The Stylist Takes Manhattan Read online

  “It’s compact, for sure,” Rob said, turning on the hot tap in the kitchen. We both held our breath as it spluttered a little, but then water began to come out and, after a few seconds, it got hot. “That’s something.”

  “All mod cons,” I said, sighing, unconvinced that much else was working properly in this place.

  Taking in my deflated expression, Rob put an arm around me. “It’s not so bad.” For a person who was used to living in a pigsty, it probably wasn’t.

  I snorted. “If you walk around with your eyes closed. I’ll dip into my own savings to pay for some proper cleaners before we move in. No arguments.”

  “Fair enough, but then I think we can work some magic on it. I mean, what more do we need, really? We’re going to be at work or out most of the time.”

  “Well, I guess a little more space would have been nice, maybe an oven so we could cook something other than soup, just occasionally, and—urgh!” I instantly regretted opening the microwave. “But, I know we’ll save money living here.” My voice faltered: “Have . . . have you actually paid the deposit?” I was on the verge of tears as Rob explained how he’d already put down our nonreturnable deposit, because some others had shown an interest in it, too, this being one of the coolest addresses in Brooklyn, and he didn’t want us to miss out.

  “It’s just not the kind of place I’d imagined us making our first home together, you know?” I said.

  He squeezed me tightly. “I know, me neither, but what is it Kirstie and Phil say—‘location, location, location’? Seriously, this couldn’t be a better address and, with your sense of style, we’ll make the best of it. Did you see all those vintage furniture shops we passed on the way from the subway? We’ll check them out tomorrow and we’ll hit the flea market on Saturday. It’ll be fun.”

  “After the cleaners have been?”

  “After the cleaners.” He was doing the head-holding thing again, always picking the right moment to take my face in his hands, look at me straight on and tell me with his eyes that whatever it was, was going to be okay.

  “At least we haven’t seen a cockroach yet.” I half smiled, my eyes wandering around the tiny living area and spotting an ominous brown patch on one of the walls.

  “Well, that’s something.”

  * * *

  Vowing to turn our sardine tin into a tiny palace by way of some bleach and elbow grease, we got the subway back to Manhattan.

  As the doors closed and the train left the station, the sound of some heavy rap blared out of a portable speaker. I gripped my purse in my pocket; I’d heard about muggings on downtown trains.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, it’s showtime!” boomed a voice in the center of the carriage. I slunk back in my seat and averted my eyes, but Rob did the opposite; he leaned forward to get a better look as a breakdancer began skillfully swan-diving down the center of the carriage floor in front of us. Then he jumped up and swung between the ceiling rails, spinning 360 degrees through his arms. Some of the passengers on the train burst into applause, and others barely looked up from their reading material. Then another dancer jumped forward, clinging on to a vertical railing and twisting his body around it as he hugged his way down, before leaping onto the next railing and doing the same, until he had worked his way down the carriage from pillar to pillar. A few people got to their feet around the edges, clapping them on. Forget Britain’s Got Talent, I’d never seen anything so cool and I was starting to shed my inner Londoner—who would ordinarily be timidly peeping over a copy of Metro, looking for an exit route—and clapped along, too.

  “How wicked is this?” Rob nudged me, not taking his eyes off a third dancer who was walking through the carriage on his hands, legs bouncing in time to the beat, and then finished off his routine by flipping off his friends with a flourish of perfectly choreographed backward somersaults. Without breaking anyone’s toes! I wonder if my insurance would cover that, Dad. Finally, as we sensed we must be nearing the next stop, all three began spinning on their heads, gliding with ease through at least fifteen rotations, before jumping back onto their feet and holding their hats in their hands for a quick whip-round from their audience. Some of our carriage mates coughed up a few coins, while others just sat there coolly, hands in pockets, as if this happened every time they took the L train to work.

  “Only in Brooklyn,” a guy next to me commented, as he seemingly reluctantly tossed a five-dollar bill into a sweaty headscarf. I tipped all the change I had in my purse into the dancer’s hands and swiped a card from a fan poking out of his top pocket.

