Guilty Pleasures

‘Maybe I’ll go to that good tarot reader on the boardwalk on the way home,’ mused Stella vaguely, ‘I think I need some psychic intervention to tell me what to do.’

‘What you need to do is come out tonight,’ said Tash firmly. ‘Go home and get ready.’

Stella shook her head. ‘I’d love to, but I can’t.’

‘What’s more important than a party on Oscars weekend?’ asked Tash seriously.

‘Oh, a friend of the family is in town,’ she said.

‘So bring her to the party.’

Stella grimaced. ‘I really don’t think she’s the partying kind.’

‘Orlando is going to be there,’ persisted Tash.

‘Well, I’ll think about it,’ said Stella already on her bike, ‘call you later.’

‘Brad! Orlando!’ called Tash after her, ‘that guy out of the OC?’

Stella just turned back and waved, knowing that not even the cutest boys in Hollywood could lift the black cloud surrounding her today.

The two-mile cycle ride back to Santa Monica did little to clear Stella’s head. The Santa Ana winds were blowing making it artificially warm for an early spring day. To her left the Pacific Ocean sparkled silver while in the distance, as if to welcome her home, the pier jutted out into the sea looking every bit as magical as it had the first time she had seen it almost four years earlier. And look how far I’ve come, she thought, with just a hint of irony. She had come to California six months after she had graduated, ostensibly to be nearer her mother who had moved from Cornwall to Montecito to ‘reinvent’ herself as an aromatherapist. But within weeks Stella had drifted down to LA, got a flat in Santa Monica and a job in a boutique on Melrose. Her wage was a pittance; the trade-off for them turning a blind eye to her lack of a green card. The boutique was hip and Stella was pretty which meant that she was often invited to parties. She went along for the free food and drink, but even at the most chic Hollywood Hills soiree, Stella was always the most stylish person there in the little dresses she customized from thrift shop finds or rolls of spare fabric from the shop. It was at one of those parties that Stella had met Cate Glazer, wife of the famous movie producer Lance, who had ambitions to be LA’s answer to Kate Spade. Cate Glazer had been knocked out by the beautiful blonde Brit, but was more knocked out by the white jersey T-shirt dress she said she had run up that afternoon. It was simple but chic, cleverly using the material to show her figure off to best advantage. The kid clearly had talent.

‘Can you design handbags?’ Cate Glazer had asked her.

‘I’ll try anything once,’ smiled Stella. What the hell, why not? She shrugged. And it was that easy: the next Monday Stella began work as ‘design executive’ for fledgling LA fashion house Cate Glazer. She hadn’t realized when she signed on, however, that it was a workforce of two: Stella designed the bags which were produced by a company in Mexico, Cate handled the PR. Their first venture involved Stella making 100 totes from white sail canvas. Cate gave them to a selection of Lance’s actress friends each of whom had been photographed carrying them. The photos ran in every magazine from US Weekly to Vogue and suddenly Cate Glazer was on the map. The orders poured in so fast that within six months they had to open a factory in Mexico. Three years later, Cate Glazer was one of America’s hottest lifestyle labels, a multi-million-dollar business, branching out from accessories into fashion and interiors, while Stella was in pretty much the same place. Sure, she had an office with ‘Design Executive’ on the door, but despite her talent, she had never received a single job offer because everyone believed Cate Glazer was the talent behind the stylish Cate Glazer merchandise.

The sky was beginning to darken by the time Stella pushed her bicycle through her apartment door. What a mess, she thought, leaving the bike against the wall and stepping over the piles of laundry in the kitchen and books on the carpet. She opened the shutters to let the warm, salty scent of the Pacific fill the room. She had just put on a pot of coffee and was just contemplating transferring the huge mountain of plates into the dishwasher when her intercom buzzed.

‘Who is it?’ said Stella wearily.

‘Emma Bailey.’

‘Oh shit,’ she said, before realizing her finger was still on the buzzer.

‘I can come back,’ said a crackling voice.

‘No, no, come on up,’ she said quickly, before rushing around scooping up everything cluttering the floor and flinging it all into a laundry bag. Then Stella stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh shit!’ she said, as the penny dropped. This woman may be here to offer me a job. Emma had called the previous day and after some polite pleasantries about Saul’s death, Emma had muttered that there might be some design opportunities opening at Milford and that she was very keen to talk to Stella in person about them. Stella had been up for three days putting the finishing touches to a dozen clutch bags which a certain A-lister had requested for the Oscars red carpet. One bag would not do, Stella had been told, because the notoriously divaesque actress could not possibly decide which dress she was going to wear until the afternoon of the event. Her mind fuzzed from lack of sleep and overwork, Stella had failed to take in the meaning of Emma’s words. In fact, until this moment, she had failed to consider why Emma Bailey, new CEO of Milford Luxury Goods, would take the time and expense to fly six thousand miles to see her. ‘Oh, SHIT!’ she cried and ran for the bathroom.

