Читать книгу Sunny Side Up - Holly Smale, Холли Смейл - Страница 9

ou don’t need to say it, by the way: I know what you’re thinking.

How?

How did Harriet Manners – Destroyer of International Fashion Shows, Knocker-Over of Models, Sitter-Downer on Catwalks and Compiler of Compound Nouns – get selected to participate in Paris Couture Fashion Week: the most prestigious event a young model can possibly attend?

Well, I’m afraid I have no idea either.

Much like life’s other great mysteries – such as how exactly a bicycle works and why yawning is contagious – there appears to be no real scientific answer to that question.

And it’s basically what I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out.

Here are some things I do know:

I definitely checked.

“Darling,” Wilbur laughed when I suggested that my sartorial knowledge might elevate me above the thousands of other models also competing for the same positions, “one of my most well-known models – who shall remain nameless – once put a frozen chicken under the grill. I’m going to pause for a few seconds, to let that sink in.”

There was a long silence while he closed his eyes tightly, bit his bottom lip and grabbed my arm.

“A whole, raw, frozen chicken,” he repeated, slightly more squeakily. “Under the oven grill. And then couldn’t work out why the legs caught fire.”

Another pause.

Then he burst into peals of laughter. “I don’t think intelligence is high on the list of qualities being searched for right now, banana-boo. This is not NASA.”

By this point, Wilbur had been back from New York for just three days and had already swapped me with Stephanie for another one of his models, like Fashion Top Trumps except the opposite.

Let’s just say there wasn’t much of a struggle.

In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw her punch the air, shout WOOOHOOO then high-five the receptionist on her way out to lunch.

“Are you sure?” I said in dismay. “None of those facts are relevant? Not even the one about how couture seamstresses are called petits mains, which means little hands?”

I’d studied with a very overexcited Nat all night.

The brain only has so much space: I’m positive that at least eight of my most interesting animal facts had been replaced with fashion regulations from the seventeenth century.

“Sure as a seasick sailor on leave,” Wilbur giggled. “Just look angry but polite but distant but vague but smug in an untouchable kind of way and the world of couture is going to love you. Although you might want to switch your brain off for a few hours, pumpkin. Just in case you self-sabotage again like a baby lemming.”

Which – when you’re me – is easier said than done.

But I did my very best.

With a private black car specially booked for me and my Infinity portfolio tucked under one arm, I was driven to twelve different castings in London on one Saturday while my driver waited patiently outside (Wilbur said they were “taking no chances”).

Carefully shepherded to Dior and Balmain and Valentino and Elie Saab; Jean Paul Gaultier and Chanel and Versace.

And with my rebellious brain switched firmly off, I walked up and down enormous, air-conditioned rooms: eyes flat, chin up, shoulders back. Cold and disinterested. Unimpressed and severe: very much like our headmistress just before an assembly about truancy.

Refusing to smile or chatter or ingratiate myself with relevant conversation openers or factual tidbits, and making no attempt to form connections with the people around me at all.

Suffice to say, it was one of my biggest personal challenges of all time.

And it totally worked.

Without my inherent personality, I didn’t just get one high-fashion job for the week: I secured three.

Which was great – if a little hurtful – until last Saturday when I finally had to switch my brain back on and become …

Well, me again.

And then I went into meltdown.

There are 640 muscles in the average human body and not a single one of mine has relaxed in the six days since.

“Darling-pie,” Wilbur squeaks as the train doors whoosh open like a spaceship and he jumps out and spins around with his fluffy blue arms held wide like a gingerbread man, “can’t you just smell it?”

I clamber down after him and inhale.

It’s the end of January, and the Paris air is icy and fresh: underpinned with a faint whiff of train fumes, bread and the coffee Wilbur is guarding like the Crown Jewels.

“Winter?” I offer tentatively. “Odour molecules slow down when they hit a certain temperature, which is why cold air smells cleaner than warm air.”

“Fashion,” Wilbur exhales, before taking in another long, loud breath. “High fashion. Exclusive fashion. None of that high-street, something-for-everyone, we-can-all-be-part-of-it nonsense here.”

He leaps a few steps forward like a fluffy sequined leprechaun and kisses a French bollard. “I’m back, baby,” he sighs happily, wrapping his arms round it. “I’m home.”

Swallowing, I glance at the unusually glamorous people getting off the train behind us – all sunglasses and fur scarves and heels and an aura of sophistication and inevitability – and another lurch of energy fires through me.

I’m trying to stay a paragon of positivity, the embodiment of enthusiasm: a shining example of sunniness in the face of all odds.

But how do I put this?

Wilbur might be home: in his spiritual heartland, at the place of his stylish and chic roots.

I am definitely not.