The Year of Taking Chances (27 page)

Saffron frowned and back-spaced through the last sentence.
No, Gemma wouldn’t have said anything rude.
Better to stay positive in a press release anyway, rather than taking potshots.
She
tried again:

Saffron read through what she’d written so far.
Good, she thought.
This is something that a lot of women will really respond to.

She broke off to check the state of the website, but there was still only a holding page.
She’d have to get Caitlin to update that, and fast.

Then she added her mobile number, rather than the company one.
There was only so much blagging she could get away with before Charlotte noticed.
She read through the whole thing again, emailed
it to Gemma and Caitlin, marked ‘URGENT!’, and sat back with a smile to await their approval.

That was when she noticed Charlotte eyeballing her across the office.
‘Everything all right?’
she asked.

Saffron flushed.
How did her boss always seem to know when she was skiving off?
She wheeled her chair closer into her desk, so as to hide her burgeoning bump, and quickly opened a new document
on her screen.
‘Great, thanks,’ she said.
‘About to arrange a meeting with Jonah to discuss the fountain episode.
Lovely coverage of Bunty in
Metro
today, by the way
– and not even a mention of Troy, so that’s all behind us now.
Then I’m onto Ashley P—’

‘There’s no need for the full rundown, thank you.’
Charlotte’s face looked pinched.
She walked over and perched on Saffron’s desk, smelling strongly of Dior,
mingled with a leathery whiff from her ox-blood knee-high boots.
‘Saffron .
.
.
this little escapade which you took with Bunty Halsom .
.
.
’ Her mouth twitched.
‘It’s all
very irregular.
I know she’s a bull in a china shop at times, but you must not let her dominate your entire working schedule.
We were left picking up the pieces from your absence for the
whole of last week.’

Saffron bowed her head.
‘Yes.
I’m sorry about that.
I didn’t feel I .
.
.
’

‘I mean, one minute you’re phoning in ill, the next you’re off in Sussex or wherever, and you’re shacked up in some bolthole with a client?’
The potted Christmas
cactus on Saffron’s desk would start withering any second, in the heat of Charlotte’s criticism.

‘I can see that it must have looked .
.
.
’

‘That’s not how we do things at Phoenix.
Bunty is a longstanding client, but she does not automatically take priority.
You have other commitments here.’

‘Yes.’
Saffron’s mobile chose that moment to start ringing, thank goodness.
Both she and Charlotte glanced at the screen.
Gemma,
it said.

Charlotte didn’t seem in any hurry to leave.
‘Is this a work call?’

Yes.
New client, I hope,’ Saffron said.
Well, it was sort of true.
She slid her finger across her phone’s screen to take the call.
‘Gemma.
Hi!
Oh, good,’ she said.
‘Brilliant.
And you’re happy with the copy?
Great.
Is it all right for me to put that discount offer in, by the way?
I just thought it would add an extra .
.
.
Excellent.
So
what’s the latest on the website?’

Charlotte, to her relief, slid off the desk and moved away, although she remained in earshot, Saffron noticed.

‘Caitlin’s on the case right now,’ Gemma said, her words bubbling down the line.
‘She’s going to pretty up the holding page, she said, and will put a sign-up box on
it, so that people can register their interest.
She’s going to try and finish some more pages today.’
Her voice was getting higher and higher with excitement.
‘I can’t quite
believe this, you know.
Thank you so much.
It’s just .
.
.
amazing.
Beyond my wildest dreams!’

‘Just you wait,’ Saffron said.
‘We’ve barely started, mate.
Get that website up and running properly as fast as you can, and I’ll circulate the press release.
And
brace yourself – we’re in for a busy time.’

She ended the call, feeling energized.
Doing this favour for Gemma would be far more satisfying than trying to pick up the pieces of a spoiled-brat celebrity’s tarnished career, that was
for sure.
Humming to herself, she returned to her press release and began compiling an appropriate contacts list: the gossip magazines, fashion editors at newspapers and glossies, feature editors
who might want to interview Gemma as a ‘New Businesswoman Success’ story, local Suffolk press who’d probably want to big her up .
.
.

‘New client, did you say?’
Charlotte must have crept up on her, because the sound of her voice made Saffron jump.

She faltered.
She had not exactly intended to take on Gemma as a ‘real’ client, which would involve getting her to sign a contract with the agency and billing her for any work
undertaken.
This was more a case of giving a break to a nice person who deserved it, rather than an abject money-making exercise.
‘Hopefully, yes,’ she said blandly.

