- •I type a full stop, take a sip of coffee, and turn to the second page of the press release.
- •Extract 2
- •Extract 3
- •I should say something. I should say, “Janice, I don’t fancy Tom. He’s too tall and his breath smells.” But how on earth can I say that?
- •Extract 4
- •I’m absolutely stunned. I’ve never seen anything like this at a press conference. Never!
- •I head toward the back to get another cup of coffee, and find Elly standing by the coffee table. Excellent. I haven’t seen Elly for ages.
- •I’m sorry, but I can’t go and sit back down there. I have to hear about this.
- •Extract 5
- •I stare at him blankly.
- •I have never before worked so hard on an article. Never.
- •I can’t do this. I can’t speak to Luke Brandon. My questions are jotted down on a piece of paper in front of me, but as I stare at them, I’m not reading them.
- •I’ll show Alicia, I think fiercely. I’ll show them all, Luke Brandon included. Show them that I, Rebecca Bloomwood, am not a joke.
- •Extract 6
- •Extract 7
- •It’s basically my idea of heaven.
- •I close my eyes and, after a few seconds, feel a cool, creamy liquid being massaged into my face. It’s the most delicious sensation in the world. I could sit here all day.
- •I almost want to laugh at the incongruity of it. What’s she doing here? What’s Alicia Bitch Long-legs doing here, for God’s sake?
- •Is that me? Oh God, I don’t want to be a leading industry expert. I want to go home and watch reruns of The Simpsons.
- •I look around for support and see Rory gazing blankly at me.
- •I watch in a daze as he picks his way across the cable strewn floor toward the exit, half wishing he would look back.
- •Extract 8
- •Extract 2
- •Extract 3
- •Extract 4
- •Extract 5
- •I’ll just have a really quick look.
- •I mean, what is wrong with these people? Are they complete philistines?
- •Extract 6
- •It’s only as we're approaching a department entitled ‘Gift Wrapping’ that I realize what’s going on. When I said ‘gift’, she must have thought I meant it was an actual–
- •I take the card from her, and as I read, my skin starts to prickle with excitement.
- •Extract 7
- •I stare at him, agog.
- •I can’t tell him I’ve actually got three. And two on hold at Barneys.
- •Extract 2
- •I wish bridesmaids got to say something. It wouldn’t have to be anything very much. Just a quick ‘Yes’ or ‘I do’.
- •I’ve always been a teeny bit awkward around Tarquin. But now I see him with Suze – married to Suze – the awkwardness seems to melt away.
- •Extract 3
- •I glance into the mirror, feeling quite grown-up and proud of myself. For once in my life I’m not rushing. I’m not getting overexcited.
- •I remember that cake. The icing was lurid green and the lawnmower was made out of a painted matchbox. You could still see ‘Swan’ through the green.
- •I have never worn anything less flattering in my life.
- •Extract 4
- •Extract 5
- •Extract 6
- •Extract 7
- •I’ll be a grown-up, go along to the cake studio and break the news to her face to face.
- •I had no idea wedding cakes could be anything like this. I flip through, slightly dazedly, looking at cake after spectacular cake.
- •I can see Alicia’s brain working hard.
- •I can see Robyn and Antoine exchanging looks, and I’m dying to ask them what they think of Alicia. But... It wouldn’t be becoming in a bride-to-be.
- •If I’m really honest, hand on heart – I feel exactly like someone who’s going to have a huge, luxurious wedding at the Plaza.
- •I put the invitation into my bag and snap the clasp shut, feeling slightly sick.
- •I look at him, my attention finally caught.
- •Extract 8
- •I stare at him in utter stupefaction. What does he think he’s doing?
- •I stare at him in horror.
- •I follow his gaze, and see Danny’s brother Randall walking across the floor towards us.
- •Extract 9
- •I stare at her, momentarily halted.
- •I stare at the page, my heart pounding. It’s a typed sheet, headed terms of agreement. I look straight down to the dotted line at the bottom – and there’s my signature.
- •I haven’t said a word about anything to Luke. In The Realistic Bride it says the way to stop your fiance getting bored with wedding details is to feed them to him on a need-to-know basis.
- •I feel a stab of shock.
- •Extract 10
- •I put the phone down and smile at Robyn, who’s wearing a bright pink suit and a headset and carrying a walkie-talkie.
- •In fact, it’s completely true. I’m beyond nervous. Either everything goes to plan and this all works out. Or it doesn’t and it’s a complete disaster. There’s not much I can do about it.
- •I’ve never seen a wedding dress like it. It’s a work of art.
- •Extract 11
- •I reach out and hug her tightly.
- •I can't move. I can't breathe. I need my fairy godmothers, quick.
- •I don’t believe it. It’s Luke.
- •Extract 12
- •I feel a huge spasm of nerves as I see the familiar sign. We’re nearly there.
- •I’m getting married. I’m really getting married.
- •I freeze in terror, one foot inside the car. What’s happened? Who’s found out? What do they know?
- •I think I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
- •I feel a spasm of nerves inside. Here it comes. The last bit of my plan. The very last cherry on top of the cake.