  Seconds later the train came to a halt, and one of them picked up the speaker and they were gone, probably darting into the next carriage to entertain all over again.

  Rob and I were buzzing.

  “So we might be moving into a shoebox—”

  “Make that a children’s shoebox,” I interjected.

  “Okay, a shoebox for a millipede—whatever you want to call it—but I really don’t care, because I’ll be living there with you and I couldn’t love you—or this city—any more right now,” he said, sighing. “You’d never get that in London.”

  I had to agree. “And we’ll make our little millipede box the coziest home ever. It’s going to be great. And you’re clever for sorting it out. I love you, too.”

  * * *

  That weekend, after cleaners had made the place smell of lemon disinfectant, rather than someone else’s toilet, and a year’s worth of burnt cheese had been scrapped off the microwave, we took a taxi across town with our suitcases of belongings and moved in.

  On our first night in the flat, we were woken up listening to our next-door neighbors having very loud sex. She was a screamer, he a shouter. We might not have known their names before, but we certainly did now: Max and Tina. In between the thumps on the wall and the shouts, any chance we had of sleeping was put to an end by the fact we had so far failed to notice that we lived opposite a fire station. A whirring siren sound went off a couple of times just in the hour that we were trying to get to sleep.

  On the second night, Max and Tina held a dinner party with some equally shouty friends. We opened another bottle of beer each and pretended it wasn’t as loud as it was, already feeling like an old married couple in our late twenties. Then we turned up our own music and tried to have sex on the sofa, but the noise from next door was too distracting. So we went out and got drunk on tequila and more beer at our new local, passing out back home, sometime after the dinner party had finished.

  On the third night, we wore earplugs and managed to sleep reasonably well, save for the strobing orange light from the streetlamp positioned directly outside our bedroom window and the occasional siren from the fire station.

  “Blackout blinds,” Rob muttered woozily.

  But, to be honest, when the light buzzed on for long enough for me to admire my boyfriend’s matinee idol profile on the pillow next to me, I didn’t really mind. And I knew I’d get used to the sirens.

  There was something kind of pretty about the way the light hit our bed and bounced off the 1970s I HEART NEW YORK print we found in a thrift store earlier that day and which now hung on our bedroom wall, covering the brown marks. The only picture to grace our walls so far.

  In the next blast of orange, I captured the image and uploaded it to Instagram; Rise filter; caption: “Goodnight Williamsburg #NYC #stylist #newhome”

  Chapter Seven

  Dana was true to her word and the following afternoon my new American cell phone rang with an unpaid rush job putting together a suitcase of cool looks for a “hot, young, model-stroke-actress” desperate to make her fashion mark at the boho lover’s festival of music festivals, Coachella.

  “None of my girls has a free day this week, so I’m offering this opportunity to you, sugar,” she drawled into the phone. “This will help get you back in the game while we’re waiting for your visa.”

  “Sounds great!” I enthused. Thankfully, an inordinate amount of time spe
nt scrolling through the Instagram feeds of the likes of Kendall Jenner and Poppy Delevingne had given me an insight into Coachella festival chic—and it was a million miles away from the mud-soaked Hunter-welly, waterproof-poncho practicalities of Glastonbury.

  Coachella was the annual fash-pack pilgrimage to the Californian desert. It involved rock music, hot boys, even hotter weather and lashings of suede fringing, frayed denim, cropped tops, crochet, gladiators and flower garlands. The biggest decision for the rich kids in attendance was whether to go caftan or cutoffs.

  “Who’s the celebrity?”

  “Liv Ramone—you might remember her name. She was a big shot in the late noughties, but lost her way a bit. Well, now she’s coming back with a bang. If you get this right, you could have a regular client,” Dana said while briefing me. “I’ll bet most of her wardrobe is funded by the Bank of Mum and Dad—her flip-flops have a price tag of three hundred dollars—but she doesn’t have a clue how to put it all together. Liv’s manager says she’s really into accessories at the moment, so be sure to pull plenty of fun jewelry, too. Good luck!”

