Читать книгу Guilty Pleasures - Tasmina Perry, Tasmina Perry - Страница 16

‘She is such a bitch!’ said Stella Chase indignantly. ‘Have you seen this shit?’ She thrust a copy of US Rive towards her friend Tash, stabbing a finger at the page. Moments earlier, the two girls had been sitting quietly in Venice Beach’s Fig-tree Café, eating frozen yoghurt and idly leafing through the latest fashion magazines. Then Stella had come across a twelve-page photo story on handbag designer Cate Glazer. Alongside a series of sumptuous photos of her palatial Hamptons home, the article gushed about Glazer’s life: how she had started as a bit-part soap actress, fallen in love with and married Hollywood producer Lance Glazer, then launched her must-have range of bags and purses. The cherry on the cake, said the article, was Glazer’s recent triumph, being crowned CFDA Accessories Designer of the Year.

‘Which bit are we referring to?’ asked Tash, taking a lick of double-berry yoghurt while she scanned the feature. ‘The photo of their new forty-million dollar home in Sag Harbor or the roll-call of her former boyfriends? There’s some pretty cute guys in that list, you know.’

‘This bit,’ said Stella, pointing at the page so hard her fingernail almost went through the paper. ‘That entire section boasting about the “Beverly” bag. How the design came to her in a dream. A dream!’

Stella jumped up, grabbed her things and barged out from the air-conditioned cool of the café into the bright heat of early spring afternoon in Los Angeles. She dumped the paper sack bulging with groceries she had bought from Whole Foods that morning into the basket of her bicycle as Tash tagged along behind her, the magazine fluttering in her hand.

‘Are you going to bring it up with her?’ asked her friend.

‘I won’t even be seeing her until Wednesday. You know it’s the Oscars tomorrow; she always takes the next two days off to recover.’

‘Cate loves to party,’ said Tash weakly.

Stella stopped dead on the boardwalk, causing a muscled in-line skater in only shorts and headphones to swerve dangerously to avoid her.

‘Three years!’ she said. ‘Three bloody years I’ve been working for that company! And what thanks do I get?’ she continued, determined to get it off her chest. ‘I work fourteen-hour days. I design every purse, dress and shoe for that company and she tells the world the idea for her latest It-bag came to her “in a dream”.’

‘What you need is a good night out,’ replied Tasha, putting a reassuring hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘Apparently there’s this great party in the Hills tonight. Like an unofficial pre-Oscars party. I hear Brad’s gonna be there and …’

‘You know Lance is gay, don’t you?’

Tash threw her frozen yoghurt in the trash.

‘Stella, honey! Let it go! It’s bad for your karma.’

Stella didn’t seem to hear her, starting to push her bicycle along the beach again. Across the wide expanse of sand, the sea twinkled in the distance.

‘Maybe I’ll go to that good tarot reader on the boardwalk on the way home,’ mused Stella vaguely, ‘I think I need some psychic intervention to tell me what to do.’

‘What you need to do is come out tonight,’ said Tash firmly. ‘Go home and get ready.’

Stella shook her head. ‘I’d love to, but I can’t.’

‘What’s more important than a party on Oscars weekend?’ asked Tash seriously.

‘Oh, a friend of the family is in town,’ she said.

‘So bring her to the party.’

Stella grimaced. ‘I really don’t think she’s the partying kind.’

‘Orlando is going to be there,’ persisted Tash.

‘Well, I’ll think about it,’ said Stella already on her bike, ‘call you later.’

‘Brad! Orlando!’ called Tash after her, ‘that guy out of the OC?’

Stella just turned back and waved, knowing that not even the cutest boys in Hollywood could lift the black cloud surrounding her today.

The two-mile cycle ride back to Santa Monica did little to clear Stella’s head. The Santa Ana winds were blowing making it artificially warm for an early spring day. To her left the Pacific Ocean sparkled silver while in the distance, as if to welcome her home, the pier jutted out into the sea looking every bit as magical as it had the first time she had seen it almost four years earlier. And look how far I’ve come, she thought, with just a hint of irony. She had come to California six months after she had graduated, ostensibly to be nearer her mother who had moved from Cornwall to Montecito to ‘reinvent’ herself as an aromatherapist. But within weeks Stella had drifted down to LA, got a flat in Santa Monica and a job in a boutique on Melrose. Her wage was a pittance; the trade-off for them turning a blind eye to her lack of a green card. The boutique was hip and Stella was pretty which meant that she was often invited to parties. She went along for the free food and drink, but even at the most chic Hollywood Hills soiree, Stella was always the most stylish person there in the little dresses she customized from thrift shop finds or rolls of spare fabric from the shop. It was at one of those parties that Stella had met Cate Glazer, wife of the famous movie producer Lance, who had ambitions to be LA’s answer to Kate Spade. Cate Glazer had been knocked out by the beautiful blonde Brit, but was more knocked out by the white jersey T-shirt dress she said she had run up that afternoon. It was simple but chic, cleverly using the material to show her figure off to best advantage. The kid clearly had talent.

