Unsticky (31 page)
Authors: Sarah Manning
As she stepped into the lift, Kiki was hot on her heels. ‘I have an appointment as well,’ she murmured, though they both knew it was a lie. Kiki had never actually seen 5 p.m. in the office, ever. Even on press day. ‘What’s in the bag?’
They both stared at the interlocking c’s on the dress bag. ‘Chanel sent this dress over even though we hadn’t asked for it,’ Grace quickly improvised. ‘It’s got to go to New York tonight so I promised I’d personally deliver it to the press office. Keep them sweet, you know?’
Kiki inclined her head in tacit acknowledgement of Grace’s dedication. ‘Courtney said that Bunny was sobbing her little heart out in the kitchen after you tore into her,’ she informed Grace, with a faint note of praise in her voice. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you, Gracie.’
‘She’s useless,’ Grace muttered bitterly. ‘She spends all day on Facebook, and I’m pretty sure she nicked a D and G bikini from the cupboard last Friday. How come she’s not needed back at Oxford?’
‘Oh, she’s on sabbatical. I really wish she’d do something about her weight,’ Kiki sniffed. ‘She’s a good stone too heavy for a bikini.’
It was the most cordial exchange Grace had ever had with Kiki. Plus it looked as if Bunny’s days were well and truly numbered. It put a spring in Grace’s step as the lift doors opened.
chapter seventeen
Grace had been to Vaughn’s house before. Many times actually, but it was always as a coda to an evening out and she’d follow him up the stairs to his bedroom, which was a symphony of grey, on the second floor, stay for an hour or so and then climb back down the stairs to a waiting car as Vaughn said she fidgeted too much in her sleep to stay the night.
Although her mind was on other things and she was constantly being interrupted, this was the first time Grace had been able to explore it properly. It was just like the gallery and his New York apartment: spacious, with stunning views (from the top floor she could see Hampstead Heath and the whole of London laid out before her), but all period features and interesting architectural quirks had been ruthlessly gutted. The whole place was an antiseptic advert to the joys of minimalist living, Grace thought as she walked into something that wasn’t a living room or a lounge or anything other than an art gallery with some really uncomfortable furniture in it; a couple of bendy leather pieces that hadn’t been designed to be sat on. Only a room on the first floor at the end of a long corridor looked halfway lived in; it had softly curved walls, more pale wood, two fairly comfy sofas, even a rug adorned with blue and grey circles that probably didn’t come from IKEA and, hallelujah, praise be, a bar. It was practically a den.
Back downstaris, the servers were setting up the crockery and cutlery Grace had selected on a vast table in the dining room. Grace wished she hadn’t gone with the camellia centrepieces now she’d properly seen the house; they were completely overshadowed by a huge painting of a Japanese girl wrapped in a flag with her mouth open in a silent scream, so Grace actually felt a moment of fondness for her grandparents’ collection of Capo Di Monte figurines. She should have gone for something more modern and eclectic like lemons or cacti because her centrepieces didn’t belong in this cold, impersonal house any more than Grace did. She felt a wave of panic wash over her like dirty grey water, and had to grip the back of a chair with icy hands.
She honest to goodness screamed when someone touched her lightly on the shoulder.
‘Well, there’s no need to ask if you’ve got everything under control,’ Vaughn said tartly in her ear.
‘Everything
is
under control,’ Grace panted, hand clutched to her heart as she turned round to face him. ‘You just surprised me.’
is
under control,’ Grace panted, hand clutched to her heart as she turned round to face him. ‘You just surprised me.’
Vaughn ran an assessing eye over her, starting with her hair, which Grace was hating more with each painful moment that passed, lingering over her breasts and hips, which were nicely showcased in boned satin, and finishing at her toes, which were wiggling nervously in her Oscar de la Renta slingbacks. He nodded but didn’t say anything so Grace guessed she’d passed muster. If she hadn’t, Vaughn would have been sure to let her know. And Christ, she really needed a cigarette and a stiff drink.
‘Don’t let me down, Grace,’ Vaughn said softly, as she stood there and waited for the inevitable ‘shape up or ship out’ pep talk she was certain was coming. But it seemed that was all she was getting.
‘I’ll try not to,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’ll really try not to.’
