Celebrity Shopper Page 6

  She stole a glance at her wristwatch. It was coming up to 1.15 p.m. She could easily give this woman an hour of her time. Why not?

  Connor took another look at his watch. He could feel the hairs at the back of his neck prickling because he was sure Jay and Jay’s producer friend, sitting two tables behind him, were watching.

  Annie was sixteen minutes late. Exactly. Ten would have been OK. But by sixteen minutes, he really would have expected a call, a text, a something to let him know that everything was OK.

  He slid his phone out of his jacket pocket and checked it over again. Not one single message, missed call or any sign that anyone, anywhere, had even thought of Connor McCabe for one second today.

  He felt a wave of self-pity sweep over him and began jabbing at his handset in an effort to stave it off.

  He called up Annie’s number and heard the line begin to ring.

  When he heard voicemail click in, he felt faintly relieved. She must be on her way. Maybe she was on the tube. Maybe there had been some sort of hold-up. Really, he should be feeling concerned for her, not angry.

  But those eyes were boring into the back of his neck. Jay and company must surely be wondering what had happened to his famous lunch guest.

  Just for luck, Connor sent Annie a text: ‘U R L8!! When here? Connor’.

  Then he sat back and waited for some sort of reply, or a glimpse of Annie out on the pavement scurrying to get here.

  ‘So what’s your name?’ Annie asked the woman. ‘You know mine, so it’s only fair.’

  ‘I’m called Jane. Plain Jane with the Brain,’ she added with a false laugh. She opened her arms as if to show herself off and said: ‘Can’t you tell? That’s what I was called in school and somehow it’s stuck. The people at work call me that too.’

  ‘Oh blimey,’ Annie sympathized, ‘that’s not very nice.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you know, the ‘brain’ bit is good. It’s just the ‘plain’. We have to do something to get rid of the plain,’ Annie told her.

  Jane looked up hopefully. There was just a touch of something. Jane was just a little too needy for Annie’s liking. Annie would have to proceed with caution here.

  ‘Is it an outfit for work that you’re looking for?’ she asked. ‘We should get one of the assistants to give us a hand.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Jane shook her head. ‘It’s just you I want. Everyone else is so nasty. But you’re lovely to all the people on your show.’

  ‘That is really nice of you, Jane, thank you,’ Annie told her, but then confided, ‘I can be a right old witch when I want to be though.’

  Jane smiled.

  ‘But I’m not going to be able to shop with you every time, girl, so I think we should get one of the assistants here to help us,’ Annie suggested, ‘then the next time you come back here, you can ask for her. I’m going to try and help you build up a little working relationship, get you used to working with an assistant. They do want to help you, honestly. I spent years being an assistant myself, Jane, I know.’

  Connor fiddled with his phone. Nothing was happening. No reply …

  ‘Can I get you another drink?’ The waitress hovered at his elbow. ‘Another lime and soda? Or would you like something else?’

  ‘Ermmm …’ Connor weighed it up. He was trying not to drink much. There had been times in his life when he’d drunk way too much and more recent times when he hadn’t drunk at all. At present, he was trying to find a balance. He could not blank out what was happening in his life with booze; he knew that would be a disaster. He’d never get anything back on track like that.

  On the other hand, teetotalism was damn, bloody, joyless hard work. Especially when he seemed to spend entire hours of every day totally stressed out of his box.

  ‘I think I’ll have a tiny tonic water …’ He wavered. ‘… with a double gin in it, please.’

  Annie had Jane in the changing room now. Her coat was off and Annie was looking at the beige trousers and navy sweatshirt underneath.

  This was nothing she couldn’t handle.

  The phone in Annie’s handbag began to bleep.

  ‘Just one tiny second,’ she told Jane and turned away to look at the message.

  ‘U R L8!! When here? Connor.’

  Annie looked at the letters for several moments.

  They didn’t make any sense. She was late? Late for what? ‘When here?’ Where? Connor?

  Connor?

  Connor!

  Suddenly the fog cleared and Annie remembered with total clarity the phone call, the restaurant arrangement and the details scribbled down on the Post-it note.

  ‘Oh bloody hell!’ she said out loud.

