Sequins, Secrets, and Silver Linings (23 page)

Unlike the rest of the collection, which is intensely colored, this dress is silver. It’s got a backless satin bodice and a long waterfall skirt made up of dozens of petals of silver lace, finished with crystals. The lace is Skye’s latest textile design, which she’s given to Crow to experiment with. It’s even more delicate than her last one, and looks like the skeletons of leaves you might get on your windows on a frosty winter morning. It seems incredibly
delicate as it is, but Crow has decided to muck about with it and fray the edges of every petal. Each one takes hours of work, deciding on the shape and position and then fraying it the perfect amount.

The effect isn’t as ballerina-pretty as most of her stuff. It’s more edgy and sexy and dangerous. It takes me a while to work out what on earth can be going on in that thirteen-year-old head of hers to make her even imagine it, until I realize: It’s like a crash course in fashion history. There are bits of Vionnet, bits of Saint Laurent, bits of Westwood, bits of Galliano, and bits that are entirely her own.

One day, she catches me looking.

“I call it the Swan,” she says. “It sort of started out as a design for
Swan Lake
. One day I’d love to design for the ballet.”

Of course she would. Really, nothing surprises me about Crow anymore. She probably will, knowing her.

Chapter 36

J
anuary hurtles into February. I actually feel sick when Mum turns the page on the kitchen calendar. February is Fashion Week month. February is like a magical name for something in the future that will never really happen. Once February comes, we only have three weeks to get everything done. Lots of my friends are thinking about skiing. I’m thinking about lighting and rehearsals and the dreaded seating plan.

Most Sunday evenings are spent making props, or working on the music with Harry, or desperately finishing homework. My ability to “précis,” I’m told, has much improved. (This means I’ve got good at making my essays short. A necessity in these busy times.)

The second Sunday in February is an exception, though.

It’s BAFTA Sunday and work at the studio has ground to a halt. Edie and I are outside the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. For once, Crow is with us, too, looking
scared and startled. I don’t think she likes big crowds, and this is the biggest crowd I’ve been in, and the most excited.

Jenny had been hoping to arrive late and avoid the red carpet as much as possible, but the message obviously hasn’t got through and she’s one of the first people to turn up. This time she gets a warm welcome as lots of people recognize her. There are a few friendly shouts as people hold up their phones to get a picture. I try, too, but all I get is a picture of a field of cell phones. However, from a distance, she seems to be bearing up well.

Mum would approve. Crow has somehow found the time to design an emerald-green satin dress with a tiny waist and what we now call a Jenny-length hem that shows off her calves and ankles. The student interns have mostly put it together, because Crow is so busy finalizing the collection she hardly sleeps as it is, and they’ve managed to embellish the bodice and hem with some leftover Swarovski crystals. There’s a matching jacket, too, to ward off the freezing English night.

The original Louboutins look good with their new rose clips. Jenny’s also wearing borrowed emerald earrings and a choker with a teeny emerald drop, to emphasize the perfect skin on her neck and shoulders.
Granny’s hairdresser has conditioned her hair to such a shine it’s practically blinding.

The only thing we can’t really help her with is her expression. That will be entirely down to acting.

Joe arrives not long after Jenny, clutching Sigrid Santorini’s hand and looking sickeningly pleased with himself. Sigrid is beautiful in pictures and better in the flesh. She has perfect hair, perfect tan, perfect body, and has encased it tonight in a gold lamé dress that starts at mid-boob level and stops a couple of inches above her perfect knees. She must be freezing, but she’s too professional to show it. Both of them show perfect sets of not entirely natural white teeth to us and all the photographers.

Jenny stays where she is, signing autographs, looking serene and unconcerned. Just another girl Joe happens to know from a movie. Because they were in
Kid Code
together, the photographers ask them to pose beside each other, and they do. Despite everything, they look as good as they did the last time. Joe mutters something into Jenny’s ear and she smiles as if her heart isn’t really broken.

Edie and I agree that if she’d performed this well during
Kid Code
, she’d be one of the favorites for an award tonight.

This time, she calls as soon as she gets home.

“Thank God that’s over.”

I tell her how good she was on the red carpet and ask if they won anything.

“Four,” she says abruptly. She reels off what they were, but it’s as if she’s listing her required classes this term. There’s clearly something else on her mind.

“Can you do me a favor?” she asks.

“Sure.”

“It’s about Sigrid. You know how we were going to do things together? Well, Joe’s got to go to this business thing tomorrow and Sigrid’s stuck on her own. She was busy admiring my dress, so I told her we could go to Crow’s studio, if she wanted. She loves the whole Fashion Week thing. She often goes to shows in New York, she says. And Paris. She gets tickets all the time.”

“It’ll be chaos!” I say, appalled. “There’s stuff everywhere and pieces being finished off. She can’t go!”

“She has to,” Jenny says, sounding tearful. “I promised.”

I sigh deeply. I can’t bear to hear her sounding this miserable. I’ll have to go with her, though, to guide the starlet through the pandemonium. With the show looming, the place is littered with nearly finished pieces,
boxes of trimmings, discarded fabrics, stray accessories, and piles of paperwork. It’s impossible to imagine it all being ready in time, but luckily I have Amanda’s reassurance that this is normal and somehow it will all come together when it needs to.

“When were you thinking of going?”

“Six o’clock? After school?”

Well, at six on a Monday I’d normally be at the studio, anyway, so I agree.