‘You do well tonight and I’ll buy you a present. What would you like? Jewellery? Maybe a tiara if you’re going to wear your hair up more often?’
Grace had always wanted a tiara, ever since she’d seen
Breakfast At Tiffany’s
at the tender age of eleven and decided that she was going to be Holly Golightly when she grew up. But when she’d actually read the Truman Capote novella much later on and realised that Holly was a prostitute, her fictional heroine had lost a lot of her allure. And now, when she was coasting a tsunami of stress and standing here in a dress paid for by a man with whom she had sex on a regular basis even though she didn’t like him very much, it was all too close to home.
Breakfast At Tiffany’s
at the tender age of eleven and decided that she was going to be Holly Golightly when she grew up. But when she’d actually read the Truman Capote novella much later on and realised that Holly was a prostitute, her fictional heroine had lost a lot of her allure. And now, when she was coasting a tsunami of stress and standing here in a dress paid for by a man with whom she had sex on a regular basis even though she didn’t like him very much, it was all too close to home.
‘You don’t have to buy me presents,’ she burst out, and knew she sounded like an absolute ingrate, but the mention of tiaras had hit a nerve. ‘You’re paying me to organise this and that’s enough. The allowances are enough.’
Vaughn’s eyebrows had shot up, but now he’d schooled his features into the slightly sneery, but otherwise impassive expression that always made Grace nervous.
More
nervous.
More
nervous.
‘You’re in a very strange mood this evening, Grace. I hope you snap out of it before our guests arrive,’ he said lightly, turning away. ‘Where are you serving pre-dinner drinks? In the drawing room?’
Then he strode out, leaving Grace with no option but to follow him.
It wasn’t a perfect evening. Grace constantly had to leave the table with a murmured, ‘Would you excuse me?’ to run interference between two of the waiters who’d had a lover’s tiff five minutes before the first guests had arrived. Or to listen to the latest thrilling instalment of the chafing-dish saga. Then she’d sit down again to find that the conversation at her end of the table had ground to the grinding-est of halts because Lola and Nadja, the eighteen-year-old almost-supermodel girlfriend of a Russian oligarch had absolutely nothing in common.
Luckily, Nadja had taken one look at Grace’s Chanel dress and decided that both it and Grace met with her approval. She’d tucked her arm into Grace’s as they walked into the dining room and confided, ‘I’m so glad you’re not old. These dinners, they’re so boring. You smoke, da? Good, then we go out for fags in between courses.’
Grace had nodded shyly because Nadja had replaced Lily as the most beautiful person she’d ever met in real life. Most models in the flesh were tall, skinny and nothing much to look at until the camera lens did something magical with their angles, but Nadja was so gorgeous that she seemed to suck all the light and colour from the room. She was the only thing you wanted to look at. From the way she tossed back her toffee-coloured hair and smiled with a feline grace, she knew it. But she was more than her beauty; she was also a straight-talking, take-no-shit-and-no-prisoners girl who’d been discovered by a scout when she was bunking off school to beg on the Moscow Underground.
‘Alex, you sell any more stories about me to the gossip men, I have you offed,’ she’d hissed when Alex had taken his place opposite her at the table. Within seconds they were quite happily swapping scurrilous stories about people they’d met at other dinner-parties. Meanwhile, Vaughn was sitting at the other end of the table looking like a drawerful of daggers because Lola and Noah were a no-show.
They’d finally turned up half an hour late, claiming they’d got lost on the way to Vaughn’s house, which to be fair was set far back from a narrow twisty road that snaked around Hampstead Heath. Noah walked in with a cocky swagger and a shit-eating grin, which accessorised perfectly with his paint-splattered jeans and a T-shirt with
Fuck Art, Let’s Dance
emblazoned on it. Lola, on the other hand, looked as if she’d come straight from a Punk Rock Aerobics class because she was in running shorts, metallic leggings, vile pink trainers and a deconstructed vest. She was also sallow and sour, but Grace could tell that if she’d been able to crack a smile, she might have looked a little like a young Bianca Jagger. But it was academic because Lola looked like she hadn’t smiled since 2001.