Charlotte nodded, lips pursed, then walked away.
She said nothing, but she didn’t need to.
Her message of
I’ve got my eye on you
was received loud and clear.

Sometimes you could send out a press release and it was like throwing glitter up at the stars – a brief sparkle of hope, only to be swallowed up by the darkness.
At other
times you lucked in with a combination of a good story, a strong visual and a news lull, which saw every journalist’s interest piqued.
Today just happened to be one of those golden days.
By
the time she was leaving the office, Saffron had taken well over twenty phone calls, passed on at least the same number of prospective customers to Gemma and had even taken details of a couple of
people who wanted to order dresses right now – and did Gemma take commissions?

Her heart sang as she imagined the orders pouring in to her friend’s laptop, with the promise of large sums of money to follow.
Her only worry was that Gemma would be overwhelmed by the
demand.
Make sure you start a waiting list,
she texted her as she waited for her bus, her phone still warm after constant use all day.
And maybe rope in an assistant!
Get that husband of
yours on the case, all right?!

It was nearly seven o’clock by the time she reached her flat, and her mobile was
still
ringing.
She’d have to start sending enquiries to voicemail soon, she decided wearily,
taking the call without looking at the screen and tucking it under her ear, so that she could rummage for her door keys at the same time.
‘Hello, Saffron Flint?’
she said.
Lipstick,
gloves, purse, more lipstick, notebook, pen, more lipstick – where were her bloody keys?

‘Saffron, it’s me.
It’s Eloise.’

She hardly recognized her sister, she sounded so timid and ground down.
Forgetting about her keys momentarily, Saffron leaned against the door, braced for an unpleasant confrontation.
They still
hadn’t spoken since the Sunday dinner of doom.
‘Hi,’ she said warily.
‘How are you?’

‘I’m .
.
.
I’m okay.
Listen, I was wondering.
Can we talk?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I just .
.
.
’ Eloise sighed.
‘Oh, I can’t do this over the phone.
Can I come over sometime?’

‘Here?
To the flat?’
Whenever Eloise had visited in the past, she’d spent almost the entire time checking out the window that her car wasn’t being stolen or vandalized.
‘I mean – sure, yeah.
Of course.
When were you thinking?’

‘Saturday would be good for me, if you’re not too busy.’

‘Saturday it is then.
Do you want to come for lunch?’

‘Great.
Thank you.
I’ll see you then.’

Saffron said goodbye and put the phone in her bag, an odd sense of foreboding stealing over her.
Then she shook herself and began searching for her door keys again.
She was being fanciful, that
was all.
Tired, fanciful and silly.
The sooner she and her sister were back on proper speaking terms, the better.

Letting herself into the dark hallway, she took a deep, weary breath, then climbed the stairs up to her flat.

Working with Caitlin at White Gables was so companionable and fun that Gemma felt a pang of loss when she had finished both the dresses Bunty had commissioned.
The hefty wallop
of money going into the joint account was amazing – right off the satisfaction scale – but all the same, Gemma couldn’t help wishing the experience had lasted a little longer.

But then Bunty appeared in
Metro
wearing the gorgeous green dress that Gemma had made her, and life suddenly accelerated up a whole new gear.
When Saffron’s call came, she was
hurrying through the drizzle to get Darcey into school on time, but as she heard the magic words cascading down the line, she could have sworn that the sun came out and a choir of angels began to
sing ‘Hallelujah’.

Fizzing with such unbelievable news, Gemma kissed all the breath out of her daughter (‘Euurggh!
Mum, stop it, you weirdo’) and pelted straight round to Caitlin’s house.

Caitlin answered the door with a half-eaten piece of toast in her hand.
‘I was just having my b— What’s going on?’
she asked, as Gemma bustled past and hung up her
coat.

‘You’ll never guess what,’ she burst out breathlessly.
‘Something amazing has happened.
And I’m begging you like I’ve never begged anyone before: will you
help me?
Please?’

‘Of course,’ Caitlin said, startled.
‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m better than all right,’ Gemma told her, and the story bubbled out of her: the newspaper, the phone call, how she just couldn’t
believe
it (several times) and
wasn’t it just the most amazing thing
ever
?
(ditto).
Caitlin wasted no time in switching on her laptop, pulling up the
Metro
website and finding the article about the TV awards.
Then they both squealed at top volume as they saw the glorious picture of Bunty in her full splendour.