- •Extract 2
- •Extract 3
- •Extract 4
- •Extract 5
- •Extract 6
- •Extract 7
- •Extract 8
- •Extract 9
- •Extract 10
- •Extract 11
- •I’m fantastically well-organised, basically. And very self-disciplined. The early bird catches the modeling contracts, after all.
- •Extract 13
- •I am such a deluded moron.
- •Extract 2
- •I draw myself up short with a jolt. “I’m sorry,” I say, and exhale sharply. “You don’t want to hear all this.”
- •Extract 3
- •I bet they do.
- •I was so totally mortified, I never told anyone. Especially not Mum and Dad.
- •Extract 4
- •Extract 5
- •I don’t think so.
- •Extract 6
- •Extract 7
- •I watch in total disbelief as Jack settles comfortably down on the rug. He was supposed to be rescuing me from all this. Not joining in. Slowly I sink down beside him.
- •I stare at her blankly. Since when have Kerry and I ever socialized together?
- •Extract 8
- •I am never visiting a zoo again.
- •Revenge is Sweet (by c. Fremlin)
- •It worked like a dream, exactly as she’d planned.
- •The Way up to Heaven (by r. Dahl)
- •For Services Rendered (by j. Deaver)
- •I can help you and you can help me...
- •I can help you and you can help me...
- •Makeover (by b. Callahan)
- •Interrupting her in mid sob, Monty said, “Hold on there, Steph. Gotta pay our bills. Time for a commercial.”
Extract 7
One of the bitterest pills to swallow, Jane considered, was not just that her love-life and work life were on the kind of downward trend not seen since the Wall Street Crash. Much worse was the fact that Champagne seemed set on an endless upward trajectory. For, if the first Champagne Moments column had been a sensation, the second almost caused riots. Within hours of Gorgeous appearing on the news-stands, it had sold out. People, it seemed, simply couldn’t get enough of her. Champagne’s combination of stunning beauty and astounding vacuousness seemed to have struck some kind of chord with public and media alike. The Lost Chord, a despairing Jane supposed.
Champagne, naturally, was well aware of her popularity. ‘If there’s no beginning to her talents,’ Jane sighed to Valentine, ‘there’s certainly no end to her demands.’ Only yesterday Champagne had called insisting Gorgeous hire a Learjet to fly her to a polo match, a request that followed hard on the Blahnik heels of a recent demand for a helicopter to take her to a shooting weekend.
‘Doesn’t she ever use roads?’ Jane had marvelled aloud.
‘Well, you always said she was an airhead,’ Valentine reminded her. Josh then amazed them both by revealing he had promised Champagne a company car as a compromise, which left Jane wondering who was compromised, exactly. Josh had then played his trump card by saying he’d thrown in a chauffeur too.
‘She’s worth it,’ Josh said shortly. ‘Our circulation is on the up.’ But it wasn’t just her own magazine that Champagne dominated. International heavy-hitters from American Vogue to Russian Tatler were rushing to profile her. Her increasingly frequent appearances on TV translated straight into column inches in the tabloids. When she appeared on Have I Got News For You, Ian Hislop, after asking Champagne how she kept her figure, had been rendered unprecedentedly speechless when Champagne had said she worked out 370 days a year. The press had gone wild.
‘What would you say to those who call you an egomaniac?’ Bob Mortimer had asked her on Shooting Stars. ‘Oh, they’re completely wrong,’ Champagne had replied. ‘I absolutely loathe eggs.’ This became Quote of the Week in every paper from the Daily Mail to the Motherwell Advertiser.
Most notorious of all was Champagne’s appearance on Newsnight when Jeremy Paxman asked her whether it was true she spent each and every night out partying. ‘Absolutely not,’ Champagne had replied, apparently deeply affronted. ‘As a matter of fact, I spent last night finishing a jigsaw puzzle.’
‘A jigsaw puzzle?’ Paxman had asked sardonically, raising one of his famously quizzical eyebrows.
‘Yah, and I’m bloody proud of myself,’ Champagne had declared. ‘It’s only taken me ninety-four days.’
‘Ninety-four days? Surely that’s rather a long time for a jigsaw,’ Paxman bemusedly replied.
‘Well, it said three to four years on the box,’ said Champagne triumphantly.
On the strength of this performance, negotiations to give Champagne her own chat show were well advanced.
It was odd, Jane thought, that a public, not to mention a press, that had already endured years of Caprice, Tamara, Tara, Normandie and Beverley could possibly have the stomach for yet another pouting party girl, but stomach it most certainly had. Perhaps it was, Jane mused, because Champagne seemed somehow to combine all of them. She had Caprice’s looks, Tara’s class, Tamara’s chutzpah, Beverley’s shopping obsession, and probably now close to Normandie’s money as well.
Oddly enough, Champagne never seemed to encounter any of her rivals. Jane had two theories as to why. Either they all avoided her or, as was far more likely, Champagne spent night after night with them in Brown’s, Tramp and the Met Bar but could recall absolutely nothing of it afterwards. Champagne’s memory, Jane considered, made a goldfish look like Stephen Hawking.
Not that this in any way held her back. No breakfast TV programme was complete without at least a reference to her; there was talk of her kicking off at Wembley, and rumours were beginning to circulate of a planned tribute in Madame Tussaud’s. ‘I hope that’s true,’ Jane said to Valentine. ‘I might get more information for the column out of a waxwork.’