Face Value (4 page)

Slightly more pressing was the fact that she had no idea what a beauty director did. She knew it was a big job. With a big salary—$150,000! No wait, $160,000! She hadn’t even worked out how much that was in pounds . . . a lot! Seventy-five, eighty grand! She could almost buy a flat with it!

This Alexis woman seemed to know her, know about everything she’d done, had read her work, yet how could she? Why would she? She frowned at herself, then stared into the mirror long and hard, waiting to see something, someone different, someone like the kind of person she expected would get a job at
Darling
magazine. Someone whose brilliance was shining. She mouthed at herself in the mirror,

“Hi, I’m Kate Miller, beauty director of
Darling
magazine. ” She looked too happy. She pursed her mouth, stuck her chin up.

“Kate Miller.
Darling
magazine.”

“Magazine” spoiled the flow of the words.

“Kate Miller.
Darling.
”

That could work. She twisted her hair back up. It rested there for an instant then tumbled down again. She flicked it behind her ears. The conscious effort of trying to be someone she wasn’t made her laugh. Beauty director,
Darling
magazine? What was she thinking?

It could only be a mistake.

She made her way quickly back to her desk and started typing before she’d even sat down properly.

She hit Send.

She sat back in the chair and breathed deeply, hoping Lise would call back, but instead of feeling relieved at having done the right thing, doubts began to fall thick and fast. What if it wasn’t a mistake? They knew her name. Her phone number. But most importantly, they knew her work. But how? Of course! The Internet! Someone there would have read the Trisha interview last night, Maidstone time, which was yesterday morning New York time. Hot off the press. Anyone in the
Darling
office could have alerted Alexis to it—maybe it was on the BBC website even! Or some Trisha Hillmory blog!

Kate’s fingers rapidly typed in to Google:
Trisha Hillmory Maidstone Bazaar
. Quick as a flash, up popped the link, on top of the page of hundreds of entries on the newscaster. Those magic three words again:
By Kate Miller.
She was hot and it had taken an American to spot that—well, was that so strange? Wasn’t that what Americans were good at? This was the call she had been waiting for, the door that had opened, the story that had so far evaded her, that she should now chase. She could not, should not, throw this opportunity away.

The phone rang. Lise!

“So . . . guess who turned up at the gym today to see me! Booking in for a very personal session?” Her friend giggled.

Kate hugged the phone close and spoke loudly into the mouthpiece, hoping she could be heard above the
“I like to move it, move it”
that was pumping away in the background, its rhythm accompanying every swish-swish of machinery, rowing machines, stair-walkers, and assorted pieces of equipment Kate had vowed never to set foot on.

“Lise! Stop it! This is important!”

“My lovely Steve! Isn’t that great? I was so surprised—he’s not exactly your average gym type, let’s face it—but he’d taken time out specially to see—”

“
Lise!
Listen to me! I’ve been offered a job in New York!”

There was a long pause at the other end of the phone, and then:

“Oh,
my God
!” she shrieked. “Oh, my God that’s . . . that’s . . . weird!”

“Only I think I’ve just turned it down. I think it was a mistake, Lise; they said I knew Gustav and Lisette and that everyone loves my celebrity stories. I mean, that’s not me, is it?”

There was a pause. Then a sigh.

“You’ve just turned it down? I don’t understand, Kate. You’ve been offered a job in New York, and you’ve just turned it down. Are you nuts? I mean, I’m not being funny, but it’s not like you’ve got a whole lot of other offers on the table right now, is it?”

Kate bridled at Lise’s reminder of the so-far unmeteoric pace of her career. “Well, no, but the editor, Alexis, said she knew someone called Lisette and I figured that might be you.”

“How would she know me? Lise is short for Lisette? I guess it could be, but—oh, my God, I bet she’s like Meryl Streep in that film!”

“
Silkwood
? The one about the nuclear plant?”

“No!
The Devil Wears Prada
, you idiot!”

“Oh . . . I don’t know. . . . Well, now I think they might have meant me after all, because they had my number, my name, they knew I’d done the Trisha story—they said my brilliance was shining!”

