The Stylist

‘I’m feeling a little better now, thank you, Mona. We’re coming out, literally right now,’ Beau clambered off the bed. ‘So that’s sorted, then, Amber?’ She turned to me. ‘I’ll come back to finish the fitting tomorrow, give you Trey’s number and you’ll call him. I’ll tell you exactly what to say.’

She looked like a different person—certainly not the one who was drowning in tears not more than five minutes ago. She wiped the last traces of mascara stains from her cheeks, added a slick of lip gloss and surveyed herself in the mirror as if nothing had happened. Then she slipped on the Jimmy Choos and swung open the door.

‘Ta-da! You know what, I do love the Dolce, Mona. I’ll bring my Spanx tomorrow and it’ll all be fine.’

I was flabbergasted.

When Beau had changed back into her civvies, Mona promised to call Stefano Gabbana himself to see if she could keep the dress after wearing it for her premiere. Then Beau announced she had to leave, but she’d be back the next day to be filmed as they finished her fitting for the actual Golden Globes. As she made for the door, we all noticed she was missing something—something she had most definitely arrived with—a small grunting pink thing in a leather jacket.

‘Ah, Pinky!’ she exclaimed, her eyes finding AJ, who was still holding Pinky’s lead. ‘Amber, babe, you love pigs—how do you fancy Pinky-sitting tonight?’ She didn’t give me a chance to respond. ‘Thanks, babe! I just need a bit of quality time with my fiancé this evening … you know.’

I knew, all right. Beau needed to be on the ball, vetting her phone for calls from the ‘stalker’. It had now been thirty hours since my last proper sleep, and London felt a very, very long way away. As AJ put Pinky’s lead in my hand, I lacked the energy to do anything about it. Instead, I surrendered myself to whatever a night with a micro-pig might have in store. The look of disdain on Mona’s face told me the pig would be staying in my room and nowhere else in her clean, white mansion—I didn’t even get a chance to ask what the creature should eat. And I was already dreading the morning and the phone call. This really wasn’t the initiation into the Hollywood scene I had been hoping for. I wondered if I should just refuse to be drawn in. Maybe I should tell Mona about it?

‘You and Beau seemed to hit it off,’ Mona commented frostily as we sped back to her house, Pinky travelling, probably illegally, on my lap. I was gripping him so tightly my knuckles had turned white. One late brake at the traffic lights and we’d have gammon for dinner.

‘S’pose so,’ I responded, abruptly deciding against telling Mona. I didn’t want to appear foolish or out of my depth—for all I knew, this was normal for Hollywood. Besides, Beau had asked me to keep it a secret, and I wasn’t sure if I could trust Mona yet. I didn’t want to turn it into any more of a drama.

When we got back, Klara was in the kitchen, heating what appeared to be a watery soup of over-cooked vegetables. She barely twitched when she saw Pinky enter the kitchen behind me. It’s a pig in a leather jacket, for God’s sake! I felt exhausted now, off-balance and hardly able to keep my eyes open; I went through the rest of the evening in a daze, picking at the turkey chilli Ana had made for us. I didn’t want Mona to think I was a lightweight, but it had been the longest day ever and now I really needed my bed. I led Pinky upstairs and used my last shred of energy to text Vicky: Am sharing my bed with Beau Belle’s micro-pig. Will call tomorrow. Miss you. A x. Then I turned off my phone and passed out.

I woke up a few hours later to a loud crash as Pinky overturned the water bowl I’d left for him on the floor. As it rolled around on the glossy white floorboards and finally came to a halt, I flicked on the bedside light to see him snuffling around the pile of discarded black clothes at the foot of my bed. I didn’t get much sleep for the rest of the night. It turns out pigs are pretty much nocturnal. My head was spinning with Beau’s request and I kept being woken up by Pinky either headbutting the door or scratching at the floorboards as he searched for an escape route. I felt sorry for the little thing. We were both a bit lost in this big, pristine room in a show home high in the Hollywood Hills.

Suddenly a thought occurred to me that made everything seem a little better. There’s a half-eaten family bag of peanut M&Ms in my bag! Maybe a midnight feast of chocolate would help us both.

I managed to lift Pinky onto my oversized bed and he gobbled the M&Ms right out of my hand. As he slobbered and tickled my palm, I wondered whether Nathan and Tamara had the right idea in quitting. I pictured my own bed in my messy room back in London, where the tapping of water pipes and creaking of radiators regularly kept me awake. At one point in the early hours I actually scooped Pinky’s warm body up for a quick snuggle, but he kicked me in the chin. He had powerful trotters for such a dinky animal. Turns out micro-pigs don’t like cuddling, either.

At last it was 7:00 a.m. Warm, buttery fingers of sunlight had appeared around the blinds, bathing the room in a golden glow. I thought how pretty it looked as I groggily got out of bed and went to the ample en suite, noticing Pinky was fast asleep, curled up between two pillows on the floor, the makeshift ‘pig bed’ I had made for him some time in the early hours. There was something about this bathroom that made me feel as if I was getting a big hug, just by standing in it. Maybe it was the underfloor heating. I stood under the power-shower revelling in the moment. It felt so good, finally, to get properly clean. So good until I remembered what lay in store with Beau today. Maybe she’s had a change of heart overnight? The thought of seeing her again made me feel sick.

