Bad Brides (19 page)

Victoria knew perfectly well who Jodie’s other shortlisted candidate was, had been fully briefed, but she liked making people pitch to her so she could tear at their proposal with claws as
sharp as the dragon painted on the six-fold screen that dominated her Manhattan office.

Jodie clicked on Milly’s photo.

‘She’s a full-on It girl here in the UK,’ she reported. ‘Incarnates boho chic. If she puts on a Top Shop dress, it sells out straight away. Definitely the fashion-forward
option.’

‘I smell
hippy
,’ Victoria spat with gusto, which was barely better than ‘bland’.

‘English style, fresh, young, Alice Temperley vibe, groom even more up-and-coming than she is – actually he’s up and come: his band’s won tons of Grammies, swept the
Brits this year,’ Jodie practically chanted. ‘We could style her fantastically – she’s
tiny
, she can wear anything.’

This perked Victoria up, as Jodie had known it would; slim, toned Brianna Jade might not be model-skinny, but Milly most definitely was. And that was a huge point in her favour; it was much more
work to find clothes for a model who wouldn’t fit into the child-size samples designers sent out.

‘So who’s your front runner?’ Victoria asked, sitting back, finishing her Fiji water, setting down the glass, throwing back her head and yelling: ‘Monika! More
water!’ in a shriek so high-pitched that Jodie automatically flinched; after all these years, she still expected the glass to break.

Jodie’s secret was that she didn’t actually
have
a favourite in this race. There wasn’t an obvious winner. In Jodie’s opinion, either girl would make a cracking
first
Style
Bride of the Year. Her real fear was that Victoria, who was notoriously capricious, would discard both of Jodie’s choices and make her go searching for a third candidate,
which would take up way too much time when Jodie already had
Style
and
Mini Style
on her plate. And after Jodie had sweated cobs dancing like a madwoman to Victoria’s tune,
Victoria would probably, perversely, finish by circling back to choose either Milly or Brianna Jade.

And time was of the essence. Yes, the ceremony would be next spring or early summer, in order for the photographs and copy to be ready for the three-month lead time a glossy magazine usually
demanded. But the idea was to start tracking the wedding now for the
Style
website, to tease readers with photo shoots of engagement parties, updates on the latest location scouting and
dress designs, building into a diary of the most elegant wedding of the year.

Monika practically ran into the office, teetering on the crystal heels of her suede Miu Miu over-the-knee boots but managing to keep the fresh glass of water steady; she whipped the empty glass
away, substituting it with its replacement, and dashed out of the room again. Victoria looked at the water and pushed it away as impatiently as if she hadn’t just shrieked at her assistant to
bring it for her.

‘I’m on the fence,’ Jodie said frankly. ‘I don’t usually say this, but they’re both very evenly balanced.’

‘Pick one!’ Victoria snapped, sitting up even straighter, if possible, than she usually did; even after having two children, her posture was as perfectly erect, her stomach as flat
and sucked as tightly as ever into her ‘Pilates corset’ of highly trained muscle. ‘Come on, do it! I haven’t got all day.’

Jodie opened her mouth, swiftly scanning the pros and cons of each candidate, about to make a decision – but just as she did so Victoria interrupted: ‘No! Wait!’

She leaned forward, picking up the silver Tiffany pen that Monika had to polish every week, tapping it on the spotless glass desk that Monika had to wipe smooth three times a day.

‘We’ll pick
both
of them!’ Victoria announced.

‘You mean multiple covers?’ Jodie asked; this was often done, though never before with
Style
. ‘I thought you hated—’

‘No, I
loathe
editors who do that! Like the pull-out
Vanity Fair
covers, I hate those too! You
know
I
despise
people who can’t make their minds
up. Here’s what we’ll do: we tell these two that they’re both in the running,’ Victoria said, eyes gleaming, raising one hand to her perfectly smooth blonde hair.
‘We’ll set them against each other – make them jump through our hoops. That way, we’ll have
much
more editorial control. If we commit to one of them, that gives
them
the power, and we want the wedding to be perfect – but if they know they’re not a definite yes, they’ll bend over backwards to please us. Yes, I
love
this!
It’s perfect!’

Why don’t we just make them cage fight?
Jodie thought.
Victoria would love that!