‘Can you design handbags?’ Cate Glazer had asked her.

‘I’ll try anything once,’ smiled Stella. What the hell, why not? She shrugged. And it was that easy: the next Monday Stella began work as ‘design executive’ for fledgling LA fashion house Cate Glazer. She hadn’t realized when she signed on, however, that it was a workforce of two: Stella designed the bags which were produced by a company in Mexico, Cate handled the PR. Their first venture involved Stella making 100 totes from white sail canvas. Cate gave them to a selection of Lance’s actress friends each of whom had been photographed carrying them. The photos ran in every magazine from US Weekly to Vogue and suddenly Cate Glazer was on the map. The orders poured in so fast that within six months they had to open a factory in Mexico. Three years later, Cate Glazer was one of America’s hottest lifestyle labels, a multi-million-dollar business, branching out from accessories into fashion and interiors, while Stella was in pretty much the same place. Sure, she had an office with ‘Design Executive’ on the door, but despite her talent, she had never received a single job offer because everyone believed Cate Glazer was the talent behind the stylish Cate Glazer merchandise.

The sky was beginning to darken by the time Stella pushed her bicycle through her apartment door. What a mess, she thought, leaving the bike against the wall and stepping over the piles of laundry in the kitchen and books on the carpet. She opened the shutters to let the warm, salty scent of the Pacific fill the room. She had just put on a pot of coffee and was just contemplating transferring the huge mountain of plates into the dishwasher when her intercom buzzed.

‘Who is it?’ said Stella wearily.

‘Emma Bailey.’

‘Oh shit,’ she said, before realizing her finger was still on the buzzer.

‘I can come back,’ said a crackling voice.

‘No, no, come on up,’ she said quickly, before rushing around scooping up everything cluttering the floor and flinging it all into a laundry bag. Then Stella stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh shit!’ she said, as the penny dropped. This woman may be here to offer me a job. Emma had called the previous day and after some polite pleasantries about Saul’s death, Emma had muttered that there might be some design opportunities opening at Milford and that she was very keen to talk to Stella in person about them. Stella had been up for three days putting the finishing touches to a dozen clutch bags which a certain A-lister had requested for the Oscars red carpet. One bag would not do, Stella had been told, because the notoriously divaesque actress could not possibly decide which dress she was going to wear until the afternoon of the event. Her mind fuzzed from lack of sleep and overwork, Stella had failed to take in the meaning of Emma’s words. In fact, until this moment, she had failed to consider why Emma Bailey, new CEO of Milford Luxury Goods, would take the time and expense to fly six thousand miles to see her. ‘Oh, SHIT!’ she cried and ran for the bathroom.

Stella looked at herself in the mirror, wishing she had time to change out of her shorts and vest-top. But she didn’t look too bad. Her skin was lightly tanned and clear. She had a wide mouth, sun-kissed blonde hair in a Jean Seberg crop which suited her petite frame and height. She did not like to think of herself as beautiful although she suspected it, given the number of people who assumed she was an actress and men who made passes at her every time she went out. She ruffled her hair and pinched her cheeks. Well, it’ll have to do, she thought. She’s not after me for my pretty face.

‘Come in. Come in,’ said Stella, opening the door as she kicked her sneakers behind the magazine rack. ‘Sorry it’s a bit of a mess.’

Stella was slightly relieved to see that Emma seemed equally flustered.

‘Don’t worry, my fault for being early. The LAX immigration Gestapo waved me through without too much interrogation and the taxi driver seemed to have a death wish,’ she smiled.

Emma took in the chaos of Stella’s flat: the piles of magazines, the rolls of fabric, the precarious tower of DVDs by the TV, most of which seemed to be rom-coms or weepies. ‘What a lovely view!’ she exclaimed.

Stella burst out laughing and Emma couldn’t help but join in. Stella decided immediately that she liked this crazy woman who had flown halfway around the world to see her. She could barely remember Emma from a holiday in Provence when they were both very young, but her mother still kept in touch with Julia Grand. From the snippets of gossip that occasionally filtered her way, Stella had gathered the impression that Emma was the black sheep of the Milford family: someone tough and independent and mysterious. But the woman in front of her was sweaty and creased and had more than a hint of vulnerability about her. Well, that can’t be a bad thing, she thought.

‘Well, I guess I’d better offer you a drink after you’ve come all this way,’ smiled Stella, taking Emma’s bag and plopping it on an already overladen armchair.