  Jane looked at her with anxiety. ‘You’re not going to go? Please don’t go! I can’t do this without you!’ she wobbled.

  ‘That message …’ Annie began to explain, ‘I was supposed to be in Soho at one p.m. to meet my really, really good friend for lunch. He’s going to kill me.’

  ‘I’ll kill myself if you don’t stay!’ Jane exclaimed and then she opened up her handbag and took out two packets of paracetamol. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for weeks. It’s only when I saw you that I thought maybe you’d be able to help me … and maybe I wouldn’t do it today.’

  Annie was stopped in her tracks. She quickly tried to disguise the look of horror which had sprung up on her face as she wondered what on earth she should do.

  The assistant hovering near the changing room with them looked totally shocked.

  ‘Jane, I’m not going anywhere,’ Annie soothed, ‘you and I are going to have a proper chat. Just let me phone my friend and tell him I’ll have to rearrange the lunch date.’

  Jane nodded.

  Annie sat down on a chair in the changing room beside Jane’s and dialled Connor’s number.

  ‘Annie!’ she heard him exclaim. ‘Where are you? What’s happened?’

  ‘Connor,’ she began nervously, ‘I’m not sure how to tell you this—’

  ‘What?’ he jumped in. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. It’s just … well … you should have reminded me! I’ve bloody well gone and forgotten and now I’m in Brent Cross and I’ll never ever make it over to Soho for lunch and you … you should have reminded me!’ she repeated, wanting it to be Connor’s fault and not hers.

  There was a pause while a shocked Connor tried to digest the information.

  ‘Connor?’ she asked after a bit. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘You forgot?’ Connor bellowed into the phone, sending a little ripple of surprise around the restaurant.

  Then he remembered about Jay and Jay’s producer friend and the many other TV-related people in this place who may or may not have noticed him.

  He felt himself blush as he frantically thought of a way to turn this around. He didn’t want anyone to know that he had been forgotten, that would be terrible. Gossip would sizzle up all over the place: ‘I was in De Soto’s and guess who was there? And do you know what happened to him? Yes, really! He’s so over. Even his supposedly “old friend” Annie Valentine didn’t remember to turn up for him.’

  The thought of this was making Connor’s ears burn and eyes water.

  ‘So this is about your dad …’ he blurted out. ‘Well, you know, I understand.’

  ‘Connor? What the bloody hell are you talking about?’ Annie asked, completely baffled. ‘Don’t mention my dad! Not to me, not to anyone else and certainly not in a crowded restaurant.’

  ‘No, of course I don’t mind, of course … these things happen,’ he said, his voice laden with charm.

  Now Annie knew he was playing to an audience. There was someone in the restaurant listening and Connor didn’t want to lose face.

  ‘I am so, so sorry,’ she told him, ‘really very, very sorry. Can you ever forgive me? Do you want to come round? Shall we rearrange lunch? What would be best? How can I make this up to you?’ She reeled off the questions anxiously.

  ‘No, no,’ Connor
sounded ridiculously cheerful, ‘of course we’ll rearrange. Please, don’t even think about worrying about it. Love to everyone.’

  ‘Connor, I’m having a hard time myself,’ she added, ‘they’re talking about replacing me for the third series. Replacing me!’ she repeated in a fierce whisper.

  ‘Baby, it’s brutal, bloody brutal in this business,’ he whispered back, ‘toughen up.’ Then he rang off.

  Annie stared at the phone in disbelief, but she couldn’t worry about him right now; she had to go and talk to Jane.

  As she pulled open the curtain on Jane’s cubicle, she could see the woman looking at herself in the mirror, the packets of paracetamol still in her hands. ‘Jane?’ Annie said gently.

  ‘Yes?’ Jane looked round. Her eyes were moist, as if she might cry at any moment.

  ‘I was going to pick you out a really nice dress. I thought that would be the first thing you should have in your wardrobe to get away from the “plain” tag. Dresses are great’ – she warmed slightly to her theme – ‘when you find the right one, you just put it on, add good shoes, lipstick, a necklace and you’re done. Easy peasy.’

  Jane gave her a little smile.