But watching her boss positively lit up at this idea, she was certainly not going to say a word to counter it. Given the mood she was in, Victoria might actually take duelling brides as a
serious suggestion.

‘Stare up at him – yes, great – like you’re offering him the basket thingywhatsit.
Awwight there, ’ave a noice plum, Tarquin me love!
’

The photographer lapsed into a mix of faux-Cockney and faux-Mummerset which was instantly understood by Milly, to whom he was talking, as an instruction to pose like a cross between Nell Gwynne
with her oranges and an innocent damsel about to burst into a sung rendition of ‘Cherry Ripe’. She was bearing a trug, handmade in Sussex with a chestnut frame and handles and a base of
woven willow treated with linseed oil; the
Telegraph
magazine, which had organized the shoot, was very keen on country-chic detail.

The trug, an oval basket specially designed for carrying freshly picked fruit, was exactly the kind of thing that
Telegraph
readers ordered from advertisements in the sponsored
gardening section. Milly raised it higher, smiling coyly as she displayed its contents of early autumn apples, damsons, plums and blackberries for the benefit of her fiancé. Tarquin, who was
posed next to her under a Worcester Pearmain apple tree, looked down worshipfully into her adorably pretty face.

‘Perfect!’ The photographer lapsed back into his normal RP tones. ‘Okay, I think we’ve got this set up, everyone take twenty while we get the picnic lighting
sorted.’

Hair and make-up and stylist bustled over to Milly and Tarquin, taking the trug away from her, ready to whisk them back to the big RV parked on the farm track that led into the Somerset orchard
in which they were shooting. Milly turned to look over one pale shoulder, her golden curls, tonged into perfect ringlets, falling down her back.

‘Eva!’ she called. ‘Come along, I need you.’

Eva, who had been watching and snapping photographs on her phone for the various social media accounts run by Milly and Me, nodded and duly followed, catching a couple of great behind-the-scenes
photos as Milly, leaning on Tarquin, slipped off her scalloped pink leather Chloé pumps, handed them to the stylist, and stepped instead into the pair of Hunter wellies waiting ready for
her. The cream macramé lace Dolce and Gabbana dress Milly was wearing had a tight pencil skirt, and the sight of Milly waddling awkwardly in the slim-fitting dress and oversized Hunters made
even the naturally sober Eva stifle a smile.

‘Don’t photograph this,’ Milly called imperiously, still leaning on Tarquin’s arm as they picked their way across the orchard, squelching on some early windfalls.
‘I look really stupid.’

‘Darling, you could
never
look stupid,’ Tarquin said admiringly.

‘Aw,’ the make-up girl sighed. ‘You’re so lucky, Milly. My boyfriend would never say that to me.’

‘Wait till we’re married and he’ll change his tune,’ Milly said, but her self-satisfied tone belied her words; she was very well aware that Tarquin’s devotion to
her was rock solid.

Eva ducked her head and sipped her coffee, which was going cold now but still provided an energy boost. The shoot had started very early, just before dawn, to capture the morning mists, the
atmosphere of delicate, febrile romance that Milly and Tarquin incarnated: the whole crew had stayed at a hotel nearby in order to be up for the 5 a.m. call. Three set-ups later, it was
eleven-thirty now, the rose-gold sunrise now faded, and the autumn sun was beaming gloriously in the pale blue sky. Milly and Tarquin had already run through a cornfield hand in hand, picked fruit
together, balancing precariously on ladders propped against a giant pear tree, and now they would lie in each other’s arms on a picnic blanket. The photo spread and interview were
provisionally titled
First Love, Last Love
.

‘
Very
teen magazine,’ Milly had said derisively when the
Telegraph
rang her PR to propose it. ‘But as long as we can use Milly and Me jewellery, and the
clothes are proper designer, no highstreet crap or someone’s rubbishy cheap line for H&M . . .’

The Matthew Williamson gown that the stylist was now reverently removing from its zipped sheath, draping it over her arm as if she were selling a bolt of hand-embroidered silk, was definitely
‘proper designer’. The stylist proffered it to Eva first, as per Milly’s strict instructions that Eva’s approval was crucial for the overall aesthetic of the photo shoot.
Eva, a designer herself, instinctively knew exactly how Milly should be styled and presented to achieve the perfect branding of Milly’s image that would represent both her look and the
jewellery line.

