New York Valentine Read online

  ‘I grew up in the countryside,’ she replied. ‘A very kind woman, Baba Boska, look after me. The family of her sister live in the house beside us and those children feel just like my brothers and sister. I’ve not been back to them for three years and I miss them. I don’t think they really believe my life now. Ever since I go to university in Kiev is very, very different life from theirs.’

  ‘Difficult … very difficult for you to adjust to,’ Annie sympathized.

  ‘Ya,’ Elena said and gave her shrug, ‘the money. The money is unbelievable. How much money people have. How much money people need. When I was growing up, my mother sent enough money for a manicure to Baba Boska every month. This keep me and Baba fed, clothed, in our house, pay for everything we need. But we need much, much less. No car. No bus journeys, not even a bicycle.’

  ‘Did Svetlana pay for you to go to university?’

  ‘No, I get scholarship.’

  ‘I remember now … engineering?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But then you did business studies in London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does Svetlana still send Baba Boska money?’

  ‘No.’

  Annie glanced over at Elena and noticed that she drew her lips angrily together.

  ‘But I do,’ Elena added, ‘she’s getting old. I worry about who will look after her and maybe she will have to pay for doctors soon. She can never move … this would be like uprooting a tree.’

  ‘You have a lot of things to worry about, darlin’ – the Perfect Dress business, Baba Boska’s health, impressing the new mother in your life … I can understand why the stress relief has got a little out of hand.’

  When Elena looked at her with a puzzled expression, Annie added gently: ‘The shopping. The shopping habit has got out of your control, maybe?’

  Elena’s pace slowed. ‘In Svetlana’s London everything seem to cost more than I can ever imagine,’ Elena began, ‘but she give me money. More money than I can ever imagine. Here, I find everything is so cheap compared to London. Designer clothes, 70 per cent off, designer shoes 80 per cent off. The drugstore, buy one get one free. And I still have money from Svetlana, she pay me salary for this business, even though we not make any money yet. But now … on my credit card … all these cheap things, all this money off, and I owe …’ Elena stopped walking altogether now, as if the thought of the figure had stopped her in her tracks.

  ‘It’s OK, you don’t have to tell me,’ Annie assured her.

  ‘Maybe I need to tell someone. Every time I think of it, I want to be sick.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Twenty-four thousand,’ she blurted out.

  Annie covered her surprise. ‘Pounds or dollars?’

  ‘Dollars.’

  ‘What’s the interest rate?’

  ‘Eighteen per cent.’

  It didn’t take long to make the calculation. Annie had learned a lot about credit card debt in the many lessons Ed had given her.

  ‘About $4,500 a year. That’s what it’s costing you just to have that debt. Before you’ve even paid a penny back,’ Annie told Svetlana.

  ‘I know. Of course I know. I go to business school! But I still can’t help myself …’

  ‘Please try not to worry too much. It can be sorted. We’ll talk about it. We’ll talk about it all, but right now …’ Annie came to a halt and pointed across to the other side of the road: ‘here’s the warehouse, so we better start thinking about Perfect Dresses.’

  ‘Here?’ Elena looked at the low, ugly building with the metal shutter doors in undisguised horror. A faded sign above the entrance read: ‘Frederico’s Fabulous Fabrics’.

  ‘Nothing fabulous here, I promise,’ Elena said.

  ‘Shhhh! Don’t be such a spoilsport,’ Annie nudged her. ‘Seek and you will find.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Taylor’s smart casual:

  White cotton shirt (Ralph Lauren)

  Blue linen suit (Brooks Brothers)

  Dark blue silk socks (same)

  Brown lace-up brogues (Tods)

  Total est. cost: $1,600 (Mom paid)

  ‘You have to have the New England clam chowder.’

  Lana stood in front of the marble-columned splendour of the New York Central Library and acknowledged the terrifying thud-thud-thud going on in her chest. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the way her mum had taught her.

  She was going to be fine. Really. She was going to walk calmly, coolly, up this amazing flight of stairs and into this building. There she was going to find Taylor, because it was already 12.36 and 30 seconds and in his text he’d told her to be on time.