‘Soda or vodka, I’m afraid,’ she said, rummaging around in the fridge. ‘Or I bought mint from the farmers’ market so we could have fresh tea?’

‘Mint tea would be lovely,’ said Emma, wandering to the window and gazing out. ‘So your father never made a sculptor out of you after all?’

Stella laughed. ‘He tried – oh, he tried. And for a little while I went along with it. I studied sculpture at the Slade,’ she called from the kitchen as she banged about preparing the tea.

‘I fell into fashion design by mistake although it’s not a hundred miles away from sculpture. All about form and shape. I took a course in pattern cutting but I’m pretty much self-taught.’

‘And now you’re a design executive at Cate Glazer.’

She looked at Emma wondering how much – or little – she knew about her life, not knowing that Emma had spent the entire twelve-hour flight to LA reading an inch-thick file on the growing Cate Glazer empire that she had obtained from a London press agency.

‘Well, officially I’m the design executive, which means I help Cate design the products.’

‘And unofficially?’ asked Emma, immediately reading between the lines.

Stella hesitated and looked a little embarrassed.

‘Cate is the front-person for the products, but I design everything. It’s a little like a ghost-writer doing novels. She OKs everything and she knows what she likes. Plus however much I moan about her, I have to admit she’s a great business brain and a marketing genius.’

The truth, thought Stella, was that Cate Glazer was a nightmare. Controlling and arrogant, she was paranoid to the point of forbidding her staff to have telephones, in case they should be tempted to make personal calls on company time. Stella knew Cate was also terrified that her star designer might be poached, but instead of incentivizing her, she kept Stella locked away in a windowless office with her drawing boards and swatches, ensuring that no one outside the company ever met her. Stella brought the tea things out on a dusty tray and pushed some magazines off the sofa so they could sit down.

‘So tell me, is this an interview or a chat?’ asked Stella, handing Emma a cup. ‘I take it from your call yesterday you’re looking to boost your design team?’

‘No. I’m actually looking for a head designer. I want someone to run the whole operation.’

‘No way!’ gasped Stella, almost spilling her tea. ‘You haven’t flown all the way from London just to speak to me have you?’ she said incredulously.

Emma nodded.

‘Why?’ said Stella with a half-laugh.

Emma hesitated before she spoke. ‘Well, because none of the big names are interested. Because I need to make an appointment very, very quickly before my family’s company goes down the pan. Because I’ve done my homework and know you spent three summers working in the Milford factory, because I know you’re the unsung hero of Cate Glazer and because I hope you care as much about Milford as I do.’

‘Blimey. You’re very straight-talking,’ laughed Stella, not expecting such an honest answer.

‘I used to be a management consultant,’ smiled Emma. ‘I’m used to speaking my mind.’

Stella took a sip of her tea, her heart suddenly thumping.

‘You work in fashion now, honey. Nobody says what they really think.’

She paused, put down her mint tea and waved Emma over.

‘Come through,’ she said leading her to the second bedroom which had been converted into a studio. In stark contrast to Stella’s living space, there was a clear order to this room. There was a tailor’s dummy in the corner of the room and a sewing machine in front of the French window. Hung up on a wooden rail were a dozen squares of leather. Stella moved over to a white sofa near the window and sorted through a pile of bags.

‘Some of this season’s Cate Glazer bags,’ she explained. ‘No doubt you’ve seen all these …’

Emma picked one up and examined it. It was lovely. A perfect balance between the formal and the avant-garde, you could take it into the boardroom then out to a club without a worry. This girl was good.

Stella straightened up, holding out a taupe leather tote bag. ‘This one, however, is my own. I make them for friends mostly, although Fred Segal might carry them in the Fall.’

‘This is beautiful,’ said Emma honestly. It was made from luxurious butter-soft leather and she had used the material as the starting point – it was somehow structured but relaxed. The bag seemed to mould itself around Emma’s hands.

‘But this is what I really wanted to show you,’ said Stella, opening a cupboard.

‘Vintage Milford bags,’ she said, handing Emma a snakeskin clutch.

‘Some used to belong to my mum, a couple were even my grandmother’s, I think. This one …’ she held up an amazing crocodile-skin day-bag, like a mini-Gladstone bag, ‘… I found this in Decades, a super-cool retro shop on Melrose. It cost me half my wage packet but I had to have it.’ Stella talked quickly – the words bubbling from her mouth as if she was unable to stop them. She ran her hand over the bag as if it was a precious jewel.

‘Can you see? The craftsmanship is amazing. Handbags were tiny in the 1950’s. Women didn’t carry their entire life around inside them as they do now. Look, there’s an inside pocket for a compact. That could be adapted to hold a mobile phone, don’t you think? And the curve of this buckle here is like a Barbara Hepworth sculpture. It’s stunning – it’s actually been die-cast. That sort of thing doesn’t happen now, but I think it would be so great to reinstate it.’

