The Stylist Takes Manhattan Read online

  * * *

  The walk along Oxford Street from Marble Arch was very different in January compared with before Christmas. The strings of bright lights across the road were gone and, bar a few sad, forgotten decorations in some shops, the festive period had been packed away. The London sky was heavy with big, gray clouds.

  Christmas came and went in a bit of a blur, to be honest. Rob went to his mum’s big house in Holland Park and I went to the family pile (read: suburban semi) in deepest North London. As per usual, everything revolved around my sister’s six-year-old daughter, Nora: “Nora prepared the Brussels sprouts!”; “Nora nearly recited that song from Matilda by heart!” The “Nora Show” was in full effect. And it was every bit as grating as a pantomime—for three days solid. Urgh, listen to me. My New Year’s resolution is to be nicer to Nora.

  After polishing off a couple of morning glasses of dry sherry, moving on to prosecco and red wine with lunch, then on to port, by way of a Baileys, I was feeling very fluffy around the edges by nine o’clock. Instead of watching Big for the trillionth time with my sister and Nora, who was being allowed to stay up as long as she wanted, much to my horror, or allowing my dad to beat me at Trivial Pursuit circa 1990, again, I called it a night. Apart from booze, the only thing keeping me going through the day was texting Rob and later sexting with him until I fell into a port-induced coma in the tiny spare bedroom, because my old bedroom had been commandeered by—you guessed it—Nora. Rob seemed to be having a much more civilized day, his mother having decided to take him and his older brother, Dan, plus Dan’s fiancée, Florence, out for a champagne Christmas lunch in a trendy Notting Hill restaurant, then home for charades and posh liqueur chocolates. Maybe next year I’ll be there, too. Please Father Christmas, I promise I’ll be good all year.

  There wasn’t even time for a Boxing Day lie-in for me. The only downside to working at Selfridges—although based on my Christmas, it could be classified as a bonus—was that I had to be at work at five in the morning on Boxing Day. Alongside our regular team we had twenty contractors, and behind huge vinyl stickers, we carefully stripped the fairy-tale festive display from the windows, and then the glass was covered with shouty red paper advertising the January sales. As Big Ben chimed nine in the morning, a stampede of hungry customers from all around the world charged through the doors and set to work dismantling the entire store, snapping up the designer bargains of the year. It was the shopping equivalent of the bull-run through Pamplona. As fervent fashionistas turned the shop into a glorified jumble sale, our windows team sloped back to bed. This time I headed to my own bed in Kensal Rise. Work was a distant memory by evening, because Rob came over in a Christmas jumper with a mountain of leftover cheese and we roasted chestnuts and scoffed Quality Street cuddled up on the sofa watching Elf. All I needed was him. We were lost in each other and I had never felt happier.

  But now, the heady glow of Christmas had disappeared, along with the shine on my relationship, it seemed.

  * * *

  As I entered my super-cool workplace through the staff entrance around the back of Oxford Street at nine thirty, I felt a sense of pride. I’d been working as a window designer at Selfridges for six months now and it was my dream job. Finally, that irritating voice in my head telling me to get a proper career could shut up because I finally had a proper career. Instead of dreading the point in conversation with friends of my parents or mates of mates down the pub, that would eventually crawl around to the inevitable, “So, what do you do, Amber?” I could embrace the question, invite it even, because I had a decent response.

  “Oooh, what are you working on now?” they often asked.

  “It’s all a bit hush-hush,” I’d tease, though it was actually the truth—pulling back the vinyl to unveil the new Selfridges window display was a big, closely guarded event.

  “Jesus, what happened, babe?” my boss, Joseph, exclaimed as I entered the studio.

  “Happy Tuesday to you, too,” I sneered.

  “Sorry, babe, but if you’re sick, perhaps you should go home. Pale and interesting is not this season.”