Fuck Art, Let’s Dance
emblazoned on it. Lola, on the other hand, looked as if she’d come straight from a Punk Rock Aerobics class because she was in running shorts, metallic leggings, vile pink trainers and a deconstructed vest. She was also sallow and sour, but Grace could tell that if she’d been able to crack a smile, she might have looked a little like a young Bianca Jagger. But it was academic because Lola looked like she hadn’t smiled since 2001.
Grace got the whole ‘eat the rich’ shtick, she really did, but she’d wanted to smack them as they stood there in the doorway. Noah had eyed everyone up with a disdainful stare while Lola had scowled, but her grandmother always said that good manners was making people feel comfortable no matter what the circumstances. What her grandmother had meant was when guests turned up for dinner without even a box of Milk Tray or a bottle of Liebfraumilch, but it was the same thing.
Vaughn slowly got up, brows beetled in irritation, but Grace had beaten him to it, leaping to her feet and exclaiming, ‘Did you get turned around on the way out of the tube? It sounds like you should get out at Hampstead but actually Belsize Park is nearer. Let me get you a drink and introduce you to everybody.’
She’d been so jolly hockey sticks that she’d actually grabbed Lola’s hand to escort her to the table and felt the other girl’s fingers trembling. Immediately, Grace guessed that Lola was putting a brave face on sheer terror - that she was regretting the statement outfit and wishing she’d never come. Grace knew exactly how she felt. And if she’d never met Vaughn and had found herself suddenly catapulted into this dining room, straight from the fashion cupboard, she’d have covered up her nerves by giving it some serious attitude too.
It turned out that Noah knew Alex (who seemed to be one of those annoying people who knew everyone), Nadja had taken advantage of the diversion to go out for a cigarette, and Grace decided that her energy was best spent getting Lola to withdraw the stick she had lodged in her rear end.
Grace longed to keep refilling her own glass until the sharp pang of nerves was replaced by numbness, but she didn’t dare. Not when keeping the conversation going had been like wading through treacle in gumboots.
At one stage, Grace had heard herself ask manically, ‘So, who else is angsting about their carbon footprint?’
But the puddings had been received with rapturous little ooohs of delight and the gift bags had been a monster hit. By this stage Noah had lost the sneer and could only smile in dopy stupefaction at the tubes of paint. ‘How did you know?’ he asked Grace.
‘I Facebook stalked you,’ Grace revealed, and he looked even more stunned.
‘Didn’t know girls like you used Facebook,’ he grinned.
‘Are you kidding?’ Grace spluttered. ‘And what do you mean, “girls like me”?’
‘Posh girls.’ Noah waved his hand to encompass the poshness that was Grace. ‘Thought you’d be too busy getting your nails done to check Facebook.’
Grace had wanted to tell them that the elaborate hair-do and the designer frock were just window dressing. Really, she was like them, but with better manners and much, much better dress sense. That she ate peanut butter straight out of the jar and could find her way through Shoreditch blindfolded, but tonight she was playing a part and she guessed her performance had verged on flawless. But if Vaughn wanted her to suck up to edgy Shoreditch artists then maybe Chanel dresses and elaborate updos weren’t helping.
‘We have three mutual friends,’ she informed Noah smugly. ‘You know Laetitia? We worked on a vintage clothing stall in Spitalfields together.’
‘I know Laetitia,’ Lola offered, but she looked at Grace suspiciously. ‘What were you doing working on a vintage clothing stall?’
Grace made an executive decision then to stop channelling her grandmother and be more like herself. ‘Mostly we spat in the owner’s tea because she was a heinous bitch. Like, she’d make me sew fake Biba labels into this Chelsea Girl dead stock she used to get really cheap.’
‘Laetitia told me about her,’ Lola said, nodding her head slowly as if maybe there was slightly more to Grace than met the eye. Not much more though and Grace wasn’t sure why, but it hurt a little that Noah and Grace thought she was slumming it in Spitalfields and on Facebook, when actually it was much more her scene than catered dinner-parties in Hampstead.
Now, though, as Sergei and Nadja (still cooing about the Cavalli shoes) finally left, Grace could feel herself wilting, head hanging heavy under the weight of all the expectation and hair products.
Vaughn walked back into the big open space that Grace would never consider a living room, where they’d taken coffee and dessert, to find her slowly and methodically taking apart her chignon.
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