A Girl's Best Friend

  ‘I’ll see you both back here at six,’ he said with a small bow. ‘I have to go and see a fabulous man about a spectacular dog. Who would have thought getting married was such hard work?’

  ‘It’ll be Vegas for me,’ Amy said, unfastening her coat and dropping her bag on the floor. I picked it up immediately before Domenico appeared to tell us off. The place was spotless. ‘None of this fannying around.’

  ‘I lobbied very hard for Hawaii,’ Kekipi said. ‘But no, my husband-to-be is a traditional Catholic boy. So we’re having a non-traditional gay Catholic wedding that won’t really be legal and his church won’t recognize. You know, the way God would want it.’

  ‘Amen,’ she replied.

  ‘Dom has put you in your old room. I’ll have your bags sent up and Al is waiting for you,’ he said, letting go of my arm and pulling Amy away down the marble-floored corridor. ‘Don’t get lost!’

  ‘As if I would get lost,’ I muttered, climbing the stairs to the second floor. ‘What kind of amateur do you think I am?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, opening the door to Al’s office five minutes later. ‘I got lost.’

  ‘There you are.’ Al stood and held his arms open for a hug. His bare feet and bright pink printed MC Hammer pants didn’t quite match his pale blue shirt, but he looked a million times more like himself than he had in his fancy three-piece suits. ‘I thought you must be due around now.’

  Al’s office was one of my favourite rooms in the entire house. Out of all the elegance and grandeur of his Italian home, he had chosen a smart little corner to make his own, with huge windows that filled the space with light and gave him grand, sweeping views of the park opposite the palazzo. You could see right across Milan from his desk and I could have happily lost days there drinking coffee and watching the world go by.

  Leaning in, I gave him a small, sideways hug. He smelled like proper gentlemen’s aftershave and Brylcreem. The only thing missing was the smell of the beach in his beard.

  ‘How was the flight?’ he asked, pouring me a tiny coffee and proving he was definitely a mind reader. ‘Uneventful, I hope?’

  ‘Amy kicked a man in the back of the head without leaving her seat,’ I said with a shrug. ‘But I think he was more impressed at how flexible she was than annoyed.’

  ‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘And how are you feeling after the exhibition?’

  ‘Confused, if I’m honest,’ I told him. ‘I still feel terrible about Amy entering that photograph without telling you first. I shouldn’t have even taken it, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Tess, that picture was fantastic,’ he said, dropping a sugar cube into his own espresso cup. ‘It showed a rare talent and I would have been very upset if you had let it languish on a laptop for the rest of your days. You must learn to have more confidence in yourself.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ I said, biting my thumbnail. ‘I just want you to know I feel really awful. I tried to get them to take it down but they wouldn’t.’

  ‘And rightly so,’ Al said, bushy white eyebrows raised. ‘Tess, it was a brilliant photograph. I was surprised to see it, of course, but that wasn’t why I left. The crowds were a little much for me. You know I don’t care for a lot of attention these days.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t a recluse?’ I replied, almost smiling. ‘If the picture hadn’t been there, no one would have bothered you.’

  ‘Regardless.’ He waved away my concern with a tiny silver spoon. ‘We shall agree that the photograph was wonderful and my moment of discomfort was worth it. I apologize if my reaction was a little dramatic. You should be very proud of yourself for that photo, Tess. Anyone can point a camera at something; very few people can capture the feeling behind it. Has the gallery been in touch?’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ I said, a heavy weight falling from my shoulders. ‘And no; I really was hoping I would have heard something from them by now but nothing. My agent is going to sack me and I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

  I gave him a broad cheesy smile to make up for the anxious tone in my voice.

  ‘So you’re sitting around waiting for someone to come and scoop you up out of the cinders?’ Al asked, a chiding tone to his voice. ‘I thought we’d been over this.’

  ‘I’m out of ideas.’ I sipped my coffee and pinched my shoulders together. ‘And I haven’t got a fairy godmother as far as I know.’

  ‘You know, I never much cared for Cinderella,’ he said, tapping the little silver spoon on his saucer. ‘Didn’t have enough gumption for me.’

  ‘She did marry a prince though,’ I protested. ‘She must have been doing something right.’

