‘Really?’ I wobbled on my skates. ‘You’re using him at Belle?’
‘The editor loves him and all the celebs want to work with him,’ she nodded. ‘Otherwise, you know, I absolutely would have asked you if you were available.’
Personally, I thought his photos were cheap, overexposed and tacky but who was I to judge? It wasn’t as though I could do a better job. Oh wait, yes I could.
‘Oh, that’s not what I was getting at,’ I said, waving away her embarrassment. ‘I mean, I’d love to shoot for Belle, but really, I’m not loving assisting. Today I had to pretend to be a giraffe to give his model “inspiration”. Do you know what noise giraffes make? I didn’t. I had to google it.’
She frowned, flexing her cold fingers and blowing on them, just in case I hadn’t realized how cold she was.
‘Do giraffes even make a noise?’ she asked.
‘It sounds like an angry cow that’s being strangled,’ I said, wincing at the memory. ‘I think that’s the reason we don’t hear their dulcet tones all that often.’
‘I can’t even begin to imagine it.’ Paige wrinkled her tiny nose. ‘That sounds horrible.’
I let my camera hang around my neck and cleared my throat. ‘Yeah, it’s like, ngggghhhh—’
‘Tess!’ She cut me off loudly. ‘Dear God, woman, pull yourself together. This is why I can’t take you to nice places.’
‘Oh my God!’ I stared at her. ‘I’ve turned into Amy.’
‘Yeah, that’s a thing that’s happened,’ Paige said with sympathy in her voice, but not on her face. ‘Are you wearing her clothes?’
I looked down at the cropped black T-shirt emblazoned with a neon unicorn that was peeking out from underneath my skimpy black cardigan and accessorized with a strip of very white stomach, covered in goose bumps. I’d had to take my bulky coat off to shoot and I could barely feel my fingers any more. And Paige thought she was cold?
‘The T-shirt is hers,’ I agreed, making a mental note to do a load of washing as soon as I got in. ‘And the cardigan. When did this happen?’
‘Oh, doll,’ she sighed. ‘So long ago.’
There was a time when I would never have gone out on a Friday night looking like such a tramp. Admittedly, not much of a time since I had spent almost every Friday working late since I graduated six years ago, but still. I would have been in my casual Friday best and neon unicorns were definitely not covered by the office dress code.
‘How’s she getting on with Al?’ Paige asked. ‘Everyone is talking about the AJB presentation. It’s crazy.’
‘She seems OK,’ I said. ‘It’s hard to tell with Amy; she doesn’t really take things very seriously.’
‘A lot of fashion people were annoyed he’s launching at Christmas instead of at fashion week,’ she said, reapplying her lip gloss as she spoke. ‘The powers that be don’t like it when you don’t play by the rules.’
‘I don’t think he cares about the powers that be,’ I admitted. ‘When I last spoke to him, he said he was dead set on Christmas because it was his wife’s favourite time of year. Amy tried to convince him to show in Milan or Paris but he wasn’t having it.’
‘Must be nice to be so sure of yourself,’ Paige replied and I nodded in agreement. ‘So, other than working for a tosspot and swapping lives with your sartorially challenged best friend, what else has been going on with you? I’ve been so busy with work and Christmas parties and everything, I feel as though I haven’t seen anyone.’
‘Oh yeah, all those parties must be a nightmare,’ I said, trying to capture the white light of the fairy lights that decorated the giant Christmas tree as they bounced off her pointy chin. ‘You sound gutted.’
‘You know work parties are never that much fun,’ she argued. I zoomed in on her face and clicked as her pale cheeks flushed. ‘There are always a lot of events at this time of year and none of them entertaining. And the weather’s been awful. And there’s nothing on TV. And, you know, stuff.’
I hadn’t known Paige nearly as long as I’d known Amy but it didn’t matter. She was a terrible liar.
‘Paige Sullivan.’ I narrowed my brown eyes and zeroed in on her green ones. ‘Why are you babbling? What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Nothing, there’s nothing,’ she scoffed, her face glowing more brightly than Rudolph’s red nose. And since there was a twenty-five-foot illuminated version of everyone’s favourite reindeer right behind her, it wasn’t a difficult comparison to make. ‘Like, what are you even talking about?’
‘Oh, no way!’
Delighted, I clapped and immediately lost my balance, the skates sliding underneath me. I threw my arms to steady myself as she tried to cover up a quiet laugh.
‘There is something! Spill, immediately. You have to tell me, I’m brilliant at keeping secrets.’
‘You can’t even keep your own secrets,’ Paige pointed out. ‘Why on earth would I tell you anything?’
‘Fine, I’ll guess.’ I stared until I had her locked in uncomfortable eye contact. ‘New job?’
‘No, no and there’s nothing. I’m not keeping any secrets,’ she protested, looking anywhere but at me. ‘You know, you didn’t have to wear skates to go on the ice. You could have worn your trainers.’
‘Where’s the fun in that?’ I asked. ‘Oh my God, are you pregnant?’
‘Christ no!’ she yelped. ‘At least, I hope not.’
And then it was obvious. She was calmer than usual. She had only complained about her terrible luck with men once all night and she was wearing flats. Paige Sullivan. Art Director at Belle magazine. Out on a Friday night. In London. In flat shoes.
‘Oh!’ I threw my hands in the air, knocking myself off balance and landing on my arse with a hard bump. ‘You’ve got a boyfriend!’
At first she didn’t say anything, she just sat there, concentrating on her mittens and shaking her head, while smiling. ‘I haven’t,’ she said eventually. ‘I haven’t, Tess, honestly.’
‘You’re a filthy liar,’ I replied in a strangled voice, waiting for my breath to come back. Ow ow ow. Broken coccyx for Christmas, brilliant. Maybe, if I was really lucky, I could spend Kekipi’s wedding sitting on an inflatable doughnut. ‘And lies make Baby Jesus cry. Do you want to make Baby Jesus cry this close to his birthday?’
‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she insisted, pulling out the hair tie in the end of her plait and looking up to meet my eyes. I took this to mean the photoshoot was over. ‘God’s honest truth. I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Fine,’ I said, crawling over to the edge of the ice and taking her hand as she helped me up, my camera swinging wildly around my neck. ‘I won’t ask any more questions. I’ll just assume you’re secretly boning some wonderful man’s brains out on the sly and when you’re ready to talk to me about it, you will.’
I stared at her for a moment, holding her eyes before she looked away. She looked sad. Which made me sad. Which I did not care for.
‘Or I could have him killed?’ I offered. ‘The mood I’m in, I’d be very happy to do it.’
She considered it for a moment then shook her head. ‘We can let him live for now. I’m all right, Tess, I promise.’
‘Well, of course you