‘No way,’ Gemma cried, clapping her hands.
‘I bloody love that woman.
Look at her working the dress.
Look!
At!
Her!’

‘She actually looks .
.
.
stunning.
She really does,’ Caitlin said, open-mouthed.
She high-fived Gemma and pulled her in for a hug.
‘Bloody hell.
And you
made
that.
Hourglass Designs goes national, dude!’

‘I know, that’s what Saffron reckons.
She said if we could finish the website, put up some way to register email addresses of potential clients .
.
.
’

‘I’m on it,’ Caitlin said at once.
‘No problem at all.
I can easily add a registration widget and all the prices; plus we could even put up a little video interview with
you .
.
.
’

Gemma threw her arms around her.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘You’re the business.
Did I mention that I’m actually a bit in love with you?’

Caitlin laughed and clicked open another screen.
‘Let me show you what I’ve done so far .
.
.
’

The Hourglass Designs website wasn’t yet fully live, but there was already a decent number of pages ready to go.
Caitlin had gone with her original idea to have the home page framed by a
twisting pink tape-measure design, and she’d used the silhouette of a curvy woman as the logo.
She’d added three of Gemma’s designs to a ‘Dresses’ page –
Valentine: the cap-sleeved, cleavage-enhancing scarlet dress she’d made for Valentine’s Day (but ended up wearing to work in the pub); Midnight, the dark, shimmering blue,
off-the-shoulder velour dress she’d worn on New Year’s Eve, which had three-quarter-length sleeves and a panelled bodice; and Olivia, a shorter, vampier cocktail dress in jet-black
sateen that she’d made to wear for her sister-in-law’s fortieth birthday party.
‘I’ve been matching up colour and fabric samples to each page, so that prospective customers
could order direct,’ she explained.
‘Is that okay?’

‘Absolutely,’ Gemma said.
‘Good idea.’

‘We’ll need a page about you and your vision,’ Caitlin went on.
‘Hey, and I’ll tell you what would be really cool: some kind of gizmo that would let customers
upload a webcam image of themselves, type in their measurements and see what they’d look like in each dress.
What do you reckon?’

‘That would be awesome,’ Gemma said excitedly, leaning over her shoulder.
‘Can you really do that?
Oh God, and you must tell me how much I need to pay you for all this, by the
way.’

‘Leave it to me,’ Caitlin said, and started typing.
‘Team Hourglass – let’s do this!’

They could tell, almost to the minute, when Saffron’s press release went out to the journalists.
Gemma’s phone immediately started pinging dementedly with forwarded
email enquiries, the laptop chirruped like a flock of hysterical birds as people signed up, one after another, for news alerts from the website, and there were even requests for bookings and
fittings.
‘Already?
This is insane,’ Gemma marvelled, trying to keep track.
‘They don’t even know how much I’m going to charge yet, and they still want to buy my
dresses.
Who are all these mad people?’

‘Ah, you’re the new hot ticket,’ Caitlin said with a grin.
‘I’d better get my order in quick, before you get so rich and famous you don’t want to know me any
more.’

Gemma gave her a look.
‘As if,’ she said, then gaped at her computer screen, which was positively rippling with new emails.
‘Help,’ she cried, suddenly feeling
overwhelmed.
‘What have we started?
I’m not sure I can do this.’

‘Of course you can,’ Caitlin told her.
‘You totally can.
Buy yourself a big business diary and book in your first few fittings.
And get some champagne on ice, while
you’re at it.
You’re in business, lady.
The empire starts here.’

‘
We’re
in business, you mean,’ Gemma said, clicking open the first email.
It was from a fashion blogger who wanted to interview her.
Her!
She pulled herself together and
took a deep breath.
‘You, me and Saffron – this is all of us.
I couldn’t have got this far without either of you.
Oh God, I’m going to cry in a minute.’

‘No crying allowed,’ Caitlin ordered.
‘We’re too busy to cry.
Smile!’

Many, many emails later, with six people booked in for fittings and another thirty or so requesting fabric swatches, it came as something of a wrench to leave White Gables that
afternoon for the school run.
They had been so busy with the sudden crazy wave of media and customer interest that Gemma hadn’t once thought about Spencer or the rest of her family, she
realized with a pang of guilt.
Boy, was he going to be grumpy about that.
Still on crutches and finding it difficult to get around on his own, he hated being left alone for hours on end, like a dog
abandoned to howl and pine.
Bad wife.
Negligent wife.
But also wife who felt as if she’d scored a glorious hat-trick in the game of life, and was now running round the pitch high-fiving all
her mates.