  Lana took another deep breath, let it out slowly and began to step through the office workers snatching a quick lunch break on the stairs.

  No sooner had she set foot inside the vast, creamy marbled entrance hall when a voice called out: ‘Hey Lana! Hi!’

  She turned, smiled immediately, but felt just about weak at the knees at the sight of Taylor. He was so blond and so beautiful. His hair slicked back, his deep summer tan set off against the white shirt and blue suit he was wearing for work.

  He approached and kissed her right on the lips before she could even think about it.

  Just smack! Right like that. Lip to lip. She didn’t even have a moment to close her eyes. Was just suddenly tasting mouth, saliva, toothpaste, coffee. Looking at the golden cheek right up close. Then, just as suddenly, he’d broken off.

  ‘Glad you could make it,’ he said and flashed her a smile. Compared to her he seemed completely unruffled, as if this was how he said hello to every girl he met. Maybe it was, Lana thought with a sudden sinking feeling.

  ‘Come and meet Linus. He’s fantastic, you’re gonna love him. He’s gonna tour us around. Just me and you because he loves the piece I’m doing on the library and … pretty girls,’ he added in a whisper. ‘So, charm him.’

  Then he took Lana’s hand in his and led her along to the reception desk where an elderly, uniformed guard was beaming at them expectantly.

  Her hand. He had her hand in his. Naturally, casually. As if this was just the way it always was, had always been.

  Lana had worried intensely, all morning, about possible hand-holding and a possible first kiss. How would it happen? Who would make the first move? Would he make a move? Would she? Would she want him to make a move? And now … they had already kissed! Just like that! And he was leading her round this amazing building, by the hand!

  This was nineteenth-century Manhattan: marble, elaborate plasterwork, leather-bound chairs, wood panelling. Funny how she’d always thought of New York as being shiny, brand new, ultra-modern. She’d never considered for a moment that it had history.

  Taylor’s hand felt just right in hers. Not too hot, not at all sweaty. Just cool and perfect. Although Linus was talking to them and no doubt telling them something fascinating, Lana kept thinking about the kiss and then an electrifying buzz would pass through her and it was almost entirely impossible to concentrate on a single word.

  She had never, ever had such a good time in a library.

  * * *

  Far, far away from marble columns and gilded reading rooms, Annie and Elena were stepping into the cavernous, dimly lit warehouse of Frederico’s Fabulous Fabrics.

  The entire badly lit, bare concrete walled space was crammed with enormous metal shelves filled with rolls and rolls of fabric. More fabric than Annie could ever remember seeing before.

  ‘We’ll find stuff here,’ she encouraged Elena, ‘we’ll work our way through the whole place if we have to. Just remember nothing can cost more than $6 a yard.’

  Not exactly a big budget, Annie would be the first to admit, but somewhere Frederico would have something for them … please!

  A full forty minutes of searching later and Annie was deeply disheartened. How had she imagined that this would be easy? This place was where Crimplene came to die.

  She’d looked at hundreds, maybe thousands, of rolls of fabr
ic but nothing was good enough. Nothing seemed even vaguely suitable. And when she had occasionally come across something that might just do, it had a price tag three or four times more than they could afford to spend.

  There were still two more warehouses to visit, so she didn’t want to be gloomy and have Elena shrugging and moaning at her already. But, secretly, Annie wasn’t entirely optimistic … this was the biggest warehouse, this was the one with the best reputation. If there was absolutely nothing to be found here, she didn’t rate their chances.

  Elena appeared to be stress shopping. She was at the till with a square piece of waterproof fabric saying she needed something to cover the café table back at the apartment. Then she bought two yards or so of velour, muttering something about Baba Boska and cushions.

  Annie watched the way Elena knotted the top of the carrier bag then put it inside another carrier bag, and she recognized that much more complicated feelings were at work here. This was not just normal shopping.

  But she said nothing and together they made the ten-minute walk along grimy, characterless streets to the next warehouse.

