Darn It! (2 page)

‘There’s very few people who aren’t computer literate these days,’ argued Kenny. ‘Laptops, iPads, smartphones, most people have
something
in their house that has an internet connection. There’s been surveys done that said that more than half the television watching public double screen.’

‘Double screen?’ asked Greg. ‘Is this another perversion that I’m unaware of? And why would they be doing it while they’re watching me on television?’ The last few words of the sentence were delivered in a shrill voice.

‘It’s having another screen in front of you while you watch television,’ said Nicki helpfully. ‘So, if people are tweeting on their phone while they’re looking at your show, that’s double screening.’

Greg nodded, mollified.

‘We’ll show the two segments, side by side, and the one who gets the most votes, is our new researcher!’ said Kenny. ‘May the best woman win, hey?’

Yeah, thought Nicki. Like that was going to happen. If she hadn’t been feeling depressed enough about the way things were going, learning that she’d have to research for the rest of the show while also preparing for what a very public interview was the icing on the cake. She had the feeling that this was going to be humiliating. After all, Alva was more than just beautiful and ruthless - she was well connected. Nicki had never been the most popular girl in school, and had shrunk away from popularity contests such as going for head girl and class captain by instinct, even though she’d felt that she had the kind of qualities that would make her a good fit for the roles. Now, she was going to be having her first competition in front of the entire nation. Great, just great.

Sorcha, her best friend in the studio and a make-up artist for the station, came over to her in the cafeteria.

‘You look down,’ said Sorcha, placing her tray on the table. ‘Shouldn’t you be excited?’

‘You’ve heard then,’ said Nicki despondently.

‘I have,’ said Sorcha. ‘And I think it’s a brilliant idea.’

‘Huh,’ said Nicki. ‘There’s no question about who’s going to get the job now, is there?’

‘Nicki, you were made for this job,’ said Sorcha. ‘I’ve never seen you so down, what’s up?’ Nicki was usually cheerful and upbeat. She’d taken a knock when her relationship had broken down, understandably enough, but she’d rallied and was now taking single parenthood in her stride. Sorcha, who was usually much more bad tempered with less cause than her friend, often felt guilty that she couldn’t manage to bottle the optimism her friend exuded on a daily basis.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Nicki. ‘Alva is ruthless when it comes to her career; you’ve seen what she’s been up to the past few weeks? She’ll rally all her friends to her cause. I thought I’d lose out to her anyway because, you know, the whole single motherhood stuff - and the fact that she looks so much better on camera.’

‘She wouldn’t look better on camera!’ said Sorcha, loyally. ‘You are just as attractive as her.’

‘Aside from looks, she’s always so well put together,’ said Nicki. ‘I’d say she gets up two hours earlier than she needs to in the morning to perfect her look.’

‘Huh,’ said Sorcha. ‘That’s presuming that she actually sleeps and isn’t in fact a creature of the night. Anyway, you would look just as good if you had the time to put into your make-up. And, you know, if you actually sharpened your eyeliner pencil.’

Nicki winced. ‘Is it that obvious? Katie drew a picture of a cat on the wall with it this morning while I was making breakfast.’

‘Remember, you’ll have me doing your make-up,’ said Sorcha. ‘You’ll look sensational!’

‘That’s for the live show, not for the segments I film myself,’ said Nicki. ‘Alva will probably get her make-up done professionally, she’ll look amazing. I’ll just look frumpy.’

‘I’ll come out to your house the morning you’re filming,’ said Sorcha. ‘I’ll do it for you, make you look great.’

‘I can’t ask you to do that,’ said Nicki.

‘You’re not asking,’ said Sorcha. ‘I’m offering. You’re brilliant at doing your hair; I can keep Katie busy while you do that. Which leaves you with the one sticky problem of fashion.’

Nicki moaned. ‘Ugh. I have nothing new. My entire wardrobe is around three years old.’

‘I’d loan you stuff if I could,’ said Sorcha. ‘It’s alright,’ said Nicki. ‘I know you would.’ Sorcha was the perfect height for a runway model, whereas Nicki barely cleared five foot.

‘Can you free up money from anywhere?’ asked Sorcha. ‘I mean, you can say what you like about Alva, but she is always amazingly dressed.’

