My mouth falls open. “But wasn’t it just a PR…”
“Of course not. If I believed that fashion was about being the same as everyone else, would I dress like a negative of Miss Havisham every single day for thirty years?”
“I guess not.”
“Then this conversation is over. You’ll sign your next contract with me tomorrow morning.”
Yuka turns around and starts walking back towards the door.
“On one condition,” I hear myself say in a clear voice. She stops and turns slowly back around to face me. “I’m not missing any more school. If you want me, you’ll have to do evenings, mornings and weekends. Like a…” I think about it briefly. “A paper round.”
Yuka narrows her eyes. “Did you just compare working for me to doing a paper round?”
I nod. “Yes.”
She shuts her eyes for a few seconds and then opens them again. The corner of her mouth twitches. “Condition accepted. I’m hiring you for another season so you keep me on my toes. After that, I’ll probably ditch you for somebody younger.” She glances in the air. “Nick?”
Nick steps out of the dark where he’s been standing, unseen. My whole stomach squeezes shut. “Yes, Aunty Yuka?” he says with a cheeky grin.
“Call me that again and you can collect your P45.”
“Yes, Aunty Yuka?”
Yuka sighs. “Get your own taxi home, Nicholas. Like your father, you’re far too irritating to sit with.” And she turns around again and abruptly stalks out of the room.
I giggle slightly, feeling about six years old, and then turn back round to introduce Nick to the people I love most in the world. Except I can’t.
Because they’ve all sugar cookied off.
ell,” I say after an embarrassed silence. There’s still a door swinging, and if I listen very hard, I can hear the distant sound of my loved ones betraying me. “Everyone was here a minute ago.” I cough a couple of times.
“I’m still here,” Wilbur points out, standing up slowly and putting his top hat back on. “And wouldn’t you know it, my little Chuckle-bum, Nick is here too. What a coincidence.”
My cheeks are bright pink and when I glance at Nick, I notice with a spark of surprise that his cheeks are starting to… It must be a trick of the light. It’s very dark in here.
“Well,” I say, squeezing out the most unnatural laugh I’ve ever heard. “I guess we do work for the same person.”
“And why is that, do you think?” Wilbur shifts his pose so that his chin’s on his hand, like Rodin’s The Thinker statue. “Nick? Any idea?”
Nick coughs too. “Nope. No idea at all.”
Wilbur gives him a stern look. “So what was the point in doing all that Jane Austen stuff if she doesn’t know about it, Poodle-bottom?”
The blush drains out of my body so quickly my head feels like it might float away. “W-what?” I manage to stammer.
“Nothing.” Nick glares at Wilbur. “Have you been sniffing glitter again?”
“Harriet, my Baby-baby Panda,” Wilbur says, rolling his eyes and sticking his tongue out at Nick. “I didn’t discover you, honey, Nick did. Yuka recruited him to find the female face for the collection and then you fell into that hat stall… And the rest, as they say, is geography.”
“History,” I correct automatically.
“Yes,” Wilbur agrees gravely. “His story indeed. Nick pointed you out to me, Nick gave your photos to Yuka and Nick said you’d be perfect for the campaign in Russia. With – as it just so happened – him.”
I can’t really breathe any more. Nick is the reason I’m here?
“But the table…” I say in confusion. “The pavement…”
“The table was a coincidence,” Nick sighs, visibly giving up. “You just happened to crawl under there. How was I to know you’d dive under it? Normal people don’t do that and wannabe models definitely don’t.” He laughs. “And the pavement… I came to get you. I knew you’d freak out.”
“But…” My head still feels like a helium balloon. “Why?”
Nick looks blank. “Because you always freak out.”
I shake my head. My voice feels like I’ve swallowed it. “I mean, why do you care if I freak out?”
There’s a long silence.
“Well,” Wilbur finally bursts, “I can take a shot in the dark, if you want.”
“Seriously,” Nick snaps, making his fingers into a gun shape. “I’m going to take a shot in the dark in a minute and it will make contact.”
Wilbur looks charmed. “Isn’t he adorable?” he says fondly. “My duty as Fairy Godmother is complete, anyhoo, and I believe it’s time to spread my magic dust elsewhere. So many pumpkins after all; so little time.” And Wilbur makes a few skipping steps backwards, takes a little bow and disappears with a dramatic flourish behind the door.
I’m going to pretend – simply for the sake of this moment – that I can’t hear whispering on the other side of it.
There’s a long silence. “I like you,” Nick says finally. He’s still speaking slowly, but the laziness that is always there seems to have disappeared. My whole body feels like it has a light bulb in it.
He likes me?
Lion Boy likes me?
“But… Why?” I manage to stutter.