Scarlet stood outside the Tea and Buns Café, overlooking the lake in Hyde Park. She quickly checked her watch and wondered what was keeping her friend Karen. Karen South was one of the only friends she had made whilst living in London. She didn’t include all the actors and actresses whose stage make-up she did night after night at the old Drury Lane theatre. After all, they were only there for a few weeks at a time before moving on to another part of the country, so it wasn’t exactly conducive to making long-lasting friendships.
It was a crisp winter’s day and she had something to tell Karen. Her life was about to change dramatically, at least for a month, and she really wished she didn’t have to do what she was about to do. Her twin sister, Cressida, ran a party planning business. A hotelier by the name of Clarke was asking for Cressida personally to organise a Twelfth Night party for the grand reopening of his newly revamped hotel in York.
But Cressida had already made arrangements to organise the mayor’s annual children’s party, and to prepare a wedding for a high-profile client in Dartmoor. Cressida was obliged to attend each event personally, as stipulated on the contracts. Cres had worked awfully hard to build up the business. She had to fulfil the contracts or she would lose money. But the York job was just too good an opportunity to pass up. So she had asked Scarlet to go down to Brighton and take her place, pretending to be Cressida for her clients.
Scarlet had initially refused. Her ex-fiancé, Terry, was an investor in Cressida’s company, and she could not risk running into him in Brighton. But Cressida assured her Terry was in Monaco on security business. Apparently a hotshot casino owner was asking him to do all new security plans after a million-euro robbery. Thankfully Terry wouldn’t be back until after Christmas and by that time Cressida and Scarlet would be back in their rightful positions.
They had always been tricking the teachers at school. Being identical twins helped get each of them out of classes they hated. Cressida loved history and Scarlet loved English and, throughout their school lives, neither ever had a lesson in the other’s favourite subject. The only way anyone could tell the sisters apart was by a mole on Cressida’s left shoulder. Apart from that they were indistinguishable from one another. Cressida’s staff at Dream Makers had mistaken Scarlet for her so many times that it would be easy to fool them. All she would have to do was wear her sister’s clothes and copy her quirks.
A young woman with monochrome hair strolled towards her.
“Karen, you made it!”
“Yes, traffic is an absolute nightmare today. Shall we get a cuppa?” Karen was wearing the same eclectic clothes that Scarlet was used to seeing; she had tried to emulate the same style but could never pull it off. Karen linked arms with Scarlet as they walked into their favourite haunt. “Just wait till you hear my news.”
“Come on, spill. How long do I have to wait?”
Tea and Buns Café could get pretty busy and noisy with all the designer mothers and kids that came in, so they sat down to wait for the waitress to take their order.
“Well, you know I went to that audition for Cats?” Karen exuded excitement.
“Yes. Go on.”
“Well, I got it! Guess who I’m going to play?”
Scarlet grinned at her friend. She was so pleased she had finally got a role in a musical after all her hard work, attending drama school at night as well as working in the local supermarket. Yet what Karen really wanted to do was turn her jewellery-making hobby into a real business. Her pieces were as eclectic as she was – she would make earrings from glittery chocolate wrappers or other odds and ends people threw away.
“Mr Mistoffelees?” Scarlet replied mischievously.
“No! I got Victoria!” Karen reached her hand over to pat Scarlet’s, adding excitedly, “You will be doing my make-up.”
“Erm…I’m not going to be here. A guy called Tom will be doing it.”
The look of shock on Karen’s face made her feel extremely guilty.
“Cressida wants to nail a big contract up in York. Some Twelfth Night party, for a hotel. It will be the making of Dream Makers if she can pull it off. If she can’t, well I can only guess what will happen.”
“I take it this guy is a hotshot?”
“Yes, I think so. After I came here, Cres had to build the business up alone. We should have been working together, and it’s hard not to feel guilty about leaving her. So I’ve said I’ll step in and look after Dream Makers while she’s up north.”
“Scarlet, you are always so concerned about what others think or how they feel, but you need to find happiness yourself first.”
Karen was right, of course, as she always was, yet Scarlet hated to admit that she had missed helping to set the business up. She and Cres had so many plans they had hoped to make reality together.
“Do you want a full afternoon tea?”
Karen nodded as the waitress approached.
“Please. You have to come and see me on opening night.”
“Of course I will. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away,” Scarlet said.
It wasn’t long before sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, and various mini cakes arrived at the table. The cakes here were second to none and Scarlet had found herself more than once making a beeline for the café when she was feeling down.
