I didn’t so much find the dress as the dress found me. It drew my gaze from across the store: cobalt blue, satin, spaghetti straps; a just-above-the-knee hemline that would do wonders for my legs, a neckline that I could certainly get away with, as long as I was wearing the right bra.
As soon as I tried it on, I knew I couldn’t bear to put it back – not only in the sense that I’d decided to buy it, but also in the sense that I intended to wear it home. The only hitch was that today I wasn’t wearing the right bra; I’d have to go strapless, and a bit of extra padding couldn’t hurt, either. But it wasn’t as if the situation I found myself in was insurmountable, or even particularly difficult. One of the assistants escorted me to the lingerie department, where I found the perfect add-two-cups, multiway push-up to complement the outfit. Ten minutes later, I left Harvey Nichols with my credit limit depleted by another £640 and a plan to earn the money back in no time at all. Already crystallizing in my mind were the templates for two new articles, both very sellable.
1) ‘Which Blue is Right for You?’ (600 words.)
I knew the two blues that worked best for me: baby blue and cobalt. The former matched my eyes and the latter was very flattering to my skin. But blue was such a versatile colour; there was a shade that suited every conceivable combination of hair colour, eye colour, complexion and occasion. I could think of another dozen hues just off the top of my head: navy, azure, ultramarine, true blue, royal blue, Oxford blue, powder blue, cornflower blue, midnight blue, ice blue, sky blue, Pacific blue. Some of these blues might be difficult to distinguish in a line-up, but the point still stood. Carefully chosen, there was no reason why the little blue dress shouldn’t be as central to every woman’s wardrobe as its black counterpart. It packed the same flexibility with an adventurous, modern punch.
2) ‘Dress-Up Friday.’ (At least 800 words.)
This idea was basically a write-up of the fashion experiment I was now performing: eveningwear as daywear. After all, what was the point of limiting yourself? On the right sort of day, a cocktail dress could make an ideal outfit for the park, or even the supermarket. It felt magnificent to be wearing something so electrifying, so arresting, for no particular occasion. I felt I was making the day even brighter, and not just for me. Everyone I passed on the street was benefiting too. I was bringing a vivid splash of colour to what might otherwise have been a very run-of-the-mill Friday lunchtime.
So, 1,400 words, minimum; factor in the tax benefits – since my purchases were now work-related – and I was already making a profit. With a little imagination, I could probably find a way to make the curtains pay for themselves too. ‘Contemporary Furnishings Inspired by Literature’, or something along those lines. It wouldn’t be the biggest earner in the history of journalism, but I felt sure that someone would buy it.
I met my sister in a posh pizzeria not far from Leicester Square. It had a huge, ostentatious wood oven, visible through glass doors, and the pizzas were being fed in by two burly men with snow shovels. I was only a few minutes late – ten at the most – but Francesca was already seated, and already looked impatient, as if I were keeping her from something dreadfully important, which no doubt I was.
I smiled and waved; she did a theatrical double-take, then rolled her eyes skyward. ‘Oh, Abby! What on earth are you wearing?’
I kissed her on the cheek, then stepped back and did a little twirl. ‘Do you like it?’
‘It looks expensive.’
I beamed. ‘Francesca, it was expensive.’
‘I thought you were struggling?’
‘No, not so much any more. I’m getting a weekly column – probably.’
‘Probably?’
‘Almost certainly.’
My sister nodded knowingly. ‘Right. So you haven’t signed a contract? You haven’t actually been paid yet?’
‘I have lots of other work lined up too.’
‘It’s a bit much, don’t you think?’
She was back on the dress, her eyes flicking between the sculpted flare of my hips and the misleading promise of my cleavage. I shrugged and gestured at her plain white blouse, her drab grey trousers: even with the temperature nudging twenty-seven degrees, Francesca refused to get her legs out; she thought it would undermine her status in the office. ‘I wanted to make absolutely sure we wouldn’t be wearing the same outfit,’ I told her.
‘I think it’s safe to say that no one else in London is wearing that outfit at this precise moment,’ she retorted. ‘You know, you’re getting a lot of looks.’