  * * *

  Liv’s arrival was promising. She bounded over to me like an excitable puppy. She had incredible long, red, wavy hair, lithe limbs, big gray eyes and a sparkling smile—all qualities a stylist falls in love with at first sight. Plus, she had an immediately endearing demeanor, which was unusual for a former child star, who—so Dana had warned—were usually the worst divas of all. When she came closer she smelled of strong musky perfume, hairspray, and one too many cigarettes. When she opened her mouth, you could see the gum. She arrived at Milk Studios, where Dana had given me a corner to work from, piggybacking another photo shoot due to start later that day. Her manager was a large, puff-chested man called Mickey, who had whiter-than-white teeth and obviously dyed-black hair.

  “I’m so glad to meet you, Amber!” She launched at me, arms open, embracing me with a hug so big you’d think we were long-lost relatives. “Dana told me you used to assist Mona Armstrong.” I smiled in acknowledgment. “I mean, wow!”

  “Even a guy like me has heard of Mona,” Mickey added. “Liv’s brought you a gift.” He gestured to the neat little pink bag she was holding and she handed it over, presenting it alongside another hug; this time the hug went on a little longer than was strictly necessary. The gift made me instantly suspicious.

  “That’s so sweet of you!” I gushed, mustering up all the American enthusiasm I could. Inside the bag was a white square box, heavy with the weight of its contents. I looked at the sleeve—it was a luxury candle; the scent matched the heady perfume Liv was wearing and was described on the packaging as “Sensual Sunset.” On it was a black-and-white photographic image of Liv lying seductively—Oh God, she’s naked—on a shag-pile rug in front of a fake-looking sunset. Because of her model-perfect proportions and attention-grabbing hair, it was a gnat’s whisker on the passable side of soft porn.

  “The candle line comes out next month,” Mickey informed me. “I took care of the production and styling, in case you were wondering.” He winked, sleazily. “It’s the first step in launching Liv’s new lifestyle range. The candles are calming as well as deeply erotic; they help with anxiety, too. Liv has ten burning away at one time in her house. The calming effect is better than any drug. Let’s light it while we work, yeah?” Just the thought of ten candles releasing that overpowering scent was enough to give me a migraine. And, ah yes, the drugs. Following some online research, I had discovered that, unfortunately, Liv did a little too much Liv-ing during her late teen years when she shot to fame with the lead role in a hit film about an off-the-rails teenager on the run from her parents. It was a case of reality mimicking fiction, because Liv, too, left her nice, wealthy, suburban roots and moved in with a bunch of new friends in a hip enclave of LA. For a few years she ran with a fast-paced, heavy-partying crowd, who thought nothing of staying up for three days in a row, cleaning out hotel minibars, setting up a pharmaceutical counter as good as any private hospital, getting naked on balconies and waking up in bed with strangers—all on what they considered a “little bender.”

  Throw in a drunk-driving rap, an ill-fated twenty-one-day marriage to a guy she met and married within twenty-four hours in Las Vegas, and numerous community-service appointments, and you could see how she earned a rep for being a wild child. Three stints at top rehab centers and, five years later, at the age of twenty-four, she was a cleaned-up act, ready to unleash the new Liv on the American public.

  Mickey took a lighter from his pocket and lit the candle.

  “Get your nose into that,” he said, holding it in front of my face as though it contained a stash of cocaine. A strong, heady, musky scent much stronger than Liv’s perfume wafted out.

  “Oh, yeah, got it—that’s . . . unmistakable,” I uttered, before sneezing uncontrollably for a few seconds.

  “I’m so happy you love it!” Liv screeched, lunging at me for the third time in a matter of minutes. She then turned to high-five Mickey and back to high-five me. I raised a limp hand to hers, before sneezing again.

  Candle lit, lights dimmed (by Mickey, not me—I could barely make out the clothes) and sneezing subsided, I showed her to a rail of seventies flared jeans. Thankfully, Dana had introduced me to a friend of hers—Patti Rose, owner of Rose’s Fashion Emporium, the biggest fashion rental house in New York—and she’d kindly put me on the books of “trusted lenders” as a favor to Dana, in advance of my getting any paid work. It was already becoming obvious that Dana had a lot of industry influence.