Stella realized she had been babbling. She looked up at Emma and Emma was grinning from ear to ear.

‘Honestly Emma,’ she said, smiling back, ‘you don’t need me. Just look in Milford’s archives or hunt down every single vintage bag you can get your hands on; private collections, vintage shops, even jumble sales. You don’t need a star designer – everything you need is here.’

Emma held up Stella’s own tote bag. ‘No, what I need is this,’ she said seriously. ‘I’m no expert on design – God knows, look at the state of me,’ she laughed, indicating her travel-crumpled suit, ‘but even I can tell that what you have done with your own bags is special. Yes, the vintage bags are wonderful, but as you say, they were designed for their time. Women today want something that is right for now, something that in fifty years people will be looking at and saying “Wow, they were so stylish back then”. I want you to take the Milford heritage as a framework and add this,’ she waved Stella’s bag again, ‘the Stella Chase magic’

Stella laughed out loud. ‘You actually want me to do this?’

‘Absolutely.’

Stella’s head was reeling.

‘But how can I … ?’

‘Listen to me, Stella,’ said Emma, her face deadly serious, ‘I came here because I was desperate. I couldn’t get anyone to design Milford’s collection and the bank is breathing down my neck. You were my last option. But since the moment I pressed that buzzer, I have been convinced that, given the choice of every top designer from Hermès to Vuitton, I would still choose you.’

Stella gaped. ‘Are you on drugs?’

Emma laughed. ‘Not quite, but it’s how I feel. Call it a gut-feeling if you like, but I just know no one else could do the job better than you.’

‘But I have my whole life here …’ said Stella lamely, suddenly frightened by the sudden notion that she might actually want the job. Emma put her tea down.

‘OK, let me tell you why you should do this,’ she said, ticking the points off on her fingers. ‘One, you’ll have complete control over the designs – complete control. No ifs, no buts, you’re in charge. Two, I’ll get you all the support staff you need – no more late nights, well, not so many anyway,’ she smiled.

‘Three, I’m guessing you’re on a salary at Cate Glazer? I’ll beat it by 50 per cent and if it all works out we can talk about taking a shareholding. And four, you’ll get 100 per cent credit for your designs, and I do mean 100 per cent. I want people to know you’re behind the creative rebirth of Milford.’

Stella frowned, trying to take it all in, her little nose wrinkling up. She thought back to the CFDA awards when the name Cate Glazer had been called out for Accessories Designer of the Year. Stella had only been invited at the last minute when one of Cate’s Hollywood friends had dropped out and she had almost been sick when Cate went up to accept the award alone. Behind every designer was a team of design assistants, pattern cutters, seamstresses, stylists and money men who all made it come together. But in the creative process, Cate hadn’t so much as lifted a pencil.

‘All I want to know is if you’d be interested in the job,’ said Emma.

‘Can I just check this?’ asked Stella, a goofy smile on her face, ‘You want me to work for Milford?’

‘Yes.’

‘As head designer?’ she said, suddenly coughing

‘Yes. And of course you’d get to work in a beautiful green English village. No smog, no traffic, and not one mugging since they caught Dick Turpin.’

Stella snorted. Emma was a clever woman. She seemed to understand how Stella was feeling. She could see she wanted to get out of the trap she’d built for herself, to show the world exactly what she could do. But still…

She looked around her flat; the cheap white furnishings, paper lampshades and bamboo blinds, and wondered if it really was time to go back to England. She looked out of the window, where Santa Monica was disappearing into the dusk. Of all the places in LA, it was the place she loved best; there were English pubs, a large expat British community, it was close to the sea. But was that simply because it reminded her of home? Emma seemed to read her thoughts.

‘Do you have a notice period on your contract?’ she asked.

Stella laughed. ‘A week, I think. When Cate took me on I think she wanted me to be quickly dispensable and the contract has never been changed.’

Emma stood up. ‘Stella, I need you to help me do this. Together I really think we can turn Milford around. Make it the exclusive luxury brand it once was.’

Stella listened to Emma with an almost eerie detachment. She was talking a good game and she was clearly confident in her abilities, but there was a tiny flicker of fear in Emma’s voice. For Stella, this was something new. Cate Glazer’s self-belief had never wavered for a second. She shouted and ranted and demanded the very best, never for a moment contemplating failure. But Emma was different. She was honest and forthright and she was painfully aware that the whole thing could go tits up at any time. I like her, she thought, reaching out to shake Emma’s hand.

‘OK, boss, see you in a week.’

It was Emma’s turn to gape.

‘Really?’ she replied.

‘Really!’ said Stella. ‘Only, can I ask for one thing?’

‘Name it.’

‘Can I have my own phone?’