She somehow managed to restrain herself from dancing and singing all the way home like the heroine from a musical, although she did cave in instantly to Darcey’s requests for chocolate
brownies from the bakery as they passed.
Hell, yes.
It was definitely a chocolate-brownie sort of day.

But then they arrived home to find Spencer sitting in his sports car, parked in the dingy garage, and the vibrancy of her wonderful mood immediately dimmed like a low-watt bulb.
‘Are you
all right, love?’
she asked anxiously, peering into the window.
He was sitting there motionless, his hands on the steering wheel.
‘Sorry I’ve been out so long.
Do you want a cup
of tea?’

He blinked, as if only just registering their presence.
‘Please,’ he said quietly, making no movement to get out.

‘What’s he
doing
?’
Darcey asked in a too-loud whisper as they trooped back into the kitchen, with Spencer still in the car.

Gemma sighed.
‘I think he just feels sad,’ she replied.

She made him a tea and got in the car next to him, but he made no effort to speak.
All you could hear was the slow, sliding tick of the electricity meter on the wall as it notched up the watts.
‘Spence,’ she said after a few moments.
‘Come on.
It’ll be all right.’

‘I’m just trying to remember what it felt like to drive her,’ he said, staring straight ahead.
‘What it felt like to rev the engine and go.
Remember that weekend in
Walberswick?’

Did she ever.
His parents had agreed to look after the children while she and Spencer zipped off in the Mazda to Walberswick for a surprise treat.
It had been a cloudless blue-sky June day, and
they’d put the roof down and let rip.
Stretched out around them were the green-and-yellow fields of Suffolk, the old flint churches and brick barns, hedgerows bustling with birds and
butterflies.
The world had never seemed more beautiful.
‘Course I do,’ she said, reaching over to squeeze his hand.
‘And just as soon as you’re better, we’ll go back
there.’

He sighed.
‘I can’t imagine it, though.
I feel as if that’s never going to happen.’

‘It will.
I promise it will.
Your ankle’s nearly better, you’ll be able to start physio soon .
.
.
You’ll get there.
And .
.
.
’ She hesitated over her news.
Could
he handle it?
Not now
, she decided.
Not when he was so vulnerable
.
‘We’re a team, remember.
Let me pick up the slack for a while, just until you’re better.’
She reached out and took his hand.
‘Don’t worry.’

‘Oh,’ Gemma said at teatime that evening, as if it had just occurred to her, ‘by the way, I’m giving up the job at the pub.’

Will muttered something that might have been ‘Thank God for that’, although Darcey at least was more enthusiastic.

‘YAY!’
she cried.
‘So you’ll be here at bedtime again?’

‘Every night,’ Gemma smiled.
‘And we can start a new story together now, can’t we?’

‘How come?’
Spencer asked.

‘I’ve got some other work,’ Gemma said.
And then she couldn’t hold back any longer.
‘One of my dresses was in the newspaper today.
Wait, I’ll show
you.’

Abandoning her food, she got up and switched on the iPad and opened the
Metro
website.
‘Look,’ she said, showing them the image of Bunty.
She’d never get tired of seeing
that picture, she thought to herself proudly.
‘And basically everything’s gone a bit mad.
Lots of people want me to make dresses for them and .
.
.
Well, I’ve kind of started a
little business.’

Darcey’s eyes were big and round.
‘Whoa.
Are you, like,
famous
, Mum?’

She ruffled her daughter’s hair.
Darcey’s ambition was to be famous, although the finer details changed on a weekly basis.
Last week she wanted to be a famous vet (‘a telly vet
with nice hair’), but the week before, when she’d started an Instagram account for Waffle – the cat over the road that was always finding his way into their house (sample posting:
‘Sleeping on Darcey’s bed, yo!’) – she’d announced that she now planned to be a wildlife photographer (an extremely famous one).

‘I’m not quite
famous
,’ Gemma said now.
‘But I think you’ll be able to start pony lessons again soon.
And, Will, if it’s not too late, we can see about
getting you back on the school trip for France.
And we’ll be able to pay off our bills a bit quicker now.
Best of all .
.
.
’ She grinned.
‘I can stop making horrible soup, for a
change.’

‘No more soup!
No more soup!’
Darcey cheered, punching the air.