  ‘She never tried to help herself, did she?’ All the creases in his brow furrowed together. ‘As soon as the magic wore off, she hotfooted it back to the kitchen without a second thought. That part I never understood.’

  ‘I think she was scared,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t that the point?’

  ‘Why?’ Al asked.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ I said, uncertain. ‘They were big on beheadings back then?’

  ‘We’re talking about Cinderella, not Game of Thrones,’ he countered. ‘He had already got down on one knee and professed his love. What stopped her from explaining her situation? Casually mentioning that she wasn’t actually a princess and she could really use a hand. Didn’t she trust him?’

  ‘Well, he was a bloke,’ I said. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken,’ he replied. ‘There aren’t that many gentlemen around these days, I know, but my point is: how different things could have been for Cinders if she had simply explained her predicament to the prince in the first place. What would have happened if he’d found another girl who had the same size feet?’

  ‘Well, when you put it like that,’ I said. ‘One minute she’s the love of his life, the next he doesn’t recognize her when she’s staring him in the face.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Al said. ‘She would still be scrubbing floors if everyone else hadn’t been born with giant clodhoppers. And all because she waited around for someone to save her.’

  ‘And don’t get me started on the glass slipper,’ I said, my voice excitable. ‘What kind of fairy godmother puts a girl who has spent her entire life barefoot in glass heels? One trip and she slices her foot off.’

  ‘That’s an excellent point,’ he said, tapping his fingertips on the desk. ‘But we’re going a little off topic.’

  ‘She doesn’t even try to get the shoe back,’ I interrupted. ‘Someone leant her that shoe in good faith and she didn’t even go back for it. That’s shocking.’

  ‘Again, off topic,’ Al sighed. ‘Since I met you, I’ve watched you fight for the things you want and made them happen. Surely you’re not going to give up now?’

  ‘I have considered eating a lot of biscuits,’ I replied. ‘That seemed relatively proactive since everyone now thinks I can’t take a photo to save my life.’

  He gave me a look. ‘I don’t think that’s quite true, is it?’

  ‘No, really,’ I said. ‘That’s what that man said to me at the gallery.’

  ‘And he represents everyone in the world, does he?’

  ‘Not everyone,’ I replied. ‘But a lot of them.’

  Al nodded slowly, thinking.

  ‘I really wanted people to like my photo,’ I said, looking down at my feet. ‘I wanted to prove to everyone that I could do it. I wanted to prove I’m good.’

  ‘And who is it that thinks you have anything to prove in the first place?’ he asked.

  I didn’t answer. But I did take two of the cookies from his desk and shoved them both into my mouth at the same time.

  ‘All right, then, if this is so important, what can you do to change this man’s mind?’ he asked. ‘How do we get into his good graces?’

  ‘I know what my old flatmate did and I’m definitely not doing that,’ I said, pulling a face.

  ‘I can only imagine.’ Al gave a gentle shudder. ‘But you have to do something, Tess. You’ve come so
far.’

  He was right and I knew it. But I wasn’t used to it being so hard to show you could do something well. I felt a flicker of regret for my old job and the untold joys of PowerPoint.

  ‘You’re someone who holds herself to a very high standard,’ he said. ‘It might be that you can’t change their minds but you won’t know if you don’t try.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I promised. ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, standing up and rifling through a rack of dresses behind him. ‘Now tell me, how do we feel about white?’

  He held up a long, off-white dress, all fluttering silk skirts and narrow straps.

  ‘We feel strongly,’ I said, transfixed, as he wafted it around on the hanger. ‘Is this for next season?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Al held the dress out. ‘But for now, it’s for you.’

  ‘No way!’ I gasped. ‘Al, it’s gorgeous.’

  ‘You were right,’ he said, smiling. ‘When you told me making dresses was a worthwhile thing to do. The look on your face right now is priceless.’

  ‘Wait until you show Amy,’ I told him. ‘She’s going to die.’

  ‘As long as she doesn’t die before the wedding,’ he warned. ‘Domenico has spent hours on the seating plan. I fear he would bring her back to life just to kill her again.’