  “I’m not ill, just tired,” I muttered, marveling at how stupid I was not to get a muffin as well as a coffee from Starbucks on the way in. Thankfully, our studio office was at the very top of the shop, and when we weren’t tucked away up here, we were downstairs tweaking the windows. I was rarely required for face time with senior management.

  Joseph, the creative director for visual merchandising at Selfridges, never looked sloppy, just like his name was never abbreviated to Joe. Tall, handsome and confident, he was fancied by literally the entire female workforce—despite the fact he was gay. He wasn’t particularly camp, which made a certain portion of his admirers cling on to the fantasy that he could be “turned.” And of course all the gay guys—which was most of the male staff—had a deep yearning for him, too. Joseph blatantly knew he was God’s gift, and strutted around the store like Mr. Selfridge himself. His hair was wavy and shoulder length and he wore it tightly tucked behind his ears, like ram’s horns. If you didn’t know better, to look at him you’d think he was French—arty, Gauloises-smoking, air of superiority—but when he spoke his dialect was pure Joey Essex. Everyone was a “babe” and life was “sweet.”

  After working with him for half a year, I was getting to know the real Joseph and, although he genuinely lived the life of a moisturizing modern man who adhered to the five:two diet and had been known to get hooked up to a reviving vitamin-packed IV drip during his lunch break, at the end of the day he was a first-class creative director and I loved having him as my boss. As well as my solid experience styling the windows at Smith’s boutique, I think he was wowed by my time spent assisting Mona—in our world, it would be hard not to be—as he gave me the job without a second interview. When I started, he took me under his wing as a protégée of sorts and it was a great position to be in. It gave me some protection from the less-friendly, uber-fashiony senior managers who swanned around our floor in their top-to-toe designer threads, trying to catch a glimpse of Joseph.

  Then there was Shauna: white fingernails with gold tips, big gold hoops and curly afro hair, channeling a modern day Diana Ross. Her iPhone clicked in my face and then traced my body. A deeply unflattering video of my stunned mug and greasy-looking hair was now playing live on Snapchat. Shauna loved to share. She worshipped at the altars of Instagram and Snapchat and was dedicated to the daily documentation of selfies, shoefies, Instafood, Instacocktails, Instacats—and fairly often me, with #nofilter.

  “You’re so ’grammable today, babe,” she said, crouching down to snap my Starbucks cup as I placed it on my desk. Until that moment, I had failed to noticed that the barista had scrawled the word Antler on it, instead of my real name. Shauna found it hilarious and shared the image with her 1.4 thousand followers. “Big night, deer? Get it—Antler, deer?”

  I frowned. “So I look like something the cat dragged in, can we all just get over it, please?”

  Shauna sucked in her cheeks and waggled her finger at me, intimating that I was not one to talk about anything this morning.

  Joseph broke us up. “Now, now ladies, there’s no time for bickering today, Jeff wants the final designs for the summer windows by EOP, so I need you to finish the edit. And that’s before we get cracking on phase two of the ‘Chelsea’ display.”

  The great thing about my job, especially on days like today, was that time passed quickly. I loved putting the mood boards together and then sourcing clothes from the collections about to hit the shop floor to bring it all to life. We were always working on two themes at any one time, currently we were completing the spring windows, inspired by the famous Chelsea Flower Show, and also planning our big summer production, a homage to the “Traditional British Seaside,” which would come into play soon after. I was transported from gray January to sunny July and a world of ninety-nines, beach huts, rubber rings, candy-colored Kate Spade bags, Linda Farrow sunglasses, Matthew Williamson bikinis,
palm-print dresses and everything in between. Heaven.

  Although Shauna and I didn’t always see eye to eye outside work, we were a great team in the studio, her eye for props perfectly complementing my choice of fashion from the designer look books. The time flew as I busied myself finalizing clothes for the Chelsea windows and lining them up on rails ahead of Joseph’s inspection—a cacophony of vibrant pink, lemon, lilac, peach and turquoise, the sartorial equivalent of a fragrant bouquet. Bright clothes were amazing for lifting my mood. But they couldn’t stop me from checking my phone every five seconds. Nothing from Rob.