“So . . . that’s great then, isn’t it? I mean, what’s the problem? That’s great, Kate! Oh, my God! You’ll get a boyfriend finally! A native New Yorker! When are you going? Can I come and stay? Do you get a flat or something?”

“Look, for the umpteenth time, I don’t want a boyfriend, remember? My career comes first. Anyway, I just wrote saying they’d made a mistake.”

“You did what?”

“I e-mailed saying they’d made a mistake and to call me.”

“Well, can’t you un-e-mail it? Isn’t there some button you can just call it back on?”

“Lise . . . e-mail, computers, they don’t—”

Suddenly a friendly “ping” alerted Kate to a new e-mail appearing.

“Wait . . . I’ll call you back.” She hung up.

So this was it, her one big chance to leave Maidstone behind, to enter the international world of journalism, to sidestep from big celebrity interviews to beauty, to write in-depth, probing articles on animal testing and the perils of a culture obsessed with antiaging, to segue effortlessly, eventually, to a healthy sideline in an eco-friendly cosmetics and skin care brand that would raise funds for global development and environmental issues, that would have Bono and Sting and every other aging rock star clamoring to front her charitable causes . . . all gone. Her knuckles felt stiff as she hit Open.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Dear Kate,

I am so sorry, you’re right, I’ve amended the contract address so that it now reads correctly. Apologies. Please don’t tell Alexis—I assure you I will be more vigilant in the future. Let me know if there is anything I can do to ease your relocation in the meantime.

Kind regards, Lizbet

At 9:00 a.m. the following morning Kate had her resignation letter typed and on her editor’s desk.

At 10:00 a.m., Brian Palmers, in a speech to the entire staff, said he was saddened, understandably, having always had a soft spot for Kate, who had been working at
Maidstone Bazaar
since she had arrived ten years ago, at age twenty-two, to make teas (why did he always have to remind her about the tea?). One of their most talented writers, she had produced some of the magazine’s finest stories, including his all-time favorite, “Local Man Wins Worst DIY Husband of the Year,” and now of course, the mag’s biggest celebrity coup,
Trisha Hillmory
! She would be sorely missed, but he was happy she was moving on to brighter pastures, becoming a beauty consultant, imagine that!
Director
, Kate had corrected, but he’d only repeated
beauty consultant
, as if she’d be orange-faced, white-coated, and working at the cosmetics counter in the local department store. It was particularly good she was leaving now that Stacey had confirmed she would be returning after her maternity leave after all, and he wouldn’t have been able to promote Kate; in fact, he’d been chatting with Tania about it yesterday afternoon at the pub, funny how fate played its cards. He knew that his training program and her experience under his directorship had no doubt in some—he coughed for effect here—small way contributed to her advancement.

“Now on your way, Kate!” he laughed, patting her bottom. Kate had winced. Tania, forty-two, single, no prospect of moving on anywhere, and nothing but a future of a basement flat shared with Badass the cat, had winced with her.

At 11:00 a.m. Tania had gone for a fag round the back of the offices. Kate had followed, eager for some passive smoking. There were more than just a few things that were troubling her. It hadn’t escaped Kate’s notice that, Trisha Hillmory aside, she had never written a word about beauty in her life, something she would have thought was a necessary requirement for her new job. She suspected the editor, Alexis De Vere, was either some lazy American who hadn’t done her research properly or, and this increasingly seemed to be the more likely possibility, she was looking for a change of direction; something that would wake up those beauty-jaded girls of New York and give them something to get their thongs in a twist about.

“You know, what I don’t understand is how they heard about me in the first place,” said Kate. “I’m not being funny, but do you really think
Maidstone Bazaar
has a following in New York?”

"The Internet. Or our subscriptions department,” said Tania. “You know, they get all sorts of incentives for boosting our circulation. Kimmy, my friend who works there, only needs another thousand and she qualifies for a microwave!”

“Can’t you buy them for a tenner down the market?”

