“I need you, Becky. I rely on you. I didn’t realize it until you weren’t there anymore. Ever since you left, your words have been going round and round in my head. About my ambitions. About our relationship. About my mother, even.”
“Your mother?” I stare at him apprehensively. “I heard you tried to arrange a meeting with her…”
“It wasn’t her fault.” He takes a swig of Pernod. “Something came up, so she couldn’t make it. But you’re right, I should spend more time with her. Really get to know her better, and forge a closer relationship, just like you have with your mother.” He looks up and frowns at my dumbfounded expression. “That is what you meant, isn’t it?”
I try for a moment to imagine Luke and his mother chatting away in the kitchen like me and Mum — and fail completely.
“Erm… yes!” I say hastily. “Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. Absolutely.”
“That’s what I mean. You’re the only person who’ll tell me the stuff I need to hear, even when I don’t want to hear it. I should have confided in you right from the start. I was… I don’t know. Arrogant. Stupid.”
He sounds so bleak and hard on himself, I feel a twinge of dismay.
“Luke—”
“Becky, I know you’ve got your own career — and I completely respect that. I wouldn’t even ask if I didn’t think this could be a good step for you too. But… please.” He reaches across the table and puts a warm hand on mine. “Come back. Let’s start again.”
I stare helplessly at him, feeling emotion swelling in me like a balloon.
“Luke, I can’t work for you.” I swallow, trying to keep control of my voice. “I have to go to the States. I have to take this chance.”
“I know it seems like a great opportunity. But what I’m offering could be a great opportunity, too.”
“It’s not the same,” I say, clenching my hand tightly round my glass.
“It can be the same. Whatever Michael’s offered you, I’ll match it.” He leans forward. “I’ll more than match it. I’ll—”
“Luke,” I interrupt. “Luke, I didn’t take Michael’s job.”
Luke’s face jerks in shock.
“You didn’t? Then what—”
He looks at my suitcase and back up to my face — and I stare back in resolute silence.
“I understand,” he says at last. “It’s none of my business.”
He looks so defeated, I feel a sudden stab of pain in my chest. I want to tell him — but I just can’t. I can’t risk talking about it, listening to my own arguments waver, wondering whether I’ve made the right choice. I can’t risk changing my mind.
“Luke, I’ve got to go,” I say, my throat tight. “And… and you’ve got to get back to your meeting.”
“Yes,” says Luke after a long pause. “Yes. You’re right. I’ll go. I’ll go now.” He stands up and reaches into his pocket. “Just… one last thing. You don’t want to forget this.”
Very slowly, he pulls out a long, pale blue, silk and velvet scarf, scattered with iridescent beads.
My scarf. My Denny and George scarf.
I feel the blood drain from my face.
“How did you—” I swallow. “The bidder on the phone was you? But… but you withdrew. The other bidder got the—” I tail off and stare at him in confusion.
“Both the bidders were me.”
He ties the scarf gently round my neck, looks at me for a few seconds, then kisses me on the forehead. Then he turns round and walks away, into the airport crowds.
Seventeen
Two Months Later
OK. SO IT’S TWO PRESENTATIONS, one to Saatchis, one to Global Bank. One awards lunch with McKinseys, and dinner with Merrill Lynch.”
“That’s it. It’s a lot. I know.”
“It’ll be fine,” I say reassuringly. “It’ll be fine.”
I scribble something in my notebook and stare at it thinking hard. This is the moment of my new job I love the most. The initial challenge. Here’s the puzzle — find the solution. For a few moments I sit without saying anything, doodling endless small five-pointed stars and letting my mind work it out, while Lalla watches me anxiously.
“OK,” I say at last. “I have it. Your Helmut Lang pantsuit for the meetings, your Jil Sander dress for the lunch — and we’ll find you something new for the dinner.” I squint at her. “Maybe something in a deep green.”
“I can’t wear green,” says Lalla.
“You can wear green,” I say firmly. “You look great in green.”
“Becky,” says Erin, putting her head round my door. “Sorry to bother you, but Mrs. Farlow is on the phone. She loves the jackets you sent over — but is there something lighter she can wear for this evening?”
“OK,” I say. “I’ll call her back.” I look at Lalla. “So, let’s find you an evening dress.”
“What am I going to wear with my pantsuit?”
“A shirt,” I say. “Or a cashmere tee. The gray one.”
“The gray one,” repeats Lalla carefully, as though I’m speaking in Arabic.
“You bought it three weeks ago? Armani? Remember?”
“Oh yes! Yes. I think.”
“Or else your blue shell top.”
“Right,” says Lalla, nodding earnestly. “Right.”
Lalla is high up in some top computer consultancy, with offices all over the world. She has two doctorates and an IQ of about a zillion — and claims she has severe clothes dyslexia. At first I thought she was joking.
“Write it down,” she says, thrusting a leather-bound organizer at me. “Write down all the combinations.”
“Well, OK… but, Lalla, I thought we were going to try to let you start putting a few outfits together yourself.”
“I know. I will. One day I will, I promise. Just… not this week. I can’t deal with that extra pressure.”
“Fine,” I say, hiding a smile, and begin to write in her organizer, screwing up my face as I try to remember all the clothes she’s got. I haven’t got much time if I’m going to find her an evening dress for tonight, call Mrs. Farlow back, and locate that knitwear I promised for Janey van Hassalt.
Every day here is completely frenetic; everyone is always in a hurry. But somehow the busier I get, and the more challenges are thrown at me — the more I love it.
“By the way,” says Lalla. “My sister — the one you said should wear burnt orange…”
“Oh yes! She was nice.”
“She said she saw you on the television. In England! Talking about clothes!”
“Oh yes,” I say, feeling a faint flush come to my face. “I’ve been doing a little slot for a daytime lifestyle show. ‘Becky from Barneys.’ It’s a kind of New York, fashiony thing…”
“Well done!” says Lalla warmly. “A slot on television! That must be very exciting for you!”
I pause, a beaded jacket in my hand, thinking, a few months ago I was going to have my own show on American network television. And now I have a little slot on a daytime show with half the audience of Morning Coffee. But the point is, I’m on the path I want to be.
“Yes, it is,” I say, and smile at her. “It’s very exciting.”
It doesn’t take too long to sort Lalla out with an outfit for her dinner. As she leaves, clutching a list of possible shoes, Christina, the head of the department, comes in and smiles at me.
“How’re you doing?”
