Holly Smale - Sunny Side Up

And with my rebellious brain switched firmly off, I walked up and down enormous, air-conditioned rooms: eyes flat, chin up, shoulders back. Cold and disinterested. Unimpressed and severe: very much like our headmistress just before an assembly about truancy.

Refusing to smile or chatter or ingratiate myself with relevant conversation openers or factual tidbits, and making no attempt to form connections with the people around me at all.

Suffice to say, it was one of my biggest personal challenges of all time.

And it totally worked.

Without my inherent personality, I didn’t just get one high-fashion job for the week: I secured three .

Which was great – if a little hurtful – until last Saturday when I finally had to switch my brain back on and become …

Well, me again.

And then I went into meltdown.

There are 640 muscles in the average human body and not a single one of mine has relaxed in the six days since.

“Darling-pie,” Wilbur squeaks as the train doors whoosh open like a spaceship and he jumps out and spins around with his fluffy blue arms held wide like a gingerbread man, “can’t you just smell it?”

I clamber down after him and inhale.

It’s the end of January, and the Paris air is icy and fresh: underpinned with a faint whiff of train fumes, bread and the coffee Wilbur is guarding like the Crown Jewels.

“Winter?” I offer tentatively. “Odour molecules slow down when they hit a certain temperature, which is why cold air smells cleaner than warm air.”

“ Fashion ,” Wilbur exhales, before taking in another long, loud breath. “ High fashion. Exclusive fashion. None of that high-street, something-for-everyone, we-can-all-be-part-of-it nonsense here.”

He leaps a few steps forward like a fluffy sequined leprechaun and kisses a French bollard. “I’m back, baby,” he sighs happily, wrapping his arms round it. “I’m home .”

Swallowing, I glance at the unusually glamorous people getting off the train behind us – all sunglasses and fur scarves and heels and an aura of sophistication and inevitability – and another lurch of energy fires through me.

I’m trying to stay a paragon of positivity, the embodiment of enthusiasm: a shining example of sunniness in the face of all odds.

But how do I put this?

Wilbur might be home: in his spiritual heartland, at the place of his stylish and chic roots.

I am definitely not.

t least a little bit of normality has followed me here.

Invisibly, in the form of Nat.

My Best Friend, non-kissing-soulmate and owner of a very strong Wi-Fi signal, judging by how many times my phone has vibrated since we emerged from the Channel Tunnel.

The Caribbean White-lipped Frog buzzes so hard it can be felt twenty feet away, and I think Nat has the same natural skill for getting attention.

Beep.

ARE YOU AT PARIS FASHION WEEK YET? What’s it like?! Is it amazing?! PICTURES! Nat xx

Beep.

Have you seen anyone famous? What were they wearing? Did you speak to them? PICTURES! Nat xx

Beep.

Need to see dresses and stages, front AND back. Try and find blueprints so I can copy at home. Nat xx

Beep.

PS PICTURES! :) :) Nat xx

With a small smile, I roll my new panda suitcase out of the station after Wilbur towards the taxi rank (it’s a very subtle panda, by the way: shiny black with little white patches and mini ears by the handles, therefore not childish at all).

We wait in line while he talks on his phone.

Then we climb into a white taxi and start driving through the achingly elegant, taupe-stone streets of Paris: all long sash windows and delicate iron balconies and grey-tiled turrets stuffed full of painters and poets and authors wearing berets and discarding crêpes and starving for the truth of their art.

I’m presuming, anyway.

Finally, my phone beeps again:

Oh yeah, I forgot. Good luck with the job etc! Nat xx

I grin.

Obviously, in her enthusiasm for all things fashion, Nat momentarily forgot why I’ve been sent abroad: for gainful, paid employment in the modelling industry and not as her personal documentary maker.

For the first time ever, I remembered.

Stomach still lurching, I reverse the camera on my phone, take a quick selfie with my eyes crossed and my tongue out, then send it with:

PICTURE Number One! I hereby promise I shall document compulsively ;) Hxx

Then I turn back to Wilbur.

He’s been tapping away on his phone with so much urgency since we got signal again, it looks like he’s playing Whack-A-Mole with his fingers. I’ve never seen him so focused and professional, ever, in fifteen months.

It’s slightly disorientating.

“ Et voilà ,” the taxi driver says darkly, pulling up outside a small grey, sculpted building with an arched door and HOTEL written subtly on a canopy. “ C’est ça. ”

“Sar,” Wilbur says without looking up.

The driver glares at him through the rear-view mirror, to absolutely no effect: my agent just keeps jabbing at his phone.

Nervously, I lean forward.

Time to break out my French language skills from school. Except maybe not the bit I remember about the lamp being on the table: I don’t think that’s going to help very much right now.

Or ever, actually.

If there’s a lamp on a table, people can usually see it for themselves.

“ Mer-ci ,” I say incredibly awkwardly , “ pour le – ” car lift drive journey … what’s the word? – “ uh, vroom vroom. ”

Thanks for the vroom vroom.

Approximately 220 million people in the world speak French and, thanks to giving it up in Year Nine, I am not one of them.

“Mercy,” Wilbur agrees distractedly as there’s a loud whoosh from his hand. “Silver plate and whatnot. Comment ally views.”

Clearly neither is Wilbur.

The driver taps his fingers on the steering wheel: obviously waiting for us to get out of his vehicle so he can continue with his normal, French-speaking day.

“Wilbur?” I prompt as the boot pops and – with some difficulty – I manage to clamber out awkwardly and drag my panda suitcase out of the back and on to the street.

Wilbur carries on typing.

“What’s the first thing you want to do?” I peer through his window curiously. “Do you fancy grabbing lunch round the corner? Apparently they do an amazing croque-monsieur , which is a toasted cheese and ham sandwich and means ‘bite-mister’, although I’m not completely sure why. Or whatever you prefer. I’m totally ready for anything .”

That’s kind of the problem.

I’ve been ready for anything for six whole days: in adrenaline-fuelled, fight-or-flight mode for a hundred and forty-four straight hours.

A flash of black flickers in the corner of my eye and – with another bang of fear and nerves – I spin round quickly, but it’s just a cat.

Calm, Harriet.

You’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re –

There’s a pause, and then Wilbur finally puts his phone in his lap and glances up.

Then he starts laughing.

“Oh moon-puddle,” he says affectionately, cocking his head to the side, “you don’t think you’re my only model at Paris Fashion Week, do you?”

I blink at him.