Search for a Star (8 page)

Francesca frowned. “Well you can't sit here, moping into your computer,” she said not unkindly. “Let's go into the boardroom. No one will disturb us there, and you can tell me all about it. All right?”

Ellie nodded. She got to her feet and stumbled towards the exit. She could hear Francesca explaining to Piano that she, Ellie, wasn't well. She felt a fraud, but grateful to Francesca. In the lobby, Francesca paused to fill a cup with water from the cooler. Then she led the way to the boardroom.

“Now. What's so terrible about my office that it almost reduces you to tears? Has Piano been more sharp than usual? I think you deal with her very well as a rule.”

“It's not just Piano getting to me,” said Ellie, blowing her nose and then accepting the water. “It's failing with Charlie Daniels too.”
I'm sad about Sophie and Flynn as well,
she realized,
everything has added together to make me feel miserable, but I can't say that
.

Ellie explained about finding the blog, and connecting the dogs' names with the ones in the park. “I was so sure I was going to get an address, or at least a phone number,” she said. “It was really exciting! But then they didn't come today, and when I got back to find that my email to the blogger had bounced back, labelled ‘undeliverable'…” She sighed.“I just got upset. Sorry.”

“Well, never mind,” said Francesca. “These things happen. The chances are it's not a live email address if the blog was four years old. Actually,” she looked thoughtfully at Ellie, “I think you did remarkably well, considering how little you had to go on. Rather than be sad about it, you should congratulate yourself.”

“Really?”

“Of course! A lot of detective work comes to nothing, but when something does come right you know it's all been worth it. You might not have got hold of your man, but you've shown me what you can do. I'm genuinely impressed.”

“Well…” Ellie downed the rest of her water and sniffed. “I did enjoy doing it. I'm sorry I got upset. That was stupid.”

“Don't worry about it. People who care a lot about what they're doing
can
get upset when it doesn't work out.”

Ellie swallowed the lump that had been in her throat. “It's not very professional though.”

Francesca smiled. “Maybe not, but that will come. You're young enough to learn in time to hide your feelings a bit more when you need to. But you shouldn't ever be ashamed of having strong feelings. Feelings are honest, and real.”

Ellie took a deep breath and gave Francesca a proper smile. “Thanks, Francesca. I know you're really busy, and…”

“Nonsense. It's part of my job, to look after my staff. Look.” She paused. “Why don't you go and splash some cool water on your face, repair your make-up and then come back into the office…unless you'd rather I sent you home?”

“No, it's fine,” said Ellie quickly.

A few minutes later, Ellie was at her desk again, trying to look as if nothing had happened.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” asked Francesca. “I'm sure Piano will go and make you one.”

“Yes please,” said Ellie.

“How do you like it?” asked Piano, immediately pushing back her chair and getting up.

“Milk and one sugar, thanks,” said Ellie.

Piano stalked towards the door and Ellie bit back a smile. Of all the things that could have happened to cheer her up, this had to be the best. Piano, making
her
a cup of tea! She glanced over to Francesca. The Deputy Editor gave her a warm smile, and she had a definite twinkle in her eye. Ellie was as certain as she could be that Francesca had done it deliberately. Piano's behaviour towards Ellie might not warrant a telling-off exactly, but it seemed that Francesca had other ways of keeping her staff in line!

Over the next few days, Ellie threw herself into contacting as many agents as she could, to arrange interviews for the magazine. To her surprise, Kurt Draagan's agent replied very quickly, to say that the star was in London at the moment, and would be pleased to be interviewed straight away. Unfortunately for Ellie, Angel decided she should be the one to do the job. As she was the Editor in Chief, no one could argue about that, although Piano and Debbie were united in thinking that Piano would have been a far better choice.

There was a lot of discussion between Piano and Debbie about what they should wear on the day of Kurt Draagan's interview, just in case he came into the office, although it was almost certain that Angel would interview him at his hotel. Francesca took no part in this. She always remained aloof from such conversations, and Ellie knew that whatever happened, the Deputy Editor would always look cool, sophisticated and way above anything Piano or Debbie could achieve. On the other hand, Piano was great at putting together a really funky look, one that Ellie longed to emulate. But no one, least of all Piano, asked Ellie what she thought.

Ellie was just crossing off the name of a soap star who wasn't going to be available for an interview, when Francesca called her over.

“You remember that visit you made to Jacob Frou last Easter?”

“Do I!” Ellie beamed. She had got on really well with the elderly shoe designer, and had ended the day on a photo shoot, modelling his shoes with Zone One. He might be old, but his designs were seriously cool. She would
never
forget that day, especially as Monsieur Jacob had given her a pair of his shoes as a thank you for modelling for him.

Francesca smiled. “Well I have another designer I'd like you to go and see.”

Ellie beamed. “Great! Who is it?”

“A new young designer called Adam Calwell. Angel wants to have a series of articles about the designers who drive the fashion industry. If we're going to look at up-and-coming stars, this guy definitely seems to be one of them. So would you like to interview him?”

Ellie's face lit up. “I'd love to!”

“Okay, give him a ring then,” said Francesca. “Angel won't want a huge article, just a brief biography really, with some bits and pieces about how he works, what it's like in his workshop, that sort of thing. And we'll have pictures of some of his designs. It could be the first of a great series for the magazine.”