Stella looked at herself in the mirror, wishing she had time to change out of her shorts and vest-top. But she didn’t look too bad. Her skin was lightly tanned and clear. She had a wide mouth, sun-kissed blonde hair in a Jean Seberg crop which suited her petite frame and height. She did not like to think of herself as beautiful although she suspected it, given the number of people who assumed she was an actress and men who made passes at her every time she went out. She ruffled her hair and pinched her cheeks. Well, it’ll have to do, she thought. She’s not after me for my pretty face.

‘Come in. Come in,’ said Stella, opening the door as she kicked her sneakers behind the magazine rack. ‘Sorry it’s a bit of a mess.’

Stella was slightly relieved to see that Emma seemed equally flustered.

‘Don’t worry, my fault for being early. The LAX immigration Gestapo waved me through without too much interrogation and the taxi driver seemed to have a death wish,’ she smiled.

Emma took in the chaos of Stella’s flat: the piles of magazines, the rolls of fabric, the precarious tower of DVDs by the TV, most of which seemed to be rom-coms or weepies. ‘What a lovely view!’ she exclaimed.

Stella burst out laughing and Emma couldn’t help but join in. Stella decided immediately that she liked this crazy woman who had flown halfway around the world to see her. She could barely remember Emma from a holiday in Provence when they were both very young, but her mother still kept in touch with Julia Grand. From the snippets of gossip that occasionally filtered her way, Stella had gathered the impression that Emma was the black sheep of the Milford family: someone tough and independent and mysterious. But the woman in front of her was sweaty and creased and had more than a hint of vulnerability about her. Well, that can’t be a bad thing, she thought.

‘Well, I guess I’d better offer you a drink after you’ve come all this way,’ smiled Stella, taking Emma’s bag and plopping it on an already overladen armchair.

‘Soda or vodka, I’m afraid,’ she said, rummaging around in the fridge. ‘Or I bought mint from the farmers’ market so we could have fresh tea?’

‘Mint tea would be lovely,’ said Emma, wandering to the window and gazing out. ‘So your father never made a sculptor out of you after all?’

Stella laughed. ‘He tried – oh, he tried. And for a little while I went along with it. I studied sculpture at the Slade,’ she called from the kitchen as she banged about preparing the tea.

‘I fell into fashion design by mistake although it’s not a hundred miles away from sculpture. All about form and shape. I took a course in pattern cutting but I’m pretty much self-taught.’

‘And now you’re a design executive at Cate Glazer.’

She looked at Emma wondering how much – or little – she knew about her life, not knowing that Emma had spent the entire twelve-hour flight to LA reading an inch-thick file on the growing Cate Glazer empire that she had obtained from a London press agency.

‘Well, officially I’m the design executive, which means I help Cate design the products.’

‘And unofficially?’ asked Emma, immediately reading between the lines.

Stella hesitated and looked a little embarrassed.

‘Cate is the front-person for the products, but I design everything. It’s a little like a ghost-writer doing novels. She OKs everything and she knows what she likes. Plus however much I moan about her, I have to admit she’s a great business brain and a marketing genius.’

The truth, thought Stella, was that Cate Glazer was a nightmare. Controlling and arrogant, she was paranoid to the point of forbidding her staff to have telephones, in case they should be tempted to make personal calls on company time. Stella knew Cate was also terrified that her star designer might be poached, but instead of incentivizing her, she kept Stella locked away in a windowless office with her drawing boards and swatches, ensuring that no one outside the company ever met her. Stella brought the tea things out on a dusty tray and pushed some magazines off the sofa so they could sit down.

‘So tell me, is this an interview or a chat?’ asked Stella, handing Emma a cup. ‘I take it from your call yesterday you’re looking to boost your design team?’

‘No. I’m actually looking for a head designer. I want someone to run the whole operation.’

‘No way!’ gasped Stella, almost spilling her tea. ‘You haven’t flown all the way from London just to speak to me have you?’ she said incredulously.

Emma nodded.

‘Why?’ said Stella with a half-laugh.

Emma hesitated before she spoke. ‘Well, because none of the big names are interested. Because I need to make an appointment very, very quickly before my family’s company goes down the pan. Because I’ve done my homework and know you spent three summers working in the Milford factory, because I know you’re the unsung hero of Cate Glazer and because I hope you care as much about Milford as I do.’

‘Blimey. You’re very straight-talking,’ laughed Stella, not expecting such an honest answer.

‘I used to be a management consultant,’ smiled Emma. ‘I’m used to speaking my mind.’

Stella took a sip of her tea, her heart suddenly thumping.

‘You work in fashion now, honey. Nobody says what they really think.’

She paused, put down her mint tea and waved Emma over.

‘Come through,’ she said leading her to the second bedroom which had been converted into a studio. In stark contrast to Stella’s living space, there was a clear order to this room. There was a tailor’s dummy in the corner of the room and a sewing machine in front of the French window. Hung up on a wooden rail were a dozen squares of leather. Stella moved over to a white sofa near the window and sorted through a pile of bags.