  Chapter Two

  Two days had passed since Rob told me the news that he was thinking of moving to New York. In that time I had cried in the loos at work once, eaten MacDonald’s for dinner twice, bought a Marc Jacobs top I couldn’t afford, despite my staff discount, and looked at the Angel Wear website five thousand times as a conservative estimate. Krystal, Jessica, Roxy, Leonie and Astrid were the names of the main Angel Wear “Icons.” I could tell you their vital stats by heart. And I hated their perfect thirty-four–twenty-four–thirty-four guts. It was now Thursday and today Rob had been unnervingly attentive, texting me more than usual just to see how my day was going and wanting to arrange to meet up. He’s taking the job and he’s feeling guilty, I know it. In my head, we were already on opposite sides of the Atlantic. But I hadn’t worked out how to handle things the next time I saw him, so I hadn’t yet replied. The reality was that we’d only been dating for five months. I couldn’t stop thinking about his feather tattoo. This could be Rob’s perfect opportunity to just catch the wind and fly.

  Work continued to be a good distraction, but Joseph and Shauna didn’t do compassion. I’d come clean about Rob to Shauna in the loos the first morning, when she caught me redoing my mascara and, of course, she had blurted it out to Joseph.

  “Hate to say it, babe, but it sounds like a case of ‘He’s just not that into you,’” Joseph said, causing my eyes to prickle all over again. I carried on tweaking a mocked-up cotton candy stand.

  This morning, we were waiting for Jeff to come and cast his critical eye over our final plans for summer, when my phone rang: Rob.

  “Let me speak to him.” Shauna tried to grab my iPhone from my hands, but failed, sending a fake nail onto the floor.

  I spoke to Rob from the hallway outside the studio. It’s impossible to get any privacy around here.

  “I thought you were going to avoid me forever. I’ve been getting paranoid.” He sounded nervous.

  “I’ve not been avoiding you,” I lied, “just been busy. Anyway, what’s happening with you?”

  “I wanted to see if you’re free tonight. I could meet you from work and we could grab some dinner, chat, you know—what boyfriends and girlfriends do?”

  He’s still using the b-word, that’s surely a good sign. I paused. “Are you there, Amber?” he continued. “Are you pissed off with me?”

  I swallowed hard. “New York, what’s happening with that? Are you going to move?”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” he said.

  “Are you sure you want me to be your girlfriend, Rob?”

  Silence on his end. This is it. It’s over. Joseph is right, he’s just not into me.

  “Amber—”

  “Don’t tell me, this opportunity, you can’t turn it down, blah, blah, blah. It’s fine, I can handle it, tell me I make a great friend but it’s you, you’re not in the right place for a relationship.” A hot sensation was working its way up into my cheeks.

  “Listen, I didn’t want to have this conversation on the phone, I wanted to meet up with you and talk about it properly, but—”

  “I get it, you’re just not that into me . . .”

  “Amber! Shut up for a second.” His tone took me aback, Rob rarely raised his voice. “Yes, I’ve done some thinking and I do want to go to New York, I think it will be an incredible experience—but not just for me, for both of us. I wanted to ask if you would consider coming with me?” He paused. “Wouldn’t it be fun to flat hunt together in Williamsburg or Queens?”

  I was so shocked I could barely find the words to respond.

  “Really?” I uttered at last, leaning back against the wall, finally allowing every muscle in my body to relax.

  “Really.” He was smiling into the phone; I could picture it.

  And that was it, suddenly everything was rose tinted again. New York or bust? It was a no-brainer.

  * * *

  Rob met me from Selfridges that night, even skipping Pinky’s slop time, so I knew he meant business, and we spent the evening plotting the weeks ahead. I would speak to Joseph about a three-month sabbatical; we would give up my Kensal Rise flat and move everything into Rob’s room while we were away. I felt sure Vicky would understand—she’d probably be overjoyed that I was going to be a mere five-hour internal flight away. Besides, she was probably making it up with Trey this very moment.

