Business Elena:
Navy jersey dress (Perfect Dress free sample)
Gold earrings (gift from Svetlana)
Gold ballet pumps (Old Navy stores)
Total est. cost: $15
‘Hello, Mrs Westhoven’
Annie listened as computer keys tapped frantically in the background.
‘Ma’am … I could offer you one flight tomorrow afternoon, at a re-booking fee of $350. But I can’t transfer both passengers.’
Annie paused to consider, taking a sip of her espresso. She and Lana were due to fly home in five days’ time. She was of course going to spend the $350 to come home early, but did she need to pay for Lana to cut her trip short too? Wouldn’t she be OK on her own for a while? And what about Perfect Dress? Annie had solved some of the problems she’d flown over to handle, but there weren’t nearly enough orders in place for her to go home with a clear conscience.
But Ed … Ed was on suspension while terrible allegations were being investigated. He needed her to be at home with him. He’d told her not to leave early and cut short her New York adventure, but it wasn’t just about what he needed. She needed to be with him too.
‘Yes, I’ll take the flight tomorrow,’ Annie said, making up her mind, and taking out her credit card.
As she hurried down the street towards the subway entrance, Annie glanced at the three newspaper vending machines chained to the railings. Nothing unusual about that, this was how newspapers were sold all over New York.
But on the front page of one paper was a paparazzo shot of the actor Josh Hartnett. Nothing unusual about that either. He lived in New York and seemed to pop up all over every newspaper and magazine.
But Josh Hartnett was holding the hand of the Vanity Fair writer Emily Wilmington. And …
Annie bent low to make sure she had seen this right … Emily Wilmington was wearing, along with a blue felt trilby and brown boots, the blue jersey Perfect Dress which Annie and Elena had sent her.
Annie shrieked. She couldn’t help herself. Fumbling in her purse, she found quarters and jammed them into the slot. Snatching up her newspaper, she scanned the headline over the photo: ‘Who’s that girl with Josh?’ Underneath, the photo caption read: ‘Josh Hartnett takes a walk in the park with Emily Wilmington. She’s that girl, but more importantly, where do we buy that dress?’
Annie shrieked again, to the surprise of the passers-by scurrying to get to the subway entrance. She put all the quarters she could find into the vending machine and bought five more newspapers.
Forgetting for a second the horrible news from home, Annie couldn’t help feeling an enormous burst of triumph. This was the best thing that could have happened to Perfect Dress.
‘LANA!!’ she shouted excitedly into her phone, ‘we’ve had the most amazing break! Get out into the street, tell Elena, and buy a copy of the New York Post. Emily from Vanity Fair’s on the cover in her Perfect Dress! Seriously! I’m on my way back, we have to use this in every way we can.’
Annie knew she would have to tell Lana about Ed and about her flight home tomorrow, but that could wait for a little while. Just until they’d done as much as they could to make this good news really work for them.
When Annie arrived back at the apartment, both Lana and Elena were already on the case.
Elena, phone glued to her ear, was talking to the New York Post feature desk: ‘Ya, Emily Wilmington, on the cover of your paper today. She is wearing the dress by my company, Perfect Dress …’
Lana was busy compiling the press release about to be emailed to as many newspapers, feature pages and fashion editors as she could think of. She was also pasting the photo, properly captioned with names and the Perfect Dress label, onto as many fashion websites as she could think of.
It wasn’t even 8a.m. yet and so much had happened!
Annie made coffee, sat down at the tiny table and thought hard. How else? How else could she use her last day in New York to make this incredible stroke of luck work even harder for them?
Obviously, she would phone every customer who’d ever placed a dress order, ever thought about placing a dress order, or even cancelled a dress order.
She had another idea too, born of her days at The Store. Just as soon as the shops were open, all three of them would make as many calls as possible in as many different voices as possible. They would all pretend to be customers looking for that dress. In particular, they would make a point of phoning Bloomingdale’s … a lot.
For the next few hours, the small apartment sounded more like a call centre than a fashion headquarters.
‘Hi, I’m looking for the label Perfect Dress? Yes, I saw a dress in the New York Post this morning. Do you stock the label? Do you think you will? Is there any way I could make a reservation?’
‘Five thousand and fourteen hits on the Perfect Dress website just this morning,’ Elena reported, ‘we’ve posted up that the dresses will be here in a week and we’ve allowed people to pre-order.’
‘Have you spoken to Brad at the factory? Can he do us another run if we need him to?’
Elena nodded, then added with a little smile, ‘Maybe we go to a warehouse and buy the fabric this time?’
‘Yes,’ Annie agreed, ‘that might be easier.’
Elena’s phone began to ring. ‘Good afternoon, this is Elena Wisneski of Perfect Dress.’
Elena coloured up slightly when she heard the reply. Annie looked away, but couldn’t help listening in keenly.
‘Hello Mrs Westhoven, how are you?’
For a stricken moment, Annie wondered if all the calls they’d made to Bloomingdale’s this afternoon had been traced to the flat and to their mobiles. Maybe the terrifying Mrs Westhoven had found out just what they were up to.
‘Yes, I’m very well too, thank you,’ Elena said, sounding admirably calm and civil. ‘Yes … OK … no problem …’
Now Annie was desperate to know what this was about.
‘All ninety dresses. Yes …’ Elena looked over at Annie and gave her a huge grin. ‘Reinstate the order, and possibly order more. Yes, that is no problem. But we would have to take a deposit from you … because of the previous cancellation.’
Annie almost gasped at Elena’s nerve.
‘OK, yes. If you email me a confirmation, I’ll start to process your order right away. Delivery of the dresses? You’re looking at one week from now, but we’ll try our best to bring that forward. Yes, we can provide full publicity material. We’re going to buy usage of the Josh Hartnett and Emily Wilmington photo.’
When Elena clicked off the call, she gave a little shriek of glee, sprang up and began a victory dance around the room.
Lana and Annie had to join in.
‘This is so exciting!’ Lana said. ‘I can’t wait, I can’t wait to see all our dresses arriving and then hanging up in the shops!’
Annie realized she would now have to break the news about Ed and tell Lana and Elena that she wouldn’t be here when the dresses arrived.
She would be back in London.