“How long are you going to be away for?”
“Not long. Only until the day after Twelfth Night, so about a month.”
“I’m going to miss you, Scarlet.”
“I’m going to miss you too, Kaz. Who else is going to keep me sane?”
The two friends talked for a while longer until Karen had to go and rehearse, but before she went she handed Scarlet a necklace she had made: an ankh and a small delicate yellow rose – a symbol of friendship and of life.
“Oh, Kaz, they’re so beautiful. Your work is just out of this world.” Suddenly Scarlet had a light-bulb moment; she’d come up with a brilliant idea to help Karen’s business further.
“There’s no need to thank me,” Karen replied, a blush creeping onto her face.
“Listen, I’ll walk through the park with you. I have a brilliant idea.”
The two girls gave the waitress a tip and took a slow lingering stroll through the park. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind bringing me some of your jewellery to sell at Dream Makers – we could see if we can’t get you a huge following down in Brighton. Cressida is always looking for new things for the shop and your jewellery could be the special present to go with the card they may have just picked up.”
“Scarlet, are you serious?”
“Of course! So…what do you say?”
“Hell yes!!” Karen shouted, almost knocking Scarlet over as she rushed to hug her friend.
“How about you come to the theatre tonight or to the flat in say…two hours? I’ll be leaving at six o’clock for work. Bring some stock over and I can take it with me.”
“Sure thing.”
“I’d best leave you here and get moving or I’m never going to get sorted.” Karen gave Scarlet a hug and started walking away, but she stopped and turned around, coming back for a second hug.
If she could pull this off for Karen it would be a little thank you, for all the things Karen had ever done for her. Karen had been the one who had kept her on an even keel when Scarlet thought she would be pushed over the edge.
Scarlet said goodbye for now and walked along the paths from one end of the park to the other, searching for some sort of confirmation that she was making the right decision. Before coming here to see Karen and have a final cup of tea, she had stood at the base of the Great Lawn near the Tyburn Brook then stopped again near the Serpentine Gallery with its barren Victorian garden.
From where she was walking she could see the Diana Memorial standing atop the now-drained fountain. In spring it would flow again, a permanent memorial to the Queen of Hearts. Walking in the great outdoors always made Scarlet feel better, and talking to Karen had settled her nerves about returning home to Brighton. Surely things wouldn’t be that bad. Who would ever find out she wasn’t Cressida?
A sudden gust of wind blew a cold draft down her back; winter was definitely here. She strolled past Nelson’s Column and the Conservatory Pond, then Scarlet stopped beside Speaker’s Corner and sat for a while on one of the many benches that lined the pavement.
Exiting the park at Kensington Road, she hurried along the Mile back to her flat. She was so used to seeing Buckingham Palace that she rarely looked in its direction any more. After unlocking the door to her London home, she took off her coat and scarf and pulled a large suitcase down off the top of the wardrobe. It was hard to decide which clothes she should pack and take with her. The wardrobe was full to bursting and so was the one she had in the hallway.
She had several pairs of jeans and hoodie tops, her normal style of dress when she wasn’t doing anything special. She packed her scented candles – Scarlet always had a thing about burning a lavender candle before she went to sleep – her precious pieces of jewellery, and a few handbags from her collection. Scarlet found that some of her shoes would have to stay behind. She would have needed another suitcase for all those.
She would be sad to leave the comfort of her own space, but the flat still didn’t look much different to when she had bought it. Plain mushroom-coloured walls, all ready to be replaced with something fresh and new. To be honest, by the time she got through at the theatre she was too tired to do anything other than sleep. She had a few photos of Cressida and her parents, and a large canvas print adorning the wall above the fireplace of her celebrating her graduation from beauty school. Another wall was covered with wedding cake designs and flower arrangements. Cakes and flowers she would never make for weddings she would never plan.
London wasn’t really home. Brighton was. Scarlet had been in London for two years and hardly knew anyone. It was too busy and hectic for a small seaside-town girl to cope with. Her flat had become a sanctuary. It was place to sleep, somewhere she could hide away, a place she thought would be able to rebuild the remnants of her shattered heart. Some days were better than others. It was best when she was too busy to sit and think. Nights were the worst time, as she lay in bed thinking of what could have been – no distractions to help her tormented mind.
