New York Valentine Part 15

When Elena looked at her with a puzzled expression, Annie added gently: 'The shopping. The shopping habit has got out of your control, maybe?'

Elena's pace slowed. 'In Svetlana's London everything seem to cost more than I can ever imagine,' Elena began, 'but she give me money. More money than I can ever imagine. Here, I find everything is so cheap compared to London. Designer clothes, 70 per cent off, designer shoes 80 per cent off. The drugstore, buy one get one free. And I still have money from Svetlana, she pay me salary for this business, even though we not make any money yet. But now ... on my credit card ... all these cheap things, all this money off, and I owe ...' Elena stopped walking altogether now, as if the thought of the figure had stopped her in her tracks.

'It's OK, you don't have to tell me,' Annie a.s.sured her.

'Maybe I need to tell someone. Every time I think of it, I want to be sick.' She took a deep breath. 'Twenty-four thousand,' she blurted out.

Annie covered her surprise. 'Pounds or dollars?'

'Dollars.'

'What's the interest rate?'

'Eighteen per cent.'

It didn't take long to make the calculation. Annie had learned a lot about credit card debt in the many lessons Ed had given her.

'About $4,500 a year. That's what it's costing you just to have that debt. Before you've even paid a penny back,' Annie told Svetlana.

'I know. Of course I know. I go to business school! But I still can't help myself ...'

'Please try not to worry too much. It can be sorted. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it all, but right now ...' Annie came to a halt and pointed across to the other side of the road: 'here's the warehouse, so we better start thinking about Perfect Dresses.'

'Here?' Elena looked at the low, ugly building with the metal shutter doors in undisguised horror. A faded sign above the entrance read: 'Frederico's Fabulous Fabrics'.

'Nothing fabulous here, I promise,' Elena said.

'Shhhh! Don't be such a spoilsport,' Annie nudged her. 'Seek and you will find.'

Chapter Fourteen.

Taylor's smart casual: White cotton s.h.i.+rt (Ralph Lauren)

Blue linen suit (Brooks Brothers)

Dark blue silk socks (same)

Brown lace-up brogues (Tods)

Total est. cost: $1,600 (Mom paid)

'You have to have the New England clam chowder.'

Lana stood in front of the marble-columned splendour of the New York Central Library and acknowledged the terrifying thud-thud-thud going on in her chest. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the way her mum had taught her.

She was going to be fine. Really. She was going to walk calmly, coolly, up this amazing flight of stairs and into this building. There she was going to find Taylor, because it was already 12.36 and 30 seconds and in his text he'd told her to be on time.

Lana took another deep breath, let it out slowly and began to step through the office workers s.n.a.t.c.hing a quick lunch break on the stairs.

No sooner had she set foot inside the vast, creamy marbled entrance hall when a voice called out: 'Hey Lana! Hi!'

She turned, smiled immediately, but felt just about weak at the knees at the sight of Taylor. He was so blond and so beautiful. His hair slicked back, his deep summer tan set off against the white s.h.i.+rt and blue suit he was wearing for work.

He approached and kissed her right on the lips before she could even think about it.

Just smack! Right like that. Lip to lip. She didn't even have a moment to close her eyes. Was just suddenly tasting mouth, saliva, toothpaste, coffee. Looking at the golden cheek right up close. Then, just as suddenly, he'd broken off.

'Glad you could make it,' he said and flashed her a smile. Compared to her he seemed completely unruffled, as if this was how he said h.e.l.lo to every girl he met. Maybe it was, Lana thought with a sudden sinking feeling.

'Come and meet Linus. He's fantastic, you're gonna love him. He's gonna tour us around. Just me and you because he loves the piece I'm doing on the library and ... pretty girls,' he added in a whisper. 'So, charm him.'

Then he took Lana's hand in his and led her along to the reception desk where an elderly, uniformed guard was beaming at them expectantly.

Her hand. He had her hand in his. Naturally, casually. As if this was just the way it always was, had always been.

Lana had worried intensely, all morning, about possible hand-holding and a possible first kiss. How would it happen? Who would make the first move? Would he make a move? Would she? Would she want him to make a move? And now ... they had already kissed! Just like that! And he was leading her round this amazing building, by the hand!

This was nineteenth-century Manhattan: marble, elaborate plasterwork, leather-bound chairs, wood panelling. Funny how she'd always thought of New York as being s.h.i.+ny, brand new, ultra-modern. She'd never considered for a moment that it had history.

Taylor's hand felt just right in hers. Not too hot, not at all sweaty. Just cool and perfect. Although Linus was talking to them and no doubt telling them something fascinating, Lana kept thinking about the kiss and then an electrifying buzz would pa.s.s through her and it was almost entirely impossible to concentrate on a single word.

She had never, ever had such a good time in a library.

Far, far away from marble columns and gilded reading rooms, Annie and Elena were stepping into the cavernous, dimly lit warehouse of Frederico's Fabulous Fabrics.

The entire badly lit, bare concrete walled s.p.a.ce was crammed with enormous metal shelves filled with rolls and rolls of fabric. More fabric than Annie could ever remember seeing before.

'We'll find stuff here,' she encouraged Elena, 'we'll work our way through the whole place if we have to. Just remember nothing can cost more than $6 a yard.'

Not exactly a big budget, Annie would be the first to admit, but somewhere Frederico would have something for them ... please!

A full forty minutes of searching later and Annie was deeply disheartened. How had she imagined that this would be easy? This place was where Crimplene came to die.