When I made it downstairs to the kitchen, Mona was reading a printed itinerary of our arrangements for the day over a glass of hot water and lemon. The list had presumably been written by Tamara or Nathan before they quit. We would be spending the morning on ‘appointments’ exactly like the ones Mona had attended at Smith’s, so at least I had a rough idea of what to expect.

After leaving the house, we darted around Beverly Hills in the Prius, popping in and out of a stream of glossy boutiques—greeted with air kisses and enthusiastic smiles, browsing, admiring and borrowing, placing orders and loading up the car with yet more clobber for the suite. During car journeys, Mona handed me her iPhone to make calls. To my relief it contained the contact details of all the fashion PRs I could possibly ever need to call, so there was no danger of me having to keep Vicky up all night as I hunted for numbers.

Pinky came everywhere with me as I assumed the role of Mona’s mouthpiece, note-taker and sunglasses holder, as well as Beau’s pig-sitter.

‘He’s Beau Belle’s, honey, we’re on piglet duty as a favour. Isn’t he fun?’ Mona explained to anyone who would listen, enjoying the opportunity to name-drop and using the term ‘we’ loosely—she blatantly hadn’t come within a trotter’s length of little Pinky the whole time.

Back at the W, the afternoon saw a parade of wealthy-looking girls with smooth Brazilian blow-dries and fresh manicures, clutching python bags and groomed to golden perfection, troop in and flutter out of our suite, buoyed by their appointments with Mona. It was like watching a masterclass in laid-back luxe. Frankly, none of the visitors, with their delicate features, long limbs and good clothes, looked in desperate need of fashion help. Some looked vaguely familiar from bit parts in movies, or photos in magazines of Mona with her crowd. Others just had an air of importance. Perhaps they were up-and-comers, hoping, with Mona’s help, to make their mark as a fresh fashion force this awards season. Whoever they were, all were greeted with hugs and yet more air kisses.

Outfits were tried on, accessories were cooed over and selfies were snapped. Superlatives flew around the room, ricocheting off the walls; everything was ‘fabulous, amazing, sexy, gorgeous, delightful, darling, pretty, major, stunning, beautiful, to-die-for …’ on and on, over and over. There was no need for any other vocabulary, because when you’ve got perfect genes, let’s face it, everything looks great. I was the only person looking less than glamorous, having spent the morning rushing around after Mona and Pinky, answering the door, running items to the changing room, keeping everyone hydrated with Fiji water or on the phone to room service requesting an increasingly bizarre assortment of refreshments, ranging from peppermint teas and espressos through to steaming hot mugs of lemon juice with cayenne pepper and maple syrup. Every couple of hours, Mona would mouth her request for a ‘little pick-me-up’; my first priority was to keep her caffeine levels at the max. She must have had at least four macchiatos before 3:00 p.m. and we’d only got here at twelve. As well as acting as a waitress, I was also tasked with keeping Mona’s database of who was borrowing what, when, and where it needed to be delivered. Mona seemed delighted when I suggested setting up an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of this, instead of the endless Post-it notes she had previously stuck onto her iPad. What kind of PA was Nathan, anyway?

Every now and again I had to phone a PR to request a particular dress or accessory in a certain size, and I also had Mona’s preferred seamstress—an amenable Mexican woman called Maria—on redial, if a gown needed a hem lifting or a bustier tightening. Couriers came and went, and my black ballet pump–clad feet soon ached from running around opening doors and darting wherever I was needed, which was generally everywhere at once. Every time the doorbell rang, my heart leapt as I wondered if it was Rob returning for more filming, or Beau, back to demand I fulfil my promise. She’d been on my mind all morning, her arrival drawing ever nearer, and I still hadn’t worked out what to do about it. I was so busy, it was impossible to think straight.

In the bedroom-cum-changing room, I’d never seen so many practically naked, supermodel-like women. Dresses were pulled over heads with impressive dexterity, flashes of athletic, fake-tanned frames with perky, pointy breasts. This was how I imagined the set of a Juergen Teller photoshoot to look, or the scene backstage during London Fashion Week. I suddenly felt self-conscious about what lay beneath my black Zara T-shirt dress.

Mid-afternoon, we were alerted, via a call from the hotel manager, to the news that a high-profile actress had entered the building via an underground passageway so as not to be seen. She’d booked an emergency appointment with Mona to expunge horrific memories of a gown that drew column inches for all the wrong reasons last year.

‘Someone really should have told her that see-through is the ultimate no-no on Oscars night,’ Mona told me as we straightened things up, having cleared the suite of bodies for this VVIP. ‘She hit the jackpot on all the Worst Dressed lists. Should have come to see me then.’