‘That’s true,’ said Nicki. Alva had married a well off solicitor and always had buckets of money to spend on her appearance. She didn’t even need the bump in income that the promotion would give them. But because of that very fact, she had the money to spend on ensuring that she got it. The game was rigged. Alva was always dressed in the latest clothes and looked like she’d been styled specifically for the show.

People could say that it didn’t matter until the cows came home, but television was, by its nature ,a visual medium. How you looked did matter, and the Alva’s polished appearance would impress the audience. Sure, they had a wardrobe department, but Alva could and would wear her own clothes which were miles pricier than the threads they had in wardrobe. Most of it was on loan from designers, and you never knew what could be sent in. It was better to have your own look put together.

Nicki sighed and got to work on her brief. It wasn’t too bad: an investigation into government cuts to payments to families that cared for seriously ill family members at home, often putting their own lives on hold in the process. The camera crew would be with Alva from 9am to 12pm, and with Nicki from 2pm to 5pm. Morning lighting was more flattering for outside shots, which could really bring the whole visual aspect of a report together, so Nicki had drawn the short straw there. With any luck, it would rain non-stop for the week and Alva wouldn’t be able to get any outside shots at all. But that was unprofessional of her, Nicki thought. May the best woman win, and all that jazz.

She went home and looked at her wardrobe. Her best outfit was a Chinese silk dress she’d gotten as a gift last Christmas from her parents. It sat beautifully on her, and had a high mandarin style collar. She couldn’t wear it, though. It was more formal than anything else, and she’d look a bit strange interviewing people in evening dress. Anyway, Alva had seen her wear the dress before at last year’s Christmas party. She’d take one look at it and instantly know that she couldn’t afford anything else. Nicki didn’t need the pity.

There wasn’t anybody else that she could turn to. All her friends were pin to collar, trying to make their salaries stretch. She could ask her parents, but she’d leaned on them a lot lately since she’d broken up with Paul. They’d help her out, but they might also give her a lecture about how Paul paid too little child support. Privately, she agreed with them. but they had a good relationship. And he was very good about minding Katie when he could outside his allocated visiting hours. She’d heard enough horror stories about acrimonious splits to be wary of rocking the boat.

What else was in the wardrobe? Everything else had bobbles all over it or had been washed so often that it was a completely different shade, if not colour, than it had been previously. She was lucky that she’d managed to slim back to her pre-pregnancy size, but that was because she couldn’t afford to buy any more office clothes - losing weight had been an absolute necessity. She had some boring suits, the kind she wore every day, but that wasn’t going to cut it.

She had to go shopping so, that night, she asked her next door neighbour’s teenage daughter to mind Katie. She hit the local village, where the shops were open late. She looked longingly at the cheap and cheerful clothes shops that she usually frequented when she was buying clothes for her down days. There was no way she would be able to find something even approaching appropriate there. Instead, she went for a small boutique. The clothes looked fashionable enough as far as she could tell; she recognised some shapes and colours from Alva’s outfits and the women who ran TV8’s cult fashion programme. She went in. It was small and poky, everything was displayed beautifully and most of the jewellery was behind glass. Huh. There was no way that any of this stuff was real, it was costume stuff. So why was it being displayed like the crown jewels of Great Britain?

She saw a smart dress with a fine print over it. It looked stylish and classy, so she flipped the tag over to look at the price. €350? Nicki dropped the tag, and tried to ignore the smirk of the sales assistant, who seemed to be laughing at the very idea that she could afford their stock. She slipped out of the shop.

Nicki didn’t even know why she was getting this worked up about the thing. She wasn’t even going to get the job. She was tempted to ring Kenny and withdraw her application. But he was already so set on the idea of viewer interaction that he wouldn’t take it well. Plus, it would go against her in future if she applied for a promotion. No, there was no way out of it. She’d just have to suck it up and get on with things.

She saw a charity shop across the road. Could she possibly find something worthwhile there? She was determined not to come back empty handed; after all she was already out of pocket for the babysitting. She walked inside.