  ‘Got any nice dresses in the wardrobe?’ Annie wondered.

  ‘No.’ Jane shook her head. ‘No dresses since I was my sister’s bridesmaid. She looked really, really pretty. She wore a lovely cream dress. Mine was dark green. I looked like an ugly toad. I think she chose the colour on purpose to make me look bad.’

  ‘OK,’ Annie said gently, ‘but we can’t go shopping today.’

  ‘You’re going to leave me, aren’t you?’ Jane said, looking up wildly. ‘Everybody does. I want to go shopping with you … I want you to have me on your show!’

  ‘No. No, I’m not going to leave you. It’s just a really important rule I have. You can’t go shopping when you’re this upset because you make bad decisions. Lots of people go shopping when they’re upset, I know I do sometimes,’ Annie admitted. ‘We think clothes are going to make us feel better, clothes are going to protect us or look after us. But the opposite is true. It’s the clothes that need looking after.

  ‘You take them home, you put them in the cupboard and then they need looking after. They need to be washed and ironed. They need to be paired up with things that go with them. They need to be accessorized and taken out and worn places. They are so demanding!’

  Jane sank down on to the changing cubicle’s chair and began to sob softly.

  ‘Today isn’t a shopping day for you,’ Annie said, putting an arm round Jane’s shoulder. ‘Today is a day when you need looking after. Who’s the best person to do that for you, Jane?’

  ‘My mum,’ Jane answered. She began to sob. ‘But she died last week.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Annie crouched down and held on to Jane’s hand. ‘Who shall we phone for you, Jane, love?’

  Jane’s face fell forward on to her legs and she began to cry freely. ‘I don’t know,’ she managed finally.

  Connor held his phone in his hand. He took a deep swig at his gin and tonic then began to text. ‘I am so pissed at you. End of story.’ He hit send and the message began its journey towards Annie’s phone.

  Connor gulped down the last of the drink and stood up. He would settle the bill. He had to leave. There was no way he was going to sit in the centre of this place and eat lunch all on his own. That would be career suicide.

  He turned and saw Jay and his lunch companion glancing over in his direction. He gave them a smile and a little wave.

  Then he decided to go over to their table and give his explanation.

  ‘Something extraordinary has happened,’ he began, ‘Annie’s dad disappeared years ago, never been heard of since, but she’s had some sort of news. She wouldn’t say … but it sounds like he’s turned up again.’ Connor gave a shrug. ‘You can’t have any hard feelings when something like that messes up your lunch date.’

  ‘Well, no,’ Jay agreed. ‘Connor, this is Rob Kane.’

  The two men shook hands. Rob Kane was extremely good-looking, Connor couldn’t help noticing.

  ‘Connor, why don’t you join us?’ Jay wondered, noticing the look that was passing between the two.

  ‘Love to …’ Connor pulled up a chair. ‘So … The Elephant Man, huh?’

  At the table next to them, Vickie Plumridge, a gossip columnist with the weekly celebrity magazine Pssst!, was being treated to lunch by a well-known PR. When the PR excused herself for a bathroom trip, the columnist opened up her phone and typed out a little note to herself: ‘Connor McCabe stood up by Annie V. Annie V’s dad! Connor McCabe with Jay Wetherford and Rob Kane.’

  It was all very interesting. Vickie had been working on the mystery of Annie Valentine’s father for several days now, so just as soon as Connor had enjoyed the large glass of wine which had just been poured out for him, she would go over and introduce herself.

  Chapter Ten

  The studio’s driver:

  Blue trousers ironed to within inch of life (Army Store)

  White shirt ironed to within inch of life (M&S)

  Regimental tie (The Regiment)

  Peaked cap (Army Store)

  Black shoes, brilliant with Kiwi Wax and Parade Gloss (Same)

  Bluetooth phone in ear (Motorola)

  Total est. cost: £140

  ‘Your wish is my command, ma’am.’

  ‘So Svetlana and her absolutely beautiful daughter, Elena, are planning to launch this label in Paris just as soon as they can … and we could be there.’

  Annie had her phone to her ear and was talking at speed to Tamsin. It was nearly 7.30 p.m. and she was being driven home after a long day’s filming.