  The following morning I broke the news to my parents.

  “Isn’t this a bit crazy, Amber?” Mum said after doing me the courtesy of listening quietly as I excitedly babbled away for five minutes. Bearing in mind Mum’s idea of adventure is a day out in April without bringing her umbrella and Dad thinks anyone who eats hummus is on the road to ruin—how could I expect them to understand?

  “It’s what people my age do all the time, Mum,” I told her, bristling. “Anyway, it’s only for three months, initially—it’s hardly a long time in the scheme of things. You and Dad could even come and visit if you want.” I crossed my fingers behind my back.

  “Initially, darling? You’re thinking of staying longer? This is a whole different scenario. How are you going to do that legally, you know you need a visa to work in America? You’re going to do it all by the book, I hope? They’ll lock you up if you don’t.” I could picture her shaking her head disparagingly. “You won’t have the same rights in America.”

  My mum hadn’t got her position as a top barrister without thinking through the legal implications for every situation.

  “I know, Mum. And of course we’re going to do it properly. I can stay for three months as a tourist anyway, and we’ll take it from there. Rob’s company is sorting out the visa for him. He’s getting an O visa.”

  Suddenly my dad’s voice came on the phone. I hated it when my parents put me on a three-way conversation, especially without telling me. Surely it was a violation of my privacy.

  “O visa? How old did you say he is?”

  “It’s an O-1 visa, not OAP, Dad. It means he’s got an extra-Ordinary ability.”

  “Don’t tell me he’s a psychic?”

  “No, he’s a TV producer, as you know—not just anyone can make a top TV show, he’s got tons of experience.”

  “What’s this TV show about, then?”

  I squirmed; the last thing I wanted was for them to pick up on any insecurities about going to New York on my part, and “a show about an underwear company” didn’t exactly sound like something that would impress one’s parents. I casually wandered out of the kitchen and into the sitting room so Rob couldn’t overhear the half-truth I was about to tell.

  “It’s about a top company out there, it’s kind of an American institution. Rob will be telling the inside story on how it works.”

  “Anyway, Amber,” Dad interrupted me, “we wondered if you’d like to bring Rob to dinner at home next Sunday? Especially now that you’re practically eloping, we’d like to meet him properly.” I almost choked on my tea.

  “If you’re disappearing off to the other side of the world with this fellow, we’d better get to know him,” Mum added.

  * * *

  “My parents have invited you over next Sunday, if you can bear it.” I broke the news as I reentered the kitchen, to find Rob serving up scrambled eggs.

  “You’re not exactly selling the opportunity,” he said, smiling. “But your folks seemed lovely when I met them the other week.”

 
; “You met them for precisely fifteen seconds,” I reminded him. They’d dropped me off at Rob’s one evening on a detour after we’d been to visit my sister. He’d politely come out to shake my dad’s hand. Dad didn’t bother getting out of the car and shook it through the window. Bit rude, I thought at the time.

  “I don’t remember him having a hook for an arm,” he said, teasing me. “But,” a hesitation, “my mum has invited me over next Sunday, too, along with Dan and Florence, and, well, I was going to see if you fancied joining us?”

  I took a large swig of tea from the mug in my hand, wishing it contained something stronger. “If I’m not mistaken, Robert Walker, are you asking me to meet your family? Not only your mother but your brother and his scary-sounding fiancée, too?”

  “I am, Miss Green, now will you please accept because I want to eat my breakfast before it goes cold?”

  I leaned over and ran my fingers through his unkempt bed hair. I smiled into his lips before kissing them.

  “I’d be honored.” And I texted Mum the bad news before flying out of the door to work.

  * * *

  “A sabbatical?” Joseph repeated the words back to me, then he sat back and pushed his curls behind his ears with both hands. “No one’s asked for a sabbatical before.”

  “Just three months—it will fly by,” I pleaded, desperation no doubt showing in my face. “I absolutely promise I’ll come back.”