Her heart sank. Dim yellow lighting flooded the shop, a stark contrast to the elegance of the boutique she’d just come from. Most of the shelves were full of tatty paperback books with covers straight from the 1990s, VHS tapes and dodgy ornaments. The few rails in the middle of the room looked dispiriting. A woman about her own age was flicking through a magazine at the cash register; it didn’t look like the place was particularly buzzing. Nicki was just about to turn on her heel and leave before she was noticed, by the time the woman at the cash register looked up.

‘Hi,’ she asked. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Nicki. ‘I’m looking for an outfit, a couple of outfits actually. But I’m not sure if -’

‘What are they for?’ asked the woman in a bored voice. ‘A wedding? Christening?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Nicki. ‘I’m a junior researcher for Focus Hibernia and myself and a colleague are in an on air competition to replace Regina when she leaves.’

‘This is good,’ said the woman, who had introduced herself as Brenda. ‘I thought you wanted me to help you pick out a wedding outfit. I am so sick of fecking wedding outfits. Women coming in wanting to find an outfit that will upstage the bride for less than fifteen quid. They have my heart scalded!’

‘So, you think you can help me?’ asked Nicki hopefully.

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Brenda. ‘The thought that something I pick out could end up on the television, it’s quite exciting, isn’t it?’

It was quite something, but Nicki wasn’t quite sure what. After rifling through a few of the rails, she began to feel dispirited again. ‘There’s nothing great here, is there?’

‘Not really,’ said Brenda wistfully. ‘When I started working here a few years ago you’d get amazing stuff in. A-may-zing. I was the envy of all my friends, designer labels just thrown away because it was out of season. Now all the good pieces are being sold off on Ebay and the likes to make more money.’

‘I’m not necessarily looking for designer,’ said Nicki. ‘Just something that looks put together and professional.’ She gingerly picked up a lurid print skirt that had been big in the eighties, but so unfashionable that the latest wave of eighties inspired kitsch had completely skipped over it.

‘There’s a problem there too,’ said Brenda sympathetically. ‘People are bringing their old clothes to those new shops. You know the ones, you bring a bag of clothes down and they weight them and give you money for them. We’re hardly getting any donations in; everyone needs to keep the few pennies that they already have. Anything really decent, they’re getting it altered and mended. There’s a cobbler’s down the road that nearly went out of business during the boom years. Everyone wanted new and flash. Now he’s out the door with work. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the few paperbacks we sell, we’d be lucky to pay the rent.’

‘So there’s nothing here that would work?’ asked Nicki.

‘Well,’ said Brenda slowly. ‘I’m not supposed to do this, but there is one thing. In the back.’ Brenda had a look on her face that suggested that this was such classified information that charity executives might storm the shop at any moment for revealing it.

‘Usually when we get a quality piece, we put it in the window a week before its available for sale, try to get as much of a buzz going as we can. I’m not supposed to reveal it but…’

‘You’d be tempted to?’ asked Nicki, hardly able to hope. There was nothing in the shop that she could remotely imagine wearing. At this rate she’d be stuck wearing a bin liner and claiming it was some avant-garde work by an up and coming artist. That was if she could work out what avant-garde meant.

Do you think you could mention our shop? asked Brenda hopefully. ‘You know, in the broadcast?’

It wasn’t that she was averse to giving a charity shop publicity – she worked for a show that was all about human interest stories, after all. It fitted into their remit. But on the one show where she was basically having a national interview, she had to announce that she was dressed in thrift store threads rather than a designer dress? That she wasn’t so keen on.

But what choice did she have?

‘Ok.’ She agreed. ‘Let’s see it.’

It was a beautifully constructed silver asymmetric bias cut dress. It had a gentle sheen: not so much that it would look odd on television, but enough to lift it from plain to interesting. It was well lined, and Nicki could tell that it would sit perfectly on her.

‘Will you get in trouble if you sell it to me?’ asked Nicki, fingering the material reverentially.

‘Not if you say where you got your dress on air,’ said Brenda, her eyes carrying a hint of a challenge.

‘Ok,’ said Nicki. Luckily Brenda didn’t have any idea how unlikely it was that she’d get the role, otherwise she’d be sending the dress over to Alva.

‘Try it on,’ said Brenda.