  ‘And there was me thinking Kekipi was going to be the bridezilla,’ I said, still wafting the dress around in the breeze from the window.

  ‘Did you imagine for a second that Kekipi wasn’t going to have the most beautiful bridesmaids the world has ever seen?’ he asked. ‘Designed by me as per his very specific instructions. Although the skirt doesn’t pull away to leave a bodysuit as originally requested – but since Domenico nixed the choreographed dance number in the reception, I think we’ll all get by.’

  ‘Am I allowed to wear white?’ I asked, allowing just the very tips of my fingers to trace the delicate fabric. ‘When it isn’t my wedding?’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll be upstaging the bride,’ he replied. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Brave, brave Domenico,’ I laughed, draping the dress over my arm as I waved my way out of his office. Al was right, I couldn’t sit around waiting for my fairy-tale ending. It was only midday, I had a whole afternoon until the stag do and unless I wanted to lose Agent Veronica, I had some work to get on with.

  ‘And so I says to him, Brian, I says, no one’s interested, put it away.’ Amy sloshed white wine all over her hand as she spoke. ‘It’s not as though there’s anything to see anyway.’

  With her mouth wide open, she guided her face towards her glass, attempting to hoover up her drink before she spilled the rest of it.

  ‘It’s sad when small penises happen to good people,’ Kekipi said, raising his glass with a sombre face. ‘To Brian.’

  ‘To Brian,’ Amy and I chorused, Amy throwing back her drink, me bringing it to my lips and then setting it back on the table without taking a sip. A bottle of vodka, a bottle of limoncello and three bottles of white wine, all of them open and none of them empty, sat between us.

  It was already eleven and the three of us were safely ensconced in the corner of a bar somewhere in the Navigli where Kekipi assured us the bartender was understanding and the drinks were cheap and strong. Al had dined and run, pleading old age and leaving his credit card behind the bar, disappearing with a promise of a car coming to collect us dead on the dot of midnight. I did not like the chances of all three of us getting in that car.

  ‘Where did you even get those?’ I asked Amy as Kekipi attempted to slap me in the face with a penis-adorned deely bopper.

  ‘I am a woman of many talents,’ she replied. Kekipi had bluntly refused to wear both the headband and the bride-to-be sash at dinner but was now sporting them both with pride. ‘Where were you all afternoon anyway?’

  ‘Working,’ I said. Amy was wearing a dress that looked like the stripper version of my gown from the AJB presentation and I felt woefully underdressed in my skinny jeans and backless black jumper. ‘Tell us more about Brian.’

  ‘Circumcized,’ she replied.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m resigning myself to one penis for the rest of my days,’ Kekipi said, raising his sticky-looking shot high above his head. ‘Whatever have I become?’

  ‘I think you talk a good game,’ I said, picking up my glass, waiting for the two of them to neck theirs and then throwing it in the plant plot by the side of me. ‘But you love it really.’

  Kekipi screwed up his face as he swallowed the stiff liquor. ‘I’m still in single figures,’ he confessed. ‘Tell anyone and I’ll hunt you down and kill you like a dog.’

  ‘Kill me like a dog or hunt me like a dog?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged, pouring out another drink. ‘I’m drunk.’

  ‘Room for a little one?’

  I looked up to see Paige beside our table, a smile on her face and the same penis deely boppers as Amy was wearing on her head.

  ‘Darling!’ Kekipi threw himself into her arms and dragged her down to the table while Amy spilled vodka into four shot glasses. ‘You made it.’

  ‘The flight was delayed,’ she said, quickly knocking back her shot and shivering. ‘I’m sorry I missed dinner.’

  ‘You’re here now,’ Amy slurred. ‘I haven’t seen you in so long. You look amazing.’

  ‘You really do,’ I said, trying to work out what she had done differently. ‘Did you get extensions?’

  ‘No.’ She pulled her long blonde hair over her shoulder and smoothed it down. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Fake tan?’ Kekipi suggested. ‘Eyelash extensions? Teeth whitening? Vagina facial?’

  ‘Is that a thing?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a thing,’ Amy and Paige replied.

  ‘There’s a place in New York where you can get it steamed,’ Amy said, sipping her vodka. ‘Just asking for thrush.’

