doing?’
Deep, cleansing breaths.
‘Charlie is fine, Mum,’ I said. She was practically hyperventilating on the end of the line. ‘He’s setting up his own agency. We’re actually talking about doing it together.’
‘Oh, Tess!’ And just like that, her tone of voice altered completely. ‘Your own business? With Charlie? Well, that sounds like a very good idea. Would he be your boss, then?’
‘No, Mum, we’d be partners,’ I said as calmly as possible. Why had I called her again? Was I worried that my inevitable stroke wasn’t coming on quick enough? ‘He would run the client side and I would do the creative.’
‘I’m sure Charlie knows what he’s doing,’ she said, entirely turned around. ‘Mel, have you heard this? Charlie is starting his own advertising agency and giving Tess a job. She’s going to be the head of his creative.’
I heard some approving, disinterested noises in the background and decided it was time to wrap things up while I was, relatively speaking, ahead.
‘OK, that’s really all I called for,’ I started. ‘To say sorry and—’
‘You should both come for Sunday dinner,’ Mum declared, cutting me off mid-escape. ‘You should drive up and tell me all about it.’
‘I can’t Sunday.’ Oh, there was that throbbing in the forehead again. I stopped short on the edge of the pavement to let the number 85 bus go by.
‘And why not?’ she asked.
‘I won’t be here,’ I said, wondering whether or not throwing myself under the number 85 bus might not have been a bit easier than having this conversation.
‘Not here? What does that mean?’
Don’t tell her about Milan, don’t tell her about Milan, don’t tell her about Milan …
‘I’m going to Milan.’
Oh, fuck me.
‘What are you going to Milan for?’ Mum shrieked so loudly that even the nice old lady coming out of Costa could hear her. ‘You haven’t got time to be gallivanting around on holiday when Charlie’s trying to start a business.’
‘I’m actually going for work,’ I said, taking a deep breath and trying to work out how to phrase this. ‘I’m taking some photos for someone.’
‘What have I told you about this photography nonsense, Tess?’ she said after one too many moments of silence. ‘You don’t let a hobby get in the way of a career. We had this conversation a long time ago.’
In truth, there had never really been much of a conversation. I had loved taking pictures when I was growing up – it was one of the few things I had shared with my dad before he left us to have another go at starting a family – and I’d begged my mum to buy me a camera of my own when I turned eighteen. But whenever she found me poring over photography books, or looking at my pictures, she would pop up with a snide comment or a stark reminder of how hard it was to make it in a creative field, that a proper job was much more secure and the right thing to do. I’d believed her, of course, and put my camera to one side to concentrate on my marketing degree, but the passion had always been there. Maybe it was buried deep under PowerPoint presentations and the desire for a company pension, but it was there.
‘And they’re paying you to take photos, are they?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, hoping for another number 85 bus.
‘With what, magic beans?’
‘Honestly, Mum, it’s a long story.’ At least she couldn’t accuse me of lying on that one. ‘And I really have to go now but I’ll call you later and tell you all about it, yeah?’
As if it was going to be that easy.
‘I’ve got to say, I think you’re making a very big mistake. Charlie’s offering you a job on a plate and you want to fanny off to Italy and take photos. Italy!’
She applied the same emphasis to ‘take photos’ as someone else’s mum might to ‘sacrifice virgins’.
‘But if you want to waste your time on silly adventures, you go ahead and do it,’ she said with a cluck, apparently done with the conversation. ‘Give my love to Charlie.’
As if it was going to be that easy.
‘I’m glad you’ve been keeping busy,’ Paige said, completely ignoring the four half-naked men to her left, after I brought her up to speed on my current predicament. ‘You can’t help but get into trouble, can you?’
‘You know me,’ I replied, staring at the four half-naked men to Paige’s left. ‘I like to keep myself occupied.’
‘What was it like, getting arrested?’ she asked. ‘Did you have to wear an orange onesie? Orange would look terrible on you.’
I nodded, not entirely sure what I was agreeing about while four of the most handsome men I had ever seen, all wearing black eye masks and very little else, hoisted one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen high above their heads. I gazed at the photographer’s big, beautiful Nikon camera with so much envy, I thought that it might fly up into the air and land in my hands. It didn’t.
‘You know, this is incredibly distracting,’ I said, turning fully in my chair to peer over the mezzanine onto the set below. We were in a very fancy studio on a very fancy street in a very fancy area and I was terrified of touching anything.‘How do you ever get any work done?’
‘This, my love, is work,’ Paige said, curving her scarlet lips into a very happy smile. ‘I’m the art director. I’m directing the art.’
I nodded, resting my chin on the balcony and trying not to gawp. Paige worked for Gloss magazine, coming up with the ideas for photoshoots and executing the creative. We had met in Hawaii and, after a few teething problems, she had come to my rescue more than once and, as everyone knows, a friendship forged in the fires of adversity is as strong as one that has weathered the test of time. Or something. One of the models caught me staring and flexed his pecs while flashing me a grin. This was the best reason I had come up with to get into fashion photography so far.
‘What are they doing exactly?’
‘It’s a lingerie shoot for the October issue,’ she explained. ‘Halloween vibe – hence the masks. But given that most women will never look like that girl in just their knickers, I thought it might soften the blow to chuck in something easy on the eye.’
‘Or four somethings,’ I clarified. ‘Are they their actual abs? They’re not drawn on or anything?’
‘You know, sometimes the photographer casts the models,’ she said. ‘And that photographer could be you.’
I gulped.
‘Look, only you know what you really want
