Chapter Five
Your attire should always suit the event for which it’s worn. Plan as far in advance as possible!
Matilda Beam’sGuide to Love and Romance, 1955
Summer’s been dead weird ever since we got out of the meeting with Valentina. I asked her why she didn’t let me say my bit of the pitch, and she told me it was down to an attack of the nerves, although she didn’t look nervous at all to me. Then she was quiet and evasive for the entire Tube journey to Carnaby Street. I don’t know. Maybe she’s processing everything. The whole meeting was pretty intense, to be fair.
She doesn’t even balk when I pull her into Primark, a place she usually swears brings her out in a polyester rash.
I pick a nice bright pair of pink feather earrings off a stand.
‘What do you think?’ I ask Summer.
‘I can’t even begin to explain how much they offend me.’
I inspect them. What’s wrong with them? How can a pair of pink feathery earrings offend a person? Fashion is even more confusing to me than trying to eat spaghetti bolognese without getting sauce on my chest. Bugger it. I like the earrings. I plonk them in my basket and carry on through the store, Summer trailing behind sullenly.
‘Ooh, look!’ I say. ‘Onesies are three for two!’
I love onesies so much. What could be more comfortable than an adult Babygro! When I’m properly hung-over, the only thing that will cure me is sprawling across the sofa with an 80s film and two cans of icy-cold Fanta, all bundled up in a onesie.
I pick up a hooded cow-print one, a leopard-print one with a neon-pink zip, and a plain yellow one, excitedly adding them to the basket.
We pay for my stuff in Primark and continue walking towards Carnaby Street and a fancy boutique Summer wants to go to. I glance over at her.
‘Are you OK, Sum?’
She shrugs prettily.
I put my arm round her. ‘You did a really fucking excellent job in there, you know. I was really proud of you.’
She pauses mid-walk and gives me her look.
‘Yeah, I’m not sure Valentinagotme. Then again … I didn’t exactly have a chance to impress her, with you prattling on about all that digital technological stuff the whole time. What was that? We didn’t agree to talk about that. It wasn’t in the notes you wrote.’
‘Oh, Sum, what else was I supposed to do? She asked me a blummin’ question. I totally had to wing it.’
‘Right. Well, thank God for clever old Jess!’ she says with an odd smile before walking ahead of me into the fancy shop.
* * *
It’s after six and we’re back at the hotel getting ready for the Davis Arthur Montblanc party. Summer has perked up a bit: the shop assistant at the boutique – a huge Anderson Warner fan – recognized her, something that hasn’t happened for a while, and gave her a discount on the long black velvet dress she bought.
‘How does it look?’ she says now, posing by the hotel bed, hand on hip, one foot crossed over the other red-carpet style.
‘Beautiful. You look really beautiful,’ I say. She does. She’s a five eight-size eight with legs like a baby giraffe and Jennifer Aniston-level toned arms. Her brunette to caramel dip-dyed hair is thick and wavy over her angular shoulders, her big brown eyes are enhanced by perfectly applied bronze shadow and she’s painted her lips a very dark, very chic blood red. The necklace she’s wearing does have a dismembered Barbie’s head on it, though. But it’s from a really exclusive shop, so even though I’m not keen, it’s almost certainly a very cool fashiony choice which everyone will be impressed with.
‘What about my arse?’ She turns around to show me her bum.
‘It looks wonderful.’
‘Better than Carol Vorderman’s?’ She frowns, twisting her head round so she can see her bum in the full-length mirror. Carol Vorderman is Summer’s arch nemesis: the woman who stole 2011’s Rear of the Year award from under her nose and didn’t even have the grace to respond when Summer sent her a tweet that said: ‘Congrats hun, the best woman won :D <3 #rearoftheyear #noregrets.’
‘Way better than Carol Vorderman,’ I say enthusiastically. ‘Vorderman’s arse is a … a sack of porridge compared to yours.’
‘OK, good,’ she mumbles, grabbing her iPhone and taking a series of selfies in the mirror, which she proceeds to post immediately to Twitter and Instagram and Facebook.
I ended up finding something in the posh boutique too. It’s a pale grey silk jumpsuit with tiny little metal studs dotted round the halter-neck. It’s a bit smarter than I’d usually wear, but the store assistant insisted that I couldn’t go to a fancy book launch in H&M, and the jumpsuit was on sale so it didn’t completely ransack my overdraft. Well, maybe a tiny bit, but a book deal means money, therefore the jumpsuit is really just an investment in my career. As are the metallic purple high heels I bought to go with it.