There had been a few dates with guys from the theatre or friends of friends – none of whom made the earth move. The only one who had ever done that was Terry. She had loved to let her hands roam all over his rock-hard abs, see his eyes smiling whenever he was happy. Scarlet had never been one to give people false hope about how she really felt. If she had been totally honest, the only person she had ever really loved was the same person who had broken her heart.
She had been stuck frozen in time for too long and now Cressida was helping her to break free of the bonds that held her captive.
Scarlet wandered into her living room and picked up some coloured pencils and a drawing pad. She wanted to give Karen an individual Victoria look, adding a little something unique to make her stand out from all the rest of the actors who had played the same part. She would give the drawings to Tom.
Finally laying down her pencils, she took a picture off the mantelpiece. It was an old-style sepia photograph of her and Terry, taken by one of Brighton’s best photographers. It had been taken just before he proposed, which he did whilst they were dressed as a nineteenth-century cowboy and barroom floosy.
She looked at the image of the handsome man beside her and reached out to trace his face with her finger. She smiled sadly. Scarlet was glad that she wouldn’t have to face him in Brighton, or else it would have been sheer hell.
***
Terry Moore stared at the fax in his hands. His secretary had sent it over to Monaco for him. He’d lent Cressida the money to open her party supply shop, Dream Makers, and did what he could to help her get it on its feet. He occasionally drove her to parties, helped with decorations and even looked over the contracts, as he was doing now, when his own business allowed him the time to help out.
Sometimes his contacts in the security industry helped gain Dream Makers extra party business. He didn’t mind one bit, and Cressida had paid him back the money he had loaned her pretty quickly. The main reason for staying involved was that it reminded him of Scarlet. If he stopped helping out at Dream Makers then Scarlet would become a distant memory, and he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. He wasn’t sure if he could ever let her go.
It hadn’t taken long for the small shop to diversify into party planning.
Dream Makers had become the go-to party business for everyone along the South Coast – no longer just a place to buy your party balloons and other party necessities, but a consultancy to help plan special events. Terry thought the next step would be for her to go nationwide, opening shops and providing event-planning services throughout the country.
They had all been there at the beginning: Cressida, Scarlet and Terry. Once they branched out into event planning, Scarlet should have been the go-to wedding planner, but she left before that side of the business ever really took off. They were constantly asked to do weddings, but most of them they had to turn down. Weddings were Scarlet’s baby and no one could take her place.
He remembered how Scarlet had taken on a part-time job whilst at university, working for a firm of wedding planners. She was studying hospitality and the two went hand in hand, giving her money to live on and experience of the wedding-planning business. She was in her element. Never before had he seen her happier than she’d been at that time.
Until it all went wrong. She went to London, and retrained in theatre make-up.
Cressida had told him that Scarlet had qualified in record time. Scarlet was one of those girls who never went out without make-up on. It was like second nature to her. Cressida, on the other hand, only put make-up on when she was at work.
He chuckled to himself; he was amazed at how many little snippets of information he had picked up about them. If the twins asked him to go buy them both a new handbag and shoes he would have been able to come back with the perfect match.
Terry sighed heavily. A mysterious millionaire hotelier, Raymond Clarke, had requested the party planning services of Dream Makers. Apparently he needed Cressida to plan a Twelfth Night party, which in the words on the contract had to be ‘the party of the century’, with a Richard III theme. Cressida herself could live at the hotel in order to fulfil the contract. Well, he couldn’t see her arranging the party from Brighton and then just travelling up there for the actual occasion.
The contract and previous deal memo hadn’t said much about Clarke himself, which was strange. He would have to do some investigating. Dream Makers liked to know a little about their clients so they could individualise the parties. The pay was more than triple the usual cost for her services and included all expenses for Cressida.
This Mr Clarke had more money than sense. The contract had stated she would be needed until the sixth of January. Terry assumed that Mr Clarke wanted the party planner there for the party itself in case anything went wrong.
Not that anything Dreams did ever went wrong – Cressida was too meticulous in how she ran things, but you never knew. He dialled Cressida’s number, hoping that she wouldn’t still be at work; it was too late for her to be messing around with party plans. Cressida worked too hard at the best of times, all work and no play. He rang Dream Makers first; when there was no answer he heaved a sigh of relief and tried her home number.
“Cressida, do you want to explain this contract?”
“Which contract? The one for the Jameson’s christening party?”
Terry gritted his teeth. “Don’t play dumb, Cressida. The one from Mr Clarke in York?”
“Oh that. Well I decided to turn it down.”
