Sequins, Secrets, and Silver Linings (14 page)

And gradually her face becomes one big, shy smile.

Chapter 19

A
few hours later, when we’ve recovered from the shock of Svetlana, Crow explains about the competition.

“I saw the poster and Harry told me about it. I thought if I won, I could introduce him.”

She makes it all sound so easy.

“So what did you design?”

“I drew a little black lace cocktail dress. Very simple, but the hips are padded, so …”

Without thinking, she breaks off, grabs a scrap of paper and a pen, and draws the dress to show us what she means. It’s a simple silhouette, with a fitted bodice like a lace leotard and a flared skirt. When you look closer, you realize that the hips are exaggerated, a bit like the embroidered court dress that Crow and I love so much from the V&A. In the middle, from waist to hem, is a triangle of cascading white lace. Mum, who’s wandered over to have a look, puts her hand on her shoulder.

“Velazquez,” she says, nodding approvingly. “And a touch of Watteau. Yes?”

Crow nods back. For once, I don’t need Edie to translate. Mum’s talking about a seventeenth-century Spanish painter and an eighteenth-century French one. Both painted women in seriously big dresses, which is the reason I remember them. I think grumpily that I would have spotted their influence sooner if Mum and Crow had bothered to take me on some of their art trips recently.

“But why didn’t you tell us?” Mum asks.

Crow looks at the floor and won’t say anything. We try and get the story out of her, but it’s impossible. Even Harry can’t get her to talk. It’s Harrison Ford all over again.

It’s Jenny who figures it out. We’re watching
Gossip Girl
and it’s a commercial break.

“You entered that competition, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I admit. “With a totally genius design. In my head. Except on paper it looked a bit like a crumpled paper bag on a Bratz.”

“Well, there you are. Don’t you get it?”

“Nope.”

“She didn’t want to embarrass you. It’s thanks to you she even found out about the competition. And you came in nowhere.”

“Thanks, Jen.”

“And now she’s a finalist. How many entries were there?”

I’ve checked. There were about ten thousand.

“She didn’t want to rub it in.”

I’ve never thought of Crow as particularly sensitive. I’ve never thought of her as sensitive at all. But first I discover she’s been matchmaking for Harry—successfully, too. Then it seems she realizes that I have feelings as well. It’s a bit of a revelation.

Jenny is good at this sort of thing at the moment. In fact, she’s good at everything. Even being nice to Edie, which can’t be easy, after everything Edie’s said about her being Lady Bountiful. There’s been a glow about Jenny for weeks and only the most stupid friend wouldn’t be able to figure out why. Now seems a good time to check for developments.

“Has
he
been in touch?” I ask her, reaching across for a cookie.

“As a matter of fact, he has,” she says, handing me the last one. “He’s e-mailed me a bit.”

“Wow.”

“Not really,” she mumbles with a stilted laugh. “It’s nothing amazing. You know, just general stuff. Lila’s in Canada shooting something, and he’s in New Mexico.”

Lila Riley is the Sexy Girlfriend. There’s something about the way Jenny mentions her name.

“And?”

“Oh, nothing. He seems a bit fed up. He said how much he enjoyed being in London. Seeing the sights.”

“Any sights in particular?”

“No,” she says.

I check her face. Flaming fruits of the forest. Neck to temple.

“Is he coming over again?”

“Probably. In February. For the BAFTAs—you know, the awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts? If we’re nominated.”

“But you will be, no? Everyone’s saying
Kid Code
’s going to get every award going.”

“Maybe. Except Best Supporting Actress, of course. But you know, they’ve said they’d want everyone to be there, so I’d be included, and London’s my hometown …”

Her voice is still casual. She’s staring straight ahead. The flaming fruits of the forest are dying down slightly. I’m guessing she’s counting every day.

Then, during a particularly interesting part of the episode, when I’m trying to concentrate, she happens to mention that it’s so difficult for stars using e-mail. Anything could get intercepted and they have to speak in code the whole time. I sense she’s speaking in code herself. I wonder: What, exactly, is “enjoyed seeing the sights” code for?

Later, I google Joe Yule and Lila Riley. Half the blogs say they’ve split up and the other half say they’re the strongest teenage couple in Hollywood. Out of interest, I try googling Joe Yule and Jenny Merritt, but all I get is that picture of them at the National Movie Awards, with Jenny in her Marilyn dress. If Joe is missing any sights in particular, nobody in the blogosphere has picked up on it.

Now that my life is full of supermodels and fashion awards, I try to imagine my best friend going out with the New Teenage God of Hotness, thinking maybe it will be easier. It still seems totally impossible. But I wasn’t on set with him that day last year and I didn’t have him whispering into my ear going into the Festival Hall.