  This place was dingier, less well stocked and after twenty minutes of looking around, Annie knew that there was nothing for them here. Although Elena once again bought a small piece of waterproof fabric for the café table.

  ‘Two pieces is better,’ she explained to Annie. ‘When one gets dirty, we can use the other one.’ Then she started up with her complicated bag-knotting system again.

  As they trekked along the charmless, industrial-looking road towards the third warehouse, Annie warned Elena: ‘Don’t think that we have to find something here. If there’s nothing we like, we’ll go back to Manhattan, look up more warehouses and keep on trying. Maybe we’ll have to revise the fabric budget and scrape money together from somewhere else so we can afford to pay more.’

  ‘I’m going to have to tell the buyers that the dresses are not coming,’ Elena began. ‘People are expecting these dresses in less than three weeks’ time. If I don’t warn them, they will have low inventory. Nothing on the shelves. Maybe I need to tell them so they can order other things.’

  ‘No!’ Annie protested. ‘Not just yet. Give it just another day or two. Elena, we have a potential factory lined up, we just need some fabric and then we are so close to solving the problem. Please!’ she went on, ‘don’t tell anyone about dresses not arriving on time yet. Just avoid those calls and ignore the emails. Just for a day or two. We’re going to know very soon if we can turn this around.’

  Elena was looking closely at the map in her hand: ‘We should be there by now.’

  Instead they were walking along a pavement with a high wall on one side and a row of scruffy houses on the other.

  There was a break in the wall for a metal gate. Annie peered through the bars of the gate.

  ‘Maybe this is it?’ she suggested.

  The gate wasn’t locked, so she pulled back the bolt and let it swing open. In front of them was a tarred car park, empty, and beyond the car park, a fabric warehouse, shuttered up and obviously closed.

  Not just for the day, but closed down.

  ‘I guess there wasn’t much call for DIY dress- and curtain-making out here,’ Annie said. She scanned the car park looking for any signs of life.

  To the side of the building was a big metal skip which seemed to have rolls of fabric poking from the top of it.

  ‘Boy, his stuff must have been really bad.’ She pointed at the skip so Elena looked over too. ‘He couldn’t even give it away. He’s actually throwing it out.’

  Annie gave Elena a little glance.

  ‘Shall we go over and just have a look?’ she asked.

  ‘In the bin?!’ Elena said incredulously.

  ‘We’ve come so far … my feet are killing me, it would be crazy not to just have a look. You never know.’

  ‘But it’s so high!’ Elena protested. ‘How will we look?’

  ‘You just give me a leg up, then I’ll hold onto the edge and take a peek inside.’

  ‘Take a peek? What is this peek?’

  ‘I’ll just look,’ Annie explained.

  ‘Maybe we get in trouble,’ Elena worried.

  ‘But there’s no one around.’

  This was true, but not in a good way. Both the car park and the warehouse were deserted. But they had the creepy, desolated look of unloved areas in scary neighbourhoods. Annie knew this was exactly the kind of place where two women from Manhattan Island might well lose their bags, their money and anything else a mugger wanted to take without asking.

  But she was still walking briskly towards the skip, mainly because Annie believed in luck. Well, no, she didn’t really, but she believed in the thing her mother had told her over and over again: ‘Lucky people make their own luck.’

  If she looked in enough places, Annie would find the right fabric at the right price, and looking in enough places included looking in a skip beside a warehouse in some shitty, tumbledown corner in the bad part of Brooklyn.

  ‘OK,’ Annie said, reaching up to put her hands on the edge of the skip and sending flakes of rust showering down, ‘just boost me up a bit.’

  Elena understood and locked her hands together into a sort of stirrup. Annie stepped in and scrambled up so that her elbows were on the edge of the skip and she could look inside.

  Countless rolls of material had been thrown in there, along with food wrappers, bulging black bin bags, empty cans of beer, old tools, including a rusty spade and a broken bucket.