“Well if you turned it down, how come a contract has landed on my desk here in Monaco?” He was angry that she seemed to be hiding something from him. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Okay,” Cressida said slowly. The least she could do was be slightly honest with him. “I decided, after careful consideration, that I cannot do the contract. I can’t leave Brighton – there’s too much going on here. Any other time I would have jumped at the chance, but as it is, clients who have already paid me have to come first.”
“But this is a massive contract. You’d earn more money doing this one job than three others.”
“Yes I know that, honestly.”
“Really, Cres, quit the attitude. This could be seriously massive for you.”
“There’s no need to worry. Dream Makers won’t lose out to another party business. I have the perfect person to go in my stead.”
Terry looked out the office window down on to the harbour where all the millionaires kept their yachts. He was nearly finished with this job and was going to surprise Cressida by coming home at the end of the week without telling her. The mayor’s annual children’s party was coming up – each year children from one school were invited to a Christmas party. The mayor held another party at Easter as well as a summer fun day. The idea was that all the children from schools in Brighton would be invited at some point. No one would be left out of having fun.
They had all thought it was a great idea and jumped at the chance to host the parties. Terry was hoping to tag along with Cressida. It would be the first time in two years he had been to the event.
Sometimes working with her was exasperating. She ran around at fifty miles an hour and even when he told her to slow down she didn’t. More often than not there were two or three parties arranged for the same day. Cres needed to hire some more staff before she ran herself into the ground. His own business was getting hectic and before long he wouldn’t have the time to devote to Dream Makers.
He checked over all the contracts people had given to Dreams and designed theirs to make sure everything was legal and above board. A few tried to stick sneaky clauses into the contracts but he saw straight through those without an issue. It saved Cressida money by not hiring anyone else to do what he could do for free – well for a home-cooked meal once in a while.
“So, did you read all of the contract?” he asked, knowing that she would possibly lie and say yes when she had done no such thing.
“Of course I did; I saw the ‘I can’t work for another hotel doing a party, whilst I’m doing his’ bit, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“Then, if you’re not going to fulfil the contract, who the hell is?”
“No one you know.”
“Hang on! He will have seen pictures of you and heard of your reputation. People like this don’t just hire anyone.”
“You have no need to worry; I’ve sorted it.”
Terry knew what she was planning. Who looked and sounded exactly like Cressida? Scarlet.
***
Cressida sat on the back of her sofa. She was sure she’d heard the cogs ticking as Terry put two and two together. She felt bad for the deception. Her heart tried escaping from her chest. She was glad Terry wasn’t there. Her face would have given away her lies.
Would he still know the difference between them after two years? She felt terrible tricking them both, but it was the only way to get the two of them near each other again. Cressida hated to deceive Terry. But it was high time that her darling sister and Terry got things sorted once and for all. They were like a pair of lovelorn teenagers. Just as long as he believed what she was going to tell him… Hopefully Scarlet and he would sort everything out and live happily ever after – and if not, at least she’d tried.
Cressida was digging a big hole for herself and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to climb back out.
“So, I will repeat my question. Cres, which brilliant member of staff is going to take over this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if you don’t go to York?”
“Erm…Scarlet is going to do it for me. Because of her work in theatre she will be so much better than I would at arranging this party. And you know what a history nut she is – she’ll be great with the historical theme. Terry, you have to see, she is the best one for the job.” Cressida spoke quickly so he wouldn’t have a chance to interrupt her. She hoped he wouldn’t remember that she was the one who loved history.
“You’re going to trust someone who’s left the party planning business to arrange something as important as this?”
“Terry, don’t you think I know what I’m doing? Scarlet can plan as well as I can. It’s like riding a bike; you never forget how.”
“Cres, I love you like a sister but I don’t think your judgment is sound on this one.”
“Trust me, this party will be a breeze for Scarlet to do. Come on, the theatre’s just finished a Shakespeare play. I’m sure she will have picked up a few great ideas looking at the sets and things.”
He was getting agitated. “Shakespeare never used sets!”
“Huh…”
“Never mind, Cres. When were you going to tell me this?” Terry asked, obviously forcing himself to keep his voice even.
“Well, I wasn’t sure she’d do it until this morning, so I was going to tell you now or maybe tomorrow.”
As Cressida was mulling over her plans she found herself getting angry with Terry. Sometimes getting your friend to help you set up a business and have them as a free helper had its setbacks. She had debated about asking him to become a real partner, not just an odd-job man, but Scarlet should have been her partner and that position would be hers alone.