  “Anyone who D recommends, I look after,” Patti had said. “She’s evidently got high hopes for you, girl.” There was pressure. But it meant I was able to pick some New Season designer wear for Liv as well as vintage pieces from the extensive collection in Patti’s warehouse.

  “The seventies is a huge trend this season,” I began to explain to Liv, grateful I knew the entire summer collections of Chloé, Moschino and Coach by heart, thanks to our forward planning for the windows at Selfridges. “Hudson, Acne and Seven all have great choices, too. You could go super pale, or dark denim—either works. Team with a clog, if you want a lift, and a suede-fringed waistcoat, and you’ll rule the social media coverage, I promise.”

  Liv ran her finger down the rail of clothes, as if she was lightly strumming a guitar. Every now and again, she seemed to sort of drift off somewhere else and I wondered what she was thinking.

  I moved on to the vintage rail—perhaps some one-off pieces would get her more excited. So far her expression gave nothing away. “An original seventies jumpsuit, this would look great, and this Biba crochet top is divine. I fell in love with this bubble-chain belt—it would make a really cool look on you,” I raved. “Or if you want to go more ethereal, how about this stunning embroidered caftan? It was once worn by Joni Mitchell for a Vogue shoot. And I brought you a whole selection of lace-up ghillie sandals—they’re the cutest things.”

  Still little reaction from Liv, who was swaying gently to the folk music Mickey had put on.

  “So, do you want to try anything?” I pressed her, aware that we only had another hour or so in this studio before the shoot would begin and we had to be gone.

  “What about the accessories? Liv’s more of an accessories girl,” Mickey suggested, his eyes scanning the area in which I had laid out my offerings in neat rows, like a backyard sale.

  “Of course, I’ve got tons—all over here,” I led them past the rails of clothes to a carefully assembled table of gleaming costume jewelry.

  “This is more like it!” he exclaimed, guiding Liv forward.

  At last, her eyes lit up, showing more animation than I’d seen for any of the clothes.

  “Love the daisy chains!” she enthused, picking up one of the delicate original hippy-era creations and placing it around her neck.

  “And these bangles are cool.” She pushed a pile of twenty or so thin gold bracelets over her slim wrist and jangled them to illustrate the poin
t.

  Then, in a move that took me aback, but didn’t seem to make Mickey even blink an eye, she kicked off her cowboy boots and began peeling off the black minidress and low-slung belt she had been wearing, until all she had on were some sheer knickers plus the daisies and bracelets.

  I wasn’t sure where to look as she slinked off toward the full-length mirrors in the dressing area, her breasts fully exposed.

  “Oh, yeah, that is be-you-ti-ful!” exclaimed Mickey, as she twirled for our appreciation in front of the mirrors, her bottom and breasts enviably pert. “What do you think, Amber, she’s rocking, yeah?”

  “Yeah, I guess, it’s minimal, but if you feel comfortable, Liv?” I asked, desperate to get some eye contact with her to ascertain whether she really was okay, or whether she had been cajoled into this slightly shocking display of nudity by Mickey.

  “Oh, Amber,” she mewed, turning to look at me full frontal, her barely there knickers leaving nothing to the imagination, “I love this look! I feel so free, so connected to nature—so me. And it’s so Coachella, too, don’t you think?”

  And before I could say “No! You’re practically stark naked, woman, you were styled this way on the day you were born!” she had flung her arms around my stiff body once more and it felt as though she might never let go.

  When she finally did, she couldn’t stop thanking me. And because I was in a rush to leave the studio before the shoot began, I didn’t have time to argue.

  It turned out that Liv’s idea of Coachella cool was basically being naked in a field, running around barefoot, adorned with nothing but an eccentric accessory and a seductive smile. When our styling session was drawing to a close, after she had picked out a few more pieces of jewelry—including a feathered headpiece which I had partly brought along as a joke—Liv put her clothes back on. As she did so, Mickey took me aside to explain that she was currently on a path of intense physical and spiritual growth and, as part of this, was feeling a little anxious about the encumbering nature of clothes.