  She reached over, grabbed at the nearest rolls of material and pulled them towards her. Luckily, there had been no rain for over a week, so they weren’t wet or soggy.

  The rolls were all of a dark, drab fabric: navy blue and charcoal grey.

  Upper arms burning with the effort of dangling, she instructed Elena: ‘Just lift me up a bit more – hold my legs.’

  Then Annie managed to use her thumb and first two fingers to feel the quality of the fabric, something she’d been doing all afternoon.

  It wasn’t half bad.

  The fabric was thick, but stretchy. It felt like proper, old-fashioned cotton jersey. The kind that cost $25 a yard and more. She took hold of one roll and with a huge effort managed to edge it over the side of the skip.

  ‘More coming,’ she told Elena.

  Four rolls – two navy and two grey – were eased over the top of the skip and onto the ground beside Elena.

  Elena was desperate to take a look at the fabric, but she was too busy holding up Annie’s legs.

  ‘I’m going to have to go in,’ Annie decided: ‘there’s more stuff over in the corner.’

  ‘No, Annie, not into the beeeen,’ Elena warned, sounding horrified.

  ‘Yes, into the beeeeeeeen,’ Annie said, imitating Elena’s accent as she scrambled forward and managed to swing one leg and the patent high heel at the end of it over the edge of the skip. This is tricky, she thought, as she wobbled dangerously above the concrete floor. But with another push, she was slithering down into the skip, dress snagging on the rough metal sides.

  Very gingerly, she picked her way over the bin bags and rolls of nasty nylon and netting until she was close to the remaining rolls of material in the corner.

  I’m in a skip, she told herself, where I’m ‘sourcing’ ‘unique’, ‘limited edition’ dress fabric for a truly ‘one-off’ collection. Oh the glamour!

  ‘Annie!’

  Elena’s voice sounded extremely anxious.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s a dog! There’s a very big, big dog! And he coming this way!’

  ‘You have to have the New England clam chowder. Do you like clams?’

  Before Lana could reply to Taylor’s question, he was off again: ‘Or maybe the lobster salad. Seriously, it’s better here than anywhere else on the Eastern seaboard. The fish and seafood at this place is the best. The best!’

  The waiter hovering at Taylor’s elbow beamed with pleasure: ‘That’s very kin
d of you, sir.’

  ‘Hey, I’m only telling the truth,’ Taylor grinned at him.

  Lana was so in awe of everything that she could hardly speak.

  Here she was in a proper fancy, grown-up restaurant with starchy white tablecloths, wine buckets, waiters in full dress … and with the most sophisticated guy she’d ever met.

  He was only 20, she’d established that. He was still at university – ‘college’ as they called it over here – but he was spending his summer vacation in Manhattan working at Vogue (his mom had a little connection, apparently).

  Only 20, but he already knew where the best seafood restaurant was and how to get a good table on a busy lunchtime. And he was taking her out to lunch!

  ‘You order for me,’ Lana said, glancing up shyly from the menu.

  Taylor did, then told the waiter, ‘Well, we don’t want to be carded, so we better drink mineral water. Do you have the Apollinaris?’

  ‘Yes sir, an excellent choice. The champagne of mineral waters.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  Lana restrained her mouth from gawping open. The champagne of mineral waters! Jeeeeeeeeez.

  ‘Didn’t you just love the library tour?’ Taylor asked, turning to her with his utmost attention.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she replied, ‘it was wonderful. Thank you for letting me come along.’

  ‘So what are you doing tonight?’ Taylor’s bright eyes were so intense, Lana could hardly look into them for more than a moment or two.

  ‘Tonight?’ she repeated, trying not to squeak.

  ‘I want to spend as much time with you as I can,’ Taylor said, reaching over to touch her arm.

  Then Lana felt a physical symptom she’d never experienced before. The blood rushed and stuttered in her chest with excitement and it really did feel as if her heart had fluttered.

  ‘Your lobster salad, Miss,’ the waiter announced. He lifted the huge silver lid from the dish and set it down in front of Lana. Then her crystal glass was filled with the extravagant fizzing water.