‘Good. It’s a social experiment. I’m trying to find out if people treat me differently, if my day is improved by wearing eveningwear instead of casual wear. Whether it makes it easier to get a seat on the Tube – that sort of thing.’
‘My God! You’re not going to wear that on the Tube?’
‘Already have. It felt fabulous.’
‘Yes, but what if it gets damaged?’
‘Damaged how?’
‘I don’t know – caught in a door or something.’
I giggled. ‘Fran, you’re so endearingly uptight. You’re like one of those women who refuses to take the plastic covering off her new furniture.’ She scowled as I patted her hand across the table. ‘Relax. Let’s get some drinks. I’ve discovered the most incredible cocktail. Death in the Afternoon: it’s absinthe and champagne. I’m buying.’
Francesca’s scowl deepened. ‘Abby, that’s not a cocktail. You’ve made it up. Who in their right mind would drink something like that?’
‘Hemingway. Google it.’
‘I don’t need to Google it. I’m not drinking. Some of us have to work.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a martyr. I have to work too. In fact, I’m working right now.’ I hooked a thumb under one of my spaghetti straps and gave it a satisfying twang. ‘It’s just that I have a much more interesting job than you.’
‘Yes, well, that’s rather subjective. I happen to like my job. It’s challenging and stimulating, and there’s a lot of room to develop—’
‘Christ! You sound like you’re citing the vacancies page.’
Francesca snarled. ‘You don’t even know what I do – not really.’
‘That’s because I fall asleep whenever you try to explain it to me.’
‘Abby, what’s this all about? Are you still pissed off about last weekend?’
‘No, absolutely not. All forgotten.’
‘Really? Because it seems like you’ve invited me to lunch with the sole intention of insulting me.’
‘Of course I haven’t. Don’t be so sensitive.’
‘So why are we doing this?’
‘Does there have to be a reason? I was in the area and felt like having lunch with my sister. What’s so odd about that?’
Francesca arched an eyebrow but remained silent.
‘Look,’ I continued, ‘let’s start again. We won’t talk about work and I won’t pressurize you to drink anything even remotely interesting. How does that sound?’
She looked at me for a very long time, as if she wanted to say something else but doubted the wisdom of it. Then she just exhaled and nodded. ‘Fine. You can get me another Perrier. And let’s order, for God’s sake. I have to be back in an hour.’
Within ten minutes, I, too, was wondering why I’d thought this lunch would be such a good idea. I’d forgotten, once again, that Francesca and I could no longer sustain a friendly conversation, no matter what topic we settled on. The tragedy was that she used to be fun, once. The twenty-two-year-old Francesca would not have turned her nose up at absinthe and champagne, as if the very suggestion were some kind of hideous cultural faux pas. It was depressing to think that in the space of eight years she’d morphed into the neutrally clad, Perrier-drinking, humourless career girl who now sat opposite. Frankly, she was putting a real dampener on my day.
Nevertheless, I endeavoured to keep our dialogue – increasingly a monologue – light and breezy. I expounded on my trip to Oxford and my suspicion that I was a chronic sufferer of cognitive dissonance. But she didn’t seem to get any of this. Several times she interrupted with the most irrelevant questions – why had I turned up at Professor Caborn’s workplace uninvited? Why was I suddenly so interested in monkeys? – as if I hadn’t explained all this already! She obviously hadn’t been paying proper attention, so I decided I should just abandon this narrative and move on. I told her about the dinner with Daddy, and how I thought Marie would make a marvellous stepmother. She told me, with her eyes, that I was being extremely immature about this whole situation. I countered that she was being far too forgiving, as always, though I supposed this was understandable since her life had been far less affected by our father’s multiple failings. We fell, eventually, into a barbed silence. For my part, I’d grown tired of carrying the conversation single-handed; and Francesca seemed determined to remain distant and judgemental – even more so than usual. She kept shooting me these wary, searching looks, casting her eyes in narrowed disapproval over my beautiful blue dress. I figured she was jealous; there must have been a part of her that wished she could wear something that astonishing to work.