‘It’s
gorge
,’ Milly breathed. Eva had shown her photos of all the dresses selected for the shoot, a long list of floaty stunners interspersed with a couple of more
fitted lace ones for variety, and this was definitely the
pièce de résistance.
It was made from ivory silk-chiffon, sleeveless, with an asymmetric neckline, ruffles clustered
heavily on one shoulder and tumbling down the fitted bodice diagonally in a soft fall to the narrow waist. The skirt, a glorious riot of cascading tiers embellished with pearlescent sequins and
delicate beads, was as full as the bodice was slim, but not ballgown-wide, which would have dwarfed Milly’s small frame.

‘It’s actually from his bridal collection,’ the stylist said enthusiastically. ‘But it’s like
so
much more sophisticated than like one of those awful
strapless wedding dresses, you know? I mean, if this were mine I would like
totally
consider hand-dyeing it afterwards and wearing it to openings. It’s really an
investment
piece, which for a wedding dress is utterly like
profound
and really speaks to the whole
symbolism
of weddings.’

Eva had learnt over the few years she’d been in business to tune out the way in which most stylists talked, and she let this one’s stream of consciousness roll over her. She had come
to realize that everyone in fashion now considered themselves artists in their own right. Fashion exhibitions were very prestigious now: the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, plus the Fashion
Institute of Technology and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, regularly assembled hugely successful displays, from the costumes of David Bowie to the couture wardrobe of Daphne Guinness to the
Punk: Chaos to Couture
show at the Met. All had drawn huge amounts of press coverage and sell-out crowds.

So stylists feel they’ve got to talk like they’re perpetually interviewing for the job of junior curator at a museum costume department,
Eva reflected.
And, ironically,
there’s a journalist here from the magazine who’s going to write the copy, but she’s not listening to a word of this drivel any more than I am.

‘Oh Tark, you’re not going to think it’s bad luck, are you, me wearing a wedding dress?’ Milly cooed for the benefit of the journalist, who was scribbling away making
notes of the dialogue between the young lovers.

‘We make our own luck,’ Tarquin replied poetically, pushing back his own tangle of fair curls. His blue eyes were soft as he gazed at his fiancée. ‘No, wait –
you
are my luck, Milly.’

‘Stop!’ the hairstylist muttered sarcastically to Eva. ‘It’s just
too
beautiful. My withered old heart will burst.’

‘He really means it,’ Eva said to him under her breath. ‘Honestly, it’s not for the journo.’

‘He needs a good rogering if you ask me,’ the hairstylist hissed back. ‘Tie him up and suck him dry. See what lyrics he comes up with after
that
. Maybe they’ll
even make sense for once.’

Eva went bright red, dropping her head forward so that her thick hair fell over her face, hiding her embarrassment at the vivid image this conjured up. She found herself imagining kneeling down
in front of Tarquin, hearing him groan as she licked him reverently, feeling his hands twine lovingly in her hair, maybe pushing it away from her face so that he could watch her as she performed
what she would consider an act of love and worship on him. It was by no means the first time she had had erotic fantasies about Tarquin, but now was a particularly mortifying time for it to happen.
She knew it was a terrible idea for her to let her imagination run rampant about the fiancé of her best friend –
not just terrible, the worst idea in the world! –
and
she was desperately hoping that her love for Tarquin would burn itself out naturally with time.

But when someone talks about sucking him dry, how can I help it? It makes me think about all sorts of things I know I shouldn’t!

Even through her heavy curtain of hair, she was miserably aware of the hairstylist’s sly, knowing gaze on her. People bustled around the small interior, seating Milly at the lighted
make-up table built into the specially converted RV, the make-up artist swivelling Milly on the chair, squatting on a step stool to have her hand steady enough to pat Milly’s
Cupid’s-bow lips with a tiny brush dabbed with Chanel gloss. The hairstylist, who had been curled up in a padded recess by the window, unfolded himself and stood up, leaning over Eva, taking
the coffee cup from her. He reached into his travel case, took out a silver hipflask and, uncapping it, slugged a little of its contents into the cup, returning it to her.