I don’t know what to think, but I do know that
whatever’s going on at the moment, it’s making Jenny so blissed-out she practically floats into school every morning. And on a cold autumn day with a double period of geography to look forward to, that really takes some doing.

Chapter 20

B
ack at home, Mum puts the Yves Saint Laurent award date in all-caps in her BlackBerry and in red ink on the kitchen calendar, which now hangs under one of Harry’s photos and beside two framed pictures of Crow’s dancing girls. I haven’t had anything on those walls since I was five, when I apparently grew out of my “naïf” style.

Granny comes up to town and insists on hearing the whole story from start to finish. She also adores the dress design.

Edie mentions the competition in her blog and has the decency to admit that she’s getting far more hits now that it’s at least fifty percent about fashion and less about recycling and clean water.

Jenny spends ages mentally designing the dress she’ll wear to the YSL ceremony and is horrified to hear that Crow won’t be allocated enough tickets for her to go.

“But I’m her best client!” she says petulantly.

“Apart from the supermodel,” I point out. Jenny has to admit this is probably true.

Even Harry mentions the ceremony at least once a day, as it’ll be the first chance he has to meet up with Svetlana again. He’s tried to fix a date with her, but she seems to spend most of her life on planes and must have the carbon footprint of a major company. (Edie is appalled and blogs about this, too. Hits go up exponentially. It may help that Edie puts up a few images of Svetlana to illustrate her point.)

Crow ignores us all, except for Granny. They hole up in the workroom, plotting something, and only emerge for food, school (Crow), and cigarette breaks (Granny).

On the subject of the competition, Granny is less concerned about my feelings than Crow seems to be.

“Darling, I gather you entered, too.”

I admit I did.

“How sweet. Can I see the designs some time?”

“I didn’t keep a copy.”

“Sweet” is not a good word in the Nonie Chatham dictionary. As soon as I can, I dig out my folder full of copies and make sure I religiously shred each one.

We don’t make such a bad crowd as we get ready to go out on the big night. Mum comes downstairs in Dries Van Noten, which is very sculptural and severe, but looks good with her cheekbones, and Granny is drop-dead gorgeous in vintage velvet. Yvette Mansard is wearing an exquisite silk print dress she designed herself, although she admits Crow helped her arthritic hands with some of the tricky bits. I’m in a silver leotard (I’m still in my metallic phase) and two of Crow’s original nylon skirts, which hang like delicate snowdrops—and aren’t so see-through if you wear them in pairs, I’ve discovered. Crow herself is in a red brocade dress she got from a thrift shop and has customized by wearing it back to front. It looks as though it’s been made out of a pair of curtains, but she says there’s something about the color that makes her happy, which seems a good enough reason to choose it.

As soon as we get to the tent in Battersea Park, where they’re holding the ceremony, Svetlana spots us and comes over to say hello. She’s in a vintage Saint Laurent trouser suit accessorized with a long rope of pearls and is, of course, spectacular. So is the venue. The marquee has been kitted out with hundreds of white flowers and candles and tables laden with crockery and crystal. We have a big meal to get through before they announce
the winner. How nervous people are expected to eat this many courses, I have no idea.

Svetlana and Harry don’t seem to know what to say to each other. She’s constantly being accosted by fashion people who need to kiss her several times on both cheeks and talk about how fabulous it was in Milan or Paris or New York or wherever it was they met last time. Harry knows lots of the design students from Saint Martins and they keep trying to sidle up to him so he’ll introduce them to the supermodel. It’s all a bit sticky and the rest of us quickly decide to leave them to it and go and inspect the other competition entries, to see what Crow’s up against.

The six finalists’ designs are on spotlit boards along one side of the marquee. Granny, who has three original Saint Laurent cocktail dresses in one of the attic rooms after a bit of a splurge in the seventies, proceeds past the boards, pronouncing on each one.

“Too sexy. Too short. Too derivative. Perfect. Good effort, but too beige. Too clever for its own good.”

Crow’s, naturally, is the perfect one. The good but beige one is by a Saint Martins student named Laslo Wiggins, whom I’ve met through Harry. He’s one of their rising stars and, according to Harry, a total party animal. I spot him at a nearby table, and he’s surrounded
by a posse of admirers and dressed like an extra from
Pirates of the Caribbean
.

His table stays busy throughout the meal, which we can hardly eat. There’s definitely a buzz around Laslo. Then someone says that the winner will be announced in five minutes, and lots of people get up from their places to gossip and speculate about who’s won.