Wilbur sticks his head under the tablecloth. “That’s not necessarily true,” he amends. “Yuka’s on her way backstage now and I’ve never seen her lips so thin. The bottom part of her face looks like an envelope.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, with my knees pulled right up to my chest. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Sorry?” Wilbur gasps and he puts his hand over his chest. “Baby-baby Panda, Baylee couldn’t have bought that much publicity if they’d hung Yuka Ito upside down from the chandelier with her trousers down around her ankles.”
“Which they’re not going to do,” a cold voice says from somewhere beyond the tablecloth. Another pair of shoes appears: black and shiny and spiky. “I’m a fashion goddess. Goddesses don’t wear trousers.”
“Yuka, darling!” Wilbur says, retracting his head. “I didn’t see you there! Mainly because I don’t have eyes in my bottom.”
“Fascinating, William,” Yuka snaps. “Harriet? I am going to speak to you immediately. I would therefore prefer it if this conversation was not held with a piece of laminate wood.”
I look at Dad, take the biggest breath I can find and crawl out from under the table. “I’m sorry, Yuka.”
“I don’t recall asking you to do anything other than wear a dress and walk in a straight line. It really shouldn’t have been that difficult.”
“I know,” I mumble. “Am I fired?”
Yuka looks at Wilbur. “William? How did the front row react?”
“It’s bur not iam,” Wilbur points out, sighing. “The editor of Elle said Harriet was fresh. Harper’s said she was delicious. Vogue thought she had unexpected warmth.”
“My daughter’s not a loaf of bread,” Dad points out in surprise.
Yuka raises an eyebrow at him and then looks at me. “In that case, Harriet, you’re not fired and neither is Fleur. But in future, if I want you to sit down, I shall ask you to sit down. I shall give you a step-by-step plan, an X on the requisite spot and a detailed description of how I want you to do it.”
“OK,” I say, feeling my spirits starting to lift. The more I get to know Yuka, the more I like her. She reminds me of Annabel.
Yuka looks at her watch. “There is an after-party being held in the penthouse suite of our hotel. The other models have gone there, and every important editor and celebrity in Europe is currently drinking my profits.”
My stomach twists uneasily and Dad’s face starts to beam.
“Yuka,” I start anxiously, “I’m not sure that—”
“Obviously,” Yuka continues as if I haven’t opened my mouth, “you will be going straight to bed and you will go nowhere near it. If I so much as catch you out of your room for the rest of the evening, there will be a world of pain.”
I sort of want to hug her. I’m so tired. This has probably been the longest day of my entire life.
“Oh, what?” Dad moans under his breath. “This is so unfair.”
“The same applies to you,” Yuka says to him sternly, narrowing her eyes. “A world of pain. Understood?”
“Understood,” Dad says in a shamed voice, staring at the floor. Which makes me feel even more at home.
Because that’s exactly what Annabel would have said as well.
omehow, I manage to get a full ten hours of sleep. Despite Dad doing everything he possibly can to sabotage this. I’ve been given the queen-size bed and he has the sofa on the other side of the room “as befits a sidekick”.
“You know,” he says as I’m brushing my teeth, “if I were to wake up in the middle of the night, say, and find you putting your make-up back on, I would assume it was a mirage and go back to sleep.”
I nod sleepily.
Ten minutes later, as I’m crawling under the duvet in my penguin pyjamas and yawning, Dad coughs. “And if I were to wake up in the middle of the night and see that your bed was empty, I would presume I was dreaming and put it down to an overactive imagination.”
“OK, Dad.” I close my eyes and snuggle into the pillows.
“And if you were to come back in, smelling of – say – celebrity party, I would say nothing of it the next day. To anyone.”
“OK,” I murmur, starting to drift off. Suddenly the bedroom lights snap on.
“Are you seriously telling me you’re not going to this celebrity party?” Dad says in loud disbelief. “You’re not going to sneak out for even a little bit?”
“You can go if you want,” I mumble with my eyes shut. “I’m going to be asleep.”
“Oh, great, just guilt trip away, why don’t you, Harriet? No, it’s fine. I don’t need to meet Liz Hurley. I’ll just sit here on the sofa and eat pickled cabbage.”
I yawn again. What is this obsession with pickled cabbage? “OK, Dad. You do that.”