  ‘It could work,’ Tamsin told her cautiously, ‘it could definitely work. It can’t just be PR though, it’s got to be a real behind-the-scenes. We want the grit behind the glamour, the reality of putting on a fashion show and launching your own label. We wanna see Svet sweat. No, seriously, I think I like it and I think the viewers will like it. When is it supposed to happen?’

  ‘Well … I don’t know yet,’ Annie replied. ‘As soon as she reaches her investment target, she says she’ll be able to get the first dresses run up in a week. She wants to be in Paris when all the other trade shows are on, to catch the wave. That’s when all the trade press will be over there anyway.’

  ‘She’s going to get so much publicity, I mean she’s famous anyway … and our viewers love her,’ Tamsin added.

  ‘Yeah,’ Annie said, trying not to feel at all jealous. Sometimes she couldn’t help noticing that however brightly her star shone, Svetlana’s was always more dazzling. She wasn’t just on TV now, like Annie, oh no. She had to go one step further and faster and launch her own label. She was probably going to be the next Donna Karan, be spectacularly rich and famous for years and years. When Myleene Klass stepped into Annie’s high-heeled shoes, Svetlana would probably still be there doing her guest slots beside her.

  ‘So in the next week or two, hopefully.’ Tamsin was tapping on her notebook, calling up her schedule. ‘We can’t send a whole crew to Paris, way too expensive. I want to come in under budget for these episodes just to impress everyone and up the profit margins. You, Bob and his camera and maybe Amelia – because she can look after just about everything that you two can’t – should go over to Paris for two days and bring us back lots of really exciting footage. Have you recovered from your shopping stalker incident?’

  ‘Oh, she was hardly a stalker,’ Annie protested.

  ‘I’ve looked into the cost of getting you some security,’ Tamsin added.

  Annie’s response to this was an astonished snort, followed by: ‘You have got to be joking me.’

  ‘No. After what happened, I think when you go round the shops for us, you should have someone with you – discreetly. Joe the driver, perhaps, he’s ex-army. But we’ll pay for that. Obviously on your own time, you’ll have to decide what you want to do.’

  ‘No!’ Annie was s
hocked. ‘Even Svetlana doesn’t have security and she’s loaded.’

  ‘Yeah but you’re a TV star.’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘You are,’ Tamsin insisted, ‘you’re a celebrity now. What happened with the suicidal lady was scary. What if she’d had a kitchen knife in her handbag instead of packets of pills?’

  ‘Then I’d definitely have made the cover of Pssst! magazine,’ Annie joked.

  ‘That’s bound to come soon,’ Tamsin warned.

  ‘Plain Jane the Brain was harmless, she was just upset,’ Annie said, ‘and I felt quite touched that she thought I could help her.’

  Annie cast her mind back to the fraught changing-room scene. Just as she and the shop assistant had exchanged nervous glances, wondering what on earth they were supposed to do next, Jane’s phone had rung. Annie had decided to pick it up as Jane had been in no state to answer.

  It had been Jane’s sister and as soon as Annie had explained where Jane was and how upset she was, the sister had dropped everything to come and get her.

  Annie had stayed for the forty minutes it had taken for the sister to arrive, curious to see the svelte and pretty contrast who had dressed Jane up as ‘an ugly toad’.

  The sister hadn’t been any prettier at all, which didn’t really surprise Annie. How many sibling rivalries were based on absolutely nothing at all? But you just needed one parent to express a mild preference for one child’s hair or eyes or length of leg and the damage could be done.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Annie assured Tamsin. ‘If things get really bad, I’ll just start wearing a dark wig in public. It’s probably time I discovered my inner goth.’

  As soon as Tamsin had finished the call, Annie saw that she had voicemail. She dialled up the message and listened to it in some confusion.

  ‘Hello, this is Christine from Everest Camping. We trust the package arrived safely. Obviously we hope you’ll be able to make use of the items, but if not, please return them at your earliest convenience.’

  Annie listened once again, stared at her phone in surprise and decided this must be a wrong number. Camping stuff? She’d definitely never ordered any camping stuff.