This Monday, I’m there at five to. Unusually, no one else is, but I hope this means the others are getting some rest for a change. The place is empty and dark. I haven’t seen it like this for weeks. It feels strange to turn the lights on and gradually watch the pieces appear from the darkness as each overhead light flickers into life.

I’m used to the chaos, but behind me, I hear a gasp. I look around and see Sigrid in the doorway, smiling like a toothpaste ad, with Jenny hovering behind her.

Sigrid’s wearing a jeans-and-cashmere-cardi combo that manages to look casual and eye-poppingly expensive at the same time. Her handbag is gorgeous, if you like that sort of thing. Her hair is shiny. Her skin is dewy. Her tiny, perfectly proportioned body doesn’t have a square inch of fat on it. She is bouncy and friendly and gives
the impression that she has just downed four energy drinks and loves you to bits. I don’t think she’s noticed I hate her.

Jenny’s wearing an old coat and an apologetic expression. She introduces me.

“Um, welcome. It’s not always this messy,” I say, lying.

“Oh no! It’s fabulous. Awesome,” says Sigrid, going up to one of the tailor’s dummies and ruffling its feathery skirt. “Jenny, I totally love this stuff. Where’s your little friend?”

Jenny shrugs and looks at me questioningly. I shrug back.

“Nonie’s in charge, though,” Jenny explains to reassure Sigrid. “She’s the brains behind the business.”

I haven’t heard myself described this way before, and I don’t think brains behind businesses usually giggle. But Sigrid ignores me and wafts around between the dummies, running her hand over the fabrics and feeling the petals and the crystal embroidery. Everything is “amazing” and “awesome.” I pray she doesn’t break anything, but it seems rude to ask her not to.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” I ask, feeling a bit desperate and anxious to give her hands something else to do.

“Warm water, please,” says Sigrid decisively. “With a touch of lemon. Three drops. Fresh lemon, please. You are SO sweet.”

So they really are like that. Some of them, anyway. You think they’re going to surprise you and be vaguely normal, but no.

I look at the studio’s kitchenette, with its kettle, sink, and mini fridge. In the end I give her warmish tap water without the lemon. She takes one sip and hands it to Jenny with a wave of her hand. Then she continues on her royal progress around the room. Some of the stuff isn’t awesome or amazing, it’s cute. Or hot. Or awesome
and
amazing.

Eventually, she reaches the showpiece of the collection—the Swan. It’s the only piece that’s technically ready, although even now Crow adjusts it every time she sees it.

“Oh!” Sigrid gasps again. She stops dead in her tracks. “This is the one. This has to be the one. I have to do this award thing. Can I try it on? How much? Considering all the PR you’ll get.”

My brain feels as though it’s been chucked over a cliff and is bouncing down the boulders. Award thing. Try on. How much. I haven’t really pictured actually selling the items after the show—although of course that’s
the point. Certainly not to an A-lister like Sigrid. Crow would take it in stride, I’m sure. But she’s not here.

I’m so busy stuttering, figuring out what to think, that Sigrid’s got the dress off the dummy before I can stop her.

“Help me here,” she says, heading over to the mirror.

Then she casually strips down to her thong and steps into the dress. She’s a minuscule sample size, naturally, and it fits her like a glove. It looks as though it was made for her. It looks as though it was made ON her. I can’t help gasping, which is obviously the effect she was looking for. I haven’t seen it on a moving human being before and it’s incredible. It’s a living fairy tale of a dress, and Sigrid, star-stealing strumpet that she is, looks incredible in it.

She stands in front of the mirror for several minutes, preening and practicing her poses on tiptoe. It looks gorgeous from every angle. Not a single seam needs adjusting.

“Awesome,” she says for the umpteenth time. “Can I take it?”

“I’m afraid not,” I explain. “London Fashion Week starts in just over a week. We need it for fittings and stuff. Then the show, of course.”

“Cute,” Sigrid says dismissively. “When’s the show?”

“In twelve days,” I say, holding out my hands to help her out of the dress. She doesn’t move.

“That’s OK. My award thing’ll be over by then. It’s just SO gorgeous. I have to have it. And I’m leaving town tomorrow.” She looks thoughtful. “There wouldn’t be time for you to ship it. Safest if I take it with me.”

“I’m really sorry, but we need it.”

Sigrid looks at me, round-eyed. “Of course you do. I promise I’ll get it back to you in a couple of days. A week, tops. Scout’s honor. Isn’t that what you say? And meanwhile I’ll wear it on TV and you’ll get all the coverage. Think what that’ll mean to your little friend here. She’ll so be in love with you for it.”

I’m not quite sure what happens next. Jenny seems to have dematerialized. Sigrid says more stuff and I keep saying sorry, no, and she gets out of the dress and back into her cashmere, and the next thing I know she’s got the Swan in a bag and her taxi is waiting to take her back to her hotel and we’re outside the studio and I’m waving her good-bye.

It’s only as the taxi pulls away that I start to wake up.

“Why didn’t you take it off her?” Jenny asks.

It turns out Jenny disappeared to the loo at the crucial moment. Now she’s standing beside me, watching the taxi drive off.

“Why didn’t
you
?”

“Dunno. I was sort of mesmerized. She does that. But anyway, I thought you’d given it to her. You did, didn’t you?”

“I suppose I did,” I admit. “She promised she’d get it back to us in time.”

“When did she say she was going to wear it, exactly?”

“This award thing she’s got.”

“Which award thing?”