“Ooh, really? Maybe I should buy her one, save her doing all those extra hours.” Tania stubbed her cigarette on the ground. “She works ever so hard, nearly split up with her boyfriend over it.” Kate waited a respectful second or so, then picked up the butt to put in the bin later. Cigarettes took years to decompose naturally and ever since she’d given them up a few weeks ago (bar the recent relapse), she was at pains to remind the nicotine-dependent of the ills they inflicted on society.

“You can’t take away her motivation,” said Kate. “You know what else? If we could just talk a little bit more about me now that we’ve solved Kimmy’s microwave dilemma . . . I don’t know the first thing about beauty.”

“Yes . . . well.” Tania lit up another cigarette thoughtfully, casting her eyes over Kate’s disheveled hair.

Over the wall Kate could see the buses queuing to get into the depot round the back of the shopping center. A group of hooded youths sat on the stone bollards by the entrance. They looked bored.

“Can there really be that much to know?”

For the following three weeks Kate went religiously round to Lise’s flat every evening, where Lise’s friend Yolanda, who was a beauty therapist at the gym and therefore did know about beauty (although admittedly she had only done six weeks of a course and had only covered waxing and massage, but as Lise pointed out she loved makeup, didn’t she, and how hard could it be?) taught her about manicures, pedicures, hair removal, and how to blow-dry hair and cleanse skin.

“Groomed,” pronounced Yolanda. “You need to look groomed.” And she and Lise had frog-marched Kate to the local branch of Topshop to stock up on acres of polyester-mix wrap dresses with added Lycra. She had to accessorize, too, Yolanda warned, with handbags, bangles, and earrings, and get highlights, because everyone in New York had highlights. Yolanda, it transpired, was learning how to do these this very week at college, and, if she wanted to, Kate could come along to a model night, where she could have her hair done for free.

“Will I have to do a catwalk show or something?”

Lise and Yolanda looked at each other, exasperated. As her New York salary hadn’t yet kicked in, discounted highlights were her only option. That evening, third in a row of ten rather unwashed-looking sixteen-year-olds, Kate took her place before a mirror and submitted to the lure of the silver foil, only to emerge four hours later looking like a ginger racoon. This was all the rage, Yolanda assured her, she looked just like that TV presenter on
The Saturday Show
. She didn’t want to look like a TV presenter on
The Saturday Show
, she wanted to look like a beauty editor of a New York magazine.

“Never mind,” said Lise. "They have really good hairdressers out there. They’ll just think you’re English, and therefore eccentric. You know what? They’ll expect you to be different. That’s why they tracked you down!”

She had no regrets, no one she was feeling sorry to be leaving behind. Lise had been annoying her lately, chasing—obsessing over—married Steve, pretending she was in love in order to justify her affair. They’d had a little spat the last time they’d been out together, down at the Roxy. A club that had had its fifteen minutes way back in the ’80s, after a brief property boom and the discovery of Lycra, it was now Kate and Lise’s last resort when they’d had one too many Bacardi Breezers; it was the only place open past 2:00 a.m. They’d stood in the toilets as Lise mopped up the water from the flooding basins that had left her open-toed stilettos sodden, and Kate had told her in no uncertain terms that Lise ’n’ Steve was a relationship that was going nowhere. At least she had a relationship, Lise had retorted. Two more Bacardi Breezers and some energetic shape-throwing on the dance floor had resolved the crisis. But Kate still didn’t approve.

So in fact her only regret was that, well, apart from Tania at the office, and on a good day, her mum, there was no one she would miss. She wasn’t sad to be going away, just nervous that she might be found out to be some kind of imposter. A local newspaper magazine journalist, not some glossy, glamorous beauty girl.

Darleen had taken the news surprisingly well. Widowed when Kate was only three, it was hard to say who was more dependent on whom. It would have been nice to have had a few tears, perhaps, considering all they had been through together. Instead, she had quizzed Kate relentlessly for thirty minutes, then frog-marched her over to the neighbors’ to tell them the good news.

“Of course, Kate has always been very talented, a great writer, and I suppose it was only a matter of time before she got the call.”