She'd looked at hundreds, maybe thousands, of rolls of fabric but nothing was good enough. Nothing seemed even vaguely suitable. And when she had occasionally come across something that might just do, it had a price tag three or four times more than they could afford to spend.

There were still two more warehouses to visit, so she didn't want to be gloomy and have Elena shrugging and moaning at her already. But, secretly, Annie wasn't entirely optimistic ... this was the biggest warehouse, this was the one with the best reputation. If there was absolutely nothing to be found here, she didn't rate their chances.

Elena appeared to be stress shopping. She was at the till with a square piece of waterproof fabric saying she needed something to cover the cafe table back at the apartment. Then she bought two yards or so of velour, muttering something about Baba Boska and cus.h.i.+ons.

Annie watched the way Elena knotted the top of the carrier bag then put it inside another carrier bag, and she recognized that much more complicated feelings were at work here. This was not just normal shopping.

But she said nothing and together they made the ten-minute walk along grimy, characterless streets to the next warehouse.

This place was dingier, less well stocked and after twenty minutes of looking around, Annie knew that there was nothing for them here. Although Elena once again bought a small piece of waterproof fabric for the cafe table.

'Two pieces is better,' she explained to Annie. 'When one gets dirty, we can use the other one.' Then she started up with her complicated bag-knotting system again.

As they trekked along the charmless, industrial-looking road towards the third warehouse, Annie warned Elena: 'Don't think that we have to find something here. If there's nothing we like, we'll go back to Manhattan, look up more warehouses and keep on trying. Maybe we'll have to revise the fabric budget and sc.r.a.pe money together from somewhere else so we can afford to pay more.'

'I'm going to have to tell the buyers that the dresses are not coming,' Elena began. 'People are expecting these dresses in less than three weeks' time. If I don't warn them, they will have low inventory. Nothing on the shelves. Maybe I need to tell them so they can order other things.'

'No!' Annie protested. 'Not just yet. Give it just another day or two. Elena, we have a potential factory lined up, we just need some fabric and then we are so close to solving the problem. Please!' she went on, 'don't tell anyone about dresses not arriving on time yet. Just avoid those calls and ignore the emails. Just for a day or two. We're going to know very soon if we can turn this around.'

Elena was looking closely at the map in her hand: 'We should be there by now.'

Instead they were walking along a pavement with a high wall on one side and a row of scruffy houses on the other.

There was a break in the wall for a metal gate. Annie peered through the bars of the gate.

'Maybe this is it?' she suggested.

The gate wasn't locked, so she pulled back the bolt and let it swing open. In front of them was a tarred car park, empty, and beyond the car park, a fabric warehouse, shuttered up and obviously closed.

Not just for the day, but closed down.

'I guess there wasn't much call for DIY dress- and curtain-making out here,' Annie said. She scanned the car park looking for any signs of life.

To the side of the building was a big metal skip which seemed to have rolls of fabric poking from the top of it.

'Boy, his stuff must have been really bad.' She pointed at the skip so Elena looked over too. 'He couldn't even give it away. He's actually throwing it out.'

Annie gave Elena a little glance.

'Shall we go over and just have a look?' she asked.

'In the bin?!' Elena said incredulously.

'We've come so far ... my feet are killing me, it would be crazy not to just have a look. You never know.'

'But it's so high!' Elena protested. 'How will we look?'

'You just give me a leg up, then I'll hold onto the edge and take a peek inside.'

'Take a peek? What is this peek?'

'I'll just look,' Annie explained.

'Maybe we get in trouble,' Elena worried.

'But there's no one around.'

This was true, but not in a good way. Both the car park and the warehouse were deserted. But they had the creepy, desolated look of unloved areas in scary neighbourhoods. Annie knew this was exactly the kind of place where two women from Manhattan Island might well lose their bags, their money and anything else a mugger wanted to take without asking.

But she was still walking briskly towards the skip, mainly because Annie believed in luck. Well, no, she didn't really, but she believed in the thing her mother had told her over and over again: 'Lucky people make their own luck.'

If she looked in enough places, Annie would find the right fabric at the right price, and looking in enough places included looking in a skip beside a warehouse in some s.h.i.+tty, tumbledown corner in the bad part of Brooklyn.

'OK,' Annie said, reaching up to put her hands on the edge of the skip and sending flakes of rust showering down, 'just boost me up a bit.'

Elena understood and locked her hands together into a sort of stirrup. Annie stepped in and scrambled up so that her elbows were on the edge of the skip and she could look inside.

Countless rolls of material had been thrown in there, along with food wrappers, bulging black bin bags, empty cans of beer, old tools, including a rusty spade and a broken bucket.

She reached over, grabbed at the nearest rolls of material and pulled them towards her. Luckily, there had been no rain for over a week, so they weren't wet or soggy.

The rolls were all of a dark, drab fabric: navy blue and charcoal grey.

Upper arms burning with the effort of dangling, she instructed Elena: 'Just lift me up a bit more hold my legs.'

Then Annie managed to use her thumb and first two fingers to feel the quality of the fabric, something she'd been doing all afternoon.

It wasn't half bad.

The fabric was thick, but stretchy. It felt like proper, old-fas.h.i.+oned cotton jersey. The kind that cost $25 a yard and more. She took hold of one roll and with a huge effort managed to edge it over the side of the skip.

'More coming,' she told Elena.

Four rolls two navy and two grey were eased over the top of the skip and onto the ground beside Elena.