sunlight. He was large both in height and girth, with a broken nose and a lantern jaw covered in a beard. He looked at them both for a moment, his gaze, of course, sweeping over her like she had two heads. But then he smiled, his teeth looking exceptionally white against his skin as he raised his arms towards them in greeting.
‘Welcome, my friends. I have been expecting you. I am Moussef.’
Chapter Nine
‘It looks incredible,’ Mila said firmly, sitting cross-legged on her bed with a glass of champagne in her hand as Lee twisted one way, then the other, in front of the mirror.
‘It’s not very me,’ she said, almost baffled by her own reflection. She was so used to seeing herself in long, floppy layers that enabled her to move easily, get down on the ground, get to the angle she needed for the shot. And black, always black. Not this claret-coloured velvet – it wasn’t red exactly, but it sure as hell wasn’t black. ‘I mean, I don’t do dresses or . . . frilly bits.’ The sleeve had flounces at the end and she shook her arm, seeing how they rippled as she moved. Sort of intriguing, also highly irritating.
‘No, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. It looks good on you. Feminine. Soft.’
‘I am neither of those things.’
‘Of course you are. You just try to pretend you aren’t. We are all a mix of everything.’
Lee groaned.
‘Anyway, tonight is a business function. You have to play the game and that means wearing a nice dress and being visible.’
That one sentence summed up everything her old career hadn’t been about. And why she’d loved it so much.
‘I know! What about if I wore this to the Hot dinner?’ If she could delay . . .
‘The what?’
‘You know, the Hot List I’m doing for Black Dot. We have a dinner afterwards, all the celebs, editorial staff. Basic hell.’
‘You can’t have dinner in that dress. You’d be trailing your sleeves in the soup. I’m sorry but no. My answer is final.’
Lee looked back at the black Yohji Yamamoto dress on her bed that Mila had ordered her to take off as she walked in, handing over the ‘surprise’ hanging bag like it was a holy relic. ‘Why can’t I just wear that? It was expensive,’ she added, in case that made a difference.
‘It’s also shapeless, hides your figure and the colour is blah. It won’t photograph well, trust me.’
Lee arched an eyebrow. The photographer was being told what would photograph well? Mila sputtered on her champagne as she too realized the irony a moment later. ‘I mean, just trust me, because you’ve never been good at seeing yourself from the outside. You’ve got no vanity, that’s your problem.’
Lee was baffled as to how a lack of vanity could be considered a problem. ‘Ugh, whatever,’ she said, losing interest and turning away. ‘It’s not like I’ve got to look at myself. But don’t think about telling me to wear contacts,’ she warned, pushing the heavy black geek frames up her nose. ‘My glasses are me. I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror without them.’
‘You can’t see yourself in the mirror without them,’ Mila quipped, raising her glass in a little toast to this sartorial victory. She was already wearing her outfit – a flesh-coloured tulle dress with black polka dots that had a Dior New Look vibe – and her shoes were so pointy Lee would have classified them as weapons.
They went down the hall, Lee peering into Jasper’s room as she passed, but he was already fast asleep. Brigit, the babysitter, a twenty-year-old philosophy student at the university, was sitting on the sofa surrounded by files. Lee ran through the drill with her again, lest he should wake up, have a temperature, a nightmare, separation anxiety . . . She saw the babysitter’s eyes slide over to Mila once or twice, as if asking for help. Or strength.
The pre-booked cab was already waiting when they went downstairs – Mila had put a veto on cycling over, on account of her hair – and they slid into the back seat together.
‘So how are you feeling?’ Mila asked her quietly as the car pulled away. ‘Feeling okay? Nervous? Anxious?’
‘Well, I am now you’re banging on about it,’ Lee snapped, feeling a sudden spike of both those things.
‘It’ll all be fine.’
Lee looked across at her bossy, kindly friend, her face barely visible in the dim light. ‘But what if no one comes?’ The