  ‘I tried to get drunk on the plane so I wouldn’t have to catch up but it was easyJet and the drinks were extortionate,’ Paige said, filling up her own glass and throwing it back. ‘I didn’t want to get kicked off – I’m not Kate Moss. How come you’re so sober?’

  ‘Me?’ I picked up my wine glass and laughed. ‘Three sheets to the wind, trust me. Wasted. We’ve been drinking forever.’

  Amy and Kekipi zeroed in on me with slightly wobbly expressions.

  ‘You’re not drunk,’ Amy said, pointing at me with a shot glass. ‘Why aren’t you drunk?’

  ‘I’ve been working on my tolerance,’ I replied, sipping my warm white wine. ‘I’m just not as drunk as you so you can’t tell.’

  ‘I hate people who bully their friends into drinking when they don’t want to,’ Kekipi said, mixing Lemon Drop shots in a pint glass and then distributing them to each of us. ‘I think that’s why I’ve spent so much time in therapy. Drink.’

  ‘I really don’t think it’s a good idea,’ I said, reluctantly accepting the sticky shot glass. ‘You both know I’m a bad drunk. I don’t want to be hungover for the wedding.’

  ‘It’s my bachelor party,’ Kekipi insisted, attracting the attention of every other person in the bar. ‘Drink the drink, Brookes.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll do one,’ I said, staring at the shot, my gag reflex kicking in before I’d even sniffed it. ‘And that’s it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Amy clinked her glass against Paige’s. ‘Just the one.’

  ‘Cheers,’ Paige said. ‘To Kekipi’s last night of freedom and Tess’s hangover.’

  ‘Cheers,’ I replied before throwing back the drink. ‘Although I’m not going to get drunk so I’m not going to have a hangover. So there.’

  ‘I mean, first he doesn’t want me then he does, then he doesn’t, then he’s sending letters. Who sends letters?’ I swiped my hand across the table, knocking the empty bottle of vodka with it. ‘I don’t understand. Pick up the bleeding phone, Miller.’

  ‘He’s a shit,’ Amy said, rubbing at her eye and
smearing her bright blue eyeliner until she looked like a 1970s David Bowie. ‘A shitty shit shit, that’s what he is.’

  ‘He really isn’t worth the energy,’ Paige agreed. ‘You’re better off without him.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ I had tried and tried and tried to get my head around it. Filling said head with vodka wasn’t making it any clearer. ‘Not at all. I’m so over him.’

  ‘Of course you are, love,’ Kekipi said. ‘That’s why we’re still talking about him. Who brought him up in the first place, anyway?’

  Paige and Amy both pointed at me across the table.

  ‘I wish I was a bloke,’ I said, sweeping my arm across the table. ‘Then I could just forget about the whole thing and move on.

  ‘I think you’d feel better if you did sex on someone,’ Amy said, her head popping up and scanning the busy bar. ‘Let’s find you a sex person.’

  ‘I think I’d feel better if I had a kebab,’ I argued. ‘Where’s the closest place I can get a kebab?’

  ‘Basingstoke.’ Paige shook the limoncello bottle but it was completely empty. ‘We’re dry.’

  ‘On it,’ Amy grunted, standing up and yelling to the barman, ‘Another bottle for the table and a new shag for Tess.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Charlie?’ Kekipi asked. I stuck out my tongue and grabbed Amy’s wine glass from across the table. ‘You still haven’t replied to his note?’

  ‘I texted him to say thank you for the presents,’ I sighed, my topknot collapsing around my face. ‘I don’t think that counts.’

  ‘What note?’ Paige asked. ‘Charlie sent you a note?’

  ‘And a care package and a shit camera case or something,’ Amy nodded, as the lights got lower and the music got louder. ‘He decided to declare his undying love. Oh, and offered her a job. It was all very unprofessional. If he had HR, they’d have a field day.’

  ‘Really?’ Paige asked, jolting backwards as her eyes shot wide open. ‘He told you he still loves you?’

  I nodded. ‘Amy’s got the note.’

  ‘She’s not allowed it,’ Amy confirmed. ‘I am the keeper of the note.’