‘I can fight,’ I replied, clenching my hands into fists. ‘I want this. I really want this.’
‘If you don’t book something in the next month, I’m going to have to drop you and then you’ll see how hard this really is. I want to see those balls, Brookes,’ she barked. ‘Show everyone who you are. You’re not Tess the shitty, sad office girl any more, you’re Tess Brookes, photographer, and a photographer should have something to say, should have a message. Show me what that is, who you are. Got it?’
‘Got it,’ I confirmed as I closed the door behind me. ‘Swing my balls around and show everyone who I am.’
It sounded easy. Only … I wasn’t entirely sure who I was any more.
‘And then Veronica said she was going to drop me if I didn’t start booking jobs,’ I said, shovelling salt and vinegar Pringles into my mouth by the handful. Damn Tesco and their seasonal three-for-two offers. Damn the woman on the checkout who asked if I was going to a party. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a twenty-seven-year-old woman eating two tubs of Pringles for dinner and saving one for dessert.
‘No way!’ Amy bellowed, the speakers on my laptop crackling with outrage during our daily Skype call. ‘She did not? She can’t do that, can she? She can’t fire you?’
‘She can,’ I replied, exhausted, glancing down at all the pieces of paper and empty Pringle tubs around me. ‘And she might. Looking at it from a business perspective, she probably should. She’s investing a lot of time in me and I’m not bringing much money in. My ROI is terrible and—’
Amy clapped her hands together and I snapped back to the camera.
‘Tess, please tell me you haven’t worked out the return on investment on yourself.’
‘No,’ I replied, slowly pushing my pad and calculator out of view of the webcam. ‘Of course not.’
‘She can’t drop you, you’re just starting out,’ she said, glancing away at her phone for a second. ‘You’re hardly going to be David Bailey overnight, are you? It’s not fair.’
‘It’s not about fair,’ I told her. ‘It’s about what’s best for business. Also, there’s a small chance I did think I would be David Bailey overnight. I suppose things don’t work out like that though, do they? I just don’t want her to give up on me.’
‘I don’t want you to give up on you,’ Amy corrected. ‘It’s a minor setback, that’s all. You’re killing it. You’re better than David Bailey. Fitter than him anyway … although I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen one of his photos. Or a photo of him. Is he fit?’
‘I appreciate that but it would be a massive setback,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing, I wouldn’t even know where to start.’
But I was trying. The bed was covered in magazines and newspapers, every publication I could get my hands on lay open on top of the duvet, the name of every art director, picture desk and photo editor in London highlighted with neon-yellow marker pen. I was down but I was not out. Not yet.
‘You’ll work it out,’ Amy replied, her attention drifting. ‘You always do.’
‘Is everything all right? Do you need to go?’ I asked as she frowned at her phone again. ‘It’s OK if you do.’
‘Sorry.’ She threw her phone backwards onto the bed behind her and I winced as it bounced twice and then hit the floor. ‘I am listening, I’ve just got loads of emails coming in. This presentation is going to kill me.’
Amy was in New York to launch Al’s brand-new fashion line, AJB, and, from what I could gather, it was going to be quite the event.
‘If Kekipi doesn’t first,’ I replied. ‘How are you going to grow your hair to waterfall-plait length in the next three weeks?’
Amy, Paige and I had received emails in the middle of the night, detailing our mandatory bridesmaid prep regime. I loved that man like a brother, but there was no way on God’s green earth that I was booking myself in for a full body wax prior to my dress fitting. Yes, my legs needed shaving, but it wasn’t like I was rocking a full tache, I thought, absently stroking my face.
‘He’s taking me to get fitted for extensions tomorrow,’ she said, fingering her messy black pixie cut. ‘Or at least he thinks he is. Anyway, less about Kekipi Kardashian and more about this job you’re on. You didn’t get a facial and the photographer is a sexist wankpaddle who isn’t fit to wipe his arse with your negatives. What happened then?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter, I should let you go.’
As much as I missed Amy, I was keen to get back to my project. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I’d found the contact details of every possible person who could hire me and worked out how to bribe them into hiring me. I had to show Agent Veronica I was a good bet. ‘I haven’t had dinner or anything yet, I’m starving to death.’
‘There should be some spaghetti hoops in the kitchen cupboard,’ she said with a nostalgic smile. ‘God, I’d take your arm off for some hoops on toast right now. Bread here is shit. What’s that all about?’
‘Where are you going for dinner tonight?’ I asked, hoping to distract her. I’d been living in her house for six weeks. The hoops were long gone. ‘Somewhere amazing?’
‘Everywhere here is amazing.’ She puffed out her cheeks and slapped her belly. ‘I’ve put on about a stone. Honestly, Tess, the food in New York – I want to eat everything. I am eating everything. You might as well burn all my clothes because they’re going to have to roll me home when I’m done.’
‘Sounds awful,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘Speaking of home, any idea when you’ll be back? Still looking at flying on Christmas Eve?’
Amy scrunched up her face and shook her head.
‘Not sure,’ she said. ‘We’re here until the presentation on the twenty-third obvs and then Al said something about going to Hawaii to work on some new concepts before we go to Milan. He wants to go through some of Jane’s notebooks he’s got back at the house. I’d probably have to go with him – the time difference between London and Hawaii is mental and we’d never get anything approved in time.’
Al, AKA Bertie Bennett, AKA fashion industry legend, Amy’s new boss and one of my favourite people in the world, lived in Hawaii, which was where he and I had met. It was also where I had met another person who, for the time being, would remain nameless, lest I felt the urge to carve out my heart with a rusty spoon.
‘Hawaii is amazing,’ I mooned, eyes full of pineapples and palm trees. ‘You’ll love it, Aims.’
‘I know, I really want to go,’ Amy said, gurning like a mad woman. ‘And imagine Hawaii at Christmas. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I wonder if they still have Christmas trees. Shit, what if they don’t have Brussels sprouts? I hate them, obviously, but you’ve got to have them.’
Wuh?
‘You’re going for Christmas?’ I squeaked far too quickly, finally understanding what she was saying. ‘You’re not coming home?’
The last few months had been hard work but every time I’d walked past a shop window full of brightly wrapped presents I couldn’t afford or attempted to ignore drunk people wearing reindeer antlers on the Tube, I remembered that soon Amy would be home for Christmas and everything would be OK.
‘I want to come home,’ she replied, not quite quickly enough. ‘I probably will. But I may not