Page 78 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

‘Tell that to my weak-ass ankles.’

‘Can I help you at all?’ The shop assistant’s perfectly reasonable question made me jump out of my skin to the extent that I accidentally whacked Anneka in the face with my knee.

I replied automatically. ‘No, we’re fine tha—’

‘Yes!’ Anneka interrupted me, looking up and rubbing her bashed nose with the heel of her hand. ‘My sister has to get this jumpsuit for a wedding in a couple of days, but the legs are slightly too long.’

The assistant crouched down next to Anneka to examine the material. ‘Seems like a simple job for our alterations department up on ninth. But you’d need to know what shoes you’d be wearing so they could measure it accurately.’

‘Ooh, fantastic. And they’d be able to do it before Tuesday?’ Anneka asked.

‘Shouldn’t be a problem, but I’ll give them a call to check.’

The assistant made her way to the nearest counter while I stood in the middle of the shop floor like the world’s most awkward mannequin.

‘This is sounding expensive, Anneka. The jumpsuit alone is pricey as it is.’

Anneka grabbed the label to take a look. ‘That seems like a reasonable price to me. We’ll just have to see if we can make some savings elsewhere. But first things first, we need to find you some shoes. We passed footwear on the way up – stay right here and I’ll see what I can rustle up. You’re a size 5, right?’

I nodded, surprised that Anneka had retained this fact about me. ‘Anneka, I—’

‘Do I really have to tell you to trust me again?’

‘No. I trust you. I just wanted to say – thanks. This is actually… enjoyable?’

My sister took three giant paces in my direction and threw her long arms around me.

‘You’re doing great, Flora,’ she whispered into my ear, before shouting, ‘but I must go on a shoe mission!’

Anneka arrived ten minutes or so later, a tower of shoeboxes piled from her hands to her chin, to discover me standing in exactly the same spot.

‘Wow, you really took my instruction to “stay right here” to heart, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

She set down the boxes and removed the lids one by one to show me the selection of footwear. The first two pairs were standard black shoes – one pair had a slight kitten heel and the other had a slightly more ambitious wedge-style sole. The third pair were cerise-pink stilettos with a diamanté ankle fastening.

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Can’t blame a girl for trying. Okay, now for the wildcard.’

She lifted the final lid in dramatic slow motion to reveal the most incredible shoes I’d ever seen – a pair of silver glitter Converse with a subtle platformed sole.

‘Omigod, these are incredible!’ I couldn’t get them onto my feet quickly enough. They felt like home – but the New York Flora Bell version of it. ‘But surely I couldn’t get away with these as formalwear?’ I asked, twirling this way and that to examine the shoes from every angle while hitching up the jumpsuit legs.

‘Drop the material down a little,’ Anneka instructed. ‘A little more? There. If we get the alteration just right, nobody would even know you were wearing them, unless you wanted to give them a cheeky flash.’

I gave Anneka a cheeky flash to test out her theory. An involuntary squeal erupted from my mouth when the experiment proved successful.

Anneka asked the most important question of all. ‘Does it all feel good?’

I nodded, grinning goofily, no longer bothering to disguise my excitement about the ease with which we’d found the outfit of my dreams. The sales assistant reappeared.

‘Looks like you’re all set for alterations?’

I looked at Anneka, who nodded at me enthusiastically, but left me to make the final call.

‘I think so! I’ll just go and take all this off.’