Ellie got onto it straight away. She found Adam Calwell's number in the office database and keyed it in. Almost at once a woman picked up the phone and Ellie explained about the interview.

“I'm sure he'll be delighted to be interviewed,” she said. “He's not here at the moment. I'm Julie, his assistant. Hang on. I'll just look in his diary.”

There was only one day when Adam was available that week, and Ellie took the offered time straight away. “I was afraid he wouldn't be able to see anyone until the autumn,” said Ellie. “And then I would have been back at school. But this is perfect. Thanks so much.”

“I'll get back to you if he doesn't want to do it,” said Julie. “But I'm sure he'll go for it, especially as it's
Heart
magazine. Your readers are just the right age for his designs.”

Ellie put the date in her phone diary and hung up, feeling very pleased with herself. But Piano must have overheard her conversation. “Don't you like Kurt Draagan?” she enquired with a smirk on her face.

“Of course I do!” said Ellie. “Why?”

“No reason,” said Piano. “I just wondered why you were making appointments for the day he's going to be interviewed.”

Ellie reminded herself that he was fairly unlikely to come into the office, but she couldn't help looking a bit crestfallen, knowing that he might. Piano, being the sort of person who took pleasure in others' misfortunes, looked almost pleased. “What a shame you'll miss him,” she said insincerely, before sashaying back to her desk. “It looks as if he's definitely coming here for Joe to take some pictures.”

Ellie could have thumped her desk with frustration. She couldn't ring to rearrange the meeting with Adam Calwell because she knew there wasn't another day he could do. She would just have to resign herself to not seeing her heart-throb and concentrate on enjoying meeting the new designer.
Damn! In fact mega damn
.

At lunchtime she went down to see Sophie.

“I'm sure Flynn thinks I'm stupid not to push myself,” Sophie said to Ellie over a shared sandwich. “But at least he's not nagging me about it any more.”

Ellie had wondered about telling Sophie that she'd seen Flynn chatting to Debbie, but in the end she didn't feel she could. Maybe he'd just been indulging in a bit of harmless flirting. After all, she hadn't actually overheard anything he'd said. And Ellie didn't want to do anything to make Sophie's relationship with him any more difficult.

In the afternoon, Ellie took Ferdinand for his usual walk. Once again there was no sign of the little dogs with their silver book tags.

“Sorry, Ferdi,” said Ellie. “They don't seem to be coming here at the moment.”

Back in the office afterwards Debbie seemed a bit grumpy, and Piano was sitting at her desk, concentrating hard on something with a face like thunder.

“What's happened?” Ellie asked Debbie, picking up Ferdinand to give him a last stroke before she returned him to his mistress.

“Angel Makepiece really gets up my nose sometimes,” said Debbie in a low voice. There was no sign of the Editor, but it would never do for her to hear such comments from her staff.

“Why's that?” said Ellie.

“She's only changed her mind about Kurt! She's announced that she thinks pictures in his hotel would look better. I'm sure she gets us all excited on purpose, just so she can let us down.”

Ellie thought Angel had much more important things to think about than irritating her staff, but she didn't like to say so. “Maybe he doesn't want to come out of his hotel in case he's mobbed by his fans,” she said, thinking of all the effort Piano and Debbie had been going to make in the hope that he would notice them. “I expect he gets loads of girls throwing themselves at him, so maybe he wants to avoid that.”

“I think she just wants him all for herself,” said Debbie, looking thoroughly fed up.

Ellie really didn't want to turn into another version of Piano, but she couldn't resist making some sort of comment as she went past her desk. “I'm so sorry you won't get a chance to see Kurt Draagan,” she said sweetly. Piano pretended that she hadn't heard. But when Ellie got back to her desk a rude message appeared on her laptop. It didn't say it came from Piano, but Ellie was as sure as she could be that it had. Ellie deleted it with a smile.

On the morning of the interview with Adam Calwell, Ellie wore her Jacob Frou shoes. She was immensely proud of them. They were called the Pirate because they hinted at pirate boots without looking exactly like them. They were lined in the softest red leather, and fastened with a gold coin. What's more, they held her feet as if they were precious objects. They were the only designer items she actually owned. To Ellie the shoes felt so comfortable, it was like walking on clouds, yet at the same time, they always made her want to stamp her feet on echoey wooden floors and dance about with wild abandon.

At the moment she was doing none of these things. She was sitting quietly on a bus, with her notebook on her knees, revising the questions she was going to ask the fashion designer, and hoping that the shoes she was wearing would help him to take her seriously as something of a fashionista. From the bit of research she'd done she knew that his mission statement was to get girls to love dresses. It would be interesting to hear how he intended to do that!

The sun had been shining when she'd set out from home, but now, to her dismay, the sky was clouding over, and it looked like rain.
Oh no! Don't rain
.
Please don't rain just yet,
she thought. But in no time the bus was driving through a torrential downpour. Ellie was cursing herself for not bringing a coat or umbrella, when the rain suddenly stopped and the sun came out again. Ellie hopped off the bus in high spirits, carefully avoiding the puddles as she headed towards the designer's workshop. She'd almost got there when it happened. A lorry went past, sending a whoosh of water over the pavement where she was walking. It was impossible for her to avoid it, and she was instantly drenched from the knees down in horrible, dirty water.