Fiona Harper - Invitation to the Boss's Ball

‘We’re saving hard so we can open up our own vintage clothes boutique,’ she said as she finished off.

Jennie smiled at her. ‘That’ll be just fabulous,’ she said, nodding her head, and then she pressed her lips together and looked skywards. ‘Tell you what, when you finally open your shop give me a call—I’ll organise a launch party that will put you firmly on the map.’

‘A party?’

Jennie reached into a soft leather handbag the colour of clotted cream—the stitching on it was fantastic, and screamed quality. She pulled out an elegant business card and handed it to Alice.

‘You’re an event planner?’

Alice couldn’t have thought up a better job for Jennie if she’d tried.

Jennie nodded. ‘Isn’t it a scream? I get paid to have fun!’ She sighed. ‘Actually, sometimes the “planning” bit of event planning is a bit of a drag. That’s why I’m down here at the market this morning—hunting for inspiration.’ She gazed at a stall filled with home-knitted baby cardigans. ‘Did you ever meet my stepbrother?’

Alice blinked. Okay—swift change of subject, but she could keep up. She’d heard a lot about the stepbrother during the years Jennie had gone out with Patrick, but he’d been away at university for much of the time they’d been together.

‘Tall?’ She resisted adding skinny, mainly because she hated being described that way herself. ‘With glasses?’

Jennie laughed. ‘Yes! That was Cam back then. He hasn’t shrunk any, but he’s lost the specs.’

A flood of memories entered Alice’s head and she smiled gently. She’d met Cam—Cameron—just once or twice, the most memorable occasion being at a Christmas do at Jennie’s parents’ house. She’d been living in fear that she’d get picked next for charades, and had sneaked into Jennie’s father’s study to hide. She’d almost jumped out of her skin when she’d found a tall, lanky young man sitting in an armchair with a book. He hadn’t said anything—just raised an eyebrow and nodded at the other chair.

They’d spent a couple of hours like that, reading quietly, chatting occasionally, until Jennie had discovered them and dragged them out again to join the ‘fun’. They’d both pulled a face at the same time. Then he’d smiled at her, and she’d smiled back, and just like that they’d become co-conspirators.

The details of their conversation that evening were fuzzy in her memory, but she hadn’t forgotten his smile—or his eyes. Dark brown, streaked with warm toffee, like the tiger’s eye stones in a bracelet she’d inherited from her grandmother. What a pity those eyes, with all that warmth and intelligence, had been hidden behind a pair of rather thick, ugly glasses.

‘I remember him,’ she said quietly. ‘He was nice.’

More than nice. But he’d been older. And she’d been sixteen, and still a little terrified of boys she wasn’t best buddies with. But that hadn’t stopped her wishing it had been New Year’s Eve instead of Christmas Eve, just in case he’d been in need of an available pair of lips when midnight struck.

‘Well, he’s driving me nuts at the moment, because his company is doing up some old building and he wants—and I quote—a “ different ” opening bash. Something distinctive, he says.’ Jennie gave a little huff, as if she were offended that anyone would think she would do anything less.

They’d come full circle, and were now standing next to Coreen’s stall again. Jennie reached out and lightly touched the bow on the front of the sixties cocktail dress. ‘This really is exquisite,’ she murmured.

‘Try it on,’ Coreen said brightly. ‘I’ve got a deal going with Annabel, who runs the posh children’s clothes shop over there. She lets me send customers across to use her changing cubicles as long as I give her first dibs on any gold lamé that comes in.’

Jennie bit her lip.

‘Go on—you know you want to,’ Alice said. ‘The dress is lovely, but you need to see if it works for you. Things that look great on the hanger can suddenly look all wrong once you get them on.’

‘And sometimes,’ butted in Coreen, ‘you find something that’s—oh, I don’t know—more than the sum of its parts. Like somehow you and the dress combine through some kind of synergy to create…well, a vision …’

Alice smiled, glad to see that Coreen wasn’t as oblivious to the magic of her stock as she claimed to be. Jennie disappeared with the dress into the ultra-white, minimalist decor of Annabel’s emporium.

‘Just you wait!’ Coreen punched Alice lightly on the arm. ‘One day you’ll put a dress on and it will happen to you. You’ll see!’

Alice imitated one of Coreen’s little snorts. ‘Yeah, right. Like that’s ever going to happen.’

Coreen shook her head. ‘You’ll see…’

There was only one way to deal with Coreen when she got like this: agree, in a roundabout way, and then change the subject quickly. Alice started off gently. ‘You’re right about some dresses looking magical…’

Pretty soon she’d managed to steer the conversation on to the fashion shows the vintage clothessellers staged each year, to advertise their spring and autumn ‘collections’. They were always a huge success, and Coreen had heaps of tales about amateur models, slippery-soled shoes and fragile vintage stitching. It wasn’t long before they were giggling away like a pair of schoolgirls.

All laughter stopped when they realised Jennie had emerged from Annabel’s shop and was staring at herself in the full-length mirror Coreen always placed next to her stall.

‘Wow!’ both Alice and Coreen said in unison.

It was stunning. The pale colour complemented Jennie’s skin tone perfectly, and the skilful tailoring accentuated all her curves. Somehow the dress made her look positively translucent.

An elbow made contact with Alice’s ribs. ‘Told you,’ Coreen said. ‘That’s her dress.’

Okay, perhaps Coreen had a point. But it wasn’t hard to look fabulous if you had a figure like Jennie’s. She was tall and slim, and she swelled and curved in all the right places. Finding a dress that did that for someone who had more angles than curves, and no chest to speak of at all, would be nothing short of a miracle.

Jennie twirled in front of the mirror. ‘I don’t care how much it is,’ she said, striking pose after pose and never once taking her eyes off her reflection. ‘I have to have it.’

Coreen grinned and high-fived Alice as Jennie glided away to get changed. When she arrived back at the stall she had a thoughtful look on her face. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying earlier—about the fashion shows, that is.’ She looked from Alice to Coreen and back again. ‘I’ve got a proposition for the both of you. And, if I am right about this, this idea could put you well on the way to owning that shop you’re after.’

ALICE sat on the edge of her bed and gazed at the one good photo she had of her and Paul together. One word echoed round her head.

Why?

Why hadn’t she been good enough for him? Why had he gone back to Felicity when by all accounts the old trout had made his life a misery by being the ultimate high-maintenance girlfriend?

‘Alice,’ he’d said, ‘you’re such a relief after her.’

Relief.

At the time she’d been too caught up in the first flush of a new relationship to be anything but flattered. Now his words just stung.

Her nose was running badly enough for her to give in and sniff. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry any more. She was made of sterner stuff than that.

A phone started to ring. Probably the one in the hall. It rang on.