Then the faces turned away again, the interest faded to nothing and Annie was left gazing at her wine gla.s.s.
Nice.
When Elena went off to the bathroom, Annie dared to slip from her little stool up onto the banquette.
Really, she wanted to hear what the blond guy was talking to Lana about, but once she was up on the leather bench, severe fringe girl suddenly wanted to talk to her.
"Jeeeeeeez, they just love real-looking people on British TV, right?"
This was her opening line.
"Real-looking" didn"t exactly sound like a compliment.
"Yeah, I think they do," Annie replied. "But it was a girls" show. It was for girls, by girls and we made people feel good by not being too perfect. We were keeping it real."
"Yeah ... smile," the girl instructed Annie.
Annie did, wondering if the girl was going to whip out her phone and take a picture.
But no, instead, Miss Fringe said: "Real British teeth and everything. No Botox. That is just so unusual. Over here, you could not be on television. No way."
Annie was feeling more than a little insulted now.
"What about you?" Annie decided to change tack, "what do you do?"
"I"m at Elle Decoration. I"m an editorial a.s.sistant."
"That"s great and what about your friends?"
"Well, Taylor, he"s the blond guy who seems sooooo interested in your daughter, he"s doing an internship at Vogue. He"s at college, majoring in journalism. Then Mick is at Elle with me. He"s one of the contributing editors, he writes about architecture and Donald is a news photographer. He"s with the New York Post."
"And you all kind of know Elena because of Sye?" Annie asked.
"Yeah. He"s crazy about her, I don"t think she has any idea."
"No. I don"t think she does."
Silence.
Annie looked over at Lana again. Handsome blond Taylor, she remembered was leaning right over her; he looked as if he was about to kiss her.
Annie felt herself bristle.
But instead, Taylor turned and whispered in Lana"s ear.
"So I guess," Miss Fringe went on, "even though you"re on television, you must eat carbs and everything. That would never happen over here. I know this girl who"s trying to get into presenting. She"s way, way thin and they still keep telling her she"s too fat to make it."
Now Annie was bristling all over.
She turned to her wine gla.s.s, but she"d emptied it ages ago. No one had offered to buy her another and she wasn"t going up to the bar to be charged twenty quid for a second gla.s.s.
"We have to go," she said, standing up abruptly, "Lana, do you remember? We said we"d have to be at the ... the thing before midnight ... so we have to go now."
Lana looked up at her in dismay.
"Vat thing?" Elena asked, back just in time to hear this.
"It"s a private thing," Annie said and now she felt torn. She didn"t want to drag Lana away, but she couldn"t take this any more. Carbs. Carbs! Of course she was allowed to eat carbs even though she was on TV. These people were absolutely mad. Obsessed. She couldn"t bear to sit beside them for another second.
"Please, Lana," Annie added in a voice which was a little too pleading.
Lana turned to Taylor: "Lovely to meet you. I really mean that. I"m in New York for a few weeks. I hope we"ll b.u.mp into each other again."
"b.u.mp into each other?" Taylor asked, looking confused.
Obviously this was not an expression which crossed the Atlantic well.
"See each other ..." Lana began but then blushed and came to a halt. Because even she knew what "seeing each other" meant in US-speak.
"Good-night." She smiled at the others then began to pick her way out of the banquette.
"See you later," Elena offered.
As soon as they were outside the bar, Lana turned to her mother full throttle.
"Why are we leaving? I was having the best time. I do not want to go home now. It"s early. You could have gone home on your own you know, you didn"t have to bring me into it. I"d have been fine with Elena."
"I didn"t want to leave you with Elena and those people. They all seemed really, really shallow," Annie said. She was feeling fl.u.s.tered.
"Shallow? Because they work on magazines and take photos? You used to work in a fashion store and now you work in TV. I don"t think that makes you one teeny bit more deep and meaningful than they are," Lana stormed in reply.
"You"re just angry because that guy didn"t ask for your number."
"So? Why shouldn"t I want him to ask for my number? Maybe if I"d been able to stay there and talk to him, he would have asked. Instead, I"m being dragged home by my mum like some six-year-old."
"Ouch."
"What did that girl say to you, anyway?"
"What girl?"
"You know, the one sitting beside you. One moment you were chatting away, the next you were standing up, wanting to leave. What did she say?"
"Nothing."
For several seconds they walked along the sidewalk together. A brisk wind had picked up and it felt surprisingly cold walking along in thin summer dresses without any coats.
"Was it about your weight?" Lana asked in a much calmer, gentler voice.
At first Annie said nothing.
Then she finally admitted: "Maybe."
"New Yorkers are very weight conscious."
"I"m very weight conscious," Annie protested, "but that doesn"t seem to help me. I just get bigger and bigger."
"Poor old Mum," Lana said and slipped her arm round Annie"s waist.
"Can we have less of the "poor" and less of the "old"?" Annie said, putting her hand over Lana"s and patting it. "I"m not even forty and I"ve got this gorgeous grown-up daughter who completely overshadows me. It takes getting used to, babes, it takes some getting used to. I can tell you."
"You"re lovely and you"re famous," Lana added kindly. "Can you walk in those shoes?"
When Annie nodded yes, Lana insisted they walk some of the way home.
"I"m not going to get thin just by walking," Annie protested.
"It"s a start though," Lana insisted.
"I didn"t think Taylor looked very nice," Annie confided, "he was too handsome and very full of himself."
"Mum! Don"t say that. I really, really wanted him to ask for my number."
"Did you?"
"Yes!"
"And you still came with me?"
"Yes!"
"That is very, very kind of you," Annie said.
"I know. Too kind. But maybe he"ll ask Elena for my number. What do you think?"
Chapter Twelve.
Librarian Lana: Green capri trousers (Miss Selfridge)
Pink shirt with ruffles (New Look)
Green messenger bag (Fossil)
Yellow heels (borrowed from Elena)
Highly kissable pink lip gloss (Mac)
Total est. cost: $220
"Shut up!"
When the first rays of sunshine stole in through the little kitchenette window the following morning, they found Lana deeply asleep on the sofa bed, her head shrouded with dreams of noisy New York streets and handsome New York men.
Annie was already at the cafe table, quietly tappity-tapping on the laptop. She was reading through her business email about fabric and factories, checking her personal email and looking at the photos Ed had just sent through this morning.
Her lovely babies were sitting on Owen"s lap eating something which looked worryingly like chocolate brownie! Ed must have been in charge of that. Dinah would never, ever let the twins have chocolate brownies.
"What are they eating and should I be worried?" she typed to Ed, knowing that he wouldn"t be able to reply for hours because he was already at school. She"d phone Dinah later in the day and make sure the babies were really absolutely fine. Dinah would tell her just exactly how well Ed was coping without her around.
Meanwhile, Annie had three factories not far from New York to call. She also had a list of discount fabric warehouses in the area. If they could somehow find some very cheap fabric, maybe they could use the remaining few thousand pounds just to get the very first dresses off the production line.
She and Elena were going to have a very busy day, so after switching on the coffee machine, Annie also decided to turn on the TV news at low volume to gently wake the household. It was 6.45a.m. Time to kick New York a.s.s, no matter what time it had been when Elena had stumbled over their sofa bed in the dark last night.
With something of a groan, Lana opened her eyes, but then immediately put her hand up to shield them against the sunlight.
"Just be grateful I only let you drink one Flirtini," Annie said.