only two colourful items of clothing I’d packed, paired with leather flip-flops from my brand-new borrowed wardrobe. I had no idea how fancy dinner would be, but I had a feeling turning up in jeans wouldn’t really be ideal and I was aiming to invite as few questions as possible. Simple outfit, simple hair, as elegant and classy as possible when you were a cack-handed mare with a make-up brush. All I was going to do was show up, eat my dinner, be polite and ask lots of questions without drawing any attention to myself. One of the things I’d learned from working in advertising all these years was that people liked talking about themselves. As long as you made the right noises and kept the conversation going, no one noticed that you weren’t actually saying anything. Between the million questions I had prepared and the fact that I intended to eat until I burst and, most importantly, avoid all alcohol, I didn’t anticipate any major problems at dinner.

Which was, of course, my first mistake.

Kekipi and his great big doe eyes were waiting for me with a glass of champagne at the top of the staircase that led onto the veranda.

‘Miss Kittler.’ He handed me the glass. I took it. I hated to be rude. ‘You look delightful.’

‘Vanessa,’ I corrected him, quietly proud of myself for remembering my new name. ‘Please, just Vanessa.’

Behind my host I saw a table set for someone dressed way more fancy than me, but I refused to be defeated. I knew which fork was which. Most of the time.

‘Mr Bennett wishes me to pass on his apologies. He won’t be able to make dinner this evening, but he has asked that you please stay and eat. The first course will be out shortly.’

Necking the champagne, I nodded and followed him to the table, equal parts relieved and annoyed. It felt the same as prepping for a big meeting and then having your boss call in sick – you didn’t really want to have to go through with it, but you were so psyched up you couldn’t help but be a little bit disappointed. But it was hard to be too upset with a glass of champagne in my hand and a soft Hawaiian breeze blowing around my bare legs. Even a best-case-scenario Monday back in England would be two-for-one at Wagamama’s with Amy. Charlie always had football practice on Mondays. Not that I was thinking about Charlie. At all.

‘Mr Miller is just inside,’ Kekipi said, refilling my champagne. I did not neck this one. ‘Dinner will be served in a few moments.’

‘Mr Miller?’

‘The gentleman who is conducting the interview with Mr Bennett,’ he offered with a smile. ‘He’ll be out in a moment.’

It hadn’t occurred to me that the actual interview would be happening at the same time as the shoot. This was all I needed. Some irritating fashion journo bitching and whining and judging ensembles that weren’t even my ensembles.

I took my seat at the table and waited patiently. Never something I’d been good at. While the painful seconds ticked by, I took a chance to check out Bertie Bennett’s palace. The veranda where dinner was to be served was part of a bigger deck that wrapped all the way round the house. To the left, up a couple more stone staircases, was a huge infinity pool with neighbouring hot tub that looked out over the private bay. My muscles ached and I was dying to sink into the warm water, even if it did seem a bit rude given that the ocean was right there in front of us. To the right was another deck, dotted with squishy armchairs, sunloungers and parasols. I ran my hand down the smooth wood of the straight-backed dining chair and tried not to think about how wonderful it would be to lie back on one of those chairs with a very large cocktail and maybe a little shoulder massage. Poor me ? here I was sitting at this beautiful table with a glass of champagne waiting for someone to bring me my dinner when I could be in a hot tub. Life was hard here, but I was pretty sure I could get used to the difficult decisions.