‘It’s not a total no,’ offered Blair, replacing the handset face-down on the table. ‘It’s just not right now.’
‘Which is basically a fuck-off,’ clarified Mandy. ‘Well, they can fuck off when they’re desperate for me for the front page in a few months’ time. They only sell a handful of copies a month anyway. And print is over, it’s all about online. Where I have … what is it now, Blair?’
They seemed to know exactly what she was referring to and quickly overturned their phone again and opened the Instagram app.
‘One million, eight hundred thousand and ninety-seven followers. Oh, and the new content is up on YouTube, where you have – wait – fifteen million subscribers worldwide!’
‘Exactly. I think that tells us enough about where our efforts should be. Right, Amber?’ She looked at me pointedly.
‘Absolutely.’ I smiled. ‘The content is up already, is it?’ I uttered.
‘Sure is. Look how cute you look.’ Blair held up their phone again, pausing the video on an image of me in my swimming costume in the chamber, looking like something that had just arrived in a morgue.
On cue, a young woman approached us cautiously. She was dressed fashionably in skin-tight leather-look leggings and big platform black boots. ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt. But are you Mandy Sykes?’ she asked, as I detected an American accent. ‘I’m a huge fan. I subscribed to Bravo TV over here especially to get reruns of your shows. I love you! Are you making something in the UK? It would be so cool if you did. I’m so happy you’ve moved here. I can’t wait to see how you enjoy living in the countryside!’ she trilled, the verbal diarrhoea an attempt to mask her nervousness.
I looked at Mandy. It was as if all the lights in the house were turned on. The mega star came out to play, large, wide smile, twinkling eyes, and high energy. ‘Aww you’re so sweet! I love your boots. Would you like a selfie?’ she replied loudly, as every head in the café turned to stare.
‘Oh wow – yes, please,’ said the girl, lifting her phone, and the two smiled cheesily for a photo. ‘Thank you so much. This is amazing!’ She turned to me. ‘I hope your lip gets better. The cryotherapy must have helped. Aw, it looks so painful.’
I slunk back into my seat, muttering, ‘Thanks.’
Mandy had barely registered her comment to me. ‘Not well-known enough,’ she said. ‘Let’s see about that.’
As the girl left the café, Mandy was visibly stoked. ‘Who cares about the magazines. Doing our own photoshoot is the way forward,’ she said cheerfully. ‘This way we can have complete control and use it all for my social platforms and YouTube.’
‘And don’t forget the Mandy Sykes Homeware range we shipped will be arriving tomorrow, so we can get product placement in all the shots; fluff up the beds and sofas,’ Blair added. ‘Plus, we need to get your new loungewear collab with H&M in as many photos as possible, especially the track pants as they are new this season.’ They were scrolling through a list on their phone. ‘Oh and the collagen shakes and – fuck – the body chains! I don’t think they’ve arrived yet.’ Their face went pale momentarily. ‘Did anyone tell you about the body chains, Amber?’
‘Um, no.’ I looked at Blair blankly. ‘I’m not sure body chains and tweed are exactly—’ They looked at me with narrowed eyes, suggesting this wasn’t the right answer.
‘Julie-Ann had this great idea about Mandy jumping on the trend for body adornment currently sweeping Hollywood and making it accessible over here. We’re working on securing a collab with a jewellery brand – you know, a Swarovski, Pandora, Carat.’
‘Bvlgari would do nicely,’ Mandy interjected.
‘We may have to lower our ask,’ Blair muttered. ‘We need to be realistic, Mands.’
‘But nottooreal.’ Mandy glanced at them. ‘We have standards. Don’t we, Amber?’
‘Right, so to be clear, you’re seeing this as loungewearmeets slinky chains?’ I checked. ‘I thought Julie-Ann was after something a little more … aristocratic.’
‘Let’s call it Sloane with sex appeal. It’ll be fine, Amber,’ Mandy replied. ‘I’m sure you can tie it all together. That’s what you stylists do – you can wave your magic wand over it all. There are a number of commercial partnerships to satisfy, that’s all. My “bread and butter” – isn’t that the phrase?’
‘We can use different areas for different themes, there’s plenty of space,’ Blair added optimistically. ‘There’s no such thing as “no can do”. Right, Amber?’
‘Right. We’d better get back then.’ I smiled nervously.
‘Jose should have left by now.’ She picked up her phone and glanced at it to check the time. ‘He’s about to take off to New York for a few days, to secure some more …’ she paused, ‘… endorsements. I thought that next week, I could throw a little cocktail party – Julie-Ann’s offered to invite a few of her UK clients over for some drinks: TV presenters, influencers, authors, life gurus, those types of people. Do you have a partner, Amber?’ she asked, changing the subject.
‘I do – he’s called Rob, we’ve been together for a couple of years.’
‘Charming!’ she squealed. ‘Shame we can’t invite him too.’
‘It’s no problem,’ I said shyly, doubting that Rob would actually want to come to the party after hearing about my experience so far. That’s if he was still speaking to me. I thought about the weird phone call again, it was really playing on my mind.
‘It’ll be like a kind of housewarming, only hotter. If the chains don’t make the daytime pics, they can come out for the evening. We’ll get plenty of content. IfTatlerthinks I’m unfit for their society pages, they can stick their …’ Her voice trailed off because we were saved by Blair’s phone buzzing. We glanced down instinctively, and I was relieved it was a call to tell us her chauffeur had arrived.
Chapter Ten
We spent much of the hourlong drive back to the Surrey Hills in near silence. I was busy working on my iPhone, doing some last-minute call-ins for the shoot by emailing accommodating fashion PRs. I was a little surprised by the number of British designer labels who didn’t want to lend to Mandy, but I had a result from a lovely lady at new sustainable diamond brand Astrea London, who said they would be happy to loan some earrings. This ticked the high-society box at least.
